( DLF )Modi -- Tharoor Showdown!!

[yoda]

The Kochi consortium has screwed the IPL :headshake:

Why you would rather have Modi continue with his shady deals?

[abhinav]

Well, Modi is in deep **** now. All news channels now report that he will be asked to resign on 26th April. His role in the 'betting scandal' and his 'stake' is being investigated by bthe ED and IT departments and the buzz is that they have found incriminating evidence against him. Manohar, Shah and Srinivasan are strongly pushing for his ouster. All of this however could still be rumour mongering.

[achilles]

Why you would rather have Modi continue with his shady deals?

Reprimand him. But that guy is a marketing genius, who has changed the face and bank balance of the BCCI and World Cricket at large, with audacious thinking and actions. I will not let him go if I'm in the BCCI coz arrogance or not, that guy makes me practically all the money I earn. Also, like I had said earlier, why would the BCCI want to create a powerful rival, especially a guy who got a mega high-profile Minister of State expelled, who was shielded and protected through all his misdemeanours? If Modi goes, BCCI is going to be finished coz the things he knows will take every single person in the BCCI from J&K to Kanyakumari down. And no one wants that. A compromise is in the offing.

[yoda]

Reprimand him. But that guy is a marketing genius, who has changed the face and bank balance of the BCCI and World Cricket at large, with audacious thinking and actions. I will not let him go if I'm in the BCCI coz arrogance or not, that guy makes me practically all the money I earn. Also, like I had said earlier, why would the BCCI want to create a powerful rival, especially a guy who got a mega high-profile Minister of State expelled, who was shielded and protected through all his misdemeanours? If Modi goes, BCCI is going to be finished coz the things he knows will take every single person in the BCCI from J&K to Kanyakumari down. And no one wants that. A compromise is in the offing.

He is also a crook apparently and if he did those shady things need to face the punishment.

[achilles]

He is also a crook apparently and if he did those shady things need to face the punishment.

Not guilty until proven. And everyone knows he's a "Power" puppet. He does all that "Power" tells him to do. He is the frontman for him and I'm sure Modi won't go down alone, which is something people want to avoid. Coz if Modi faces punishment, so will others. This guy exposed an almost UN Sec Gen in public on Twitter, you think he'll let all this get the better of him?

[yoda]

Not guilty until proven. And everyone knows he's a "Power" puppet. He does all that "Power" tells him to do. He is the frontman for him and I'm sure Modi won't go down alone' date=' which is something people want to avoid. Coz if Modi faces punishment, so will others. This guy exposed an almost UN Sec Gen in public on Twitter, you think he'll let all this get the better of him?[/quote'] Not guilty until proven is for the courts. For business purposes the bar is typically much lower. You don't want a guy accused to be still in charge of business with a cloud hanging over him. They are typically put on temporary leave of even replaced while they sort their legal mess.

[ViruRulez]

The Kochi consortium has screwed the IPL :headshake:

Frankly speaking, L Modi also did a blunder and dug his own grave by pointing fingers at Kochi .. I mean we know Kochi might also have been wrong but it seems L Modi was also doing many things shady .. I remember the old Hindi dialogue by Rajkumar "Jinke ghar sheeshe ke hote hai wo dusro par patthar nahi phenka karte" :P

[Gunner_Mania]

Reprimand him. But that guy is a marketing genius, who has changed the face and bank balance of the BCCI and World Cricket at large, with audacious thinking and actions. I will not let him go if I'm in the BCCI coz arrogance or not, that guy makes me practically all the money I earn. Also, like I had said earlier, why would the BCCI want to create a powerful rival, especially a guy who got a mega high-profile Minister of State expelled, who was shielded and protected through all his misdemeanours? If Modi goes, BCCI is going to be finished coz the things he knows will take every single person in the BCCI from J&K to Kanyakumari down. And no one wants that. A compromise is in the offing.

What is/was he without the BCCI? How powerful? He didnt get the mega high-profile minister expelled, the mega high-profile minister got himself expelled, because he had no business to be interfereing in cricket, business consortiums et all in the first place. Your suggestion is that the Prime minister of India was forced by Modi to expel Tharoor.

[achilles]

Not guilty until proven is for the courts. For business purposes the bar is typically much lower. You don't want a guy accused to be still in charge of business with a cloud hanging over him. They are typically put on temporary leave of even replaced while they sort their legal mess.

What you say is excellent in an ideal world. But it doesn't change post #182 & #184. No one wants to get exposed by Modi, which is why Power openly supported him.

