Why Ravindra Jadeja was bought for $950000

Kochi IPL franchisee has defended its $950000 bid to buy Ravindra Jadeja. After an exciting auction, Vivek Venugopal, one of the owners of the consortium spoke to reporters from near the BCCI notice board. Asked about the odd location for an interview, Vivek said he checked the notice board every evening to see if his franchisee had been forwarded any show-cause by BCCI.

“Sreesanth has been the longest serving Kerala cricketer. Our brand value would be greatly increased with Sreesanth as our captain. Having said that, we needed someone miserable on the field to make Sreesanth look like Wisden Cricketer of the Year. The obvious choice was Ravindra Jadeja, and we went all out to buy him.” Mr. Venugopal’s lips tweaked at odd angles every time he mentioned Jadeja’s name.

“The rest of the auction room obviously didn’t know of our strategy, and we were met with hostility after winning Jadeja. The waiters in the hotel stopped replacing our water bottles. The auctioneer stood paralyzed, and we had to inject steroids on him to hit the hammer one final time to confirm Jadeja’s bid. We even received condolence messages from Kochi and other parts of Kerala like Dubai and Bahrain.”

Ravindra Jadeja, buoyed by his auction prices, has reportedly negotiated a deal with Manchester United. Sources have confirmed that IPL new boss Chirayu Amin has already slapped a show-cause notice to Manchester United, and is considering extending Jadeja’s IPL ban to one more year.

Meanwhile, corporates and general public who searched for IPL Kochi’s website on Google were met with dismay. Said Omanakuttan from Allepey – “This is atrocious! First, Sashi Tharoor disappears from Twitter. Next, we find no website for our IPL team. This must be a collaborative work of Lalit Modi and Pakistani hackers!” Others, who managed to find sites kochiipl.com and kochiteam.com were confused which was the official site, though they maintained that both sites looked equally awful and comparable to bcci.tv.

Moving on to other related news, Sony Max has confirmed that it has got premium sponsors for the Pune vs Kochi match tosses. With Smith’s name being on the rounds for Pune IPL captaincy, and Sreesanth almost having been confirmed as Kochi captain, the match tosses should be more interesting than the matches themselves. Sreesanth is expected to invite Graeme Smith’s family for the toss.

Mark Zuckerberg's "Facebook - Vision 2011"

Facebook has begun 2011 with a boardroom discussion on breathtaking innovations that could change the way netizens socialize. While the rest of the world was busy boozing, biking and bursting crackers on new year eve, Mark Zuckerberg called all his employees for an urgent meeting to discuss Facebook's innovations. The irritated employees are rumoured to have reported abuse against Zuckerberg on his Facebook account. The following are excerpts from the high-level innovation brainstorming.

With several internet users choosing to Tweet, advertisers have also started migrating to Twitter. Zuckerberg proposed a novel strategy to retain users and get them closer to Facebook - further reduce font size. He suggested an apt font size of 8, which would ensure that a user literally kissed his monitor to be able to read clearly. "Nothing can come in between Facebook and its user!", declared Zuckerberg, filmy style.

Keeping in view the changing relationships and dynamic emotions between people, apart from the Poke button, several add-on features like Pinch, Punch, Kick, Slap and Strangle The Neck are to be introduced. Thus, a variety of hellos, starting from a 'simple' hello to 'I know you aren't busy why the hell haven't you been in touch' hello would be covered.

Apart from the Friends Suggestion option ( which, Zuckerberg conceded was paranoid, since Fb once suggested Sashi Tharoor under 'Friends you may know' ), there will be an 'Urgently Unfriend' option. People who update weather details, digestive system details, stolen love quotes and crap that they themselves wouldn't have understood would be suggested for unfriending. Facebook also seemed to have solved its smiley problem, wherein users have had to click external links to view smileys. ('I've added smileys to this status update. Wanna see them?? Visit....) From now on, all smileys would be delivered separately to email accounts as attachments, thus reducing spam risks.

Several long term Facebook users quit in recent months, when people 'liked' their "I'm down with fever", "Paul the Octopus is dead" updates. To stop people from randomly liking updates that would infuriate the poster, "I DON'T UNDERSTAND" button has been added for the mentally challenged users. In another first, Predictive Analytics would be used to automatically generate 'like' to all posts and photos from women. The rationale behind this is to save time and energy for men, whose sole purpose of existance on Facebook is to 'like' all abstract updates from women.

Mr. Zuckerberg promised there would be more interesting and captivating innovations. With Facebook reportedly having the 3rd largest population after China and India, he said he would definitely demand a place for it in the United Nations Security Council. Before calling off the meeting, Zuckerberg created separate pages for 'Happy','New','Year' and '2011' and urged his employees to like and share all pages.

