During Chetan’s tenure, India had also failed to reach the knock-out stage in the 2021 edition of T20 World Cup and lost the World Test Championships final.

Chetan (North zone), Harvinder Singh (Centra Zone), Sunil Joshi (South Zone) and Debasish Mohanty (East Zone) have had the shortest stint as senior national selectors in recent times. Some of them were appointed in 2020 and some in 2021. A senior national selector normally gets a four-year term subject to extension. There was no selector from West Zone after Abbey Kuruvilla’s tenure ended.

World’s longest river cruise to sail from Varanasi to Dibrugarh in January 2023
Known as the holy city of India, Uttar Pradesh is all set for the launch of the cruise to Dibrugarh in Assam via Bangalore, which will be the longest river voyage in the world on January 10, 2023. To encourage the development of the nation’s inland waterways, the central government has proposed to launch the longest luxury river cruise in the world.

Minister of ports, shipping, and waterways, Sarbananda Sonowal said that the voyage, Ganga Vilas will sail from the port of Varanasi to Dibrugarh in a period of 50 days. The journey will cover 27 river systems while visiting more than 50 tourist sites, including the World Heritage Sites. The Minister continued by stating that this will be the largest river trip ever undertaken by a river ship, putting Bangladesh and India on the map of major cruise destinations. Additionally, the 50-day trip will pass by protected areas including the Sundarbans Delta and Kaziranga National Park.

The world’s longest river cruise will start its journey in January of next year, tweeted Sarbanand Sonowal on Twitter about the Ganga Vilas Cruise. Ganga Vilas will travel 4,000 kilometres on the two largest rivers in India, the Ganga and Brahmaputra, from holy Varanasi to Dibrugarh via Bangladesh, according to the tweet by the minister. At a ceremony on Friday at Ravidas Ghat in Varanasi, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal released the cruise ship’s schedule. The ship will set out on its first voyage from Varanasi on January 10 and arrive in Dibrugarh on March 1.

The cruise will leave from Varanasi and will travel through Buxar, Ramnagar, and Ghazipur before arriving in Patna on the eighth day. It will make more than 50 architecturally significant stops over its 50-day tour, including world heritage sites. The ship travels via three significant waterways: National Waterway 1, which crosses the Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly river system; Indo-Bangla Protocol Route, which travels from Kolkata to Dhubri across several Bangladeshi rivers; and National Waterway 2, which crosses the Brahmaputra.

Elephant death audit framework introduced in Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu’s forest department has introduced an elephant death audit framework to put in place a more detailed and transparent process for recording and monitoring elephant deaths in the State. Presently, identifying the cause of mortality in the field remains critical for many questions related to population and conservation of elephants. The framework will improve transparency, assist all stakeholders in assessing the results and ultimately facilitate standardisation and more credible comparisons of cause of mortality.

The broad objectives of Elephant Death Audit Framework (EDAF), the first-of-its-kind initiative in the country, are threefold, said Supriya Sahu, Additional Chief Secretary, Environment, Climate Change and Forests.

According to media reports, out of the 131 elephant deaths recorded in Tamil Nadu’s forest divisions between January 1, 2021 and March 15, 2022, only 13 were human-induced. Out of the rest, 118 were due to natural causes; six because of electrocution; four due to train hits; one due to road accident and two because of retaliatory kills.

NASA’s Artemis arrives at moon orbit
The Orion capsule swept 130km (80 miles) above the lunar surface, and it will now begin to enter a larger orbit. The vehicle was out of contact for 34 minutes during this manoeuvre, which began at 12:44 GMT, as it took place on the far side of the moon.

As the signal returned, the spacecraft sent back an image of the Earth. Nasa says so far the mission has “exceeded expectations” since last week’s launch. The spacecraft zoomed over the landing sites of Apollo 11, 12 and 14 as it made the close approach.

The Artemis mission began on November 24 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with the launch of the most powerful rocket NASA has ever built.

It placed Orion on a path towards the Moon. The capsule has already sent back several selfies during its journey. NASA’s Orion spacecraft is built to take humans farther than they’ve ever gone before. Orion will serve as the exploration vehicle that will carry the crew to space, provide emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during the space travel, and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities. Orion will launch on NASA’s new heavy-lift rocket, the Space Launch System.

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The term of the 182-member Gujarat assembly ends on February 18, 2023. In the first phase, the state would poll for 89 seats and in the second phase, it would conduct the election on 93 seats. Citing the convention followed in 2017, the poll panel had not announced the Gujarat election schedule and instead gave out the Himachal Pradesh poll dates last month.

