Much like its commissioner Mr Lalit Modi, IPL from the very beginning has always been mired in controversies of all imaginable kinds. From Vijay Mallyas sacking of the team coach Charu Sharma for the teams poor performance in season one to the grand auction of international players for season two in Fort Aguda Beach Resort in Goa, Modi has been able to keep the interest alive by successfully marrying money with sports. This is a new kind of cricket, where players are auctioned and teams and players are owned by frnanchise owners. But this is also the cricket where players from U-19 get a chance to play with Sachin Tendulkar or Shane Warne. IPL: An Inside Story takes a look at almost all the aspects of IPL from who actually first thought of such a tournament to the process of choosing the franchise owners, and from the socio-economic impact of the IPL on Indian society to the politics of shifting the venue of season two to South Africa.

A Companion to Sport brings together writing by leading sports theorists and social and cultural thinkers, to explore sport as a central element of contemporary culture. Positions sport as a crucial subject for critical analysis, as one of the most significant forms of popular culture Includes both well-known social and cultural theorists whose work lends itself to an interrogation of sport, and leading theorists of sport itself Offers a comprehensive examination of sport as a social and cultural practice and institution Explores sport in relation to modernity, postcolonial theory, gender, violence, race, disability and politics

This book studies how Cricket has evolved in a post liberal India and how technology has affected the way it is viewed and spectated upon thereby altering the cultural and social milieu of the nation.

An extraordinary life. A strange death. The untold story of Sunanda Pushkar. On 17 January 2014, Sunanda Pushkar, businesswoman and wife of writer and politician Shashi Tharoor, was found dead in her hotel suite in New Delhi. Her death was as shocking as it was suspect, spawning many a controversy and complex legal battles. Her life was no less dramatic but far lesser known. A culmination of material drawn from personal archives, numerous interviews and investigation across continents, this riveting biography attempts to answer the question: Who really was Sunanda Pushkar? Was she a social climber hankering after power and fame? Or was she bold and unconventional, achieving success on her own merit only to become a casualty of circumstance? Was she a villain or a victim? Or a bit of both? In search of these answers, Sunanda Mehta, journalist and Pushkar’s former schoolmate, traces her subject’s life from her early days in cantonment towns, to her first two marriages, a largely unknown stint in Canada, her rise as a Dubai businesswoman, and finally her much-publicized years with Tharoor until her controversial death shook the nation. Through the soaring highs and wrecking lows that marked her forty-nine years, Sunanda Pushkar lived with passion, ambition and defiance. This definitive biography is the account of her phenomenal life and its turbulent end.

This book examines the ways in which cricket has reflected and reproduced some of the social and political tensions of the twenty-first century. Cricket’s struggle for global recognition and the shifting concerns about cricket’s perceived ‘character’ provide two of the most significant meta-narratives to shape the game’s historical and future development. However, in contrast to the degree of continuity these narratives appear to support, the game is currently undergoing a particularly rapid and radical phase of change. This book illustrates some of these dominant processes, that can be broadly categorized as the changing political economy of the game, the nation-specific manifestations of cricket’s political-economic landscape, and the intro- and retrospection within the English game. Cricket is not only thriving across the world, its global spread reveals narratives of migration, national and international politics, astute governance, empowerment of people, and cultural practices of everyday life. New ethical, political, and identity-related concerns have arisen with the reworking of the objectives and methods of playing and watching cricket. The chapters in this volume employ cricket as a useful conceptual tool to analyse the dynamics underwriting interactions between races, sexes, classes, and polities. Cricket in the 21st Century will be a fascinating read for students, scholars as well as general readers with an interest in the sociology and history of sport and global political economy. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Sport in Society.

