Ethics, Economics, Education

The decision of the courts against a photocopying shop that provided course-material to Delhi University students will have global repercussions

ALI KHAN MAHMUDABAD in outlook India

The right to education is fundamental to the development of any society. Implicit within this right is the right to access knowledge without being constrained by one's socio-economic background. The state, which is the mediator between private interest and public good, has a duty to enforce these rights. A court case in India instituted last year by Taylor and Francis, Cambridge University Press and its Oxford equivalent against Delhi University and Rameshwari Photocopy Services is being heard again and will force the judicial system not only to address technical and legal questions concerning copyright but deeper questions about what constitutes the public good.

The case concerns the photocopying and sale of books printed by these publishing houses, as buying the originals, even the Indian editions, is beyond the means of most students. In fact, has been established through empirical studies by academics like Shamshad Basheer, often only short sections of these books are copied to make course-packs as is done in the US under the 'fair use' laws. A bare reading of the copyright laws in India might lead some to the conclusion that the photocopying is illegal as the photocopying house, an official licensee of Delhi University, is making a profit. At the same time the carefully worded section 52 of the Indian copyright act makes certain provisions, as has been argued by Niraj Kishan Kaul the advocate for the University of Delhi and goes to great lengths to differentiate between ‘reproduction of work’ and ‘issuing copies of work’ and sub-clauses that allow for an exception to be made for students and teachers.

The court granted temporary relief to the petitioners and stopped the photostat shop from making any copies and on the last hearing on the 1st of October listed the matter for the 21st of October.

Interestingly, copyright laws have not always been restrictive. In 1790 a copyright law was passed in America, actually permitting the re-printing of foreign material, as copyright was deemed a privilege and not a right, which led to an entire industry being built around material that otherwise might have been deemed ‘pirated.’ So although today America is a stickler for enforcing copyright laws, its own market was initially built by breaking these very rules.

What is perhaps of as great importance as a discussion of the technical aspects of the law is a conversation about the value of the service being provided by the Rameshwari Photocopying Services and, crucially, what the stance of the university presses says about their approach to knowledge dissemination.

The argument that the authors of academic works suffer is largely redundant as most academic presses give relatively modest remuneration to the writers. Furthermore, many of the people mentioned in the lawsuit, including noted academics such as Amartya Sen amongst others, have actually written an open letter opposing the case. Notably, there are very few countries in the world in which academics are remunerated in a manner which is commensurate with the role they play in today’s world: writing the history of the future of coming generations. Most academics do what they do because of a love of the subject and of course there are those who are able to cash in on their expertise but these form the exception rather than the norm. The argument for a loss of income to the publishing house is also questionable since the closing down of shops such as the Rameshwari Services will not mean that the students will suddenly be able to buy original prints as these will still be too expensive.

In a section entitled ‘what we do’ the Cambridge University Press website states in big bold letters that its purpose is “to further the University’s objective of advancing learning, knowledge and research.’ Beneath this admirably expressed goal, in smaller font, the blurb talks of 'the global market place,’ ‘their 50 global offices’ and ‘the distribution of their products.’ The two parts of the section speak volumes about the press’ approach in fulfilling its objectives and indeed this is symptomatic of a system that encourages institutions or indeed individuals to profess an ethical approach to economics but one which is in actual fact often under girded by a fine print that almost inevitably puts self-interest before anything else. The Oxford University Press website states similar aims and interestingly even acknowledges that "access to research helps push the boundaries of research."

Of course any institution needs to be self-sufficient but at the same time in many countries those institutions that are deemed to be serving a public good are granted tax-free charitable status, as is the case with both the university presses. This of course in effect means that the taxpayer subsidizes them.

The case instituted by these publishing houses then seems to be part of the worrying effort to commercialize education by making it bend to the ‘logic’ of the market. India is already facing the effects of unregulated private educational institutions that are often used to launder money and which essentially offer a degree on payment service. The publishing houses then are acting in a manner which is no different from the way in which certain corporate entities bully smaller organisations out of the market. The difference is that the some of the students who buy photocopied material might well end up publishing material with the university presses because ultimately both are part of the same system. In a recent statement the spokesperson for the Cambridge Press even said that their primary purpose is "not as a commercial organisation."

