India at Tokyo 2020 - Review of day 3 performance 25-July

Artistic Gymnastics - Pranati Nayak finished 79th out of 80 contestants in overall.  

Badminton - 

Sindhu beat Israel's Ksenia Polikarpova in straight games without much issue.  

Boxing 

MC Mary Kom beat Dominican Republic's GARCIA Miguelina HERNANDEZ 4-1. It was even stevens after first 2 rounds but Mary came out steonger in the third round to win  

Manish Kaushik lost to Britain's Luke McCormack 4-1. This was also a close match till second round. In the third round the British came out stronger to defeat Manish. 

Hockey - 

Indian were thrashed by Australia 7-1 in pool A match. It is better to forget about this match and move on.  

Rowing

Indian pair finished 3rd and qualified for the semi finals.  Great performance by Arjun and Arvind. Hoping they gonone step further 

Shooting -  

Yashaswini Deswal  and Manu Bhaker finished 12th and 13th in the qualifiers. Manu I heard had a malfunction with her pistol and lost sometime. She was for a large part of time in top 5 but missed out in the last few shots. Yashaswini started with a 94 in the first series and was finding it difficult to get into top 10. 

Divyansh Panwar and Deepak Kumar finished a poor 32nd and 26th. Both of them started poorly shooting a 102 in first series and couldn't get going. 

Mairaj and Angad finished with 71 and 73 end of 3rd round. Mairaj started with 25 and 24 in the first 2 rounds but dropped to a 22 in 3rd round and dropped down. Angad shot 24, 25 and 24 in the three rounds. Hope both have a better day tomorrow and make it to the finals. 

Sailing - 

Nethra Kumanan finished 33rd and 16th in the first two races. She was in top 4 in the second race mid way but dropped down.  

Vishnu Saravanan finished 14th in his first race. His second race got postponed to tomorrow.  

Let us hope they both have better days tomorrow and day after. 

Swimming - 

Maana patel finished 2nd in her 100m backstroke heat which was the slowest heat. She has a PB of 1.03:77 and swam a 1.05:20 today. She finished 39th out of 41 swimmers

Srihari was in the 3rd heat and swam a 54.31. He qualified for olympics swimming a 53.77 and if he had swam that he would have made it to the semis. Sadly not to be. 

Table Tennis -

Sathiyan was leading 3-1 against Hong Kong's Siu Hang Lam but sadly lost 4-3

Manika Batra took on Ukraine's Maragaryta Pesotska in another second round match. Manika came back from 0-2 and 2-3 to defeat the 20th seeded Ukrainian 4-3. 

Tennis 

7:30am Saina and Ankita lost their first round doubles match to the Ukraine Kichenok sisters in 3 sets. They won the first set 6-0 and were a break up in second but just blew it. The Ukranians ran 8 point lead in the third set tie break and the Indians clawed back to 8-8 but lost eventually.  

Overall a disappointing day. Rowers were the standout performance of the day

India at Tokyo 2020 - Review of day 2 performance 24-July

 

Archery - There was a change in the team as the management felt Pravin was shooting better than Atanu. They faced Chinese Taipei in the pre-quarters and they won that match 5-3. As mentioned yesterday,  due to the poor performance of the men in the ranking round, our team ranking also got affected.  We were against the eventual champions Korea in the quarters and we lost the match 6-2. We were completely outclassed by the Koreans. 

Rowing - Arvind Lal and Arjun finished 5th in thr Men's Light weight  double skulls heats. Given that their aim was to get a Top 12 finish, have to watch what they do in the Repachage round tomorrow.   Their timing was the 10th best in the field. 

Weightlifting - Mirabhai Chanu won the first medal for India and as expected got a silver.  Once the Chinese liftedba olymoic record 94kg in the snatch and tookna 7 kg lead over Chanu, it was going to be an uphill task for Chanu. Happy that she put to rest the misery of Rio 2016 where she didnt have even a single clean and jerk lift which caused her to miss out on a medal. 

Shooting - Elavenil and Apurvi both got knocked out in the qualification round itself. Elavenil finished 16th and Apurvi 36th. Around the 4th series Elavenil was as high at 11th but didn't finish well. Apurvi was down in mid 20s most of the time and finished a poor 36th. In the Air pistol event both Saurabh and Abhishek started poorly in the first round. Saurabh started shooting better from 2nd round and finished on top in the qualifiers. Abhishek started shooting better from the 3rd round. He was in top 5 till the last 3 shots and shot couple of 8s and that ruined his changes of making the finals and he ended up 17th. In the finals Saurabh starred very poorly and that ruined his changes. He was 8th at the end of first 10 shots but finished 7th and was the second to be knocked out in the finals. Overall a disappointing performance from our shooters today. 

