Making sense of breaking stories

Skipper Kohli braves Aussie bouncers and slams a ton

Virat Kohli couldn't have put in a better performance in his first test match as the Indian captain, as he slammed a stylish 115 off 184 balls in the first test in Adelaide. Kohli was hit on the helmet by a vicious Mitchell Johnson bouncer early in his innings, but that didn't stop him from taking the attack back to the Aussie camp. However, it appears that the Australian pacers are showing restraint in their bowling after the death of teammate Phil Hughes who died after being hit by a bouncer in a domestic match recently.

Avoid politics over conversion

Even as the conversion issue rocked Parliament, another instance of conversion in Muzaffarnagar district can possibly snowball into violence in the communally charged district. The Uttar Pradesh administration has done the right thing by tightening security in the area. Political parties and religious groups must understand that there is nothing wrong in an individual changing his or her faith as an act of conscience. It is acts of conversion through fraud, as seems to have been the case in the Agra ghar vapsi, that need to be prevented.

Google leaves Twitter and Facebook behind as best workplace

Ensuring a balanced work-family environment for its employees has made Google the best place to work on Earth, according to the seventh "2015 Best Places to Work" listing from Glassdoor, a US-based website that provides insider ratings and information from employees about the companies they work for. The surprise is the rapid fall in the positions of Twitter and Facebook.Twitter, which was the second best company last year, has fallen off the grid and is out from the list, while Facebook has slipped to 13th position from the fifth last year. Perhaps as the two expand in size and operations, they have become like any other large workplace.

Happy birthday Mr President

President Pranab Mukherjee turned 79 today. The first politician to become President since Shankar Dayal Sharma, Mr Mukherjee enjoys respect and admiration across the political spectrum. He made his mark as a veteran parliamentarian and as a important minister under various Prime Ministers: Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Manmohan Singh. He was also the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission in the Narasimha Rao regime. According to his daughter Sharmishtha Mukherjee, "though short in height, he stands tall in stature".