Pinkia Pramanik-the crime of a state

Pinky Pramanik a young girl who hails from Puroli district in West Bengal trumpeted as a heir to the legendary PT Usha was there, for all the good reasons ,in the news in 2006. She had a long list of laurels tagged to her name, a silver in 4x400m at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games, gold at both the 2006 Asian Games in the same event and a special feat of triple gold medals at the 2006 SAF Games by winning the 400 and 800 meter events as well as the4x400 relay events. A hamstring injury in a road mishap was the time to call it a day and she retired three years ago.

Falling from the heights now, the Asiad gold medallist is bullied by the police ,the regime and has hogged the media limelight now for all the wrong reasons.

Pinky’s gender is disputed. The poor girl ran barefooted in all her childhood, over-performed during the heats of the tournaments to the envy of her pesky colleagues. All along there was no dispute on her gender. Times Of India(TOI)quotes Mr Maitra ,General secretary of the West Bengal Athletic association as asserting that Pinki underwent many sex determination tests before international competitions and even while being recruited in the Railways. " She now needs a medical certificate to prove that she is a girl. She has been asked to assert her identity which includes establishing her womanhood.

The Baguihati police arrested her on June 14 on a falsely implicated rape case by the athlete's consensual live-in partner, a divorcee and a mother of one. She accused the athlete of being a male who repeatedly "raped and tortured" her. Consequently, a District Court in West Bengal on June 15 ordered her to two weeks judicial custody. A gender determination test was ordered on the athlete. The gender test conducted on June 20 was inconclusive as she was reported to have both male and female reproductive organs. It was a transgender case and the medical board requested the court to carry out two different tests (hormonal and chromosomal) on Pinki at the state-run SSKM hospital. Her chromosome pattern test report is expected to be submitted in the court shortly.

Ms Pramanik has been granted bail by the district and sessions court of the north 24-parganas on the bond of Rs. 5000 and was released after 26 days in a correctional home (West Bengal jail). The bail has been granted on the ground that IPC Section 376 (Punishment for rape) cannot be applied on her. Ms.Pinky Pramanik was suspended from Eastern Railway due to the allegations. Her suspension can only be revoked if the court absolves her of all the charges.

The trauma and the agony, the family had to endure was beyond description. And now, a video clip of her, naked, going through a verification test in a nursing home, has gone viral. The investigation of the charges had become an attack on her self hood. It is pathetic that a strong young girl who fiercely fought poverty and swarm across many odds to blaze the tracks is being treated so inhumanly by the state.

Durgacharan ,her father was quoted by TOI as saying that” As a father I was unfortunate enough to see my daughters nude clip. Hope someday truth will come out and the real guilty will be punished.” Civil rights activists have approached the State’s Human Rights Commission alleging Pramanik was being mistreated by the police. "Prima facie, it's a case of human rights violation. We are awaiting the reports," Justice Ganguly of the State’s Human Rights Commission said.

The treatment meted out to the athlete has attracted criticism from the sporting fraternity as well. "Male police officers have been escorting her and at times dragging her out from police vans. This is absolutely deplorable," former national women's swimming champion Bula Chowdhury was quoted as saying.

The scientific community is skeptical that the gender test is humiliating, socially insensitive, and prone to be inaccurate and ineffective. The testing is especially difficult in the case of people who could be considered intersexual as genetic differences can allow a person to have a male genetic make-up and female anatomy or body chemistry.

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Updates

• Pinky reinstated
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  Asian Games gold medalist Pinki Pramanik, who was accused of rape by a woman, has been reinstated by Eastern Railway. The athlete rejoined duty as a ticket collector at the Sealdah Station on Thursday.