In a speech in the House of Commons on the 5th of February 1841 Lord Macaulay, while accepting its necessity, dubbed copyright ‘a tax on readers for the purpose of giving a bounty to writers…for one of the most salutary and innocent of human pleasures.’ Later in the speech, he gave the example of Milton’s poetry, the sole copyright of which lay with a bookseller called Tonson who once took a rival to court for publishing a cheap version of Paradise Lost, after its performance at the Garrick theatre. Macaulay then concluded that the effects of this monopoly led to a situation where ‘the reader is pillaged; and the writer’s family is not enriched.’

The decision of the Indian courts will have global repercussions, as has been the case in its rulings against big pharmaceutical companies. The practice of making course-books is found in many other countries such as Nigeria, Peru and Iran, with the latter also suffering as sanctions mean that many journals cannot be accessed, let alone copied. In Syria, just outside the University of Damascus, in the underpass beneath the Mezze autostradde were a number of shops that provided cheap copies to students who otherwise would not have had access to key material.

In a world delineated by bottom lines, fine prints and sub-clauses, in which freedom in essence translates into 'consumerist freedom,' it is easy to speak of ideals and values but much harder to put them into action. As Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel argues, the more we treat everything as a product to be sold or bought, including our education, our bodies and even our emotions, the more we devalue their intrinsic worth and so what is needed is 'bringing ethics, morality and virtue into public discourse.' For students, any society's real assets, the closure of the small yet crucial services provided by shops that produce photocopied coursework would only add one more obstacle in a country that is already riven with economic disparities.

‘We Only Postponed The Day Of Reckoning’

Economist-cum-technocrat Deepak Nayyar is viewed as an influential observer of the economy and a selective critic of liberalisation. He was the chief economic advisor to the government during the tumultuous period between 1989 and 1991, when India negotiated with the International Monetary Fund. In a rare interview, Nayyar—emeritus professor of economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi—took questions from Sunit Arora published in Outlook India:

Sunit Arora: Professor Nayyar, is India facing a balance of payments crisis?

Professor Deepak Nayyar: We are indeed in a crisis. In the past three months, confidence has been strongly undermined. India’s balance of trade deficit (10 per cent of GDP) and current account deficit (4.8 per cent of GDP) are both at levels that are unsustainable in terms of fundamentals. If you compare this with the past in India, or the present in other emerging economies, you would recognize how serious the situation is. It is as clear as daylight that we cannot continue to live beyond our means year after year.

But why has the mood shifted from abject despair to seeming euphoria?

The panic lifted when US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced in mid-September that he was going to defer the progressive withdrawal of quantitative easing. It was not the magic wand of Raghuram Rajan at RBI that stabilized the rupee It was this exogenous event in the US! Essentially, the problem lies in our flawed strategy of using foreign (portfolio) investment inflows to finance the current account deficit. Given this approach, we must be prepared to accept the ebbs and flows of global finance. However, we cannot claim we are victims of global finance. Of course, most emerging economies were hurt by Bernanke's decision. But we chose this path. And our fundamentals are distinctly worse 

What do you think is an appropriate value of the rupee?

The rupee was somewhat over-valued at Rs 55/$ . We have had high inflation for three years, much higher than in the outside world. Hence, this needed to be corrected. But the sinking to Rs 70/$ was too much of a correction. Clearly, there is no assurance the rupee will remain at current levels of Rs 62/$. When the Federal Reserve Board meets next, it is almost certain that they will announce a phased withdrawal of quantitative easing. There could then be a repeat performance of capital outflows from India. It is simply a matter of time. We have only postponed the day of reckoning.

The government continues to insist that we don’t need to go to the IMF.

"It would be prudent and wise to explore seeking an arrangement with the IMF—even if this cannot be in the public domain for obvious political reasons.”

The government cites two reasons for their comfort: the exchange rate has stabilized, and foreign exchange reserves at $275 billion are large enough. The exchange rate could slip again. And the comfort implicit in these reserves is illusory. Simply put, short-term debt and liabilities that can be withdrawn on demand are much larger than our reserves. The private corporate sector has to repay $ 170 billion before end-March 2014. And the outstanding stock of portfolio investment is much larger. If there were to be capital flight, just as we had in 1990, the reserves would vanish—and vanish quickly. In the past, many countries in Latin America, East Asia and elsewhere have lost more than $100 billion of foreign exchange reserves in a fortnight during financial crises.

So, do we need to go to the IMF?

