Pertinent Observations

One piece I wrote has got published in the latest issue of Pragati. Download and read it. It’s about futures markets being an efficient mechanism to enable decentralized agricultural planning.

Initially I’d planned to write more on futures in the same post when I told you about my publication. However, right now i’m way too thrilled to sit down and write anything. After all, this is my first decent bullet point in ages.

So that other post on futures markets will have to wait. Hopefully you won’t have to wait for too long. Till then, read and digest the Pragati?

you raise the blade
you make the change
you rearrange me till i’m sane

read the above lines again taking into consideration “blade” in the sense of “putting blade”. takes on a whole new (and nice and non-dark) meaning.

reminds me of this 1980’s duet Kannada song. don’t exactly remember the lyrics so will just put the approximate translation

heroine: this madness won’t go until you marry me
hero: i won’t marry you unless you get rid of your madness

That for five straight years in a row, Lalu’s budget has been significantly superior to Chidu’s

A month or two back, outlook carried this cover story that Bangalore is dying, unable to take the weight of the sudden influx in population due to IT. that it is losing it’s culture. and all such. it was a fairly controversial story and created a lot of “group discussion”.

I support the story. I believe that IT has spoilt bangalore. ruined it beyond recognition. there has been simply too much influx of outsiders, and the city hasn’t been able to bear it. and despite the pathetic situation of the city now, people continue to set up companies here and the problem jsut gets worse. There’s a network effect you see – bangalore already has a large number of IT coolies, and it’s a fertile ground to poach for anyone else who wants to set up shop here. it’s a kinda perpetual motion machine.

A couple of years back there was this controversy involving deve gowda and narayana murthy, among others. the IT companies alleged that the state isn’t doing enough for them. that it isn’t building good enough infrastructure and it’s not a good thing. the politicians responded by saying that the companies aren’t doing anything for the local community and that they should help pitch in to build new infrastructure, etc. that they aren’t doing enough in terms of corporate social responsibility.

I’m firmly of the opinion that the greatest social service that businesses can do is to do good business. and pay a part of the profits to the government in the form of taxes. the best that the government can do is to allow businesses to do business. AND COLLECT TAXES. and then use the proceeds of those taxes to build the necessary infrastructure, etc. the problem with IT currently is that the government isn’t collecting taxes. that they’re getting away by paying some abysmal minimal alternate tax.

also there needs to be some kind of improvement in the tax mechanism. let’s look at it from the point of view that companies pay taxes in order to compensate for all the negative side effects that they cause – for which the government needs to clean up and hence deserves taxes. is there a way in which tax revenues can be distributed in order to reflect this?

or do we try to collect tax at each externality? say there is one income tax which covers general public goods such as policing, defense, foreign policy expenses and all such. can we collect the rest of the taxes where it hurts? For example – a big problem that the IT guys have created in Bangalore is in terms of traffic. Is there a way in which we can effectively tax these guys for all the traffic trouble that they cause? in this specific case, of course, this can be collected in the form of a toll. and the tolls thus collected should go into rectifying this particular problem – such as widening roads or building a metro etc.

right now the central government, for whatever reason, refuses to tax these IT guys. and is even creating new loopholes for them – for example there is an SEZ on outer ring road (cessna business park or something) which is no bigger than ITPL! they were building a software park, and then realized that the STPI thing is expiring next year and this is a new loophole. and voila!

can the local government do something in order to compensate for this? so that the local resources that are being drawn out can be adequately compensated? and can this be done in a manner without loopholes, and wtih a good set of incentives? and without too much side effect to others?

ok that was a random collection of thoughts in this topic. hopefully sometime i’ll sit down and make a better post out of this. for now only one thing – i just hope Chidu doesn’t extend the STPI scheme beyond 2009.

PS: i don’t understand this funda of giving tax breaks for exporters. aren’t we effectively subsidizing foreigners that way?

Chennai have the same problem as Delhi – way too many foreigners, who, because of the rule, will have to warm the bench. Clearly, the four best foreigners are Hayden, Hussey, Oram and Murali, so they’ll start. And L Balaji’s lack of fitness, and Sreesanth going to Mohali, and Ntini’s likely benching means that Chennai will go in without a real quick bowler (yo, ganapathy, etc. are jsut military medium).

