Banning, Cricket World Cup Format, Musicals

Banning

Above image is how NDTV looked like yesterday from 9-10 PM, the planned slot for broadcasting the documentary 'India's Daughter'. Silence speaks louder than words and according to their spokesman: 'We won't shout, but we will be heard'. Take that, Arnab fucking Goswami and your sorry arse channel. The move by NDTV was reminiscent of Indian Express carrying a blank editorial in 1975 when Indira Gandhi imposed a nationwide emergency. That was one of the darkest chapter in India's democratic history and what we are seeing today is getting uncomfortably close. As someone else  put it, at least in 1975 emergency was formally declared while today we are going through something similar without the actual imposition and that is even worse.

So what is on the Ban-Agenda for the NDA government today? There are some rumors that they are looking at the feasibility of introducing a law that would ban cow-slaughter for the whole country. I really don't know what to say. Are they really so out of touch already and its been only a year since they came to power. The nitwits with the Hindutva ideology are not fans of logical reasoning and forming a coherent argument. So for them it doesn't really mean much what really happened historically. Following is a good brief read about the history of beef-eating in India and even now a majority of Indians eat it including plenty of Hindus from non-Brahmin castes.

The Navayana Prize for Best Beef Recipes | Navayana http://t.co/72qjBJjilh #Kerala beefy fry without any doubt... #BeefBan
— Tom Babu (@Tom_Babu) March 9, 2015

Another thing on the ban agenda is college farewell parties as demanded by the lunatics from the Hindu Mahasabha. Also some BJP MPs want to ban Facebook and Gmail. It is ironic coming from a party that was brought into power riding a social media wave from which we have not yet escaped if you go by the presence of idiotic Sanghis permeating through the web. BJP is just about realizing the perils of social media when you are the one wielding the power. The U-Turn sarkar's pre-election tweets should have been scrutinized more by the mainstream media after the election but that is too much to expect from our pathetic media. You still see them circulating through the social media. The backlash that the government is getting through the likes of Twitter and Facebook even as they make one idiotic move after another is certainly making them uncomfortable and is not surprising since they got power through a well-orchestrated PR campaign. Not its payback time, bitches...

Is there an elaborate 'What will we ban next' game going on? @a_b_h_m_s wants farewell parties banned! pic.twitter.com/aX4yDq4E2I
— Nirmalya Dutta (@nemothegreat1) March 9, 2015

Cricket World Cup Format 

So England is out of World Cup after their defeat against a relative minnow, Bangladesh. ICC's decision to restrict next world cup to 10 teams have already invited criticism. If they do that the 'World' part in the title would make as much sense as US sports leagues like NFL being called The World Series.

ICC did away with the super-8 stage after the fiasco in 2007 where its cash cow India was eliminated in the preliminary group stage after playing just three games. They cannot risk such a scenario repeating again and so they have arrived at this boring format with two groups of 7 teams with four of them advancing to Quarters stage. The trouble with this is that it makes most of group stage matches meaningless and a test team has to reach England's level of performance mediocrity to get eliminated. Even Paksitan is going to qualify after their terrible start. If you are a test team then you just need to ensure that you win all the matches against minnows. 

Dear @ECB_cricket, this might not be a great time, but as there's room in your schedule, fancy a game in Japan on the way home? #challenge
— Japan Cricket Assoc. (@CricketJapan) March 9, 2015

So here is my solution. which is kind of mash-up of all formats that they tried out in recent world cups and ICC Champions trophy. The first 6 ranking teams go directly into the super-10 stage where they will be divided into two groups. Ranks 7-10 will join four minnows and play qualifying stage involving two groups of 4 teams from which in total four teams will qualify into the super-10 stage. From super ten stage two teams will qualify from each groups into the semifinals. What this format will do is that it will keep all the matches meaningful and interesting instead of the borefest that we are going through right now. Only drawback would be that the teams in top-6 rankings can play only a maximum of six matches. The format in 2003 World Cup was good for making sure that good teams play lots of matches against other good teams by having a super-six stage in between. The drawback with that was the ensuing confusion related to head-to-head record and the risk for ICC that India could get eliminated since only six teams go through to the second stage. Super six stage was also compromised because of the qualification of some minnows like Zimbabwe and Kenya with the latter reaching the semifinal stage due to their freak results in the first stage.

Musicals

I have only seen one musical so far and that was 'Sound of Music' when I was very little. I have obtained a film called 'God Help the Girl', which was in some of the best of 2014 lists, and turns out that it is fucking musical. I watched ten minutes of it before the power went off and it will be very difficult to get into it again. I really don't see the point of musicals and have to see whether this will change my opinion if I do get back to it. Am planning to watch Woody Allen's 'To Rome With Love' today.