BMWs for the Lokpal

Lokpal members aren’t asking for just any car, they want BMWs, each costing 60 lakhs. Why? To show off. To raise a German middle finger at the people of India, and at our dear Prime Minister Modi too. Just last week, Modi said, “Mitron, buy India, save India.” Lokpal members heard it and said, “No thanks! We want German cars.”

Where does this entitlement come from? It runs through every politician and bureaucrat in this country cars, bungalows, personal assistants, drivers, and more. These greedy officials aren’t satisfied with salaries, allowances, and pensions they want more!

And we, the people, just bend down and take it. We foot all their bills. Too used to it? Too distracted? Or just don’t care?

Our tax money should go to schools, hospitals and infrastructure. But no. It goes to fuel the egos of the people ruling us.

Thats not cricket!

India won the Asia Cup. Everyone is jubilant players, fans, sponsors, politicians, the BCCI, even our honourable Prime Minister. Yet behind the fireworks and hashtags, I can’t help but say it: the emperor is naked. What we witnessed was not sport. It was a metaphor for war.

Should India even play Pakistan? some asked, we just went to war, terrorists attacked, people died, is this how one respects our martyrs. Others countered: How can we gift Pakistan a walkover, and thus the trophy? Is this how one respects our armed forces. But this was always the wrong question. Because there was no “play” to begin with. None of the attributes for something to be considered a sport were met, fair play, joy, respect. Runs were scored and wickets fell, but the sport itself was forced out of the boundary. 

The Prime Minister’s tweet summed it up: “Operation Sindoor on the games field.” Stirring words after a victory. But imagine if India had lost would he have admitted that the soldiers in cricket whites had “lost a war”? When the symbolism of war is draped on the shoulders of sportsmen, there is no joy of sport, every misfield or mistimed shot becomes treason. Is that how we want to view sports?

Spare a thought for the players. Soldiers are trained to kill and, if needed, to die. Cricketers are trained to bat, bowl, and field. Should they also be asked to carry the burden of national loyalty every time they walk onto the ground? Should every action on the sports field be viewed through the lens of war? What message are we giving the children picking up a bat in their gullies? 

Not long ago, after India lost to Pakistan, certain players’ loyalties were openly questioned. That is the tragic cost of blurring the line between sport and politics. Sport should be a space for joy, competition, and mutual respect. When it is reduced to theatre for nationalism, both the game and the players lose.

Frankly, neither the people of India nor Pakistan deserve a cricket match, not until they can see it for what it truly is, a game, not a proxy for war.

AI Should Be India’s Next UPI

“Government has no business to be in business.” But sometimes, for the greater good, government must step in. Profit drives the private sector, and they will not provide services where revenue is uncertain. Essential services, however, cannot wait for profitability. Government must ensure they reach everyone.

Some argue incentives are enough, that policy should drive initiatives. But incentives only go so far, once subsidies vanish, so do services. India cannot afford such fragility for essentials.

The biggest essential right now is AI. We do not yet have a strong Indian large language model (LLM). Our start-ups cannot match the funding and scale of US, European, or Chinese giants. If we do nothing, Indian companies will remain dangerously dependent on foreign AI platforms.

We’ve seen this movie before. Social media platforms entered India with free services. No Indian rival survived, and today all that data-driven intellectual capital and talent sits abroad. AI is headed down the same path. Global giants offer AI services at dirt-cheap prices. No VC will fund an Indian competitor against billion-dollar war chests.

Moreover, no foreign company will prioritise Indian needs. Look at payments. For years, India tried to copy the Western credit card model. Then came UPI, a homegrown solution that transformed digital payments. Would Google or Amazon ever have invented UPI?

Technology is not just business; it is weaponry. Starlink denied Ukraine satellite access. Russia was cut off from Swift. Imagine India suddenly cut off from AWS, OpenAI, or GitHub. What happens if Google Maps stops working?

AI is not like mobile networks where India leapfrogged wired connectivity. Today’s LLMs may seem limited, but they are the stepping stones to true AI. Whoever reaches it first will race ahead every single day, leaving the rest of the world permanently behind.