How Nira Radia made 300 crores in 9 years

Retired CBI cop Subbiah, who heads the secret committee formed by the government to probe into how Nira Radia amassed 300 crores in 9 years, has submitted a simple, one paragraph report to the Prime Minister's Office. As is usual, journalists read the report even before the PM did. Writes Subbiah - "It is astounding and a matter of utmost shame that the CBI couldn't crack such a simple case. Nira Radia had been using a Virgin Mobile SIM, and she had been getting paid for incoming. Considering that her clientele include Ratan Tata, Anil Ambani and other top-shots, it is no surprise that she received incoming calls of long durations. It was just a matter of applying logic. I would strongly advice the PMO to look into the falling standards of CBI officers." Subbiah, a 1970 batch IPS officer, is also an alumni of the first batch of "Vendan All Pass Tutorials".

Meanwhile, several entrepreneurs, taking a cue from Nira Radia, have started making crores of money. Their strategy involves sticking "Earn 1 lakh per month. No investment required. Call 9001002010" posters in trains and buses. When called, they simply respond by asking the caller to purchase Virgin Mobile and stick similar posters all over the city. It is being rumored that the wallpaper of all Tamilnadu State Transport Corporation employees has been changed to such posters.

In business news, Airtel has announced that it will rename its "Call your loved ones @ 10 paise per minute" plan to "Nira Radia-Ratan Tata" night time calls plan". The move is expected to offer customers more clarity and connect with the rate-cutter plan.

How do satirists impress girls??

Every man has a constant urge to impress his opposite sex. Every man has his own unique way of impressing women, using skill sets that he was either born with, or arts that he was forced to learn as a child because his parent's colleague's children were learning them too. Such skills or arts include music, dancing, karate, swimming, abacus, etc etc.

Now here is my question. How can a person, devoid of any of the above mentioned type of skills, impress girls? Well, I've been having problems impressing girls right from a very young age. Like from when I was 5 years old or so. The 10 to 15 years-older-than-me girls never found me cute. I mean, I was no match for Vignesh who would run around my apartment naked, chanting all countries-and-their-capitals, getting hair-ruffles or kisses from the gorgeous girls. Out of ambition, I remember I once removed all my clothes and ran around, but I couldn't really get the capitals right. After New Delhi, I could only say Chennai, and then Mambalam, Chromepet, Saidapet. Of course none noticed my antics except Giri, another poor boy who didn't know countries and capitals. Giri appointed me conductor, and himself driver and offered to play driver-conductor with me.

Relatively speaking, I can safely say I was born with a decent sense of humor and sarcasm. Yes, girls did laugh at some of the jokes, but I couldn't really get a move on. So satire or humor as an art for impressing chicks didn't work for me.

There was this fancy dress competition in school. On stage was Prabhu, dressed up as Lord Ganesha, left hand in mouth, right hand in 'blessing' posture as his parents had taught him, reciting "Gajananam bhootha ganaathi...", elongating every word for like 10 seconds. When he finally did finish, all the 10th to 12th standard 'akkas' ran to him and pinched his cheeks, with 'soooo cute' comments. I found him totally stupid! I mean, if he was Lord Ganesha, why was he reciting "Gajanam" and seeking his own blessings for himself?? It was my turn next. I was pretty confident I would get more cheek-pinches than Prabhu. I went on stage, forgot my lines, mistook the mike for a cone ice-cream, bit it, made everyone laugh, but well, no cheek-pinches. I realized my incompetency at that very young age.

Years passed by. While my friends were impressing girls dropping catches, singing the same song every annual day, writing the same "Is technology a boon or bane" essay every year, here I was, making fun of them, but unable to meet their popularity. One sudden day, I realized I have a talent too - satire. I remembered an artist friend of mine, passing on his album to girls, impressing every single one of them. I decided to follow suit. I planned to write a satire about Suresh Kalmadi, print it on flyers, and distribute it to every good looking girl I saw. But next day, there was some A.Raja and I realized people wouldn't really be able to connect with my satire about Kalmadi. I thought I'd become an artist too, atleast to impress girls. But beyond a point, I couldn't really innovate the two-mountains-orange sun-in-between-two crows art of mine.

So I really don't have another option other than satire. But hell, many girls don't even know what satire is!! Yeah, I do get positive comments from Tweeters and bloggers occasionally. But girls?? No-no. Unless Zulquarnin Haider disappears or re-appears on my annual day or culturals, and I'm allowed to live-stream my blog article on stage, I don't think I stand a chance.

