Irrespective of terrific bowling efforts from Indian seamers, the second rain-hit T20I against Australia was called off at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) on Friday.
Taking full advantage of the swinging track, Indian bowlers produced an impressive performance to restrict Australia to a moderate 135 runs in a rain-hit 19-overs contest. For ‘Men in Blue’, pacers Bhuvneshwar Kumar (2-20), Khaleel Ahmed (2-39) and Jasprit Bumrah (1-20) gave India some early breakthroughs, while spinners Kuldeep Yadav (1-23) and Krunal Pandya (1-26) also chipped in later to deny a chance to settle for the Australian batting order.
Bhuvneshwar set the tone right as he scalped the big wicket of Australian skipper Aaron Finch for a duck in the very first over with a good length delivery going wide outside the off stump, which deceived the right-hand batsman and went straight to the wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant.
Australia could only manage to add 26 runs more before losing another wicket in the form of the solid-looking Chris Lynn. The right-hand batsman was caught at deep point off a slower delivery by Khaleel. Following Lynn, opener D’Arcy Short, who was holding on to the crease for some time now, completely failed to understand a quicker delivery of Khaleel and departed back to pavilion at the score of 14 runs.
Bumrah, who consistently maintained his line and length, joined the party and picked up the wicket of Marcus Stoinis who could only contribute four runs to his team’s total. Stoinis was followed by Glenn Maxwell’s dismissal, who at the score of 19 runs, got beaten by a quick delivery from Pandya.
With almost all of the Australian specialists back in the pavilion, the tailenders could not sustain themselves on the pitch for a long. While spinner Kuldeep quickly wrapped up the four-run innings of wicket-keeper batsman Alex Carey, Nathan Coulter-Nile was dismissed by Bhuveneshwar for 18 runs.
Australia take a 1-0 series lead with one more game to go on November 25 at Sydney Cricket Ground.
Mizoram Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla is among the nine candidates facing criminal cases out of over 200, who are in the fray for the state Assembly election, according to a report by two civil society organisations.
Mizo National Front (MNF) president and former chief minister Zoram Thanga is another bigwig fighting criminal charges, the report of the Mizoram Election Watch (MEW) and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) said.
It is based on affidavits filed to the Election Commission by the aspirants.
The others facing criminal charges are V Malsawmtluanga (Independent), Vl Zahawma Chawngthu (BJP), Rasik Mohan Chakma (MNF), Lalduhpuii (BJP), James Thanghmingmawia (Congress) and R Lalthangliana (MNF).
Out of the nine contestants, only four are facing serious criminal cases, it said.
While the Congress and the MNF are contesting all 40 constituencies this time, the BJP is fighting in 39 seats with an aim to open its account for the first time in Mizoram.
DMK President MK Stalin Friday alleged the relief activity was “not satisfactory” in the Cauvery delta areas that were ravaged by Cyclone Gaja last week.
The Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly demanded that Chief Minister K Palaniswami convene a meeting of stakeholders from the region to take forward the relief activities in an effective manner.
He also said Palaniswami should stay put in the delta region to oversee the relief work.
“The people in the delta region have lost their livelihood. The relief work is not satisfactory for them. Palaniswami should actually stay there and expedite and regulate the relief activities,” he told reporters here.
Further, Palaniswami should convene a meeting of stakeholders in the delta region–farmers’ and political parties’ representatives and welfare organisations, and discuss further streamlining and expediting the relief and rehabilitation efforts, he added.
Cyclone Gaja had crossed the Tamil Nadu coast between Nagapattinam and Vedaranyam on November 16, claiming 63 lives and leaving behind a trail of destruction, severely affecting the farming, fishing and power sectors.
Nagapattinam, Thanjavur, Tiruvarur and Pudukottai districts had suffered the worst damage.
Tamil Nadu government has already released Rs 1,000 crore as an interim measure to aid the relief and rehabilitation efforts, even as Palaniswami met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi on Thursday seeking a Rs 14,910 crore relief package.
The Rajasthan BJP has expelled 11 rebel leaders, including four ministers, for their decision to contest elections against party candidates, a party spokesperson said Friday.
Ministers Surendra Goyal (Jaitaran), Hem Singh Bhadana (Thanagaji), Rajkumar Rinwa (Ratangarh) and Dhan Singh Rawat (Banswara)are contesting as Independent candidates.
Besides, sitting MLAs Anita Katara (Sagwara) and Kishnaram Nai (Sridungargarh), former MLAs Radheshyam Ganganagar, Laxminarayan and 3 other leaders were also expelled late on Thursday night after they did not withdraw nomination papers on the last day yesterday, the spokesperson said.
Polling in the state will take place on December 7.
