Monday News

Few interesting news items 0f the first Monday of 2019

1. Indian Railway is planning to seal railway stations just like airports, and passengers would have to arrive at least 15-20  minutes before the departure of the trains to complete the process of security checks. The security plan, with high end technology, has already been installed and put  in motion at Prayagraj(Allahabad), where the Kumbh mela is about to begin in the later part of this month, and also at Hubbali station in Karnataka.The basic plan is to seal the railway stations, and determine how many openings can be shutoff/sealed. The openings will be manned by Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel at each entry point there will be random checks. These steps are in accordance with the Integrated Security System (ISS) which was approved by govt in 2016. The ISS will comprise CCTV cameras, access control, personal & baggage screening system and  Bomb detection and disposal system. This system is going to be installed at key 202 railway stations in the country.. The total cost estimated is around 400 Cr. The basic idea looks to be very good , but how far Railway Board is going to be successful in implementing is to be seen, because our general public at the railway stations is not used to follow any protocol and to tame them will be the project by itself. Good luck to the Railways.
2. There is going to be a literary festival to be held in Pune later this month, which is known as Akhil Bhartiya Marathi Sahitya Sammelan. The organisers had invited noted English author Nayantara Sehgal to inaugurate this festival. The author is known for her views and airing them, she had received Sahitya Academy Award  in 1986 for her book ‘Rich Like Us’, which she returned after the killings of anti superstition crusader Narendra Dabholkar, Comrade Govind Pansare and MM Kulbargi. The Pune unit of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena(MNS) was first to protest against the invition sent to Ms Sehgal to inaugurate, as she writes only in English and this being Marathi Sahitya Sammelan. Their contention was the honour should have gone to Marathi author. Fearing the political fall out, the organisers cancelled the invitation sent to Nayantara Sehgal. However there are rumours in some circles that as the Maharashtra govt provides funds for this Sammelan, and as her behaviour in the past has been against the present establishments at Centre and State, this might hurt the sentiments of govt. Secondly her family background is having link with the Congress’s first family, as she happened to be the niece of Jawaharlal Nehru. It looks like reason for the cancellation of the invitation is purely  a political.
3. In cricket , for the first time India won the test series against Australia in Australia by 2-1 margin, which is  a great achievement by Virat Kohli and his team mates. This win happened because of positive and aggressive attitude of complete  team, and it is for the first time in Australia that bowlers also dominated the opposite team.  When India  lifted the World Cup in 2011, Virat Kohli was the youngest member of the team led by MS Dhoni, but this series win according to him  the biggest achievement of his cricketing life till date. It was  at Sydney only he was bestowed with permanent test captaincy, and it is at the same Sydney ground that he created an epic chapter in Indian Cricket history. After the match Kohli was all praise for Cheteshwar Pujara for his standout performance in this series, he also lauded the performance of Jaspreet Bumra. He was also pleased with the young Rishabh Pant and Mayank Agarwal for their wonderful contribution to the winning cause.It was quite clear once our batsmen put up a decent score, then our bowlers used to become lethal and no opposing team batsmen had a chance against them , both pacers and spinners performed their task assigned to them to the perfection. In the process our pacers broke the record of great West Indian pace bowlers, of claiming the most aggregate wickets in a calendar year. This great win will be a stepping stone for this young Indian team to scale new heights in near future. Some critics may point out that India’s this victory was due to absence of Steve Smith and David Warner, who are still under ban for ball tampering incident of last year. It was not India’s fault that this Australian team was without these two players. As per former legend Sunil Gavaskar what separates Virat’s team from earlier teams is their world class fitness standards. it is not that the earlier teams did not play to win, but the present team is at a different level in terms of fitness. Now after few days ODI series will start, then we will come to know how ODI team members led by Virat Kohli will perform, and which may form the basis of choice of players for the world Cup 2019 in May-Jul .

Your opinion is awaited on this blog.

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

7 th Jan 2019.