India at Rio - What to look forward today - August 12th

Today is the first day of Athletics and we have a pretty large contingent. 

Golf : Round 2 continues in the men's event. Anirban Lahiri and SS Chawrasia are in the fray. They have to really up their game to get any chance of medals. Chawrasia has a par score end of day 1 and Anirban is 3 over. Starts at 4pm IST

Badminton : Jwala and Ashwini will have their match against the 11th Ranked Dutch pair. Sumeeth and Manu are against the 4th ranked Chinese team. Both teams will find it tough to win their respective matches against the much higher ranked teams. The next set of singles matches are only on Sunday. Womens at 5:30pm IST and mens at 7:50pm IST

Archery : Atanu Das was phenomenal in the ranking round and preliminary rounds. He is up against the Korean world # 8 Lee Seungyun. Let's hope he shoots as well as the earlier rounds. Starts at 5:43PM IST

Shooting: There are three events in which Indians are in fray. First up is 50m prone (lying on the ground shooting) and we have Gagan Narang and Chain Singh in this event. Qualifiers and finals will both be held today for this event. Men's skeet we have our first Indian to qualify for this event - Mairaj Ahmed Khan. He is currently 10th in the world rankings. This event is held over 2 days and today is the first round of qualifiers. Next is the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol event where we have Gurpreet Singh who is currently ranked 19th in the world. This is the event where we got our Silver in London with Vijay Kumar. This event will be held over two days. After this there is only one more shooting event for the Indians 50m Rifle 3 position (on Sunday). 50m - 5:30pm IST, Skeet : 6PM IST and 25M RFP - 8:45PM IST 

Rowing : Dattu Bhokanlal will be in the lower placing rounds - he is already out of medal contention - 9:20PM IST

Hockey : Men's team take on Canada and Women's team take on Argentina. Men's team should win their match against Canada. 9PM IST 

Tennis : Sania and Bopanna take on Andy Murray and Heather Watson. They will be in medal contention if they win this match - 11:20 PM IST

Boxing : Vikas Krishan is up against Ondel Sipal of Turkey. He should ideally win this match and get into quarters - 3 AM IST

Athletics : 
Vikas Gowda is in Group B Discuss Throw in the qualifiers and he should ideally get into the finals. Starts at 7:25PM IST
Manpreet Kaur is in Group B of Shot Put in the qualifiers. Don't think she will qualify for the finals. Qualifiers starts at 6:35PM IST
Jinson Johnson is in the heat 3 of Mens 800M. It will be very difficult for him to go beyond the heats - His event is at 6:56PM IST
Ganapathi Krishnan of Tamil Nadu, Gurmeet Singh and Manish Singh are in the 20KM Walk event. We had a surprise top 10 finish in London. This starts at 11PM IST
400m Mens - Muhammad Anas is in the Heat 7. Don't expect him to go beyond the heats. This starts at 6:25 am. 
Long Jum - Ankit Sharma is in Group B. Don't think he will get to the finals. This starts at 5:50 AM. 

India at Rio - August 11th Summary

Archery : Deepika Kumari and Bombayla Devi both lost in the pre-quarters. Both archers were shooting very well the previous day but yesterday was not their day. Deepika's opponent was also way too good. With this women's archery is over for India. 

Badminton: As expected the both doubles team lost their respective matches. They were against some top players, womens team faced the # 1 ranked team and men's the #2 team. Sindhu and Saina won their respective matches in straight sets. Srikanth also started off with a win in straight sets. 

Golf : Anirban Lahiri who was talked about as a medal prospect by the media had a low 3 over par and SS Chawrasia had a on par score end of day 1. The leader has a 8 under. Let's see how the Indians far in the coming days. 

Boxing : This was a huge disappointment for me. Shiva Thapa was against a very tough opponent in Ramirez and the Cuban was way too good for Shiva. Shiva was able to land few punches in every round but it was pretty one sided match up. 