The Delhi High Court has sought responses of the Centre and the AAP government on a plea seeking directions to them to take steps to address issues related to starvation deaths, especially of children, in the national capital and also in other parts of the country.
A bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V K Rao issued notice to the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Delhi government seeking their stands on the issue raised in the petition which claims malnutrition and deaths due to starvation were more prevalent among slum-dwellers as many of them do not have ration cards to access subsidised food grains.
The court also directed that the Delhi government’s departments of Health and Family Welfare, the Social Welfare as well as the Women and Child Development be also made parties to the case.
The court listed the matter for further hearing on February 15, 2019.
The order came on the PIL filed by lawyer Maneesh Pathak who has claimed that often the poor families living in slums do not have ration cards due to lack of address proof and has contended that it should not be a ground for denial of subsidised food to them.
“Making food security conditional (to be given only to a ration card holder) is a violation of the fundamental right to life under the Constitution,” the lawyer has said in his petition.
He has referred to the death of three minor girls in July this year who according to their post-mortem report was suffering from extreme malnutrition. He has contended that such cases were on the rise in other states as well.
The petition has sought framing of a policy so that the marginalised section of society receives an adequate supply of food and drinking water to ensure that a proper nutritional level is maintained amongst them.
The petition said that this can be achieved by an efficient public distribution system for free delivery of essential food articles to the poor families, including those without ration cards.
Tearing into the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government, Congress president Rahul Gandhi government accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of remaining silent over his government’s failure to do anything substantial for farmers and the poor in the past four-and-half years.
Speaking at the rally here, the Gandhi scion reiterated his point claiming that the Prime Minister did not respond to his question as to why the central government did not waive-off loans of poor farmers.
“In Madhya Pradesh, there is no scarcity of funds. The government could have easily provided relief to the farmers. I have personally questioned Modi Ji on why he doesn’t waive off farmers’ loans when he waived off loans worth Rs 3,50,000 crore of corporate tycoons. He remained silent. Not only that, state chief minister’s family members too ran away with a large sum of money. This country is not formed by a person or a political party, the country is formed by its people, its farmers, and its small businessmen.”
“If you want to listen to lies and fake promises, listen to Narendra Modi Ji and Shivraj Ji’s speech. But, if you want to know the truth, then you must listen to my speech,” he added.
He further trained guns at the central government saying, “Modi ji wants you to listen to his ‘Mann ki Baat’. We do not want to do that. We want to listen to your voice and take Madhya Pradesh on the path of progress.”
The Congress president assured that his government will install food processing plants near each block of a village if voted to power. “The farmers are selling vegetables, fruits, grains in the markets but are unable to get the right Minimum Support Price (MSP). If we come to power, my government will install food processing plants in every village. The Congress government in Madhya Pradesh will prioritise in generating employment for the youth”.
Elections to the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly will be held on November 28 to elect 230 members. The result will be declared on December 11.
Shoojit Sircar on Friday said he does not make his films wondering whether the audience will approve of it as the director believes he is the “king first”.
The filmmaker recounted the public’s mixed reaction to his latest directorial October, saying a lot of people thought that the Varun Dhawan-Banita Sandhu starrer was slow.
“A lot of people saw October’ and told me that the film was really slow. And I was like Fine what can I say?’ It’s a territory where you can’t be blindly sure of what you are doing. Even when you are pitching to an actor, you are trying to tell him what your vision is. I’m not a magician, this is a process for me too.
I’m not trying to get a good audience. People tell me but audience is the king’, no but I am the king first. It is not in my control whether the audience will like my film or not. I will tell a story the way I feel it, I’m enjoying it or how my mind is processing it, Sircar said during a conversation with film critic Saibal Chatterjee at the session Out-of-the-box in Black Box’ at the fourth day of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) here.
The director, whose films Vicky Donor and Piku were major hits, said audience is the king only when a box office works.
“It is like when someone is ill, they call on God. When they recover, they forget the God. When they fall ill again, they remember God. So it is like that. I can’t make a film for an audience. If I start thinking of an audience, I don’t think I’ll be able to make a film. An audience is the last thing that is on my mind (while working on a film), he said.
Sircar said he has been lucky that all of his films faired at the ticket window the way he predicted.
My films have always worked at the box office. I tell my producers in advance that don’t think it’ll be a mass film, that a lot of people will come But I try to learn from my past mistakes and try not to repeat them. When I look back, I see there have been many, many mistakes.
Recounting how he started Vicky Donor with frequent collaborator writer Juhi Chaturvedi, he said Chaturvedi gives the idea and they hold discussions.
“One night she called me up and said she had a story about a sperm donor in her mind. I thought ‘there is something wrong with this girl’. I should not say this but if some boy would have given this idea, I would have rejected it then and there itself.
