Pakistan v Nepal from Moorhead to Multan: A Journey of Friendship and Fervour
Picture this: a chilly midnight in Moorhead, a tiny university town near Fargo. Amidst the freezing air, two cricket fanatics — me and my Pakistani roommate, Shehzad — walk to the end of 20th Street just off campus to a house full of friends from Nepal. Our connection with these guys? Cricket. We had known each other through an indoor tape ball cricket tournament we played together.
It was the turn of the millennium; TV apps and online streaming weren’t a thing back then. These guys from Nepal were our cricket saviours, the only ones in the area with Direct TV and video on demand available to watch Pakistan vs India 2004 Test series. I remember the first Test was in Multan. Sehwag smashed a triple ton and Tendulkar 194 to stamp their authority on the game. India won the match by an innings and also the series 2-1.
Even though we had great respect for each other, there were moments when we had tempers flared during this series as all of these guys were rooting for India. That’s the nature of this encounter, it’s an emotional rollercoaster. People from Pakistan and India living abroad will relate: no matter how close you are with each other, this game will always get your emotions out of control.
Fast-forward to 2023. Two decades later, Asia Cup is being co-hosted in Pakistan. The venue for the first game was Multan where Nepal faced Pakistan head to head for the first time. I have been in touch with these guys on and off, mostly through Facebook. As the national anthem of Nepal was being played, I dropped a one-liner message about the clash to Pawan Adhikari, now living in Houston, Texas. His response, I can feel, triggered a cascade of emotions for him just like it did for me. Memories flood in of chai-fuelled nights, banter, and heated arguments at his apartment.
This particular game in Multan seemed to create a nostalgia that’s etched in our memories. For me this wasn’t just a game where Pakistan was playing a minnow, it was a symphony of emotions that cricket had orchestrated two decades ago. This memory and this game flung the door open to tomorrow, to the possibility of sitting with old mates, Pawan, Neeraj, Prajowl, and Shehzad; watching Nepal and Pakistan take on the world in the West Indies and Americas next year.
From that viral image of a packed cricket ground in Katmandu of their famous victory, Nepal’s cricketing journey is a tale of resilience, a narrative that echoed the nation’s spirit, much like conquering the Everest.
In a world often divided, cricket emerges as the unifier, a magical thread that weaves tales transcending time zones and cultures. From Moorhead’s chilly cold streets to Multan’s scorching heat, this is more than just a cricket story; it’s a tale of friendships woven by cricket’s tapestry. It’s a reminder that amidst the chaos, there’s a language we all speak, a language that unites us, This is why we love this game.
Tag: India
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Nepal, Pakistan: anything better than cricket to bring people together?
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Chandrayaan-3: Sulphur, other elements confirmed on moon
India’s moon rover, Pragyan of the Chandrayaan-3 mission, has confirmed the presence of sulphur on the lunar south pole, according to the Indian space agency.
“The Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) instrument onboard Chandrayaan-3 Rover has made the first-ever in-situ measurements on the elemental composition of the lunar surface near the south pole,” the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a statement on Monday.
According to Al-Jazeera, spectrographic analysis has also confirmed the presence of aluminium, calcium, iron, chromium and titanium on the lunar surface, ISRO added, with additional measurements showing the presence of manganese, silicon and oxygen.
Pragyan, literally meaning wisdom in Sanskrit, will saunter the south pole and provide images and scientific data during its two-week lifespan, looking for signs of frozen water that could aid future missions as a potential source of drinking water for astronauts or to make rocket fuel.
ISRO chairman S Somanath stated that the rover will also study the moon’s atmosphere and seismic activity.
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Naseeruddin Shah opens up about ‘love jihad’ accusations on marriage to Ratna Pathak
Bollywood veteran Naseeruddin Shah recently wrote an open letter to the National Herald where he addressed his 41-year long marriage to Hindu wife and actress, Ratna Pathak. He wrote that their bond has remained strong despite accusations of ‘love jihad’ levied by the spouse of an ex-prime minister, who told him “No one said anything when you married outside your religion.”
