Archives for 2018

Born in a poor family in the Nagaon district of Assam, sprinter Hima Das’ has enjoyed a meteoric rise. On Thursday evening, she created history in Tampere, Finland by winning the gold medal — the second by an Indian athlete — in the women’s 400 metre event at the IAAF World U20 Championships.

Hima registered 51.46 seconds in the final at the Ratina Stadium to become the first Indian sprinter to win gold in a track event in a world championship across all age groups.

She had a slow start and was trailing at least three other runners going into the final stretch.

But the 18-year-old produced a powerful sprint in the last 100 metres to win by a comfortable margin.

Delhi youngster Neeraj Chopra was the first Indian to win gold at the World U20 Championships when he won the men’s javelin event in 2016.

The other Indian medallists at the World Junior Championships were Seema Punia who took bronze in women’s discus in 2002 and Navjeet Kaur Dhillon (women’s discus bronze in 2014).

Hima had done well in the earlier rounds as well, winning Heat 4 with a time of 52.25 seconds. She emerged on top in the semi-finals as well, winning her race in 52.10 seconds.

Hima has improved considerably from the Commonwealth Games earlier this year where she finished sixth in the women’s 400m with a time of 51.32 seconds, 1.17 seconds behind gold medallist Amantle Montshofrom Botswana.

She was also a part of the women’s 4x400m relay team which finished seventh with a time of three minutes and 33.61 seconds.

Hima ‘s achievement is all the more remarkable since she started using spikes only a couple of years ago.

The youngest of six siblings, Hima’s talent was first spotted during an inter-district meet in 2016.

Due to the absence of a running track, she had to train on a muddy football field.

Despite the lack of facilities and training equipment, she took bronze in the state meet and reached the 100m final at the junior nationals later that year.

She eventually qualified for the women’s 200m event at the Asian Youth Championships in Bangkok, where she finished seventh.

But Hima’s time of 24.52 seconds saw her qualify for the the World Youth Championships in Nairobi where she eventually took the fifth spot with a time of 24.31 seconds.

The Assam girl built on that success with a gold at the Asian Games test event in Jakarta with a personal best of 23.59 seconds.

She soon turned her focus to the 400m as well.

With the success at World U20 Championships making her a favourite for the gold at next month’s Asian Games, both Hima and her millions of fans back home will be hoping for more than one medal at the continental extravaganza.

Mohammad Kaif on Friday announced his retirement from all forms of competitive cricket via a post on social media.

“When I started playing Cricket,the dream was to play in the India Cap one day. Have been very fortunate to step on to the field & represent my country on 190 days of my life. Today is an apt day for me to announce my retirement from all competitive Cricket. Thank you everyone,” Kaif posted on Twitter.

Kaif, who last donned the India jersey in 2006 against South Africa, has played 13 Tests and 125 ODIs for the country. The 37-year-old will be remembered for his match-winning knock of 87 at Lord’s during the Natwest Trophy final in 2002.

In his 13 Test appearances, Kaif amassed 2753 runs at an average of 32.01, including two hundreds and 17 half-centuries.

Kaif will also be remembered as one of the finest fielders to have ever played for India. He was also part of the Indian team that reached the World Cup final in 2003.

Kaif, who represented Uttar Pradesh in the Ranji Trophy for most of his career, last played first class cricket for Chhattisgarh.

Croatia’s prominence in the football World Cup freshened memories of its origin in the war which expanded after German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher recognised Croatian and Slovenian independence, ahead of other European Union countries which were palpitating because German reunification in 1989 had already added to their anxieties.

As the Persian expression goes, “Ek na shud, do shud.” Before one source of anxiety could subside, another surfaced. Cardinal Franjo Kuharic, headquartered in Zagreb’s magnificent Cathedral, marched off to the Vatican to seek the Pope’s and Italy’s support. This was promptly given. Some EU member-countries began to have nightmares of the “Axis” being revived.

I was in the Cardinal’s office in the Cathedral which dominates Zagreb square when the door of the ante room flung open and Father Juraj Jezerinac of the Topusko Parish walked in. I had been introduced to him at the earliest stages of the conflict in one of the livelier cafes in Zagreb square. He was full of stories. One night his orthodox Serb counterpart from the neighbouring church compound came to him, looking very conspiratorial.

He had received word from the Orthodox headquarters in Belgrade that Orthodox Priests must lead all Serb populations out of Western Croatia in the Topusko area because the Serb army was preparing to attack the area and annex it as part of Greater Serbia. This was a scoop.