Tennis : With Samantha Stosur in the opposition, I thought it would be a tough match for Sania/Bopanna pair. They however won the game in straight sets and are through to quarters. The one advantage of mixed doubles is that it is a field of only 16 teams. One more win will take them into medals contention (there is a bronze medal match up)

Hockey : Mens team lost to the Dutch 2-1. The stupid fouls by Raghu and Sunil was totally unnecessary and the team was down to 9 players for nearly 10 minutes. It was interesting final minutes when India got 5 penalty corners after the with few seconds left and we tried various options but nothing materialized. We are through to the quarters though. The womens team as expected lost to USA 3-0

India at Rio - What to look forward today - August 11

Golf starts today - Anirban Lahri and SS Chawrasia are in the fray.. Some people say Anirban has an outside chance for a medal.. Let us see.. Many of the top Golfers have dropped out because of the Zika scare.. I am not sure if Golf will continue in Olympics next time - what is the point of the top guys don't participate? 

Badminton also starts today - Initial round is all league phase only and not knock outs. We have women's double pair of Jwala and Ashwini, men's double pair of Sumeeth Reddy and Manu Attri, Womens Singles Sindhu and Saina, Mens singles Srikanth all of them will be on show today. Expectation is that the singles players should win their respective matches and doubles will be tough

Boxing my favorite boxer after Akhil Kumar starts today - Shiva Thapa. Shiva was the youngest boxer to represent India at London when he was 18 and that inexperience showed up in his first round loss. Now he is 22 but his opponent today is the Cuban Ramirez who was a Gold Medal winner at London. Generally Cubans are too good in boxing. Let us hope Shiva gets going this time.  

Tennis yesterday's mixed doubles match got pushed to today. Sania and Bopanna take on Samantha Stosur and John Peers. I think it will be a tough match for the Indian pair.. Let us see 

Hockey : We have the men take on the Dutch and the women USA. Men have been playing beautiful hockey and let us hope they come out winning against the Dutch (no last minute goals please). USA is playing very well and I hope we don't lose badly again. 

Archery : Can Bombayla and Deepika go all the way today? If they win the next two matches they both will face each other in semis. Bombayla starts the day against Mexican Valencia (world # 18) and Deepika starts against Tan Ya Ting (world #2). Rankings don't count and it is all about what each of them do in the given day. 

Let us see how the day goes. 

India at Rio - Aug 10th Summary

We had some good results yesterday and some expected bad results and also shocking results..

Good

Manoj Kumar won his first round and through to the round of 16 - Excellent result considering that his opponent was the bronze medalist at London

Deepika Kumari and Bombayla Devi also had excellent results and are through to Round of 16

Average

Sathish Kumar as expected finished 9th in the field of 14.. The gold medal winner lifted 50KG over what Sathish lifted.. But he went beyond his commonwealth gold medal lift which was good

Disppointments

Jitu Rai - Huge disappointment.. He was our best medal hope and I was hoping that he will win 2 medals and he had few very poor shots to miss out of the finals. Prakash Nanjappa also lost out

Hockey - India was thrashed by Australia in womens hockey. we lost 1-6

Avtar Singh - Lost in the first round in Judo

Tennis got rescheduled to today

India's chances at Rio

Rio Olympics begins this week and We have 119 athletes participating in the RIO Olympics. The largest contingents that we have ever sent to Olympics. It is good that we are able to send such a large contingent and I am sure the more we participate the more the chances we get in terms of winning medals at the Games. 

The recent Narsingh Yadav doping controversy and the earlier case between him and Sushil will definitely impact the wrestling contingent. 