“I had no compunctions or hesitation about marrying a Hindu, and vice-versa.” wrote the ‘Masoom’ actor. “I didn’t dream that some put-out-to-pasture spouse of an ex-cabinet minister would, 38 years after my marriage, threaten me with ‘no one said anything when you married outside your religion’, stopping short of accusing me of love jihad but clearly implying that my time was now up.”
The actor, who met Ratna during the rehearsal for Satyadev Dubey’s play ‘Sambhog se Sanyas Tak’ in 1975. The actor went on to clarify that he was incredibyl supportive of whether the actress wished to convert to Islam or not, and so was his mother:
“As it happened, the subject of my wife Ratna converting to Islam was brought up just once by my mother and that as enquiry, to which on receiving a reply in the negative, she concurred with a ‘Haan, mazhab kaise badla jaa sakta hai.’ Whether this statement of a woman weaned exclusively on a diet of the Quran makes more sense than the hate-filled rhetoric of ‘Hindus and Muslims cannot live together’, I will leave to the judgement of the reader.”
The ‘Ishqiya’ actor went on to emphasize how his strong partnership is proof that Muslims and Hindus can live together peacefully:
“All I can say is that my union (accepted unquestioningly by both families) with a Hindu woman for 40 years so far is proof— if proof were needed—that it is not only possible but desirable for Hindus and Muslims to live together. So, from where did this poison appear? Or were the seeds of hatred planted during Partition slowly germinating all that while?”
READ MORE: ‘Her parents were against it’: Naseeruddin Shah opens up about obstacles to marrying Ratna Pathak
The actor had previously gushed about Ratna being a supportive partner who stuck with him through thick and thin, and how the two have remained close friends:
“I just felt I’d like to know this person. Over the process of rehearsals, we got to know each other. I think she also liked what she saw. It’s been a great blessing because we have stood by each other through thick and thin. She has stood by me rather through thick and thin, through very difficult times, and through very good times. I think the main reason for that is because we have remained friends – that’s the most important thing.”
“Ratna was a blessing for me. In hindsight, she probably deserved better—I had been married before and was a drug addict when I met her. In fact, her parents never approved of our match. But Ratna being who she was, never paid any heed to it. We never paid any heed to it. We knew we wanted to be together and that’s what we did. And that resulted in this beautiful partnership and friendship that we share to this day. I consider myself very lucky to have had Ratna with me through every thick and thin, and every sadness and happiness. It’s beautiful how we still find something new about each other every day, even after all this time–something more to love and cherish about the other person. More than anything else, that is what I live for.”
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FIR registered against Muslim journalist for sharing video of Muslim boy slapped in class
Maulana Mahmood Asad Madani, president of Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind, visited Khabbapur village to meet the family of the Muslim boy who was slapped by his Hindu classmates on the teacher’s directions. A video of the incident went viral on social media, causing outrage on a wide scale.
“Today, the environment of the country has become so polluted that now security institutions and even schools, which are called the temples of knowledge, are falling prey to it,” said Maulana Mahmood.
He wrote to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, urging for strict action against the accused teacher.
Likewise, he has also written to the Union Minister for Women and Child Development, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), National Human Rights Commission, National Minorities Commission.
In his letter, he stated, “You should instruct the concerned district administration to not try to cover up this serious matter by imposing minor clauses of the law.”
According to Geo news, Jamiat Ulema Hind has undertaken to sponsor the education of the Muslim child Muhammad Al-Tamish and the child has been admitted to an English medium school.
The organization has also made arrangements for the child’s travel facility and has also undertaken to bear the cost of the child’s education.
Update on the case:
Uttar Pradesh Minority Commission has taken suo motu of the incident and has asked the District Magistrate of Muzaffarnagar and the Senior Superintendent of Police to send an eight-point report on the incident.
The commission has directed Muzaffarnagar BSA and teacher Tripta Tyagi to appear in Lucknow on September 6.
Meanwhile, an FIR has been registered against journalist Mohammad Zubair for sharing the video of the incident on social media.
