Improper Reporting by Newspapers and websites

If you have a look at this article, it says the Rupee gained 18 paise against the dollar.

Let's make a few things straight

1 Rupee = 100 paise

Is it possible for rupee to gain 18 paise and equal 118 paise. It's rubbish. It is impossible for a currency to appreciate against another currency in its own terms.

What the newspaper tries to explain is that, 1 USD has depreciated by 18 paise.

The newspaper here tries to put the information in terms of Rupee. Then, the article should have said Rupee gains xxx cents. But this is not practical because the cent gain by Rupee will be very very little, hence the mistake these people do.

Manmohan Singh - Spineless?

Yesterday Congress party announced their manifesto and Manmohan Singh announced that he will not be contesting the Lok Sabha Polls.

I can understand he getting nominated to Rajya Sabha in 2004 post the elections because he was not in contention before the Polls, and hence was not given a party ticket.

But the situation is different now. He is Congress' PM Candidate. Doesn't that mean he has to contest Lok Sabha polls and win his way to Prime Ministership? The reason he gave was really funny. He cited health reasons for not contesting. But he doesn't mind being PM in spite of his health concerns.

Do we want a PM who's just a puppet and doesn't even have the guts to contests Polls?

Who's spreading more cummunal hatred?

Media space in the last few days have been dominated by Varun Gandhi who's accused of spreading communal hatred. He is accused of talking in front of hundreds of hindus against hindus. While this article in no way tries to support Varun, I'd like to question the media.

What the hell is the media doing? CNN-IBN and NDTV are abuzz with the videos being shown hundreds of times which the entire country is watching. How are these TV channels spreading communal harmony by showing these videos throughout the day?

Apparently Varun Gandhi's hate speech happened on 6th March 2009 whereas the videos were submited to the Election Commission and were shown on TV only on 17th March 2009. Does it take 11 days to make a CD?

Economics of IPL Venue Change (update1)

It's an honest attempt at calculating IPL Venue shift's impact on India's GDP.

No. of Teams = 8
No. of Players in a team = 15
Team Size = 20 (Players + Coach + Manager + Physio etc.)
No. of Foreign Players in Each team = 4(assumption)
Duration = 45 Days

Consolidated team size = 20*8 = 160
No. of matches = 2*8C2 + 2 + 1 = 59

1. Hotel Accomodation = 160 * 45 * 5000 = 3.6 Crores (5000 per head per night)

2. Food Expenditure = 160 * 45 * 3 * 1000 = 2.16 Crores (1000 per meal)

3. Travel Expenses = 160 * 7 * 2 * 8000 = 1.792 Crores (7 away matches per team, 8000 per business class one-way ticket)

4. Ticket Revenue = 59 * 40000 * 500 = 118 Crores (Avg. Audience = 40000, Avg. Ticket Price = 500)

5. Shopping by Foreign Players = 4 * 8* 2 * 100000 = 0.64 Crores (Player including his girlfriend each shopping for 1 Lac)

6. Round Trip Travel from home to stadium by Audience = 40000/2 * 59 * 0.1 * 50 * 2 = 1.18 Crores (40000 Crowd, 2 per vehicle, 5km distance from Home to Stadium, 50kmpl Mileage, 50 Rupees per litre of Petrol)

7. Stadium Shopping by the Crowd = 59 * 40000 * 100 = 23.6 Crores (assuming Avg Spending on food and other merchandise = 100)

Total GDP Impact = 150.972 Crores

I'm sure I've left some expenses. Comments are invited to improve the calculations.

P.S All calculations are done in Indian National Rupee(INR)