NaMo NaMo

I had the honor of visiting Narendra Modi's lecture in person at the SAP center yesterday. While there's enough controversy surrounding him, something now makes me think that Modi becoming PM was one of the best things to happen to India.

There's been enough talk about two things - one being his past, and one being if he delivers on his promises. Lot of people still speak about Gujarat riots, and there is an equal amount of emphasis on whether foreign trips are going to solve India's problem.

But the whole point of hearing him yesterday - was that the fundamental attitude of India should change.  We elect a leader , he gets a salary and amazing benefits from our taxes, he gets to decide on what we should or should not do, he is responsible for ensuring our security and freedom. Personally, I have always felt that religion, caste, economic status is really not the criteria. Even the fact that Narendra Modi is Gujju should only be perceived as him having a true Gujju business mindset.

There are many opinions, but two sections of population  have really caught by eye.

The first is obviously, people who blindly believe in him and can't hear a single wrong thim about him. I don't fall in that category - I am sure he is human, and in the wake of political ambitions or otherwise, I don't agree with some of his actions

The second is the people who bring Gujarat 2002 to every debate and discussion. They might have some arguments to back it , but given that the supreme court has exonerated him, I personally believe we should give him a break.

There's a third set of people - mostly who are highly educated (techies, NRIs, MNC employees, professors) who kind of look more objectively , the kind of people who don't believe anything till it is proved. I feel I fall among them, and obviously I see some fallacies in the Modi mania (like was the Gujarat model really as successful as advertised).

But over the last year or so, I would think Modi is the best thing to happen to India given the times. Why? Here's why:

1. A Leader, finally

Having stayed in the US for many years, one thing I have liked is the importance of the President when it comes to Govt elections. It's about the man, maybe the Vice President as well, but you know whom you are voting from. For far long, India had not had that opportunity. If an opinion poll was conducted when Deve Gowda was PM, asking how many people wanted him to be PM when they voted , a heat map would have strongly proved this point. I am sure the same thing would have applied to the likes of Manmohan Singh, and IK Gujral for that matter. In Modi, we've seen a leader, someone who speaks for himself (unlike Manmohan Singh's favorite "theek hai" comment). Also he knows what concerns people have and brings it up in his speeches. For an educated audience, he brought some important points (like the PIO/OCI card issue in NY)

2. Reputation

No, I am not talking about the Gujarat model. Although there might be rights in that, there are a lot of people questioning it , and I don't have substantive proof to defend it (although I would love to believe it). But here's a CM who ran a state like Gujarat for 12+ years, in spite of opposition,controversy. This should give him extra points on a lot of people, esp Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal (who I think resigned as Delhi CM way too soon), In the US, every person who stands for elections is asked about "what have you done before?". If all candidates were asked this, I am sure Modi would have won hands down

3. Feedback

I can't believe that a huge party like Congress never had strong PR people telling Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi what and what not to do. Even in corporate America, people have speech writers, debate helpers, personality makeovers. Every keynote in Silicon Valley is conducted so that it appears as if the speaker is speaking to the public and not merely reading out of slides. Modi achieved this. He probably had a team that gathered information about the Gadar party/ Bhagat Singh/ what do desis in the silicon valley like or not. Educated or not, the truth is people like leaders who speak what they want to hear. End the speech with the announcement of a non-stop flight from SF to India was really something the people wanted to hear. Making the PIO process easier was what desis at Madison Square garden wanted to hear. It's almost basic intelligence and wisdom that a leader should have. And Modi does.

4. CEO material

I have always felt, that India needs not a politician but a CEO. Let's accept it , the 'Nayak' style Anil Kapoor is ideal but not practical. If someone suspends his entire government for being corrupt, it might look great to begin with, but will not solve the problem. We need someone to systematically clean the system, have tougher measures, take a lead but not go into every minute detail. Another factor of Modi is his fearlessness, not afraid to take a stand on certain issues.