The whole night I couldn’t sleep. Then I went on the web and I read stories (on sperm donation) and I started laughing. The next morning, I called her up: let’s start the work, we’ll see how it goes.
As and when the discussions are over, Chaturvedi goes into her own cocoon and pens the first draft, which serves as the backbone of the story, Sircar said.
The filmmaker, who has made a political thriller like Madras Cafe and backed social drama Pink, said his films are a reflection of the society around him along with the kind of cinema he watched while growing up.
Sircar, who is considered to be following the path of the middle of the road’ films, said he believes his work is really mediocre when he compares his films with his greatest influence, the legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray.
Later, the director told PTI that he is working on three different projects at the time, where he will be reuniting with Chaturvedi, Pink screenwriter Ritesh Shah and Madras Caf co-writer Shubendu Bhattacharya, respectively.
He is also in advanced talks to produce a Bengali film.
Senior Congress leader from Rajasthan C P Joshi Friday apologised for his casteist remarks after party chief Rahul Gandhi disapproved his comments and asked him to express regret.
However, the BJP rejected his apology, saying the remarks “insulted” Indian culture and the Hindu religion.
Addressing a poll meeting in poll-bound Rajasthan on Thursday, Joshi had reportedly said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP MP Uma Bharti and Hindu activist Sadhvi Ritambhara are from “lower castes” and know nothing of Hinduism.
He had said it is the Brahmins who are learned and know of Hinduism.
“Respecting the principles of the Congress party and the sentiments of party workers, I feel sorry if my statement has hurt the feelings of any section of society,” Joshi said in a tweet in Hindi.
Thursday night, he had posted his speech on Twitter and Facebook, saying, “I strongly condemn the fabricated use of my statement by BJP. To put all the speculation to rest, here is enclosed the clipping of the speech.”
Gandhi disapproved the Congress leader’s comments in a tweet, saying Joshi’s remarks do not reflect, and are contrary, to the ideals of the Congress party, and urged party leaders to refrain from making such statements.
“C P Joshi’s remark is contrary to the Congress party”s ideals. Party leaders should not give such statement that hurts any segment of the society, he said.
“While respecting the Congress party’s principles and the sentiments of party workers, I am sure Joshiji will realise his mistake. He should express regret over his remarks,” the Congress chief said on Twitter.
Joshi’s remarks come ahead of Assembly elections in Rajasthan on December 7 and Madhya Pradesh on November 28, and have the potential of alienating lower caste voters from the party.
He has launched his poll campaign in Nathdrawa on Friday, where he is contesting as a Congress candidate.
The BJP, however, rejected Joshi’s apology and said Gandhi must take responsibility and express regret.
Stressing that Joshi had “insulted the Indian culture as well as the Hindu religion”, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi accused the Congress of “dividing every religion for power”.
“The statement of Congress leader (Joshi) is baseless, wrong and condemnable. It reflects that the Congress doesn’t know the history of Indian culture and Hindu religion,” Trivedi said at a press conference in Jaipur.
The All India Kisan Sabha has accused the Yogi Adityanath government of raking up the issue for diverting people’s attention from the “rural distress”.
Dharampal Singh, the president of Kisan Sabha’s Uttar Pradesh unit, said it was impossible for the state and the central government to fulfill their pre-poll commitments to farmers “simply because funds have dried up… they have been diverted to non farmer segments within the agriculture sector.”
“A major challenge has been posed by the Yogi government through its ongoing attempt to breach farmers unity by raking the Ram temple issue purely for diverting attention from the present rural distress,” Singh said.
He alleged that funds allocated for paying off farmers were “diverted to Africa-based industries” and farmers were directly provided only five per cent of such funds.
On the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s assurance to sugarcane farmers of clearing cane arrears by November 30, Singh said it was “nothing but an eye wash”.
He said the All India Kisan Sabha has launched a massive awareness programme for farmers to impress upon the need of maintaining communal peace in the state ahead of the parliamentary polls.
The Kisan Sabha will organise bhaichara (brotherhood) camps at village-level all over the state to ensure that “no one succeeds in breaking bonds of unity among farmers”, he said.
The month-long drive will culminate with a memorial meeting at Bulandshahar on December 19 to mark the Kakori martyrs day, he said, adding that preparations were also on for an all India protest of farmers at New Delhi on November 29 and 30.
There are some artists who follow the art that they have learnt from there gurus exactly the way they were taught and then there are some who think beyond and try to achieve new horizons yet keeping the essence of their art alive. I am talking about one such incredible artist who is not just a fantastic dancer but a true performer, choreographer, writer, and a fabulous teacher – Mandakini Trivedi.
