How were dates calculated, and kept, in ancient India before the widespread awareness of Christianity?

My answer to How were dates calculated, and kept, in ancient India before the widespread awareness of Christianity?

Answer by Ram Narayan:

Firstly, the presumption that the moment a scholarly man with a mission of spreading love and peace descended upon the world, people just said "Hey, let's reckon time based on the time before and after his birth!", is fallacious.

Jerusalem being predominantly Jewish, people used the same Hebrew calendar the Jews do to this day. Other surrounding regions used local calendars like the Egyptian or the Roman. The reign of the Roman king Diocletus who persecuted Christians was notable for the introduction of the Era of the Martyrs (denoting the years since anti Christian oppression started under him). And it was NOT until 525 AD that Dionysius decided he didn't want to date years in the name of a man who had presecuted Christians, and had the brainwave to date the present year relative to the "Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ". It was also not until AD 900 that even Christian lands adopted this calendar fully and formally.

Christianity came to India at about AD 52 with the believed arrivals of St. Thomas and Bartholomew in India's Southern and Western coasts respectively. More priests, churches and communities followed in the next couple of centuries, meaning that Christianity gained enough of a foothold in India long before the Christian AD calendar era was even invented!

Ok so what were Indians using? While local kingdoms dated their years and coins based on the regnal year of the reigning king (which was also the basis for the 15-year agricultural tax cycles and 10-year censuses), the Brahmins and astrologers didn't bother with such trifles.

Theirs, was a truly grand scale. It is a system we use, to this day, while initiating any religious activity. The invocation begins thus (using today's date (30 Sep 2015):

Shubhe shobana muhurthe, Sri MahaVishnor Aagnaaya Pravarthamanasya,

Aadya Bramhane, Dwiteeya Parardhe, Sri Swetha Varaaha Kalpe, Vaivaswatha Manvanthare, Kaliyuge, Kali Prathama Charane, Bauddhavathare, Salivaahanasakhe, Jambudweepe, Meror Dakshina bhage, Bhaaratavarshe, Bharatha Khande, Godavari Dakshina theere, Sobhana Gruhe, Devata Sannidhau, Asmin Varthamane, Vyavahaarike, Chaandramanena, Sri Virodhi Nama Sanvastare, Uttarayane, Greeshma Ruthau, Jyesta Maase, Sukla Pakshe, Panchami Thithau, Bruhaspathi Vaasare, Pushyami Nakshatre, Dhruva Yoge, Baalava Karane, evam guna visheshana visistayaam, subha thithau, Srimaan Aatreya Archananasa Syavaasya Pravaranvita, Aatreya Gothrothpanna, Bhargavasarma Namadheyasya, Mama Gyana

Bhakthi Vairaagya prapthyartham, Sri Bharathee Ramana Mukhya Praananthargatha Sri Lakshmi Narayana Preethyartham, Bhagavat preranaya prapta Vidya anusaarena Yatha Shakthi, Sri Lakshmi Narayanasya Dhyanaavaahanadi shodasa upachaara poojam

karishye!

Time Element: (Reckoning of time with reference to Lord Brahma)

Aadya Bramhane Dwiteeya Parardhe:

Fifty years of the 100-year life time of Lord Brahma is over and we are in the 2nd half called Dwiteeya Parardhe, of the first day in the 51st 360-day year of Lord Brahma (50 years of Lord Brahma is equal to 155.52 trillion human years)

The Vedic concept is that over the cycle of one Maha kalpa (around 311 trillion years) the universe expands, and then starts contracting over exactly the same cycle. We have reached exactly half the expansion phase

Sri Shweta Varaaha Kalpe

That means we are in the first day (only day) called Swetha Varaha Kalpa in the 51st year of Lord Brahma. One Kalpa is equal to 4,320,000,000 years.

Vaivaswatha Manvanthare

In Swetha Varaha Kalpa (first day of Lord Brahma) after passing through 6 Manvantharas (out of 14 we are currently in the 7th Manvanthara called Vaivaswatha Manvanthara, each of which is around 306,720,000 years long).

In other words, at the completion of this Manvantara, it will be night on Brahma's 51st New Year's Day. 🙂

Astavinshatitame Kaliyuge – Kali Prathama Charane

In the current Manvanthara (Vaivasvatha) we have passed through 27 Maha Yugas out of 71 and we are currently in the 28th Maha Yuga. In this 28th Maha Yuga after passing through Krita, Thretha and Dwapara Yugas we are currently in the Kaliyuga in its first quarter after passing through 5117 years out of a grand total of 4,320,000 years in this maha Yuga

Bauddhavathare: In the time when Lord Vishnu has taken birth as Buddha (and that's NOTHING to do with the man in whose name we have a whole religion establised, that was a different chap)

Geographical-Element

Jambudweepe: Out of the seven Dweepas in this Universe we are in the

Jambudweepa (island) on the Earth (Bhumandala) surrounded by the Sea (Lavana Samudra)

Meror Dakshina bhage (parsve) – To the south of mountain called Meru Parvatha which is in the centre of Jambu Dweepa.

Bhaaratavarshe: There are nine Varshas in this Universe out of which we are in the Bhaarathavarsha which is in the southern region of Meru Parvatha.

Bharathakhande: In the land ruled by King Bharatha – Asethu Himachala Paryantham (the present India).

Godavari Dakshina theere: To the south of river Godavari (Depending on the location this may change)

Mama Swagruhe (own house) or Sobhana Gruhe (staying in rented house) – This may change depending on the place where one is performing the karma.

Devata Sannidhau: In the presence of God dwelling in my house.

Current Day Element (Description of the day)

Asmin Vartamanena: At the present time

Vyavahaarike – Chandraamanena: As per the present calendar that is in vogue.

Manmatha Samvastare: There are sixty years as per the Lunar Calendar which gets repeated cyclically starting from Prabhava and ending with Akshaya. We are in Manmatha right now

Aayane: The year is divided into two based on the transit of Sun into Makara raasi called Uttarayana (Summer Solstice around Jan 15) and Karkataka raasi called Dakshinayana (Winter Solstice around Dec 15).