Here is the breakdown of the 119 

Archery - we have the 3 member women's team and Atanu Das in men's
Athletics - we have 18 men and 17 women
Badminton - Men 3 and women 4
Boxing 3 Men
Golf - 2 Men and 1 woman
Gymnastics - 1 woman
Judo - 1 man
Rowing - 1 man
Shooting - 9 men and 3 women
Swimming - 1 man and 1 woman
Weightlifting - 1 man and 1 woman
Table Tennis - 2 men and 2 women
Wrestling - 5 men and 3 women
Tennis - 2 men and 2 women
Hockey - 16 men and 16 women

Let us look at each individual sport and what chances we will have

Hockey Team - The men's team did finish second in the champions Trophy recently but after that they did nothing great in the 4 nation's trophy and the test against Spain which were held after that. We have Germany, Netherlands in our group. We should get into the Quarters and from there on its how we play on the given day. Let's hope we make it to the semis. Women's team has qualified for the first time, let's hope they enjoy the stay at the Games. In case they make it till the quarters that should be a good achievement. 

Expectations of medals - 0

Tennis - There is the Men's doubles, Women's doubles and Mixed Doubles. Mixed doubles team of Sania and Rohan might get a chance but I am not betting on it. 

Expectations of medals - 0

Swimming - We are there because of the quota that the country gets to send to send 2 athletes. 

Expectations of medals - 0

Table Tennis - Sharat Kamal, Soumyajit Ghose in men's and Mouma Das, Manik Batra in women's singles event will find it very tough against the other Asian players. 

Expectations of medals - 0

Judo - Avtar Singh is the lone athlete in Judo. He is not a top ranked athlete in his weight category. 

Expectations of medals - 0

Golf - Anirban Lahiri is being talked about highly as a possible medal hope, I am not so sure. Maybe he will have an outside chance as most of the top golfers pulled out due to the Zika Virus. There are Aditi Ashok and Shivsankar Chawrasia who have also qualified. 

Expectations of medals - 0

Athletics - We have 35 athletes (excluding the banned shot putter) who have qualified for the games. This is a pretty large contingent but are we going to get our first Track and Field medal at Rio? Sadly the answer will be a NO. 

However, there can be a few who can go beyond the initial rounds (mind you not win medals)

Women's 4x400 Relay team - I will be very happy if they make it to the finals 
Women Steeplechase - Lalita Babar and Sudha Singh
Dutee Chand (women's 100m) - I really want her to make it to the semis for all the troubles she had to go through 
Men's discuss - Vikas Gowda. He is definitely a top 10 ranked discuss thrower but definitely not a top 3 who can win you a medal
Women's discuss - Seema Punia might make the finals
Marathon, Walking - I will be very happy if Indians finish in the top 20. Last time at London, KT Irfan finished 10th in 20km walk. 
Then there is this guy Renjith Maheswary - I had him in my outside chance list for London but he fouled out. He has the third best jump in the world this year but I don't expect anything from him. 

Expectations of medals - 0

Rowing - We have one athlete, Bhokanlal Dattu, in rowing. We have never won medals at Asian level itself, so don't expect anything. 

Expectations of medals - 0

Badminton - Saina will face Li Xuerui in quarters and that's where her games will end. Sindhu will face Tai Tsu Yin in the pre-quarters and it will be tough for her to go beyond that and if she does she will face Yihan Wang in quarters. Jwala and Ashwini will find it difficult to go beyond the group stage. Srikanth Kidambi will face Lin Dan if he gets to the quarters and he will not go beyond that for sure. Manu Atthri and Sumeet Reddy will also find it difficult to go beyond the group stage

Expectations of medals - 0

Effectively 89 of the 119 athletes do not have any chance of winning medals. Does that mean the other 30 have chances of medals? - not really. It is just that we have chances in the sports that the 30 athletes participate in - Archery, Boxing, Wrestling, Shooting, Gymnastics and weightlifting we have chances of winning medals. Let us look at each of them. 

Archery - From the time of Limba Ram we had some leading archers get to Olympics but get nervous at the Games. Last time we had Deepika who was the world # 1 going into the games but she didn't get anywhere. Let us hope that it doesn't happen this time also. We should at least get 1 medal from Archery if not 2. 

Boxing - Shiva Thapa, Vikas Krishan and Manoj Kumar all have realistic chances of winning a medal. Actually they were in my list for 2012 also. Hope they do well. I expect at least 1 medal in Boxing from Shiva Thapa. 

