DailyOh! India unfurl Tricolour at Gabba, to why Mamata will send people to disturb BJP rallies
Cricket lovers are overjoyed, provided they aren’t Australians.
Fortress Gabba has fallen 32 years after it was last conquered by West Indies in Australia. India beat Australia 2-1 in the four-match Test series, which many had declared would end 4-0 against India. Australia won one, India won the next, then the next ended in a draw, and the final was won today by India. Twenty-three-old Rishabh Pant, whose 89-run knock in the second innings knocked off Australia’s chances of a win, wasn’t even born the last time Australia lost a match at Gabba.
Victories bring joy. Big victories result in overjoy. Who was overjoyed? Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He tweeted to let the country know and wish the team all the best for its future endeavours. Cricket lovers who didn’t tweet must also be overjoyed, provided they aren’t Australians.
For everybody else, including those who find Test cricket slow and boring, Day 5 was as good as a T20 match. So, the Gabba ground left no ground for anyone to complain about as Ajinkya Rahane lifted the Border-Gavaskar trophy because Covid protocols prevent others from handing over trophies to the winning captain. What next? India will play England in India with the Test series taking off on February 5.
Talking of India, the US has caught hold of an Indian-origin man who had been hiding at the Chicago international airport for three months too scared to fly due to the pandemic. Thirty-six-year-old Aditya Singh was lurking in the security zone of the airport since October 19, 2020, and that raises questions on the security at the airport. The security zone may have provided Singh security from Covid but not from arrest over trespass and felony. Being in jail during Covid could be more dangerous than taking a flight or going home. The mask can save you in-flight and on the way home. In-home, you are the safest.
But is Covaxin safe? Not for pregnant, breastfeeding women, people with high fever and bleeding disorders. Bharat Biotech has released a fact sheet that lists the risks and benefits of the vaccine. Take risq if you are in ishq. As for the vaccine, the risk is best when avoided.
Two out of seven Covid-19 vaccine beneficiaries who had developed severe adverse symptoms after taking the jabs have died. We do not know which vaccine — Covishield or Covaxin — was given to them. But the government has said the deaths were not because of the vaccine, but because of cardiopulmonary disease, which is not one but a range of disorders that affect the lungs and the heart.
Talking of death, let’s talk of a death that saved lives. A 20-month-old girl died after falling from her balcony. Her organs saved five lives, including that of a five-month-old baby. In doing so Dhanishtha became India’s youngest organ donor. Doctors at Delhi’s Sir Gangaram Hospital retrieved Dhanishtha’s heart, liver, both kidneys, and both corneas, and transplanted them in five patients. In 2019, India performed the second largest number of transplants in the world but still lagged behind other nations with a donation rate of only 0.65 per million population.
Maybe Dhanishtha could act as an inspiration to take those numbers up. But did you know that in France donating organs is mandatory for everyone since 2017? What if someone doesn’t want to give away their parts even after they have departed? They have to put their name on the national ‘refusal register’. If one forgets to put their names on the register, their organs would be donated – provided they are in a condition to be donated – even if the family objects. This is called the opt-out system. In India, we have an opt-in system.
The problem with opt-in is that many are reluctant to plan life after death. As in, the life of the organs after they die. So, even though some may not have a problem with donating organs, they do not register to say they are in. In France, you are in unless you say you want to be out.
A person’s organ can live after the person is gone but can a dead person talk? If no, how do some people hear the dead? Pay attention, this one is a little tricky to understand. As per a study led by Durham University, spiritualist mediums are more prone to immersive mental activities, such as imaginative activities or experiencing altered states of consciousness. So they experience what they believe exists and not what really exists. To put it crudely, what they experience doesn’t exist but they experience because they believe. Maybe a little less belief in the power of belief would help.
That doesn’t mean you should have none of it. Just a little less. How much is right? We recommend Sudha Murthy’s Three Thousand Stitches: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives for the right amount. You are still free to decide your right and wrong.
The government has decided the right way to remember Subhas Chandra Bose would be to mark his birthday as Parakram Diwas. This could also be a way to reach out to voters in West Bengal, but the BJP-led central government hasn’t said that. Some lines are written. You can read them and then you can also read between the lines. Written lines say January 23 this year onwards will be Parakram Diwas apart from being January 23. The birthday celebrations would go on for a full year. Forward Bloc, the party founded by the legendary freedom fighter, has not liked the decision. Forward Bloc Bengal general secretary Naren Chatterjee has said they want the day to be called Desh Prem Diwas, as proposed by the Left Front years ago.
Desh Premi Bose showed extraordinary parakram in the fight for freedom. What is parakram? Our Word Of The Day. Where does the word come from? Sanskrit. Parakram is a Sanskrit word for valour. Many translate it to courage, but parakram just like valour is used more in wars and not when facing everyday life challenges.
Our Word Of The Day is parakram, but what is Congress leader Shashi Tharoor’s word of the day? Epicaricacy. It means rejoicing at or deriving pleasure from the misfortunes of others. Tharoor is rejoicing at the misfortunes of Australia.
But we want to come back to parakram, which we told you, is exhibited in wars. TMC and BJP in West Bengal are in an electoral war but there is no valour involved. BJP today alleged that crude bombs were hurled at party workers ahead of Suvendu Adhikari’s rally in East Midnapore district. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the BJP is more dangerous than the Maoists and if someone from TMC wants to join the ‘more dangerous’ BJP, they are free to do so.
She also said she will be sending people to disturb BJP and CPI(M) rallies because she has been seeing BJP send people to disturb her rallies. So that explains why BJP is her target, but why CPI(M)? We don’t know. Maybe because Mamata wants to be fair to all her adversaries.
Rahul Gandhi says he won’t answer his adversaries. He will only answer the people of the country. Gandhi said this asking who JP Nadda is. Nadda, as you know, is the BJP president. Rahul Gandhi chose to ignore Nadda because Nadda wanted him to answer a few questions during his press conference, which Nadda asked on Twitter before the press conference.
Rahul Gandhi’s press conference was about farm laws and farmers’ protest over the farm laws. The Supreme Court-appointed committee on farm laws today held its first meeting. Since farmers have rejected the committee, the committee is for the SC only. The SC verdict will be for everyone. What if SC upholds the laws but farmers refuse to accept it? We will know it when (and if) that happens.
On that note, we will take your leave.
Be back tomorrow.
Stay safe.
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