News reports suggest that Shah Rukh was apparently stopped by a security guard for bringing in more than allowed people into the field of play. This agitated Shah Rukh and his friends, who then abused and attacked the guard. Apparently, a totally drunk Shah Rukh did not stop there and went on to abuse MCA officials as well as BCCI.

MCA officials later visited Marine Lines police station to lodge a complain against Shahrukh Khan and MCA treasurer Ravi Savant has even said that they may ban Shah Rukh from ever entering Wankhede Stadium.

The IPL cricket match between Mumbai Indians and Kolkata Knight Riders ended in a win for Shahrukh’s KKR.

2G scam was one of the biggest scams to have hit India and many top leaders from the UPA Govt were accused. Congress ally DMK was hit the most as Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi and one key member A Raja were both sent to jail. But in India cost of corruption is not huge. Just spending few months in jail is enough for the guilty who looted India for billions of Rupees.

A Raja was granted bail by Special CBI judge O P Saini, who released him on a personal bond of Rs 20 lakh and two sureties of the same amount. He has been directed not to visit Department of Telecom or Tamil Nadu without prior permission from the High Court. He has also been asked to surrender his passport.

As we have seen in all major scam cases involving politicians, like BOFORS scam or the Fodder scam, no one ever gets punished. The cases will continue to run in courts till the scam fades completely from public memory or till the main accused dies, after which the case can be simply closed.

Even CWG scammer Suresh Kalmadi is out on bail. With all scam tainted ministers now out on bail, and no chance of their going back to jail in the near future, writing on the wall is clear: India does not want to punish its scammers.

IPL 5 has been unbelievable in the edge of seat entertainment it has provided in several matches. A lot of matches have gone down to the wire with last over and even last ball finishes. But what if all this was staged? India Tv conducted a sting operation on several players who confessed on camera that a lot of murky dealings take place in IPL.

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The sting operation claims that not just normal players but also superstars from Indian cricket team as well as an International player is involved in this. It suggests that money has been taken by players to bowl no-balls or for giving out easy deliveries or for dropping catches. It goes on to say that several franchise owners are paying their players extra money to keep them in the team. IPL rules specify that a player can only be paid the money at which he is bought in the auctions, but India Tv suggests that a lot of money is given to the players under the table as well.

There is no doubt that some of the results this year have seemed very unbelievable. Personally, two matches come to my mind one involving Mumbai Indians and the other involving Chennai Superkings which left me lost for words as to how they were won. As of now, we can only say that the two teams played exceptionally well and held on their nerves to win the match. But, if India Tv’s sting operation videos are found to be true, a lot of things can come out of closet.

Meanwhile, BCCI chief N Srinivasan has said that integrity of the game will be protected and Governing Council of IPL will have a tel-conference tomorrow morning to discuss the new developments. BCCI’s Anti-Corruption unit headed by Ravi Swami will also look into this.

On papers, Bharatiya Janata Party is the primary opposition party to Congress in India. But in reality, BJP is fast losing ground. Despite the follies of Congress and rise in corruption cases, scams and cost of living under UPA II, BJP has not been able to unite itself to gain any benefit or project itself as the main alternative to Congress in India.

This was a party which once boasted of BIG names and GIANT leaders like Atal Behari Vajpayee, L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, now stands disjointed at the core. But ever since Vajpayee left politics owing to bad health and Advani left the Party President’s post, BJP is on a downhill slide. The party seems to have lost direction and there seems to be no planning and strategies on reviving it.

Recently, BJP chose Nitin Gadkari for a second term as party president. I personally fail to understand the logic behind this move. Gadkari may be a good person but he is not a great leader. In his first 3-year term he has not done anything to revive the party from the steady downhill trend. Gadkari does not even have a big fan following or a mass appeal like Narendra Modi or L K Advani does. Few decisions that Gadkari have taken on his own accord, like putting Uma Bharti incharge of Uttar Pradesh elections, have all back fired. With just RSS backing his candidature, it is hard to understand why BJP is not trying to look forward and make amends to the mistakes it has done recently.