Wrestling - Yogeshwar, the Phogat Sisters (or cousins) Vinesh and Babita should have a good chance of making it good. Narsingh could have done well if not for the doping scandal. We have generally been doing well in the freestyle with not much success in Greco Roman, I believe that will continue in this Olympics also. Expect at least 2 medals one each in men's and women's section. 

Gymnastics - Dipa has an outside chance of winning a medal if she does well in the Vault. That's her main event. 

Weightlifting - The Commonwealth Gold medalist Satish Kumar and Mira Bhai Chanu in women's might have an outside chance of winning a medal. I will be happy if we get a medal in weightlifting. 

That leaves us with the sport where we have been doing well (against India's standards) since 2004 Olympics - Shooting. It all depends on the day but we have a pretty large contingent and the following people should realistically win us a medel

Jitu Rai - The Golden man. He should come back with 2 medals in both 50m and 10m pistol events. 

Gagan Narang or Bhindra should win a medal in 10m rifle event

Apurvi(10m rifle), Ayonika Paul(10m rifle) and Heena Sidhu(10m pistol) can win a medal in their day. 

Manavjit Singh Sandhu might have an outside chance in Trap event. 

Expectations of medals - 3 (best case - 6) 

Total Medal that I expect - is minimum 8 and max 15. I definitely hope this will be our best Olympics in terms of medals crossing the 6 we had in London.

I will be very Happy if the following happens

1) We cross double digit in terms of medals

2) Win a medal in men's hockey 

First may happen second very difficult. Let's see how much of my predictions come true when the Games ends on 22nd August. 

To All my Nationalist Friends

This post is dedicated to all my nationalist friends (or the so called BJP supporters). 

What exactly happened is that few people shouted slogans supporting Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhat (that they were martyrs, they were wrongly killed, etc.) and that Kashmir has a right to self determination. 

Afzal Guru - even though he was hanged on circumstantial evidence, I trust the decision of the SC. 

The main anti-national slogans were 

“Bharat ki barbaadi tak, jung rahegi, jung rahegi!”

“India, Go Back” 

These were made by Kashmiri students - But aren't these things that are heard in Kashmir on a daily basis? Your ally in J&K says much worser things and are more aligned to separatists views. Didn't we as a nation agree in UN that we will allow self determination in the entire Kashmir (this includes what is occupied by Pakistan)? 

Scotland voted on whether they can be separated from Great Britain? - Should all those who voted yes be jailed for sedition? Catalunya also wants to separate from Spain - can we jail everyone for sedition? Oxford University union took a pledge that they will never fight for the King - even though they were termed as anti-nationals no one was booked on sedition. 

We as a nation are not ready to listen to these kind of statements made in public - we are not ready for such a democracy. 

We are however, ok with people saying things like this country is useless, this country is going down the drains, I cannot live here within our living rooms. I have many of my friends who live outside India (still Indian citizens) who have said worser things. Can we book all of them under sedition? 

The main issue to me is why was Kanhaiya Kumar, JNU students union president, arrested on charges including sedition? Did he shout slogans against India? It seems that police have learnt that he was no way connected to the slogan shouting, so would they tell the courts that he can be released? I hope some sense prevails. 

What is nationalism in letting someone getting arrested on sedition charges for no fault of his? When you can ally with a party which mostly aligns with the views of separatists what right does BJP has to give gyan on nationalism to everyone? 

Do we need a law on which "No One" has ever been convicted but it is most abused by all politicians? My simple answer is NO. 

Scams - Released in the last one month

The NDA government happily mentioned at the end of the first anniversary of them having assumed office in May 2014 that there were no scams in the one year after their assuming office. 

Not even a month passed and we have multiple scams that has cropped up - Sushma Swaraj and Vasundhara Raje connection with Lalit Modi, Vyapam Scam, Pankaja Munde scam, PDS Rice Scam in Chattisgarh. BJP can still say that these are issues (except in the case of Swaraj) all are not related to the central government, but the perception that these scams create in the people's mind in very bad. 

Let us go over one by one 

Sushma Swaraj

She got the British government issue travel document for Lalit Modi so that he can be with his wife who was supposed to undergo treatment in Portugal. She did that without involving her ministry or checking with the Finance Ministry (under whom the ED comes) which had a case against Lalit Modi. Her defence was that she did this on humanitarian consideration. She has a personal relationship with Lalit Modi and her husband and daughter were working for him - with those in mind she should have recused herself from this issue and let her bureaucrats handle the issue. The best option would have been to have him promise to get back to India in lieu of the travel document. The defense that there is money involved doesn't cut ice. 

She didn't involve her ministry, talked to her England counterpart directly, didn't get inputs from Finance ministry and didn't recuse herself from a case of a close friend doesn't warrant her to continue in the Government. 

Vasundhara Raje

Vasundhara issued an affidavit to support Modi being issued travel document and stating that the case against him are politically motivated and she explicitly stated that her giving this affidavit should not be revealed to the Indian authorities. There is a money angle also to this where Lalit Modi has invested money in her son's firm. It is debatable whether this is quid pro quo but there is proof that money has changed hands in lieu of some shares in his company. 

Vasundhara is a strong regional leader and she can even bring down the Rajasthan government or start a party on her own if she is asked to resign. That will definitely play in the mind of the BJP leadership. Her giving an affidavit to an accused with a disclaimer that her affidavit should not be known to the Indian authorities is in itself a reason for her to go. 

Vyapam Scam

I am scared to write about it. This is a bit old as it is about the irregularities in recruitment and entrance exams (munnabhai style) which happened between 2008 and 2013 (not sure if it is still continuing). The issue has come up to limelight because many of the witness/accused are dying under mysterious circumstances. We have had maybe one or two witness being killed but so many dying is a cause of concern. We still don't really know the whole truth about this but with SC hearing a bunch of petitions requiring CBI probe has made the CM extremely vulnerable. As the central government is led someone who is not very close to him. 

Chattisgarh PDS Scam

As far as scams goes this is pretty simple one - Increase the number of PDS ration cards on record and pocket the money that was supposed to go to providing PDS to these cards. There was an huge increase in the BPL cards issued and there was cash found in ACB raid in March of this year to the tune of 4 crores. This is also early days for this scam and it has to be thoroughly investigated as to who are the real beneficiaries of the scam. 

Pankaja Munde Scam

The issue being raised is that there were orders issued by her to persons known to her family without following due tender process. This is a case of probity - in case the orders were issued to anyone other than the people known to her family there wouldn't have been any case as it could be explained as executive decision and as long as there were no money involved that explanation would have been accepted (same as the 2G case - the 1.76Lakh scam can easily be explained as executive decision but the 200 crore money trail to Kalaignar TV cannot be explained). 

Congress is Happy

Congress must be very happy having so many scams to go against the ruling NDA government. However, there seems to be no clear strategy on how to handle these which was clear from their going on about the palaces and losing focus. It is clear that the monsoon session will go for a toss if no action is taken on these scams especially the Lalitgate where they will not relent till they get the blood of both Vasundhara and Sushma. Surprising that Media has moved on to Vyapam scam having forgotten the Lalitgate from this week - Congress cannot afford to do that. This is the best opportunity for them to make a come back. 

The Prime minister has kept quite and it is his prerogative on when he wants to speak. As Swapan Das mentioned in his article today I remember the interview where Rajdeep kept asking about riot and he didn't utter a word about it and kept staring in the distant and Rajdeep was forced to move on. There is no necessity for him to speak also. 

What's Next

Sushma and Vasundhara have to resign and there should be a thorough probe on the other three scams. Why is it that the BJP has not pressed them to resign yet? - It is simple this will set the benchmark for all other scams. BJP would not want to yield so soon. July 21st is when the Monsoon session is going to start and it is going to be interesting to see whether they wait till the Monsoon session is completely washed out or act before that.