People offer namaz at Delhi’s Jama Masjid. (Photo/ANI)
New Delhi: The minority morcha of the Delhi BJP will arrange a gathering of locals near Jama Masjid on the occasion of the 100th episode of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s monthly radio address Mann Ki Baat this Sunday, party leaders said.
Such gatherings will also be organised at many other Muslim-dominated areas across the country, said Delhi BJP spokesperson Yasir Gilani.
“We have arranged the programme near Jama Masjid because Modi is also popular among Muslims and many wish to listen to him. We are also holding Mann Ki Baat programmes at 22 other minority-dominated areas in the city,” said Gilani who also holds the post of national media coordinator of the BJP’s minority morcha.
The 100th episode of the prime minister’s monthly radio programme is scheduled to be broadcast on April 30. Modi started the monthly radio programme after becoming prime minister in 2014.
While a federal circuit court panel issued a partial stay until the ruling can be fully appealed, the reasoning on which both the plaintiff and Kacsmaryk partially based their arguments is arguably more eye-popping than the decision itself. Citing the Comstock Act, a sweeping anti-obscenity measure passed by Congress in 1873, Kacsmaryk found that it was patently illegal to access abortifacients by mail.
While the legal battle over mifepristone has real-world implications for millions of Americans, the decision itself portends a more aggressive agenda that extends well beyond abortion access. In citing the Comstock Act, Kacsmaryk tipped his hand.
Over 150 years ago, evangelical Protestant leaders, then at the height of their political influence, used state power to impose their personal, religious worldview on the entire country. It worked. But the Comstock Act, while still on the books, has been largely superseded by over a century of jurisprudence. That today’s conservative legal activists want to resurrect it suggests that we are in store for a much broader culture war — one that the right may win in a partisan Supreme Court but will lose in the political arena.
The Comstock laws (the first was passed in 1873 and companion acts cleared Congress in subsequent years, strengthening the statute) outlawed the interstate mailing of any device or medicine used to terminate a pregnancy, as well as written materials that instructed women and doctors how to terminate pregnancies. It also barred use of the mail to transport “obscene” or “immoral” materials — be it pornography or smutty literature — as well as contraceptive drugs and devices. They even banned personal letters whose content pushed the prevailing bounds of decency. The law explicitly encouraged states to address the same range of materials on an intrastate basis, and indeed, by 1900, 42 states had enacted their own Comstock laws.
Named for Anthony Comstock, a Civil War veteran who moved to Brooklyn after the war and became involved in citywide anti-vice campaigns, the federal law and its state equivalents represented a major victory on the part of evangelical Christian organizers who, in the 1870s, asserted an active role for religion in the public and political spheres. Concerned by the temptations that young people faced in the country’s burgeoning cities, these activists sought to reimpose Christian values and order in the defense of public health and safety. They also sought to curtail women’s reproductive rights in the service of maintaining a gendered hierarchy that the war and its dislocations had temporarily upended in the prior decade.
To understand both how and why evangelical Christians imposed their personal religion on the entire country, it’s helpful to take a step back.
In the decades leading up to the Civil War, America experienced a great religious awakening, as millions of ordinary people flocked to new evangelical churches. The ranks of the clergy swelled. Tract societies and evangelical newspapers became key staples of public culture. Evangelical Christianity also inspired a wave of reform movements that bridged otherwise disparate causes like temperance, public education and abolitionism. But while antebellum churches supported a range of reform movements, they focused for the most part on moral suasion — on filling pews and saving souls, and on convincing sinners to right their own ways — rather than using the political process for coercive measures.
Until the Civil War.
The war fundamentally politicized the nation’s evangelical churches, particularly in the North. Evangelical leaders, both lay and clergy, overwhelmingly agreed (in the words of Joseph Medill, editor of the ChicagoTribune and a deeply religious political activist) that the war was fundamentally a “war for Christian civilization.”
Individual denominations often blurred the line between the sacred and the secular in their own fashions. A Presbyterian synod likened the Confederacy to Satan’s attempted usurpation of the throne of God. At Methodist meetings, flags were often on prominent display and congregants were frequently encouraged to swear mass loyalty oaths. The churches raised money for the war effort, ran recruitment drives, sent thousands of clergymen into the field to serve as chaplains and staffed two government-sanctioned organizations: the Sanitary Commission and the U.S. Christian Commission, which ministered to soldiers’ physical and spiritual needs. They also lent full-throated support to the abolition of slavery and the government’s increasingly punitive approach to fighting a total, rather than limited, war against the Confederacy.
