Fighting corruption

The international news headline read: “China’s top drug official gets death“. I was immediately hooked on.

Zheng Xiaoyu, commissioner of Food and Drug Administration of China (1998-2005), was imprisoned last year under results of investigation of scandals, and corruption within the organisation. The investigation covered claims of approving spurious anti-biotic which resulted in death of 10 people, contaminated pet food export to USA, and cough syrup with toxic chemical exported to Latin America.

The investigation recommendation – death penalty to Zheng Xiaoyu.

Compare this with India. The netas and babus would make all their monies and then go out of radar. People die who cares, money is laundered who cares, the legal process is going to take a lifetime and when the judgement is passed, the neta or babu in question would anyway be “diwangat“(Late).

Death penalty may seem harsh, however what of those who died due to a spurious drug being approved by the ministry.

Can such a step be taken in Indian context?
I do not agree to the judgment myself but I would like to see at least something happening against the corruption.

Instead all we hear is Avinash Bhosale, power broker, arrested for trying to evade customs on Luxury items. Then netajis going in overdrive to get him out of the jail. Our politicians have so much compassion for fellow human being that they would stay up till midnight to see he doesn’t suffer in jail. So what if the person in question is a millionaire many times over, so what if he disburses spoils of his riches to the select political personalities.

Netaji give us a break. Learn from China. Oh I forgot, you would be the one who would get the death sentence if you were Neta in china.

***Corruption Update*** May 30th 2007

Public Prosecutor I.U. Khan and Defense Advocate R.K. Anand, caught on the candid camera, trying to influence sole remaining witness (hostile) who has refused to turn hostile on the Nanda (BMW) road killings case. The reverent former Rajya Sabha member Mr. R.K. Anand looks more a broker (which I am sure he is) than a lawyer, when he asks Kulkarni to demand 5 Crores instead of 2.5 Crore to turn hostile.

Stock reply from R.K. Anand when contacted, “you are putting words in my mouth” and “I was only joking with Kulkarni”. Must have been a poor joke Mr. Anand, because we are not laughing. Nor are we as dumb as you make us out to be.

Hats off to Kulkarni and NDTV to throw light on these criminal lawyers. NDTV is by far the most independent channel.

***Corruption Update*** June 9th 2007

To what Rithesh (O! Mega Male) mentioned on the comments, I meant to update this post with a note on Kulkarni. It seems the guy has changed his statement umpteen times. He started with the car theory, switched to truck theory and then came back to car theory. Makes me start wondering whats going on.

“One against the system” or “glory-hunter”? You decide. My hats back on and i reserve my judgment to the outcome of the case.

EUROPA!!! Here we come for the sixth.

Rome 1977. London 1978. Paris 1981. Rome 1984. A 21 year gap and Istanbul 2005. Hopefully Athens 2007 gets added to the list to make it six times tonight once the game at 19:30 GMT. For those of you who still are wondering what the heck I am talking about – European Champions League is on tonight and the Kings of Europe Liverpool are again in the finals.Mother of all ironies – Liverpool meet AC Milan in the final to set up a 2005 revenge clash(at least for Milan) . Last time we met Milan in finals Milan was up 3-0 before half time and Liverpool was written out. The match was becoming a lousy one way affair. Come second half and the era of Rafalution begins. Gerrard is brought into the center and given a license to wreak havoc. In a six minutes frenzy Liverpool are 3-3. Hail the comeback miracle. But the game was far from over. With Liverpool in ascendancy the game went into extra time and then to penalties. The Dudek wobbly legs act (which was later revealed as some kind of a dance) and his flying back save of Shevchenko remains the lasting image of the final. Liverpool were crowned the champions. It was an amazing night for Liverpool and Milan well they played like champions too but the only difference was the team with heart prevailed.

Its been an average year for Liverpool. Finishing 3rd on League, its been a step back from last year – good at home, bad away, out of FA and Carling Cup. However, we have sizzled in Europe. We dumped out the last year champions – Barcelona. Eased out Chelsea on penalties.

On a different note I was reading an article on the match in Times of India sports column. They should ban the columnist, who don’t have a half ass idea of what they are talking about. First of all the language was too flowery for it to be describing a game on a revenge mode. I don’t want to read about the flowers and bees, and I certainly don’t want to read those heavy English words that were deprecated from common use in 19th century. Hello! You are not writing a romance novel here. Second, it seemed a patch work, read some from here, read some from there and voila! I have a sports article here. I agree with the article on Kaka threat, but Pirlo has not been billed as the big match player. He has uncanny ability to put his weight in even when he is out of form.

Your comparisons/match-ups are a bit off too. Starting tactical line-up aside, AC Milan is playing Seedorf has been playing more on the wing unless Kaka goes wide on right, Inzhagi/Gillardino work themselves in from left to center and Kaka moves from center to right or wide right.

So analyzing your match-ups. Pirlo and Alonso are compared but no mention of their forms. Mascherano for Kaka? Alonso and Agger being would be the ones who would be trying to stub him in the midfield and center. Also in your write-up you could have mentioned that Alonso dons the role of playmaker and holding mid. Also how far forward do you find Alonso? (Thats why long range goals). Just because Alonso was not started in the last match does not mean that he would not be used in the finals. When he comes in Mascherano would have to move right.

Carragher for Seedorf when Seedorf has actually been used as a rolling forward from center to left wing by Ancelotti for last matches. Finnan would be your man! Carragher would more likely be checking Inzhagi or Gillardino, who would be rolling left wing to center. Fine lady you may have a thing about Gatusso, but he is not half the player that Gerrard is (Kitten and Cats aside). Pairing Kuyt with Maldini, pretty good, only one problem you missed mentioning the biggest goal threat from Liverpool side Crouch.

Also Liverpool has a completely different style compared to most of the other teams in England and Europe. Liverpool players do not man mark, they zone mark, so threat match-ups do not apply man for man. You may have two or three likely Liverpool players that may track back to check a player or bomb forward in spaces.

What would you do if we have single striker in Crouch, three attacking mids in Pennant, Gerrard and Kewell, with both Mascherano and Alonso acting as holding mids? Most of the zone marking would become different.

Finally, you rubbed me the wrong way by the subtle jibes about the pundits believe “Liverpool didn’t deserve to win. It was a fluke.” comment. Show me those pundits please. Firing from the shoulders of pundits eh? If the quality of players on paper and their net worth in bank should win you matches, then Real Madrid, Chelsea and Barcelona do not need to participate in any tournament. They would be handed trophies in advance. All the above team sit out tonight and watch the match from stands or their homes. The 2005 match first half, Liverpool was at sea but we did come back emphatically. We came from 3-0 down, to take the cup. It was not a fluke, there were three goals at the back of the net to prove it.

Anyway, probably I should stick to not reading newspapers to get match updates.

Back to the match now. We start in another 8 Hours. So go reds for the Sixth.

YNWA!

The four point someone

Anand has been writing a four part series on “Improving Service” on the tolmolbol blogs. The latest of his post (the third one) deals with “The 3P factor” – People. Physical Evidence. Process. Check out the blog, it has some real reviews by some real people on some real businesses. This lethal combination has obviously got Anand’s famed cerebral strings twanging. The blog post makes for an interesting read.

Also read:
Part 1 : How to improve the services experience
Part 2: The power of the platform

Awaiting his fourth now.