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Monday, February 20, 2012

IAS test series: GS, Essay, History, Public Adm - 2

In GS, there are some coaching centers which offer test series like Srirams, Synergy(Expert Brain), CST etc.

Regarding Expert Brain, from what I heard from many, it is good enough. Mostly I got positive feedback on it. I have seen the question papers, standard of the questions in most cases is on par with the level of the questions UPSC asks.

I attended Srirams 3 years back, I can give first hand info on that. The question papers were of the same standard as the question papers set by UPSC. I wrote 3 tests, one in polity, other two in statistics and geography. My answer sheets were evaluated properly. To my surprise, Sriram himself evaluated polity questions which is his subject. He pointed out the mistakes I did, which are actually difficult to notice if he didn't read what I wrote. That means that he actually read what I wrote.

For Essay, there are numerous coaching centers which offer test series like Ramaswamy IAS, some one in Vajiram, Minocha etc. All of them teach same things, give same suggestions about writing the essay. There is absolutely no need to spend Rs4000 or Rs5000 on it. Just search in google, you will find many blogs written by successful IAS candidates on how to write essays. I will also write on this topic later.

For the optional History, there are few coaching centers in Delhi which offer test series. There is Baliyan of Insight in Rajendra Nagar who takes around Rs 10K which is enormous. I attended his test series for lack of choice in Delhi.

First of all his questions are not up to the mark. They are of some what lower standards. Most of his questions are direct questions, i.e., you just need to have pertinent knowledge, you don't have to write any analysis. Most of the questions asked now a days require you to write down analysis.

His evaluation is not good enough. He awards good marks even if you don't write a good answer. That means that he is not actually reading properly what you write

He discusses the answers of all the questions in a lecture after every test. He tries to maintain student-teacher interaction which is actually a good thing. His answers are not consistently perfect, sometimes bad, sometimes good.

Overall  I was neither satisfied nor disappointed with Baliyan's test series. But there are very few choices in Delhi in the case of History.

IAS test series: GS, Essay, History, Public Adm - 1

Writing mock tests is an important part of the preparation for civil services mains exam. You can get feedback on what you write, rectify the mistakes, improve your writing skills. Writing mock tests prepares you to face the actual exam, write all the answers in the exam within stipulated time.

Unfortunately many coaching centers in Delhi cheat the students who attend the test series offered by them. The answer sheets of the students are not evaluated properly, the questions given in the mock tests are not of the standard of the actual questions given in the mains. The fees they take are ridiculously high, ever increasing year after year.

These greedy coaching institutes admit hundreds of students in their test series courses. So they don't find enough time to evaluate the answer sheets.

For example Sunil Gupta of Inspiration offered test series in which hundreds of bakras used to join even a year back. Me too was one of those bakras. He never used to evaluate the answer sheets properly. He just used to scribble something on the answer sheet to give an impression to the student that he has actually read it and evaluated it which he never does (we verified that empirically). He used to take care that what he writes cant be read as that may give away that he didn't read the answers. He was a lazy pig who used to repeat the same question papers for different batches in different years. Our batch in 2009 was given same question papers which were given to batches in 2007, 2008 with only the changes in the question numbers.

Puri of VisionIAS also didn't have time to evaluate last year. He admitted some 400-500 students. He evaluated only one or two answer sheets per student out of 15 (15 mock tests). May be remaining answer sheets were sold to raddi-walas of Rajendra Nagar.

Pawan didn't offer a test series in 2011 as he felt that he couldn't evaluate the answer sheets because of lack of time.  Instead, he offered a course for improving the writing skills under some name. It had 6 or 7 classes. At the end of the course he conducted 2 tests. He didn't even have time to evaluate those papers. Some of us had to be persistent to get our answer sheets evaluated. I had to go to him thrice for getting my copy evaluated, had to kind of persuade him. Even then he evaluated only 4 questions. Even those questions, he didn't read properly, just glanced at them for less than 10 seconds. I was thoroughly disappointed with this. We had lot of hopes about him actually. He promised many things but he didn't live up to his promises.