By 1864, support for the Union quickly evolved into support of the Republican Party.
Prominent clerics like Henry Ward Beecher, Granville Moody of Ohio and Robert Breckinridge — and hundreds of political clergymen, particularly in the battleground states of the Midwest — stumped for Lincoln and the GOP with impunity. On the eve of the election, Matthew Simpson, a leading Methodist bishop, rallied the faithful at the New York Academy of Music. In a special election version of his famous “war speech” — part sermon, part patriotic exhortation — the bishop waved a bloody battle flag belonging to New York’s 55th Regiment and called on all Christians to vote for “the railsplitter … president” in the upcoming canvass.
Whereas in the antebellum era, Protestant reformers focused on saving souls and influencing individual behavior from the pulpit, now they actively embraced politics.
Political Christianity came in different flavors. In the late nineteenth century, liberal Christians involved themselves with gusto in the Social Gospel, a new movement that advocated for safer and cleaner housing, public infrastructure and the right of workers to organize and strike.
The Social Gospel represented one, but not the only, outgrowth of the political brand of Protestantism that emerged from the 1860s. More socially conservative Christians threw themselves into a broad array of coercive social reform campaigns. Comstock, founder of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice — an offshoot of the Young Men’s Christian Association — was the most prominent of the conservative leaders. He built a powerful coalition that worked toward criminalizing contraceptive devices, abortion, prostitution and pornography. Frances Willard, a devout Methodist, led the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, an organization devoted to the prohibition of manufacturing or selling alcohol. Unlike the evangelical reform movements of the mid-19th century, the brand of reform championed by religious leaders like Comstock and Willard focused on state intervention — and state power — rather than moral suasion at the individual level. In the same way that today’s conservative culture warriors are going to war with school librarians, teachers and corporate boards, the religious conservatives of Comstock’s day used politics to enforce their private understanding of what was right and righteous. Like their liberal counterparts in the Social Gospel movement, evangelicals concerned with vice and morality had learned during the Civil War to see a natural confluence between church and state.
Comstock began his anti-vice career as something of a crank, but with the support of New York’s evangelical church establishment — and later, as an official agent of New York state and the federal government — he proved devastatingly successful at imposing his particular understanding of morality on the American public. He was single-handedly responsible for the arrests of almost 100 people and the seizure of 202,214 obscene photographs and drawings, 21,150 pounds of books, 63,819 contraceptive items and abortifacients and innumerable devices designed for sexual pleasure — that is, 19th-century sex toys. He even managed to get a new edition of Walt Whitman’s classic, Leaves of Grass, barred from the mails.
Armed with state power, conservative evangelicals operated at the peak of their influence. In the coming decades, that influence waned as a rising wave of Jewish and Catholic immigrants made America more pluralistic and modern science challenged longstanding ideas about biblical inerrancy. But it was a testament to the organizing acumen of activists like Comstock that they were as effective as they were.
Fast forward to 2023, and it’s not at all clear how activist judges like Matthew Kacsmaryk believe they can wind back the clock. The Comstock laws have long been superseded by a statutory and legal privacy revolution — beginning at least with Griswold v Connecticut (1965) — that granted individuals the right to consume pornography, purchase sex toys, use contraception and, in roughly half the states, terminate a pregnancy.
In a world where telehealth is on the rise and most insurers encourage the use of mail-order prescriptions, the Comstock Act is both an obsolete tool ill-suited to the modern health care economy and a menace. If the statute bars the mailing of abortifacients — drugs used to perform a procedure that is still legal in half the country — doesn’t it also criminalize mail-order birth control and Viagra? Mail-order sex toys, lingerie, pornography (for those without a good internet connection) and steamy romance novels? Paintings depicting nudity?
The answer is yes, of course — if one applies consistent logic (a standard that has never much concerned conservative legal activists). And that is the tell. No thinking person would invoke the Comstock laws in a modern legal brief or court ruling unless they truly endorsed the use of state power to restrict private freedoms.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Ahmedabad: Virat Kohli finally ended his Test century drought as he slammed an outstanding ton to put India in a commanding position on Day 4 of the ongoing fourth Test match against Australia here at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Sunday.
At the time of tea break, India’s score read 472/5 with Kohli (135)* and Axar Patel (38)* unbeaten at the crease. The hosts still trail by just 8 runs.
