IPL - The way things are shaping up

Indian Premier League (IPL) - the much hyped up T20 league has got off to a huge start. Going by what happened on the opening day of this series, the amount of publicity and positive response garnered from the general public was very high. The TRP ratings for SET Max hit the roof and broke all previous records for cricket.(Link) Though the crowds in the stadium thinned down for the Kings XI Punjab vs Chennai Super Kings, the subsequent matches witnessed pretty good crowds.

Some thoughts...

Matchwinners

As of now it's been batsmen all the way. Before this series started, my friend Robin was saying that a "team would be as strong as the weakest link" and I agreed with him. Little did I realise the irony of this statement then. For, it was the bowling department which was as strong as the weakest link. Batsmen can easily go after one or two bowlers and get high scores. On the other hand, the batting department shone as brightly as the brightest star batsman of the day. A look at the man of the match (MoM) awards will glaringly reveal this fact. One out of the past seven matches featured a bowler getting the MoM award - Mahroof in Delhi Daredevils vs Rajasthan Royals. A batsman's contribution gets more highlight than a bowler's contribution. Case in point: Shane Watson's 76 n.o. was judged to be better than Shane Warne's 3-19 in Rajasthan Royals vs Kings XI Punjab. Though it might seem too early to reach these conclusions based on just seven matches, these results are an indicator for the way things will shape up.

Team Loyalty

It's way too early to expect die hard supporters for each team. The stadium still has people sporting the Indian tricolours during the matches. It will definitely take some time to witness fan loyalty for the teams on the lines of English Premier League. There will be a spark which will light up the flames of passion and create rivalries. But it's still early days for that.

Scheduling and Competition

If IPL becomes a success, other cricket boards would want to start their respective domestic leagues.

There will come a time when these league matches will become more popular and better money spinners than international matches. One day matches will become passé but test matches will stay. Soon cricket will become a global game, as envisaged by ICC.

Enough of dreams, wake up to the reality! The only thing I expect to happen in the medium term is the huge scramble for the best talented players from each country. As long as this format doesn't seep to the lowest leagues with every level being professionally managed the above words would only be words.

Related Links

Team	Official Site	Fan Sites
Indian Premier League	http://iplt20.com/	http://ipl-fan-club.com/ http://www.indianpremiercricketleague.com/ http://crazyipl.com/ http://www.cricketpremierleague.in/
Bangalore Royal Challengers	http://www.royalchallengers.com/	http://www.rcfanclub.com/
Chennai Super Kings	http://www.chennaisuperkings.com/	http://chennaisuperkings.blogspot.com/
Deccan Chargers	http://www.deccanchargers.com/	http://www.deccanchargersfans.com/
Delhi Daredevils	http://delhidaredevils.com/	-
Kings XI Punjab	http://www.kingsxipunjab.com/	-
Kolkata Knight Riders	http://www.kolkataknightriders.com/	http://www.kolkataknightriderssrk.com/
Mumbai Indians	http://www.themumbaiindians.com/	-
Rajasthan Royals	http://www.rajasthanroyals.com/	-

PS: Any addition to this list is welcome.

Reverse Outsourcing

The recent news about TCS opening a 1000-seat centre in Ohio, US was the focus of a lot of attention - primarily because this showcases how an industry which is always seen as the reason for jobs moving away from US, is now creating jobs in US. This is a strategy which would be followed not only by TCS but also by other Indian IT giants such as Infosys and Wipro. Traditionally, the whole Indian IT services industry was built around the lower labour cost and the perfect time zone match between India and US that helps in round-the-clock development cycle.
So, how does such a move make sense?

• By moving the primary software development centre to the client's country, it becomes easier to interface with the clients. Under the existing scenario, most of the on-site work gets done with the vendor's employees working on the client site. This move will help vendor companies to build a critical mass of employees near client, which will make servicing the clients easier.
• Hiring local talent helps remove the headache of moving people from low-wage countries to on-site. With H1B visa restrictions, the extreme talent crunch faced in countries like India and the vanishing labour cost arbitrage, it makes better sense to bring in local talent. This also improves the companies' goodwill in the eyes of the US and other developed countries' public.
• The recession in US is forcing companies to cut their IT and Systems costs. Since IT doesn't form the core competency of any non-IT company, the best move for them is to outsource to the experts. For companies reluctant to let their data move out of their home country, a near-client facility would be the next best solution.

The time is ripe for Indian IT companies to shed their image of a low cost service provider and move on to become a multinational organisation, not limited by the dynamics in India. The current US recession is a potential springboard to move to the next level of providing IT services.
TCS Press Release
ET Article

bCheck's apps

bCheck is a pretty cool site with a small set of tiny applications, some of which are quite useful. Two of them which I found very useful:

Purrint

Purrint gives the additional functionality which we always have felt to be lacking in the 'Print Screen' button. With this application, one can choose to save to a file, 'print' the screen or just copy to clipboard.

Capster

This application provides the option to run an application at Windows startup with the help of Caps Lock key. One immediate use I can see for this functionality is to start my Thunderbird and FeedDemon at start up using Caps Lock when I am connected to the internet, and not start them when I am working offline.