It is important to recognize that the IMF simply does not have the resources to finance such large current account deficits let alone combat capital flight. But the IMF is a lender of last resort. Its imprimatur tends to stabilize confidence in international financial markets. The government must recognize that the present situation is at least as serious, if not worse, than what it was in 1990-91. In these circumstances, it would be both prudent and wise to explore the possibilities of an arrangement with the IMF, even if this cannot be in the public domain for obvious political reasons. The government must recognize that terms are always better before a crisis implodes, and always much worse thereafter. Obviously, this would be a back-up plan, tactical rather than strategic, should the need for contingency finance arise. The government must also explore alternative emergency financing possibilities such as swap arrangements with other central banks.

How would you rate the UPA’s management of the economy?

The macro-management of the economy during the tenure of UPA-II leaves much to be desired. The management of the balance of payments situation has been poor. This problem, which has been building up for three years, should have been addressed much earlier—with the same urgency as the government is doing now. The early warning signals were all there but were quietly ignored.

If you were Chief Economic Advisor, what would you have advised the government?

The irony of my life is that, in the late 1980s, I wrote about the macroeconomic crisis to come, but I was at the epicentre trying to manage it when it surfaced (in 1990-91). If I had any association with the government, starting 2009, I would heard these alarm bells. For one, I would have begun to act on accelerating rates of inflation. For another, I would have done something to ensure that the balance of trade deficit, hence the current account deficit, did not climb to these unsustainable levels. These problems did not surface overnight. For more than three years now, inflation has been gathering momentum and the balance of trade deficit has been rapidly ballooning.

Why hasn’t the UPA been able to tackle persistent and high inflation for the past three years?

“I am opposed to Raghuram Rajan’s plan to allow global banks to buy Indian ones. Banking plays a critical role in countries latecomers to industrialisation.”

I think that both the diagnosis and the prescription of the government on inflation has been wrong. The government has simply raised interest rates time and time again. This has ended up stifling domestic investment. But it has done nothing to combat inflation. Hiking interest rates would moderate inflation if rising prices are driven by excess liquidity. But when inflation is driven by supply-demand imbalances, adverse expectations, or segmented markets, monetary policy cannot address the problem. It is no surprise that it has not. Indeed, theory and experience both suggest that, beyond a point, raising interest rates does not combat inflation, just as lowering interest rates cannot stimulate investment. The persistent inflation has hurt people most of whom do not have index linked incomes. Come election time, this resentment will translate into a protest by voters against incumbent governments, wherever they are, because people hold governments accountable for inflation. The real problem now lies in the credibility of the government, now much diminished, because that is what shapes confidence, perceptions, and expectations. It is possible—although as a citizen I sincerely hope it does not happen—that markets might decide, without waiting for the people to decide at election time. If a macro-economic crisis does surface before the election, then markets would have decided on the economic performance of the government even before the people have had an opportunity to do so.

So you feel the crisis could re-appear…?

It is possible. It serves no purpose to be alarmist. Yet, it is important to be a realist. I do not see any evidence of a real turnaround, at least so far, on any of the criteria—trade deficit, current account deficit, inflation, savings, investment or growth—that shape underlying fundamentals. The only silver lining is the good monsoon. The paradox is the skyrocketing prices of food in what seems to be an abundant monsoon. The depreciation of the rupee is going to compound the problem. Imports are 25 per cent of GDP so that a 10 percent depreciation directly pushes up the wholesale price index by 2.5 percentage points, while indirect pass-through effects could add a further 1 plus percentage points.

Shifting tracks, what is your view on Raghuram Rajan’s statement on recasting norms for allowing international banks to buy Indian ones?

My view is clear. I am opposed to it. I would wish to exercise strategic control in the banking sector as it has a critical strategic importance in countries that are latecomers to industrialization. Evidence available for the past ten years, which reveals a significant decline in the share of manufacturing in GDP and in employment, suggests that there is a danger of de-industrialization in India. I would argue that the time has come for India to think of strategic industrial, trade and technology policies. There is no country that has industrialized without strategic forms of intervention. The fetishism about liberalization is overdone. It is a means of increasing the degree of competition in the economy. But its pace and sequence must be calibrated. We cannot lose sight of the ends. Industrialization is an imperative because that is our potential comparative advantage.

What is your view on the corruption scandals around the allocation of scarce natural assets?

As a concerned citizen, I can only express anguish and anger at such a blatant sharing of the spoils between the state and some corporate entities. The metaphor , crony-capitalism, is an apt description. Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) are just rhetoric. For one, there is so little progress. For another, it might simply socialize the costs and privatize the benefits. Where is it going to lead us, say in infrastructure?

