Monday news

Some interesting news on the first Monday of  Aug 2018.

1.This is a news regarding damage of cotton crop destroyed by pest infestation in the state of Mahrashtra in 2017-18. The state  decided to seek relief from the National Disaster Relief Fund for the crop loss due to pest infestation, till now it was sought only citing drought. The amount asked in relief is about Rs 3300 Cr. But the state Bureaucracy made a classic blunder when they submitted the details about the area which was damaged by pest infestation, it seems the affected area which they submitted was more than the area in which cotton crop was cultivated. For instance, in Jalna district cotton was cultivated in on nearly 2.8 lakh hectres  but while reporting the damage was reported in 3.7 lakh hectres. Similarly in Aurangabad district the figures are cultivated in 4.1 lakh hectres and damaged in 4.4 lakh hectres. As a result that the state has asked relief for pest attack on 42.07 lakh hectres while 42.06 was cultivated. The next question asked by centre was if  crop was infested then how come fresh cotton arrivals in the market during  2017 were normal and in some months more than average.                                                                                            As per the inside information, as reported, many  farmers in connivance  with local officials, register their crop as Soybean, as insurance premium for Soyabean crop is less than  and the returns are higher. Soybean is easily damaged by weather conditions. Cotton being a cash crop, premium are high but returns are low. So these type of farmers must have claimed insurance for the damaged Soybean but on learning that state is going to pay for infested cotton crop , they also registered for cotton crop loss also, thus leading to inflated cultivated area for cotton crop.

My contention is that this type of hanky panky must be going on for number of years and  state govt official at all levels must have been involved in this type of scam, who knows even for drought relief cases the areas must have been inflated. It seems that the present Central govt is more vigilant who could detect this discrepancy. It seems that the involvement of  officials at all level and  involvement of politicians also can not be ruled out, as the politicians from rural Maharashtra are mostly agriculturist.                                                    Other interesting fact of this episode is that , following an uproar by the opposition over delay in compensation, the state govt has decided to start paying affected farmers from the State Disaster Relief Fund and already Rs 2300 Cr has been released and another Rs 1000 Cr will be released soon. It looks like a scam, which is happening in a big way.

2. Virat Kohli must be a rare breed of cricketer among the present cricket player as he has achieved No 1 ranking in Test batting along with No 1 ranking in ODI batting.

In test cricket presently he is on 934 ranking points ( highest by any Indian batsman ever). Other Indian who achieved the no 1 test ranking batsman were Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsakar, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Virendra Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir. Kohli is followed by Steve Smith (929 points) but at the moment he is serving ban, and Joe Root (865 points) at no 3 is quite behind, it seems that Virat will have a longer run at the top. Similarly in ODI  Virat has got 911 ranking points and next one on the list at no. 2  is Babar Azam of Pakistan with 825 points, so here also Virat position as no. 1 is also safe for more time.

3. Next news is also from the world of sports ie Badminton. Yesterday also  PV Sindhu lost in World  Championship finals to  Carolina Marin 19-21, 10-21, and this is  second year in succession she has lost in world championship, last year she lost to Nozomi Okuhara of Japan 19-21, 22-20, 20-22 in well contested final. It has so happened that in most of the big finals she is choking and sports journalists have given her the tag of Choker. Friends, you will recall that she similarly lost in the finals of 2016 Olympics.From Olympics of 2016,  till date she contested 11 Major finals and out of which she lost in 8 finals, additionally she lost to Saina Nehwal in last National final. In 2018 she lost to Nazomi Okuhara in Thailand open 15-21, 18-21; in Commonwealth Games to Saina Nehwal 18-21, 21-23; in Indian Open lost to Belwen Zhang (USA) 18-21, 21-11, 20-22. In 2017 she lost to Akane Yamaguchi (Japan) 21-15, 12-21, 19-21; in Hong Kong Open Super Series lost to  Tai Tzu Ying (Taiwan) 18-21, 18-21; in Olympics 2016 she lost to Carolina Marin 21-19, 12-21, 15-21.  This is  a really heart breaking performance for the player as well her fans, I strongly feel that her Coach Gopi Chand should engage some  top rated Psychiatrist or motivator to boost her morale otherwise she will remain as choker only. In the similar case, I remember tennis player  Ivan Lendl who was continuously losing the Grand Slam either in semi finals or finals , otherwise he was No ranked player in the world at that time. Somebody in Gopi Chand camp should investigate how he got rid of Choker tag and won 7 Grand slam titles afterwards and advice Sindhu accordingly, otherwise she will  lose confidence in herself also.

So in the ending waiting for your feed backs/views/comments on this blog.