After the regime change in the State, Modi was swiftly removed from his position as chairman of the Rajasthan Cricket Association; he was replaced by Congress leader and now Union Minister C.P. Joshi. No wonder then, new troubles are being added to Modi by the Congress administration. It has dug out an old criminal case against the IPL chief, in which he was alleged to have been involved in a Rs 5-crore scam. It was about the funds of the RCA. Ms Raje's name is also being mentioned for giving protection to Modi, and the case was buried in the file.

While the bigwigs in the IPL are busy talking about the way the present row and the income tax inquiry would lead to, some IPL players are enjoying the game in a novel way-away from the shine of Bollywood girls. Famous wicket-keeper Gilchrist found time to travel to a remote village, Virat Nagar, to play the game. No laid-out crease; no umpires and no expert comment on the bowling or batting. The beneficiaries of the joyful moments were the youngsters in the dusty nagri. A cheering crowd of villagers, who may not know what a spin ball or straight drive is, were all cheers for the players. And to keep up the spirits, Gilchrist let a young village lad have the golden opportunity to bowl him out! What a fun - and a great moment for Gilchrist too to relax and forget the controversy surrounding the IL in debates on TV channels.

While the Union Minister for Rural Development and the Rajasthan government may be busy in scoring points over rivals, they are held guilty in the eyes of the poor dalits in a Barmer village for gross negligence of duty. This desert area has chronic problem of acute shortage of drinking water. There is a caste war on water. What has made the lot of the dalits more miserable is the unkind attitude of the upper caste in that village. In a way to secure monopoly on water for the upper caste families, they have put village wells under “lock and key”. They have devised the novel way of putting iron lids on the mouth of each well, and put a lock on it, so that no lower caste man or woman can have access to water for drinking purposes. By way of “pun or daan”, the dalit families are given some small quantity of water as a “loan”. And when they can't get water even for drinking purposes, the dalits can't dream of having bath even once a week.

The district administration knows it. But won't do anything to help the thirsty and deprived dalit families. Such is the terror of caste in Rajasthan villages. Someone might ask Union Minister Joshi if he knows the problem, and does he care to fulfil his party's promise to provide safe drinking water to all villages. Forget safe drinking water; let them have “unsafe” water to quench their thirst, and to survive in this blazing sun!

Maybe, he is busy in cornering Lalit Modi at the moment. But what about dalit's friend in Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot. The story of this dalit village in Barmer with high-caste terror is only an index of the deep problem of non-availability of enough drinking water, and utter insensitivity of the State government — run by the Congress or the BJP - to this basic problem. The tragedy is that we take ride in projecting 8 per cent growth rate, but neglect the basic needs of the poor people. How long will this go on? (IPA Service)