Mohanty of Synergy Institute is another lazy bug in this business. This time he had put some efforts to evaluate the answer sheets. He was not directly involved in the evaluation but he recruited some to that work for him. But what is the use if they evaluate instead of him. It was as good as your friends evaluating your answers. And there was no guarantee that they were actually reading the answers while evaluating.

That is the story of PA test series. Picture in other subjects is not much different.

(cont)

Monday, February 13, 2012

Well Done Abba

The other day I was watching the movie Well Done Abba of Shyam Benegal. It portrays the true picture of corruption in the government offices in a witty manner, in Benegal's way. It is a story of an illiterate Muslim car driver of Mumbai who visits his native village in Andhra Pradesh. His struggle with the government authorities to grant him money under a government scheme to build a well in his village where there is water scarcity.

Shyam Benegal can narrate a story by touching many social issues in a humorous way. Never it appears in his movies that he is forcefully intertwining the social issues with the story. Here too he touches many issues like oppression of women in Islam, innocent Muslim girls' exploitative marriages with dubious Arab Shaikhs, communal riots, all-pervasive corruption, un-empowered women representatives of local self governments, unaccountable politicians who always indulge in blame game etc. There are many funny moments in the movie.

The actors too acted well in their roles. Boman Irani as the driver, Minissha Lamba as his dauther, Ila Arun, Ravi Kishan, Rajit Kapur etc all have done their bit. Music was nothing to write about. Aesthetics like sets, costumes etc are believable as always in Benegal movies. Not much to write about the cinematography.

When compared with his other satirical comedy Welcome to Sajjanpur, this is not that good. Welcome to sajjanpur was lot better. The witty dialogue in that movie would have you in splits through out the movie. This movie too has that kind of dialogue but comes infrequently in between. The character of the brother of the driver was not that funny. That thread of love story between the daughter of the driver and the automobile mechanic is not that good.

On the whole it is nice movie to watch. I dont know why Benegal's movies don't get popular response they so deserve.

Pennahobilam

Pennahobilam is located around 50KM away from Anantapur on the road to Uravakonda. It is on the banks of a rivulet of Penna river on which PABR project (Penna Ahobilam Balancing Reservoir) was built which is nearby.

Pennahobilam is famous for the Narasimha Swamy temple which is on a small hillock. According to the mythology, Lord Narasimha left a big footprint here on his way from Ahobilam to some place in Nellore. Inner sanctum is built on the footprint.

I don't know who built the temple but my guess is someone from Vijayanagara ruling fold. It is built in granite stone locally available, so that leaves no scope for any sculpture on the pillars or the walls. There are four gopurams on the four sides of the temple which are renovated recently. Even the tops of the mandapam (temple hall) and inner sanctum are renovated recently. New constructions don't appeal to me much. Temple is enclosed in high walls just like a fort which was a practice developed during Pandyas. So my guess about Vijayagara period may be correct.

One peculiar feature of the temple is there are two high columns(dhwaja sthambham) side by side, excluding the one in front of them. Commonly only one dhwaja sthambham is built in any temple.

A Fair (tirunaallu) takes place here in summer which is quite good. Pennahobilam temple is a popular venue for marriage ceremonies in Anantapur. My parents married here, some of my relatives too. There are many choultries (colonnades) here built over centuries for the convenience of the marriage parties. Some centuries-old choultries indicates that this place was popular for marriages even centuries before.

Whenever Penna is full of water, this place looks beautiful. The "kona" here springs to life during rainy season. Otherwise it is quite dull.

I visited this place 5 times or so in the last 15 years, the last time being after a gap of 10 years or so. What I noticed is, the place has become dirtier. There is pond here which was a living pond even 10 years back. It was thriving with lotuses. Now it is in a sorry state with lot of garbage. Practically dead!!! The river too has become dirtier with the garbage. Urgent steps are needed to restore their beauty. 