While elections in Himachal Pradesh will be held in a single phase on November 12, the counting of votes will take place on December 8. The ECI said that for enhanced voting experience, 1274 polling stations will be completely managed by women and security staff. There will be 182 polling stations, where one will be welcomed by PWD.

For the first time, 33 polling stations will be set up and managed by the youngest available polling staff. The election commission also announced that a special observer in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat for accessibility and inclusion for women, the elderly, PWD, will be deployed in the forthcoming Assembly elections.

State apathy kills 134 on Morbi bridge
The grief that has followed the Morbi bridge disaster in Gujarat is palpable these days. On October 31, soon after Gujarati New Year’s Day, a century-old pedestrian hanging bridge collapsed and claimed the lives of 134 people, many among them women, the elderly and children. The state-run GMERS Hospital was where most of the survivors were taken was seen busy in something other than treatment – it was busy getting a coat of paint and other refurbishments, just because it wanted to look pretty as Prime Minister Narendra Modi was to visit the injured. The complete apathy and cruelty of the state knew no end.

On the first floor of GMERS Hospital, where survivors were admitted in what is otherwise labelled as “paediatric ward”, rusted beds and side-tables are being painted afresh, while walls and ceilings are being rid of cobwebs, and cracked tiles and flooring being repaired.

Taking off from the Morbi bridge collapse, the Sabarmati Riverfront Development Corporation Limited (SRFDCL) has said it has decided to limit the visitors at Atal Bridge—the foot overbridge over Sabarmati river in Ahmedabad—to 3,000 persons per hour. Atal Bridge is the only foot overbridge over the Sabarmati River and was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in August.

The contract to repair the British era bridge was given to a company, Oreva, whose main USP is producing low quality, tacky watches and clocks. The company says it manufactures e-bikes as well. And just because the company’s owners are well connected and are based in Morbi, the contract for the repair and maintenance – as well of collecting gate money of Rs 17 for adults and Rs 12 for children – was given to the company, without even a tendering process.

The firm had claimed on  October 26, that it had roped in experts for the repair work, adding that the material used was built as per specifications by “specialised firms”.

As many as 300 army personnel were deployed in the search and rescue operation at the Morbi bridge incident site in which over 134 people lost their lives.

Ashok Yadav, IG, Rajkot range has been quoted in the media as saying: “As and when we get evidence, police will nab the accused further. We have also formed a Special Investigation Team pertaining to the incident.

Arrests, yes? A laughable catch of 9, including ticket clerks, and security guards, none who were really responsible for the disaster. And, oh ,yes, some low level officers of Oreva.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said: “I don’t want to politicise this incident. People have lost lives there. It’s disrespectful for them to do it. I don’t want to do politics on it.” AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal, of course, preferred to politicise people’s lives, saying that the mishap was a result of “big corruption”. Kejriwal added that how can a clock manufacturing firm – Oreva, which never had any experience in handling cable suspension bridges, be given the responsibility of the same? “The company was not given a tender as well…how is this possible?” the CM asked.

Indian men, women to have equal match fees: BCCI
BCCI secretary Jay Shah has said that India’s women cricketers would earn the same match fees as their male counterparts in international matches going forward in a significant move towards equal pay. The decision was taken at the BCCI Apex Council emergent meeting.

Said Shah: “I am pleased to announce BCCI’s first step towards tackling discrimination. We are implementing a pay equity policy for our contracted women cricketers. The match fees for both men and women cricketers will be the same as we move into a new era of gender equality in cricket.”

Legendary Indian cricketer Mithali Raj chose to describe the latest update from BCCI as a “historic decision for women’s cricket in India”. With this policy, India’s women cricketers will earn Rs 15 lakh for a Test, Rs 6 lakh for an ODI and Rs 3 lakh for a T20I, the same as the men’s cricketers.

Described as the first step towards eliminating gender discrimination, the hike is significant given the prior fixed match fee of Rs 1 lakh per match for limited-overs matches and Rs 4 lakh per Test.

It is to be noted that there is a significant pay gap between the match fees of Indian men and women cricketers. New Zealand is the first country to introduce equal pay for women’s and men’s cricketers. The new order was brought in this July.