Kohli ended his Test century drought as he slammed his first Test century since November 2019.
After lunch, Indian batsmen Virat Kohli and Srikar Bharat opened their hands and slammed Australian bowlers at regular intervals for boundaries.
Cameron Green was on the receiving end with Srikar Bharat smashing him for 21 runs with the help of two boundaries and two sixes in an over.
Srikar Bharat’s blistering stint at the crease came to an end as he was dismissed by Nathan Lyon for 44. The left-handed batter Axar Patel then came out to bat at the crease.
Kohli ended his Test century drought as he slammed his first Test century since November 2019. The former India captain brought up his much-needed hundred in 241 balls. It was the most-awaited ton as his last century came against Bangladesh in November 2019. With this century, he took his international century tally to 75.
Kohli continued his blistering form and slammed Mitchell Starc for brilliant two boundaries collecting 9 runs. Kohli along with Patel took India’s total beyond the 400-run mark in the 140 overs of the game.
The duo of Kohli and Patel stitched up their 50-run partnership stand –the 6th consecutive 50-run partnership for Team India.
The Indian pair remained unbeaten as the visitors ended the session at 472/5.
Earlier, Kohli and Srikar Bharat showed remarkable skill and determination to frustrate the Australian bowling attack in the opening session of Day 4.
The batting pair of Ravindra Jadeja and Virat Kohli were decisive in their approach and made the Australian bowlers toil hard making merry of the excellent batting conditions on offer.
Australia skipper Steve Smith introduced Cameron Green into the attack in the very first over of day 4 and the bowler concede just 4 runs. Australia started with spin with Nathan Lyon and Todd Murphy bowling in tandem from both ends.
The duo of Jadeja and Kohli took India’s total beyond the 300-run mark in the 102nd over of the game. However, the 64-run partnership stand was broken by Murphy who dismissed Jadeja for 28 runs. Srikar Bharat then came out to bat.
The Indian batters rotated the strike brilliantly, not allowing the Australian bowlers to settle down while whacking the loose balls on offer.
Kohli and Srikar Bharat both were aggressors of the batting pair, smashing boundaries regularly. The duo stitched a solid 50-run partnership for Team India.
The Indian pair took India’s score beyond the 350-run mark as the first session ended.
Brief Score: Australia 480 (Usman Khawaja 180, Cameron Green 114; Ravichandran Ashwin 6-91) vs India 362/4 (Virat Kohli 135*, Shubman Gill 128; Todd Murphy 2-64). (ANI)
Watch Video: Usman Khan Smashes 36-ball Century in PSL to Break Record
Pakistan’s Usman Khan smashes fastest PSL century in 36 balls, breaks Rilee Rossouw’s record within 24 hours
Multan Sultans opener Usman Khan has smashed the record for the fastest century scored in the Pakistan Super League (PSL), which was earlier set by South African batter Rilee Rossouw, just a day before. Playing against his former team the Quetta Gladiators, Usman started very slow but then took the game to the opponents, smashing 52 runs against Qais Ahmad and reaching his ton in just 36 balls.
Multan Sultans’ Usman Khan smashed the fastest century in Pakistan Super League (PSL) in an match against Quetta Gladiators at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium on Saturday.
Khan, playing just his second game of the 2023 Pakistan Super League, became the latest man to reach three figures at Rawalpindi, doing so five balls quicker than his Multan Sultans teammate managed yesterday. The 27-year-old was eventually dismissed for 120 off 43 balls when he was stumped off a wide.
Multan Sultans ended with 262 for three in its 20 overs, registering the highest team total in PSL history. The record was previously held by Islamabad United, which had scored 247 for two against Peshawar Zalmi in 2021.
Fastest centuries in Pakistan Super League:
Batter
Balls
Team
Opponent
Venue
Date
Usman Khan
36
Multan Sultans
Quetta Gladiators
Rawalpindi
March 11, 2023
Rilee Rossouw
41
Multan Sultans
Peshawar Zalmi
Rawalpindi
March 10, 2023
Rilee Rossouw
43
Multan Sultans
Quetta Gladiators
Multan
February 29, 2020
Jason Roy
44
Quetta Gladiators
Peshawar Zalmi
Rawalpindi
March 8, 2023
Harry Brook
48
Lahore Qalandars
Islamabad United
Lahore
February 19, 2022
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Genome editing in livestock has the potential to bring about significant improvements in productivity, health, and welfare, but there are still challenges that need to be addressed.