5. Ability to Turn Around things.

To be frank, I wasn't a fan of Modi. Like a lot of people, I had thought that he was communal in some sense. The US categorically denied him a visa inspite of he being the democratically elected Chief Minister of a state of almost 60 million people. The media had not been his best friend. From such a point, to actually win an election with absolute majority, turn around the US attitude (Obama coming to the Indian republic day) and meeting Modi thrice in a year, to changing people's attitude towards him (me included), he has shown that he can achieve what very few Indian politicians have been able to achieve

I personally believe, that people who are opposed to him should give him the chance. After a long time, India has had a leader whom people truly believe in - and this is Modi's biggest strength. I haven't seen an Indian leader in my lifetime who has so much of popularity among the people. And his agenda of growth , with a combination of good administration and people participation might be our biggest strength !

Here are some pictures of the event

Format for a fairer world cup

World Cup Reformat

Current scenario:

The ODI Cricket world traditionally consists of eight historically great teams in Aus,Eng,NZ,WI,India,Pak,SL and South Africa. There's little doubt that these teams are much better than the rest. Then there are teams like Bangladesh,Zimbabwe,Ireland,Kenya which have shown potential but still are a lap behind the top eight. And then there's a bunch of new teams trying to make their mark.

Main requirements:

1. Associates should get international exposure of playing against top teams
2. A world cup would not be great if a top seeded nation drops out in qualifying stages (unlike Tennis or Soccer) - as shown by India and Pakistan's exit in 2007
3. The World Chess championship has an interesting format where the world chess champion only competes with the winner. In short, if we implement that format, in the next WC, all teams except Australia (the current champion) will play a qualifier, and the winner will challenge Aus in a 5 match competition. Fair as it may sound in chess, it'll not work to have a champion team not play the world cup!

It is widely apparent that the group stages are not interesting, since more often than not, they don't matter much. The top 8 teams will generally qualify for the QF (as they did in 1996 and 2011 and narrowly missed by England in 2015. So for most teams, the initial group stage did not matter much. It was less seen in 2015, but in 2011 and 1996, the top team of one of the groups was defeated in the QF. So , basically a team playing really well can have one bad game and exit the tournament. Sad but true. Unfortunately, SA has had it's max share of this and there's a hint that giving top 8 teams fairly equal opportunity does not make sense. Also, there's no pressure of qualifying, making the group stages unimportant

So summarizing:
1. Current format: Top 8 teams get to play lot of matches, associates get exposure, but early leaders have zero advantage
2. Super six (99,03) : Good that top 8 teams get to play lot of matches, associates get exposure, but gained a bad reputation because of team carrying forward points. That led to teams deliberately allowing other teams to qualify, which was not perceived well. Goes against the basic spirit of cricket and sports in general. Noteworthy , however , is that in sports like F1, this is considered to be a valid thing - like Barrichelo losing to Schumacer on the last lap on Ferrari's orders.
3. Tournament like 1992: Most fair world cup, all teams play each other and top teams qualify for the semis. The disadvantage is to not include
4. The most fair format would be one that does not involve a final or a knockout game. While this would be a blessing for SA - a tournament without a final does not sound that great. The format would be to just play round robin and the winner is the one who tops the table. Very fair, but quite less exciting. Interestingly if this format was followed, following teams would have been the winner:

1975: WI or England
1979: WI or England
1983: WI or England
1987: India or Pak
1992: New Zealand
1996: Sri Lanka or South Africa
1999: Pakistan  or South Africa
2003: Australia or Sri Lanka
2007: Aus,Sri Lanka, NZ or WI
2011: Pakistan or South Africa
2015: NZ or India

Obviously, this system does not like people who come back from being behind in the lot and surprise everyone, so while it is fair, it is not exciting. More so, no final?  Does not look like a WC.

So let's say what the most important things are in deciding the format of a World Cup

(1) Fairness - Obviously, the best team should win. The two best teams should have a chance of meeting in the final
(2) Giving exposure to associates with matches against top teams
(3) Ensuring that top teams (or atleast the money bank India ) get enough matches to play and are not eliminated early. 2007 was the most obvious example of how a highly anticipated "India vs Pakistan" became "Ireland vs Bangladehs"
(4) I want to add an advantage to the teams for doing well in the group stage. This will make the group stage even more interesting and will also reward teams who do well early on
(5) While the 2011/15 world cups had all of this, they missed what I think is a very important point- which is , all matches should have some part in the final outcome. In that manner the 1992 world cup was a great example. No team should be able to take any match lightly.

