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New Delhi: India’s only Olympic Gold medallist in track and field, Neeraj Chopra on Wednesday emphasized the need for making track and field more attractive and marketable for county's fans.

The news of passing away of Prithvi Raj Singh Oberoi (Popularly known as Biki) has shocked all those who came in touch with him. He was 94. He had stepped down as executive chairman of the group that runs 32 hotels, with a presence in seven countries, after an astonishing career that had successfully refined the very meaning of hospitality in India. The word ‘Prithvi’ in his name is significant—Oberoi was known as the ultimate hotelier across the world, respected by peers and admired by those in the trade who wanted to be more like diminutive legend, impeccably dressed at all times in well cut Savile Row style suits, perfectly set off with elegant and pocket squares. Dashing and dynamic, alert and forward-thinking, he was a true bon vivant who recognised the best life had to offer — and was always striving to make that available to his guests at any of the Oberoi Hotels across continents.

In these days of political significance, ‘appeasement’ is the word, the favourite of the rightwing to beat the leftwing with –- who in turn, while disapproving of appeasement, openly embraced Muslim minority appeasement for electoral dividends. Other minorities like the Christian, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh and Parsi are considered too politically insignificant for appeasement though they get their share wherever they are in a position to make a difference to the seats count.

Not a thick line separates praise from sycophancy and obsequiousness in Indian politics. Remember the then Congress chief Dev Kanta Baruah's "famous" one-liner "Indira is India."

As the exit polls of the four states, where the elections to the assemblies were held this month, send a distressing signal that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's personality cult, that was painstakingly built over the last nine and half years by the RSS and its frontal organs, has failed to carry along the voters, the Sanghis being forced to rethink its old strategies and come up with an alternate approach.

The accident at the Silkyara tunnel where 41 workers got trapped, has exposed not only vulnerability of such happenings but also poor state of emergency preparedness to deal with such accidents. It is generally the poor workers who are affected in such situations. Only in case of large scale hue and cry or when the stakes are very high on some other accounts, such accidents go either unreported or eventually leave the families of workers to keep on running from pillar to post for treatment if the person concerned survives or for compensation if the worker dies.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala has forcefully rejected the false claims being made by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on the Centre’s financial assistance to the State Government.

It would be presumptuous to say that the elections to the five-state assemblies are a semi-final clatter for Prime Minister Narendra Modi; but one thing is certain that the peoples’ verdict for these elections will outline the political future of Rahul Gandhi.

Telangana votes on November 30. Two days later votes cast will be counted and by afternoon of the same day, which party will be ruling Telangana would be known. If it is the Bharatiya Janata Party, the party has promised an Other Backward Caste Chief Minister. The party will also end “Muslim Reservation”. This requiem to Muslim quota was an election promise of the BJP. It certainly led to communal polarization.

In 2015, the late Union external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj placed two telephone calls to the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia on March 27 and 29 seeking a safe passage for Indians stuck in war-torn Yemen. Following the Arab Spring in 2011, Yemen was grappling with instability. Armed raids led by Houthi rebels, reportedly backed by Iran, were trying to gain control over the country and dislodge the government backed by a Saudi Arabia-led coalition of countries.