The uninformed informer

The 2014 FIFA world cup is almost four years away. To be held in the land of 'Joga Bonito' , in what will certainly be a samba carnival, presents India with it's best chance to get close to qualifying for the most watched event in television history. But for India and it's new breed of footballers, the beginning ( or end ) of that dream will come between June 29 and July 5th when they square off in a home and away format against the UAE. Having tasted the flavour of  competetive international football in the recently concluded Asian Cup, the feeling must still be lingering in the young and upcoming legs of Indian football. So here's how it's going to work.In all there are going to be 5 rounds of qualification. Australia,South Korea,Japan,North Korea and Bahrain have been seeded top 5 and will compete directly from the third round of qualification. The first round will be playoffs between teams seeded 28th upwards to 43 (43 being the total number of asian n...

In his defence of the recent deluge of scams,rising inflation etc and other sliding trends of the UPA govt, the prime minister cited the compulsion of coalition politics as being one of the reasons. The cabinet meeting over the proposed tax exemption to the revenues from the final of the cricket world cup was divided in it's opinion to exempt Rs.45 crore as tax payable by the cash rich BCCI. While even the honorable sports minister was against this move, it took the silence of the Agriculture minister Mr.Sharad Pawar and the arguments of  minister Praful Patel (who heads the apex football body of the country) to convince the government to grant this exemption. Now surely this is a joke. I am pretty certain that an economist of a Prime Minister would be happy to generate revenue for the nation from ventures where the government doesn't have to expend much money. Yes, 45 crores is probably far lesser than what several cricketers make and there can be various lines of thought...