Saturday, February 4, 2012

IAS Coaching: Public Admin - Puri and Pawan

These two achieved lot of name in the last two years because of their test series. Promotion by top rankers like Anay Dwivedi helped Pawan a lot. I happened to attend one of Pawan's course  which he called as quality enrichment programme. I am not sure about the name though.

Pawan used to teach at Sriram 3 years back. Some of his students didn't like his teaching and they complained to Sriram. Something happened and his courses were removed from the curriculum and he was forgotten. After 1 year or so I heard from Anay Dwivedi that someone by the name Pawan offers test series and he was immensely helped by the test series. Honestly speaking, I didn't think that this Pawan and the Pawan I know were the same.

Pawan is not money minded which is rare among the coaching breed of Delhi. He is always available to the students at a phone call. These are the 2 best things I observed. But in my opinion this very same advantage is working against him. He is not able to manage the time properly. Instead of wasting time in explaining the silly doubts to idiots who come to him after the class, he should concentrate on test series which originally brought him the name.

Coming to the teaching, he makes every thing simple, teaches in simple language which every one can understand. But one problem is he rushes through the things a lot. For someone who read the things once that may be okay but for a beginner that is a big hurdle. So beginners be careful before joining his coaching. He actually tries to correlate the current events with static part, which I found good. That, some what makes our life simple.

I will write about his test series (whatever name he calls it) later which I found not worth.

Puri also became famous because of test series. From what I heard is that he is not good in paper 1 but very good in paper 2. That means that he is good at the dynamic part of the syllabus and he correlates the current affairs with static part well which is good news. His teaching is more information oriented than concept oriented, i.e. he focuses more on delivering lot of information.

I will talk about his test series later.

My suggestion would be don't join any coaching and study yourself. But if you are itching to join one then follow this. If you are a beginner with absolutely no knowledge of the subject then the preference order shall be Mohanty, Puri, Pawan. If you have some knowledge, then the order shall be Pawan, Puri. No Mohanty in this list. Vajiram etc are out of picture as far as Public Administration coaching is concerned.

And avoid Bhavani Singh, Sunil Gupta at all costs.

IAS Coaching Centers: Public Administration (Cont)

Other famous PA coaching centers in Delhi are Pawan Kumar's institute, Bhavani's institute which is NIAS if I am not wrong, Sunil Gupta's institute which is Inspiration. Other one who is on the rise is Puri who teaches in Vision IAS if I am not wrong.

First of all, about Sunil Gupta's Inspiration. Believe me, he is the worst teacher you can come across ever. I happened to attend 2 of his classes. He cant speak even one proper sentence in English. I don't expect him to speak grammatically correct English which I admit that I cant do. But he is completely incomprehensible, can't communicate anything properly. We cant make out what he is mumbling. Here I am not even complaining about his Bihari accent, which I actually like. He uses his some refrain once in every 15 or 20 seconds, which fortunately I don't remember. Once in a while we may make out what he is saying only to realize that what he is saying is bullshit. His class notes is full of bullshit. Even though I didn't fortunately see his printed notes, safely we can say that even that is bullshit.

I will write about his famed test series in later posts. Don't miss it.

Don't fall for his publicity which unfortunately many does. You will repent later.

Next comes Bhavani Singh's NIAS. He takes up classes in Hindi and English, I am talking about his classes in English here. I met three persons who attended his classes and all of them gave scathing feedback. Absolutely nothing comes from his notes, his teaching is largely irrelevant to UPSC requirements. Most of the time students don't understand what he is teaching. His notes is crap.

My friends says that strength of the class rapidly declines as the course progresses. By the end of first 2 months of the course, less than 10 people attend his classes. This happens with every batch. You can understand that he is incapable of sustaining any interest in the students.

Pawan Kumar and Puri, in next post.

IAS Coaching Centers: Public Administration

Public Administration is the most popular optional as of now because of three reasons. Firstly, the syllabus if relatively small. Secondly, people get good marks with not much effort. This may be because UPSC is trying to promote the subject and twice in the last three years people scored heavily in PA (leaving aside 2009). Lastly, PA is very simple to understand. It closely resembles GS, helps in both GS and Essay and so helps in reducing the work load.

