“You’ve got to understand that when we set up the league, it was in 2008, very early. We were trying it out and we did the system for three years,” said Modi.

“At that point in time, there was no black money in the system, but I do understand today, yes, players are being negotiated outside the system and contracts are being done with the players which say one thing and but are being paid another thing.

“And that’s quite prevalent all the way through all the teams. It not only applies to the Indian players but applies to a lot of international players too.”

Asked if the players became soft targets, while the franchisees get away, Modi said it was for the governing council and the management to ensure a level playing field.

“There’s a catch-22 situation at the end of the day. The issue had become very clear that all team owners will want the best players and they will like to negotiate the best deals that they can with the player concerned. It is for the governing council and the management to ensure a level playing field and ensure that nobody does that,” Modi told CNN-IBN.

Modi also admitted that there must be a system where franchises don’t break rules.
“Yes, there has to be a system that has to be brought into place where the franchises don’t break this rule. But it is human psychology that they will want the best players and they will try and negotiate with the best players.

“To avoid that, it’s better to put them through a draft system. And if you put them through that system, which we had in first place, this issue would not have arisen today again,” said Modi.

Modi, however, said that the current rules allow the owners to negotiate with the players.

“If the rules allow them to negotiate, then, of course, they are going to negotiate … Why ambiguity in the first place? We never had that ambiguity in the first place in the first three years. Why that ambiguity is coming now? Because the rules have changed. The rules shouldn’t change.

“I mean, we have certain rules which allow everybody to go in a certain system and that’s the system they should be going towards,” insisted the former IPL chief.

Asked if the ills of the IPL are a legacy inherited because of the manner in which the tournament was structured when you were in charge, Modi said, “It’s (pointing at me) quite normal with the BCCI. They point everything back to me, but I was very clear when we set up the IPL. As far as the financial structures were concerned, it was quite opaque, very opaque in fact. All the dealings with the players was totally above board.

“We had incidents where player issues did arise with the junior players, especially with the India A team. There was horse trading going on, and we put an end to that by going through a draft system and making sure that everybody gets the same price.

“It’s a serious issue without any doubt because all teams, of course, want the best players. But at the same time, you want to make it an even playing field, and at the top of that, we had a cap and we wanted everybody to adhere to the cap. When I was there for the first few years, I don’t think there was anything like that at all,” said Modi.

Earlier, five uncapped Indian players were suspended with immediate effect pending completion of an inquiry as a rattled BCCI cracked the whip on tainted cricketers after a television sting operation claimed to have exposed corruption in the cash-rich IPL.

The strong action to suspend Mohnish Mishra, Shalabh Srivastava, T P Sudhindra, Amit Yadav and Abhinav Bali was taken after a lengthy tele-conference of top BCCI officials and members of the IPL’s Governing Council.

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A meeting of the Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, took up new amendments to the Marriage Laws (Amendment) Bill introduced in the Rajya Sabha earlier this month.

The government also decided to retain the mandatory six-month cooling-off period, which the bill had proposed to do away with in case of divorce with mutual consent. However, to waive the cooling period, both the parties will have to move the application together.
“In other words, the application to reduce the period can’t be moved by one party,” sources said after the meeting.

Once the divorce is granted, the woman will have to move an application to get share in her husband’s property as part of the settlement.

Keeping in mind the demand of the opposition, it has now been decided to give the wife and children a clearly-defined share in the husband’s “immovable residential property” in case of a split.

Sensing the mood of the House, Law Minister Salman Khurshid had deferred his reply to the Bill on May 2 in the Upper House.

“The amendments clarify and amplify provisions to be made in case of divorce,” the sources said.

The Law Ministry Bill seeks to further amend the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, and the Special Marriage Act, 1954.

Cutting across party lines, various members felt the bill was being brought in haste and its spirit went against the interests of women and feared they would lose their rights further if divorce was made easier.

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The MCA’s managing committee will meet tomorrow for emergency meeting where a final decision will be taken on a proposal to ban Khan from entering the Wankhede Stadium as both parties accused each other of misbehaviour that provoked the brawl.

Khan categorically denied that he was drunk and claimed that the scuffle broke out after MCA officials manhandled his kids who he had come to pick after the IPL match between KKR and Mumbai Indians. MCA officials, who have lodged a police complaint against the actor, however, gave a different version.

