The Asian Age – Sri Lanka rejects calls for withdrawal of troops from north

Colombo, 19 May 2012. Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Saturday rejected international calls to withdraw troops from the country’s former warzones, warning that LTTE diaspora had not given up separatism.

“Some are shouting remove military camps from the north and east,” Rajapaksa said at a ceremony to mark the third anniversary of crushing of the Tamil Tigers, claiming “the LTTE diaspora had not given up their separatist ideas.”

“We cannot jeopardise national security by removing camps,” the Lankan President declared in sharp comments, hours after US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton said that Colombo should demilitarise the Tamil dominated embattled north and do more to protect human rights.

Sri Lanka’s foreign minister G. M. Peiris had a 45-minute meeting with Clinton in Washington after which he told reporters that Colombo will carry out its own investigation into the rights abuses during the final phase of the island’s civil war.

The UN, the US as well as India has stressed upon the Lankan administration to demilitarise the former conflict areas and to carry out a national reconciliation.

A recommendation to de-escalate military presence in the north and east also figures in Rajapaksa’s own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) report.

Rajapaksa rejected conjectures that his forces were involved in the civil administration in the Tamil-dominated north.

“What the Eelamist terrorists could not do through decades of war, they are now trying to achieve through other means,” Rajapaksa said.

But in an olive branch to the west, the Sri Lankan President asked them to see the progress of the country since the end of the three decades old armed conflict in ‘positive light’.

“We are a nation who sit equally with other members of the United Nations. We treat them equally. We have the strength to solve our own problems,” Rajapaksa said.

The Sri Lankan leader said the international governments must appreciate the services of his government towards its communities since the war ended.

“We will not abdicate our responsibilities. We have already implemented (recommendations) what we can agree with (in the LLRC).”

He said his government would not waste the opportunity to make use of the peace prevailing in the island after 30 years of bloody clashes.

The country marked the ‘victory day’ with a grand military display by Air force jets, steam passed by naval craft and a parade by the army. With over 12000 security forces personnel on display, this was the biggest military show since the end of the civil war in which 32 Sri Lankan fighter jets were on display and 72 warships steamed past.

The President presented 15 ‘parama veera vibhushana’, the nations highest gallantary awards to the next of the kin of soldiers who made the supreme sacrifice in the battle against the LTTE. (PTI)

http://www.asianage.com/international/sri-lanka-rejects-calls-withdrawal-troops-north-126

BBC News – Sri Lanka minister Mervyn Silva threatens journalists

By Charles Haviland

Colombo, 23 March 2012. A Sri Lankan cabinet minister has threatened violence against journalists and human rights activists who he says have been opposing the government.

Mervyn Silva also admitted forcing a journalist to flee two years ago.

The remarks come one day after the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution critical of the country’s rights record.

A police spokesman told the BBC that officers would now investigate Mr Silva’s remarks.

‘Break the limbs’  

Mr Silva’s comments also come amid an official campaign to denounce people described as traitors. Many of these include journalists and human rights activists.

Despite being involved in many controversial incidents over the years, Mervyn Silva is public relations minister.

In Friday’s remarks, which were filmed, the ardent Sinhalese nationalist warned that he would “break the limbs” of some named journalists and human rights workers whom he called “traitors”.

He also mentioned another journalist, Poddala Jayantha, who fled the country in late 2009 after being severely beaten up.

“I’m the one who chased Poddala Jayantha out of this country. I am telling you about this incident today. He went because of me,” Mervyn Silva said.

Police spokesman, Ajith Rohana, told the BBC that Mr Silva’s remarks – both his confession and his threats, as he put it – would now be investigated.

Although Sri Lanka’s media minister said on Thursday that he had instructed state television to stop a series of broadcasts denouncing alleged traitors, transmissions continued on Friday.

The incidents came as the United Nations human rights chief, Navi Pillay, alleged that members of the Sri Lankan government delegation at the Human Rights Council session in Geneva had been intimidating human rights activists visiting from Colombo.

But threats have always come from both sides in the Sri Lankan conflict, and Ms Pillay’s office also said the Sri Lankan ambassador in Geneva had received an anonymous threatening letter, which police are looking into.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17491832

BBC News – India ‘inclined’ to back UN Sri Lanka war crimes vote

Monday, 19 March 2012. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said India is “inclined” to vote in favour of a resolution against Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council.