Critics point to the failures of government enterprises as proof the state should stay out of business. But the lesson isn’t that government has no role, rather that its role must be precise. Build what the private sector will not, create the foundations, then step back. That’s how India got banks in villages, telecom networks across the country, and later, UPI. The same clarity of purpose is now needed for AI.

Without the AI investment, India will remain a tenant in the AI age, forever paying rent.

Disproportionate Response?

Charlie Kirk was shot by Tyler Robinson. Nobody should kill another person, no matter their differences, violence is not how disputes are resolved in a civilised society. But the question remains: when one person has all the power, all the tools to amplify their voice and shape actions for others, is a disproportionate response ever justified?

Charlie Kirk was more than a commentator. He was a powerful media figure, head of a multimillion-dollar political machine, advisor to the President, and a man moving within circles of the nation’s elite. His words carried weight, his actions shaped lives. How could an ordinary citizen, unknown, without wealth, without connections stand against that disproportionate power?

Issues like abortion, gay rights, women’s rights, and immigration are deeply personal. Only those living them can truly understand their meaning. Yet, decisions are too often made by people untouched by these realities, people wielding disproportionate power. There is no escape from the state they run and the laws they create, how does one live in such a disproportionate world?

Life isn’t a Bollywood film. There is no lone hero to expose the villains, topple the system, and restore justice. When people are pushed into a corner, stripped of choices, they will create their own however desperate, however disproportionate.

Shooting someone does not solve the problem; power simply shifts to another hand, another voice, another Kirk. The cycle continues. Charlie Kirk paid a price for trying to force his convictions on others, but Tyler Robinson changed nothing. There will always be another Charlie as long as people believe their morality must be imposed on everyone else and another Tyler as long as there are people forced into a corner without options. The real answer is neither domination nor retaliation, both of which are disproportionate. The harder, wiser path is to live and let live.

Ukraine, where does it go from here

 

Ukraine is like a boxer trapped against the ropes, holding the line but unable to step away, the punches keep coming, some it blocks, some it absorbs, all of them hurt. It does land a few punches of its own, but the opponent is not stepping back, there is no referee there is no whistle, the fight drags on, no way out, only the will to endure and the hope for a miracle. This cannot go on.

How did it get there, one could point to the folly of the Budapest Memorandum, the NATO membership dance, Russian territorial ambitions or Ukraine getting caught up as a proxy for the west east conflict. We cannot though shy away from the fact that Ukraine made its bed by trusting the West, not investing in its security and becoming a pawn in the game of international politics. Either way, whats done is done. The only way is forward.

Where do we go from here, the US has shifted its priorities, Europe is unable/unwilling to fully commit, the rest of the world does not care enough and Russia has no incentive to change course. The only people truly suffering are the people of Ukraine. This has to end.

Ukraine needs to reset and start afresh. Similar to what India did in its war with China in 1962. India lost the war, lost respect, lost people and lost territory.  The world did not care, India learnt its costly lesson. India will never get anything back from losses of the 1962 war with China, at least now now, but as a nation we have moved forward, the wounds still hurt, but something like that will never happen again. Today no country will mess with India and thats the way forward. India remembers the humiliation, but revenge is still far away, it will come.

Ukraine should directly engage with Russia, give what ever guarantees it needs to give for now, screw NATO, screw USA, screw every other stake holder, the war needs to end, give the mineral rights to Russia, China or who ever promises the most and take the loss. Set a base from where they can build an Ukraine for the future. 

Honour your fallen, build a memorial for all the dead, more so as a reminder of what will happen if Ukraine cannot learn from its mistakes, let those memorials shape every decision going forward. Build your military, get nuclear weapons, arm your forces covertly at first overtly later,  make sure what happened will never happen again.

Understand that international agreements do not mean a thing, you can sign the NPT, get nuclear weapons and sign again from a position of power, you can grant mineral rights and then take it back, you can give up territory and then win it back when your enemy is weaker or you are stronger. Do all that you need to, to get to a position of strength, and that will only happen after a reset. Sign all the agreements right now, anything to get you your peace and a chance to rebuild, your time will come, definitely not today, maybe not even 5 years from now, but as long as the people remember, the nation remembers, your time will come. For now, take the loss, learn, re-build and do not forget.