A SKUAST-K scientist at work
The livestock industry is facing a growing demand for animal-based foods to feed the increasing human population. This forces a need for a more sustainable approach to livestock production that considers factors such as climate change, deforestation, and conservation of biodiversity, as well as ensuring animal health and welfare. The traditional approach to increasing livestock production has been to increase the amount of land used for feeding animals, but this no longer stands feasible due to limited space for grazing land on the planet.
The twenty-first century’s cutting-edge technologies, such as gene editing, can thus be harnessed to transform the livestock industry towards efficient and safe food animal production systems.
Genome editing technology is a set of tools that precisely modifies an organism’s genetic components. There are four major types of genome editing technologies used by molecular biology scientists: Mega nucleases, Zinc Finger Nucleases (ZFNs), Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nucleases (TALENs), and Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR). All these technologies work by cutting the DNA at specific places which then triggers a repair mechanism. The repair process can either rejoin the broken ends of the DNA without the use of a template or with the help of a DNA template, which allows for the introduction of new sequences within the normal genes of the organism.
Amongst these four, CRISPR-based one is the most widely used genome editing tool due to its simplicity, efficiency, and low cost. However, the application of CRISPR-Cas9 technology in livestock (sheep, goat, cattle, and buffalo) requires advanced reproductive technologies for the delivery of editing components into reproductive cells or zygotes.
For effective gene editing, currently, the most common techniques are Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) and zygote microinjection, but these methods are technically challenging, labour-intensive, and costly, limiting their use to only a few specialized laboratories.
Gene Editing
Genome editing technology has been applied in various areas of livestock production, including breeding disease-resistant animals, improving animal performance, altering milk composition, and producing hornless animals etc. Besides, CRISPR is often used for gene knockouts in medical research and therapeutic purposes. The traditional methods of livestock breeding have limitations, such as a long breeding cycle and a limited pool of genetic resources, making it difficult to improve livestock through conventional genetics. With genome editing technology, it is possible to make precise and heritable changes to the genome of diverse livestock species, leading to improved productivity, fertility, sustainability, and animal welfare.
To realise the full potential of genome editing technology in the livestock industry, it is necessary to develop strategies to translate established genome editing protocols into livestock breeding systems. The advanced reproductive technologies make it possible to apply genome editing on-farm, with minimal infrastructure and moderate cost. However, there is still a need for further research and development to ensure that the technology can be efficiently applied at scale. In conclusion, genome editing technology offers a powerful tool for improving the livestock industry, and its application has the potential to enhance productivity and profitability in livestock production.
Applications and Prospects
CRISPR is a cutting-edge gene editing technology that is rapidly gaining popularity in the livestock industry. Compared to traditional gene editings methods like ZFNs and TALENs, CRISPR is more precise and effective in modifying the genomes of livestock species. In the coming years, it is expected that CRISPR-based gene editing will be widely used in livestock breeding.
One of the primary applications of genome editing in livestock is to improve the productivity of livestock species. This can be achieved through the introduction of new traits, such as increased growth rate, improved feed conversion efficiency, and increased meat yield.
For example, researchers have used genome editing to introduce a growth hormone gene into chickens, resulting in birds that grow faster and produce more meat.
Similarly, genetic modifications have been made to pigs that improve the efficiency with which they convert feed into meat, resulting in higher meat yields per kilogram of feed. Knocking out the myostatin gene in cattle and sheep can lead to a double-muscling phenotype, resulting in superior meat production and this has been demonstrated by generating double-muscled mice who had their myostatin gene knocked out.
CRISPR can also be used to modify specific single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that impact economically important traits in livestock, such as reproductive performance. CRISPR can also be used to improve the nutritional content of milk produced by livestock. For example, knocking out the caprine beta-lactoglobulin gene in goats and introducing human lactoferrin (hlf) leads to reduced levels of beta-lactoglobulin in milk, and an increase in human lactoferrin.
CRISPR in livestock is being widely investigated for the creation of animals that are resistant to various diseases. For example, pigs that are resistant to Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) can be produced by knocking out the scavenger receptor cysteine-rich receptor (CD163) gene. This leads to reduced economic costs and improved profitability of pig production, as well as reduced bio-security risks.