Zubair told The Wire that an FIR had been lodged against him even though he had later deleted the video and notified his followers on social media site X (formerly Twitter).
According to The Wire, Zubair has been on the radar of right-wing forces including BJP-ruled state governments. He has been charged under Section 74 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, which is punishable by imprisonment up to six months.
School shut down
Neha Public School, where a teacher made students slap their Muslim class-fellow, has been shut down. According to Indian officials, the school “did not meet the education department’s criteria.”
Former students are to be shifted to other schools or a government school.
Teacher in denial
Tripta Tyagi, the Indian teacher who was seen in a viral video asking her students to hit a “Mohammaden” student has denied making Islamophobic remarks against her Muslim student, stating that “it wasn’t my intention.”
She also justified urging the students to beat their classmate by claiming that she is handicapped and could not get up herself so, in order to discipline the student, she asked other kids to take the lead.
“I made a mistake by getting the child beaten up by the students. I am handicapped and could not get up, so I asked the students to beat the child. The video has been tampered with,” she alleged.
Tyagi said that she used the word Mohammaden in a sentence where she said that Muslim mother’s should not take their children to their relatives’ houses as they must study.
She also believes that in order to maintain discipline in the class, one has to take strict measures.
The video
On Friday, a video circulated across social media in which a school teacher, Trapta Tyagi, in Uttar Pradesh, India, is asking her students to slap a seven-year-old Muslim class fellow.
Apart from making Islamophobic remarks, she can be heard prompting the students to hit the boy, Mohammad Altamash, harder: “I have declared that all Muslim children should go,” Tyagi says while a male voice behind the camera can be heard agreeing with the teacher, “You are correct, it ruins the education,”.
The student stands still, crying and scared, while the students, one by one, come forward to slap their classmate.
According to Al-Jazeera, Muslims constitute approximately a fifth of the 235 million population of Uttar Pradesh.
Al-Jazeera also spoke with Altamash’s parents, who said that the incident took place on Thursday in Neha Public School in Kubbapur village.
“Yesterday, my son came home crying,” Rubina, his mother, said. “He was traumatised. This is not how you treat kids.”
The father, Mohammad Irshad, is a farmer. He said that the teacher justified her actions by saying the boy did not memorise his lessons.
“My son is good at his studies. He takes tuitions. We fail to understand why the teacher treated him like this. It seems that the teacher is filled with hate,”According to Al-Jazeera, Indian police have asked social media users not to share the video, persuading many users to remove it.
Irshad believes that the mistreatment of his son was the result of “hate that is being spread against Muslims in the country”.
Rubina also stated that the teacher reportedly would get her students slapped by their classmates and only a few days ago, another student from their family was put through a similar treatment after he failed to memorise his lessons.In a video shared by an X (formerly Twitter) user, Irshad states, “I didn’t want to file a police complaint because I don’t want to be called by Police or by court every now and then,”
However, according to a police officer, as reported by Al-Jazeera, a case will be filed after recording the statement of the child and the parents.
The school in question has students from the Hindu and Muslim communities in the area. And while the teacher has acknowledged her mistake and apologized for her misconduct, Irshad has firmly decided to admit his son to another school.
“She said she will never treat her students badly again,” he said. “But this is not the environment where I want my son to get an education and grow up in.”People react
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Sarhad paar drugs kon smuggle kar raha hai?
Do you remember the news of a drone carrying drugs falling near Kahna?
This year in July a drone carrying six kilograms of drugs, worth millions of rupees, crashed in the outskirts of Lahore. Recently a case has been registered against a senior official of the Lahore police, who headed the anti-narcotics wing of the city police, for alleged involvement in cross-border drug smuggling via drones.
Lahore Deputy Inspector General (Investigation) Imran Kishwar confirmed the “involvement of a DSP”, saying that the official was booked by the ANF.
“We have constituted a high-powered committee of senior police officers to further expand the scope of the investigation into the illegal cross-border smuggling of the drug,” the DIG told Dawn.