Naturally, the number of people who give CSE(Mains) more than doubled in the last 3 years. Number of PA coaching centers kept up with the rising number students. It has become a fad of sorts for those who complete their attempts of civil services to come to Old Rajendra Nagar or Mukherjee Nagar and open PA coaching centers to make a living.

As I wrote in one of my earlier post, PA is dynamic subject. So no amount of coaching is useful. Moreover most of the PA coaching centers in Delhi are of spurious kind which cheat the students under the sun and ruin the precious time and the chances. I will share the info on some of the PA coaching centers in Delhi.

First of all there is Synergy institute in Karol Bagh, run by a failed candidate in civils, Mr Mohanty. Many students attend his coaching and speaking in terms of market share, my guess is he has 30-35% market share. His class rooms overflow with the students, all the time some students have to stand outside the class as there is not enough space, there are not enough chairs. I heard from some that those students dont get to see him while he is lecturing but only get to listen to him through speakers located outside the class.

He is lazy bug, not punctual. He teaches only some part of the syllabus, static part essentially. I should admit that he is good at teaching the static part. Heard this from many. He leaves many important topics which are mostly dynamic to his minions who are utterly useless. He passes good chunk of time teaching what he knows the best. Rest all is rushed through by his minions in Usain Bolt's speed.

The problem is he doesn't relate the current events with the static part. I heard that he is trying to rectify his mistakes but still not okay. He gives case studies in explaining the things and I have to say that they are way pedestrian and stupid. Read them and read the case studies in ARC reports, you will understand what I am saying. I guarantee that if reproduce them in the exam, evaluator of your paper will be amused.

Moreover his students tend to insert his case studies forcefully in the answer. This spoils the flow of the question. Right way is to seamlessly integrate the case studies with the actual answer. More on this, later.

He gives some printed booklets to read from, which are highly unorganised. He merely copied from some papers, textbooks. He is such a lazy bug that he didn't even compile them properly. His class notes is better than his printed notes.

I will write about other coaching centers in the next posts.

IAS Coaching Centers: CSAT

Last year CSAT was introduced and that opened flood gates for many new coaching centers. Irony is that all these measures of UPSC to introduce changes in the pattern of the exam are aimed at eliminating the coaching centers. But introduction of CSAT frightened many students. Many didn't give attempt as they thought it was better to get a feel of the difficulty of the question paper first. Coaching centers made a killing from their fear.

Coaching center people were expecting questions of slightly lesser standard than CAT. They taught keeping in mind this level of difficulty. But the questions which were actually asked were of still lesser standard. Except a few questions of comprehension, every question was so easy that most of the people ended up scoring around 130-140 marks out of 200 with some people scoring as high as 180 marks.

I wrote mock tests of Vajiram, ALS, Sriram, TIME, Career Launcher put together around 20. Of all the question papers, I found TIME's question papers some what closer to the difficulty level of questions asked by UPSC but still on the higher side. I never used to complete the mock question papers of TIME within time but I completed the UPSC question paper within 1 hour 40 or so. Paper was that easy.

My suggestion is please don't join any coaching center for CSAT. Just give mock tests. You can get the photocopy of the mock question papers in the market. Don't give more than 100 hours or 150 hours of your time for preparing for CSAT. It's not worth more than that. Buy a good CSAT manual and practice only from that book.

Friday, February 3, 2012

IAS Coaching Centers: General Studies

As I wrote in earlier posts, coaching for GS is absolute waste of money and precious time. I told this to my friends and some others when they asked me to suggest some good coaching centers. But they didn't listen to me and joined Vajiram which is quite famous in Delhi.

What I want to say is that even if many advice the beginners not to join any coaching center for GS, they join them. I am familiar with some coaching centers in Delhi, I will give comparative analysis of some coaching centers with the help of the views current among the IAS aspirants in Delhi.

