“Thought I might never score hundred for Australia again,” said Warner in post-match talk.
Warner’s first hundred for Australia after making his comeback into International cricket helped Australia to win the match against Pakistan.
After winning the toss in overcast condition, Pakistan opted to bowl. Both the teams included extra pacer in their playing XIs.
Warner and Finch started cautiously in the first few overs, seeing the new ball. Once they got to set, they went after the bowling. The pair added 146 runs for the first wicket in just 22 overs. Mohammad Amir got the breakthrough when he dismissed Finch who made run a ball 82. Warner reached his hundred in 102 balls, but others around him just kept slogging and throwing away their wickets.
The Australian innings got over in the 49th over, an unexpected end to their innings after such a brilliant start. Mohammad Amir bowled an excellent spell, taking 5 for 30 in 10 overs when everyone else leaked runs more than 6 per over.
Pakistan started poorly in the run chase, losing Fakhar in the third over with just two runs on board. Imam was joined by Baba Azam and added 54 runs for the 2nd wicket. The partnership which kept Pakistan in the hunt, first between Imam and Azam and then Imam with Hafeez, pushed them close to the target. However, a sudden collapse in the middle overs put Pakistan on the backfoot. They lost four wickets for just 24 runs, but as usual, Pakistan kept surprising the fans and experts. First Hasan Ali blasted 32 off only 17 balls, and then Wahab smashed 45 off 39 keeping the hopes alive.
Pakistan required just 54 off 48 to win the match when Finch gave the ball to Starc, who dismissed both Wahab and Amir in the same over and got the game in Australia’s favour.
Pakistan innings (fall of wickets)
It was the Aussies who had the last laugh though with Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Kane Richardson doing the bulk of the damage.
In a first, the Uttar Pradesh police have arrested a director of a madrasa for illegally divorcing his wife through banned practise of Triple Talaq.
According to the reports, the Agra police arrested the husband on the orders of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, after his wife alleged that he had given her triple talaq besides beating her up and demanding dowry.
The police arrested Agra’s Rakabganj resident Chukru Rehman aka Zikru Rehman after his wife Tarannum Begum had approached CM Yogi Adityanath alleging that her husband had given her triple talaq. She had told the chief minister that he had recently divorced her for no reason by uttering words “talaq” thrice.
Initially, the Malpura police station of Agra did not act on the complaint and was instead trying to pressure Tarrunum, a mother of three, to compromise. Later, Javed Ali, the victim’s brother went to Chief Minister’s Office, who then intervened and ordered the police officials to lodge FIR against Rahman.
The Agra police then lodged a case against Chukru Rehman and arrested him on Tuesday after which he was sent to judicial custody, the police officials said.
Reportedly, the couple has three children. In her letter, Tarannum had accused her husband of marrying another woman from his own madrasa before divorcing her and forcing her out of the house, the officials added.
Speaking to the media following the arrests of her husband, Tarannum Begum expressed her happiness over the quick action by the UP Chief Minister’s office. Reportedly, Tarannum Begum told that she always had faith that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will definitely take action in her case and she was very grateful for the prompt action.
An Indian Air Force (IAF) search team reached the AN-32 crash site today, two days after locating the wreckage. The team did not find any survivors and the families of the 13 personnel have been informed the same.
#Update on #An32 crash: Eight members of the rescue team have reached the crash site today morning. IAF is sad to inform that there are no survivors from the crash of An32.
The IAF paid tributes to the Air-warriors who have lost their lives and has said that it stands by the families of the victims.
Following air-warriors lost their life in the tragic #An32 crash – W/C GM Charles, S/L H Vinod, F/L R Thapa, F/L A Tanwar, F/L S Mohanty, F/L MK Garg, WO KK Mishra, Sgt Anoop Kumar, Cpl Sherin, LAC SK Singh, LAC Pankaj, NC(E) Putali & NC(E) Rajesh Kumar.
The AN-32 transport aircraft of the Indian Airforce had gone missing after it got airborne from Jorhat in Assam at around 1225 hrs for Menchuka Advance Landing Ground in Arunachal Pradesh.