Was further proof required to confirm coordination between the Catholic and the Orthodox churches? They would put aside their intra-church conflicts and join hands against the Bosnian Muslims. The cruel irony was that Sarajevo, the centre of art, music, theatre, literature in former Yugoslavia, was primarily a Bosnian Muslim city. Like Lucknow, Sarajevo went down, nursing art and culture, unable to cope with the assault of philistinism.

At the outset when, some EU members suspected German and Italian encroachments, Britain and France came covertly on the side of Serbia which had been with them during World War II. Gen. Michael Rose, leading the UN Peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, became a regular feature on global TV giving briefs on the Bosnian dead on a daily basis.

Nothing could have exceeded Serbian brutality than the four-year-long siege of Sarajevo. Graphic accounts of this siege, beamed mornings, afternoons, evenings to global audiences on a daily basis, decisively altered the political landscape in Turkey, a development of which the West remained totally oblivious.

Sarajevo derives from Caravan Sarai, pointing to the city’s Ottoman past. The effect of the Bosnian tragedy on the Turkish electorate brought to power Necmettin Erbakan of the Refah party, akin to the Muslim Brotherhood. This was anathema to the upholders of Turkey’s secular Kemalist constitution. The Erbakan government was dismissed.

That is when two of Erbakan’s protégés, Tayyip Erdogan and Abdullah Gul, reinvented themselves as the (AKP) justice and Development Party. The rest is recent history.

The siege of Sarajevo was graphically chronicled by a daily newspaper, Oslobodenje, which won global awards for its bravery. The paper’s office itself was an astounding sight. The offices and the press were in a huge basement, beneath the debris of a multistoreyed building brought down during the war. The editor, Kemal Kurspahic, whom I had met at the last Non-Aligned Summit attended by Rajiv Gandhi in Belgrade, looked none the worse for his travails. But he had, nevertheless, developed a mark on his forehead. This happens when the forehead hits the ground for “namaz” (Muslim prayers) five times a day over months and years.

“Have you become a devout Muslim?” I asked.

“There is no alternative but God when the world abandons you.” There was conviction in his voice.

“Who helped you publish the paper in these circumstances?”

His reply stunned me. “George Soros.”

Throughout the four-year conflict Europe maintained a hands-off policy to avoid internal divisions within EU. Observers like Salman Rushdie described European restraint as hypocritical.

“You reverse the religious affiliations of the protagonists on the ground and not just NATO but even European forces would have entered the theatre immediately to end the bloodbath.” They refrained from intervention because Muslims were the victims.

Those of us involved in covering the conflict knew that Rushdie, and others like him, were speaking the truth. But the mainstream narrative was fudged even on such crimes as the Srebrenica massacres in which 8,000 young Bosnian men were separated from their families and shot dead by Serb militias. Why did the Dutch peacekeeping forces move away from the site of the massacre?

The 78-day US bombing of Serbia during the Kosovo war was designed to oust the Serbian dictator, Slobodan Milosevic. Russians had been outmaneuvered by the Western alliance in a theatre Moscow considered its pan Slavic sphere of influence. Therefore when the responsibility of various part of Kosovo was being distributed between countries of Europe, Russian armoured carriers barged into the area around Pristine airport uninvited. They are still in occupation of that airport. Britain, Germany, France control other segments of Kosovo, a tiny country dotted with exquisite monasteries. The great monastery of Decan in the care of the Italians where priests produce the world’s finest wines and schnapps.

Just as the sun sets, a young priest runs around the building carrying on his shoulder a giant rattle called the tallantone, alerting the inmates just in case the “Turk invader” has eyes on the “House of God”. This hostile mythology is sustained in many countries on the periphery of what was once the Ottoman Empire.

Considering that this World Cup has been a celebration of multiculturalism, how do I explain my being distracted into Balkan tribalism? How swiftly a nation of 4.5 million has made its mark, wrenching itself away from a recent and messy past. Supposing Sefik Ibrahimovic had not migrated from Bosnia to Sweden in 1977 where the great soccer star Zlatan Ibrahimovic was born? Well, Zlatan could have claimed a slot in the Croatian team with considerable justification. His mother, Jurka Gravic, is after all a Croat. Remember, there was multiculturism in the Balkans too before sectarian tribalism was let loose.

India’s Hima Das created history by winning the gold medal in the women’s 400 metre event at the IAAF World U20 Championships here on Thursday.