[SJS50]

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/et-cetera/Lalit-Modi-charged-with-Betting--Laundering/articleshow/5829947.cms Okay so my question now is, if fixing is part of IPL would all you guys following IPL still be part of this circus?! Anyway this aint that surprising seeing the kind of money being involved in IPL. .

The question is not even this. The questions as far as I am concerned are. . . 1. why are we at all surprised by this ? I am not even surprised enough to raise a brow. 2. What was the IT department doing all this while. Modi, who did not pay any tax in 2006 and 2007, paid 25 million in 2008 and has already paid an advance tax in the current year of 110 million. 3. By the way, Modi is an 'honorary' Chairman(Commissioner) of IPL. He does not have any remuneration (officially) from this post. Yet he spends all his time 24 X 7 on IPL. What kind of a business man (assuming he really is a giant of an Indian businessman is he? 4. The Indian dressing rooms were made out of bounds for everyone after the match-fixing saga and here in IPL the players sit in the open, the staff, franchise owners and hangers on are all over them. Many eyebrows have been raised over the true significance of the "strategic time-outs" already. Of course no one ever believed they were for strategy but at least the public thought it was a way to raise more money from ads. Many people doubt if an extra break is going to make anything like the kind of money IPL is used to and that the Franchisee's are losing on operations every year. People are openly talking now on TV panel discussions that these breaks are to "fix things" 5. Modi's connections to three teams have been known for long. So is the connection of Mr Sriniavasn with Chennai (he owns it). How come suddenly everyone is waking up to it? Why were they quiet for so long? This should not be seen as or reduced to a war between Modi and Tharoor, or Congess and BJP or even between pro-Modi and anti-Modi elements within the BCCI. For by doing this we are only trivialising the real issue and that is that the Indian cricket management, inspite of the billions the Indian public is so proud it is bringing to the game, is in an unholy alliance of interests and the falling out of thieves (who were thick yesterday and will become thick again tomorrow after the scape goats have been sacrificed) is what we should just thank for giving us an opportunity to get the mess cleaned up. But to reduce it to nothing other than the falling out of thieves, we will be providing just the reprieve that those who are responsible for this state of affairs need. The mess is deep and the stink will be all pervading and will engulf some of our holiest but that is no reason to let it be covered up.

[SJS50]

Thank God they fought

By Shekhar Gupta Editor-in-Chief Indian Express and one of India's most respected journalists. 17th April 2010