After 8 days of searching, IAF found the wreckage of the aircraft in Gate village in Payum area of West Siang district in Arunachal Pradesh. It was spotted by the IAF Mi-17 helicopter, 16Km North of Lipo, at an approximate elevation of 12000 ft.
Today #IAF mobilised 15 personnel for rescue operations of #An32 crash. The rescuers are expected to reach the crash site by tonight. The terrain weather &thick vegetation is slowing down the progress of rescue team. IAF is making every effort possible to reach the site. #Rescue
Taking the debate of Hindi imposition to next level, political analyst and TMC troll Garga Chatterjee scored a self-goal on a live show by speaking in Bengali and fought with the anchor over Hindi imposition despite him being informed that the show was in Hindi.
Appearing on a debate on political violence in West Bengal and the face-off between Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the Home ministry on the CNN News18, political analyst Garga Chatterjee decided to speak in Bengali as he thought that anchor Shreya Dhoundiyal and all other guests present on the show were pushing the agenda of Hindi imposition by speaking in Hindi.
Dr. Garga Chatterjee (@GargaC), Political Analyst opens the debate in Bengali argues that other panelists are speaking in their mother tongue.
Anchor Shreya Dhoundial, who is also a standby defence expert of the channel, asked whether Garga Chatterjee was trying to make any point by speaking in Bengali in a Hindi news show. However, Chatterjee reacted to Shreya Dhoundial by saying that she “should not have a guilty conscience”, when she asked him to switch to English if he was not comfortable in Hindi. He argued that if other panellists in the show are allowed to speak in their mother tongue Hindi on an English channel, he also should be allowed to speak in Bengali.
The debate on CNN News18 soon deviated from the main issue of political violence in West Bengal into a war of words between the anchor and Garga Chatterjee over the subject of whether CNN News18 is a Hindi or an English channel.
Soon, Shreya Dhoundial posted a clarification tweet saying that CNN News 18 is an English News Channel but the channel hosts two Hindi shows daily at 10 am and 7 pm. She also said that each guest who is invited to the show, including Garga Chatterjee was also informed that the show was in Hindi.
Hey hi. Since you asked politely : Yes CNN-NEWS18 is an English Channel. But our 10 am show and 7 pm show are in Hindi. Each guest who is invited for the show is told that the show is hindi. Garga knew he is coming for a hindi show. You know what happened next 🙂 https://t.co/lExMGDaRfq
If claims of Shreya Dhoundial are believed to be true, it is rather intriguing to know why was Garga Chatterjee began to propagate his agenda by speaking in Bengali despite the fact that he was informed that the show will be in Hindi. If he was against Hindi, he could have said no to a Hindi program. Garga Chatterjee perhaps successfully used the opportunity to deflect the issue by speaking in Bengali as maybe he did not have sufficient answers to counter the allegations on raising political violence in West Bengal under Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
However, Garga Chatterjee did not stop there. He took on to Twitter to post abusive tweets targetting Hindi speaking citizens.
Statutory warning to all nonHindi citizens – “Licking Hindi Imperialist Ass or any other organ is Bad for Health. It is not cool. It is shameful.”
Hindi Imperialists who think that they have enslaved all nonHindi homelands & Tamil Nadu is the last hold out – they will get rude shock after shock in years to come. Hindi Imperialism has more enemies beyond Tamil Nadu that they can even imagine. And they ain’t seen nothing yet.
Garga Chatterjee, a vocal supporter of the TMC and an abusive troll has a habit of raking up issues to create polarisation on linguistic lines. Last year, Railway minister Piyush Goyal had announced Kolkatta city metro’s decision of including information in Bengali in its smart cards. Taking an opportunity to target ‘Hindi imposition’ Garga had interpreted the tweet as the ‘Hindi imperial centre’ had now sensed the power of ‘Bengali resistance’.
Due to dwindling viewership numbers, several English News Channels have started including Hindi programs. It was started by Arnab Goswami who started using both English and Hindi in his shows on Republic and allowed the panellists also to do so. This was followed by Time Now when they converted their morning show into Hindi. After that CNN-News18 had also started a Hindi show called Bottomline at the 7 PM slot.