Meanwhile, in-fighting within BJP is rising to the levels that it may lose more ground in the build-up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. BJP’s only Govt in South is facing stiff competition from its own men rather than the opposition. Former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa may leave the party soon with his supporters. He has already embarrassed BJP by praising Congress and Sonia recently and if BSY leaves the party, it will be an end to BJP’s dream in the South Indian states.

In the build-up to the upcoming Assembly elections in Gujarat, Narendra Modi is finding it tough. Veteran BJP leader Keshubhai Patel has opened up a front against Narendra Modi and is openly criticising him in his public meetings. Keshubhai may be 82 years old, but he still holds enough clout on the Patel community and can take crucial votes away from Modi. If Narendra Modi loses Gujarat elections in 2012, BJP can just bid goodbye to its chances of winning the 2014 elections.

Congress and UPA has given enough reasons to people like me to vote against them in the 2014 General elections. But India needs an alternative. Right now, BJP is not the alternative we need and the Third Front or Fourth Front, or whatever they call it, seems too opportunist to get my votes. In the lack of options, India may be forced to choose Congress once again in the 2014 polls and BJP will be left to blame only themselves.

Apaprently, the men planned to kidnap the Class 4 student of Delhi Public School, Faridabad, Ritvika Tomar, after school hours when she was getting down from her school bus near the sector 9-10 crossing. However, Shalini Tomar, the child’s mother was waiting to pick her children on the scooter and she was able to chase the men away. Even after being injured in the incident, she didn’t give up until the men left the girl and fled in their vehicle.

The woman was rushed to the private nursing home after sustaining several injuries. Her husband, who works in a private firm, also reached the spot after being informed. The woman later informed the police that the waiting Toyota Innova car had a taxi registration plate and there were more than two occupants inside.

The summer holidays 2012 are set to begin soon and the kidnap may have been planned with upcoming holidays in mind.

A case has been registered, but no arrests have been made till late Monday. Incidents like this happen and are then forgotten after sometime but a conclusion is hardly ever reached. Let’s see if the Govt can take this matter seriously and find a solution to this menace now.

However, farmer Sushil Kumar’s happiness lasted only for a few moments as the bank officials realized the error & quickly made the amendments. Also, his bank account was sealed until Monday by the bank officials to check the error.

Sushil said “I have logged in to check my balance after a friend had deposited Rs. 40000 in my account but to my surprise was a balance of Rs. 964.54 crore reflecting against my name”. Unable to believe his own eyes, he rushed to the nearest ATM to check the sudden increase in the balance which he seemed to be his.

“To my surprise the bank ATM slip also showed the same amount”-said Sushil. When PNB officials realized the error- it took them 40 minutes to reach Sushil’s village to make him aware of the error.Sushil Kumar said “The bank officials didn’t feel pity for the trauma I had been for, all this while rather told me about freezing the account”

PNB Fatehabad chief manager BR Sharma confirmed about the error and said they had decided to freeze Sushil Kumar’s account until they found out the error was human or technical.

“We are trying to figure out how exactly it happened- said the bank officials”

What would you have done if such a thing had happened to your account? Run of in 10 minutes with all the money? Went out and bought a lavish villa? Let us know

Satyamev Jayate means “Truth Alone Prevails” and this is what the show is trying to achieve. Aamir Khan had kept the details of the show hidden from the common public and the secrecy only generated more excitement for the show. Satyamev Jayate became the first show to air simultaneously on two different networks: STAR network and Doordarshan when it went live on Sunday 11 a.m.

The first episode of Aamir’s “talk show” was based on the discussion of low gender ration in India and female foeticide. The show focused on some of the reasons behind why number of females per 1000 males continue to remain behind in India. It had examples from Indian households were women were forced to abort a girl child and some sting operations showing how doctors are still indulging in the illegal activities of aborting a female child.

The show seems to have been received quite well by Indian audience as soon after the first episode aired, the official website is said to have crashed because of heavy traffic. The second episode will be aired on next Sunday, May 13th.

RTE was passed by the Indian Parliament on 4th August 2009 and describes the modalities of the provision of free and compulsory education for children between the ages of 6 and 14 in India. An important amendment done recently to the Bill has been that the disabled children were providing 25% reservation. However, the Bill is far from getting finalized.