Ruthau: The year is divided into six bi-monthly seasons starting from Vasantha followed by Greeshma, Varsha, Sharad, Hemantha, and Sisira

Maase: Each season/ruthau comprises of two months which are named after the star falling on the full Moon day of the month as per Lunar Calendar starting from Chaitra and ending with Phalguna. As per solar calendar it is referred as per the transit of Sun into each Zodiac Raasi starting from Mesha (Aries) and ending with Meena (Pisces)

Pakshe: Each month (Masa) is again divided into two fortnights based on the Moon’s position (waxing Moon /waning Moon) called as Sukla Paksha (starting from Prathama to Pournima) and Krishna/Bahula Paksha (starting from Prathama to Amavasya)

Thithau: Each paksha comprises of 15 thithis (days) out of which 14 thithis get repeated in both the pakshas and the 15th one is either Pournima (full moon) or Amavasya (new moon).

Vaasare: There are seven days in a week starting from Sunday which gets repeated cyclically.

Nakshatre: There are twenty seven (27) stars in the almanac which are placed in 12 raashis of the zodiac. These stars get cyclically repeated starting from Aswini and ending with Revathi.

Yoge: There are 27 yogas in the almanac starting from Vishkumbha and ending with Vaidruthi. These yogas also get repeated cyclically.

Karane: There are eleven (11) Karanas out of which seven gets repeated and four occurs on specific days of Sukla Prathama, (Kimsthugna), Bahula Chaturdasi (Sakuni), and Amavasya (Chatushpath, Nagava)

In practice the names of Yoga and Karana are not spelled out. Instead it is just mentioned as Shubha Yoge, Shubha Karane. Some mention it as Vishnu Yoge and Vishnu Karane.

Quite extensive and long yes, but this is the fool proof way of measuring time, and happens to match with modern astronomical devices that have estimated the time since the last Big Bang! It is also absolute in the sense it need not be tied to any particular region, country or person, and is simply a record of time elapsed since time started, period.

How were dates calculated, and kept, in ancient India before the widespread awareness of Christianity?

The Little Things That Matter

I’ve only ever heard or read of floods in newspapers and reports, and never imagined I’d be trapped in one. I survived two earlier spells of heavy rains either side of my Diwali break, and dismissed it as the usual heavy rain-induced inconveniences; I’ve seen my share of that growing up in Kerala. All that changed in one manic block of 72 hours that began on Tuesday, December 1 2015.We were frantically asked to leave office in Adayar, at around 3 pm on Tuesday. It was the day after payday and I being in payroll was more concerned than anything else with mopping up the loose ends that are to be tied soon after that, dismissive as I was of trifles like weather concerns. I realised the scale of what awaited us when my department head shouted at me asking why I hadn’t packed up to leave yet! (Something that rarely happens with managers..) 🙂 It was so bad we had cabs arranged for people to be transported, something that wasn’t done the earlier two times!

I got back home in R A Puram (have they renamed it R A Dweepam yet in keeping with the times?!) at around 4pm and since then there has been NO electricity. The water has breached the three steps in the front of our complex and is waist high in front of home, meaning it is unviable to go out even to go out and buy provisions! The signal on my phone has conked off since Wednesday morning, so bye bye 2G/3G even! Couldn’t track anything, whatsapp groups or mails, had NO way of knowing anything at all of the outside world, or if The Day After Tomorrow was already upon us!

I slowly realised that in a situation where electricity is nonexistent, everything will now start to go off one by one starting from the charge on my phone, the water supply and provisions in nearby shops (if at all I can get there!). I figured out that the best bet would be to go to office as I’d at least have electricity, food, water, a working net connection and most importantly charge my mobile and keep people posted! I therefore took the calculated call of wading through belly deep water in an uncertain terrain, slipping and falling three times along the way, with only my flat palms saving me from loss of stability and possibly fatality, to get to office and planned to spend the night there! On the way out, I could see every single building or colony being evacuated of its elderly residents (who probably comprise 90% of the area population!). Shuddered to think of what people with families would do in such a situation. I being a loner resident could pretty much take my own decisions and indulge in all this bravado as I saw fit!

It seemed like a good call as I could eat and communicate better in office, for the first time in three days. That evening gave me a taste of the dangers awaiting this city: milk got over/bad in the nearby tea shop by 2 pm, bakeries were overcrowded and running out of bread, buns and other perishables. ATMs were out of money, and people were collecting Bisleri bottles in droves, the most frightening sight of all!

Contact/information flow was minimal, as there was no signal, and Google Hangouts was the only thing NOT blocked by Office Wifi.

By a curious twist of fate, I was then called up by an uncle who stays just two streets away from office, after he somehow got my number from my folks, (the little things that matter! Them being just 400m away, managing to get through to me after 10 hours of trying and here I am in Adayar, safe and in one piece!)

I’ve heard of some harrowing tales friends and colleagues have gone through. People in the FIRST floor who have evacuated after water seeped in, people whose walls have caved in and they wonder if it’s an earthquake, people in so-called posh localities who have had to move out. That is when I realise how many little things had to fall in place, for me to be safe and in one piece today: the misstep while wading in water that could have been fatal, the train service that didn’t desert me when I needed most, the office that did have the facilities I thought it did (a shout out to Ayyappan from our Admin team who worked day and night to ensure all the paraphernalia was in place for the comfort of the security and blue collar staff who sleep in the premises), the much needed biscuit packs that I could get from a fast emptying bakery, and of course a non existent connection that worked for those crucial five minutes long enough for me to ask him for directions!

