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EDITORIAL
It's
Stumps Gentlemen
After
players, tainted cricket officials should also be asked to go
 Cricket's
journey through the dark alleys of despair continued this past week with
raids on officials, TV magnates and Prasar Bharati functionaries. With
this the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) intensified its inquiry
into the second part of the great cricket mess-the dubious telecast deals.
A final report on this most unwholesome business is expected shortly.
The reaction to the CBI's provisional findings, however, suggests double
standards. The cricketers put in the dock in the report on match-fixing
have been suspended and could potentially be banned for life. Officials
of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) who have been explicitly
criticised in the match-fixing report or who figure in the telecast scandal
fir are still untouched. This is not just mystifying-it is untenable.
Obviously,
since they are better known and their crime is more public, the cricketers
are the whipping boys. Those who have actually fixed matches fully deserve
to be stigmatised. In cold money terms, though, the telecast and administrative
"oversights" involve much greater financial misappropriation.
If the BCCI took any action against the cricketers, it was only after
the Government sent it strong signals. It is time the Sports Ministry
did likewise in case of Jagmohan Dalmiya, questioned by both the CBI and
the income Tax authorities in connection with the cricket scandal, and
the Rungta family, under a shadow after the CBI report. The Rungtas' grip
on the Rajasthan Cricket Association, especially their alleged patronage
of criminal elements, is questionable. Dalmiya, on his part, should consider
stepping down as chief of the Cricket Association of Bengal. The best
course for the Government would be to begin with removing the six DD officials
implicated by the CBI from sensitive posts or send them back to the parent
states. Clarity, like certain other attributes, should begin at home.
The
American Rhapsody
When the
nail-biting pursuit of democracy gives no pleasure
 So
a free election is not the best way to choose the leader of the free world.
The candidate who gets more popular votes is not the winner in the powerhouse
of democracy. There is no president-elect after the election. America,
not certainly the land of irony, is getting a taste of accidental farce.
For once, the farcical distance between tragedy and triumph can be measured
by the heartbeats of the protagonists, George W. Bush and Al Gore-both
winners and losers at the same time. This is only the perception of spectators
of the lesser world. For American voters, whose choice is constitutionally
constrained, this has to be the ultimate pursuit of democracy, as detailed
by the founding fathers. For the less enlightened in the rest of the world,
the details of the thriller are not as thrilling as the earlier all-American
pursuit of details. Oh, so pornographic that was, the priapic parade of
the American presidency, though the Americans, despite Eros fatigue, couldn't
get over the details of the revised Salem morality.
The current
page-turner-pages of ballot paper, turned not by the computer chip but
by human fingers-has already started generating democracy fatigue. Gore,
the moral winner, can only whisper to himself: it's the election, stupid!
George W., the Bush minor, can only ask voters, as his father had done
in another time: haven't you read my lips, folks? But it's the perfect
moment for those who have been intimidated by Uncle Sam's definitions
of freedom and democracy. So Castro, tell him how to elect the leader;
and please, comrade in Beijing, tell the arrogant American how leadership
succession is carried out; and Milosevic, aren't you getting the joke?
In America, the land of opportunities, democracy is having a blast-and
two men are suffering all the heat.
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The
Indian industry has increased its decibel level of whining. Instead, it
should get the government to deliver, says INDIA TODAY Associate Editor
V. Shankar Aiyar in 