At a time when the dominant sentiment on the IPL was breathless adulation, following its “success” in South Africa, this paper took the rather unpopular position that the picture was not so bright when seen in its entirety. The brazen manner with which the tournament was moved to South Africa did not just reek of arrogance, it did a great deal of disservice to India, still recovering from 26/11. It strengthened the impression that India was still unsafe for major sporting events, almost as bad as Pakistan (since that attack on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore had already put that country on the blacklist). This newspaper stuck its neck out and even stated, editorially, that it almost amounted to an anti-national act. But the captains of the IPL were not to be deterred. They moved the circus, politicians, media, even bureaucrats from many states to South Africa for one big party. Personifying the hubris was, of course, none else than IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi. A dedicated camera (“Modicam” as it came to be known backstage) followed his every move. He signed autographs like a superstar. He also held televised ceremonies in South African schools where he handed over donation cheques, cheered on by (mostly black) children. Riding on the success of the IPL, Modi had become one big sports and entertainment phenomenon, a kind of Jerry Maguire and Hugh Hefner rolled into one. In the process he and his IPL bent, twisted and often rewrote all rules of sports administration and even conventional business. He was getting away with it because “everybody” was in it. There was nobody left to raise a question. All media, TV, print, were in awe of him. My favourite media moment of that period is the question a TV anchor asked him, “The IPL in South Africa has gone so well. So just how proud do you feel about it?” Modi blushed and blabbered on like a spoilt five-year-old just told by his grandmom he is the best in the world. It was in that heady phase that I tried to draw attention to certain emerging problems that, I said, may bedevil Indian cricket in times to come (‘Conflicts of cricket’, National Interest, June 20, 2009). It drew immediate protests and disapproval, not merely from the usual suspects but also from many well-meaning cricket enthusiasts who felt that I was nit-picking, unable to accept the success of so innovative a venture without the usual, chronic Indian Express scepticism. And what were some of the things I underlined about these emerging conflicts of interest? That, for example, the same person (N. Srinivasan of India Cements) was secretary of the BCCI and also the owner of Chennai Super Kings. Further, that K. Srikkanth, as chief national selector, one of the most powerful men in India, was also the brand ambassador of Chennai Super Kings. That using the clout of the IPL, the BCCI had been able to acquire powers over the media that even Indira Gandhi did not have during the Emergency. She censored you, but she did not appoint permanent editors at our newspapers. The cricket board, on the other hand, has contracted Ravi Shastri and Sunil Gavaskar, two of India’s finest cricketers, and any channel that may win the broadcast rights for any cricket event where India is playing has no choice other than having these two on the commentary team, giving the Board the incredible power to have its own people cover its own activities. As the hubris and arrogant display of disregard for “log kya kehenge” (what will people say), this has been equalled only now by the shareholders of Rendezvous, including that “marketing whiz” from Dubai, Sunanda Pushkar, getting 25 per cent equity in the Kochi franchise, “undilutable in perpetuity”! That is not a privilege even the founders of Infosys gave themselves. I was not being a spoilsport last year. I was only raising the red-flag that a brilliant success in rolling cricket, Bollywood, big bucks and Indian city-folks’ desperate need for outdoor fun and entertainment was now in danger of becoming a clubby, patronage-driven, cabal-owned property that could bring disrepute to cricket, and India. The central point was, and is, that the laws of conflict of interest must be sacrosanct in sport and business, as they must be in public life. It was almost exactly around this time that Shashi Tharoor stepped into our politics, a fabulous election victory behind him. He said often that he came after decades in a professional, global environment, and wanted to be a part of the change in India. Many of us were even convinced of his sincerity, in spite of his accent that sounded so foreign in an India now mostly run by HMTs (Hindi Medium Types) who speak 16 dialects of the English language rather than the Oxbridge elite under whose charge Tharoor left it when he went for his UN job. Tharoor made news with his tweets and other media controversies, but each time, as he defended himself, in a manner so brilliantly articulate, there was no missing the tone of hurt: “India deserves better and, frankly, so do I” being the most breathtaking of those lines. Of course it took an enterprising reporter of The Hindu to tell us a couple of days later that the line, which he had disowned and accused the media of putting into his mouth, was a verbatim lift from one of his own books on Indian foreign policy. He made a dramatic, dismissive exit from that press conference, hoping that all of us would get scared, if not shamed, for our lack of gratitude towards somebody who had given up a flourishing professional career to dedicate his life to our service, particularly when he was here to make a difference.And how did he make that difference? The moment he saw the IPL and Indian cricket, did he try to challenge or change the system of conflicts of interest and patronage that he is now so outraged about? He, instead, sensed an opportunity and joined the boys with a sense of entitlement. He can today abuse Modi, call him a thief, scoundrel, his OSD may describe him as a convicted drug peddler. But until the stuff hit the fan last Sunday, he was thick as thieves with him, discussing all kinds of things, from the interests of the Kochi franchisees he was “merely mentoring”, to Modi’s alleged request to block the visa of a 23-year-old South African beauty queen. Tharoor can now deny till he goes red in the face the insinuation from the other end that he allegedly advised them that the only way he could help block the visa was if someone filed a police complaint against her. But if he, instead, sent Modi a curt note as a minister as “propah” as his accent should have done, saying that such requests are not entertained by the minister’s office and can you please go to hell, it has not been shared with us. This column is not the place to describe, dissect or assess the various IPL shenanigans now surfacing. For that, keep track of the front page of this newspaper where the finest team of investigative reporters in India has been breaking one startling story after another every morning. And will continue to do so. It is also too early to say who is innocent and who is guilty or, rather, whose air of injured innocence is less fake than the other’s. But one thing you know for sure. That until last Sunday, Lalit Modi and Shashi Tharoor were the best of friends talking business, even if each claims that his interest was entirely pro-bono, and they were talking models and their visas. One week is a very long time in not just politics but also in the business of cricket. We have to be grateful to these two truly brilliant, successful but hubrisdriven individuals that they turned on each other, from being hand in glove. This has given India a fine opportunity to clean up the conflicts of interest in cricket. And, if Sonia Gandhi and the prime minister so wish, a little bit of conflict of interest in our politics as well. If it finally happens, we will have to be grateful to Lalit Modi and Shashi Tharoor who use a similar idiom in the conduct of their respective businesses, even if they speak with vastly different accents.

[SJS50]

This is an article Shekhar Gupta had written last year (after the end of IPL 2) and to which he refers to the article I posted earlier.

