Tharoor’s ‘partner’ got stake in Kochi team, Lalit Modi says Minister told me don’t ask

Union Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor is in a fresh controversy around the Kochi IPL team he “helped” set up that has pitted him and its owners against IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi.

Modi has not only publicly disclosed the names of some of the owners of the consortium that bought the franchisee for $333 million but has also alleged that he was told by Tharoor not to ask who these shareholders were.

This startling claim assumes significance since at the heart of the controversy is the reported 19% stake owned by Sunanda Pushkar in the 25% free equity owned by Rendezvous Sports World Pvt Ltd, the company that led the consortium that finally won the team. The value of Pushkar’s stake is $15.82 million (about Rs 70 crore).

Pushkar is known to be close to Tharoor who, in fact, has been seen introducing her in social circles as his “fiancée.” Currently married — and in the process of separation — Tharoor had earlier said he only offered encouragement, blessings and expert advice to the Kochi bidders.
At the time of the announcement of the Kochi team, Tharoor had said: “Beyond that, I had no role to play. I understand it’s a business decision.”

When asked about the controversy this evening, Tharoor, who was at the India Habitat Centre to inaugurate an art show, refused to comment.

The controversy heated up yesterday as emails went back and forth.

Modi, in an email sent to Shashank Manohar, president, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the members of the governing council of the board, alleged that the Kochi franchisee has “a lot to hide and as such have lied about who is the actual owner of the shares (in the consortium that bought the team).”

PM Manmohan Singh, PM Gilani meet briefly during Nuclear Security Summit

WASHINGTON: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani on Monday had a brief interaction during which they are understood to have discussed bilateral relations.

Singh and Gilani shook hands and chatted for about five minutes at a reception hosted for the leaders gathered for Nuclear Security Summit here.

It was Gilani who walked up to Singh and exchanged pleasantries with him.

There was no meeting scheduled between Singh and Gilani who are here to attend the summit.

Thrilling Rounds Whet Appetites for Rematch Between Mickelson and Woods

Perhaps the most compelling question to emerge in the wake of Phil Mickelson’s truly shining moment at the Masters and Tiger Woods’s reality check there is this: have the stars finally aligned for a genuine rivalry to thrive at the top of the game?

It was impossible to think otherwise as the most exciting Masters in years unfolded Sunday at Augusta National. Although Mickelson and Woods, the two best golfers of this era, were not paired head to head, there was little doubt about who the most-watched players were on golf’s biggest stage.

Mickelson has elevated his game. Woods suddenly appears vulnerable. The competition between them finally has the dynamic it has lacked, and it needs to resume, the sooner the better.

The 2010 Masters turned out to be a grand show, a sweeping 3-D spectacle with giant performances everywhere, starting with Mickelson’s in the role of leading man. The supporting actors were many and their level of play so high that some of pine trees are still trembling from the roars that shook down the echoes of bygone days.

The bravura performances by Lee Westwood and Anthony Kim, by K. J. Choi, and by the 50-year-old Fred Couples and the 60-year-old Tom Watson, were entertaining and worthy of note. But the focus necessarily shifts to the two golfers who move the needle, and to have them both in the frame at the same time, playing at a high level, is something that can lift the game’s profile and help it shake off the perception of lethargy that set in during Woods’s five-month absence.

When Woods and Mickelson will play in the same event again is unclear. Neither has committed to the Quail Hollow Championship that begins April 29 in Charlotte, N.C., an event that would be the perfect stage for a Masters rematch. Mickelson is likely to play in the Players Championship a week later at the TPC Sawgrass in Florida, another golf course where he and Woods have won.

Golf needs to provide television viewers and fans a steady diet of Mickelson and Woods at tournaments. What started last year when Mickelson beat Woods in two late-season events came into sharp focus at the Masters. There is no longer any doubt that, two months before his 40th birthday, Mickelson has elevated all parts of his game to the extent that he can beat Woods even if he is underperforming in one area.

And Woods, eight months shy of his 35th birthday, has not been able to make sufficient improvements to his own game to maintain the distance between himself and Mickelson and some others. Mickelson moved back into his customary No. 2 position in the World Golf Ranking after winning the Masters, but the gap between No. 2 and No. 1 has narrowed. By winning, he stepped into the elite company of the three-time Masters champions Jimmy Demaret, Sam Snead, Gary Player and Nick Faldo, and one win behind Arnold Palmer and Woods.

This means that golf has Mickelson as a modern version of Palmer. He embodies many of Palmer’s playing traits. And in a way that no one has since the aggressive, lantern-jawed Palmer came out of Latrobe, Pa., and into living rooms across America, Mickelson has become a gallery favorite who exudes the thrill of the hunt and the willingness to go for broke.

And it has Woods as Jack Nicklaus, whose near-total mastery of all aspects of golf, from mental to physical, long game to short game, made him the standard against which all others are measured.

Setting aside Woods’s off-the-course transgressions, his mastery on the course mirrors that of Nicklaus.

Where will Woods go from here? He is repairing his image, and he is trying to get all aspects of his game ready for the United States Open in June at Pebble Beach, where he set the standard 10 years ago with a 15-stroke victory. And he wants to be ready for the Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland, where he won the 2000 British Open by eight strokes. And for the P.G.A. Championship in August at Whistling Straits in Kohler, Wis.

Woods will not be ready if he does not hone his game at some tour events between each of the majors. If Woods chooses to sit out until, say, the Memorial Tournament in early June to prepare for the United States Open two weeks later, he may not be ready for either event.

For all the concern about Woods’s on-course behavior and language, which he said he was trying to improve, restoring his once airtight game is a growing concern, one that heightens the dramatic tension and the interest in just when his next meeting with Mickelson will take place.