There was definitely a lot for the fast bowlers, a bit of variable bounce, a bit of sponge-like bounce which made it difficult to consistently play the big shots. We are not bothered about the types of wickets we get."It's not our fault what kind of wicket we get. Pune: India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni remained positive and said the surprise defeat to Sri Lanka in the first Twenty20 international has given them the chance to assess the team's batting frailty ahead of the big-ticket World T20. It depended on how consistently you can keep hitting the right areas."A partnership was important. We tried a big shot when partnerships were building. They did not give width and they did bowl well. But the important thing is we have not used the last two batsmen earlier. We should not be looking into the 50-over format.'It will give us an idea about how deep is our batting,' said Dhoni."He, however, did not criticise the track and said whatever the conditions they would accept them and play. In this format if someone gets 10 off 2 balls we say well played.5 overs with the rookie pace trio of Kasun Rajitha (3/29), Dashun Shanaka (3/16) and Dushmantha Chameera (2/14) doing bulk of the damage.

All these things will be a factor (going forward)," he added.Put into bat on a lively track, which had fair amount of bounce and seam movement, India were skittled out for a paltry 101 in 18."There was definitely something for the fast bowlers if you could keep hitting one area. We also kept losing wickets that added pressure on the new batsmen coming in," explained Dhoni. What is important is we have to see how the wicket behaves. Accordingly we will have to adjust. At the same time there was pressure on all batsmen. It's a way to look forward. Whatever wickets are provided, we will play.Sri Lanka reached the target with two overs to spare.Dhoni said if India had made 140, it would have been a defendable total on a track that assisted seam bowlers, but at the same time praised the Lankans for bowling in one area. Coming from a series where we had made lot of runs, at times it looks that whatever the wicket it is an Indian wicket. But we can't say whether it was the par score or not, but it was definitely not a 160-170 score wicket.Dhoni said, "This is a different format. It was one day everyone got a chance to bat. Yes, the result did not go our way, but there were a lot of positives to take away from this game," said Dhoni at the post-game media conference. Because it will give us an idea about how deep is our batting.India's winning sequence in T20 internationals came to an auto parts manufacturers china embarrassing end last night after a depleted Sri Lanka pulled off an upset five-wicket victory to take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series.

There were a lot of positives. I don't think it's a bad idea to test everyone. If you chase 140 there is no point in trying to win in 12 or 13 overs."The good thing is this is the type of pitch on which we have not played for a long time."If you see, close to 140 was definitely a good score and would have been slightly difficult to chase. Better to aim for 16th or 17th over.The hosts were 72 for 8 before top-scorer Ravichandran Ashwin, who made 31 not out in 24 balls, took the score to 100.

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Despite some whingeing, one should raise a toast to Messi because he is a consummate team man. Unlike the narcissistic Ronaldo, he revels in the success of his team-mates. Period. Messi’s endorsement isn’t enough for Suarez to win his maiden Ballon d’Or. Maybe Fifa should contemplate changing the definition of the award, which only determines the best forward these days. In fact, a template has been set for future awards. The former Ajax player didn’t even figure in Fifa’s team of the year! Messi himself has graciously admitted that the Uruguayan is the best forward in the world at the moment. It should be awarded for a single season. But he stood no chance against the might of Messi and Ronaldo. Luis Suarez’s tally wasn’t as impressive as Messi’s but his goals were more decisive for Barcelona last season. Germany and Bayern Munich goalkeeper Manuel Neuer should have got the award last year after he had helped his country win the 2014 World Cup with a heroic performance. What worked against Ronaldo, who scored 57 in all, was his failure to win a trophy. The process is democratic but not flawless by any means.Taking the total goals into consideration is not a sound idea either. That is why the Argentine is liked more all over the world. Messi has a part in Auto Control Cables for BENZ the stupendous form of Neymar and Suarez.The Ballon d’Or dominance of Messi and Ronaldo buttresses the truism that football is all about goals and goal scorers. Scoring is surely the most difficult job on a football field but one must spare a thought for goalkeepers who are only bookmarked by their mistakes.