Mimi Chakraborty, the newly elected Trinamool MP from the Jadavpur Lok Sabha Constituency, appeared on India Today on Wednesday. During the interview, ‘esteemed journalist’ Rahul Kanwal asked her to sing a song and appeared to be in awe of the actress. Thus, while West Bengal burns, the interview with Chakraborty was quite a jolly affair.
Kanwal met Nusrat Jahan as well, the Trinamool MP from Basirhat. The show was called ‘Jab We Met’ and in the clips, it can be seen that the journalist and Chakraborty are eating phuchkas together and playing football at a time when elected representatives from West Bengal, especially from the ruling disposition, ought to be questioned on the chaos that the state is facing.
The interview also reveals that the media itself does not take Mimi Chakraborty seriously merely because she is a young actress. In its own way, it is a very obnoxious brand of sexism where attractive young women are reduced to their mere beauty and are not taken seriously.
From the tweet, it appears clear that Rahul Kanwal was not interviewing Chakraborty in her capacity as an actress but as a ‘star MP’. Kanwal, then, ought to have asked her questions that concerns people and her solutions as an elected representative. Instead, the interview came across as a PR propaganda for a politician.
Especially given the circumstances, when there is great angst among the people of Bengal due to the deteriorating law and order situation, such an interview appears rather disgraceful. On Monday, nearly 200 people descended at the NRS Hospital in Kolkata and attacked doctors and interns after the death of an old patient due to natural causes.
Following the incident, doctors have started protests demanding adequate safety, immediate arrests of the perpetrators and an inquiry into police inaction during the violence. They have shut down services which is impacting patients as well. Moreover, the violence has spread to other colleges and regions as well.
In Burdwan, a mob attacked the students and doctors of Burdwan Medical College and Hospital injuring several of them. All because they were protesting in solidarity with the aggrieved students of NRS Hospital. There are reports of violence at other places coming in as well.
Under such circumstances, an elected representative from the ruling party in West Bengal was interviewed by India Today and it doesn’t appear she was asked a single question about the ongoing crisis. It is extremely unethical on the part of a media outlet to act and behave as the propaganda wing of political parties which is exactly what India Today has done here. It was also extremely sexist in the sense that Mimi Chakraborty was reduced to her attractiveness and not treated with the seriousness that she, as an elected representative, commands.
Thrissur Raman is a superstar. He is tall, dark and majestic. He has thousands of fans who flock to catch a glimpse of him when he comes out walking in his royal style in the Thrissur Puram festival. Raman, or ‘Thechikottukavu Ramachandran’ that is his official name is a 54-year-old elephant.
#WATCH Kerala: 54 year old elephant Thechikottukavu Ramachandran participates in the Thrissur Pooram festival after doctors cleared it following medical tests. A ban had been imposed on the elephant after it killed two people during an event in Guruvayur earlier this year pic.twitter.com/fk3eeQLvVk
Raman, the beloved Kerala elephant is a Bihari by birth. He was called Moti Prasad before coming to Kerala in 1984. At 54, Raman is the tallest elephant in India and the second tallest in Asia. He is the star attraction at the famous Thrissur Puram festival and has thousands of fans in and outside Kerala.
Raman is the resident elephant in the Thechikottukavu temple, a few miles away from the Thrissur town. Year after year, it is Raman who formally opens the Thrissur Puram festival when he walks out of the town’s Vadakkunnathan Temple with gold adornments.
Raman is old and was sick. He has reportedly lost vision in one eye and faces digestion issues. Earlier this year, there was a massive outrage when the Communist government in Kerala had tried to ‘ban’ Raman from the Thrissur festival. The government stated that Raman is violent and has caused the death of over a dozen people and 3 other elephants so far. The devotees were not amused.
The Kerala Elephant Owners’ Federation had threatened to even boycott the Thrissur festival if Raman was banned. “One Pulsar bike may get involved in an accident, so will we ban all Pulsar bikes?”, the federation’s president P Sasikumar was quoted as saying.
Raman’s ‘ban’ had called for widespread outrage and reactions in Kerala. The people, especially Hindus, who had witnessed and endured the communist government’s atrocities attempting to defile Sabarimala since last year’s SC verdict was certainly not amused.