Mandakini Trivedi was honoured with the prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi Puraskar (Award) in 2015 for Mohini Attam; she is a unique dance personality whose quest for truth through Art has taken her to frontiers beyond the Form.
She holds Masters in Fine Art (MFA) in Dance from Mumbai University’s Nalanda Nrityakala Mahavidyalaya and is trained in Mohini Attam under the expert guidance of Padma Bhushan and Padmashree Dr. Kanak Rele and has also taken master classes in Mohini Attam from Smt. Kalyanikuttiamma, Smt. Kalamandalam Satyabhama, and Smt. Kalamandalam Leelamma. All through her dance training, Mandakini was drawn to the undercurrents of spirituality in Indian aesthetics, she was convinced that it was not a mere coincidence, a poetic or mythological exaggeration that Bharata the compiler of the Natya Shastra was a muni, that Shiva and all the Gods of the pantheon danced, that the aesthetic experience was compared to the spiritual experience. Neither did she feel that this spiritual background was a matter of history irrelevant to the times. She pondered deeply on these issues wondering why the professional dance scene was so far away from its original background.
As if in answer to this deep query, she met her spiritual Master, Swami Shri Harish Madhukar – ‘Babaji’, a jolly fakir who was not a dancer but in him, she saw the joy that the aestheticians referred to as the ultimate purpose of art. For many years, she practiced spiritual sadhanas with him, away from the world of professional dancing and understood the deep roots of mysticism and spirituality in art. She understood what ‘sadhana’ or spiritual discipline really meant! Her performances, choreographies and lecture demonstrations, all became coloured by the fragrance of the Master’s teachings. Truly, she realised, there is no difference between art and spirituality. Dance is the highest yoga and art only a means to expand Consciousness. Henceforth, this understanding permeated all her work.
Totally mesmerised by her interpretation and presentation, I sat down to talk to this graceful and soft-spoken dancer who has given a totally new twist to Mohini Attam.
What is the dance gurukul all about?
Having understood the essence of Yoga from Babaji, I studied the details of the yoga Shastra under Shri Sharad Pathak of the Tibetan Global Research Institute to further co-relate Dance and Yoga. I found that not only is Indian dance essentially spiritual, but the very form is nothing but yoga – perfected body geometry leading one to a perfected State of Being. I discovered that Indian dance is sensual, scientific and a journey to the Source. I wondered, why is the Dance not taught like this, lived like this? Why has performing become a sensual entertainment, a mere profession, and a hypocritical expression of divine themes that are not lived or genuinely felt? These questions gave birth to Nateshvari Dance Gurukul, a space that addresses all these issues and grooms young dancers to look at themselves while they look at the art.
Tell me about your ashram experience?
As the chairperson of Shaktiyogashrama, founded by Swami Shri Harish Madhukar, I conduct residential programmes at the ashram, initiating young minds into holistic lifestyles and spiritual principles that have shaped Indian art and life and given it a unique character.
Your dance awareness program is well known. Please put more light on it!
My thought-provoking lecture-demonstrations on Indian Dance that are mainly aimed at reviving the roots of Indian Dance in Yoga, have inspired young dance students to re-look at the art and its practice; they have been eye-openers for students of allied disciplines such as architecture and design and made them aware of the breadth and potential of Indian Dance. They have also created a love for the idiom in lay-persons. I have taken these workshops to schools, colleges, Dance Schools, government as well as corporate organisations and professional colleges of allied disciplines like Architecture and Design and the industrial design centre, IIT Bombay, and many more.
What about your writing work?
I write articles on Classical Indian dance in many leading newspapers and magazines. I love to write, I feel just like dance, I can express through writing as well. Writing helps me to look at dance in a more in-depth way just the way dance does. To me, dance and writing are similar in many ways.
Some of my writing work is Master’s thesis – The Evolution of Hastas from Mudras. Ananda Yoga – Conversations on Happiness, being dialogues with Swami Shri Harish Madhukar. The Yoga of India Dance -Concealed beneath the rich and intricate fabric of classical Indian dance lays a system of mind-body discipline that is at once aesthetic, symbolic and yogic. Its themes steeped in mythology still contain wisdom relevant to our times. Sutras on Dance – In the form of personal ruminations, these sutras are meditations and reflections on performing and performing techniques that stem from the philosophy and practice of yoga. Meant to stimulate deep cogitation, they talk of the principles of watchable form and performing techniques that are hidden in Nature and Yoga. They also question the need to perform, its validity and dangers.
How are your performances and choreographies unique from others?
Performing and choreographing is an important area of my work for I feels that performing is nothing but the practice and perfecting of the art and should be continued to the end of one’s life, irrespective of age and market forces.
By Sandip Soparrkar
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of AFTERNOON VOICE and AFTERNOON VOICE does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.)
