India's Two Passions: Cricket & Bollywood It’s been said so often that Lonely Planet should actually have it as the opening lines on its India edition – “Cricket is India’s primary religion”. There, I have said it again. We love it – love watching it, love it live, love the highlights, love the reruns and re-reruns and the talk shows and the columns and the blogs…okay enough said. There’s the movies too and we love those guys as well. For every Sachin v Rahul debate there’s a SRK v Aamir equivalent. If only the man hours invested by Indians in talking cricket and...

The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sport (MYAS), India writes to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on 25 May, 2010 explaining the context and rationale behind its recent actions. Recommend a read of the full text: latest letter

The heated exchanges between the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), the Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sport (Ministry) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have dominated the sporting pages over the last four weeks.  Letters have been flying thick and fast as these bodies trade punches over how sport should be administered in India. While the dominant theme has been the alleged affront to the “autonomy of the Olympic movement” in India by the Ministry, there clearly is more to the story. Notesonsports examines the key actors involved in this controversy and what it entails for the...

The Indian Premier League (IPL) completed its third season yesterday. Add salt to taste, but as a sports property its valuation has gone from zero to USD four billion in thirty-six months. Yet, if the IPL were to be scrapped tomorrow, whom and how would it really impact? Will any legacy remain unfulfilled or any legitimate vision die prematurely? Hardly so. Until (if ever) we know more about the financial skullduggery of the IPL, let us work with what we have. Three years since it started the story of the IPL has largely been scripted around a few keywords: Television Ratings, Broadcast Deals,...

Over the past four years, I have struggled to justify to numerous well-wishers, what exactly, I do. Sports Law in India, it appears, is just some euphemism for drafting agreements for cricketers to endorse colas and hair gel or purchase land. The question marks about financial impropriety that have arisen during the third edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), have eased the task of explaining why indeed there must be a structured Sports Law regime in India. Notes on Sports in its subsequent posts will examine issues that we must raise and address in Indian Sports Law with some specific attention...