In cricket, apart from the match-wise fees, there is a retainership payment system. For women cricketers, Rs 50 lakh for Grade A cricketers, Rs 30 lakh for Grade B and Rs 10 lakh for Grade C cricketers are paid annually apart from the match fees. Men cricketers, who play a higher number of games, are paid between Rs 7 crore and Rs 1 crore depending on their grade, starting with an A Plus grade. There will be no change in this, as of now.

Azam Khan’s Rampur seat declared ‘vacant’ after conviction
The Rampur Sadar seat in Uttar Pradesh now stands vacant, the state’s Legislative Assembly secretariat has said. This follows the conviction of incumbent Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan, following which he was disqualified as an MLA.

The Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly secretariat took the decision on the basis of a 2013 Supreme Court judgement which held that an MLA, MLC or MP convicted in a criminal case and jailed for a minimum of two years will lose membership of the House with immediate effect.

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Sourav was at the head of the board for just three years.

Sourav marked a new beginning at the BCCI in 2019 when he became the first Indian cricketer to take charge of the BCCI. But in three years, like his tenure as the captain, he could not win over the BCCI officials, mostly leaning towards the BJP. Sourav being from West Bengal, where the Trinamool Congress has been in power for three sessions now, could not balance the TMC-BJP issue and decided to opt out of cricket administration altogether.

The BCCI will fall back into political control, headed by secretary Jay Shah, home minister Amit Shah’s son, and real sports would likely take a backseat again.

World Cup 1983 winning team member Roger Binny is being foisted into presidentship of the board, which means that the BJP’s control will be supreme, with help from the Binny rubber stamp. Binny is also the president of the Karnataka Cricket Association. Binny’s nomination remains “unopposed”.

The election to the board on October 18, therefore, will be a farce. There will be no contest, only agreed upon candidates who will receive ‘unanimous’ support.

“Roger Binny has filed a nomination for the president’s post, myself for the vice-president’s post. Jay Shah for secretary and Ashish Shelar for treasurer and Devajit Saikia have filed nominations for joint secretary’s post,” Rajeev Shukla told thge media.

“Arun Dhumal will head the IPL governing council and Avishek Dalmiya will be part of that council. Khairul Jamal (Mamun) Majumdar will be part of the Apex council. As of now these are the nominations and all are unopposed,” Shukla added.

Indian girls hammered 8-0 by USA on debut
The United States hammered hosts India 8-0 on the opening day of the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup at the Kalinga Stadium here on October 12. On a day when India made its debut in the U-17 Women’s World Cup, the United States completely dominated the game and secured the three points with a commanding win.

The tallest player in the Indian team is 169 cm tall, the height of seven of the starting eleven of the United States team. That became the key factor for the visitor.

Riley Jackson, the Golden Ball winner of the U-17 CONCACAF Championship, set up the opening two goals when two of her crosses were converted by Melina Rebimbas and Charlotte Kohler respectively. After the second goal, gaps started emerging in the Indian defence and that was all for Natalia Astrain’s side to punish them further.

In the 26th minute, goalkeeper Anjali Munda’s pass to centre-back Purnima Kumari was intercepted by Onyeka Gamero, who then beat Anjali to make it 3-0.

Coach Natalia, leading a side that has not gone past the knockout stages since 2008, will be relieved to see her plan finally fall into place, since taking charge of the team in November last year.

“The objective was to make a strong start to the tournament. We know that it is really important to send this message to everybody that we are here and we want to win the tournament…This is a big tournament, a long tournament and we need to continue doing our hard work,” said Natalia.

Russia launches biggest missile strike since start of Ukraine war
At least 12 Ukrainian cities have been hit in missile strikes two days after a strategically important bridge linking Russia with Crimea was damaged in a blast.

Kiev has been targeted for the first time in months, but explosions have also been reported in Ternopil and Lviv in the west, which has so far escaped the worst of the war. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky says Russia has targeted energy infrastructure across the country and that energy facilities in Kiev, Lviv, Dnipro, Vinnytsia, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv are among the places hit.

Ukraine’s military commander says Russia launched 83 missiles in total. It comes a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine’s security services of attacking the Kerch bridge – although Ukrainian officials have not indicated whether their forces were behind the attack.

The 19km (12-mile) bridge, the longest in Europe, is an important supply route for Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.

Russia has used the bridge to move military equipment, ammunition, and personnel from Russia to battlefields in southern Ukraine.

Hindu temple opens in Dubai
A majestic new Hindu temple that blends Indian and Arabic architecture designs has been inaugurated in Dubai’s Jebel Ali Village, with a powerful message of tolerance, peace and harmony.