That said, I get the feeling the Super Kings might destroy the Chepauk and make a slow low pitch, and put one dibbly dobbly attack. Anyways here goes…

1. Abhinav Mukund
2. Matthew Hayden
3. Suresh Raina
4. Michael Hussey
5. S Badrinath
6. Mahendra Singh Dhoni
7. Jacob Oram
8. Joginder Sharma
9. Debashis Mohanty
10. V Yo Mahesh
11. M Muralitharan

Bench

12. Stephen Fleming
13. Parthiv Patel
14. Albie Morkel
15. Makhaya Ntini
16. R Ashwin

I’ve put in Abhinav Mukund there based on current form, and Ranji performance. However, given that VB Chandrasekhar (the selector) is close to Srikkanth, you might see Anirudha walking out with Hayden.

One name you’d find surprising in there is former Indian swing bowler Debashis Mohanty. The reason I put him here is that he doesn’t seem to be in line for selection to his “catchment” Hyderabad team – they seem to have stuck to a Gult policy (apart from Halhadhar Das) and preferred people like P Vijay Kumar over Mohanty. Given that this team has no quick bowlers apart from Ntini (Yo is dibbly-dobbly level) I think Mohanty has a good chance.

Also, looking at the Calcutta team composition, it’s likely that their pace attack consists of Akhtar, Agarkar and Ishant, thus leaving space for exactly one of RR Bose and SS Paul in their squad. I think the spillover will happen to Chennai, who lack quick bowlers. I haven’t listed either of them here, but I won’t be surprised if they boot out say Stephen Fleming from the squad (bringing him in only when Hayden isn’t playing) and including this guy – whichever of the two it is.

The captain also hasn’t been appointed formally, though it is very likely to be Dhoni. Unless, of course, Karunanidhi protests against Aryan dominance, in which case Murali will get the armband.

Earlier
Mohali
Delhi
Bangalore

After a disastrous time trying to predict Bangalore, I seem to have done better in terms of Delhi. I seem to have got that mostly right. The article also talks of TM Srivastava, but I’d considered him and then left him out in favour of Shikhar Dhawan after I found Delhi has the requisite quota of youngsters.

Coming to Mohali now. Preity Zinta had said in an interview with the guardian that she didn’t have much of a clue regarding her team’s selection. Nevertheless, Mohali appears to be an extremely well chosen team. Here is my idea of their starting line-up.

1. Turuwar Kohli (who, according to Abdurrahim Khankhana, doesn’t eat fruit)
2. Karan Goel
3. Kumar Sangakkara
4. Mahela Jayawardene
5. Ramnaresh Sarwan
6. Yuvraj Singh.
7. Irfan Pathan
8. Piyush Chawla
9. Brett Lee
10. VRV Singh
11. Sreesanth

Bench:
12. Simon Katich
13. Ramesh Powar
14. Uday Kaul
15. Vikramjeet Malik
16. has to be a young (U-22) Indian slogger. maybe needs to be poached from outside the zone.

Another option would be to replace Vikramjeet Malik by Siddharth Kaul (who is U-22) so that there’s no age restriction on the other specialist slogger. Also, the “local” quota is filled, so this slogger can be from anywhere. Don’t have that much of an idea right now.

I expect Mohali to prepare a quick and bouncy track, which can be exploited well by their four-pronged pace attack. They have a well-qualified batting line-up which will be able to take on the best of bowling attacks on a fast pitch. While playing away, on slower surfaces, they may drop VRV in favor of Powar.

Earlier:
Delhi
Bangalore

I seem to have gotten the Bangalore analysis completely wrong. I’m told the following things, by various people

• Gaurav Dhiman seems to have lost it since the last last youth world cup, when he opened the bowling with R P Singh
• A reliable source tells me that Praveen Kumar has been signed for Bangalore. An excellent acquisition.
• Swapnil Asnodkar is likely to make the squad – if not for anything else, but to give Goa some kind of representation
• K B Pawan’s strike rate this season at the Ranji Trophy was lower than Yere Goud’s. Which is saying something
• Vinay Kumar’s averages this season were significantly superior to Aiyappa’s.
• Ryan Ninan is this promising offspinning all rounder. And he’s u-22

Anyways, make appropriate changes to that Bangalore list. This post is about Delhi. So let’s get started.

There are these 3-4 local guys who are Delhi’s to lose. They have an excellent domestic record, and have also shown that they have the skills that are appreciated for Twenty20. Another thing is that Delhi has signed up too many foreigners, so the bench is going to be crowded. Unless they drop some foreigners altogether, there might be some kind of bench problems. So here’s my starting eleven for Delhi

1. Virender Sehwag
2. Gautam Gambhir
3. A B de Villiers
4. Virat Kohli
5. Manoj Tiwary
6. Rajat Bhatia
7. Dinesh Karthik
8. Daniel Vettori
9. Mohammad Asif
10. Glenn McGrath
11. Pradeep Sangwan

Virat Kohli is the captain of the India U-19 team, and is generally highly rated. By scoring a big hundred against Karnataka in a rain-curtailed affair, he showed that he has the temperament to build an innings (note that Delhi was the only team to bat well against Karnataka, whose bowlers did generally pretty well). And yesterday, playing against West Indies U-19, he scored a quickfire 100 to set up India’s win.

