July 2011 - Voice from the rooftop

India not Lords of Cricket

Posted on July 26, 2011 by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

India lost the Lordâ€™s Test by 196 runs on 25/7/2011. It was 2000th Test and 100th Test between England and India. Before the Test India ranked No. 1 and England No. 3. It was the first Test of a four Tests series.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni had won the toss and should have elected to bat. Electing to field was a mistake. Many years ago Mohammed Azharuddin had won the toss and had elected to bat. In that Test Graham Gooch scored 333 runs in the first Innings and 123 runs in the second Innings and became the first person to score a triple century and single century in the same Test and that was a new world record. Before that there were some who had scored a double century and single century in the same Test. Sunil Gavaskar, Greg Chappell and Lawrence Rowe were among them.

Phone hacking

Posted on July 21, 2011 by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

Phone hacking in Britain was going on for a long time. People did not protest when phones of royalty, politicians and celebrities were hacked. When it became public that phones of a murder victim Milly Dowler, 7/7 victims and of soldiers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan were hacked there was outrage.

The phone hacking scandal has made international headlines. Not only there was hacking but also bribing of police officers to know the phone numbers of the queen and her itinerary.

Prashant Bhushan and Supreme Court

Posted on July 18, 2011 by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

Prashant Bhushan should make public what he knows about corrupt CJIs. The law must be changed to hang corrupt CJIs. Prashant Bhushan has been in the forefront of fight against corruption and was in the committee to draft Lokpal Bill. He should not apologise. If he goes to jail it will show the abuse of the power of the court to punish the innocent. That may result in a law that will define contempt of court and take away the power of judges to act arbitrarily or scrapping the provision altogether. Many constitutions do not have the provision of contempt of court.

2G accused and bail

Posted on July 12, 2011 by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

There is a campaign in the media that 2G accused should get bail. I see a lobbyist behind it.

Radia tapes revealed a lobbyist connected to politicians, bureaucrats, industrialists and journalists. In an Anil Ambani versus Mukesh Ambani case when the judgment went in favour of Anil Ambani she asked Vir Sanghvi to write an article attacking the judge. Barkha Dutt was ready to do her bidding.

The campaign began with Jaswant Singh appearing on CNN-IBN and saying the 2G accused should get bail. TV discussions followed. Ex-CJI Vishwanath Khare and Ex-SG Harish Salve sent unsolicited legal opinions to CBI. On 6/7/2011 the Supreme Court told CBI lawyer K. K. Venugopal â€œDonâ€™t take these legal opinions into consideration. You reject them outright.â€

Athletes and doping

Posted on July 9, 2011 by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

Indian athletes are in news for doping. Mandeep Kaur, Juana Murmu, Tiana Mary Thomas, Sini Jose, Ashwini Akkunji, Priyanka Panwar, Sonia and Hari Krishnan failed dope test at 11-14 June Inter-State Athletics Championships in Bangalore. There is blame game going on. No athlete has publicly admitted of knowingly taking anabolic steroids. Saina Nehwal has claimed that athletes and weightlifters had told her that they take drugs. Coaches and other officials are sacked or suspended. Indian Olympic Association blamed Sports Authority of India for the mess.

Padmanabhaswamy Temple Treasure

Posted on July 9, 2011 by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

Government should not take over Padmanabhaswamy temple property and any private property without paying market price unless the property is without owner.

Telangana resignations

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Vincent Augustine D'Souza

On 4/7/2011 many MPs and MLAs resigned demanding formation of Telangana. MPs belonged to Congress. MLAs belonged to Congress and TDP. Congress had promised Telangana in 2004 and in December 2009 Home Minister P. Chidambaram had announced the beginning of process for the formation of Telangana. Then Andhra MLAs resigned and there was opposition to…