“The president (Vilasrao Deshmukh) has asked us to convene the MCA managing committee meeting urgently tomorrow. The proposal to ban Shah Rukh Khan will be the only item on the agenda and after a decision is taken it will be sent to the Cricket Board formally,” informed MCA secretary Nitin Dalal.

The Bollywood star had an altercation with the security and officials of the association after the Knight Riders’ thumping victory, according to MCA treasurer Ravi Savant.
“He misbehaved and abused the MCA security personnel as well as MCA officials, including our president Vilasrao Deshmukh, after the IPL match (between KKR and Mumbai Indians). We have decided to ban him for life from entering the stadium in future,” said Savant, who alleged that the actor was in a totally inebriated state.

Within days of a TV sting operation that implicated five players in spot-fixing, the cash-rich T20 league was hit by another furore last night with one of the IPL’s franchise owners in the spotlight.

IPL Chairman Rajiv Shukla, however, said that a final decision on the matter of banning Khan would only be taken after getting the version of all the involved parties.
“I will take the version of the MCA, Shah Rukh Khan and the police before talking about the issue,” he told reporters in New Delhi.

“The decision on ban is taken by the Working Committee so I will speak to MCA President Vilasrao Deshmukh on this. I have to take the version of all the parties involved and then speak,” Shukla added.

On whether MCA would lodge a complaint with the BCCI over one of the Khan’s behaviour, Savant said all the altercation had taken place in the presence of IPL CEO Sundar Raman and BCCI’s media manager Devendra Prabhudesai.

“Of course we will lodge a complaint with the BCCI also,” said Savant.
According to MCA sources, the Bollywood actor also broke the camera and lens of a photographer accredited to cover the match.

Police also began an inquiry into the alleged scuffle after a written complaint was filed by Joint Secretary of Mumbai Cricket Association, Nitin Dalal, with Marine Drive police station.
According to Assistant Police Commissioner Iqbal Shaikh, police reached the stadium last night soon after they were informed about the alleged misbehaviour of Khan with MCA officials.

Police took away Khan immediately from the spot and diffused the tension, he said.
“We were told that Khan had entered the ground with some children after the match was over. When security guards objected, the actor allegedly manhandled guards and used abusive language against officials of MCA, Cricket Board, security guards and a woman who is yet to be identified, said ACP Shaikh,” he added.

Meanwhile, BCCI Chief Administrative Officer Ratnakar Shetty was guarded in his take on the matter but conceded that the MCA officials are furious over an “unprovoked incident”.
“An unprovoked incident took place. I am in MCA and BCCI as well. We can speak only after getting complete information on this. Definitely the BCCI will look at whatever MCA has to say because we don’t know what actually transpired there. At this point it won’t be possible for the BCCI to comment,” he said.

On the ban on Khan, Shetty said, “I was not here so it won’t be right if I speak on this incident. The MCA officials were abused, I really don’t know the other details of what action has been taken by the MCA. Once the matter comes to BCCI, things will be looked into.

“Till the time we get a letter from MCA, we can’t comment on the basis of media reports. The MCA will have to tell us first,” he added.

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In a stern warning to the Indian Pilots Guild (IPG) that is leading the stir, a bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Rajiv Shakdher said, “we could have directly proceeded with the contempt of court proceedings against you, but we leave it ot the single judge so that better sense will prevail on you (IPG).”

Rejecting the IPG plea, the court said, “in our view, no litigant can avail of any discretionery remedy from the court by wilfully and flagrantly disobeying the orders of the court.”

The IPG had moved the court challenging the ex-parte order of a single judge on May 9 holding the strike as illegal, saying it was done without any authority.

With the single-judge bench likely to take up the matter tomorrow, the Air India management was awaiting court’s decision before deciding on further action, officials said.

But the IPG remained adamant saying it was contemplating moving the Supreme Court in the matter, with IPG leader Tauseef Muqaddam saying, “we are taking opinion of legal experts … As far as I know, the court has asked us to take our petition to the single bench of the court, which we had filed before the vacation division bench.”