Mallya's hackers, oil spills & more

The Pakistan Cyber Army(PCA), which recently hacked Dr.Vijay Mallya's website, has decided to diversify & go one step further: lay underground pipelines from Islamabad to Bangalore, and suck 1 crore barrels worth of Kingfisher rum from United Breweries plants. This was brought to light by a TIMES NOW expose, with a special correspondent swimming through the yet to be constructed pipeline with a hidden camera. Dr. Mallya, when contacted, said he wants to take things one at a time, and that his first priority is reviving his website from the hackers.

Meanwhile, the cyber police haven't begun looking for the hackers yet, as they are busy searching for Shashi Tharoor's long lost Twitter account. Down south, Kalaignar Karunanidhi passed a law in the State Legislature to rename all websites in Tamil. Kalaignar cited the unfamiliarity of Pakistani extremists with Tamil as the reason. TIMES NOW informers inside PCA revealed startling informations though: The Pak Cyber Army is working closely with Pakistan based, Tamil fluent Vijaykanth-movie villains to recognize and hack Tamil websites. M.K. Azhagiri is on top of the hit-list. Hearing this, a furious Captain Vijaykanth has stationed his DMDK cadres equipped with machine guns at all major browsing centers.

Petroleum Minister Murli Deora has surprisingly requested InterPol not to bust the pipelines, as they can be used to form a Pan India petroleum grid, thus reducing the transportation charges on petroleum. Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has his own plans though. He says the pipeline can be routed to the Mumbai coast, so that the oil spill can be re-directed to Islamabad. British Petrouleum CEO, hearing of this latest development, has requested participation of BP in this project, to clear spill off the Gulf coast.

The Indian Government wants to pursue this matter tactically and diplomatically. New Delhi is pushing hard on Pakistan to award the pipeline contract to Suresh Kalmadi. This has two advantages, sources close to the matter say. There would be a steady revenue from the contracts, but at the same time the pipeline won't cross the borders of Islamabad. Very clever indeed!

Indian skipper M.S. Dhoni meanwhile has said that Dr. Mallya's web hack has deeply affected the morale of the team and that the boys are mentally tired. This, he says was the reason the team got 88 all out. (When confronted with the question that the match happened before the hack, a miffed Dhoni said: "Well if it had happened after the hack, the team would have been 8 all out". None understood the logic, of course! )

After a lot of goading, Dr. Mallya chose to speak on this matter. But what he spoke remains unclear because Arnob Goswarmi "Mr Mallya I'm asking a direct question I want a direct answer"ed even before Mallya opened his mouth. A frustrated Mallya shouted Oo La La Le Lo before splashing Whyte & Mackay on the camera.

Greetings to all on our 64th Independence Day. While so many articles have been written about our proud history, here is my attempt at giving you a glimpse of our near future.

Very soon, all keyboards in the world will have the ` symbol. Every apparel shop across the globe will have I ♥ ND (I love New Delhi) T-shirts. The filthy rich American kid will pester his parents for Siyaram's Jeans and Manish Malhotra jerseys, and will wear his jean low & bend down at every opportunity to show off his original, imported-from-Tiruppur Anand underwear.

Very soon, HPS© (Hindi Prachar Sabha) will be conducting Test of Hindi as Foreign Language exams worldwide. The Washington Post will have a full page ad, a testimonial from James Bloom (rank 456, IIT-JEE), thanking Brilliant Tutorials for its part in his success. The brightest minds will get into ISB or IIMs. (and the ones content with just an India MBA shall join IIPMs)

Not far from today, a mother will be withdrawing cash from Manappuram Money Transfer, Melbourne, sent by her son, working as a specialty chef in Muniyandi Vilas Group of Hotels, Kumbakonam.

There might be uproars in our Parliament, to limit the number of work permits to Europeans & Americans. And you won't realize that the Airtel customer care executive you are talking to is actually from a call center in Buffallo! (They speak so fluently, its difficult to differentiate between Indian Hindi & American Hindi!)

Will Smith and Pamela Anderson won't mind dancing for an item number to promote their latest movie to their Non Resident American fans in Mumbai. (Of course, we won't stop by to watch, we won't have time to bother about petty issues.)

Soon, Canada might ban its CEOs from using Micromax smart phones, owing to security reasons. And SUN mobiles (yes, of the Sun TV Network family) will make the most out of this opportunity and shall make customized sets for Canadians.

Vikatan Naanayam will publish the list of world's top earning sportsmen. Tiger Woods will be ranked a distant 156 and Kobe Byrant 92, just 2 ranks away from Ravindra Jadeja's rank 90. French and German football fans might get into a brawl in one of our TASMAC outlets and their embassies will plead with the Indian government to let them off without charges.

Those days aren't far off. No country is perfect. It has to be made perfect. Proud to be born an Indian =)

[P.S.: This is my first attempt at writing. Feedbacks will be greatly appreciated]