Courtesy: Lifehacker

Bridge to Terabithia

In a season where I am watching more and more animated movies, Bridge to Terabithia came in as an extra sweetener. Simply put, this is a children fantasy movie which explores the wide array of emotions a boy goes through when turning from a kid to a teenager - a time when he is still amazed by the childhood fantasies he sees in even small things and at the same time goes through a change in emotions he displays to the people around him.

The vivid imaginations portrayed in the movie are so delightful that one gets easily transformed to the childhood days when each of us held different fantasies. But what makes this movie truly special is the mix of the real and the imaginary world that it tries to portray, and is quite successful at it.

Google Talk Chatback Badge

Here is yet another cool application from Google. As always, Google is very good at making innovations at micro level but which has a significant impact on its users. Google Talk Chatback Badge is one such. Pretty useful for guest users to chat with blog authors without using their Gtalk id. You can find my badge in the right column just below the logo.

To create one for yourself, click here.

It would be good if Google can go ahead and include the chat history from these chats and make it available in Gmail (as they are doing now for normal Gtalk chats).

Indian Railways Budget 2008

The Budget season in India is very unique for the fact that Indian Railways gets a space for itself in the discussion with its own, special budget. No wonders about this, considering that Indian Railways (IR) has one of the largest and most extensive networks of railroad infrastructure in the world criss-crossing entire India. Indian Railways is a typical example of an Indian bureaurcratic organisation. But what makes it an interesting subject for discussion is the two-way pull IR always keeps experiencing - the need for being like a typical governmental organisation with all it's inefficiencies and short-term populist measures on one hand, and the need for being nimble with the effort to provide the best amenities and leveraging technology for competing with the likes of low-cost airlines and road transport on the other.

Points to Note
The highlights of the budget can be found here. Some points that caught my attention:

• The Railway Vision 2025 document which will provide the long-term strategy of IR with a focus on "customer-centric modern passenger services and various freight schemes to sharpen the competitive edge of Railways". Comfort and convenience for passengers while commitment and connectivity for freight.
• Information Technology Vision 2012 focussing on the use of IT in the three core areas of freight service management, passenger service management and general management.
• SMS ticket, where the passenger can show his ticket on his mobile instead of carrying a physical ticket.

Some Suggestions
The ideal situation would be when the entire service runs on the basis of demand-supply economics. This would be possible only if the government reduces its stake in the business and leaves the decision making authority in private hands, which is unlikely to happen anywhere in the next few decades.

• Give freedom to zonal managers to independently take decisions on the pricing and operational strategies for freight. Freight provides the lion's share of revenues and is the only reason why IR is able to subsidise and reduce the passenger fares while making profits at the same time. Optimising this service would help in maximising the profits.
• Assign each railway zone its own set of trains to manage (not just the management of the infrastructure, which I guess is happening as of now) along with the responsibility for getting the maximum revenues. This should be even for trains running across zones. Doing this would give more freedom to each zone to take decisions on the go to meet demand surges and reduce the dependence on a central authority to take decisions.
• The pricing of the upper class fares should be purely determined by the traffic in the route and not based on the distance of travel. This should be coupled with greater freedom to dynamically change the number of coaches running in each train based on availability and demand. The second/sleeper class fares can still be rationalised based on distance in order to make it affordable for the lowest rung of passengers.
• The pricing should continue to be competitive with air travel at 2A and 3A levels as most of the people here look more for price than time of the journey.
• The busiest routes should not just have doubling and tripling of lines. Instead, focus should be on laying tracks which are fit for faster engines. This should be a long term objective. Having dedicated corridors for superfast trains (which can run at speeds of 250 kmph or more) in busy sectors like Delhi-Bombay, Chennai-Bangalore, Bombay-Pune etc would create a marked shift by business class from flights to trains. Private players would be best suited to implement this project efficiently.
• The internet booking should be extended round the clock from the existing limits. In addition, IRCTC should hasten the opening of its API to private players so that the latter can easily integrate the booking process to their sites.
• Mobile commerce is the way to go forward. It's just a matter of time when m-commerce gets standardised in the country. It is good to see that IR is quite active in this space. Going forward, it should take the initiative and lead the country into the m-commerce stream.
  

About Vada Poda

Welcome to Vada Poda - a medium to shape my thoughts and ideas into opinions, and ultimately express them in words.

What will this site have
Anything under the sun, and even beyond. This will have articles on a variety of topics which affect me in daily life - be it movies-entertainment, mobile-web-technology, everyday news, companies-corporate actions and many more.

How this site got its name
Vada Poda (வாடா போடா) are two commonly used words in Tamil language. They mean 'come' and 'go' respectively.

When I was trying to come up with a name for this site, I was struck by the fact that our brain welcomes millions of thoughts everyday out of which only a handful stays behind to be used to form opinions. The remaining thoughts are shown the door, to be either forgotten completely or retrieved again when the need arises. This site's name is derived from this simple fact.

On hindsight, this can also be looked up as a pun of Vadai (வடை) & Poha (पोहा), two simple delicacies from South and Central India respectively. This site also strives to achieve the twin purposes of being simple and being a delicacy to its readers.

Site Logo
The logo of two swans is the edit of a photograph I took during my trip to Mandu (near Indore).

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