It appears that the persons who are eligible to vote in the Ballon d’Or poll — national team coaches, captains and select journalists — are hardwired not to look beyond the two. For instance, Neuer wouldn’t be able to break the duopoly of Messi and Ronaldo even if he inspires Bayern to the Champions League and Germany to Euro titles this year. Another absurdity of Ballon d’Or is it inexplicably encompasses two seasons. There is nothing to separate Messi and Ronaldo except the former’s ability to gel well in a team. In the era of Messi and Ronaldo, defenders can forget about making the Ballon d’Or shortlist, leave alone the small matter of going all the way. The ability of Suarez to deliver in big matches is unmatched and he would be the front-runner next year if he is solely judged on his football prowess. More important, he won five trophies with Barcelona including the one that matters most — the Champions League. This term it’s the turn of Messi who scooped his fifth. It’s only worth a first-choice vote in the poll because Messi is the captain of Argentina.Despite some whingeing, one should raise a toast to Messi because he is a consummate team man. The battle has only been between the two in the last five years and the duo made a 1-2 finish their own in seven of the last eight years. It won’t be the Argentine’s last because he is only 28. Ronaldo, on the other hand, is only obsessed with his performance.. Unlike the narcissistic Ronaldo, he revels in the success of his team-matesFifa calls it Ballon d’Or but the award has effectively been a duel between Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi to decide the best football player on the planet. The numbers are incontestably in favour of Messi who scored 52 goals and provided 26 assists in 61 games for club and country in 2015. And, football is still a team sport. Maybe the German, who is not a mug outside the penalty box, should start scoring a lot of goals to be able to challenge the status quo.

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Apparently, the US has again offered the F-18 and F-16 fighter jets under the "Make in India" programme. India has, of course, reciprocated by agreeing with Japan (and the United States) about freedom of navigation in South China Sea, permanent participation of Japan in the annual Indo-US Malabar naval exercises and offering visa on arrival to all Japanese citizens with effect from March 1, 2016.India has been quick to react to the changing global threat scenario and defence minister Manohar Parrikar visited the US, where he was also taken onboard an American nuclear aircraft carrier (USS Nimitz) to show how the latest electro-magnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS) works. Nonetheless, since the SCS-FONP would be a long-drawn affair, it would be wise to enhance Indian naval strength with "off-the-shelf transfers" to India of operational American warships and Japanese conventional submarines, so that India can in next three-four years begin to participate independently in SCS-FONP. This same system has been offered to India for its planned 65,000-tonnne aircraft carrier. While not joining any military alliance, India needs to participate wisely and decisively were its national interests are concerned. Keeping in mind that sending ground combat troops would result in heavy casualties (and "body bags" coming back with adverse public reaction", India should avoid sending "boots on the ground" unless the major nations (the US, China, Russia, France and the UK) also agree. Media reports also indicate American willingness to participate in the "Make in India" initiative. India must join the global war against the ISIS, but only under the UN flag. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to India led to agreements on defence and a memorandum of understanding on peaceful use of civil nuclear energy.

It would be ideal if the ground combat troops are sent by the 24 Islamic nations group announced by Saudi Arabia, while India could send a field military hospital with some combat troops to provide security to our hospital staff. In this fast-changing world, where India faces multiple challenges on the security and economic front, the good old days of fence sitting and doing nothing are over. It is understood that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is visiting Russia shortly, and apart from signing agreements on defence (making 200 light helicopters of the KA-226 type to replace the obsolete Chetak and Cheetah helicopters used by the Indian military), he would definitely discuss the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria with President Vladimir Putin.Most importantly, Japan which took 50 years to build bullet trains representing 2,175 km, has offered an unprecedented 50 year-long-term $12 billion loan at the simple interest of 0. The fight against the ISIS and the SCS-FONP are two such scenarios. Recently, Mr Parrikar announced that India could join the fight against the ISIS if the UN passed a resolution, and Indian forces operated under the UN flag. After losing out to Japan to build India’s first bullet train network, China — which has $4 trillion to spare for foreign investment — said it has still kept its options open to pursue cooperation with India in the high-speed rail sector as it is carrying out feasibility studies in two different corridors.

