ChinmayC Blog

We must commend the constitutionally autonomous body of the Election Commission of India (ECI) for sticking to its strong resolve to make the upcoming 7-phase state assembly elections COVID-safe for all by extending the pandemic ban on rallies/roadshows till February 11 following a review for the second time today which is quite effectively done as the first phase of the elections begins on 10 th February. While announcing the dates for assembly elections in five states on 8 th January the ECI banned all public rallies, roadshows and bike or cycle marches till 15 th of that month subject to a review on 15 th January and in that review the ECI stuck to its ban, only allowing physical rallies subject to a maximum of 500 persons for the political party candidates to contest in the first phase from January 28, a date when all formalities of nominations for that phase are completed. Similarly, for the second phase the relaxed rallies to commence from 31 st January with the same restric...

South Africa beat India by just 4 runs in the third and final one-day international (ODI) at Newlands in Cape Town today that went down the wire thanks to at least one Indian batsman fighting for a win, clean sweeping the 3-match ODI Series 3-0, dishing out to India its fifth consecutive defeat in this South Africa tour including the two Tests and three ODIs. Led this time by wicketkeeper-batsman Quinton de Kock with a brilliant century (124) building a 144-run partnership with Dussen (52) South Africa put up an imposing total of 287 (exactly the total put up by India in the second ODI that SA chased easily) despite India’s change of strategy to bowl first after KL Rahul won the toss for the second time. For a change the Indian bowlers got the Proteas all out in the penultimate ball this time thanks mainly to Prasidh Krishna's 3 wickets; however, the hosts did overcome a mini collapse in the middle to put up a total that finally proved to be enough. In light of the fast-paced track...

It just happened that I watched two movies from Hollywood and Bollywood respectively, back-to-back, and was amazed to find both movies singing paeans in praise of the antiheros, depicting their deeds in an unabashedly graphic way and even justifying it by highlighting a few ‘humanitarian’ qualities in their characters. Both movies are nearly 3-hour long, and yet not having a dull moment; both are marked by their relative reliance on machismo, black comedy and violence. The first movie, ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ (2013) directed by renowned new-era Hollywood filmmaker Martin Scorsese, I happened to watch by chance as it was available on Amazon Prime Video and also due to the fact that I greatly enjoyed the director’s two films, ‘The Departed’ (2006) and ‘Shutter Island’ (2010) recently, those two movies being part of Scorsese’s successful collaboration with the ‘Titanic’ (1997) sensation Leonardo DiCaprio which yielded four critically acclaimed and commercially successful movies so far. ...

The sudden stepping down, somewhat inevitable, of Virat Kohli from test captaincy has started a raging speculation in India about who would be or ought to be the new Test captain. Earlier in the year 2021 we had suggested a split-captaincy regime, particularly after the stand-in Test captain Ajinkya Rahane led India to an incredible Series victory over Australia in Australia overcoming the 36-all out syndrome and the departure of Virat for home. Rahane had been the test vice-captain for quite some time and therefore, there should’ve been no hassles to make him the regular captain, relieving Kohli the burden of captaining all three formats. In hindsight, we can say that had that decision been taken Kohli would’ve continued to be the white-ball captain thus the confrontations and ego-plays between BCCI and Kohli could’ve been avoided. However, that was not done, and during the last one year Rahane has been in very poor form and perhaps he had played the last innings of his test career th...

It was not entirely unexpected even though millions of his fans are just thunderstruck today by his sudden announcement to step down from Test captaincy, just the day after losing the Cape Town Test; because what had been happening in the last few months over the split-captaincy controversy definitely left its mark on the mind of the most successful captain of Indian Test cricket, Virat Kohli, with 40 Test victories out of 68 tests, including both home and away ones, under his leadership during in the last seven years. However, a 1-2 series loss to South Africa is not such a huge tragedy that should make the captain take the responsibility and step down. There are other factors leading to his decision apart from the split-captaincy issue to which we’ll come a bit later: ·        Virat has not been amongst the runs in the last two years without being able to score a single century, and his batting abilities were being questioned repeatedly. ·   ...

