As anticipated, the political masters of Pakistan have finally directed its national cricket team to lift the boycott and play India on 15 February, 2026, as scheduled in Colombo . The Masters must've thought the money at stake is too lucrative to continue indulging in such kind of grumpy politics. Of course, they had imposed some pre-conditions that included making the 'handshake' a mandatory protocol, but the ICC looked the other way. So, the PCB takes it as protecting the 'spirit of cricket'. The Indian cricket board , the sponsors, the TV channels and millions of fans who do not necessarily mix patriotism with sports, if it's cricket in particular, must be deliriously ecstatic that all the revenues and hype and excitement shall be there for harvest thr oughout the ICC Men's T20 World Cup-2026 , co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka . Most of the Indians fans must also be ecstatic to have their heroes go on vanquishing the enemy neighbor and humiliating t...
We have been used to be woken up by the staccato chirping of the house sparrows that jump and trot around the windows in the mornings. They have always been lovable small birds living in our roofs spending the full day with us, but over the years their numbers are getting less and lesser and in most of the towns and cities of India their morning alarms are almost non-existent. Environmental experts all over the world have expressed the fear of the sparrows getting extinct and the species already figure in the endangered list. Proliferation of the mobile phone towers and increasing pollution are believed to the main reasons for this sad happening. Concrete apartment blocks replacing the traditional independent houses could also be seen as another factor. While in Guwahati, Assam we were lucky to see a lot of sparrows in their normal gait and talkativeness, but definitely not to the extent as earlier. But in Nagaon , just two and half hours journey by road from Guwahati, the chirpi...