The stupid neither learn nor forget; the naive learn and forget; the wise learn but do not forget.

R Ashwin Retires. Whats wrong with you!

No, the dust hasn't settled, a sportsman has left midway through a series without explanation (I am done isn't a valid one) especially since its a vital series, a lot remains to be played for and we all know the fighter Ashwin is.  There is something else going on and we are not privy to it. All is not right in the Indian cricket team, the emperor is naked, and nobody is calling it out.

The first cardinal rule for any sportsman in a team sport is, the team is higher. A lot can happen in the next two weeks, Jadeja gets injured, Washington tweaks something and the team will be in desperate need of an off spinner, that off spinner will be back in Chennai, thats simply not done sir. You were chosen for a mission, weather you get to play in the final 11 or not, you stand with the team helping them out in any way possible until the last ball is bowled. You don't abandon your post because "you are done", you are not done until the team is done.

That being said, counsellors always tell an abused person that there is no better tomorrow, get out of the toxic relationship now they say, that might be the case with Ashwin and the Indian cricket team, we can only speculate. As all speculations go, we might be very far from the truth, but, if its true, there is a deeper malaise in the Indian cricketing setup that needs to be addressed, covering it up is not helping anybody.

Its time for Ashwin to retire, yes, but like this no, does he deserve a farewell test, I dont care, one of the bigger problems with Indian cricket is how much we baby sit our players, we call them professional athletes but how we treat them with kid gloves, thats another "whats wrong with you". For now though, Ashwin / Indian cricket team, you should come clean for the good for the sport.

No olympics medals for you (India)

 Every year when we had sports day at school, I would sit glumly and watch, as other kids won prizes in various events. I have that same feeling now, as an Indian, when I watch all the other countries get many medals while we celebrate our 3-5 medals with such gusto as to make those other country athletes think they are missing something. We blame our genes, lack of sports facilities, schools without play grounds, over emphasis on academics, politics in sport, weather, diet, money and parental pressure among other things. In short, there is a lot of blame to go around. 

It is perplexing right, we have the second highest population, we have a diversity that feels like Europe, we are the 6th, sorry 5th largest economy. There is money, there is political will, industry support and societal acceptance. All this put together should at least get us 20-30 medals right, but India still languishes in those single digits.

No one thing can vault India to the upper echelons of the medal table, but here is one thing nobody is talking about and that is something I believe is extremely important. The grass roots system.

Every school and college should henceforth have a sports day (if you do not have a ground, beg borrow or steal (more likely) one). There should be events for every age group. More important, each and every result should be uploaded to a central database with the winning timings so as to create athletic stats for all the possible athletes in the country. Once we know a certain kid is exceptional, not just compared to their present peers and past peers but also international level, they should be conscripted into a sports academy taken away from their parents and trained 365-24/7 until they burn out or bring home a medal (kidding kidding, we are not a China or Russia). 

Once the talented kids are identified, they should be given all round support to train and realise their potential. Support entails access to training, better nutrition, some allowances in school work to allow for the time they spend training, scholarships, reservations in higher education etc. They should be able to continue their sport journey without jeopardising their normal life.

My hypothesis is that we are missing out on real talent, we have athletes who sacrifice and work hard, but are they really the ones who should be? you cannot teach raw speed, height or talent. Unearthing those hidden gems and polishing them is our path to 20-30 medals. We need to widen our pool of athletes. There are, rather I wish to believe, there are kids in our villages, slums and forests who have the natural ability to be athletes but no avenue for the same, everyone in the village might see a kid run fast, but how fast, nobody really knows and this will bring that out.

The next step would be to have proper sport meets for different age groups at different levels, city, state and national. There might already be some, but they need to be formalised and they should get all the athletes identified participating to identify who among them can be further encouraged to train and participate at the international level.

Remember, there is no shame in figuring out that one is only good enough for the national / state or city level, the idea is to participate and achieve ones potential, what ever that might be. One should be able to fall back to the normal academic/vocational track and take the learnings from sport onto life. Thats for another post, for now lets get those kids running jumping, playing and competing. Lets find those naturally gifted athletes.