He said that Lahore SSP Internal Accountability (IAB) Tauqeer Naeem would head the committee while SP Crime Record Officer Aftab Phularwan and a DSP would assist him in this matter.
According to departmental sources, the issue was escalated to the prime minister after reports suggested that some elements were sending drugs from Kasur to India through drones. They further suggested that a gang of drug traffickers were using unmanned aerial vehicles to smuggle huge quantities of methamphetamine (locally known as ice) from Lahore to India.
Sources said a drone could carry up to six kilograms of drugs, which would be delivered at a given location in Indian Punjab after flying across the border.
Departmental action has already been initiated against the police officer, DIG said, adding that further proceedings would be made in the light of the inquiry report.
The use of technology to smuggle drugs sent alarm bells ringing in ANF, evident from recent arrests made by the force.
A subsequent probe revealed that DSP Mazhar Iqbal, who secured interim bail after a case was registered against him, was also involved in the alleged smuggling.The smugglers on both sides of the border were using “some means of communication to get alerts about the delivery of the drug”, the officials said.
They added that payments against these drugs would be made in the UAE.
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Son gifts mom dolls that she wanted as a kid
A video of a woman’s reaction to her birthday present from her son has left people emotional. The woman received several dolls from her son – the ones she always wanted as a kid.
The video was posted on the Instagram page GoodNews Movement along with a sweet caption. “Healing the inner child: She had dreamed of owning these dolls since she was a child. For her birthday, her son fulfilled that dream,” it reads.
The video opens to show the woman picking her dolls one by one and gently lining them on a table, tears rolling down her eyes while opening her gifts.
Since being posted, the clip has accumulated close to eight lac views and counting. Additionally, the video has been shared over 40,000 times. People posted varied comments while reacting to the video.
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‘Happy that a Pakistani won’: Saroj Devi, Neeraj Chopra’s mother
Neeraj Chopra’s historic gold and Arshad Nadeem’s record achievement as the first Pakistani to secure a medal in the World Athletics Championship are milestones in their respective careers.
When a journalist asked Chopra’s mother about his win over Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem, trying to give an India vs Pakistan narrative to the historic moment, her answer was all love and has gone viral on social media.
“Look, all have come to play in the field. One or the other will definitely win. So there is no question of being from Pakistan or Haryana,” she said.
“It is a matter of happiness. Even if that Pakistani had won, there would’ve been great happiness,” she added.
While Neeraj and Nadeem engage in fierce competition on the field, both young athletes share a profound camaraderie beyond the arena. Beyond the thrill of rivalry, their off-field friendship has been evident through mutual appreciation and support on various occasions. The heartwarming connection serves as a poignant reminder of how the spirit of sportsmanship can not only bridge the gap between nations but also serve as a potent tool in minimizing conflicts.
In February 2016, the two competed against each other for the first time in the South Asian Games at Guwahati. While Chopra won the gold with a throw of 82.23, Nadeem took the bronze with 78.33 m. The second time the duo faced each other was at the Asian Junior Championships in Vietnam, where Chopra won the silver with a throw of 77.60 m and Nadeem claimed the bronze with 73.40. The India-Pakistan rivalry was seen at the World U-20 Championship in Poland, where Nadeem missed out on qualifying for the final with a throw of 67.17 to finish at the 15th spot. Chopra won that U-20 world title with 86.48, setting a new world U-20 record.
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India’s next space mission: Sun
After becoming the first country to land a craft on the moon’s south pole, India will be soon launching its first space-based observatory to study the sun.
According to Al-jazeera, India’s space agency, in an announcement on Monday, said the Aditya-L1 probe, to be launched on September 2, will study solar winds, which can cause disturbances on Earth and are commonly seen as auroras.
Aditya-L1 is named after the Hindi word for the sun. It will travel about 1.5 million km (932,000 miles) and will take about four months to travel to its observation point, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
The spacecraft will be fired into a halo orbit in a region of space that will give the craft a continuous clear view of the sun.