The council is due to vote later this week on a US motion calling for a probe into alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka as its civil war ended in 2009.

Both government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels have been accused of abuses.

Mr Singh has come under pressure from India’s Tamil community to support the resolution.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party, representing Tamils in southern India, had threatened to pull out of the coalition led by Mr Singh’s Congress party if India did not vote in favour.

Violations ‘credible’  

Speaking in parliament, Mr Singh said: “We are inclined to vote in favour of the resolution if the resolution will cover our objectives, namely the achievement of a future for the Tamil community in Sri Lanka that is based on equality, dignity, justice and self respect.”

He said India would study the final text of the draft resolution once it had been received.

The Sri Lankan government commissioned its own investigation into the war last year and the UN draft resolution calls on the government to implement its recommendations.

The Sri Lankan Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) cleared the military of allegations that it deliberately attacked civilians. It said that there were some violations by troops, but only at an individual level.

But another report commissioned by the UN secretary general reached a different conclusion, saying that allegations of serious rights violations were “credible” on both sides.

Human rights groups estimate that up to 40,000 civilians were killed in the final months of the war. The government recently released its own estimate, concluding that about 9,000 people perished during that period.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-17427125

Dawn – Saarc interior ministers meet in Thimphu (Bhutan)

23 July 2011

Thimpu: The fourth South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) interior ministers’ conference began in Thimphu on Saturday, DawnNews reported.

The conference was being presided over by Interior Minister Rehman Malik.

Home and interior ministers, secretaries and other relevant officials from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka were attending the conference.

Earlier at the Thimphu airport, Mr Malik was received by the Bhutan’s home minister and governor of the capital.

Talking to reporters, Mr Malik said Saarc was a good forum which was helping the member states to understand each other’s viewpoints.

http://www.dawn.com/2011/07/23/saarc-interior-ministers-meet-in-thimphu.html

BBC News – Channel 4 rejects Sri Lanka ‘war crimes’ film criticism

5 July 2011

The British TV station Channel 4 has strongly rejected claims by Sri Lanka’s government that footage broadcast in a recent documentary is false.

The film in question appears to show troops executing Tamil prisoners, but Sri Lanka’s government now says the killers were rebels in army uniform.

Channel 4 rejected the idea, saying its work had been meticulously checked.

It also stressed the film had made clear that both the army and Tamil Tiger rebels had committed atrocities.

The BBC’s Charles Haviland in Colombo says that the latest claims are part of a broad government campaign to discredit the Channel 4 documentary, entitled Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, which was broadcast last month.

Documentary row

The Sri Lankan army defeated the Tamil Tigers, who had been fighting for a separate homeland, in 2009. An estimated 100,000 people died in the 26-year civil war.

In the documentary Channel 4 showed what it said was previously unseen footage of what purported to be extrajudicial killings of Tamils by the military during the closing phase of the war.

At the time of the broadcast Sri Lanka dismissed the footage as fabricated. Now the government claims to have new evidence about a segment of footage.

In the Channel 4 film, comments were audible in the Sinhala language. The channel said this was evidence that army soldiers were killing rebel Tamil Tiger prisoners. The Sri Lankan military is overwhelmingly ethnic Sinhalese.

But on Monday a pro-government Sri Lankan channel broadcast what it said was the “original” version of the same video. This is just over a minute long and the soundtrack is in Tamil. It claims the killers were Tamil rebels in army uniform.

In an email to the BBC, Channel 4 spokesperson Marion Bentley said all the mobile phone footage used in its documentary had been found to be authentic.

She said it had been independently verified by experts in forensic pathology and video analysis and had twice been subjected to months of tests by audio-visual experts commissioned by the UN.

Ms Bentley said the film’s sources had been rigorously scrutinised and corroborated, and added that Britain’s media regulatory body, Ofcom, had rejected three Sri Lankan government complaints about Channel 4.

The government’s account also contradicts that of a senior UN human rights expert, Christof Heyns. He said last week that two independent experts had concluded that both the video and audio of the Channel 4 footage had not been tampered with. He asserts that the Sinhalese-language version is correct.

Channel 4 also described as “categorically untrue” allegations on the Sri Lankan defence ministry website that the film ignored Tamil Tiger atrocities.