Cricket-the game of ones up on a time------

             The disciplinary committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) headed by its president Narayanswamy Srinivasan, at its meeting  on Saturday came hard on to the heads of five domestic cricketers . Madhya Pradesh fast bowler T.P.S. Sudhindra was banned for life from playing in any form of domestic and international cricket.He was found guilty of receiving a consideration to spot-fix in a local domestic cricket match conferring on him the ignominy of being the third cricketer from India, after Mohammed Azharuddin and Ajay Sharma in 2000, to suffer a life ban for bringing the game into disrepute .Uttar Pradesh fast bowler Salabh Srivastavais to face a ban for five years for agreeing to spot fix and negotiate terms for the same, even though no actual match-fixing or spot fixing took place. The duo will now be berefted of the monthly gratis, benevolent fund, benefit match or any other facility offered to the players by the BCCI.Three others Madhya Pradesh batsman Mohnish Mishra, Goa all-rounder Amit Yadav and Himachal Pradesh batsman Abhinav Bali were penalised for one year for "loose talk and unsubstantiated bragging” .

Sudhindra was caught by India TV during a sting operation conducted before IPL 2012, and the footage showed Sudhindra bowling a no-ball during a local league game in Indore as agreed ,while Srivastava was caught on tape claiming “ franchises lure players promising through underhand deals to pay more than the the stipulated cap of Rs.30 lakhs for an uncapped IPL player”. The fixing is designed by luring the second layer of players in the IPL.The IPL playars who have not represented India in international games are given 30 Lakh rupees .But by the end of the IPL they get as much as 1.5 crores through the spot fixing.The betting ,money laundering and the late night parties have made the in Indian cricket digging its own grave.

The flow of illegal gratifications and match fixing are nothing new to Indian cricket.Transparency is the word that the gods of the cricket management in India loathe to chew."Betting on cricket in the legal and illegal markets continues to grow rapidly and, with many, many millions of dollars being bet on every match, the threat of corrupters seeking to influence the game has not gone away," so goes an ICC spokesperson quoted as saying.

The clamour for bringing the accounting of assets of BCCI under the purview of RTI has not been recognised as yet.

Cricket in India got a spank on its face as the Sunday Times, London carried out a sting operation on a Delhi-based bookie identified as Vicky Seth who claimed the ICC World Cup 2011 semifinal between India and Pakistan at Mohali was rigged. The News paper had run Nupur's picture along with the report, stating that a Bollywood starlet had been used by bookies as a honeytrap to lure certain cricketers who played at Mohali.

Mr Vicky Seth was stated to be telling “county cricket "is a good market" as it involves "low-profile matches and nobody monitors them. That's why good money can be made there without any hassle." The newspaper's investigation has suggested that the bookmakers offer thousands of pounds to the players. About 44,000 pounds to batsmen for slow scoring, 50,000 pounds for bowlers who concede runs and 750,000 pounds for a player or official who can guarantee a match outcome.

--------- India had won the semifinal match in which the “number of catches dropped by the Pakistan team had become a talking point”.

Recently another controversy was broiling in the center stage that a central minister was getting himself engaged directly in the star auctions.

Cricket is not a religion now.It has now metamorphosed in to a corporate business venture.

Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer -- Three Pakistan players –faced the music for 'spot-fixing' in a 2010 Test match against England and  were imprisoned in Britain.The Pakistan cricket captain Salman Butt was behind the bars for 30 months for his part in the conspiracy to bowl deliberate no-balls in the last year's Test match against England.Former world number two Test bowler Mohammad Asif, 28, was jailed for one year and bowler Mohammad Amir, 19, has been sentenced to six months.The judge, Mr Justice Cooke, said cricket matches would forever be tainted by the scandal.

"The image and integrity of what was once a game but is now a business is damaged in the eyes of all, including the many youngsters who regarded you as as heroes and would have given their eye teeth to play at the levels and with the skills that you had."

When IPL was ceremoniously brought in to the cricket firmament ,cricket has formed in to a gallery of profligate show of money by a slew of addons like TV rating,Advertisements,sponsorships and team auctions. The element of pastime has been completely awashed and in its place the economical concerns took the main theme.

IPL is run by mesmerizers in politics and business.Can cricket be resurrected by the BCCI? BCCI knew that there are bigger sharks involved in the shaddy match fixings . BCCI should equip itself to redeem the game,a game held so spiritedly by millions of Indians to their heart.The process should start by the BCCI by revamping the structure of the administration. Cricket should be taken away from the bastion of business .