In a related development, Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh said he has convened a meeting of all recognised unions next week to discuss their career progression issues, in a moved aimed at checking further labour trouble in the process of implementing the post-merger integration of Air India employees as recommended by the Dharmadhikari Committee.

However, the IPG, which has been de-recognised by the airline for leading the pilots’ stir over similar issues, is not likely to be part of the discussion as only “recognised” unions are being invited.

An airline statement said all domestic operations were being operated as per normal schedule and there were no disruptions due to the agitation.

The airline operated curtailed international services under its contingency plan.

The Dharmadhikari Committee, which has recommended several measures on HR integration issues in post-merger Air India, is likely to be taken up for discussion at the meeting.

Meanwhile, the airline today operated all its international flights, including those to North America and Europe as per the curtailed schedule, an Air India official said.

Airline officials said the pilots, who have been reporting sick, have to go for compulsory check-up before a medical board after 14 days in order to maintain their licenses.

If they fail to report back to duty “feigning sickness” for more than 14 days, the pilots would have to report to the DGCA which will refer their cases to a medical board for the purpose, they said, adding that the agitating pilots had “four more days to go”.

In the last ten days, Air India’s losses have shot up to Rs 188 crore only due to the pilots’ strike.

The airline officials said the daily losses were working out on an average of Rs 13-15 crore.

The loss has been caused by ticket cancellations, the cost of putting stranded passengers on to other airlines, unused labour and a bulk of Air India’s 17-strong fleet of aircraft Boeing 777s being grounded.

These long-haul planes are primarily operated by the pilots, who are carrying out the stir.

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AIADMK member S Semmalai highlighted this in Lok Sabha today while referring to the controversy over Ambedkar cartoon in CBSE textbooks during a discussion on Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Amendment Bill, 2011.

“In the CBSE textbooks of Karnataka, it is mentioned even now that Pakistan is a part of India. It went on to state that American Constitution is based on capitalism. Class-III students of Urdu medium in Andhra Pradesh are taught that P V Narasimha Rao is the Prime Minister of the country,” Semmalai said, evoking laughter all around the House.

Finding further faults with the textbooks, he said, “In the CBSE textbooks, a forest is defined as a group of trees and heavy industry is defined as one where heavy type of raw materials are used.”

The member said that only 15 per cent of graduates are suitable for employment and it is a sorry state of affairs. It reflects the poor quality of education at all levels, from primary to higher levels.

He lamented, “If this is the quality and stuff that we provide to our students, one can imagine what will be the standard of our students.

“Unless we make concerted efforts to allocate six per cent of the GDP to education, our goal will remain unreachable,” he added.

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“Now, in many ways, technology has been democratised,” Marine Corps Lt. Gen. George J. Flynn said at the sixth annual 2012 Joint Warfighting Conference at Virginia Beach Tuesday.

Referring to the greater availability of information potentially empowering conventional and non-traditional state actors, he cited a Harvard Business Review article detailing the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack as an example.

“All the mission planning was done via Google Earth,” he said. “There was no investment in technology of [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] platforms or anything like that.”

Flynn said the terrorists used cellular phone networks as command and control and social media to track and thwart the efforts of Indian commandos.

“How much technology or how much investment was made to create that terrorist capability?” he asked.

The future operating environment — both the technology and the threat — will continue to increase at greater rates of change due to the accessibility of information, Flynn said.

“Space and cyber will continue to play an increased role in events, with each becoming
increasingly contested domains — so it’s a new domain that we’re going to have to contest.”

“Security challenges will have both local and global aspects, we think, with events occurring across the globe,”he said. “So the bottom line [is that] if you liked the past challenges of the past 11 years, you will like the future.”

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The two leaders said last night after their first meeting in Berlin that they both wanted to keep Greece in the 17-nation group.

They also offered their support to promote growth in their EU partner and help it to emerge from the present crisis.

At the same time, they reminded the Greek politicians that their country has to fulfil its commitments to the EU.

“We want Greece to remain in the euro zone and we know that this is the wish of the majority of the Greek people,” Merkel told a joint news conference with Hollande after their one-hour meeting in the chancellory.

The meeting was an occasion for the two leaders to get to know each other and to smoothen their relations after Merkel’s open support for former French President Nicolas Sarkozy in the election campaign. Her refusal to receive Hollande during the campaign had also caused some irritations.