Through all this, however, I cannot recall one raised voice, even one car horn sound, one person putting his self interest above that of the group, one shopkeeper thinking of profiteering. There was concern writ large on everyone’s face and tone of voice: concern about contacting and evacuating their near and dear if need be, concern if there is food available to buy and eat, concern if there is clean drinking water available. That is but human, and natural. What was also human and came naturally to Chennai, was that everyone cared for everyone else. Random strangers and passersby alerted me of unsuitable roads, of what to watch out for or utilise to make my wade-through safer, which ATMs had cash and such things! Shopkeepers showed utmost patience in dealing with the crowds and their anxious queries about supplies. Motorists, the most infamous section of Chennai, showed the utmost courtesy to quickly apologise if they even remotely felt that they drove a little too roughly through the slushwater when I was walking through it! Marooned I was; alone, I most certainly was not. Chennai was with me. Not for a minute did I feel like I was playing a zero-sum game, where my searching for resources or safety meant denying someone theirs!

If this experience has taught me one thing, it is that the little things we take for granted, will one day become so valuable it could be life-changing: the queues for ONE biscuit packet, ONE cup of tea, the scramble for the ONE call or SMS to inform people of your whereabouts. Nothing you possess or have access to is too insignificant. You never know.

Is Net Non-Neutrality The Demon It Is Made Out To Be?

I admit I, like everyone else, was swayed initially by the whole “sign this net neutrality petition and save YOUR online future” brouhaha, and was going to write an impassioned defence of “my freedom to surf what I want, how I want and pay for that”, and “you will not dictate to me what I surf” and all of that. But something got me thinking. (The things watching an engrossing England v West Indies Test Match at midnight stimulates in your brain!! :P)

Just look at Tata Sky. (Subscribers of other DTH services may please pitch in with their stories)

1. You choose the base package you want. If say, you want one without sports, be my guest.
2. Extra channels come at a fee, either individual, or bunched (You could take only Star Sports 2 if you wanted to watch endless India v Bangladesh World Cup QF re-runs, or all four Star Sports offerings, to watch 24×7 re-runs of ALL the knock out matches of CWC 15.. 🙂 )
3. Preferred channels during big-bang events are often priced marginally higher than they are on normal days. (Let’s face it, no one’s NOT watching the IPL so Tata Sky simply prices Sony Max and Six during IPL days a little higher)
4. You take off a channel when u have no more use for it, just like many of you will drop Sony Max and Six the moment the IPL ends. The monthly fee for the channel is adjusted for the number of days you used it. (And there’s no Duckworth-Lewis to calculate that, don’t worry.. :P)
5. Generally more watched channels are priced higher. (Coz that’s where the eyeballs are, and those subscribers wouldn’t mind paying that much too!)
6. Tata Sky fell out with Nimbus so there’s no Neo Sports or Neo Prime I can subscribe to. (They take up rights to a few hockey events every now and then, and that REEALLY gets this hockey nut’s blood boiling!) I am forced to recalibrate my sporting fix with what is available, and not what I WANT.

Doesn’t Tata Sky’s pricing policy dictate what you watch or pay to watch? Tata Sky never gave you something like, say 1,000 minutes of viewing absolutely any channel of your choice, for ₹200 per month, with a validity of 30 days, did they? 🙂 Tata Sky violated DTH neutrality!! Why then are we crying foul when what is happening to DTH TV is happening to internet?

If the doomsday prophets are proved right, YouTube usage may be priced higher per MB, or maybe WhatsApp or Facebook will be. Will this not help the “base pack” user, who can conceivably get away with lower prices for only say, browsing because he may not use e-mail or any other data-needing apps?

Secondly, so what if an online retailer signed a deal with some service provider? Are you, for example going to buy a flight ticket on Yatra.com instead of Cleartrip.com (if, say it offers a cheaper flight), just because your internet service provides Yatra.com free? Or would you take up the ClearTrip option simply because it gave you the cheaper flight? Even in this case, Yatra wouldn’t be doing anyone a charity by offering a free-access website. The data provider would recover from them the same costs of providing the free data, which of course, Yatra.com will pass on to you the consumer. In effect, there is no new expense billed to you the consumer. It is just split differently between Yatra.com and the internet service. Simply put, the total split of the data usage plus purchase in the website, is their headache, why would you give a damn as long as you are not charged a penny extra because of this rearrangement? Even now, certain airline websites are far more data-guzzling than others, maybe because of their web-design, clutter due to too many ads or whatever they chose to do with their website! Do you do RND on their data usage or do you look at the flight prices they offer and get what’s convenient?

The last point mentioned above in the Tata Sky example is significant. There are suspicions this places too much power in the operator’s hands over what you access, how they can restrict it and so on. With power comes responsibility too!! They will feel the heat to provide you that website at that quality! If Tata Sky cannot give me Neo Sports at sufficient quality and consistently, I switch to another DTH service if i want my hockey so badly. Similarly, if Airtel is playing around with your access to a website because they want you to pay for it, you can switch to another that doesn’t hassle you so much!

So many data-packs, Internet providers and even call plans have separate night plans, with differential rates for day and night hours. Doesn’t THAT violate neutrality? After all it’s none of their business as to when you choose to make calls or surf, you ought to be charged the same!! It is the same principle used by them – a combination of the provider’s response to choking on their load, or incentivising usage in lean load hours. Now instead of time, if someone does the load-based pricing on sites visited, there’s a problem?

Sample this.  You visit a swanky restaurant for lunch, where they serve a buffet. Every conceivable item in a normal buffet lunch, unlimited, for ₹150. You gorge yourself, and rightfully so! Now the banquet manager notices, that the Schezwan Noodles and the Tandoori Roti kept disappearing pretty quickly, and was refilled ad nauseam by waiters, while nobody touched the salad and the soup! So what does he do? He makes a “Standard Buffet” menu with an assortment of all items resulting in a wholesome meal for ₹150, and puts out extra helpings of Schezwan Noodles at say ₹50 and extra Tandoori Rotis for say ₹20. The result is twofold:

• Those who simply want a full meal, get that at ₹150, just like earlier.
• People do not gorge on additional helpings of Noodles or the Roti, and consumption of those items reach saner levels, thereby helping his load and the efficiency of delivery of those items.

