Team India is making us proud and it would be a wonderful thing if we can look beyond individual leaders based on feudal concepts or on the principals of caste and religion. Cricket is once again in the news as BCCI conclude a one billion TV deal with Sony and as the matter in Australia over the chaos of the Second Test is cooling down will result in structural changes within the ICC and action along with accountability will be applied to Umpires and their selection and all involved including the Match referee will not be involved in future Test matches. The BCCI Chief Sharad Pawar will be the next ICC President and hopefully action on the current controversy will be taken to its logical conclusion and not compromised upon for a variety of reasons. All this has happened before and would have gone unnoticed but sheer technology and the media both electronic and print have bought the truth home to the public both in India and Australia and it is quite remarkable that public reaction against the Umpires and the attitude of some members of the Australian team was very similar in both countries and this has forced everyone to deal with the matter with a great deal of firmness.

Cricket is very big money for anyone associated with the sport and we have seen the recent problems faced by sports authorities in almost all countries covering all major sports on challenges faced by drug usage and match fixing by individuals and clearly the ICC and cricket bodies all over the world will have to be extremely vigilant and pro active in dealing with this menace. We are all happy that we are back to playing cricket with no looking back.

We have a controversy on the Bharat Ratna awards and other awards being influenced by political parties with their recommendations promote the concept of the quota system. The reality issues should be kept in mind as the whole approach to National awards. Times have changed and sometimes we take success and hard work for granted. Economy is rising never before. We have a new breed of Super stars cutting across diverse professions with the level of success they have achieved in their field of activity do the Nation proud and increase the influence of India and things Indian in the global society. We live in the present and look to the future and when we talk of awards and recognition we have to widen our thought process and also look at the example we are setting to 65% of our population who are below the age of 35 and will be the leadership of the future. With so much of happening in all spheres around, India has definitely arrived and its making its presence felt all over the world. Like all systems ours is not the perfect but the changes are definitely making us proud.