Hima registered a time of 51.46 seconds in the final at the Ratina Stadium to become the first Indian athlete to win gold in a world championship across all age groups.

Andrea Miklos of Romania took silver with a personal best time of 52.07 seconds. Taylor Manson of the US registered 52.28 seconds to finish third.

Hima had done well in the earlier rounds as well, winning Heat 4 with a time of 52.25 seconds. She emerged on top in the semi-finals as well, winning her race in 52.10 seconds.

Jisna Matthew, the other Indian in the fray, also showed early promise, winning Heat 5 with a time of 54.32 seconds. But the Kerala girl crashed out in the semi-finals, where she finished fifth with 53.86 seconds.

After a convincing victory in the first One-Day International (ODI), India will aim to seal the three-match series with another win when they face hosts England in the second match here on Saturday.

In the first match, a maiden fifer for chinaman Kuldeep Yadav (6/25) followed by Rohit Sharma’s unbeaten 137-run knock sealed a comfortable eight-wicket victory for India.

The visitors dominated England, the No. 1 ODI side, in all departments of the game and took a crucial 1-0 lead in the series with 59 balls to spare.

The stars of the match were Kuldeep and Rohit, who thrashed hosts batsmen and bowlers through out the match.

The batting department seemed settled with opener Shikhar Dhawan coming in form. The Delhi batsman played 27 balls and scored 40 runs, which includes eight boundaries.

Skipper Virat Kohli also showed why he is called one of the best batsmen in the format. India’s routine chasers Kohli and his in-form deputy Rohit collaborated for a 167-run stand to break the hopes of English bowers.

But the middle and lower-order is yet to be tested but the way English bowlers were playing it seemed an uphill task to reach India’s middle and lower order.

In the bowling department, Kuldeep continued to remain headache for English batsmen. In the shortest format also and now in 50-overs game.

Kuldeep scalped six wickets for just 25 runs. He was well supported by pacer Umesh Yadav but the pacer was little expensive.

The only concern for India is the pacers. Umesh, Hardik Pandya, debutant Siddharth Kaul were not effective as they leaked few runs when spinners, Kuldeep, Yuzvendra Chahal trying to put pressure on English batsmen.

England, on the other hand, had many things to work on. Their batsmen failed to click in unison. If top-order clicks middle and lower order fails. Joe Root continued his poor shot selection in the first match also while skipper Eoin Morgan failed to utilise the start.

The bowling department also seemed to be struggling as no bowlers were able to put pressure on India bstamen. Mark Wood, David Willy, experienced Liam Plunkett and Ben stokes need to click this time in order to take the series to the third match.

So its a do-or-die game for the English players as one more loss and they are out of contention.

Squads:
ndia- Virat Kohli (Captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, MS Dhoni (Wicket-keeper), Dinesh Karthik, Suresh Raina, Hardik Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Shreyas Iyer, Siddarth Kaul, Axar Patel, Umesh Yadav, Shardul Thakur, Bhuvneshwar Kumar

England- Eoin Morgan (Captain), Jason Roy, Jonny Bairstow, Jos Buttler (Wicket-keeper), Moeen Ali, Joe Root, Jake Ball, Tom Curran, Alex Hales, Liam Plunkett, Ben Stokes, Adil Rashid, David Willey, Mark Wood

FIFA has confirmed that all the dope tests carried out before and during the 2018 World Cup finals have returned negative.

The testing programme was the “largest ever conducted for a FIFA World Cup,” with a preliminary testing pool of 1,500 players who were thought to be candidates to represent their countries this summer. The regular tests were carried out and complimented by FIFA’s “use of the athlete biological passport programme,” in order “to detect potential deviations that may indicate an abuse of performance-enhancing drugs, reports Xinhua news agency.

FIFA explained every player who took part in the World Cup “was tested in unannounced controls before the competition and further systematic tests have been performed during it, both with post-match controls and on non-matchdays,” and that 90 percent of tests were “targeted.”

The targeting was “based on a number of criteria, including the recommendations of the Athlete Passport Management Unit, potential injuries suffered by the players, performance data and the athletes’ test history.”

Since January 2018, a total of 2,037 tests have been carried out to produce a total of 3,985, blood, urine and serum samples: 2,761 of those samples were collected directly by FIFA in unannounced controls before the World Cup kicked off and 626 were collected during the tournament.

Every player from the last four teams tested an average of 4.41 times since the start of 2018 and some have undergone 8 tests.

All of the samples will now be guarded for 10 years.