What the banquet manager essentially did was to prevent overstretching of certain sections of his load, in order to prevent running out of stock and all of the bad press! Likewise, when Sachin Tendulkar was on 198* on the way to his ODI 200, so many logged into Cricinfo that they almost crashed! Does Cricinfo owe us any favours in providing the website for free, and cop all the abuse when their servers fail because so many of us log in? Cricinfo would any day accept a marginally lighter load on their servers, in return for not crashing and losing face! And if that means Cricinfo access will be priced differently, in a free world as is desired by net-neutrality, we will see that day one day, because that simply is what demand-supply forces dictate.

Load-based pricing is a reality in so many other areas, and yes, access to certain internet services is NOT the same as access to certain others. Differential pricing isn’t exactly the demon it is made out to be. It might be in the fitness of things not to get swayed by the jingoism of “internet freedom” and think through the pros and cons without sounding doomsdayish about how just to read my blog you might have to pay more one day!!

Make The 2024 Olympics In India!

In a significant decision, Narendra Modi has asked the Sports Ministry to make a bid for the 2024 Olympics, with Ahmedabad as a probable host city in mind. This has predictably kicked off the usual storm of “Is he the PM of Gujarat only”, “Why does this poor country need to do this?” and “We don’t need another CWG-like fiasco”, with little space for reasoned debate on its merits.

Do we really need an Olympic Games in India?

Looked at, from a purely sporting angle, (before ranting from the rooftops about the chance to showcase the India of 2015) the realisation, that the Games must come to India, stares us in the face. Almost all of India’s individual Olympic medals are due to the praiseworthy dedication of individual sportsmen, and an efficient coach/mentor. Not one association can claim credit for having made available world class facilities that have paved the way for sustained Olympic success. What we need is institutionalised success flowing out of the fountainhead of a sound system that is grounded in adequate foresight and will-power, instead of expecting the odd inspired individual to turn up with fire in his belly, and perform way above what his upbringing and training normally allow him to. If we must put in respectable performances in the international sporting arena, our sportsmen need to train in world-class venues. Apart from cricket, in how many disciplines is India capable of holding an international event of repute? Admittedly, not too many.

Let me now throw up a small quiz question. In which country is the nondescript city of Gold Coast? Did you for example, know that it’s in Australia? That city, by the way will host the 2018 Commonwealth Games. There aren’t too many murmurs about how there’s a new venue when venues from the Sydney ’00 Olympics, Melbourne ’06 CWG and even the 1982 Brisbane CWG could have been used. That’s the sign of a nation that invests in its sportsmen, their future and that infrastructure, in a non high-profile city, (the second largest in Queensland behind Brisbane), and doesn’t ask them to sleep on shop stairs, with minimal food and training facilities, and then get the nation international sporting success!

As of now cricket seems the only sport where the players do not need to go on foreign “exposure” and “conditioning” trips at considerable expense. Can we reasonably expect a stadium used purely as a training venue to be of any quality, considering the quality of venues in those lands? Only an international event, would guarantee a quality venue. In a way, hosting the Olympics would be like holding a gun to the administrators’ heads: Put up proper infrastructure and good facilities under pain of having our country shamed in front of the world. This is the only way to get the powers-that-be to deliver.

Having said that, the Beijing ’08 Olympics provides a few simple examples on cost minimisation. There were four university stadia that hosted the Olympic events in eight disciplines. Yes that’s right. University venues hosted the Judo, Taekwondo, Wrestling, Table Tennis, Badminton and Volleyball. True, the Thyagaraj Netball Stadium was the only CWG’10 venue that was completed to truly world-class levels, carbon positive, and done sufficiently early, but did we really need to incur expenses for a stadium built from scratch, when there surely was a half-decent basketball venue in Delhi that could have been shored up for its sister sport of netball? Yes, Rugby Sevens was of course held at Delhi University, but the same could have been done to many other sports like Badminton, Volleyball and the like, which are played extensively at college level anyway. They could have just revamped college venues to required specifications, as with Beijing ’08, at considerably lesser cost than it takes to ready new venues. And if a University venue can be brought up to Olympic standards, just imagine the benefits it will have, to participants of grade-level events, who can avail of the best of facilities!

In the name of “beautification” a lot of money is spent on giving the host city a “presentable” face to our foreign guests. Traffic regulations, general cleanliness, public transport and security are looked at and revised suitably in order to have a hassle-free event. Why would anyone want to grudge the expenses for beautification of a city and to improve facilities for its residents, irrespective of whether it is done in view of the Games of not? And what is so wrong with imagining say, the Olympic regatta rowing events on the now-refurbished Sabarmati waterfront, an area infamous for its filth and unbearable stench not so long ago? One only needs to look at the small example of what was done to Beijing’s taxi drivers in the run up to 2008. They were given a massive image makeover, with English and etiquette lessons, with a view to dispelling the image of the rude boorish taxi driver who often left foreign tourists in the lurch! Also, the initial chaos caused by the traffic diversions for the CWG in 2010 were quickly solved when citizens resorted to simple, follow-the-rules disciplined lane-driving, something Delhiites are not habituated to, giving the lie to the argument that the event only caused chaos! Plus, if Delhi can have stable traffic with one lane reserved for CWG, there surely could be a way this could be made permanent, and reserved for ambulance/police/emergency services!

With sound financial planning, both concerns, poverty and sporting infrastructure, can be addressed. Indeed, to host the previous CWG in 2006, it took Australia just one-third of the money it took India to host the 2010 event. Had the CWG’10 organisers limited the expenditure to these levels (a marginally higher cost for each subsequent host is inevitable), this difference, (roughly ₹7200 crores) could have been used admirably in the fight against poverty. This again drives home the point that a well-managed event does not divert substantial amounts of money from the fight against poverty. One other area where we could go one better on the CWG is the unseemly turf wars. It took FIVE years just for the CWG organising committee to be finalised, with the SAI, the Sports Ministry and the Indian Olympic Committee all wanting a share of the pie! Britain solved this beautifully when they hosted the Olympics in 2012. They had an Olympics Minister, in whom all government decisions towards the games vested, and a respected Olympian in Lord Sebastian Coe, now an MP, as the Organising Committee chief! This neat division of turf ensured decisions were taken fast.