“The film features horrific footage of the aftermath of a Tamil Tiger suicide bombing, and throughout the film it is made clear that atrocities have been carried out by both sides,” Ms Bentley said.

Journalist challenge

Meanwhile, a group of exiled Sri Lankan journalists which has also publicised the controversial mobile phone footage has challenged the government to submit its Tamil-language version for expert authentication.

Sanath Balasuriya of Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) asked how the government could declare its validity when it had previously alleged that the video was acted and faked.

The Sri Lankan authorities and military deny that any of their number committed war crimes or crimes against humanity in the final controversial months of the war in 2009.

However, interviewed by the BBC’s Hard Talk programme on Tuesday, Rajiva Wijesinha, an adviser to President Rajapaksa, admitted that some government shells may have fallen in hospital compounds in the war zone.

But he strenuously denied that civilians in the compounds were deliberately targeted.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-14012650

BBC News – Greece: South Asians flee financial crisis

29 June 2011

Thousands of South Asian migrants have left Greece in recent months to escape the country’s growing economic crisis.

Many of the migrants are now out of work and facing hardship, community leaders told the BBC.

One Bangladeshi grocer in Athens said daily proceeds from his shop had plummeted and he had had to lay off six of his eight employees.

Greece faces massive tax rises and spending cuts aimed at preventing the country from defaulting on its debts.

Without a second bail-out from the European Union, the country could run out of money within weeks. Greece is in the grip of a nationwide strike and violent clashes are continuing in Athens.

‘No jobs’

Jainal Abedin, a businessman and president of the Bangladeshi Association in Athens, said there were 30,000 people of Bangladeshi origin in Greece.

The financial crisis meant jobs were being cut and orders were down, he said.

“Many Bangladeshis are leaving Greece because they don’t have jobs,” Mr Abedin told the BBC Bengali service.

He said his grocer’s shop used to take 6,000-7,000 euros a day, but that had now dropped to 300-400 euros and suppliers were no longer willing to take his cheques.

The Bangladeshi embassy said dozens of the country’s nationals were asking it for help every month in returning home because of the lack of work.

Pakistani community leaders in Athens speaking to the BBC Urdu service had a similar tale.

They say there are around 80,000 Pakistanis living in Greece. Some 17,000 are legally settled while others are either asylum seekers or illegal immigrants.

They estimated that more than 75% of Pakistanis had been directly or indirectly affected by the financial crisis in Greece.

Most had lost their jobs or work, and people running small businesses were now incurring heavy losses.

According to an official figure, 1,500 Pakistanis in Greece have returned to Pakistan since the financial crisis began in 2008.

They did so under an official programme to facilitate the return of illegal immigrants. Many more Pakistanis have gone back on their own.

‘Shops closed’

Indians, too, are leaving, for similar reasons.

Madhur Gandhi, a shipping businessman in Athens and president of the Indian Community in Greece, said the crisis had affected lots of lives.

Out of about 30,000 Indians in Greece, only 18,000 were legal immigrants, he said. The vast majority of the community were agricultural workers employed on various islands – only a couple of hundred lived in Athens.

“Lots of factories and shops were closed and our people lost jobs,” Mr Gandhi told the BBC Hindi service.

“Agriculture workers were also affected but most seriously affected were the construction workers. About 1,000-2,000 Indians have gone back to India.”

The Sri Lankan community numbers 5,000-6,000, Matale Dhammakanda, a Buddhist priest in Athens, said.

Most work as housemaids or in hotels and many had entered the country illegally.

They were facing severe hardship and many were now trying to find ways to migrate to other countries in search of employment, he told the BBC Sinhala service.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13968748

The Hindu – Jayalalithaa urges PM to act against Colombo

J. Venkatesan & P. Sunderarajan

New Delhi, 15 June 2011. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Tuesday accused the Sri Lankan government of seeking to “exterminate” Tamils in the island nation and urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to initiate efforts with other countries for imposing economic sanctions against Colombo until Tamils in that country were resettled and allowed to live with dignity and with equal constitutional rights as the Sinhalese.