Cattle can also be made resistant to Mycobacterium bovis infection through genome editing, which causes significant economic losses and also poses a threat to human health. In cattle again genome editing has been used to develop cattle that are resistant to Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), a neurodegenerative disorder commonly referred to as mad cow disease. Likewise, CRISPR can be used to produce cattle that are resistant to Pasteurellosis, a respiratory disease caused by the bacterium Pasteurella hameolytica.
CRISPR-edited livestock are also relevant in biomedicine. For example, pigs can be edited to knock out certain genes, such as alpha-1, and 3-galactosyltransferase (GGTA1), to make them suitable for organ transplantation. Similarly, CRISPR can be used to generate livestock models for various human diseases, such as cardiovascular ailments, muscular dystrophy, and others. By knocking out the MHC system in pigs, CRISPR can also make them universal donors for organ xeno-transplantation.
Animal welfare is another important application of CRISPR in livestock breeding. Traditional methods of removing cattle horns can be painful and are not conducive to animal welfare. CRISPR-based gene editing offers a viable alternative by producing horn-free Holstein cattle.
Another application of genome editing in livestock is to improve their health, resistance to diseases and welfare. This can be achieved through the introduction of resistance genes, such as those that protect against specific viruses or bacteria, or through the elimination of genetic mutations that cause diseases. Animal welfare for example can be realized by genetic modifications to reduce the horns of cattle, reduce the need for painful dehorning procedures and reduce the risk of injury to both cattle and handlers.
Genome editing can also have a positive impact on the environment. By improving the efficiency with which livestock convert feed into meat, the demand for feed can be reduced, reducing the pressure on land used for crops and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from livestock.
Shortcomings
Regulation and Public Acceptance: The regulation and public acceptance of genome editing in livestock is still a challenge, as there are concerns about the safety and ethics of genetic modifications. There is resistance from consumers and regulatory bodies, and the regulatory environment for genome editing is still evolving, with different countries having different approaches to the technology.
Technical Challenges: The technical challenges associated with genome editing are another limitation, as the technology is still developing and has limitations in terms of precision and efficiency. The risk of unintended off-target effects and the difficulty of controlling the expression of edited genes are also challenges that need to be addressed.
Cost: The cost of genome editing is another limitation, as the technology is still relatively new and the cost of editing genes is high. The cost of commercializing genome-edited animals and bringing them to market is also high, which limits the ability of small farmers and start-ups to participate in this field.
‘We Are Nearly Successful In Creating Gene-edited, Cloned Embryos of High Yeilding Pashmina Goats’
Ethical Considerations: The ethical considerations associated with genome editing in livestock are also a challenge. There are concerns about the potential impact of edited genes on the environment and other species, as well as the potential for the creation of genetically modified organisms that could pose a threat to biodiversity.
While regulatory agencies may consider banning the production of such animals, this may be challenging to enforce due to the widespread availability of the technology. Instead of banning, it would be more effective to establish a registry of genome-edited livestock and monitor their reproduction and consumption through oversight mechanisms. This will help to identify any potential off-target mutations that may occur with the use of genome editing technology. Additionally, investment in public education to increase awareness of the risks and benefits of genome-edited livestock is crucial to ensure the responsible use of this technology.
In conclusion, genome editing in livestock has the potential to bring about significant improvements in productivity, health, and welfare, but there are still challenges that need to be addressed. The regulation and public acceptance of the technology, the technical difficulties associated with editing genes, the cost, and the ethical considerations are all those factors that need to be considered as the field of genome editing continues to develop.
(Prominent Kashmir scientist, Prof Riyaz A Shah is the Chief Scientist at Animal Cloning and Transgenic Laboratory, Division of Animal Biotechnology, Faculty of Veterinary Sciences SKUAST-Kashmir. To his credit is the first live cloned buffalo, the first ever animal cloned ever, in India.)
The powerful earthquakes that struck central Turkey and northwest Syria just over a week ago are the “worst natural disaster in the WHO European Region for a century,” said Hans Kluge, the World Health Organization’s regional director for Europe.
“We are still learning about its magnitude. Its true cost is not known yet,” Kluge said during a press briefing today.
The WHO’s European Region includes 53 European and Central Asian countries, including Turkey.
More than 31,000 people are confirmed dead in Turkey, and nearly 5,000 lost their lives across the border in Syria, he said, adding that the figures are expected to rise further. He added that 26 million people across both countries are in need of humanitarian assistance.
The WHO launched a $43 million appeal to support the earthquake response, with likely more to come.
“I expect this to at least double over the coming days as we get a better assessment of the massive scale of this crisis and the needs,” Kluge said.