And if we want to wallow in saying that the CWG’10 was an avenue for corruption so let’s not have another event, let’s also stop expending energy on removing poverty, fighting corruption and black money, because earlier attempts in this direction were also failures and avenues for loot! The Games must come to India, independent of earlier fiascos. Bring it to India, find the money for it, and do it well!

Ultimately, the necessity for this nation to host a grand sporting spectacle cannot be decided, without considering the views of the biggest stakeholders in Indian sport – the sportspersons themselves. It is no secret that Indian sportspersons of various disciplines had, in the run up to the Commonwealth Games made a fervent pitch for more such events to be held in India, as they relished the prospect of competing in front of their home fans, in addition to having world class stadia available to them for training. If practitioners of various other professions can request for, and obtain monetary support to carry on their work, why must sportspersons be denied the right to government support in order to perform in their home country in front of home supporters? In the interest of getting the public to witness and take to top-level sport in India and to allow our beleaguered sportsmen a chance in the limelight, top-level events must come to our country.

However, more than anything else, the biggest focus should be on the legacy of the venues. They should not be allowed to languish like white elephants, or be reduced to hosting rock-shows or political meetings. The best thing that can be done with the stadia constructed is to use it regularly for the district school/college level tournament in the respective discipline. The awe with which the participants will remember the experience of playing in such good venues, will no doubt stand them in good stead for tougher international battles.

All in all the case for using public money on a corruption-free, fiscally prudent and world-class sporting event has never been this strong. It is only hoped that good sense prevails and the men and women who matter put the interests of our sportspeople above everything else.

Let’s hope we can Make a succesful Olympics in India!!

Why the Net Run Rate (NRR) is a flawed tie-breaker

Saturday, February 28, 2015 saw arguably the best World Cup classic in recent memory. The two co-favourites and co-hosts, Australia and New Zealand met in a Group A clash that New Zealand, on the face of it pwned. Cleaning up a 50-over chase of 151 at 6.56 RPO with 161 balls unused, is a stroll in the park you’d think? Not if you watched that game! New Zealand was one well-directed-yorker-to-the-number-11 away from the most dramatic defeat in the history of dramatic defeats! At 22.4 overs, chasing 151, New Zealand were 146 for 9, before Trent Boult survived two balls to hand it over to Williamson, whose straight six then saved NZ the blushes. Okay, so that’s one close call, after three hammerings handed out to the opposition, you’d think?

Not if you go by the Net Run Rate system in use for this tournament, (and of course, for ages, now!). New Zealand’s NRR before that game was 3.586, and after the narrow one-wicket scamper, increased, marginally to 3.589! In simple layman terms, the NRR increase implies that New Zealand’s commanding one-wicket shellacking of Australia was a victory that matches, or was marginally better than the ones handed out to Sri Lanka, or England. How does that sound?! Not what you’d want as a tie-breaker, would you, in a league where teams might very well end up on equal points and NRR decisions for quarterfinal placings! (and by extension a tie breaker for a tied or abandoned quarter-final or semi-final!)

The main flaw is in its simplistic ignorance of the same parameter that dogged revised targets in initial days – wickets in hand, as a more complete measure of the closeness of a contest. Conceived in the initial days of ODI cricket, like the run rate rule, the NRR simply deducted the average bowling run-rate from the average batting run rate. And for teams bowled out, the full allocation of overs is used in the calculation. For example, if Starc HAD managed to get one of those two balls bang on target, their NRR would have gone down from 3.58 to 2.20, as New Zealand would have been deemed to have scored 146 in 50 overs as they were bowled out. New Zealand would still be where they are (3.589) if they had quietly sleepwalked to a 10-wicket win in the same 23.1 overs, instead of losing 9 wickets and running it so close. This is because the only thing that counts towards NRR in a successful chase is the number of balls remaining at completion, and not the wickets.

Another problem is that revised-overs games see abnormal rates of scoring that, while appropriate for that particular contest and its playing conditions, distorts the NRR significantly, and may sometimes pose unfair advantages or disadvantages to other teams in the league. 120 playing 120 in a 20-over a side reduced game, 180 playing 180 in a 20 over game, and 300 playing 300 in a 50 over game all contribute differently to the NRR though by themselves they may be equally close contests. Surely that is a needless extraneous constraint on other teams.

That, by the way also exposes a flaw in the bonus points system! Chasing a target within 40 overs gets a bonus point, in many competitions currently in vogue (most notably the Aussie tri-series). While there were calls for this to be introduced at the World Cup, one can only imagine the indignation that would have ensued from New Zealand getting a “bonus point” for the “comprehensive” victory over Australia, having got there 17 overs ahead of the bonus point cut-off, when in reality they were inches away from defeat!

The answer lies, in factoring in the wickets too into the equation as a measure of closeness. The ready solution for this, is in using the Duckworth-Lewis resource percentages for successful chases. When the Duckworth-Lewis system is demonstrably worthy enough to judge the performance of teams in interrupted games, why not extend it as a measure of a team’s victory margin, in effect quantifying their performance in uninterrupted games too? The Duckworth-Lewis resource percentages can be used to determine how big the disparity is. For this, there could be 100 points put up for grabs, and this is proportionately allocated based on the decisiveness of the victory. This is demonstrated in the following cases:

1. 1st innings score successfully defended in uninterrupted game:

Team 1: 275/5 in 50 overs, Team 2: 225 all out.

