IPL - FUTURE SHOCK

The Indian Premier League cricket extravaganza heralds a paradigm shift. This shift is not in the world of Indian sport but in the coming together of Bollywood and big Business to present their latest blockbuster.

Like all great entertainers the movie has a wonderful star cast that includes iconic but fading stars like Sachin, Sourav, Anil, Rahul and Laxman (none of whom but the first named are part of the present national T-20 squad) aka Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra and Vinod Khanna. The huge cast also boasts of modern day heroes in Dhoni, Yuvraj, Harbhajan and many young aspiring actors like Rohit, Robin, Ishant…et al.

In all likelihood, the main event will be supplemented by peripheral events including promos and dances by Shah Rukh Khan and his ensemble with designer clothing crafted by Preity Zinta with her Bombay Dyeing beau Ness Wadia.

BCCI is both the producer and the director with big Business being represented by some of India’s top corporations and iconic entrepreneurs, who have their hands around the purse stings.

There can be no doubts whatsoever that the event promises to be a huge success with substantial media spend and global coverage, not to speak of cricketing interaction between players of diverse races, cultures and habits. So, you will have a Brett Lee bowling in tandem with Sreesanth and Andrew Symmonds rubbing shoulders with that very very special of cricketers called Laxman.

So, what, if any, are the spin-offs for Indian sport? Not too much, if available indications are studied.

Over the forthcoming years, the format will doubtless be tweaked to suit an audience greedy for fastfood entertainers. It is not unlikely that the T-20 might recede into a T-15 or even a T10 so that office-goers can quickly step out after lunch and witness a wham-bang game of cricket!

So what if the quality of the traditional game of cricket will clearly suffer thereafter? Who cares about quality in our country anyway? Where fly-by-night operators chase gullible purchasers, who feel hurt at being cheated, but never turn back and seek damages, why would anyone think of tomorrow? We as a nation are confident that tomorrow will take care of itself!

Another unfortunate result of IPL would be that as huge corporate media budgets get diverted to this slam-bang entertainment model, lesser sports would be left scrambling around to pick the sponsorship crumbs.

And consider the plight of our children...parents and schools, with an eye on the huge money in the game, will encourage their wards to take to cricket at the exclusion of other sports, maybe even studies - now that Dhoni has proved to the world that graduation at 26 years is nothing to be ashamed about. What's that old saying about piped dreams?

The IPL T-20 will shortly resemble the WWE format of wrestling - a feature that combines action, comedy, emotions and everything else that a typical Hollywood (or Bollywood) potboiler should contain. It is entertainment at the cost of performance, having a great beginning, a structured middle and possibly, in times to come, an ending where the “good guys” will win without fail and without prejudice!

The discerning sports aficionado will, therefore, view the launch of the IPL with the same interest that a dietician studies the launch of a new brand of junk food. Short term satisfaction set-off against definite long term damage to health.

The IPL was born out off a knee-jerk reaction to the formation of the ICL, a brain child of Subhash Chandra’s Zee Group of companies. Leveraging their global network and connections, BCCI were able to project the IPL as a much larger entity but at the same time it appears that they may have got carried away by the hype and moolah that the event has generated. Of course, fears of monopolism expressed by ex-cricketers like Steve Waugh only made us more committed to the cause in a jingoistic manner.

ICL, on the other hand, was set up by more laudable objectives. The primary one being to provide a platform and generate income for talented but lesser known players in India seeded with some overseas talent. To that extent it is a success. It also falls within the purview of what can be traditionally defined as sport.

The tragedy for Indian sport will be when the IPL eclipses the ICL and in the current scenario there is little doubt that this situation could happen.

And that, in all likelihood, is the only spin-off available to Indian sport from the IPL.

Underwriting Of Shares

What Is Underwriting Of Shares, Issuing Letter Of Credit (L/C), Locker Services And Receiving Deposits?

Underwriting of Shares: Underwriting refers to purchasing the whole issue of shares or bonds from the principal company and reselling it to the public. By this underwriting the bank receives commission from the issuing company, which becomes free from this painstaking job of selling shares to the public.

The bank also takes the responsibility to sell the new issues with out underwriting them.
Issuing letter of Credit (L/C): Letter of credit is an open letter from a bank requesting the seller to send the goods to the buyer and promises to pay the sum by itself. A L/C is a reliable guarantee for the exporter or seller from the bank. This instrument is used in foreign trade and once it is issued the importer can receive the goods. Banks also issue traveler cheques being a kind of L/C to the tourists and travelers.Locker Services: - Banks offer lockers for the safe custody of jewelry, currency, documents and other precious items. 

Receiving deposits: this is a function of formation of capital. Receiving deposits from the account holders forms capital. Small savers, traders, manufacturers and others deposit their money with the bank under the head of savings, current or fixed deposits accounts and earn interest income.