Raman is old and will probably retire soon. But that does not lessen his stardom. As mentioned in the report by Livemint, the Thechikottukavu temple has seen immense growth in its stature and fame after Raman’s arrival. The temple, the village has prospered with Raman. And the locals are willing to do their bit for their beloved elephant.
The roughly 3500 families in the two Panchayats near the temple are reportedly trying to raise Rs 2 crores, to create a fund that will help with Raman’s healthcare and expenses after he retires. An elephant is very expensive to maintain, and the villagers are willing to contribute so that their superstar spends his last days in comfort.
Kerala’s love for temple elephants is nothing new. Elephants in temples are celebrated here. Last year, when Thiruvambadi Sivasunder, another ‘star’ elephant that belonged to the Thiruvambadi temple in Kerala breathed his last, thousands of devotees, with children had flocked to pay homage. There were tearful goodbyes, floral tributes and a grand farewell that had Sivasunder’s admirers weeping for their beloved elephant.
Guruvayur Kesavan, the famous, majestic temple elephant of Kerala’s Guruvayur temple was so loved and celebrated that after he breathed his last, on the auspicious day of Guruvayur Ekadasi in 1976, the temple had taken it to observe the days in his remembrance ever since. The temple board erected a life-size statue of Kesavan at the entrance, with his grand tusks placed to welcome the guests. Each year, on his death anniversary, the temple lines up its elephants to pay respects and the chief elephant garlands Kesavan’s statue.
Image via @gajendramoksha on Twitter
The traditions of elephants in temples of Kerala is also being subject to continuous attacks and slandering by dubious NGOs and activists. As it happens with any major Hindu tradition and cultural celebration, there are attempts to attach the stigma of shame and guilt to the traditional festivals of the temples where the elephants are the main attraction.
In the Livemint article, the love for the villagers and the public emotion surrounding Raman is conspicuously linked with the ‘rise of saffron politics’ in the state. Titled ‘The Malayali develops a taste for saffron’ the article discusses the issue of Raman and the public sentiments attached with him in parallel with the surge if RSS and BJP in the state.
Article in Livemint
It attempts to draw parallels with West Bengal ‘Jai Shriram’ phenomenon. However, it ignores the fact that Kerala had loved and wept for its elephants much before BJP or the RSS became stakeholders in the state’s politics.
The idea behind the article stems from a narrative of ‘anti-Hindu anti-RSS ideology that is so common in most of India’s mainstream media. The beliefs of Kerala’s millions of Hindus were trampled upon mercilessly by the Communist government after the Sabarimala verdict. The LDF government went as far as ‘sneaking’ their female activists through the prohibited entrance in the wee hours of the night, just to assert their dominance and belittle the Hindu faith.
The ‘surge’ in Kerala’s Hindus was a reaction of the communist government’s apathy and atrocities, not the doing of RSS or BJP. The RSS did not ask Mamata Banerjee to behave like a woman possessed at the utterance of Jai Sriram. The RSS did not ask Pinarayi Vijayan’s government to kick, beat and drag defenceless devotees in Sabarimala to jail. The idea of painting the inherent love and respect of Hindus for their traditions as a result of ‘politicisation’ by BJP is as flawed as the leftist’s narrative that Hindu rituals and festivals are regressive and patriarchal.
The only thing that has changed in the last few years that with the advent of social media and awareness, it had become difficult for the leftists to peddle their propaganda. Hindus across India are beginning to question why they are being demonised despite living as quite adherents of their faith who have never asserted or enforced their beliefs upon others.
The political rise of BJP is the symptom of a larger awakened consciousness among Hindus, not the cause. Just like a Bihari Moti Prasad was celebrated in Kerala as Thechikottukavu Ramachandran for what he represented, the Hindu identity that the leftist media has tried desperately hard to confine to the ‘cow belt’ was never limited by imaginary regional barriers either.
Shiv Sena has criticised West Bangla chief minister Mamata Banerjee for the events happening in the state after the elections. Slamming Mamata Banerjee for her role, Shiv Sena in an editorial in its mouthpiece Saamna has said that the “sleeping Hindus of Bengal” have been “awakened by her excesses” and that Banerjee was responsible “for her own downfall,” reports Times Now.