Located in a neighbourhood referred to as the emirate’s ‘worship village’, the temple formally opened its doors to worshippers across the UAE on Dussehra (October 5).

The ‘worship village’ in Jebel Ali now houses nine religious shrines, including seven churches, the Guru Nanak Darbar Sikh Gurudwara, and the new Hindu house of worship.

The temple features detailed hand carvings, ornate pillars, brass spires and striking lattice screens that blend Indian and Arabic architecture. Pre-registration is required to visit the temple and devotees can register online before arrival.

By the end of the year, there will be a spacious community centre where Hindu ceremonies, rituals and prayers can take place, including weddings.

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June 13, 2022, Monday. It was a black Monday for the economy in India. The stock markets crashed to a historic low, wiping off Rs 7 lakh crore of investor wealth, the Rupee slipped to a historic low and the atmosphere was grim everywhere, except at the BCCI offices, where bidding reached the sky for its jewel in tgeh crown, the Indian Premier League (IPL).

The IPL’s media rights were being sold, and even though Amazon had pulled out of the race last week, Disney Star won the IPL Indian sub-continent TV rights for an unbelievable Rs 23,575 crore, while Viacom18 bought the digital rights with a bid of Rs 20,500 crore.

The valuations were near impossible, monies that boosted the board’s earnings nearly three times 2023-27. This has been the growth over the 2018-22 cycle.

As proceedings were completed on Tuesday (June 14), the collective media rights value rose to a massive Rs 45,950 crore, including bids for non-exclusive digital rights.

Disney Star retained the TV rights. The digital rights went to the Reliance Viacom 18 Bodhi Tree consortium, also comprising Uday Shankar and James Murdoch, who hold 40% stake in the company.

“Star has retained Indian TV rights of IPL for next five years while Viacom18 has got the digital rights. The combined per match value only from Indian TV and digital rights per game is 107.5 crore. With these bids, monopoly of one broadcaster in IPL ends,” said a senior BCCI functionary.

Sony brought IPL to Indian TV homes for the first 10 years from 2008, while Star Sports (TV) and Hotstar (digital) were India’s IPL platforms for the next five.

Package A (Indian sub-continent TV tights) for 410 IPL matches across five seasons from 2023 to 2027 has been sold for Rs 23,575 crore, which is effectively Rs 57.5 crore per game, the official quoted above said.

Package B (digital rights) fetched Rs 20,500 crore, making BCCI richer by Rs 44,075 crore after selling the two packages.

In terms of value, the TV bid was worth Rs12,525 crore more than the last cycle. Back then, it was Sony who had made the biggest bid worth Rs 11,050 crore but was outsmarted by Star India’s all-or-nothing approach and thus fell in the face of their consolidated bidding.

With an extra 110 matches being played in this rights cycle, the per match value has gone up by 56% from last time (Rs 57.5 crore per match from Rs 36.8 crore per match). “These are still very good numbers considering this space is not going to grow at the same speed as digital,” the official said. “This may be the last media rights cycle which saw enough interest. In another five years, TV value of this scale may not remain feasible.”

The biggest gains for BCCI came in the digital category. The Rs 20,500 crore value is a big jump from the Rs 3,900 crore top bid Facebook (now Meta) had made in the previous rights cycle. India has about 795 million broadband subscriptions and over 500 million smartphones, as per a Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry report of 2021. Forty million Indian households paid for 80 million online video subscriptions and 400 million subscribers consumed bundled content in 2021.

The bidders could not have missed these numbers. The report says the number of screens in India would reach one billion by 2024-25. But for Amazon opting out at the last moment, the final value in this category could have gone through the roof. It’s still an exponential rise in terms of per match value. Facebook’s highest digital bid was worth Rs13 crore per match in the previous cycle. That has risen to Rs50 crore per match.

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Ranveer Singh is winning accolades for his performance as Kapil Dev, but others too have added all to the ‘Kapil’s Devils’. On June 25, 1983, the Lord’s Cricket Ground witnessed 14 men beat the World Champions West Indies, putting India back onto the cricket world stage.

83, the film, begins at the BCCI office, where the invitation letter for the World Cup for the Indian team has arrived and conversations there reveal that the country has no hope of the Indian cricket team winning the World Cup. Before the World Cup, the Indian team had poor performances in other series.

