Opinion The beautiful game

The Supreme Court has rightly intervened in the murky proceedings in the run up to the IPL.

March 28, 2014 01:06 AM IST First published on: Mar 28, 2014 at 01:06 AM IST

* The cricket board president, N. Srinivasan, seems to treat the BCCI like a fiefdom (‘Listen to the court’, IE, March 25). The Supreme Court has rightly intervened in the murky proceedings in the run up to the IPL. The beautiful sport of cricket has been turned into a business and a betting racket by the unscrupulous indivduals in charge at the moment. The Supreme Court’s recommendation that Sunil Gavaskar be appointed interim president of the BCCI should be acceptable to all. Gavaskar was the face of Indian cricket for decades and it would be difficult to find a better cricketer-turned-administrator than him to run the show at a time when the BCCI’s reputation is at an ebb. The SC also suggests that the Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals be banned from the IPL this year. I would go so far as to suggest that the IPL is scrapped altogether this year. Next year, it could return with a better format and safeguards in place.
— S.N. Kabra
Mumbai

Look within

* BJP president Rajnath Singh fancies himself the inheritor of Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s legacy just because he is contesting from Lucknow (‘Rajnath Singh claims Atal legacy’, IE, March 27). But he has large shoes to fill. Vajpayee was a master statesman and a shrewd politician who had mastered the art of running a coalition government, taking parties with diverse ideologies along with him. Rajnath Singh seems to have abdicated his position as party president and let the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, call the shots. Top leaders like L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Sushma Swaraj are displeased with the state of affairs. The party has also lost one of its seniormost leaders in Jaswant Singh. The BJP often chastises Manmohan Singh for being a weak prime minister. In Rajnath Singh, the BJP has a weak president.
— C.V. Aravind
Bangalore

Rights and wrongs

* This refers to the editorial, ‘As 2004, so 2014’ (March 27). The Congress manifesto is more window dressing than actual substance. The new set of rights enumerated in the manifesto is old wine in a new bottle. Most of these rights are already enshrined in the Indian Constitution, directly or indirectly. It is the total inability or reluctance of political leaders across the spectrum to implement these rights that is the problem.
— Chandramohan V.
Mumbai

Back in the USSR

* Russia’s annexation of Crimea reminds me of a cartoon published in a Mumbai daily when the erstwhile USSR had moved into Afghanistan in the early Eighties. It depicted an Aeroflot billboard with the caption: “Visit Russia Before Russia Visits You”. The situation appears ominous for small neighbouring countries that were once part of the USSR.
— K.S. Grewal
Panchkula