Media Hounding

Trial by Media has reached epic proportions in the A.Raja case or the 2G Scam. If you are very critical, you can even say that the media's reaction and comments has racial overtones. When the accused is defending and presenitng his side of case, the reporting by media has to be factual - the least expected of them. What is dismaying is that as if the media has already given judgement and executed Raja. Looks like anything that resurrects him or any new person brought into the trial again cannot be tolerated by media. Guess sooner or later something has to be happen (like News of the world episode) to reign in the new age media powerhouses.

Would like to appreciate our good old "The Hindu" who alone seems to know, how to actually "report" a news itesm as it happens. Would be better if all the new age Media channels will learn a thing or two from the legend.

Loss at Lords

After all the hype and hoopla, it is bitter for the Indian Cricket fans to see the team losing at Lords. Though the result shows that India lost by a huge margin - India could have still managed a draw - its about another 25 odd overs and about one-and-a-half hours of play ... May be if Dravid was there for an hour or more, may be if Gambhir ...may be if Dhoni .......

But I guess the discerning critics saw the defeat coming ..Its all about attitude. We have to honestly admit that India never behaved how as a No 1 team should be. Leave the rankings. It is not aggressive and dominating enough to play as a team which believed themselves.

The disease started at the WI series few weeks back, where the team should have gone for the win on the final day. Lame excuses given by the coach and the captain. In the fourth day at Lords when Ishant was going great guns, he was not given the spell again lame excuse by the captain. With or without Sehwag, the target given by England is achievable by the modern day standards - at least it would have created doubts in the minds of England bowlers and they might be defensive - time and again it has been proved it is difficult to play out a draw - it is better to attack and then try to defend. I am sure, in a similar situation, Australian team under Steve Waugh or Ricky Ponting would have played differently. Even Tendulkar went into a shell and could never recover ...

Dhoni's captaincy and communication is not inspiring ...Let us see in the coming weeks ...

TN Election Results

The results are more or less in the expected lines save some surprises here and there with some close margins:

Unlucky Losers

• Paruthi Ilamvazhuthi (DMK)


• Saidai Duraiswamy (AIADMK)

Both of them deserved to be in the Assembly. Paruthi losing by 202 votes is especially heartbreaking.

Jinxed Loser

• Raja Kannapan (AIADMK)

First with P.Chidambaram and now with Periya Karuppan. Both close calls and he has every reason to believe that he has won. But may be he is paying price for his past sins.


Ruing Losers

• S.Muthusamy (DMK)


• Sekar Babu (DMK)

Both switching sides to DMK from AIADMK only recently - will be ruing themselves what made them see the brighter in the other side. Surely both of them would have been the winning candidates if only they have stuck to their parnt party ....but ..if only they have known ......


Dismayed Losers

• VCK Candidates


• KMP (Kongu Munnetra Peravai) Candidates

Two caste based parties ideologically opposite to each other but on the same side drawing blank in the hustles. A lesson or two to be learnt especially for the KMP ...

"Fading Charm" Loser

• S.Thirunavukkarasar

Used to win in his constituency in whatever situation - the Lion of Aranthangi -
is in the receiving end this time. Having spent time in almost all the major political parties in the state (except DMK) may be its time for him to surrender to JJ to resurrect his career.

Lucky Winners

• SarathKumar


• Thaniyarasu


• Ernavoor Naryanan

All the above winning in the AIADMK's two leaves symbol with Sarath and EN defeating their more fancied rivals. And Thaniyarasu is likely to be a monster in the making. Let us wait and see.
Corporate Winner

• Mafoi Pandiarajan

Having played the spoiler role in the defeat of Vaiko in the Loksabha polls, this time the suave corporate honcho ensured he was elected to the Assembly.

Raja Syndrome ??

Rajarathnam
A.Raja
Rajat Gupta
Ramalinga Raju

.....is something in their names which makes them vulnerable to millions and billions ??

DMK's Achilles heel

Wikipedia defines - An Achilles’ heel is a deadly weakness in spite of overall strength, that can actually or potentially lead to downfall.

Even for a casual observer of TN politics it is easy to figure out what is wrong in the ruling DMK party. From almost an invincible position just a couple of months ago - with consecutive wins in by-elections, unbelievable money power, powerful media backing - suddenly DMK seems to vulnerable. The success of Jaya's massive meeting in Kovai may not be the only factor. The brazen and open domination of the octogenarian leaders immediate family is an ongoing joke in TN. Maran's, Alagiri's, Stalin's, Kanimozhi's .....and all and sundry of the DMK family member hog the limelight these days. All these are bound to have "some" impact in the silent public.

The business interests of the Karunanidhi's clan are awesome and unbelievable. It will be naive to believe that everything happened through clean hands. Some of the "activities" of the family are :

- SUN TV group including Dinakaran and Kumkumam - Maran Family
- Kalignar TV - Kalaignar Family
- Cloud Nine Movies - Azhagiri's son
- Red Giant Movies - Stalins son
- Sumangali Cable Vision - Maran Family
- Royal Cable Vision/Jak communications - Azhagiri Family
- Spice jet - Maran has around 40% stake

In addition to this assorted interests in furniture retail, two wheeler dealerships, real estate and et all.

The most unbelievable thing is - DMK - a cadre based party and a party with strong second-third rung leaders is at the mercy of one family. The only saving grace is - M.K.Stalin the once much maligned power centre in DMK now looks like an angel compared to the strong arm tactics of his brother Alagiri. All in spite of the party having powerful district secretaries who almost rule their district as a feudal kingdom.

If DMK has to lose the assembly elections 2011 they know who to blame.....

ICC - Howard -Malcom Speed

This is one of the comments of Malcolm Speed (former ICC president) on the Howard's rejection saga :

"To conclude, let me make a prediction. The ICC head office moved from London to Dubai in 2005. Howard's rejection is a clear sign that the ICC will be based in Mumbai by 2012," he added.

;-) Waiting for that day ....

So what goes around, comes around ......amusing to note that as early (or long ?) as 1992 England and Australia had Veto powers in ICC !!!

And more about Howard :

http://www.cricinfo.com/australia/content/story/139495.html

SAP buying Sybase

SAP buys Sybase – one of the remaining database vendors in the market. This will heat up the competition in the ERP market and will lead to more consolidation (read oligopoly) in the DB market. With most of the DB software are in the hands of the biggies (M$, IBM, Oracle and now SAP) small customers and ISV’s might find difficult to pay the increased costs.

All this augurs well for cloud vendors as increasingly cost conscious customers might switch to cloud. Also it helps to escape fromthe clutches of big vendors - already Oracle is designing strict license terms for ompatible hardware for its poducts.

Among the major ERP vendors SAP is the one which dont have its own DB. Always they had to depend on their rivals DB’s. Now this lacuane is filled. Ironically SAP does not support Sybase DB (yet). SAP sources mention it might take six months to one year to enable the same.

Looks like a good move for Sybase – once SAP is enabled in it DB all they can see is uptick only. This is the advantage of being a “product” company. Even after trailing the major DB vendors by a big margin and even in the recession they made a sales of about $ 800 M and was able to find a attractive buyer ..