Hollande said he hoped the Greek people will reaffirm their adherence to the euro zone in the upcoming election.

He also mooted the idea of a European growth policy for Greece.The meeting in Berlin was overshadowed by the news from Athens that a last-ditch effort by President Karolos Papoulias to form a government of technocrats failed because of continuing differences between pro and anti-bailout parties.

A caretaker government will rule the country until the election, which is expected to take place in four weeks.

Hollande renewed his criticism of the EU’s fiscal pact on budget discipline and said he will press for its renegotiation.

During the election campaign, he insisted that he will not accept the fiscal pact in the present form and a component to promote growth and employment must be included.
“As President of the French republic I want to renegotiate what was accepted at a certain stage to give it the dimension of growth,” he said.

Growth should not be an empty word and it must be felt in every day life. Everything which can contribute to growth must be discussed at the next summit of the EU leaders on May 23, he said.

These included a proposal for a common euro bond for all nations having the single currency, which is strongly opposed by Merkel.The Chancellor, who championed the fiscal pact together with Hollande’s predecessor Sarkozy always insisted that the agreement signed by 25 of the 27 EU member nations in March and ratified by some members is not open for negotiations and she will stick to her austerity course, which in her view is the right strategy to resolve the euro zone debt crisis.

Referring to the economic situation in France, Hollande said first of all growth must be generated at the national and European level.

This is a prerequisite for scaling down debt and budget deficit.The French economy stagnated in the first quarter this year after achieving a 0.2 per cent growth in the final quarter of 2011, according to official statistics.

The two leaders underlined the importance of the Franco-German relations and their key role in the EU.

The two nations are determined to work together for the benefit of their people and for Europe in general, they said.

The French President said his first foreign trip after taking office took him to Berlin because of the importance his country attaches to its relations with Germany.

His appointment of his socialist colleague Jean-Marc Ayrault, a former German teacher and expert on German affairs as the new Prime Minister, is interpreted by some analysts as an indication of his desire to further build up the Franco-German relations.

Hollande, who dashed to Berlin just hours after his swearing in as the first Socialist President in 17 years, arrived in Berlin nearly one-and-a-half hours late as his aircraft was struck by a lightning shortly after taking off from Paris and he was forced to return to board another plane, media reports said quoting French government officials.
The President and his entourage were unhurt.

He was received with military honours by Merkel as he arrived at the chancellery.

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“We must put everything to ensure foolproof safety of the nuclear plants and we will not compromise on it.

“But at the same time I would respectfully submit it would be harmful for the country’s interest to pass an ordinance in the self-denial that we shall give up the option of having nuclear power,” the prime minister said during question hour in the Lok Sabha.

He said there was no compromise when it came to the question of safety. “We have 19 functional reactors and there has never been any accident. After Fukushima, I ordered a complete revisit to all the reactors and those reports are on the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) website.”

He said India must keep the option of nuclear power as an additional source of power.
“We are not in a situation like Japan, where large amount of power comes from nuclear plants … France also has large number of nuclear power plants. We must keep the nuclear power as an additional source,” he added.

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“Our teams are searching for certain documents in the residences of Yeddyurappa and his relatives in Bangalore and Shimoga. The search is still on,” a senior CBI official told IANS here.

The pre-dawn raids in Bangalore and Shimoga, about 270 km from here, began after CBI late Tuesday registered a case against Yeddyurappa, his two sons, B.S. Vijayendra and B.S. Raghavendra, son-in-law Sohan Kumar and mining baron Praveen Chandra under the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 and various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Raghavendra is a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Lok Sabha member, representing the Shimoga parliamentary constituency.

“We registered the case late Tuesday against all the five accused after receiving a copy of the order from the Supreme Court, directing our agency to investigate the corruption charges levelled against them in the illegal mining activities,” the official said on anonymity, as he is not authorized to brief the media.

The apex court had May 11 ordered the CBI to investigate the charges that a subsidiary of the steel major Jindal group (South West Mining Company) had donated Rs.10 crore to an educational trust (Prerana) set up by Yeddyurappa’s kin for granting it leases to mine iron ore during his tenure from May 30, 2008 to July 31, 2011.