“Though Sri Lanka became independent, the Tamils living in that country were struggling for many years against the injustice of being treated as second class citizens. Instead of appreciating the justness of their demand and ensuring that Tamils in Sri Lanka lead a life of dignity with equal rights and self-respect through necessary constitutional amendments, the Sri Lanka government was taking all possible action to exterminate them,” she said in a memorandum submitted to the Prime Minister.

Meeting Dr. Singh for the first time after assuming office, Ms. Jayalalithaa said the Centre should impress upon the Sri Lankan government need to enable the Tamils to participate fully in the governance in the North and the East.

“Political reforms should be urgently introduced with further possible delineation of powers to the Provinces by transferring some of the items from the Concurrent to the Provincial List as per the aspirations of the people, especially the Sri Lankan Tamil community.”

Ms. Jayalalithaa urged the Prime Minister to send a delegation of MLAs from Tamil Nadu to visit the refugee camps in Sri Lanka to see for themselves the conditions there and to get the correct figure. “According to Sri Lankan government, there are only about 10,000 Tamils in the [refugee] camps. But other reports speak of higher numbers,” she said.

Katchatheevu issue

Ms. Jayalalithaa also urged Dr. Singh to make efforts to “retrieve” Katchatheevu and the sea adjacent to it and restore the traditional fishing rights of the fishermen from Tamil Nadu. She stressed that a large number of evidences, including lease deeds proved that Katchatheevu was part of India geographically, culturally and historically. The “ceding” of the island to Sri Lanka without a constitutional amendment approved by both Houses of Parliament was “contrary to law.”

She pointed out that despite there being a precedent of the Supreme Court declaring null and void the ceding of Berubari in Bengal to the then East Pakistan since the procedure was not followed, Mr. Karunanidhi, who was the Chief Minister in 1974 when Katchatheevu was ceded to Sri Lanka, did not approach the Supreme Court. In 2008, she filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court for retrieval of Katchatheevu and it was still pending. The Tamil Nadu government would implead itself in this petition.

Attacks on fishermen

Ms. Jayalalithaa said the alleged attack on Indian fishermen by the Sri Lankan Navy figured to a “great extent” during her talks with the Prime Minister. Dr. Singh told her that India had impressed upon Sri Lanka that attacks on fishermen from Tamil Nadu should stop and they should be allowed to catch fish. She said National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, who met the top Sri Lankan leadership over the weekend, was also present.

For fiscal consolidation, the State urged the Centre to extend a special financial assistance of Rs.1 lakh crore as grant to reduce the debt level, besides financial support for the schemes implemented by the State. It was pointed out that the revenue deficit was increasing over the years owing to increasing commitments on salary, pension and other welfare schemes. As a result, within the last five years, the outstanding debt of the State had almost doubled from Rs. 57,475 crore in 2005-06 to Rs. 1,01,541 crore in 2010-11.

Since the 13th Finance Commission had stipulated norms for achieving zero revenue deficit and a fiscal deficit of less than 3 per cent by the end of the current financial year, such a huge investment was very much required to restore the State on the path of sustainable economic development with inclusive growth.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2104777.ece

BBC News – Is communism dead in India?

Soutik Biswas

14 May 2011

Did the communists in West Bengal expect the drubbing they received on Friday at the hands of the upstart Trinamool Congress?

In the gloomy headquarters of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Calcutta, the usually convivial apparatchik, Biman Basu, glumly tells us that the results were “totally unexpected”. A collective gasp goes up in the room. A slew of opinion polls, exit polls and reportage had all predicted the rout. But, no, the communists and their allies had not expected it.

So what went so horribly wrong leading to such a debacle for a party which had ruled the state for 34 years without a break, and prided itself on reading the pulse of the people like no other party? “The opposition slogan for ushering in parivartan [change] was endorsed by the people. We didn’t understand that,” Mr Basu says. So are the communists out of touch with the people? “We have grassroots connection with people, but people didn’t open their mouths, and we couldn’t assess their stirrings for a change,” he says.

Does that mean India’s communists are losing their touch – with the people, and the fast changing world around them? Have people stopped believing them?

It does appear so. A few months ago, the communists announced two big ticket schemes they promised to implement if were voted to power – cheap rice at two rupees a kilogram for families earning up to 10,000 rupees a month, and free medical insurance for the poor. In many states such welfare schemes, which critics call populist, would have easily fetched votes for the party behind them. No such luck for the communists in Bengal – people simply refused to believe that they could deliver on promises.