Rau's, Chanakya are the two names which many IAS aspirants would be familiar with even before they come to Delhi because of the advertisements in various magazines. Avoid these two at any cost. Two persons whom I personally know joined there when they came to Delhi and they still regret a lot.

Vajiram, Sriram in Delhi are two names in this field which are famous. Both are located in Old Rajendra Nagar.  Vajiram takes thousands of students into several batches. Sriram admits 100 or 200 mostly those who dont get admission in Vajiram. So teacher-student interaction is lot better in Sriram. In the class one may ask any doubts, after the lecture one can go to the teachers and ask any doubts.

Vajiram dedicates more time teaching biology, other sciences, ancient and medieval history, some useless things in economy, things from Manorama and shit which are quite useless from prelims point of view. Sriram doesn't waste much time on these useless things(except ancient and medieval history).

Polity is taught equally well in Vajiram and Sriram but I would prefer Sriram over Vajiram. Economy is taught very well in Sriram, badly in Vajiram. Geography is taught well Vajiram but no questions come from their teaching. S&T is not taught well in Sriram but the notes they give for S&T more than makes up for any deficiencies which is not the case with Vajiram.

On the whole I have to say Vajiram teaches well conventional part of the syllabus and ignores the non-conventional current affairs part. Vajiram is not keeping up with changing times. Sriram is a lot better in this regard. That is why Vajiram students regret a lot, after the giving prelims, after realizing the reality.

In Vajiram, notes is dictated instead of giving printed notes like in Sriram. This is because Vajiram is too lazy to update the printed material which renders it's printed material useless. Sriram updates the printed notes regularly and distributes the notes in the class. This saves a lot of time in Sriram classes.

Coming to the notes given by the coaching centers, there is consensus among the student community in Delhi that Sriram's notes is excellent, whether it is polity, economy, current affairs, social issues, international affairs, India and the World, S&T or anything. Same can not be said about the notes provided by Vajiram. Don't ever read the printed current affairs booklets provided by Vajiram. Even class notes is not upto the mark.

Enough of Vajiram and Sriram. there is one more famous coaching center, ALS in Mukherjee Nagar. It is more on the lines of Vajiram, focus is more on the conventional part.

I will add more later.

IAS Coaching Centers (Cont)

In the case of the static subjects the personality factors like ability to work hard, ability to understand the things, one's memory power, quality of one's peer group, quality of the guidance one can get etc comes into play.

One has to remember that everything that is taught in the coaching centers of static subjects is readily available in the text books. If the text books are not sufficient, notes of the coaching centers is readily available in the market.

One has to also remember that in coaching centers everything is taught superficially. This shallow knowledge is unhelpful in answering the questions in the exam which are being asked now a days. This is particularly true in case of subjects with huge syllabus like History, Geography etc. So after listening to the lecture, one has to study the textbooks to get a deep picture of the things. Coaching in this case only familiarizes the subject to the beginners. So what is the use of coaching then?

If one is patient enough and works hard, the necessity of the coaching centers can be eliminated. But if one has a starting problem in reading an entirely unfamiliar subject, he may join the coaching center for that static subject.

Some persons may remember the things by just reading the topics of the subject a few times. But to many persons listening to some topics is sometimes helps them more in memorizing the things than just reading them. Here coaching definitely helps. As the coaching centers only teaches superficially, this advantage of coaching is some what neutralized. But I have to admit that the basic structure of the subject sticks in the mind.

Some subjects require proper understanding of the subject unlike some subjects which require lesser understanding and more memory power. Philosophy comes under former category, History comes under later category. Obviously in this case coaching actually helps. Literature subjects like Pali too require coaching which makes life easy.

In my opinion, if there is someone who can guide you well, tell you what to read and where to read them from, clarify your doubts, then there is absolutely no need of any coaching for any subject. I will elaborate on this now.

Even in coaching centers, many times they tell the students to read from their notes and not from any textbooks. It is suicidal to follow this as their notes are ill-organised and written badly in most of the cases, not comprehensive in all the cases. Reading only their notes wont help you in answering most of the questions which are asked now a days. Reading from textbooks is must. Now, there may many textbooks for a subject, and not every thing is given at one place in a text book. Also, not everything given in the textbooks is useful. If there is someone to guide and tell you what to read and where to read from, your time wont be wasted. Coaching centers definitely don't do this.