In the eyes of the whole world, they were a negligible team. After they lost the first two matches in the World Cup, this belief was cemented further. But, then came the match versus Zimbabwe. Even this looked like not going India’s way, with just nine runs on the scoreboard and four wickets down. That was when Kapil, the captain of the team, took matters into his own hands. It was his brilliant and unbeaten 175 that not only turned the match, but probably also India’s fate in the tournament.

 Actually, this is most intriguing, because this was one match that had not been broadcast and not recorded at all. Hence recreating this match was difficult anyway, relying on photographs and what Kapil and other team members said and no video at all. Recreating that and the entire journey through the Cup was credit to Kabir Khan.

83 was a tough film to make and despite the presence of competent actors, the film would’ve fallen flat had the execution of the sports-saga been inferior. He has balanced the drama on pitch and off it, the tears, the laughter, and the dressing room stories skilfully.

Singh is known to have received special training from Kapil Dev before the shooting began. The star cast was also trained in the camp at Dharamshala Cricket Stadium, under the guidance of former cricketers Balwinder Sandhu and Yashpal Sharma. Yashpal, unfortunately died of a heart attack on July 13 and could not see the final film. Kapil Dev said he hoped the focus was not just on him, but on the entire squad.

He has been quoted as saying: “We know what we did. It is difficult to judge what they are going to put in and make. So you sit and give your side of the story and let them do it, they are smart people, they have done enough research.”

Movie : 83

Release : At Movie Theatres (December 24).

Director : Kabir Khan

Writer : Sanjay Puran Singh Chauhan, Vasan Bala

Producer : Deepika Padukone, Sajid Nadiadwala, Kabir Khan, Vishnu Vardhan Induri

Production House :  Reliance Entertainment, Phantom Films, Kabir Khan Films.

Filming Location :  Major shooting of the film started in England in May 2019. The cast of ’83 flew to London on 28 May. Principal photography began in June at locations in Glasgow, Dulwich College in London, Edinburgh cricket club, Nevill Ground at Royal Tunbridge Wells in Kent and The Oval cricket ground.

Music :  Arijit Singh, Pritam

Star Cast :
-Ranveer Singh as Kapil Dev

-Deepika Padukone as  Romi  Dev

– Raj Bhasin as Sunil Gavaskar

-Saqib Saleem as Mohinder Amarnath, Jiiva as K. Srikkanth

-Jatin Sarna as Yashpal Sharma, Chirag Patil as Sandeep Patil

-Dinkar Sharma as Kirti Azad

-Nishant Dahiya as Roger Binny

-Hardy Sandhu as  Madan Lal

-Sahil Khattar as Syed Kirmani

-Ammy Virk as Balwinder Singh Sandhu

– Addinath Kothare as  Dilip Vengsarkar, Dhairya Karwa as  Ravi Shastri

-R Badree as  Sunil Valson, Boman Irani as Farokh Engineer

-Kapil Dev as Cameo role

-Pankaj Tripathi as PR Man Singh

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As expected, Rohit Sharma has been confirmed as skipper of the India’s T20 squad. KL Rahul is his deputy. This squad, announced by the BCCI on November 9, is for the upcoming home series versus New Zealand.

Also, as rumoured, Virat Kohli has been rested for the T20s. Also rested with him were Ravindra Jadeja, Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, Shardul Thakur and Mohammed Shami.

Also, as expected, spinners Rahul Chahar and Varun Chakravarthy, who failed to impress at the T20 World Cup, have been dropped.

T20 World Cup reserves Shreyas Iyer, Deepak Chahar, and Axar Patel have been included in the T20 squad for this series. Also coming in were Venkatesh Iyer, Harshal Patel, Mohammed Siraj, and Avesh Khan, for their excellent IPL performances. Yuzvendra Chahal is back after being left out from the T20 World Cup squad.

The squad, thus has 7 batsmen including 2 wicket-keepers, 2 all-rounders, and 7 bowlers.

The T20 squad
Rohit Sharma (Captain), KL Rahul (Vice-Captain), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Ishan Kishan (wicket-keeper), Venkatesh Iyer, Yuzvendra Chahal, R Ashwin, Axar Patel, Avesh Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Harshal Patel, Mohd. Siraj.

SCHEDULE
The series starts on November 17, starting with a T20 match in Jaipur, followed by two T20 matches, at the JSCA International Stadium in Ranchi (Nov. 19) and at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on November 21. On November 25 starts the first Test, at Green Park, Kanpur. There will be two Tests, the second being at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.

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