Which, many say, is a little tragic in a state where the communists had a few standout achievements after they were swept into power in 1977.

The party carried out far-reaching land reforms, ushered in local democracy through village councils and gave the peasants and working class some dignity. There was a sharp decline in poverty and a perceptible rise in living standards of a very politically conscious people. Nobody can take away the credit from the communists here.

Somewhere down the line in a fast-changing world the communists, many believe, began losing their way. After the first wave of farm reforms had exhausted its potential, they needed fresh ideas as governments cut back on spending, and private capital was touted as the main driver of growth and jobs. Land reform had run its course in Bengal, and farm produce prices were falling. Peasants, with enough food in their bellies, now aspired to better lives.

But a largely gerontocratic and hidebound leadership – already stunned into stasis by the break-up of the Soviet Union – “lost its way coping with the pressures of a globalised market”, says social scientist Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya.

He continues: “With the growing influences of market forces in the national economy and heightened competition between states to attract private capital, the communists found it increasingly difficult to match its anti-corporate, anti-globalisation rhetoric with the practice of competitive federalism.”

So in the past few years, the communist government stumbled and fell flat on its face trying to push through a chemical hub and a car factory by acquiring farming land and antagonising the same peasantry which it had empowered by giving them land.

Then there was the party’s stranglehold on the people. In what many call a Stalinist streak, Bengal became what Dwaipayan Bhattacharya says was a “party-society”. To put it simply, politics in Bengal did not revolve around solidarities based on caste, religion, language or ethnicity. It instead lay in the communist party, which mediated everything you did in your personal and work life, “often transgressing the lines of separation between private and public, civic and political, social and familial”.

I remember visiting villages in Bengal in the 1990s where people who had voted for the opposition had been virtually “excommunicated” and deprived of the many benefits that came with being a party supporter.

The decline of the communists possibly means that the “party-society” is now unravelling, and politics in Bengal is entering a new phase. A regional party like Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress which has defeated the communists is largely a regional party, tapping into Bengali nationalism, and seeking to restore the bruised Bengalis’ pride and identity.

Identity politics is also now making inroads in Bengal with local parties – like the Gorkha parties demanding a separate state in Darjeeling in eastern India – seeking to address local aspirations. “A one-party-meets-all-aspirations” has become a political anachronism in India, and Bengal may be going the same way.

So does the defeat of the communist party in Bengal and Kerala, their showcase states, mean that communism has lapsed into irrelevance in India? Hardly. Functioning in a democracy, the Communist Party has increasingly resembled social democrats with Stalinist tendencies when it came to forging the party together and packing key institutions with its cadres.

And as I wrote in a previous piece, Ms Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress has basically usurped the communist space with similar rhetoric. “I am not against Communism,” she is believed to have said, “but I am against the Communist Party.”

With their reserves of dedicated cadres, the communists may well bounce back. But, as Bengal shows, they can no longer take voters for granted.

And with mainline Indian parties trying to clothe policy in egalitarian ethics to appeal to the poor majority, the communists have very little new to offer. So will this rout force India’s communists to reinvent themselves? Going by history, the prospects of them doing so are slim.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13395074

Dawn – India crowned world champions in Mumbai

2 April 2011

Mumbai: Gautam Gambhir made 97 and skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni smashed an unbeaten 91 off 79 balls as India won the World Cup for the first time since 1983 with a six-wicket victory over Sri Lanka on Saturday.

Sri Lanka, who won the toss and elected to bat in the day-night final, rode on Mahela Jayawardene’s 103 not out off 88 balls to pile up 274-6 in their 50 overs.

India, cheered by a sell-out crowd of 33,000 at the Wankhede stadium, surpassed the challenging target with 10 balls to spare as Dhoni pounded Nuwan Kulasekara for the winning six.

India had slumped to 31-2 by the sixth over when sling-arm fast bowler Lasith Malinga dismissed Virender Sehwag (0) second ball and had star batsman Sachin Tendulkar (18) caught behind in his fourth over.

Gambhir, who was dropped on 30 and escaped a run-out chance on 49, turned the match around by adding 83 for the third wicket with Virat Kohli and 109 for the fourth with Dhoni.