The simplest case: Just allocate 100 points proportionately according to the team scores: Team 1 receives 55 and Team 2 receives 45 points

2. Team 1’s score successfully defended after D/L target revision:

Team 1: 300 in 50 overs, mid innings break sees match reduced to 20 overs. Team 2 chasing 163 end up at 110 for 8 in 20 overs

Here, the score for Team 1 is taken as in the D/L system to be the final Innings Target to tie after all interruptions and revisions, and this is used to calculate the points. Team 1 would get (162/272 =) 59.55 points and Team 2, 40.44, commensurate to their scores. Interruptions in Team 1’s innings are immaterial, as only the finally revised Innings Target for Team 2 using D/L, and Team 2’s final score are used.

3. Successful chase in uninterrupted game:

Team 1: 270 in 50 overs, Team 2: 271/6 in 45 overs

By the D/L system, the par score at the point of victory was 230, whereupon Team 2 reached 271. As with every incomplete second innings, Team 1’s score is taken to be 230 (45.908 points) and Team 2’s, 271 (54.09 points).

By this scale, New Zealand in that game mentioned above reached the victory target of 152 in 23.1 overs losing 9 wickets, i.e. at a point where the D/L par score was 146. Australia would receive points proportionate to this score of 146 (= 48.993) and New Zealand, for their 152 (=51.006), far more reflective of how close the contest was

4. Successful chase of reset target.

Team 1: 300 in 50 overs, Team 2: 163 for 4 in 18 overs (Target to win: 163 in 20 overs after mid innings stoppage)

The Par Score they needed to be (= the D/L score to tie) at the point of Team 2’s victory is taken to be Team 1’s score (140), against Team 2’s successful chase of 163. Team 1 gets 46.2 points and Team 2, 53.8 points.

5. D/L decision after premature termination

Team 1: 300 in 50 overs, Team 220 for 6 in 43 overs

As always, the D/L par score at the point of termination is taken to be Team 1’s score (249). Team 2’s score is then compared to it, and points are thus awarded. Points are split corresponding to Team 1’s par score of 249 (53.1) and Team 2’s final score of 220 (46.9 points).

The same procedure is applied, if Team 2 happens to be ahead of the D/L Par at a premature termination, say they were at 265 for 6 in that last example instead of 220. They would get 51.55 points against 48.45 for Team 1. This is also independent of earlier stoppages, as only the terminal position of the game is needed to be known in the case of a premature termination.

6. Tied or abandoned games

Tied matches or abandoned matches do not carry a definite result, and therefore 100 points can be split 50-50. The scores in the Super Over, wherever used as a tie-breaker for tied games, are not official and are used for the sole purpose of a binary decision on a winner.

Thus a fair system that uses the aggregate of relative performance of a team in each game can be used. The advantage is that, it considers equal weightage for each game (the relative superiority of the winner is taken in each game, irrespective of the length of the game). This ensures that teams are not unfairly impacted by the length of the match. And if organisers want to introduce bonus points, they could do that for victories by more than 20 points (i.e an extra point for chalking up 60 or more points while winning) This is demonstrably a far fairer method than the NRR in use, and the sooner the ICC gets this going in limited over matches, the better, before some calamitous NRR calculation seats itself alongside the Sydney World Cup semi-final of 1992!

What Next, For The Associate Nations?

Imagine you’re a cricketer from an Associate or Affiliate (one level below Associates) cricket nation. You firstly take to cricket in a land where people think it has something to do with insects, or the kind of land where you have other pressing concerns like bringing food to the dinner table. You wend your way through eight divisions of the ICC World Cricket League, playing in locations as varied as Fiji to Uganda to Nepal, to the ICC Trophy, the quadrennial qualifying tournament for the quadrennial World Cup, to take your rightful place alongside the big brothers at cricket’s showpiece event. You have nowhere near the resources they command. Yet you pull enough and more punches of your own, holding your own, and in fact toppling a few apple carts along the way. That’s a month and a half of cricket in the big league, staying in plush five-star hotels, playing cricket in front of 60,000 screaming fans, having your pictures beamed around the world in high-definition.

And then, zap! It’s all over. The carnival is done. Now go back to playing second and third division teams in Kampala, Kathmandu and the like, watched by (if you’re lucky) a few hundred schoolkids taken out for a weekend picnic. Why would you feel motivated to continue? For the few crumbs from the pot of gold that the ICC will throw at you, at the end of four years? That way, a Kenyan or Ugandan would rather take to marathon running than cricket. A young Dutch kid, would rather take to football or field hockey. Nothing exemplifies this more than Kenya in 2003. They got one free ticket against New Zealand, but managed to beat Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, all Test sides, and to an extent, justified their presence in the semi-final, having given a Super Six scare to their eventual conquerors, India. And then what became of their lot? 30 one-day internationals in four years with India (1 game), Pakistan (2) and Sri Lanka (1) being the best ranked opposition that they faced in this period. They had to be content with 6 games against Bangladesh, and 20 games against fellow Associates, across four years! Hardly the best preparation for a World Cup, in one of the most lop-sided sports! Is it any wonder then, that Kenyan cricket fell away and we do not see them at this year’s World Cup? Would a Kenyan marathoner prepare for the Olympics and hope to do well, with absolutely no quality competition in the intervening four years? Why then, are we seeing that in cricket alone?

The answer, for the ICC is to provide a roadmap and opportunity for top flight cricket, for the Associates. They’re well on their way to that. The ICC had in 2014 expressed a desire to give more countries the opportunity to play Test cricket, by having the winner of the ICC Intercontinental Cup (therefore the best Associate First-Class team) play the bottom ranked Test side home and away, for a four-year right to play Tests. If things stand the way they are, we could see England take on Ireland (by far the red-hot side at the Intercontinental Cup) in a Lord’s Test Match as early as 2018!! Surely, the incentive to be the best First-Class Associate, and try and topple a Test side, could be the prize that could spur the Associates to do better! And that, would also mean that the race for the bantamweight title between 8-9-10 could hot up, as who would want to have their Test status on the line? The bottom side will have to buck up, and if they don’t, it is only fair, that as a natural consequence the best Associate shall come snapping at their heels. This promises to make things a little more competitive as there are huge incentives on the line.