The twenty-first century has witnessed the rise of India as a major media producer and consumer market increasingly engaged with the global economy. Aided by rising incomes, technological remediation, regulatory strategies, and a shifting political terrain, the business of media has been given official recognition as a substantive component of India’s economy and as a prominent feature of its economic thinking. In light of these developments, these two pioneering volumes investigate the dynamics of an increasingly integrated media economy encompassing television, film, music, sport, and telecoms. Volume 1: Industrial Dynamics and Cultural Adaptation illustrates the distinctive industrial dynamics of India’s media economy, tracking the deeply embedded cultural, political, and economic forces that determine its everyday operation. The selection of essays serves to demonstrate the unique patterns of development and the complex field of exchanges that have constituted India’s media economy. As a whole, this volume posits a comprehensive approach to understanding the nature of media resources, the negotiation of industrial norms and the cultural context of a media economy firmly situated in the realities of India’s distinct regions, cultures, and human networks. Volume 2: Market Dynamics and Social Transactions provides a comprehensive analysis of the interlocking markets that constitute the media economy, focusing upon its particular commodity forms, labour conditions, and spaces of consumption. Taking account of a rich set of case studies, this volume argues for the necessary consideration of multiple and interdependent markets in explicating our everyday encounters with media. By foregrounding the social transactions that encapsulate market exchanges, it begins to illustrate some of the novel aspirations, meanings, and relationships arising with India’s media economy.

A 2012 McKinsey study found that women hold a mere 5 per cent of boardroom positions in Indian firms. If India has to emerge as a real economic superpower in the 21st century, she has to harness the growing women power, grant them a greater role in the nation-building process and chalk out a clear ballot-to-boardroom path for them. However, there are a few women who have fought against all odds to occupy the corner rooms in Indian companies. Women with Vision profiles successful businesswomen from diverse backgrounds: (1) World-class managers (Chanda Kochhar and Naina Lal Kidwai); (2) First-generation entrepreneurs (Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Zia Mody and Ekta Kapoor) and (3) Inheritors (Anu Aga, Shobhana Bhartia, Priya Paul and Priti Paul). In a face-to-face interview with the author, each icon shares her journey of how she battled male-dominated hierarchies to shatter the glass ceiling and set up successful business empires through grit, determination, hard work and merit. Their stories, also narrated by their family members and colleagues, highlight their conflicts, challenges, perils and promises. These personalities can truly inspire a whole generation of women to fight their way through the corridors of corporate power while juggling their many responsibilities at home.

Reaching as far back as ancient times, Ronojoy Sen pairs a novel history of India's engagement with sport and a probing analysis of its cultural and political development under monarchy and colonialism, and as an independent nation. Some sports that originated in India have fallen out of favor, while others, such as cricket, have been adopted and made wholly India's own. Sen's innovative project casts sport less as a natural expression of human competition than as an instructive practice reflecting a unique play with power, morality, aesthetics, identity, and money. Sen follows the transformation of sport from an elite, kingly pastime to a national obsession tied to colonialism, nationalism, and free market liberalization. He pays special attention to two modern phenomena: the dominance of cricket in the Indian consciousness and the chronic failure of a billion-strong nation to compete successfully in international sporting competitions, such as the Olympics. Innovatively incorporating examples from popular media and other unconventional sources, Sen not only captures the political nature of sport in India but also reveals the patterns of patronage, clientage, and institutionalization that have bound this diverse nation together for centuries.

This volume discusses the development of cultural studies in India. It shows how inter-disciplinarity and cultural pluralism form the basis of this emerging field. It deals with contemporary debates and interpretations of post-colonial theory, subaltern studies, Marxism and post-Marxism, nationalism and post-nationalism. Drawing upon literature, linguistics, history, political science, media and theatre studies, and cultural anthropology, it explores themes such as caste, indigenous peoples, vernacular languages and folklore and their role in the making of historical consciousness. A significant intervention in the area, this book will be useful to scholars and students of cultural studies and theory, literature, history, cultural anthropology, sociology, and media and mass communication, as well as the general reader.

This book focuses on the application of data mining techniques in cricket. It provides detailed examples of how data mining can be helpful for decision-making in sports with special reference to cricket, particularly the quantitative features related to Twenty20 cricket, the latest and the most popular format of the game. The book highlights the performance quantification of cricketers (batsmen, bowlers, all-rounders, and wicket keepers), determining the market valuation of cricketers based on their on-field performances and the effect of age on the performance of the cricketers. It also provides a comprehensive overview of the different aspects of the game where quantitative techniques are beneficial, and highlights the use of statistical and data mining tools in analysing sports-related data and objective decision-making in sports. The book appeals to a wide readership, including postgraduate students of statistics/mathematics, data analysts, sports management bodies. It also offers data miners, such as researchers in statistics, mathematics, operations research, and computer science ideas for projects.