With water and sanitation facilities being hit, concerns are mounting over health issues, including thespread of infectious diseases. Health care facilities have also been gravely damaged.
“According to the Turkish authorities, an estimated 80,000 people are in hospital, placing a huge strain on the health system, itself badly damaged by the disaster,” Kluge said.
“We have initiated the largest deployment of Emergency Medical Teams in the WHO European Region in our 75-year history,”he added. Their goal is to support the damaged medical facilities, focusing on the high number of trauma patients and those with catastrophic injuries.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Ankara: The devastating earthquakes that shook southern Turkey and northern Syria was the “worst event” to hit the region in a century, a senior official from the United Nations said.
“What happened here on Monday, the epicentre of the earthquake, was the worst event in 100 years in this region,” Martin Griffiths, UN Under-Secretary-General for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, told reporters in the Turkish province of Kahramanmaras on Saturday.
More than 100 countries have sent emergency response teams to Turkey, but “we’re going to need more than that,” Griffiths said.
The UN would launch the appeal to raise money for agencies to come and help the people who’ve been affected, he added.
“We have a clear plan tomorrow (or) the day after to give an appeal for a three-month operation to help the people of Turkey with humanitarian assistance, and we will do some similar one for the people of Syria,” he said.
As they are coming to the end of the rescue phase, the UN official expressed concern for the second phase of the disaster, Xinhua news agency reported.
“The second phase of a natural disaster of this size is often a medical one, where we have huge worries here and in Syria, of the health problems which have been going on treated,” he noted.
Turkey’s response to the disaster was “extraordinary,” Griffiths added.
The death toll from Monday’s devastating earthquakes climbed to 22,327 in Turkey, while another 80,278 injuries were reported in the country, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced on Saturday evening.
Search and rescue efforts in ten quake-hit 10 provinces of Turkey have now begun to turn to debris removal on the sixth day of the disaster. Rescue teams from across Turkey and around the world were still trying to find survivors in the rubble of toppled buildings and pulled them out against all odds. However, while the number of casualties is soaring, the number of injured pulled out of the rubble was so few on Saturday.
In a statement, the Turkish Medical Association warned about infectious diseases that may occur after the earthquake. Damage to infrastructure such as electricity, water and sewerage increases the risk of water and food-borne diseases, the statement said.
Risks increase for acute respiratory infections such as influenza and coronavirus, along with the possibility of contact-transmitted diseases such as scabies, lice, fungi and diarrhoeal diseases, it added.
At least 160,000 people, including foreign teams, were on the field for search and rescue efforts, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday. All the state dormitories of universities will be reserved for earthquake victims, and university students will have distance learning until the summer, he noted.
Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu slammed Germany and Austria because their teams have suspended their efforts due to security threats, and criticized them for “slandering” Turkey.
“Austria’s search and rescue team left the job with the claim of battering … From the first day (of the quake), 416 incidents took place. In the six days before the earthquake, 586 events occurred,” in the region, the Turkish Minister said.
“As many as 230 people have been detained so far, there are more than 20 arrests. Our friends take the security of the logistics warehouses, the security of the debris fields, the security of the tent sites,” he added.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
On Sunday, the ‘run machine’ Virat Kohli smashed another century against Sri Lanka, registering his 46th ODI hundred in the third match of the series. In the process, Kohli went on to break two of Sachin Tendulkar’s ‘all-time records’. Kohli now sits ahead of Tendulkar in the list of most ODI centuries at home, and also holds the record of scoring the highest number of tons against a single team in the 50-over format of international cricket. However, Kohli is still short of 3 ODI centuries to match Sachin’s record of 49 ODI centuries.
Reportedly, Sachin is likely to cancel his retirement and make a comeback in ODIs to ensure his record is intact. After tweeting “Stop the Count”, when a fan asked Sachin if his record of most ODIs will be broken, Sachin replied “Definitely Not”.
Social media users and cricket experts are speculating that Sachin will make a comeback in ODIs to make the record of most ODIs tougher to break.
Sachins fans, also wrote to Virat Kohli requesting him not to score more ODIs centuries as a mark of respect to the cricketing God Sachin Tendulkar. Details awaited.