If there is a quality peer group, your work is simplified, as through discussion your understanding improves. Shelf-life of the subject, in the mind improves. Coaching center's need will be reduced.

So I would say, analyse the subject and your personality from the above mentioned angles and assess the need of coaching yourself.


IAS Coaching Centers

Is it necessary to join any coaching center? If it is, then which coaching center? These are the two questions which inevitably come to a beginners mind.

The 'necessity' of joining any coaching center depends on the subject, the person's ability to work hard, ability to understand the things, his memory power, quality of his peer group, quality of the guidance he can get etc.

I call a subject static if the content of the subject isn't dependent on the current events. I call it dynamic if the content of the subject is dependent on the current events. In a dynamic subject, the questions asked in the exam 'may' be based on the current events. So are the answers to that questions. One needs to read the newspapers for the current events which are related to the subject and constantly update his knowledge about the subject. Needless to say, static subjects don't need all this.

General Studies, Public Administration, Political Science, Sociology, Economics etc come under the category of dynamic subjects.
Sciences and engineering subjects, History, literature subjects, Philosophy etc come under static subjects' category. Content is not at all dependent on the current events.
Geography, Psychology etc should ideally be put under the category of static subjects even though few things are current affairs related.

What is the use of this distinction?

With years of teaching same things again and again (as the content is static), teachers of static subjects are better than those who teach dynamic subjects. Even in dynamic subjects, there are some things which are static which are taught well by some teachers.

Problem arises when the content is dynamic. Most of the teachers are lazy to update their notes, relate the current affairs with the subject, read the government reports (as in the case of public administration). They just teach the static part of the subject and leave the dynamic part to the student himself. In the beginning, students may find that coaching is actually helping them but as the course progresses they realize that they have wasted their money. They feel that they could have easily learnt whatever they are taught by studying the textbooks themselves.

As the students realized this deficiency in them, now a days the teachers are trying hard to rectify it. But things more or less remain the same as of now. Because of few years of experience I have, with conviction I can say that students themselves can do far better job than the teachers. They just have to prepare notes of those things.

General Studies is the most dynamic of all the subjects. Most of the questions are based on the current events. Needless to say, coaching is least effective in it's case. Self-study is the best in this case.

Public Administration is equally dynamic. One can actually call the 2 papers of Public Administration as GS Paper 1 and GS paper 2. There are numerous coaching centers in Delhi which teach the subject, most of them are fraud.

So my concluding suggestion is don't join any coaching center for the dynamic subjects. That stands irrespective of the various personal abilities I mentioned above in 2nd para. I will deal with the static subjects in the next post.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Playing Against India

Before the series with India, the last time he made a test century was 2 years back on Pakistan. After that his form dipped. He played 16 tests since that match till the series with India. he played against New Zealand, Pakistan, India, England, Sri Lanka, South Africa, again New Zealand.

He made only 6 half centuries in those 16 tests. 3 against India in 4 innings. After those 3 fifties it appeared to many as though Ricky Ponting got back his form. But no, he had to wait for another India series. Meanwhile axe was dangling on his neck. If India series didnt happen he sure would have been shown the exit.

Before the India series, when Rahul Dravid was talking about Ponting's form, I had a hunch that Ponting would get his form back in this series. I had in my mind many instances of cricketers gaining their form by scoring against India, nameless cricketers becoming overnight stars by performing against India. Remember Henry Olongo, Douglas Marillier, Matthew Hayden, Javed Miandad, Saeed Anwar, Graham Gooch, Sanath Jayasuriya, Jayawardena etc, who were only a few of them.

I was right on spot!! He scored 2 centuries including a double century, 3 half centuries in 6 innings!!

I bet, every out-of-form batsmen would long to play against India and fancy their chances.