“This will provide a greater advantage of observing the solar activities and its effect on space weather in real time,” ISRO said.
As reported by Al-Jazeera, the spacecraft will be carrying seven payloads to observe the sun’s outermost layers – known as the photosphere and chromosphere – including electromagnetic and particle field detectors.
Previously, NASA and the European Space Agency placed probes into orbit to study the sun.
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Air pollution in South Asia can cut life expectancy by more than five years per person
University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute (EPIC) has published its latest report about Air Quality Life Index on Tuesday. The report deduced that rising air pollution can cut life expectancy by more than five years per person in South Asia which is currently one of the most polluted places in the world.
Primary contributors in the region’s declining air quality are increasing industrialisation and population growth. The particulate pollution levels are resultantly more than 50 percent higher in comparison to the century’s start, posing a much greater health threat.
What does the report say about Pakistan?
According to the report, 98.3% of Pakistan’s population lives in areas exceeding the national air quality standard of 15 micrograms per cubic meter.From 1998 to 2021, average annual particulate pollution increased by 49.9% in Pakistan and reduced life expectancy by 1.5 years.
In Punjab, Islamabad, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 65.5 million citizens reside (69.5% of Pakistan’s population), with the country’s people potent set to lose between 3.7 to 4.6 years of life expectancy on average relative to the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline and between 2.7 to 3.6 years relative to the national standard if the current pollution levels persist.
Moreover, if Pakistan is able to meet WHO’s guideline, Karachi residents would gain 2.7 years of life expectancy whereas residents of Lahore would gain 7.5 years and people in Islamabad would gain about 4.5 years of life expectancy.
Pakistanis would gain 3.9 years by meeting the WHO guidelines of limiting average annual PM 2.5 concentration to 5 micrograms per cubic meter.Others in South Asia
The study further expounds upon other countries in the region.
In light of the current pollution levels, Bangladeshis can lose 6.8 years of life on average per person compared to 3.6 months in the United States.
A Nepali would live 4.6 years longer by meeting the WHO guidelines of limiting average annual PM 2.5 concentration to 5 micrograms per cubic meter.
It is also highlighted that India is responsible for about 59 percent of the world’s increase in pollution since 2013, threatening to reduce lifespan in some of the country’s polluted regions.
The average lifespan in New Delhi, a heavily populated and the world’s most polluted megacity, is down by more than 10 years.
The report added that by reducing global levels of lung-damaging airborne particles, known as PM 2.5, to levels recommended by WHO could raise average life expectancy by 2.3 years.
China has put in work to reduce pollution by 42.3 percent between 2013 and 2021. The report suggested the governments generate accessible air quality data in order to help bridge global inequalities in accessing tools to combat pollution.
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India appoints first-ever female chargé d’affaires in Pakistan
Geetika Srivastava will be the first-ever female chargé d’affaires (an ambassador’s deputy) appointed by the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, reports The News.
She was appointed soon after the designation of the United Kingdom’s first female high commissioner to Pakistan.
Following the friction in the bilateral relations between Pakistan and India in 2019, no full-time high commissioner has been posted in Islamabad or New Delhi, and instead, junior diplomats are posted as chargé d’affaires.
The last Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad, Ajay Bisaria, was removed in 2019 after Pakistan decided to downgrade diplomatic ties over India’s revocation of the special status of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
Some of the qualified Indian high commissioners serving in Islamabad departed and were promoted as foreign secretaries in India.
Who is Geetika Srivastava?
Geetika Srivastava is from the 2005 batch of the Indian Foreign Service (IFS).
She speaks Chinese (Mandarin) fluently and has previously been appointed in China for an assignment. Originally from Uttar Pradesh, she has also served as Regional Passport Officer in Kolkata and Director in the IOR Division of the Ministry of External Affairs.
She is currently a Joint Secretary in charge of the Indo-Pacific Division in the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi. The Indo-Pacific Division of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) looks after India’s multilateral diplomacy with ASEAN, IORA, FIPIC, and other entities in the Indo-Pacific region.