Conflicts of cricket

Shekhar Gupta Indian Express Saturday , Jun 20, 2009

Let me first state my biases, as one more cricket-crazy Indian, upfront. I am an unabashed admirer of the IPL and do not believe, for one moment, that it was either responsible for India’s early exit from the ICC World T20, or that it has in any way contributed to a decline in the standards of Indian cricket. Quite to the contrary, the IPL has brought a new zest to it. It produced more young talent in one year than our domestic cricket would have normally done in five. It has also fired the imagination of so many talented young cricketers by spreading the spoils much wider, to a pool of nearly a hundred, rather than just the 20-odd at the top in the past. It has brought about an improvement in all aspects of Indian cricket, something the entire cricketing world was acknowledging till the other day. In fact when the same Indian team was casually topping the 300-mark in the ODI series in New Zealand earlier this year, many, including Kevin Pietersen famously, said that Indians had raised their game to an entirely different level, thanks to the IPL. The IPL has also monetised the game of cricket as no idea has done, even the advent of other short versions of the game in the past three decades. What is even better, these new riches are enriching, besides cricketers, the media, sponsors, event managers, the hospitality industry and so on. For a game dying because of spectator apathy this has been a brilliant economic stimulus with pretty effective trickle-down. What’s even better, this came as a most welcome tonic at a time when Indian cricket was in the dumps, and a terrific revival followed. So my complaints are entirely as a partisan. More than complaints, these are words of caution from somebody who enjoys the game from outside the formidable cricketing establishment. Success brings not just complacency, but also arrogance, an “anything-goes” mindset; in circumstances where oversight is poor or non-existent and where the establishment, even regulatory bodies, is fully compromised, it would take no time for what look today like minor weaknesses or mere aberrations to grow into larger problems. Further, the cricketing establishment could smugly expect to be able to sweep them all under the carpet now. But that will only work as long as Indian cricket is winning everything. When it loses, as it did in this T20, the same issues will come back to haunt the cricketing establishment, and even cause disarray in Indian cricket, particularly if more losses follow. The issue, for example, is not that so many players suffered injuries, or got “fatigued” playing the IPL. Professionals will take what playing opportunity comes their way and have to watch their fitness. The issue is, if they were carrying injuries, why did the selection committee not take a call on it? Today, the BCCI will be blamed for this generally. But soon enough, particularly if poor performance continues, questions will start getting raised about a very nice guy like Krishnamachari Srikkanth who, as chairman of selectors, has one of the most powerful jobs in the country. Are you conscious yet of the fact that he is also a brand ambassador for the Chennai Super Kings team which, in turn, is owned by N Srinivasan, who also happens to be the secretary of the BCCI? All this may be entirely meritocratic, but hasn’t the cricket establishment heard anything about conflict of interest? If the BCCI, a non-profit “society”, is supposed to supervise and regulate Indian cricket and also the IPL — which is its prime, and most profitable, product — should its office-bearers own teams in it? And can their brand ambassadors (on their payroll) be national selectors? The Chennai team may be the most obvious example of conflict of interest, but there are so many others, in so many franchises. Sporting bodies around the world, even the venerable International Olympic Committee, are exclusive clubs. But the BCCI, now mostly fuelled by the arrogance and money-power brought in by the IPL, is setting new standards that may not strike you as so brazen if you are inside the “tent”, or in the cricket establishment’s “dugout”. But if you see them as an outsider, as an ordinary fan and as a public commentator with no commercial interest whatsoever, but with a great, great vested interest in free comment, they suck. The BCCI has now come to acquire powers over media coverage on its own doings and performance that nobody in India has ever been able to arrogate to themselves, not under Mayawati, or Sanjay Gandhi during the Emergency. During the Emergency, the government censored our newspapers, it got some inconvenient editors fired, but it did not appoint its own employees as our editors. Look at what the BCCI has achieved. It has hired Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri, two of India’s most-loved former cricketers and commentators, on its own “commentary” team and irrespective of which channel wins the bid for covering cricket in India, it has to use these — in this case the BCCI’s — commentators. Incidentally, both are also members of the IPL governing council. In fairness, you have to state that almost all cricketing boards would insist on clearing the list of commentators on their sports channels. But I do not believe any carries its own hired, contract-bound voices to cover its own activities. To an old-fashioned media-person and a public commentator like this columnist, this is shocking, institutionalised censorship. You want to know how this censorship works? Find out why nobody ever saw any footage of Bhajji slapping Sreesanth in the last edition of the IPL. Because the BCCI had control over the Sony cameras and it seems the footage was destroyed. Would Sharad Pawar have managed to do it if an MP slapped another in Parliament? Cricket, even more than politics, is a game played in public, for the public; it’s not a private party, and nobody should have the power to censor it. A little self-correction, therefore, will be useful for the BCCI itself. Or there will be no questions raised as aberrations are smuggled in, shorter boundaries to make for more sixes (or “maximums”), strategy breaks after 10 overs when even dowdy Test cricket has them after 15 overs or an hour — all to bring in some more money. Both bring down the quality and intensity of the game, the very factors that made ODIs better crowd-pullers than Tests, and T20 more than ODIs. Or the really ridiculous sight of team owners hanging around the team dugouts, something you would never see in serious football leagues. Sharad Pawar has to figure out at some point soon that his BCCI is the guardian of Indian cricket, and not just the proud parent of its favourite and richest offspring, the IPL. Because he could get away with it while Indians are winning. But whatever the veil of secrecy, the physio’s injury reports and other such will start leaking the moment the team loses and the same public opinion that endorses you will turn on you. Being a politician, particularly one who has played his hand rather poorly of late, Sharad Pawar should understand this better than most.