Dhoni Should Retire From Tests

In my opinion Dhoni is the most overrated captain ever. He was only lucky to get breaks even with his stupid decisions. When the team was performing well everyone used to unduly praise him. Now that he lost his midas touch and the team is losing many are criticizing him and showing him his right place.

Going by his form in the last year in tests, he doesn't deserve a place in the test team at all. Even before that, he always performed in fits and starts. He was lucky to captain a good team with all the batsmen in their prime. That made people not to talk about his failures as batsman.

When there were news reports which mentioned that he is planning to retire from tests (which he didnt directly say), I was happy. But going by the latest reports he has no such plans. My happiness is preempted.

Honestly speaking he should go and pass captaincy to Sehwag or Gambhir.

Time To Go (Cont)

Some argue that if all the three are pushed out of the team now itself at a time, India will become new West Indies losing even to Zimbabwe. They argue that Indian spectators may also lose interest in the sport if crowd pullers like these dont play, especially in the longer format. And this is especially bad when there is a perception that test format is fast losing popularity.

These are very much true. No one can attain the crowd pulling capacity of Sachin, and it takes time for the youngsters to reach the level of Dravid, Laxman. So only way out is Laxman should go first, Dravid second, Sachin third, all three with in one or one-and-half years.

If I am not wrong, India's next foreign tour will be in next year. That should be good news for old-timers if they are planning to retire on a high by scoring tons on flat tracks. That should be bad news for Indian cricket if they plan to stick around by scoring heavily on flat tracks.

Young guns should be given opportunities to play on these flat tracks and build confidence that they too can score. Meanwhile BCCI should prepare bowling pitches in at the least 2 regular test stadiums so that these perfect their technique. By the next overseas test tour, they should at the least be able to put up decent performances if not match winning ones. Even if we get defeated we can at least say that we are building our teams!!!

Time To Go

VVS Laxman is 37 years old. Rahul Dravid is in his 39, Sachin Tendulkar is going to 39 in a few days. Tendulkar has been playing for India for 22 years, Dravid and Laxman for 15 years. How many more years do they want to play when the youngsters are waiting for their chances is the question everyone is thinking of.

The purpose of continuing them in the team till now is they can act as backbone to the batting lineup in longer format of the game which requires good technique suitable for all pitches. Which in the opinion of many, is lacking in the possible young replacements like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Chateswar Pujara, Manoj Tiwary, etc. Until these youngsters perfect their technique, these old-timers are to act as fillers.

But they are not doing justice to their assigned roles. Two back-to-back white-wash overseas series are the testimony to that. Tendulkar is better off among them but that is not enough for a man named Tendulkar!!!

Laxman is on the top of the stack of the players waiting to be pushed out of the team. He played an astounding innings of 96 in South Africa in 2010 but after that he isn't able to perform on pitches abroad. No doubt he scored 3 half centuries in West Indies in mid 2011, one or two on tough pitches in that, but that was a depleted West Indies bowling attack. He scored a century on the same West Indies team in India on a flat pitch which doesn't add to his achievements. His England tour and Australian tours are disasters.

Dravid has been fantastic in England series. He rediscovered his form and class when everybody wrote him down. His batting display was the only saving grace in the India's disaster tour of England. Such was his form that he was taken into ODI team against England after some years. He continued his form even on West Indies in India. But his Australia tour didn't go well. He was bowled 6 times in 8 innings!!! If this is any clue, his time has come.

Everyone is waiting for Sachin's 100th century since mid-2011. He was unlucky to miss his century a few times. He got out in 90s, 80s, 70s on England, Australia, West Indies. He got good starts in England in 2nd innings of 3 matches but wasn't able to capitalize on that. He wasn't helped by any on the other end of the pitch in building a partnership. He played well in Australia too in first 2 matches. He was aggressive and hitting the ball well. Among the three, he is the only one who can continue in the team on the basis of merit. But even he should retire after completing his 100th century for every fan's sake. I just hope he wont take another 1 or 2 years to get that. Hopefully he gets it in the current ODI series against Australia.