B R Sharan Kumar

  Big setback for online betting on horse racing By Sharan Kumar   The online betting operations on horse racing in India have suffered a setback with many payment gateways withdrawing their services.  Razorpay, India’s leading payment gateway provider has informed the online platforms that the UPI payment option will be discontinued from December 31 due to regulatory changes, according to information available in the public domain.   The change is reportedly due to NPCI directing payment gateway service providers to stop using the UPI platform for facilitating payments related to online betting. As its against law   After this post was published, the Razorpay corporate communications team reportedly stated that their message was erroneously sent out to a few gaming merchants. The payment platform has clarified that operations will continue as usual.   However, the turf clubs in India which conduct online betting operations have put out a statement stating that bettin

  There can never be another Frankie   This Is Your Life, one of British television’s most popular programmes until it closed in 2003, in November 1998 featured Frankie Dettori. Friends, family and celebrities clambered on stage to embrace and pay homage to the star of the show who always had to be ‘safe’ enough to have their CV exposed.  Frankie qualified, just: one of the ‘friends’ was the fabled, occasionally notorious, professional punter Barney Curley.     By Rolf Johnson   This Is Your Life, one of British television’s most popular programmes until it closed in 2003, in November 1998 featured Frankie Dettori. Friends, family and celebrities clambered on stage to embrace and pay homage to the star of the show who always had to be ‘safe’ enough to have their CV exposed.  Frankie qualified, just: one of the ‘friends’ was the fabled, occasionally notorious, professional punter Barney Curley.   Some would say in 1998, when Dettori was just twenty-eight, his ‘life’, h

  Who sets the narrative at Bangalore Turf Club?   By Sharan Kumar The Bangalore Turf Club has slipped morally and in every respect in the last decade, with the Managing Committee members elected not living up to expectations. Many of them have ended up with dubious records. Unfortunately, the narrative set by them continues to dominate the mindset of the present office-bearers, many of them, left to themselves are people of immense merit and moral turpitude.   The deterioration started when Harimohan Naidu began to dominate the show. First was the systematic dismantling of the administration so much so that he also became a de facto administrator besides being the Steward and for some years as Chairman. People believed that he was a very efficient administrator and that his services were invaluable to the club. The belief persisted for some years before the skeletons started tumbling out. The present Managing Committee has removed him from representing the club in GST matter