One other way could be to have Associate countries neighbouring Test sides play tour games against every visiting team. Teams touring England could play one of their side games against an Ireland or a Netherlands (again, the right to which, could be determined by the Intercontinental Championship placings). Every “proper” Test side (omitting of course, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe) could tag an Associate side. Pakistan could tag a UAE along (they play there anyway!!), South Africa could tag a Kenya or a Namibia. This is not without precedent. There was this practice a few years ago where Australian teams travelling to England would halt at Colombo, probably for the ship to refuel, and play Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in a side game. Sri Lanka in their formative years also gained a lot from the much-loved Gopalan Trophy (SL v Tamil Nadu), that featured many Ranji and Test stalwarts. Ireland and Scotland do play side games when teams tour England and have even run them close on occasion. However those games are few and far in between and the ICC could do well to institutionalise this for every team’s home series.

However, the biggest benefit to an Associate side would be, in taking part in the national competition of the Test side thus tagged. This too has been experimented with, sporadically. Ireland and the Netherlands have on occasion played England’s 20 and 40 over competitions. Namibia takes part in South Africa’s provincial three day competition, as also in Zimbabwe’s Twenty20 tournament. Even the normally averse to experimentation BCCI has tried this in the zonal Duleep Trophy, albeit with youth sides from teams like England and Bangladesh. What could be better for an Associate team than to take part in the English county championship, with potentially 18 games against the most eclectic mix of top-flight international cricketers thrown in? The experience should surely stand them in good stead.

Oh, and on the subject of Associates, how do we not talk about the ICC’s hare brained idea to reduce the World Cup to a ten team event? The idea is flawed from the start. Firstly, if a side is deemed fit for Test status which is regarded as a far bigger prize than a World Cup entry, (say Bangladesh or Zimbabwe), how does the ICC reconcile them being potentially deemed unfit to contest for cricket’s greatest prize ever? It goes without saying that Full Member sides do deserve automatic qualification, with ample opportunity for Associates to show what they’re worth! Four teams do seem like a lot, especially when we have the bottom two Test sides almost playing at par with them. And that, precisely is why two Associates beyond ten test sides at a World Cup seem optimal. Simply put, if the best two Associates aren’t good enough to make you sit up, the next two certainly can’t do any better!

Here’s hoping that the ICC will do what it takes to give the Associates their proper place in the sun, and allow the game to grow to newer, and potentially lucrative markets! After all, it is the frenzied celebrations that greeted Bangladesh’s ICC Trophy victory in 1997 (and consequent entry to World Cup 1999) that convinced the ICC to look at them seriously. Who knows, we may have many more such markets emerging, and newer fan bases!

What are some of the most mind-blowing facts about China?

Answer by A Quora admin:

This is a legend about the Jiayuguan Pass, which tells of a workman named Yi Kaizhan who lived during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and who was a very proficient mathematician. He calculated that it would take exactly 99,999 bricks to build the pass. The supervisor did not believe him and said that if he had miscalculated by so much as just one brick, then all the workmen would be condemned to hard labor for three years as a punishment. After the completion of the project, one brick was left behind the Xiwong city gate. The supervisor was happy at the sight of the brick and prepared to carry out his threat of punishment. However Yi Kaizhan said with an authoritative air that the brick had been put there by a supernatural being to stabilize the wall and that even a tiny move would cause the whole structure to collapse. Therefore the brick remained in place and was never moved. It can still be found there today on the tower of the pass.

What are some of the most mind-blowing facts about China?

The Subsidy Myth…

This piece of mine on the economy tried to show how horribly messedm the situation is. However, there is another front where the picture is equally depressing. You have been fed all along that the “underrecoveries” and subsidies are the reason the Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) in India are doing so badly, but is this REALLY the case? This story, is more like Sidhu’s miniskirts: What is not revealed, is more important that what is! Part 1: The Petrol Pilferage Here is the breakup of the Petrol Price in Delhi as provided by IndianOil.

International Price of Gasoline (Cost & Freight)	$/barrel	115.25
This in effect, is (@ exchange rate of ₹/$=61.88)	₹/l	44.86
The OMCs buy from the refineries at	₹/l	45.71
And sell it to dealers at	₹/l	48.12

It all seems reasonable until now, but this is where the fun part is.

The dealer takes as commission:	₹/l	2
Specific Excise Duty	₹/l	9.48
VAT @ 20%	₹/l	11.92
So You finally pay	₹/l	71.52

Simply put, out of the ₹71.52 you pay, ₹21.40 go as taxes to the government (that’s 30% of the final price), and the OMCs make a profit of ₹2.41. So where is the subsidy or loss? And mind you, it would get worse, if the exchange rate tanked further. The import price would increase, as would the VAT the government charges. So in effect, revenue-wise the government stands to benefit from the tanking rupee, as YOU will subsidise the increase in costs because of it. Part 2: The Diesel Deception Diesel, they’ll tell you is still “regulated”. But the level of deception/overcharging is just as bad:

International Price (Cost & Freight)	$/bbl	128.89
At an Exchange rate of ₹61.88 to the dollar, this is:	₹/l	49.56
Price Paid by the OMCs to Refineries (after import/customs etc)	₹/$	50.82
The OMC’s Total Costs (including marketing costs etc)	₹/l	53.28

Now here, the government brings in a twist. The OMC should ideally break even, if it sells at ₹53.28/l But it tells them a poor country like India, cannot afford such a high price, and imposes an “underrecovery” of ₹10.48, telling them they will reimburse the same. And how do they manage to get the money for that? Here goes:

Under-recovery on the total costs (in other words, a subsidy)	₹/l	-10.48
The dealer pays the OMC:	₹/l	42.80
His Commission	₹/l	1.19
Excise Duty	₹/l	3.56
VAT	₹/l	6.23
What you pay	₹/l	53.78

The taxes charged almost exactly make up for the underrecovery. In other words, it’s like telling the OMCs, never mind, we shall refund the underrecovery, that’s because we’re taxing the poor aam aadmi almost as much (and until a couple of months back, the taxes exceeded the underrecoveries by ₹3/l so it was in effect, a negative subsidy)! And now that they’re going to deregulate diesel, the government gets to keep all of the Excise and VAT duties it collects as above, because there will be no “underrecoveries” to refund the OMCs. So expect a ₹11 increase in diesel prices over the next year! That is the real story behind oil prices you never get to hear.