The major obstruction to the RTE has come from HRD ministry which has shown a budget estimation of more than Rs.50000 Crore to implement RTE. As per the latest update Rajya Sabha has raised an objection to make some amendments in the current bill so it becomes quite impossible to judge the final outcome. The current situation presents a dismal picture, there are more than 12.6 lakh vacancies of teachers across the country. 7.72lakh untrained teachers constitute 40% of the total no. of teachers in 1.29 million recognized elementary schools. So as always it will take a long time to clear all the hurdles and make the Bill ready for implementation because all the clauses presented would not be feasible enough for both the parliament houses to accept.

For the time being, the ray of hope for children is still to cross the dark clouds of the messy Indian political system.

Chhattisgarh Govt was under immense pressure to get the Sukma collector released and ever since his release, news reports have suggested that there was some secret deal between the Govt and the maoists which lead to his release. The Govt is still rejecting the news of any such deal but that has not stopped Menon from resuming his duties as soon as he possibly can. He was released only on Thursday when Menon was handed over to the two mediators, B D Sharma & Prof G Hargopal, at Tadmetla. Menon is a 220 – batch IAS officer and was abducted on April 21 at Sukma, about 450 km from Raipur, while he was touring a village.

On his release, Menon looked tired & weak as he emerged from the forests & reached Chintalnar in Sukma around evening. Alex Paul Menon while talking to the reporters had said, “I want to thank the mediators from both sides, the state government, the chief minister, the chief secretary & all my seniors for their effort in my release”. He looked upset & said “I would like to talk to my family first & would address the media after a day”. Soon after Menon’s release, the state government fulfilled its promise to the Maoists by issuing an order constituting a review committee which will be headed by Former Madhya Pradesh chief secretary Nirmala Buch.

This committee will entertain all cases of Maoists against whom probe or constitution is pending. Other members of the committee will also include Chief secretary Sunil Kumar & director general of police Anil M Navaney.”Such acts put immense pressure on the Maoists; who severely depend on the local’s sympathy & support to operate out of their hideouts”. An official told the media.
Demands by the Maoists were accepted by the state government which agreed to release 17 of their cadres and removal of cases of arrests of tribals.

We had a great time and enjoyed the beautiful tropical climate and calm blue seas. We got to Thailand by Jet Airways which landed us at the main airport in Bangkok. We stayed in Bangkok a few nights, staying in a hotel not far from Kosan Road. Kosan road is a popular place for backpackers because of all the budget accommodation and cheap markets. After spending a few days around the city we got a flight down to Koh Samui. Koh Samui is the sister Island to Koh Phangan and it’s a lot larger and a higher dense of commercial properties and people. It’s also the only airport connection to the Island of Phangan.

We then arrived in Koh Samui and we took a ferry boat to the Island of Koh Phangan. The Island of Koh Phangan is famous for the full moon party although we didn’t get a chance we plan for the next time we visit. The full moon party is held once a month and backpackers from all over Asia come to this huge party on the beach. A wild and wonderful party as far as can gather and look forward to seeing it the next time I come here. The Island is quiet and very relaxed with some stunning beaches. We rented a small bungalow on the beach and it came with all the facilities we needed including a wifi connection. We also rented a few motorbikes at 200baht per day so we could see more of the Island, we saw a lot of the Island and renting a scooter was very enjoyable. Food was very good and reasonably cheap. Some typical Thai dishes can be found in almost all the restaurants. Shopping on Phangan was not so good; because it’s a smaller Island they didn’t offer so much variety of things. Overall Koh Phangan is a great Island to relax and enjoy some beautiful beaches.

Getting back to Bangkok we took a boat from Phangan that stopped at Koh Tao another Island then onto to the mainland where we docked at a place called Chumporn. From Chumporn we got a bus up to Bangkok and again stayed a few nights. We did a lot of shopping before heading back to India.During the summer we hope to be going on a visit to the Island of Ibiza which is in Spain. We are currently working on getting our visas and look forward to the exciting trip. I will post our adventures in Spain in the near future.