The top court’s appointed Central Empowered Committee (CEC) April 20 recommended a CBI probe into the graft charges on the basis of voluminous documents and records submitted by the Dharwad-based Samudaya Trust, an NGO.

Another charge is that Chandra had given Rs.2.5 crore to Bhagat Homes Ltd and Rs.3.5 crore to Dhavalgiri Property Developers Ltd, which are run by Yeddyuppa’s kin in return for granting mining lease to him.

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The strong action to suspend Mohnish Mishra, Shalabh Srivastava, T P Sudhindra, Amit Yadav and Abhinav Bali was taken after a lengthy tele-conference of top BCCI officials and members of the IPL’s Governing Council.

The BCCI decided to conduct a preliminary inquiry into the incident by Ravi Sawani, the former chief of the ICC’s Anti-Corruption Unit who is now heading the BCCI’s newly set-up Anti-Corruption Unit.

“The IPL Governing Council met on teleconference today at 2:30pm and they recommended to the BCCI President for strict action against those players who were found guilty and found suspicious on the television footage shown on India TV,” IPL Chairman Rajiv Shukla told reporters here.

“Since it also involved matter relating to other matches and previous IPL, it was referred to the President. The president after due consideration has decided to have a preliminary inquiry for which a commissioner has been appointed. Mr Ravi Sawani who was the ICC ACSU chief and now advisor will conduct the inquiry and he will submit a report to the Disciplinary Committee,” he said.

“Pending inquiry the five players have been suspended from all cricket activities with immediate effect. We will await the report of the preliminary inquiry and proper action will be taken only after that,” he added.

Television channel India TV yesterday claimed to have blown the lid off “murky deals” in the IPL among players, organisers, owners and big guns of Indian cricket.

That some tough measures would be taken against the players was evident when the BCCI president N Srinivasan, who is currently at Kodaikanal, made it clear that no player would be spared if found guilty.

He admitted that he was surprised by the sting operation and reiterated the BCCI’s zero tolerance towards corruption in cricket.

“We will not tolerate this nonsense. We have zero tolerance on corruption and you will not be disappointed by the action we take,” he said.

“Some evidence have been found against some players,” he added.

The TV sting operation which was aired at prime time yesterday created a flutter in the Indian cricket establishment prompting the BCCI to react quickly. It took less than 24 hours for the cricket body to take action against the players.

The channel had claimed it had done a sting operation in which many players confessed on hidden camera they get much more than their prescribed auction under the table.
According to the channel, its operation also revealed that spot-fixing is not only prevalent in IPL but also that first class matches are fixed and women played an important role in match-fixing.

The IPL’s Governing Council had sought video footage from the TV channel and is understood to have scrutinised the tapes before taking the decision of suspending the players.

Four of the five players suspended had played in the rebel Indian Cricket League.
Medium pacer Sudhindra, who had played for Delhi Giants in the ICL, helped Madhya Pradesh gain promotion to Ranji Trophy’s Elite Division in the 2010-11 season.

He surprised everyone in his first season in the big league, ending the 2011-12 season as its highest wicket-taker and earning himself a contract with the Deccan Chargers in the IPL.

Madhya Pradesh middle-order batsman Mishra too played for the Delhi Giants in the rebel Indian Cricket League before gaining amnesty form the BCCI. Signed by Deccan Chargers in 2010, 28-year-old Mishra moved to the newly-formed Pune Warriors in 2011.

Uttar Pradesh left-arm seamer Srivastava was India’s highest wicket-taker at the victorious Under-19 World Cup in Sri Lanka in 2000. After severing ties with ICL team Delhi Giants, Srivastava was signed up by Kings XI Punjab in 2011.

22-year-old Yadav, an all-rounder, bats right-handed and bowls off-spin for Goa. He has played 14 first-class matches, scoring three half centuries and taking 41 wickets at 23.75. Yadav is on Kings XI Punjab’s roster but hasn’t made his IPL debut yet.

Left-arm spinner Bali, who was with Delhi Giants in the ICL, had played 13 first class matches and he is currently not in any IPL team.

Srivastava claimed that he was innocent and would put forward his side of story before the inquiry commissioner.

“I deny the charges but don’t want to say anything more as of now. I will put forward my views before the inquiry commissioner. I will wait for that. I respect the BCCI,” he said.

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