If They Ran Your Household Budget…

A lot has been said and written about the Indian economy and how it is in a tailspin. But how many of us really understand the gobbledygook of the suited-booted types on national TV? You may or may not understand a word of what the pundits say, but have you ever wondered what it would be like, if this government ran your household?

This shall help you decide if you’d leave your household in their hands, let alone the country:

Gross Domestic Product	₹ 15,89,604 crores
National Budget	₹ 16,70,674 crores
National debt	₹ 10,47,460 crores
New debt	₹ 81,070 crores
Estimated cost of Food Security Bill	₹ 1,76,446 crores
Revenue foregone in the last year	₹ 68,000 crores

Now let’s take out the crore, halve it and pretend it’s a typical lower middle class annual family budget, (Yes, yes how many even earn this many in India?). This is how it stacks up now.

Annual family income	₹ 7,94,802
Money the family spent	₹ 8,35,337
Outstanding debt	₹ 5,23,730
New debt added in the last one year	₹ 40,535
Money to be spent on finally feeding a child who’s been starving for so long	₹ 88,223
Income declined by family out of misplaced goodwill	₹ 34,000

So, in their hands, a family that lives on ₹8 lakhs per year would be neck-deep in debt, over ₹5 lakhs. They would add ₹40,000 to that figure every year, and spend twice that, just to feed the starving child, when they clearly are in no position to do that.

This is how a household budget would look like if our netas ran it! Next time you hear the “fundamentals are strong” dialogue, you know this is what it is. You begin to wonder if there is a method to the madness! No household would ever tolerate or sustain such a budget but the mega-family called the Union of India seems to be doing just that!

SOP – Statement of Purpose (Standard Operating Procedure)

It usually begins with a quote randomly taken from Google. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know who the hell the author was, but preferably someone exotically phoren! While the evaluator has already formed an impression about you in their mind, your ability to sound intellectual by Googling little-known utterances of Ralph Waldo Emerson would have surely made up for that  low college GPA, or just-above-sea-level GRE score. Then somehow this quote you lifted five minutes earlier, becomes your “life’s motto”, which you’ve always lived, slept and breathed every moment since you first bawled as a baby.

The tale then moves on to how you were inspired by the “world around me as a child”, with an insatiable curiosity that could have killed the entire cat population of the world. While it is normal for classmates in your 9^th or 10^th grade to be discussing updates on India’s cricket scores, or what happened in John Cena v Undertaker on WWE last night, you instead would be engaged in profound discussions with your teacher, on life and the universe around us, that “helped shape my perspectives”. (Hell, if Lord Buddha had a teacher like that, he’d have reached Enlightenment faster!). Almost everyone of you, also wants to “make a difference” to the world around them, by which time the evaluator is wondering if you’ve at least made any difference with the previous applicant’s essay!

Then comes the charade of four years of learning in a “highly stimulating and motivated setup”. The term projects handed down from buttered-up seniors/taken from Google are proof of your “demonstrable ability to inculcate intricate technical concepts into everyday life”. Those participation certificates you received for being the odd-hand at a college play, and the first prize in the paper presentation competition at God-Only-Knows Institute of Technology, are also “testimony to your well-rounded personality”. Those time-pass electives you chose just to help your grades, are also “in line with your interests”, and serve as demonstration of intent.

That final year project which you started one week before the deadline is “a culmination of months of planning and execution of a highly complex amalgamation of the latest concepts in the field.” (Just to set the record straight, everyone else did do their projects on out-dated concepts!). This is followed up by gobbledygook about what the project was, throwing in every last Greek/Latin word known to you. If not adding anything worthwhile, this at least helps to keep up to the required word count! By this time, the evaluator starts to wonder, why, if every single Indian is really as scientifically gifted as they claim to be, they need to come to his country, or there are no home-grown Nobel Laureates.

And that, is when you start to feel every single inadequacy in personality. One suddenly finds the need for a “broader outlook”, “reworking of perspectives”, and a need for “filling of gaps in technical knowledge”. By default, the country of the university applied to, is always a beacon of scientific advancement and material prosperity, an akshayapatra where milk and honey flow freely, and a land of opportunity, which is the panacea for all the ills plaguing the world. Likewise, the university is always a hub of “research oriented learning that provides cutting edge facilities in a cosmopolitan setup”. (Well, you can’t really admit on paper that you’re applying because of peer pressure from your mom’s aunt’s cousin’s maid’s son who got through there, can you?!). Again, the course you’re applying to is always the “buzzword in tech circles”, the “path to future innovations that will reshape our world” and so on. Then at the end if it all, when you’ve run out of butter, you can wind down with how that university will have a “symbiotic” relationship with you, serving to benefit both, because of your “aptitude for learning” and their “state of the art facilities”.

It’s not for nothing that the whole thing is acronymed “SOP”. While the university intended it as a “Statement of Purpose”, this has been developed into a “Standard Operating Procedure”! While this is more an account of SOPs for MS applications, derived from experiences of being asked to edit them, it’s quite clear the SOP for MBAs or pretty much anything else uses the same basic skeleton. It really is a wonder, how the University is able to differentiate between the numerous applications, all of which revolve around pretty much the same stories. Both sides probably know it is a waste of time, and see through it, but yet have to go through each year, for reasons best known to them! Wonder why the CAG in those countries hasn’t launched an audit of the man-hours wasted in evaluating these “Standard Observations of Purpose”!