Responding to Mamata Banerjee’s declaration that she would not allow BJP to turn “Bengal into Gujarat”, Shiv Sena attacked the Trinamool Congress chief saying that the state would turn into Gujarat and could even turn into ‘Ayodhya or Varanasi’.
“What does she mean by won’t let Bengal become Gujarat? Bengal has become Gujarat; tomorrow it may become Ayodhya or Varanasi,” the party said in its mouthpiece, saying that the state of Bengal could undergo the transformation to Varanasi or Ayodhya if “Lord Ram was angry.”
Shiv Sena through its mouthpiece also slammed the TMC supremo over the ‘Jai Sri Ram’ slogan controversy in the state. The editorial read, “Saying ‘Jai Shri Ram’ is a crime there. They have put up ‘Jai Hind’ posters against it. That is just a form of discomfort on their part.”
The political slugfest in West Bengal has reached its extremity. TMC has been unleashing its terror in the state. The West Bengal police have also been working hands in gloves with the ruling party to torment the BJP workers in Bengal.
A day after violent clashes erupted between BJP and TMC in Sandeshkhali, Bashirhat, Mamata Banerjee played the blame game and alleged that the Centre and the BJP were organising violence in a bid to topple her government.
Speaking to reporters, Banerjee had said, “The central government and BJP party cadres are trying to incite violence in West Bengal..we will not let Bengal turn into another Gujarat.”
All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) in a letter addressed to Union Home Minister Amit Shah had objected to the advisory issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to the government of West Bengal in view of the recent incidents of violence.
Calling the advisory a “deep-rooted conspiracy” and an “evil ploy to grab power”, the WB CM said that BJP wanted to grab hold of the states with a non-BJP government.
Meanwhile, BJP denied all the allegations and instead observed a ‘Black Day’ on Monday in order to protest the killing of its workers in West Bengal. The BJP blamed the TMC government for the “deteriorating” law and order situation in the state. In the wake of violence across the state, the BJP had also demanded the resignation of West Bengal Chief Minister and All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) Chief Mamata Banerjee as the Home Minister of the state.
Yesterday, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) raided several locations in Coimbatore over suspected links between an Islamic State (IS) module in Coimbatore and serial blasts in Sri Lanka on Easter eve.
Six men who were led by a man named Mohammed Azarudeen has been arrested in yesterdays raids. Azarudeen is known to have been in touch with Zahran Hashim, the main accused in the Sri Lanka bombings, over Facebook.
The NIA has said that the two were Facebook friends, first came in contact in October 2018 and have been spreading the ISIS ideology over social media. Azarudeen handled the Facebook page “KhilafahGFX” through which he spread the Daish/ISIS ideology and radical contents attributed to Hashim.
An official has said, “during initial questioning, Azarudeen told us that he had plans to carry out a big attack in Tamil Nadu and Kerala but first wanted to hire more men who will be ready to take up jihad”.
32-year-old Mohammed Azarudeen is a resident of Ukkadam in Coimbatore. He also ran a tour and travel agency company known as KhilafahGFX. Azarudeen was questioned for 14 hours after which he was arrested by NIA, he would be produced to a special NIA court today.
The NIA has also seized several electronic devices from the raids conducted in seven locations across Coimbatore.
Tamil Nadu: During NIA raids in Coimbatore in connection with ISIS module case, 14 mobiles,29 SIM cards,10 pen drives,3 laptops,6 memory cards,4 hard disc drives&13 CDs/ DVDs,300 air-gun pellets&incriminating documents&PFI/ SDMI pamphlets seized from houses&work places of accused
Last year in September, the NIA had busted an ISIS module in Coimbatore arresting seven men for planning to accomplish ISIS objectives by targeting Hindu leaders and activists. From the gathered evidence, including videos of Zahran Hashim, a possible terror attack was suspected in Colombo following which India had warned relevant authorities in Sri Lanka well in advance of the Easter Sunday bombings.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has registered a case against former Samajwadi Party MP Atiq Ahmed and 17 others after real estate dealer Mohit Jaiswal had accused them of kidnapping and assaulting him inside a prison in December 2018, reports ANI.
According to the reports, the Supreme Court had earlier instructed the state government to seek CBI to initiate an enquiry against Ahmad in connection with the abduction of realtor Mohit Jaiswal and his torture inside Deoria Jail.