Badminton - Sai Praneeth continued his recent poor form and lost to Israel's Misha Zilbermann tamely in straight sets ruining his changes of progressing beyond group stage. The surprise result was the doubles team of Rankireddy and Chirag beating the third seed Chinese Taipei Team in a hard fought match in 3 games. 

Hockey - Indian men started off their campaign with a victory over New Zealand.  New zealand had an early lead and India came back to lead 3-1 before conceding a goal in the 4th quarter. The Indian women played beautifully against the strong Dutch till mid of third quarter holding them 1-1 before losing 5-1. 

Judo - Shushila Likmabam lost to Hungary's Eva CSERNOVICZKI in her round of 32 match and ended her campaign.  

Table Tennis - Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra lost to the 3rd Seeded Chinese Taipei Team in straight games. The Taipei team was way too strong for the Indian pair. 

Manika Batra defeated British HO Tin-Tin in straight games. Even though Manika gave 4-5 point lead in 3rd and 4th games she was strong for the Britisher. 

Suhirtha defeated Sweden's Linda Bergstroem 4-3. The match was going back and forth till the last game where Suhirtha came out on top. 

Tennis - Sumit Nagal defeated Denis Istomin in 3 

Boxing - Vikas was defeated by Japan's Sewonrets Quincy Mensah OKAZAWA in an unanimous decision 5-0.  Vikas was completely out played by the Japanese boxer. Vikas had no clue against the Japanese boxer. I was personally expecting much from the experienced Vikas but he lost tamely. 

CHOGM & Maldives - What India should do

CHOGM

The opposition from the Tamil Nadu political parties has literally forced the PM to take a decision. This is not a great multilateral forum that PM has to attend. However, with the resolution passed by the TN assembly, the PM has to attend the CHOGM meeting. Otherwise it will look like he has let the regional parties decide the foreign policy. What I would suggest is PM to attend the meeting and must also visit Jaffna. That will ensure that the regional parties keep quite. 

When it comes to Sri Lanka, we need to force them to implement the so called 13+ that Mahinda Rajapaksa said he will do. As mentioned in my earlier post about going back on promises he made (http://dailykaruthu.blogspot.in/2013/08/from-13-to-diluted-13-feeling-cheated.html), Rajapaksa has been getting away with whatever he wants to do. Unless we have a relationship with them, we will not be able to force him to act. In case the PM decides not to attend this meeting we will have no clout with Rajapaksa. The sad part is the opposition party in Sri Lanka led by Ranil Wikramasinghe is also in tatters that also gives Rajapaksa the room to do what he wants. 

Every party knows that Indian fisherman has been going deep into Sri Lankan territory to catch fish. When LTTE was active, Sri Lankan fisherman were not allowed to fish which also helped the Indian fisherman to catch fish in Sri Lankan territory. Now that LTTE is finished the Sri Lankan fisherman are also back in the ocean and they don’t want Indian fisherman fishing in their territory. This is what is forcing the Sri Lankan Navy to act. However, all that they should do is take the Indian Fisherman into custody for crossing into Sri Lankan territory and not fire at them. India needs to be engaged with the Sri Lankan government, even to force them not to fire at our fisherman.

The other worry is that China card is played beautifully by Rajapaksa. We are being naive to fall into that trap. We should have never allowed him to use the China card. When India is not even allowed to get near South China Sea how in the hell did India allow China to get well entrenched in Sri Lanka? 

Maldives

I had written about 20 days back about what's happening in Maldives (Maldives' tryst with democracy) and what India should do. Sujatha Singh the Foreign secretary had visited Maldives after that. But things have taken a turn for the worst. Elections were supposed to have been held by 20th of October is now postponed to 9th of November and if there is a second round it will be held on 16th of November. That will leave a 5 day gap of the country not having a President. 

Gayoom is still having a strong say in the country. India which has helped Gayoom many times, is not able to influence him now. This is really surprising and unbelievable as India even helped him thwart an attempt by LTTE to take over Maldives. 

Mohammed Waheed, the current President has decided not to contest the elections, which was the wise thing to do. He received only 5% votes in the annulled elections held on 7^th September.

