IPL - Is it the trigger for hooliganism in India

The Indian Premier league got off to a dream start. It was perhaps the best inauguration events the cricketing world had ever witnessed. And the fireworks for the event were provided from Brandon Mc Cullum’s bat, as he blasted off sixes to all parts of the ground.

With the perfect start, cricket crazy fans, and the opulent clubs, the question arises. Will IPL lead to hooliganism?

Hooliganism is not a new concept for the Indian cricket fans. Its signs were first seen in 1967 at a Calcutta Test match. In the last two cricket world cups 2003 and 2007 we witnessed fans routing the player’s homes and burning their effigies. Stone-throwing, bottle-throwing, acts of vandalism are the ways of reaction put up by us, Indians on the verge of defeat. But all, this are the superficial levels of hooliganism and that too at the test and one-day level of cricket. It is no where near to the violence and havoc displayed by the English Premier league fans. Unlike EPL, the one day games (8 hrs) and the test matches curtail the amount of people viewing the sport.

The timings of the IPL (three hours of play), the opulent clubs and players from various countries are so much similar to the EPL. But twenty-twenty being a new format of the cricket game has mixed reactions from the audience. There is a bifurcation in the feelings of the people, some feel that it is less cricket and more of an entertainment, and others feel that it is modern day cricket. And as for IPL, part of the audience has come to watch Shah Rukh Khan, part of the audience to be a part of the hype, and the rest to watch the sport.

Only time can tell how well we can relate to both the twenty-twenty format and the IPL teams. The day one feels that he is an integral part of the his/her home team, that is the day that the first steps of hooliganism shall rise. And India being a home for a vast number of software professionals can further instigate hooliganism. (Most of the hooligans in the EPL are software professionals, who for a change from their boring work opt hooliganism)

And as I write this blog, the team on whom I laid the bet on has already registered 2 wins in 2 games. Hurray! Chennai Super kings.

Run your vehicle on Vegetable Oil

I didn’t know how I missed it. I was ignorant till yesterday, and all this time I believed that we cannot run our bikes and cars on vegetables. I heard of biogas that is used for cooking, and seldom heard about biodiesel, and didn’t know its use. I had a belief that when food gives our body the energy to perform, it can give energy to the vehicles also, and it proved right. A quick search on the net revealed quite an amount of information on this topic.

Is it feasible to run on vegetable oil?

Yes, it is feasible.

Rudolf Diesel invented internal combustion engine made it run on peanut oil, in the view that the farmers then could make their own fuel in their farms (Survival Blog.com).

(Conversion - a little bit of engineering ;))

In the present day scenario, we need to convert our standard diesel/petrol engines to run on vegetable oil. The reason for conversion is that of the difference between viscosity levels. Vegetable oil at normal temperature is thick and needs to be heated up to 160-170 degrees to make it as thin as diesel. Do we have it to heat it at our homes before we drive? Nope. An alternative tank is needed with a heating device for the vegetable oil. So we run our cars on diesel initially, then when the temperature reaches 170 degrees, we switch the tank. And zoom! We are running on vegetable oil.

Is it cost effective?

A liter of vegetable oil will cost you much more than a liter of diesel. Then why spend so much (1000 pounds in Britain – Guardian UK) to convert you vehicle to run on vegetable oil. The reason is that, we can use waste vegetable oil or straight vegetable oil that has been used and wasted in hotels. This is a much cheaper source and can reduce our diesel costs by a lot.

Economics-

I believe that the soaring prices of the fossil fuels due to the supply and demand gap can be met by using vegetable oil as a fuel. It can save a lot of money. But SVO vehicles need to be curtailed to be used by only a few people. Unlike oil we cannot produce such massive quantities of used vegetable oil everyday. Even a few people switching to vegetable oil might improve the market equilibrium for oil resources (Note: The fuel issue is more political than the affect by market forces).

Today, in India the market equilibrium for fuel might be achieved at Rs.100. But the government ceils the price of fuel at Rs.50. At this price people are ready to buy more but there is a deficiency in supply. This deficiency can be reduced by using vegetable oil to meet the demands. (Produce shortages - Samuelson and Nordhaus, Economics)