Finally, where do you weigh in on the Amartya Sen versus Jagdish Bhagwati debate?

I followed the debate, but it is a red herring that poses false dilemmas. Both are concerned with outcomes—growth or equity—but neither is concerned with processes, which requires thinking about transition paths or journeys to the destination. Most importantly, we need growth with equity. Is it possible for us to promote growth when you have a State that is incapable of regulation? Similarly, is it possible for a state that cannot deliver even basic public services to implement good redistribution programmes? Efficient markets need effective governments.

Nobel Prize winners say markets are irrational, yet efficient

S A Aiyar in The Times of India

Are stock markets irrational, driven by greed and fear, subject to euphoria and panic? Or are they highly efficient indicators of intrinsic value? Both, says the Nobel Prize Comittee for Economics, with no sense of contradiction.

It has just awarded the prize jointly to economists with opposing views. Robert Shiller is famous for two versions of his book 'Irrational Exuberance'. The first version appeared in 2000 at the height of the dotcom boom, and correctly predicted that this was a bubble about to burst. The second version came in 2005 just as the housing market was skyrocketing, and predicted (again correctly) that this too was a bubble likely to burst resoundingly.

This confirmed Shiller's status as a behavioural economist. Such economists laugh at the notion that human beings are rational economic actors, as portrayed in textbooks. No, say behaviourists, humans are driven by fads, prejudices, manias, and irrational bouts of optimism and pessimism. Yet Shiller is going to share the Nobel Prize with Eugene Fama, famous for his "efficient markets hypothesis." This states that markets are like computers processing information from millions of sources on millions of economic actors, and hence produce more efficient long-run valuations than the most talented genius.

Fama's market behaviour is fundamentally random, so future trends cannot be predicted by even the cleverest investors. He implies that choosing stocks by throwing darts at a stock market chart can beat the recommendations of top experts. This has been verified by some, though not all, dartthrowing contests.

Corollary: ordinary investors must not pay high fees to experts to pick winners. Instead they should invest passively in a group of shares (like the 30 shares constituting the Bombay Sensex or Dow Jones Industrial Average), and ride these bandwagons without paying any fees. This has led to the spectacularly successful emergence of Index-traded funds (like those run by Vanguard in the US). Such funds are indexed to share groups like the Sensex or the Banks Nifty. Rather than try to pick individual winners in say the auto, pharma or realty sectors, index funds invest passively in a group of auto, pharma or realty companies. This has proved successful and popular.

Two groups criticize the efficient markets hypothesis: big investment gurus and, paradoxically, leftists viewing financial markets as instruments of the devil. Investment gurus like Warren Buffett in the US or Rakesh Jhunjhunwala in India claim to have beaten the market average handsomely, thus disproving the efficient markets hypothesis. Not so says Fama: in any large collection of investors there will always be some who perform above average and some below average - this is a matter of statistical chance, not skill. Moreover, investment gurus have so many contacts that they may have insider information enabling them to beat the market by unfair means.

As for Shiller's successful predictions, Fama says capitalism is driven by booms and busts. To predict at the height of a boom (like Shiller) that a bust will follow is banality, not genius. It is as unremarkable to predict during every bust that a boom will follow.

After the 2008 global financial crisis, the new conventional wisdom is that governments need macro prudential policies to check future financial crises, and that finance should be more strictly regulated than ever before. However, the counter is that the financial crisis occurred even though the financial sector was already the most regulated (with 12,000 regulators in the US alone). Governments had encouraged reckless lending by guaranteeing large banks and investment banks against failure, and by creating governmentbacked underwriters like Fannie Mae who shouldered any burdens caused by mass default.

Perhaps the Nobel Prize Committee is right in implying that markets can be both irrational and efficient at the same time. Since humans are irrational, they will always create markets that have booms and busts, marked by irrational optimism and pessimism. An efficient markets defined by Fama and his followers is not one that produces steady growth without booms, busts or crises. It is efficient only in the limited sense that, whether the markets are calm or irrational, they represent the processed information of millions of actions of millions of actors, and this is inherently more efficient than the efforts of any individual investor.

The argument is analogous to the one against communism or dictatorship. Communists believed that the great and good politburo, motivated entirely by the public interest and not profit, would run the economy better than the chaos, irrationality and imperfections of the capitalist market. Yet the market, with all its flaws and irrationality, proved infinitely more efficient.