Election commission has clearly stated that it will not hold elections before the 9th of November. India should ensure that the elections are held without any further delay. India should talk to Gayoom and reign him in. China has a huge consulate in Male and bulk of the tourists coming to Maldives are now from China. India need to ensure that Maldives also doesn’t start playing the China card. 

Maldives' tryst with democracy

Maldives had it's first multi party elections in 2008 after 30 years of rule by Maumoom Abdul Gayoom. Gayoom ruled Maldives from 1978 to 2008. Finally in 2008 he decided to allow multiparty elections. Mohamed Nasheed won the election in the second round. Maldives allows a run off between the top two candidates if no one secures more than 50%. In the first round Nasheed was placed behind Gayoom. However, he formed alliances with other losing first round candidates and won the second round.

Maldives had it first elected President and Nasheed assumed office in November 2008. In what was a short lived tenure, he was sacked in February 2012. This was in culmination of opposition protests which started against serving of pork and liquor in Maldives, which is a predominantly Muslim state. He initially said he resigned as he didn't want the people to suffer and later said he was forced to resign at gun point. Gayoom was said to be behind the whole thing. The army and police also joined hands with the opposition in forcing Nasheed out. His deputy Mohammed Waheed Hassan became the President. Waheed went onto induct Gayoom's party members in his cabinet which only strengthened the argument that Gayoom was behind the coup.

Nasheed kept protesting and in April 2012 Waheed announced that the elections will be held by June 2013. Nasheed in the interim took refuge in the Indian High Commission to avoid arrest. India tried to mediate between Nasheed and Waheed. Nasheed was arrested for misuse of power. (He had a judge arrested during his presidency).

The June 2013 date was pushed to September 2013. Finally on 7th September Maldives had its second elections. Four participants contested and Nasheed was placed first with 45% votes. As no one got more than 50% the run off was scheduled for 28th September. Waheed was placed a lowly 4th in the elections. Gayoom's brother Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom was placed second in the elections with 25% votes. The run off which was scheduled for 28th was to have been between Abdulla Yameen and Nasheed.

The election was overseen my many external observers including former Chief Election Commissioner from India. 3rd placed Qasim Ibrahim filed a complaint with the Supreme Court, which asked the Election commission to delay the run off till it decides on the complaint. The Supreme court on 7th October annulled the elections based on some "secret" police report which claimed the elections were rigged. Even though none of the external observers had anything but praise for the way elections were conducted. The people also did not raise any complaints.

The elections are now scheduled for 20th of October. Not really sure if the Supreme Court is taking revenge for Nasheed arresting a judge or Gayoom has well entrenched people in all parts of governance who won't allow Nasheed to win the elections. The people of Maldives should also give a decisive mandate to in the 20th October election to ensure there is no need for a run off.

India, which wields lot of power in the region, should ensure democracy is upheld in Maldives. India during the 2012 crisis pushed back US from direct involvement and all US actions were routed through India. Now is the time for India to really stand up for the people of Maldives and not allow the courts to derail the democracy. 

Syria - More Questions

Third blog on the Syrian issue.

The civil war is continuing and what I hear from the press is that the Government forces are gaining the upper hand. With Al Qaeda being part of the opposition, the West not attacking the Syrian government forces is the good thing. Can't imagine what would have happened if the West had joined hands with the Qaeda terrorists.

The large nation wanted to get out of the tricky situation and this move of handing over the Chemical weapons has helped them save some grace.

I have the following questions

1) If chemical weapons are moved to an international organization will the civil war end?
2) Will US pressurize the opposition also to handover the chemical weapons that they might have?
3) US has been saying that Assad has to go, as he was killing his own people. What has changed now?
4) Will the US completely stop providing weapons to the opposition forces?

 

Putin for Peace Prize

This is more of a follow up to my earlier post on the subject of the West's intentions to attack Syria.

Obama went to town with his statements that he does not want United Nations approval and just the Congress approval. There were even statements that he will go ahead even without the Congress approval, not from official channels though. France and Britain was ready to join. However, UK Parliament put an hold to Cameron's plans of joining the bandwagon.

Then Kerry made an off the cuff remark that if Syria gives up its chemical weapons it will not be attacked. Russia brilliantly pounced on it and now Syria has even agreed to sign the CWC on top of handing over their entire chemical weapons to an international organization.

This is a huge loss of face for Obama for the following reasons

1) He was so committed to going to war but now had to back out
2) There were talks that Congress would have rejected the proposal, that would have been even worser situation for the president

Putin has come out in glowing colors out of this situation. There was a beautiful note he had written in the New York Times recently. The best part of the article was the way he had ended disagreeing Obama's statement about what makes Americans exceptional. Quoting the exact words "It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal."