The past few days have been good for Indian diplomacy as there were attempts to enhance economic growth.1 per cent to build the 600-km Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train. Given the well-known differences between Russia and the West, Mr Modi needs to use all his diplomatic skills to ensure that India’s need for nuclear submarines and stealth aircraft (SSN type and fifth generation stealth fighter aircraft, which only Russia is willing to supply) are met. The UN climate talks in Paris have ended with an agreement between 195 countries to tackle global warming with most of India’s concerns being met. This could unlock the doors for building American, French and Japanese civil reactors in India, since some Japanese-built components are essential for the American and French plants. Obviously, there are "no free lunches" in the world of realpolitik and all this cooperation will not come free. Standard operating procedures would need to be worked out with combat forces of other nations to avoid mutual interference. The US, who is unwilling to put "boots on the ground" (Army land forces) in the fight against the ISIS, has "requested" India to join this campaign which has America, the UK, France and Russia using airpower to destroy and degrade ISIS. India is not member of any military alliance and hence it must act within its known present military capabilities and limitations. I had written in china control cable manufacturers my last article (Indian Navy’s blue water quest, December 4), that while India should support the SCS-FONP, its Navy simply does not have the capability for sustained long-range blue water operations in areas where the Chinese Navy would have overwhelming naval and air superiority. India’s military participation should ideally be limited to airstrikes by the Indian Navy’s MiG-29K fighter aircraft operating from the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya and shore-based IAF fighter aircraft provided the IAF can get an operating base in a friendly country like Oman or Egypt. Similarly, India will come under increasing pressure from the US and possibly Japan to participate in the South China Sea Freedom of Navigation Patrols (SCS-FONP), which are being conducted in the disputed Chinese built artificial islands by US Navy warships and Australian Air Force maritime patrol aircraft. The recent Saudi announcement that a 24-nation Islamic group has been formed to combat the ISIS indicates the seriousness of this threat. It has offered to jointly upgrade the F-414 jet engine (already planned for the indigenous fighter aircraft LCA MK2) to make it compatible with the needs of the futuristic Indian-designed and Indian-built AMCA (advanced medium combat aircraft) stealth fighter aircraft. Indian naval hospital ships (escorted by warships) could also be sailed to a Syrian and Iraqi port to provide additional medical facilities.

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The Delhi Cabinet on Wednesday evening had cleared the Jan Lokpal Bill, paving the way towards creating the post of an anti-graft ombudsman, which it claimed was similar to the one proposed during the Anna Hazare movement. "BJP’s opposition to AAP Govt’s Lokpal makes it clear that BJP is scared of Lokpal."Feel nostalgic when i see this pic. They know that Arvind Kejriwal won’t ever spare them." Launching an attack on the Opposition, the Aam Aadmi Party said that the Kejriwal government’s move has baffled many political parties..He added that the ruckus created by the BJP in the Vidhan Sabha and the continuous hindrance to stall the Jan Lokpal Bill is a sign of discomfort and fear of the BJP. "

It may be noted that while the Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi was in its preparation to table the bill, the BJP tried to create an impression that it was trying to push for the bill Auto Brake for Hose SKODA by meeting L-G.The draft bill, among other provisions, also brings the office of the chief minister under its purview and is on the lines of the Uttarakhand Lokpal Bill which stipulates time-bound probe. BJP is scar-ed of Lokpal," the tweets said.AAP Delhi convenor Dilip Pandey suggested that BJP’s "fear" over Lokpal stems from the prevalence of rampant "corruption" in the civic bodies and the potential steps against it by the office of Lokpal in the future. BJP-run MCD is financially and functionally collapsed.Day after the Delhi Cabinet cleared the Jan Lokpal Bill, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday got nostalgic and recounted his days with "Team Anna" when he had burnt copies of the UPA government’s draft Lokpal bill, terming it "jokepal. Everyone in Delhi experiences it. In a series of tweets, the AAP’s social media team said that Lokpal does not suit the BJP as such an institution would ensure transparency, honesty and accountability, which are "threats" to the saffron pa-rty. We had burnt govt’s ‘jokepal’ at that ti-me," Mr Kejriwal tweeted, attaching a picture of him holding a burning copy of the draft Lokpal bill in 2011."BJP-run MCD is a hub of corruption. That’s why BJP is scared of Lokpal," Mr Pandey said. Now they are exposed with their resistance in passing the bill," he said. The status quo politics of BJP stands exposed today as BJP opposes AAP’s strong anti corrupti-on legislation. The government said that it would table the bill in the Assembly soon after the business advisory committee takes call on the issue.