Rajat Bhatia was touted as Robin Singh’s probable successor back in 2000. Though he didn’t quite live up to that promise, he has emerged as one of the best all-rounders in domestic cricket today. There is still a chance that Delhi might prefer Shoaib Malik to him, and maybe replace McGrath by Sudeep Tyagi, in which case I get the feeling he might go play for Chennai, since he’s already represented TN in the Ranji.

Sangwan is a good left arm quick who had an excellent Ranji season, and who destroyed South Africa u-19 some 3 days back. Again, Delhi’s to lose.

Delhi easily completes the local quota from the playing XI itself. Given their line-up it’s not hard to see why they could let Praveen Kumar go (unconfirmed but sources are good)? to Bangalore. They have 3 U-22’s already (Kohli, Sangwan, Tiwary) so need only one more. So here is the bench.

12. Shikhar Dhawan
13. Sudeep Tyagi
14. Farveez Maharoof
15. Shoaib Malik
16. TM Dilshan

Again, you see that only 2 indian guys are on the bench, which might be a cause for concern. I won’t be surprised if they send Maharoof home, and pick him only when Malik/Vettori is not available. He could be replaced by Amit Mishra, the Haryana leg-spinner. Note that Vettori won’t be available for the last bit, so they’ll need another spinner. Alternately, they could keep this 16, and bring in Mishra only when Vettori leaves.

Update

I checked and found that Manoj Tiwary isn’t under 22, so doesn’t qualify for the quota. This would mean that Delhi will have to get in another youngster. I think they’ll drop Shikhar Dhawan in favour of Tanmay Srivastava

Ok here’s my take for the starting eleven of Bangalore Royal Challengers (eeks – what a seedy name)

Gaurav Dhiman
K B Pawan
Jacques Kallis
Shiv Chanderpaul
Rahul Dravid
Mark Boucher
Manish Pandey
Anil Kumble
Zaheer Khan
Nathan Bracken
N C Aiyappa

The bench will have Cameron White,? Wasim Jaffer,? Dale Steyn, K P Appanna and one more batsman (need not be from Karnataka/Goa/Services or U-22; and if they can find someone really good, he might replace either Pawan or Pandey). Whenever Bracken is playing for Australia, his place in the squad will be taken by Vinay Kumar.

And all the U-22 guys I’ve named here are from Karnataka. So if we can find better fast bowlers than Aiyappa or Vinay Kumar, they could make it ahead of these guys. So basically it’ll be 4 specialist bowlers, with Kallis and Dhiman performing fifth bowler duties. They may even think of playing 2 specialist spinners since the part timers are medium pacers.

Remember that it’s a squad of 16, wiht at least 4 local guys and 4 U-22 guys. And at a time, not more than 4 foreigners can be in the playing XI.

Let me know your views on this

In a post yesterday, I’d predicted that the teams would’ve met up beforehand in order to “cut the IPL melon” among themselves and not indulge in cut-throat competition at the bidding. Given what happened yesterday, it seems like somone broke this agreement and then everyone went mad.

One thing you’ll quickly observe when you team is that the “displacement” is very high. Apart from Gambhir and veterans Kumble and Laxman, most of the people who were in the open pool have gone to “non-home” teams. I’m not talking about people like Sreesanth or Dhoni or any of the UP guys here since they don’t have a “natural home”.

I wanted to draw a graph for this, but am too lazy so will just write it down. The columns are name, home team, actual team

Robin Uthappa –> Bangalore –> Mumbai
Manoj Tiwary –> Calcutta –> Delhi
Harbhajan Singh –> Mohali –> Mumbai
Rohit Sharma –> Mumbai –> Hyderabad
Ishant Sharma –> Delhi –> Calcultta
Dinesh Karthik –> Madras –> Delhi

And then you have Zaheer Khan and Agarkar and Powar and just about everyone else.

The BCCI has put a rule that there should be at least 4 “local” guys and 4 under-22 guys in each squad and teams seem to have not made any effort to pick the “local” guys from the international pool itself. There is also a rule that there shouln’t be more than 4 playres in the playing XI from abroad. it also appears as if some teams didn’t really remember this particular rule when the bidding happened. I would’ve surely expected more foreign players to be left unbid after yesterday.

And yeah, given the composition of the team, we can expect the Bangalore pitch to be dug up soon.