[Sachinism]

Can I make a request please, when you post your articles, any chance you don't post in Italics, because it makes it harder to read

[abhinav]

Frankly, i'd love to see him prove himself not guilty bacause I admire his marketing genius but if he is indeed proven guilty of things like match fixing then he must be punished. I'd feel like a fool if I get to know that all this while as I was screaming and spending all my evenings rooting for 'my' team in the 3 IPLs, the Commissioner himself was fixing games!!

[SJS50]

The Republic of IPL 18th April 2010

In a recent board meeting of the International Cricket Council, Paul Condon, the chairman of the anti-corruption and security unit of the council, raised serious concerns about the potential of corruption in the Indian Premier League (IPL). He is reported to have said with the lack of policing and millions of dollars involved, IPL posed a real threat for corruption in the game since the days of cricket in Sharjah. Condon’s observations couldn’t have come at a more opportune moment. IPL, the 20-over cricket league launched by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), has been mired in controversies since its high-decibel launch two years ago. However, the developments in the past one week, with IPL’s high-profile chairman Lalit Modi disclosing the shareholding of the Kochi franchise, have seen a lot of muck spilling out. Interestingly, most of the controversies, which largely involve allegations of dubious deals, hefty kickbacks, and an intricate cobweb of companies registered outside India with the intention of ducking taxes as well as to veil the identity of the real owners of the entities holding various IPL rights, have been linked with its high-profile chairman Lalit Modi, who, in fact, has been running the enterprise almost single-handedly. Interestingly, Modi, officially, is an honorary member of the board and isn’t entitled to any remuneration or monetary benefits from running the show. According to BCCI insiders, he remained unscathed, so far, because most people directly or indirectly involved with IPL were happy with the way it continued to break its own record of spewing money, riding on the back of the millions of eyeballs, advertisers, and investors it managed to attract. According to the IPL balance sheets for 2008 and 2009, copies of which are with The Sunday Express, the league contributed Rs 202 crore in both years to the kitty shared with the 25 cricket associations that comprise the board. These associations are headed by influential politicians from different political parties. In 2008, IPL generated Rs 15 crore in surplus. In 2009, it incurred a loss of Rs 34 crore but that, it is said, will help the BCCI reduce its tax liability when it presents the overall account of its income and expenditure for 2009-10. The deals Modi may have got himself in a spot by disclosing the shareholding of the Kochi franchise and raising questions about the credentials of its owners, thereby inadvertently giving legitimacy to the demands made in the past for disclosures on franchise bids, contracts, and licenses given out by the IPL management. It is well known that the IPL management renegotiated its broadcast deal with Multi Screen Media Pvt Ltd from $1.02 billion in the first year to $1.6 billion in 2009. According to BCCI insiders, under the renegotiated deal, MSM was not only arm-twisted to raise the broadcast fee but also to pay a “facilitation fee” of 7.5 per cent of the value of its renegotiated contract to sports marketing company WSG. The first two installments of this fee have already been paid by MSM to WSG Mauritius, say the insiders. “There have been several questions about the role of the WSG in the broadcast deal but it recently came to the board’s notice that WSG could be a conduit for routing money back to some people in the IPL management,” said a BCCI official. Lalit Modi could not be reached for comment. When contacted, MSM’s head of advertising sales, Rohit Gupta, refused to comment. “We don’t comment on our contract. It’s confidential,” he said. Venu Nair, CEO, WSG, however, denied charges of the company being a conduit firm. “No. I don’t think it’s true,” he said. The BCCI insider said this issue will emerge prominently when the board meets to examine the latest controversy involving the Kochi enterprise in the next few days. The income tax department is also likely to investigate this deal. A similar issue that rocked the board last year was the contract IPL signed with sports marketing and production company IMG, promising a commission equivalent to 10 per cent of the annual revenues generated by IPL. “The