Two format suggestions:

1.
12 or 14 team world cup.

Two groups of 6/7 teams each:

1.Top 3 teams qualify for the next round. - This removes the obvious assumption and makes the first round exciting
2. The top team from each group qualifies for the final directly. The other teams play an eliminator game. So

Eliminator: A2 vs B3  and  A3 vs B2
Semi Final: A1 plays (winner of A3 vs B2) and B1 plays (winner of A2 vs B3)

So this means it could be an A1-A2,A1-B1, or B1-B2 final, which satisfies the Fairness. It also gives exposure to the associates but still maintains importance of group matches.

Also this is a huge incentive for teams to finish top of the group. It's a direct entry to the SF without playing a knockout game

2.
10 team world cup with a qualifier to select the last 2 spots
Top 4 teams get to the semis

This is similar to 1992 format, but it will chop out associates. The qualifiers will obviously have less attendance and teams like Ireland might still miss out on exposure with the top teams if it's not their day. I would also suggest an IPL-like modification to reward the teams coming out tops.

Team 3 vs Team 4 play the eliminator
Team 1 vs Team 2 play the qualifier

The winner of qualifier goes into the final. The loser of qualifier meats the winner of the eliminator  to have a second chance to go into the final .

The plus is that such a world cup will actually have so many quality matches. A tournament in which every player plays against every other player will have some great battles lined up. And it'll mean that every match will be important. For example, in 1992, Pakistan's entry into the semis was blessed by Aus defeating WI in the last league game. Makes things exciting!

Blogs - Kal, Aaj Aur Kal..

My blog has been fairly inactive for quite some time. There are some posts, fewer people reading and even fewer comments. Initially, it could be attributed to lack of time, lack of subjects, less creativity and people having less time to read the blog . And inevitably, it looks like my blog is dead.

The   first sign of it had already come in 2010, which is pretty much a normal path for people who are average in terms of content and language , and miserable in terms of people following, but soon enough I have realized that most bloggers who used to blog around have also stopped. And I think I know why.

Kind of dates back to why blogs became popular, When I first came to the USA, there were so many new things I saw. A time when calling cards were expensive, there were no social networks (Friendster was there, but I did not know about it, and honestly , when someone described it to me, I felt "what's the big deal about it :) ? ") . While I was making new friends, I missed some of my buddies and felt I should share the interesting things that are not mentioned in news. Some things that you should know about.  So I wrote this email to a bunch of friends. People who were kind enough to tolerate the spam and appear to appreciate. Fueled my enthusiasm a little more, and more emails came by. Like this incident . Before blogs, brief replies to emails meant so much. It was actually a huge acknowledgement that maybe what you are writing isn't as boring . And before long, I wanted to archive these things, all emails, all replies, just for the satisfaction of it.

And then I saw blogger. I don't remember, but it probably came from Animesh's blog . Well, I too want to do something like that. And so the journey started. Lot of factors contributing to it . It was the time when everyone wanted to blog. I think all of us have 10 random topics on which we have an opinion and we want to voice it. So well, let it into the blogosphere. It's free, it's easy, and let the people decide if it's good content or not. The problem though is that all of us don't have more than 20 such things. And the literary / comic ability to make it sound nice. So slowly blogs decline.

However, I think this is not the reason blogs died. The reason was probably the advent of microblogging, transformation of social networking sites to be a means of microblogging, immediate response in the form of 'likes', and ease of using them as hand held devices became faster, cheaper and increasingly common.

One great example:

This post in 2005

There was a fire in SF near my workplace, and well, I blogged about it. Now , it's interesting to imagine,

Or , when I first discovered this great idea .

So in 2006, I blogged about it. In 2015, I would have shared it on facebook, and tagged it, people would like it , reshare it...

Unfortunately, though, this means the decline of something we thought was so cool a decade back :). It was like a good friend when you needed someone to share your thoughts with.

So goodbye, blogs - we'll be in touch of course :D. And of course, I'll put this on facebook so people like it and contribute more to the demise of it :P .