[ Disclaimer: With inputs from The Fauxy, an entertainment portal. The content is purely for entertainment purpose and readers are advised not to confuse the articles as genuine and true, these Articles are Fictitious meant only for entertainment purposes. ]
With T20 cricket being one of the choices, the Los Angeles Olympics might see the return of cricket to the Olympic Games. After a 128-year hiatus, the International Cricket Council has proposed the move to “globalise” cricket. Men’s and women’s teams are both expected to compete in a six-team event.
According to the Telegraph, along with the 28 sports in the initial sports programme for Los Angeles 2028, cricket is one of nine other sports that have been shortlisted for inclusion. A final decision will be made in September of the following year, and the ICC will stop at nothing to reinstate cricket at the biggest sporting event.
In an effort to limit the number of athletes competing, the ICC has suggested a six-team event with squads of 14 per team. According to the research, it would be more economical to schedule the men’s and women’s competitions one after the other. The top two in each group might advance to the semifinals in a format with two groups. The bronze medal could be decided by a third-place playoff.
England has said they favour Olympic inclusion even though the Olympics take place during the English summer (the LA Games are set for July 14–30). Due to the men’s and women’s events likely lasting a week each, the interruption to the English domestic summer would be limited.
England would participate as a Great Britain team, which means that players from Scotland, like Mark Watt, and conceivably even Northern Ireland cricketers, might be added to the England team. Cricket Scotland, Cricket Ireland, the England & Wales Cricket Board, and other organisations have all stated their support for an Olympic bid.
Instead of underage teams or a version of the format used in football at the Olympics, the teams would be genuinely full-strength national representative teams, with three overage players per team allowed.
The top six positions in the men’s rankings are presently held by Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, England, Pakistan, South Africa, and India. In the women’s rankings, Australia, England, New Zealand, India, South Africa, and the West Indies take up the top six positions.
India is ranked well in both sets of T20 rankings, which increases the likelihood that they will earn a spot in both competitions. Due to the Olympics’ waning appeal in South Asia and the fact that adding sports to the LA 28 schedule depends heavily on their worldwide appeal, this is thought to be crucial for cricket’s prospects of being added.
The Caribbean islands would compete as distinct countries rather than as the West Indies. West Indies obtained one spot at the Commonwealth Games through the qualification process.
Then, a competition amongst the countries was held to choose the representative, which Barbados won. The similar system may be utilised for the Olympic Games if West Indies occupied one of the top six positions in the rankings, however such specifics are still to be worked out.
The Olympics have always insisted that competitions feature the best athletes in each discipline participating in a format that is acknowledged around the world. In actuality, this has meant that T20 is the only format that gives cricket a genuine possibility of being included in the Olympics, even if others have suggested T10, the Hundred, or even six-a-side.
However, there are still a lot of barriers standing in the way of cricket in Los Angeles. Only two new sports will be allowed at the games, according to Los Angeles. Additionally, if the modern pentathlon and boxing attract more athletes, the number of additional sports may be reduced to one or even none.
All nine candidate sports have been meeting with the local organising committee. At the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham this year, a group witnessed the women’s cricket competition. Many cricket fans hoped that cricket’s appearance at the Commonwealth Games, which it did for the second time ever and for the first time since 1998, would serve as a sign of the sport’s suitability for multi-sport events and help it make a comeback to the Olympic Games.
Exclusive: Six-team T20 competitions could bring cricket back to the Olympics at the Commonwealth Games.
The Commonwealth Games in Birmingham featured cricket for the first time since 1998. Getty Images/Alex Davidson
The following Men’s T20 World Cup already has the United States as a co-host. The ICC anticipates that the occasion will spur the development of the sport in the USA.
Three locations in Los Angeles have been suggested as potential venues for cricket matches during the 2028 Olympic Games, including the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, home of the Major League Baseball Oakland Athletics.
In 2016, rugby sevens returned to the Games. The funding is available to sports federations if their sport is a part of the Games, regardless of whether the federation in question qualifies for the event. It is currently estimated that it receives at least £25 million through national Olympic committees per four-year cycle worldwide. In reality, emerging nations—who would be extremely unlikely to qualify for the Games—are the nations most likely to gain from Olympic inclusion.
Cricket’s inclusion in those Games is reportedly supported by the Brisbane organising committee, which has already been selected to host the 2032 Olympic Games.
Only the 1900 Paris Olympics featured cricket, and that year a Great Britain team made up of members of the Devon & Somerset Wanderers Cricket Club won the gold medal game against a French team made up of members of the French Athletic Club Union. Since then, Great Britain has held the title of defending Olympic cricket champions.
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