Yuvraj Singh, who was named the man of the tournament, partnered his skipper till the end with 21 not out after Gambhir was bowled by Thisara Perera in the 42nd over when 52 more were still needed.

Dhoni’s men emulated Kapil Dev’s compatriots who won the 1983 World Cup by beating the West Indies in the final at Lord’s in London.

The victory, watched by Indian President Pratibha Patil and Sri Lanka’s head of state Mahinda Rajapakse, was the first occassion a team had won the tournament on home soil.

It was only the third time in 10 World Cup finals that a side batting second had chased down the victory target.

The finale gave Tendulkar, the world’s most successful Test and one-day batsman, his first World Cup title in six appearances since 1992.

The defeat ended Sri Lankan star bowler Muttiah Muralitharan’s dream of being part of a second World Cup-winning team, having won the title under Arjuna Ranatunga in 1996 in Lahore.

Muralitharan, who turns 39 next month, went wicketless in eight overs to end his career with a record 800 Test and 534 one-day wickets.

Confusion reigned at the toss, which had to be performed twice after match referee Jeff Crowe did not hear Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara’s call when Dhoni threw up the coin.

Jayawardene shored up Sri Lanka’s innings before tailenders Nuwan Kulasekara (32 off 30 balls) and Thisara Perera (22 off nine) helped their team smash 63 runs in the last five overs of power-play.

India’s left-arm seamer Zaheer Khan dried up the flow of runs at the start and his two wickets made him the tournament’s leading bowler alongside Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi with 21 wickets each.

Zaheer opened with three successive maidens and then struck with the first ball of his fourth over when Sehwag dived to his right in the slips to remove Upul Tharanga for two.

Fast bowler Shanthakumaran Sreesanth lifted the pressure by conceding 15 runs in his fifth over that included a no-ball and a warning for running in the danger area in his follow-through.

Sreesanth, who was preferred ahead of spinner Ravichandran Ashwin after Ashish Nehra was ruled out with a fractured finger, was thrashed for 52 runs in his eight overs.

Tillakaratne Dilshan, going into the final as the tournament’s leading scorer with 467 runs, made 33 when he was bowled by off-spinner Harbhajan Singh to make Sri Lanka 60-2 in the 17th over.

Jayawardene put on 62 for the third wicket with Sangakkara (48) and 57 for the fourth with Thilan Samaraweera (21).

http://www.dawn.com/2011/04/02/india-crowned-world-champions.html

BBC News – Cricket World Cup: Joe Wilson on the build-up in Mumbai

By Joe Wilson, BBC Sport

1 April 2011. On my flight from Delhi to Mumbai the young man sitting alongside me took out his camera.

He was sitting by the window but the view did not concern him.

The picture he took was of the ticket resting on his lap. He was going to the World Cup final, and perhaps he was still struggling to quite believe it.

In Mumbai many believe the majority of tickets for the final, some 20,000, have ended up on the black market having been distributed via cricket clubs and associations.

The International Cricket Council insists every precaution has been taken to stop this happening but prices of 65,000 rupees (£910) are being quoted, while the average monthly wage for an Indian is around 3,000 rupees (£420).

The market is there because the fascination with cricket is extraordinary.

I was approached the other day by a man with gleaming eyes, fixed on making a point. He thrust a photocopy of a newspaper article in my hand and proclaimed: “Sachin has remained injury free for three years, do you know why?”

I confessed I did not but was soon told: “It is because he has altered the angle of his signature!”

My new friend explained he was a disciple of graphology, a technique of analysing handwriting which handily predicted India’s defeat of Pakistan, amongst other recent results.

It is hard to imagine England employing a handwriting coach, the players are more concerned with their tweeting fingers anyway, but in India somehow anything seems possible.

Cricketers appear on television in every commercial break advising Indians about what to buy – Sachin Tendulkar himself endorses engine oil, batteries and cement.

Indians are encouraged to believe that their cricketers have expertise in every aspect of life, so it is easy to see why this has become so much more than a game.

It is often said that cricket is so important to India because it is something the nation can prove it is ‘the best in the world at.’

That may be true, but it also misses the point – India is a world in itself.

The only other story making the news was the latest census result which revealed India’s population has grown in the past decade to 1.21 billion – 11 of them carry the responsibility of keeping the rest happy.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/12934022.stm