Fama holds that this is true of financial markets too. This is compatible with Shiller's analysis. Markets can be both irrational and efficient.

The Tea Party have successfully undermined everything Obama has attempted

Mark Steel in The Independent

Now the American government is open again, I wonder what tactic the Tea Party will try next to get their way. One favourite must be chilli powder down Barack Obama’s underpants. One of their senators will explain in a live interview from Washington, “We have no choice but to do this until the President shows he is willing to negotiate”, while in the background we can hear, “Yeaaagh they’re on fire”, and Michelle saying: “Don’t put your fingers in your eyes love or they’ll start stinging as well.”

Or they’ll set a leopard loose in the House of Representatives, as a legitimate means of expressing the will of the common man from Utah. Whatever they do, to them it seems utterly reasonable, so they make statements such as, “It’s the President who is causing this conflict, by insisting on implementing the policies he was elected on. So what choice did we have but to urinate over the Democrat senators in alphabetical order? It’s only what Abraham Lincoln would have done?”

The issue that’s angered them this time is Obama’s healthcare plan, designed to address the problem of millions of Americans having no access to healthcare. The Tea Party has a carefully considered objection to this policy, which is on the home page of its website. It’s worth repeating in full to do justice to the prose. It goes “Destroy Obamacare. This abomination from hell must be eradicated.”

As with all the best political writing, it’s the delicate details that make it so engaging. To start with, this displays an impressive knowledge of The Bible, as few people are aware of the section that goes, “And God saw that Satan had spread his wickedness among the people. And he did say unto Abraham ‘Eradicateth this abomination for they will burn in hellfire who are carried upon a stretcher with no charge’”.

John Culberson, a Tea Party spokesman from Texas, was slightly less subtle, declaring his support for the strategy of shutting down the country by saying, “Like on 9/11, let’s roll”, a reference to the passengers who said “Let’s roll” before confronting terrorists on their plane. This could be worrying if he visits an NHS surgery in Britain. He’ll stab all the doctors, and explain: “I could see one of them diagnosing gastro-enteritis without charging a fee and knew I had to act straight away.”

To be fair, the Tea Party takes up other issues as well as healthcare, employing the same subtle arguments. Their supporter Stephen Schwarzmann, a hedge-fund billionaire, contributed to the tax debate by saying: “Tax rises on equity firms is a signal for war, like when Hitler invaded Poland.” It could be argued it’s even worse, because at least when Hitler invaded Poland the casualties couldn’t run crying to the Third Reich for free medical care.

Maybe the reason they come up with minor exaggerations is they struggle without them. Tea Party senator Louis Gohmert was interviewed about whether the deal they've agreed to was a success. In his exact words, this is how he answered: “The fact is all those children gathered round by Nancy Pelosi and they weren’t of legal consent age and we’ve stolen $12bn dollars from those children and the least we can do and all we’re asking if we had leaders who do the right thing they look listen it’s illegal.”

I wonder how many people saw that and thought, “At last, someone who’s saying exactly what I’m thinking”. It appears they’re reasoning is the Republican Party lost the election because in crucial swing states such as Ohio, voters thought “the trouble with Mitt Romney and his supporters is they’re not do-lally enough”. In which case none of this matters, as it only ensures they’ll lose by even more next time.

But maybe there is logic to their strategy. Because since Obama became President, the Tea Party Republicans have been able to undermine everything he’s attempted. Even the budget following this agreement is seven per cent less than the amount Obama originally proposed. The healthcare plan will still leave around one fifth of the population with no care, and many of the promises, such as closing Guantanamo Bay or on gun control, have been abandoned altogether. Partly this has been a result of backing down to the constant niggling of the Tea Party.

Obama even had to spend much of his first year in office proving he was the President as they insisted he wasn’t born in America. So they can do that again. For example if Hillary Clinton wins they’ll say they’ve got evidence she’s Russian and fought at the Alamo on the side of the Mexicans, and her real name’s Hillary Mohammed Trotsky Lucifer Compulsory Free Liver Transplants For Everyone Even If You’re Completely Healthy Jihad Abortion Clinton.

They’ll say she was born under the sea, and they’ve got evidence she eats live squirrels, and it’s their constitutional duty to flood the Senate with mercury until she agrees to abolish tax for oil companies. Because for many of the rich and powerful, why bother going through all the hassle of winning an election to get your way, when it’s much easier and more fun to let the other side win, then refuse to accept the result and bring everything to a halt until they do as you want anyway.

Cricket - Let's tonk for all our worth

Matt Cleary in Cricinfo
(The Editor wonders if such an article would have been written if cricket's ancien regime had scored similar runs in 43 overs! It's a bit like the MCC limiting the number of bouncers per over after the West Indies pace attack. Yet, Matt has a point.)

Video games can't match the action we saw in Jaipur  © BCCI

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And so to the slaughter at Sawai Mansingh Stadium the other night, in which both sets of batsmen flogged the bowlers as if they were unrepentant 18th-century horse thieves. In 93.3 overs of crazy-mad bludgeon, Australia scored 359 and India chased it down for the loss of one wicket. Entertaining? No doubt. A contest? It was not.

For while all this heavy-batted bashing was sort of interesting, and you can admire the timing and skill required to achieve such high-octane hammer, the game itself was not a contest in terms of bat against ball. It was an arms race in which batsmen bullied bowlers and bowlers were powerless to fight back. And one team of bullies were just better bullies than the other. It was a lot of things. But cricket it was not. 

Not cricket?

Not cricket. Cricket is mean to be a contest. A contest has two parts. In cricket's case it's a battle between batsman and bowler. And the other night all the various weapons and devices available to bowlers - line, length, seam, swing, pace, spin, bounce, sweat, spit, minty sweets - were rendered redundant because of a pitch friendlier to batsmen than girls were friendly to Elvis.

What could bowlers achieve on that deck? What could they do? Everything from toe-crushing heat to half-tracking "spin" was dispatched by batsmen confident the pill would do nothing untoward. Like, at all. There was nothing doing. The cricket ball was nude. It was an ex-parrot. You'd have more chance against Viv Richards with a tennis ball on a beach.

I mean, had India been allowed to keep batting and had scored at a not-implausible 20 runs per over, they would have got close to 500. That's all well and good. People could have gone home and said, "I was there the night India scored close to 500." That's great. But it's not cricket. And it worries me how little people care that it's not.

Look at the rapture in the stands in Jaipur. Look at the worldwide love of T20. People love big hitting over everything else. Tonking trumps fast bowling, spin bowling, acrobatic fielding, a run-out, a stumping, a tail digging in to save a match. Everything is second to bat smashing ball. People enjoy it more than even winning. They would rather see their team smash 400 and lose than win chasing down 230 on a green top.

So let's not fight it. If the People's lust for the tonk is so prevalent, let's flat out change the rules of cricket. For instance, why not have let India keep going the other night after they had passed Australia's total? Give the people Full Value. Instead of ending the innings once a team has "won", continue as an exhibition of tonking, and so excite the people.

If the Jaipur pitch is the new paradigm, why grow grass on cricket wickets at all? Why call them "turf" wickets? Get the boffins to create a scientific blend of synthetic space-mat to give a perfectly uniform bounce every time, allowing batsmen to confidently tee off unfettered by doubt the ball will do anything "bad".

Why should teams be able to select bowlers who are any good? They may as well save their best bowlers for Test cricket anyway, and throw out any combination of grade hacks and kids and backpacking Fanatics. If Mitchell Johnson, Clint McKay, Shane Watson and James Faulkner can be flogged for 239 runs in 28 overs, it doesn't matter who you throw at them. You may as well pick a pace pack of piss-pots from the press gallery.

Does cricket need bowlers at all? Why not have a bowling machine at each end that shoots out a mixture of slow-medium full tosses, half-volleys and long hops, all relayed to the batsman before the ball is fed in. Or have the type of delivery required designated by the batsman. Instead of Aaron Finch asking for guard from the umpire, he could instruct the ball-feeder guy, "Half-tracker outside leg stump please", and so blaze away.

Why have fielders? Such is the public's ravenous appetite for boundaries, aren't these speed bumps just getting in the way of the fun? And on these wickets are they not largely superfluous anyway? They are there to chase balls thudding into the boundary and going over their heads. People in the crowd have more chance of catching Virat Kohli when he's batting on 192.

Maybe we make cricket like those home-run exhibition things they have in baseball. And have guys like Dave Warner and Chrissy Gayle - who under the new rules of cricket can play for whichever country/franchise they wish - toss balls in the air and flog them high into the crowd for people to catch and then wave like crazy people on big screen.

No bowlers, no fielders, no winners, no losers. Just big tonks soaring over the fence and into the crowd.

Sure, it won't be cricket. But it's not now either.

Oprah is wrong. Atheists can experience wonder and awe

Those who believe in God do not have a monopoly over possession of that magnificent sense of the sublime

Frank Furedi in The Independent

In one sense Oprah Winfrey was absolutely right when she lectured the humanist swimmer Diana Nyad about the inconsistency of the outlook of atheism with a sense of awe. For Oprah, a woman of faith, the sense of wonder and awe are inextricably intertwined with religion and God.

Indeed since the emergence of the Judeo-Christian tradition, awe is the mandatory reaction that the true believer is required to have towards God. From this perspective the sense awe and wonder is bounded and regulated through the medium of religious doctrine. In contrast, those of us who believe that it was not God but humans who are the real creators are unlikely to stand in awe of this allegedly omnipotent figure.

Although in the 21st century the term awe and awesome are used colloquially to connote amazement and admiration historically these words communicated feelings of powerlessness, fear and dread. The Oxford English Dictionary tells us, that awe means ‘immediate and active fear; terror, dread’. The OED explains that from its original reference to the Divine Being it has acquired a variety of different meanings, such as ‘dread mingled with veneration’ and ‘reverential or respectful fear’. All these meanings signal one important idea which that ‘fearing’ and ‘dreading’ are inherently positive attributes to be encouraged.

The religious affirmation of fear and dread of a higher being is indeed alien to the humanist view of the world. But does that mean that Oprah is right and that atheists cannot wonder and awe? Not at all. Those who believe in God do not have a monopoly over possession of that magnificent sense of the sublime that catches us unaware in the face of the truly mysterious. Atheists and humanist experience wonder and awe in ways that sometimes resembles but often differs from the way that the religious people respond to the unknown.

We all have the capacity and the spiritual resources to experience the mysteries of life and the unexpected events that excite our imagination through a sense of wonder. Those who stand in awe of God internalise their sense of wonder through the medium of their religious doctrine. Their response can possess powerful and intense emotions. But the way they wonder is bounded by their religious beliefs and their conception of God.  In a sense this experience of spiritual sensibility is both guided and ultimately dictated by doctrine and belief. Historically those religious people who dared to go beyond these limits risked being denounced as heretical mystics.

In contrast to the way that religion does wonder, atheists and humanists possess a potential for experiencing in a way that is totally unbounded. Humanists do not stand in awe of the mysteries of God but truly wonder at the unknown. Through the resources of the human imagination (humanities) and of the sciences the thinking atheist realises that every solution creates a demand for new answers.  That’s what makes our wonder so special. Instead of dreading and fearing, it empowers us to set out on the quest to discover and understand.

Experience shows that the capacity to wonder is a truly human one. Toddlers and young children do not need God to wonder at the mysterious world that surrounds them. At a very early stage in their life they express their sense of astonishment and wonder without effort or a hint of embarrassment. Thankfully most of us continue to be motivated and inspired by the mysteries of life.

One final point. There are of course some new atheists who insist on living in a spiritual-free world. From their deterministic perspective everything is explained by neuro-science or our genes. But what drives them away from wonder is not their atheism but their inability to engage with uncertainty. In that respect they are surprisingly similar to those who embrace religious dogma to spare themselves the responsibility of engaging with the mysteries that confront us in everyday life.

Tendulkar: not a players' player

OCTOBER 16, 2013

Samir Chopra in Cricinfo 

Did Tendulkar make most use of his "soft" power?  © Mumbai Indians

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Our evaluations of our favourite cricket players do not stop with a cold statistical assessment of their playing records, or a passionate recounting of the aesthetic pleasures afforded us by their efforts on the playing field. We often hope, sometimes unreasonably, that they will not disappoint us in other dimensions. Perhaps they will also be great captains; perhaps they will not embarrass themselves during their retirement phase; perhaps they will not turn into one-dimensional blowhards on television.

For a very long time now, I have entertained an abiding hope that an Indian cricket player of sufficient sporting stature would become, by dint of action and deed during his career, an advocate for Indian players. Someone who would - to borrow the language of labour relations and industrial action - organise the workers in his workplace and campaign for better treatment by their management. 

Perhaps he would lead the initiative to form a players' union - an effort that has been tried in the past and has failed, or rather, has not been allowed to succeed; perhaps he would take up cudgels on behalf of other players treated unfairly by the national board; perhaps he would, by singular acts of defiance, engender relationship-transforming showdowns with "The Man". He would speak up boldly and act accordingly. He would thus bell the BCCI cat and introduce some much-needed professionalism into a relationship - the BCCI-player one - that still bears depressing traces of the feudal.

The BCCI-player relationship is an unequal one in many ways. We do not know the terms of the contracts the players sign with the BCCI; we do not whether they accord with the legal standards that professional sportsmen in other domains are used to; we do not know whether they would pass muster with employment and labour legal regimes. Indian players, as they found out during the ICL saga, do not enjoy something approximating "free agency".

Cricket boards worldwide collude with the BCCI, of course; they run cricket like a cartel and make sure that a player affiliated with one national board cannot ply his trade elsewhere without the right sorts of permissions (like the no-objection certificates needed to play in county cricket and in the IPL.)

The BCCI has often had cause to crack down on the players it controls: whether it has been Lala Amarnath sent home from England in 1936, Vinoo Mankad facing difficulties in playing for Haslingden in the Lancashire Leagues in 1952, the banning of several Test cricketers for playing "unauthorised" cricket in the US in 1989, placing restrictions on Indian players' presence in county sides or in the Sri Lankan Premier League, and lastly and most infamously perhaps, the brutal crackdown on the ICL. When the BCCI takes on the players, there is only one winner; more often than not, it is a no-contest.

Perhaps fighting the BCCI, as this history indicates, is a losing battle, one not to be engaged in by any sane man. But if it was ever going to be taken on, it would have to be a player whose fame would be such that his battles with the BCCI would be backed by the passion of his extensive fan following, someone on whom the BCCI could not crack down on without enraging millions across the land who could take up cudgels on his behalf. I would thus allow myself to dream about a player who would recognise the rhetorical advantage that the passion of his fans afforded, who would ably manipulate the gigantic megaphone his cricketing feats had afforded him, and sally forth to do battle with the BCCI.

This absence of a confrontational streak, this refusal to engage in reform, this unwillingness to be drawn into battles off the pitch, do not sully Tendulkar as a cricket player

Sunil Gavaskar had fired a few shots across the BCCI's bows in his playing career, some of which can be found in his intemperate autobiographySunny Days, but he did not take those battles to their logical conclusion. And since his retirement, he has drawn ever closer to the BCCI. Perhaps someone even bigger than Sunny was required. After his retirement, only one Indian player has met that requirement: Sachin Tendulkar.

Tendulkar has been one of Test cricket's greatest batsmen. His strokeplay brought us many, many hours of pleasure; statistically, some of his records will, in all probability, never be broken; his discipline and dedication and the spirit in which he played the game have been an inspiration for other players and spectators alike. But, as has been evident through his playing career, he was never going to be such an aggressive advocate for Indian cricket players. Indeed, if anything, by virtue of his famed reticence and refusal to be drawn into controversy, he has, perhaps wittingly, perhaps not, become an establishment man. It was only appropriate then, that this retirement announcement would be issued as a statement by the BCCI.

This absence of a confrontational streak, this refusal to engage in reform, this unwillingness to be drawn into battles off the pitch, do not sully Tendulkar as a cricket player; these lacunae do not diminish his records or lead us to think less of him as a human being. He has borne the burden of unreasonable adulation for very long and still managed to perform at a very high level. And all too many of us would not seek out battle with our bosses.

But the lack of a Tendulkar-led or -inspired player action against the BCCI is still cause for regret, for the sense of a missed opportunity is, for me at least, palpable. During Tendulkar's tenure the BCCI became ever more powerful and wealthy; it became ever more entrenched as the absolute controller of Indian cricket (a fact it asserted with a brutal display of heavy-handedness during the ICL saga). In this same period, Tendulkar, by dint of his extended career, became a kind of Grand Old Man of Indian cricket, moving from fresh-faced teenager to wizened veteran. His voice had acquired considerable sagacity. If any sand could have been thrown in the wheels of the BCCI juggernaut, it would have best originated from Tendulkar.

That moment has now passed. It is unclear whether any Indian player in the future will ever command such "soft" power as Tendulkar did. MS Dhoni, for all his fame, does not meet the bill. (And indeed, as is already evident, he can be just as tight-lipped as Tendulkar.)

So as I prepare to bid farewell to this great batsman, my wistfulness will be coloured by a sense of another kind of loss, of a seemingly singular moment in time - with respect to player-BCCI relations - having come and gone.