I’d written in my column yesterday, ”Don’t Punish Victimless Crimes,” of how legalising betting would reduce match-fixing in cricket. Andy Mukherjee has an excellent column in Bloomberg today, ”Woolmer’s Murder Shows India Must Allow Betting,” that expands on that point. Do read.
A couple of readers wrote in to say that they weren’t quite clear about how it would work. I reproduce my answer to one of them below:
If betting was legal, and as a punter you could choose from a) an HDFC subsidiary offering betting facilities, b) a Taj Group company and c) some shady outlet like the ones you can choose from now, you’d obviously choose one of the more legit ones. Being public companies, and part of bigger brands, they would be far less prone to fix matches. That would reduce bookie-led match-fixing.
As for punter-led match-fixing, consider that paper trails would exist of all bets and transactions, and suspicious activity would be far easier to ferret out.
Of course there will still be scams, for we are human, but they will be lesser in number. Consumers would have more choice and, because of greater transparency, more control. The cops would find it easier to catch suspicious activity.
Posted by Amit Varma on 30 March, 2007 in
Freedom |
India
I fear that one day I will look up in the sky and see a giant zipper shutting itself, as a voice from above booms, “Tsk tsk.” What other way is there to control this thing they call “public morality?” CNN-IBN reports that the Indian government has banned FTV:
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said the programmes telecast by the channel were “against good taste and decency and denigrated women.”
Such shows were likely to adversely affect public morality, the Ministry said.
Needless to say, enforcing ‘morality’ is the responsibility of our government. Boys get wet dreams? Won’t do. Where’s the Ministry of Wet Dreams? Girls show cleavage? Won’t do. Where’s the Ministry of Cleavage Inspection? To paraphrase from Zero Wing, all your mind and body are belong to them.
(Link via separate emails from Gautam John and Sridhar Vanka. Also read: my WSJ Op-Ed, ”Fighting Against Censorship.")
Posted by Amit Varma on 29 March, 2007 in
Freedom |
India
It feels like a bad dream, it does. Here, below the fold, check out Rakhi Sawant, painted like a tiger, in a cage. Haysoooos!
Read more...
Posted by Amit Varma on 29 March, 2007 in
Arts and entertainment
My broadband has been down today, and my productivity, on a terribly slow dial-up, has been about a third of what it should be. I’m off to watch a film in a few minutes, so will come back and finish off the routine India Uncut tasks, like putting up the latest Rave Out, Extrowords and Workoutable posts.
I think of myself as immensely lucky to have been born at the right time to benefit from the internet. Nothing I do today would have been possible before the internet, and you would never have heard of me, leave alone read my writing. And my shift to this new site, from Blogspot, would have been futile if not for broadband: on a dial-up, all my daily tasks would have taken too long. Immense gratitude comes.
Of course, you might look at my condition now and say that I’m enslaved by technology, but this is a temporary lull in the middle of much empowerment. If Tata Indicom doesn’t give me back my broadband by evening, though, violence will ensue!
Posted by Amit Varma on 29 March, 2007 in
Personal
Amitabh Bachchan is quoted as saying in the Times of India:
India’s economic progress is largely responsible for the Indian films getting recognised abroad. When the economy is doing well, everything connected with the country, its food, culture, colour, art and films get noticed.
I have a question: Are Indian films getting “recognised abroad?” To the best of my admittedly minuscule knowledge, only the diaspora really cares much for it, and as the diaspora has grown, overseas markets have become prominent. But non-Indians don’t really notice it, and the stories that the international press occasionally does on Bollywood treat it as exotica.
I have another question: Why do Bollywood people crave recognition abroad? Are the millions of Indian who watch their films not validation enough?
Update: DeCruz Pulikottil writes in:
I would have never expected to have been greeted by an African man inside a Costco (huge wholesale store) and asked if I was Indian. When I said yes, he had a broad smile on his face and asked if I like Bollywood movies. Apparently, Bollywood movies are all the rage in Africa. If you google online for Romanian Bollywood dance troupe you’ll find a group of all Romanians who pick up their dance moves from Bollywood movies who dance at weddings and other functions. Bollywood is insanely popular in Eastern Europe. My Cambodian friend tells me how back in the home country, they consistently watch Bollywood movies that do show. Even here, at a private university in Southern California that has one other Indian person that attends here, I popped in a Bollywood movie (Rang de Basanti) and many white people enjoyed it. So yeah, I’m answering your question. Bollywood is becoming immensely popular overseas and not just among the diaspora.
Hmm. And when I was in Singapore a millennium ago for a conference, a local girl sidled up to me and said, “I like Shah Rukh Khan .” Then she fluttered her eyelashes. Ever the naive nerd, I had no idea why she was telling me that. I think I said something to the effect of “Pah!” And then I toodled off to look for a bookshop.
Posted by Amit Varma on 29 March, 2007 in
Arts and entertainment |
India
This is the seventh installment of my weekly column for Mint, Thinking it Through.
Imagine a dystopia where a mad dictator comes to power and decides to ban sex and dating. Sex is ruining the moral fabric of our nation, he decides. Men and women must not be allowed to get together. What will happen?
Here is what I imagine: One, immense copulation will still take place behind closed doors, and as no one engaged in consensual sex will complain, the state will have to spend considerable resources and do invasive policing to make sure people don’t break the law. Two, the underworld will get involved in enabling encounters between the sexes, as those won’t be legal any more, and couples will no more be able to shoot the breeze at a Barista. Three, there will be more rapes, as repressed men denied normal outlets will resort to force.
Read more...
Posted by Amit Varma on 29 March, 2007 in
Essays and Op-Eds |
Freedom |
India |
Thinking it Through
Neha Dhupia says about her character in Delhii Heights:
She is stuck in a sort of trivia where she has to balance her personal and professional life.
In case some of you quizzers out there are suddenly excited, calm down: I can only assume she meant “dilemma.” Sigh.
Update: Quizzers Rishi and Quizman write in to inform me that perhaps Ms Dhupia is somewhat erudite, and was making a scholarly reference to a possible origin of the word “trivia”: in Latin, Trivium means “the meeting place of three roads, especially as a place of public resort.” [Source.]
Ya, right!
Posted by Amit Varma on 29 March, 2007 in
Arts and entertainment
I have to ask: after all, it was in 1968 that Andy Warhol said, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” YouTube enables that like nothing else can.
Consider the story of the gent who “hurtled down nearly 200 feet at Angel tube station with a camera strapped to his head and posted the video on the YouTube Web site.” I can guarantee you this: the young man wouldn’t have bothered to do the stunt had YouTube not been around. What else will come from this?
Here’s the video, below the fold:
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Posted by Amit Varma on 28 March, 2007 in
Miscellaneous
One question: will Bhavna Koli be any better or any worse a corporator if her caste certificate turns out to be genuine?
Posted by Amit Varma on 28 March, 2007 in
India |
News |
Politics
In a feature in the Guardian by Geraldine Bedell, AL Kennedy is quoted as saying:
The authors I first loved all had initials - JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, E Nesbit, ee cummings - and I actively didn’t want to know who they were or have them get in the way of my enjoying their story and their voice.
Indeed, that is quite the problem with our times, especially in India: too much of the focus is on the author. That’s because most of us don’t read.
Posted by Amit Varma on 28 March, 2007 in
Arts and entertainment |
India |
Journalism