  Photo: file (wikipedia.org) South Africa beat India by 7 wickets at the Newlands Cricket Ground in Cape Town on the fourth day today of the third and last match winning the Test Series 2-1, thus keeping their unbeaten record against India in Tests at home. Excellent bowling  and true-to-potential spells by SA pacers Rabada, Jansen and Ngidi ensured South Africa chase a total less than 250 runs like they did in the second Test in Johannesburg. And like in the second test the Proteas chased the even lighter target of 212 runs professionally with consistent batsmanship losing only three wickets and romping home in the 64 th over. Ever consistent Keegan Petersen who scored 72 and 82 in this match was rightfully declared the Player of the Series. Captain Dean Elgar again led the team to a healthy start scoring 30 runs building the momentum with Petersen, and Dussen (41 not out) and Bavuma (32 not out) did the rest. This is one of the resounding Test Series victories for South Afr...

  We literally chase the sun for the warmth of its sunlight during the winter season, particularly in the northern, eastern and north eastern regions of India. In most places of the western and southern regions real winter has always been rare. Of course, in some years there are days in the months of December and January when we get the chill, and the question of considering this as real winter depends from which region you come from: for the people of the wintry regions we just mentioned don’t consider such weather as winter, but only as pleasant; however, the local people welcome the ‘winter’ heartily, drying up their woolens and wearing their sweaters, jackets, mufflers and shawls outside even if after some time the sweat forms inside. On such days we realize the importance of having flats that allow a lot of sunlight. This season in Mumbai we are having such pleasant or cold days following the cold waves in the north and we loving the morning sunlight filtering through the wind...

Honestly, I knew absolutely nothing about an App called the ‘Sulli Deals’ which reportedly appeared in around middle of  the year 2021 and created, as I came know now, quite some thrills around our haplessly vulnerable country. My ignorance, blissfully, is perhaps because of my healthy contempt for most of the Apps, thanks to the simple reason that once you fall prey to an app the latter keeps on disturbing you with endless reminders for updates and messages about how to spread the ‘appeal’ of the app to your friends. For the last week almost all the news channels of the same country have been crying hoarse and shedding crocodile tears about another App called, very captivatingly, the Bulli Bai. Such was the din created by the channels with daily news headlines, visuals, debates and updates that I was forced to search for what it actually meant. And I found that what the concerned Apps, Bulli or Sulli, tried to do was heinous, targeting the prominent women of a minority community. ...

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has today, a day when the country logged 1,41,986 new COVID-19 cases, announced the dates for assembly elections in 5 states of India, Uttar Pradesh (UP), Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur and Goa, starting from February 10, 2022. The polling in all five states will be completed between 10 th February and 7 th March in seven phases while the counting is to take place on 10 th March for all five states. UP election will be spread over all the seven phases till 7 th March; Uttarakhand, Punjab and Goa will have single phase polls on 14 th February; and Manipur will have two-phase polling due to security concerns in the state on 27 th February and March 3, 2022. More than 180 million citizens are set to exercise their voting rights during this what is often referred as festival of democracy.   The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Sushil Chandra, assured while addressing a press conference in the national capital Delhi that the elections w...

  South Africa captain Dean Elgar (96 not out) led from the front to clinch what finally turned out to be an easy victory over India in the second Test at the Wanderers in Johannesburg and level the 3-match Test Series 1-1. It is rather unfortunate that Dean could not complete what would have been a most memorable century, particularly in light of the fact that this win has ended India’s streak of 5 consecutive Test victories over the Proteas that started at the Wanderers in 2018 and later at Indian venues. The South Africa chase, interrupted by rains on the fourth day, is perhaps the best batting display in this series so far with every batsman contributing and partnerships blossoming throughout. Dean crafted an opening stand of 47 runs with Markram (31); 46-run partnership with Peterson (28); 82-run partnership with Rassie van der Dussen (40); and finally, an unbeaten 68-run partnership with Bavuma (23 not out). This is third biggest chase by any team at the Wanderers that proved...

Media-persons, including this writer, have the habit of prioritizing news stories/reports on the basis of how many people have died or are adversely affected, which is actually necessary to structure a news bulletin, always a tough job doing justice to the stories, selecting them and giving the prominence a story deserves. When a reporter comes in to the newsroom stating that an accident or any kind of such tragic happenings has occurred in which 2-4 people have died the news editor would just grimace it away and most often would ask it to be included in the scroll. If the fatalities are around 10 it normally gets into the bulletin as an important story, and when the toll is more than 15/20 then it becomes a headline news story. Well, this is unfortunate indeed; but in a hyperactive newsroom it becomes unavoidable. However, such stories are never taken as a good news story.   Deaths are always unfortunate whatever be the number, because for the person who succumbs in an accident ...