global average for such contracts is 3-4 per cent. What it entailed was quite obvious,” said the top executive of a company active in sports marketing business that has been associated with IMG and BCCI in the past. All In The Family As allegations of Modi’s kith and kin holding stakes in various IPL offshoots come to the fore, the Enforcement Directorate, when it probes the shareholding structures of various such entities, is expected to stumble upon an intricate trail of companies registered in places such as British Virgin Islands, Bahamas, and Mauritius. A document seen by The Sunday Express shows that Rajasthan Royals, the inaugural champions of the IPL, is owned by four shareholders—Modi’s brother-in-law Suresh Chellaram and his family based out of Nigeria (44.15 per cent), Manoj Badale, a close associate of the family (32.4 per cent), Lachlan Murdoch, the estranged son of media baron Rupert Murdoch (11.74 per cent) and the rest by UK-based entrepreneur Raj Kundra and his family. “All these shareholders have at least two to four layers of companies registered in the British Virgin Islands, Bahamas and Guernsey that own stakes in EM Sporting Holdings Ltd (the holding company of the Jaipur IPL Cricket Ltd, which, in turn, is the registered entity in India that owns Rajasthan Royals),” said a senior BCCI official. According to him, the Chellaram family has at least three intermediary companies that ultimately hold the majority stake held by him and his family members. EM Sporting Holdings, itself, is registered in Maritius. Badale, the original bidder for Rajasthan Royals, did not respond to an email seeking to confirm if the above information was correct. Another instance involves the way in which the global digital rights for cricket-related content, granted to a company called Live Current Media, finally found their way to Global Cricket Ventures, a company registered in Mauritius. This company, it recently emerged, is 50 per cent owned by UK-based Elephant Capital, promoted by the Burman brothers of the homegrown consumer products manufacturing company Dabur India. Gaurav Burman, one of the partners of Elephant Capital, is the son-in-law of Modi. His brother Mohit Burman is a co-owner of Kings XI Punjab. When asked about Burmans’ links to IPL, Modi had said it wasn’t his fault that some of his relatives were smart businessmen and could see a good business opportunity in IPL It isn’t only Modi’s relatives who have their fingers in the IPL pie. There are allegations that several well-placed politicians’ immediate family members are also involved in the IPL business. Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor has alleged that Modi has been trying to disqualify the Kochi team in favour of another team from a different state. Kochi team’s executives have openly alleged Modi is batting for a team from Ahmedabad, which, according to insiders, is backed by a prominent Union minister. The issues that have come to the fore in the past one week, and those that are likely to come up in the next few weeks, may lead to Modi’s undoing; unless he yet again manages to pull off a coup in a board ridden with complex politics. But through all this, Modi is still exuding confidence. “I am IPL chairman and I will remain IPL chairman,” he said when asked about his future.

[SJS50]

Can I make a request please' date=' when you post your articles, any chance you don't post in Italics, because it makes it harder to read[/quote'] Oh I am sorry but I do it just to differentiate between quoted material and my words. I increase the size of the font simultaneously to make it more readable :)

[Gunner_Mania]

Oh I am sorry but I do it just to differentiate between quoted material and my words. I increase the size of the font simultaneously to make it more readable :)

You can just enclose the quoted material into quotes. It is easier that way.

[Sachinism]

You could tag your articles with 'by SJS50'

[Roshanrocks]

finally some entertainment after sania Malik's marriage

[ViruRulez]

I have watched two news debates in the last hour or so and now both Congress and BJP are becoming a bit tame over it .. BJP even more after all the finger pointing in the last few days .. Laloo, Mulayam and the Left are now jumping into the accusation bandwagon .. they know they are the only people who are untainted by the IPL saga In the newshour the most clear person seemed to be Vijay Mallya who said he was untainted for sure .. he said this whole saga is a political blame game by political parties who are trying to use it for their own benefit .. he said he and BRC are ready for any investigation without any problem :hatsoff: