Dolby

10 hours ago, MHSN said:

Taliban at its best

 

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/23/taliban-orders-girls-schools-shut-hours-after-reopening

 

not that anybody cares. Afghanistan is yesterday's news

I had honestly hoped that as part of the deal with the World, Taliban would be allowed to take over Afghanistan and in return they won't indulge in overt discrimination and human rights abuses. Alas!!!

16 hours ago, Vic Liu said:

Teach me when India has a Kashmir Champion.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/12/indian-forces-kashmir-accused-human-rights-abuses-coverup

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/15/world/asia/kashmir-india-militants.html

 

India's lone representative in Beijing WOG was Arif Mohd Khan, a Kashmiri. Apart from him, a large number of our winter sportsperson come from Jammu & Kashmir. In Cricket, a couple of Kashmiris have represented India. Suresh Raina, a Kashmiri Pandit by ethnicity, was an integral part of Indian cricket team for more than a decade. But probably the biggest J&K sportsperson to represent India would be rifle shooter Chain Singh. 

As J&K puts the past of terrorism behind and moves ahead on the path of normalcy and peace, I am sure that we will see many more Indian champions from J&K. 

2 hours ago, Fly_like_a_don said:

None of them are realistically expected expected to do well. Most of them are 20-23 which is a bit late considering the best players always achieve something before 20 (Saina QF Beijing 2008 at 18, Sindhu World champs medallist at 17, Lakshya at 20) 

 

MD they are elder / same age as Satwik but nothing impressive. Doubles has time usually but if they aint improving next 2-3 years it'll be very useful 

 

WD not at all a great pair 

 

WS again you have to be early. Unnati Hooda at 14 and Tasnim Mir at 16 have realistic chances. 

I would put Malvika in the same category as Unnati and Tasnim. She does seem to have potential. We need to be a bit lenient with this batch as they have missed out on 2 years due to COVID and hence, there development will be slower compared to others. Considering that, I still have high hopes from these 3. Even Samiya and Aakrishi are not that old and can improve a lot. One more name to watch out is Anupama Upadhyay. 

In MS, Meiraba is still young and has performed decent in his debut year on senior circuit. So, I still have hopes from him. Though I don't have high hopes from Kiran, but I think it is early to discount him. He is just 21 and already has some decent wins on senior tour. He can be next gen Prannoy. Among the rest, I think Priyanshu is another one who can be a top player. Also, for Paris, I have really high hopes on Lakshya Sen. And Srikanth still should be among top for 3-4 years more. 

For Doubles, we have 3 very good doubles players in Tanisha Crasto, Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand. On men's side we have a number of good young players (Krishna, Vishnu, Ishaan, Sai) Plus we have the beasts Satwik and Chirag. So, there is hope that among such a talented pool (and with return of Tan Kim Her), we should get some decent doubles team as well. 

Mr. President, what should be our strategy to prevent Nuclear War? 

Arrange a zoom call with TikTokers

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/11/tik-tok-ukraine-white-house/

14 hours ago, ChandlerMne said:

Last few days, at least, latest replies dont work properly.

When i search National thread latest reply is from Serbian thread, 1h ago.

But when scrolling through Latest replies Serbian thread isnt there at all.

Same thing with Indian thread. I am following the thread so I get the notification but it is not visible in latest replies. 

Indian Men's Hockey team will be coached by the legend Sardar Singh. We have already declared that we will be fielding a young team with the senior team focusing on Asian Games. 

12 hours ago, opruh said:

Makes sense, Asian games is way more bigger and prestigious compared to this.

More importantly, almost surely, Asian Games would be a qualifying tournament for Paris Olympics. 

Roman Abramovic has decided to sell Chelsea

2 hours ago, phelps said:

by the way, the Russians today didn't enter in the Mixed Team Pistol event (but they're still in the starting list of the next team events...we'll see if they really compete or not)...

 

most likely, they abandoned the world cup stage in Cairo...

Following the respective decision of the IOC Executive Board and a meeting with the IOC President,  the ISSF decided that athletes from the Russian Federation and Belarus will not be allowed to take part in ISSF Championships.

This decision entered into force at 16.00 CET on March 1, 2022 and is valid until upon further notice.

Link

16 minutes ago, thiago_simoes said:

Yes, and that's it. So, don't try to justify this decision by mentioning that India is trying to help avoiding a global war. A neutral reaction right now only shows India defends its own interests and is not worried about Ukraine or peace at all. 

Yes, we don’t care for Ukraine that is why we are plainly saying Russia must stop violence. That is why we are sending humanitarian aid to Ukraine. 
 

Still waiting to know what concrete steps has EU/NATO taken. 

ISSF had one of the best livescoring systems 2 years back. Sadly, now it is one of the worst.  

Just now, thiago_simoes said:

Yeah, I'm sure global peace will be within reach because India chose to be neutral here.

The "not my problem" approach is everything we need right now to avoid a global war. Genius.

And what has NATO/EU exactly done to help Ukraine? Apart from empty speeches? NATO watched silently when Crimea was annexed. Everybody knew that Russia was going to invade Ukraine but did they do anything? Tell me how many NATO soldiers are there in Ukraine? Sanctions on Russia excludes energy sector, which is Russia's major export. They were even debating if diamonds and hand bags should be exempted or not. And yet it is India's "not my problem" approach which is preventing peace. 

We depend a lot on Russia for defence equipment. If Pakistan and/or China try some mischief, how much can we rely on USA/NATO? We know we are on our own, which was more than visible in the initial days of Delta wave, and we will do what is best in our interest. World does the same. 

5 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

And Belarus, 'funnily'.

 

Interesting list of leaders throughout the years, this NAM  

NAM is a useless organisation with zero effect on Indian foreign policy or any country's foreign policy for that matter. But, funny that you mentioned pro-Russia Belarus while ignoring that NAM also has almost all Africa, Caribbean and Asia as its members including Singapore, Thailand and Philippines.

2 minutes ago, thiago_simoes said:

Well, I don't see how this is "handling a difficult situation quite well". But everyone is entitled to have an opinion.

India is not a player in the conflict. For us the primary concern is 1) Trying to avert a global World War and 2) safe evacuation of 20K Indians stuck in Ukraine. And I reiterate Indian government is doing the best it can to meet both goals. 

15 minutes ago, opruh said:

Is india sanctioning Russia? india and China are currently both neutral at the moment whether you like it or not. 

I am perfectly fine with India being neutral. I think our govt has handled a difficult situation quite well. But difference between Indian and Chinese position is while we are calling for an end to violence, Chinese are talking about Russia's legitimate security demands.  

20 minutes ago, opruh said:

West and its allies at most is around 1.5+ billion people. China and India alone which stated their neutrality here is 3+ billion. While the most of the world is united in stopping the war asap, not the same can be said about this strange moves in the sporting world being spearheaded by the west.

I would like if you didn't include India alongside China. Though abstaining, we have categorically said there should be cessation of violence from Russia. We are abstaining because we need Russian veto in case of Pakistan/China resolutions. Also, our dependence on Russia for defence equipments. 

1 hour ago, NearPup said:

I think “war of conquest” is a pretty decent line. In Crimea there was conquest but certainly no war (it was more a bloodless coup than anything else). If Putin had just done a “peacekeeping” escapade in the Donbas I think most of the world would have waved their fingers but not have reacted too strongly.

 

But invading a country that quite clearly does not want to be invaded for the clear goal of annexing it (Putin sort of discredited any plausible deniability with his speech)? Wherever the line is, surely that is beyond it?

This is the problem, we don't have an escalation ladder. You annex Crimea, no problem pass us some more of the Vodka while we enjoy the Football World Cup. You do peacekeeping in Donbas, aah tough luck Ukrainians, busy booking my tickets to Moscow. Tanks surrounding Kyiv, that is it. No Russian shall even think of sports. 

Also, need to figure out how to allow local protests while maintaining sports code. For example, for us tanks surrounding Kyiv is war of conquest but I am sure for Ukrainians even Crimea was war of conquest. And what if some nation wants to boycott another nation for some other things. Take for an example, if some nation wants to boycott Qatar WC, should they be allowed to do so? What should be the sanctions, if any, they face? IOC even threatened consequences if a nation skipped Tokyo Olympics. (Not sure if they followed up on it or not). 

8 hours ago, Dolby said:

I have seen some videos of Indian students alleging discrimination from Ukrainian official but I would personally give them benefit of doubt because of the volatile situation. I think the reality is a combination of many different things, where some official must be angry at India and discriminated against some students, tense students mistaking the delay as discrimination and a variety of other issues. 

Sadly there appears to be some truth in this. Seen too many videos and testimonies from many Indian and African students alleging racial discrimination. Disappointing. 

3 minutes ago, Orangehair43 said:

When is the last time an Israeli athlete competed in Iran? 

And Iran has faced bans for that. Iran can't even think of hosting any prominent sports where there is a good chance Israelis would qualify. Also, the general consensus among sports fans is that Irani policy is wrong. I am ok with Russia being banned but then we can't suddenly say that don't mix politics and sports when India denies visa to Pakistani sportspersons or an Irani athlete refuses to compete against Israeli.  

I can understand people's emotions but this is setting a precedent, which will be used in future. Iran will claim that Israel is at war with it and hence they are within their rights to deny their athletes visa, which is much lower than banning Russia. Same with India-Pakistan Serbia-Kosovo and many others. 

1 hour ago, lapaj said:

 

The indian embassy requested help from Hungary to evacuate 950 students. The first group arrived yesterday:

 

There are an estimated 15-20K Indians stuck in Ukraine. Indian embassies are working really hard to evacuate all of them. And from all accounts, we are receiving exemplary support from all the neighbours, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. We are thankful to all of you. Till now around 1000 Indians have been rescued. 

3 hours ago, opruh said:

Some indian students are appealing for help since they are not being allowed by the ukrainians to cross the border to Poland, the reason being given is that because india sided with russia despite the fact that india is actually neutral as shown by their abstaining in the un resolution.

I have seen some videos of Indian students alleging discrimination from Ukrainian official but I would personally give them benefit of doubt because of the volatile situation. I think the reality is a combination of many different things, where some official must be angry at India and discriminated against some students, tense students mistaking the delay as discrimination and a variety of other issues. 

Time to rewatch Yes Prime Minister 

12 hours ago, heywoodu said:

As far as it wasn't clear yet, Putin basically says out loud he wants to bring the full Soviet Union back.

He blamed Lenin for creating Ukraine. He sees himself as a successor of Nicholas II and not Yeltsin.