The Samajwadi Party leader, Atiq Ahmed had allegedly beaten up real estate businessman Mohit Jaiswal in Deoria Jail in Uttar Pradesh and had demanded extortion money from the businessman.
Jaiswal had accused SP leader of kidnapping him from Lucknow and alleged that he was forcibly taken to Deoria Jail. When he reached Atiq Ahmed’s barracks, he was asked to sign away his four companies worth Rs 40 crore to Ahmad. Jaiswal had said that he was thrashed by Ahmed himself and his goons inside the jail when he refused to do so.
Following the incident, the Supreme Court had directed to shift former MP to a high-security jail in Gujarat. However, Mafia-turned-politician was still lodged in Naini Central Jail and was not shifted to a high-security prison in Gujarat, despite a recent Supreme Court order to make the shift.
Recently, Bill Gates shared an infographic showing causes of death in the US, what people most commonly search for and what media reports on. The graphic showed that while only 0.01% of people actually died of terrorism, it constituted over 7% of the google searches and media devoted over a third of its time reporting on it. Gates commented that he was amazed at what we see in the news and the reality of the world around us. He exhorted upon us to fight the fear instinct that distorts our perspective.
Should we, really?
This note is meant for the layperson with almost no background in statistics and one who is convinced (rightly) that 1) Gates is a smart man and 2) Gates means well. If you do not qualify one of these criteria then you may stop reading.
Not to be left behind, “data journalism” handle IndiaSpend tweeted an article showing terrorism accounted for 0.007% deaths in India while over 2/3rd were due to non-communicable diseases like heart attack and diabetes. And yet India’s defence budget is larger than its health budget. A few of us would also remember similar data put out by Steven Pinker that showed that more people die in car accidents every year than terrorism.
Does it mean the fear of terrorism is greatly overestimated? That it is a bogeyman created by immoral politicians and TRP hungry media?
Well, not exactly and let’s see why.
Motor accidents (or deaths due to toaster malfunction or death due to falling off ladders or heart attack) can be represented by what is known as normal or Gaussian distribution. At the risk of oversimplifying- what it means is if there are 10,000 deaths in 10 years due to any of the above, then simply dividing the total number of deaths by the number of years will still give you a fair estimation of how many people actually die of it every year. Even further simplified it means that removing one observation from the sample is unlikely to change the shape of the curve or the average.
Terrorism doesn’t work like that. There were 3,042 deaths due to acts of terror in the USA in 30 separate incident between 2000 and 2009. However, just one incident; 9/11 accounted for 2,996 i.e. a staggering 98.48% of the total fatalities. If terrorism was a normally distributed event then we could make a fair assessment of its risk by dividing the number of deaths by the number of years and arrive at the conclusion that the potential number of fatalities due to terrorism would not exceed 30.42 (3042/10) in a year.
However as 9/11 proved, the actual fatalities exceed the estimate by 100 times. Further, taking one observation out of the sample would change the curve totally. If you take 9/11 out of the above data, the average number of deaths per year would fall to 5, thus further distorting your estimation of the threat terrorism poses. This is why you cannot use the yardstick to measure deaths due to illness or accident to assess the threat posed by terrorism.
Here’s another way to look at it- If somehow the US was able to prevent 9/11, the fatalities would have been reduced by close to 98%. That right there is the reason for vigilance against terrorism. Vigilance prevents. And while better prevention in normal distribution would only mean marginal gains (think how better diagnostic would not reduce deaths due to heart attacks beyond a point), in case of terrorism the rewards are exponential.
Lastly- the low number of deaths due to terrorism are more attributable to better vigilance and advances in prevention mechanisms. However, that does not automatically mean a reduction in its potential for fatalities. As Taleb shows here– while deaths due to Ebola (another example of fat-tailed distribution) in 2016 were far less than even deaths due to bedsheet tangling, tomorrow if we read in the newspaper that 2 billion people have died suddenly Ebola is far likelier to be the cause than death due to bedsheet tangling. Worrying about bedsheet tangling will only have marginal payoffs. Worrying about Ebola might prevent the disaster of the magnitude of an Armageddon.