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A former journalist with Headlines Today — he is now a professor at Shiv Nadar University — Mehta’s previous book was How Satellite Television Changed the Way We Think and Act. This also impacts content — not just entertainment programmes but also news stories are slanted towards those places with maximum viewership and, arguably, towards a certain mindset.This is straight out of cloud cuckoo land. It was focused on the impact of TV; the new one examines the industry in its entirety. News channels often feed the prejudices of their middle-class, consumerist viewers who are the advertisers’ targets. I can point to scores of newspapers in India, which make humungous profits and yet spare only loose change for reportage. Yet, we talk about those anchors incessantly. The anchors are now bonafide stars, their shows have large China Wholesale Auto spare parts for sale audiences and we love to love or hate them. Or, more specifically, the news (and a bit of general entertainment) segment, since there is almost nothing on, say, religious or home shopping channels, though Baba Ramdev makes an appearance as a savvy marketer who used the medium to market both, himself and his supposedly ayurvedic products.Mehta wants the doors to be further opened. Nightly hectoring is watched by millions of people and even those anchors who are sober and allow their panelists to speak will admit that they lose out to the high-decibel circus that goes on in the name of "news". But, in the absence of any other alternative, everyone just goes along with it and shells out hundreds of crores simply because the TRP numbers justify it.

Since powerful media groups have worked out that the current formula — lots of entertainment, softer stories, offline events and opinion (a la panel discussions) is profitable, they see no reason to change. Without going into the details, one can just mention that the numbers — and the distribution of boxes that measure viewership — are so miniscule and poorly spread out in this vast country that it is shocking that any kind of adspend decision is taken on that basis.For an industry of its size, reach and profile, the television business in India has not been closely examined by academics in a serious way. This fascination translates into huge television rating points (TRPs), but, as Mehta points out, not necessarily big revenues. Most of these are not owned and controlled by news organisations or even those committed to news, but by businessmen, politicians and extremely shady wheeler-dealers, a bit like what happened in the US when television was in its infancy. "India in the early 21st century is a very different place from the US of the 1950s, but current trends in news television indicate that we may be seeing a similar move on to the strategic command posts of Indian society — by politicians and businesses with interests in real estate, chit funds or personal finance schemes. India has a long tradition of political parties running newspapers — as long as this ownership and control is publicly known, it doesn’t matter. There are a few books, and some written by reporters sardonically exposing the cynical ways of news channels (a la the movie Peepli Live), but nothing that tells us not just how the industry operates, but also what is wrong — and right — with it. For Mehta, the problem is the other way round — indeed, he finds nothing wrong with big business controlling the media. Corporate control is a different matter — most large business groups who have invested in television channels have done so clandestinely; whether it is a small-time property developer in the hinterland or a high-profile tycoon in south Mumbai, one is bound to view their agenda sceptically. As for the most important part of the equation, the viewer, she is not present here at all. Every country has put in controls against foreign ownership of the media. Why is it not allowed The reasons are, of course, many and complex, but mainly India has not seen it fit to let foreign groups take control of the media, which is seen as somewhat different than say an automobile company.We all have opinions on the news channels. But, I would disagree that politicians too should be kept from owning news channels.Sidharth Bhatia is a journalist, columnist and writer based in Mumbai. Why, for instance, are foreign groups not allowed to start TV news in India (That is a question that is frequently asked by the Star TV group, whose CEO Uday Shankar has written the foreword for this book and is copiously quoted too.

It is a good question.Mehta’s research on how TRPs are conducted is on surer footing.Read this, to get a good insight into the television business, but be aware that this is written from the industry’s perspective and ends up finding the government at fault for most of the sector’s ills.In Mehta’s judgement, this is a bad thing and certainly, there is nothing salubrious about a trader with a dubious background running a news channel. Why should Murdoch, if he is allowed to enter news, be any different The saga of how India TV was forced to do some really dodgy stories, involving snakes turning into women or vice-versa is enlightening, as is its owner’s defence that he had no option since he was losing money by covering conventional and vanilla news stories, but given that a rise in profitability has not brought it fully into the mainstream, one could argue that broadcasters will stick to safe and tried formulas.Yet, not a day goes by without a new news channel being launched. This is the circle that is not likely to be broken in this hyper-competitive market, especially, since running a news channel is very expensive. Running a news channel is expensive and there are a host of reasons for this, not the least being the way in which broadcasters are held hostage by cablewallahs.Where one disagrees with Mehta is that such foreign ownership — and raising the cap on investment in Indian companies — will bring in much-needed cash and this will improve the standard of news coverage. The viewer is free to accept or reject the news." Clearly, these backers are ready to lose money as long as they have a news channel at their command — it gives them clout as well as insurance.Nalin Mehta has tried to bridge that gap. Tight budgets at the moment prevent reporters from going out and doing stories that they would if they had more money.

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