There is lot of clamor for awarding Putin the Nobel Peace prize for averting an unnecessary war. I strongly second that. When people are given Nobel peace prize for just stating that they will stop(not actually stopping) an on going war, why not someone who has actually averted a war?

Putin for Peace Prize!!!

Syria - What should the West think before they start their new adventure

West are about start their next adventure of attacking Syria, they should think about the following before they start this

1) Syria is not a party to the Chemicals weapons convention, so is it right to attack Syria for the use of chemical weapons (even if they have done that)?

2)  Syrian government is fighting the Al-Qaeda backed internal groups. Is the West ready to side with Al-Qaeda in their new adventure?

3) How a war hating President became so interested in war mongering now? He even won a Nobel peace prize for just stating that he will stop the wars

4) What did the west achieve in the Afghanistan - They are now trying to talk to Taliban and want to hand over the power to them. These are the same guys who they wanted to throw out.

5) What did the west achieve in Iraq - Except obviously getting rid of Saddam Hussain? There is still daily bombings

6) The civilian casualties in both the above wars is more than 125 thousand. Is it really worth the effort?

7) Even if they want to go ahead with the adventure(which they claim is a 2-3 day exercise), what will they try to achieve? Bomb a few critical infrastructure like bridges & communications and maybe try to take out Assad, they will end up killing a few civilians.

8) UN has become a huge joke, no one bothers about it. Why spend money on such an organization? Every member state is forced to give money to run this organization, if there is scant regard of what it does, why have such an organization?

9) When the US and UK have scant regard of human rights as was evident in the recent case of David Miranda and Edward Snowden, what right do they have to preach others?

10) Syria produces only 0.4% of world's total oil production, is that also important? I thought with the shale gas, the dependency on crude will reduce.

David Miranda - If this is not Human Rights violation, what is?

David Miranda, the Brazilian partner of Glenn Greenwald was held at the Heathrow airport for 9 hours on Monday morning. They were on the way from Berlin to Rio de Janeiro, where they live.

Glenn Greenwald along with Laura Poitras were instrumental in getting out the Edward Snowden story.

He was detained under the schedule 7 of UK terrorist act which allows people to be detained for full 9 hours before they have to be either arrested or released. This schedule specifically applies at the Airports, ports and at other entry points into the country.

He was released after the full 9 hours which the act allows and his belongings like Mobile Phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and games console were taken away by the authorities.

This is a clear case of intimidation for all journalists and use of terrorist acts on friends and families of journalists who have been critical of the west on their snooping of the individuals smokes of hypocrisy. On what basis was he identified as a terrorist to use this law?

There is more to this, White house was informed in advance about the detaining of David Miranda. Not just UK, US is also equally to be blamed for this incident.

What rights does these nations have on questioning third world countries about their human rights standards?

From 13+ to diluted 13 - Feeling cheated

When the war was going on in Sri Lanka, I used to support the Sri Lankan government for taking on the LTTE... After all they had killed a former PM of India... Even though this was the monster that India created it had gone way out of control and had to be taken out...

During the time of war there were various interviews that the President gave to the Hindu newspaper.. In all those he had promised to go beyond the 13th amendment and implement what he termed as 13+.... where he said he will devolve more power to the provincial councils...

We were all so naïve to believe what he had said... Even though some fringe elements in the Tamil society in India were shouting from the roof tops asking India to stop the way and the famous fast undo death between breakfast and lunch of the CM the war went onto the logical end...

There are estimates of thousands of civilians were killed and the 11 year old kid of Prabhakaran was killed in cold blood.. More war crime news, videos and allegations keep coming up.. some people said there will be some civilians who get killed during the war.. agreed but if the number that are coming out is really true then its really bad...

There are people who are still not moved out of the camps and are living in pathetic conditions in the camps..

There are now news that more Sinhalese are being migrated into the North and eastern territory which is a Chinese strategy followed in Tibet and other areas were they moved Han Chinese.. This is to ensure that there are no more revolutions...

China card is played very well by Rajapaksa to ensure they shut India's protests... I am surprised that India does not have any other card up its sleeve to tackle the China card..

Then comes this news about the dilution of 13th amendment and that Land and Police powers will not be devolved to the provincial councils.. From 13+ to a diluted 13th amendment and we end up feeling cheated...