Ponting edges past Dravid - the day when 10000 barrier was breached

Many Pakistanis also may not remember Ijaz Faqih who played 5 Tests and 27 One dayers – but is part of history !!

The run to top started with Charles Bannerman who with 239 topped the list for a while; then naturally he was taken over by others which included Billy Murdoch, Joe Darling, Clem Hill, Jack Hobbs, Wally Hammond, Colin Cowdrey, and then Garfield Sobers with 8032 runs.  At that point of time, scoring 8000 runs in Test Cricket was considered Himalayan achievement.  Geoff Boycott broke that and in that Test went on to play Golf without caring to be with the team.

25 years ago, the little Master’s nudge took him past 10000 runs which was remarkable achievement those days; he ended up with 10122 and was overtaken by Allan Border, then Brian Lara – now Sachin is at the pinnacle of glory with 15470 runs – the closest a cool 2000 runs behind.

In the 3^rd Test at Roseau, the match is heading for a one-sided finish.  Matthew Wade  with his century tightened both his grip on the Test wicketkeeping spot and Australia's grasp.  The punter Ponting has overtaken Dravid to become the second top most aggregator in Tests  - there are 9 in the exclusive 10000+ zone.

Player	Mat	Inns	Runs	HS	Ave	100
SR Tendulkar	188	311	15470	248*	55.44	51
RT Ponting	165	281	13289	257	52.73	41
R Dravid	164	286	13288	270	52.31	36
JH Kallis	152	257	12379	224	56.78	42
BC Lara	131	232	11953	400*	52.88	34
AR Border	156	265	11174	205	50.56	27
SR Waugh	168	260	10927	200	51.06	32
DPMD Jayawardene	130	217	10440	374	51.17	31
SM Gavaskar	125	214	10122	236*	51.12	34

It was 25 years ago, on 7^th March 1987, Sunil Gavaskar nudged through the slips off Ijaz Faqih moving on to 58 runs at  Motera – Sardar Patel Stadium which sent the crowd erupting.  It was the first time ever a batsman had scored 10,000 runs in Test Cricket.   Indian Wicket Keeper Kiran More was the non-striker and he was reported as saying that Gavaskar celebrated it as he never did earlier – Sprinting, waving the bat and enjoying the moment.  Gavaskar raised his bat in triumph even as he was mid way completing the run. To the millions watching the TV, that was a feat which nobody else can ever acquire…. Records are meant to be broken, first by Alan Border and happily we have Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar perched on top.  

Gavaskar was a supreme accumulator of runs and would wait patiently when things were not easy – he scored 63 in that match.  He was certainly one Indian batsmen who redefined the art of run scoring and accumulating runs, putting a value tag to the wicket.  

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.

the zipper and the doodle

It is a contraption that has become part and parcel of our life, used in many ways, daily.  Strangely, they can increase or decrease the size of an opening to allow or restrict the passage of objects; join or separate two ends or sides ; attach or detach ; decorate an item.

It is the ‘Zip; the Zipper; Zip fastener” – which can achieve the above stated variations by sewing one end of the zipper together, sewing both ends together, or allowing both ends of the zipper to fall completely apart.  A zipper costs relatively little, but if it fails, the garment may be unusable until the zipper is repaired or replaced—which can be quite difficult and expensive.  A failure can cause great embarrassment depending on which part of the garment it is placed.  Zips are extensively used in clothing, luggage bags, sporting goods, camping gears and many other items. 

The man associated with it is  Gideon Sundback  who was born on this day (April 24th 1880)  He  was a Swedish-American electrical engineer.  After his studies in Sweden, Sundback moved to Germany, where he studied at the polytechnic school in Bingen am Rhein. He later moved to US.  Sundback made several advances in the development of the zipper between 1906 and 1914, while working for companies that later evolved into Talon, Inc. He built upon the previous work of other engineers such as Elias Howe, Max Wolff, and Whitcomb Judson. His invention had two facing rows of teeth that pulled into a single piece by the slider, and increased the opening for the teeth guided by the slider.

The mechanical wonder that keeps lives together has come a long way since it was conceived.  The magazine and fashion industry made the novel zipper the popular item it is today, but it happened nearly eighty years after the zipper's first appearance.  Elias Howe, who invented the sewing machine received a patent in 1851 for an 'Automatic, Continuous Clothing Closure.' Perhaps it was the success of the sewing machine, which caused Elias not to pursue marketing his clothing closure. As a result, Howe missed his chance to become the recognized 'Father of the Zip.'  Within the first year of operation, Sundback's zipper-making machinery was producing a few hundred feet of fastener per day.

The popular 'zipper' name came from the B. F. Goodrich Company, when they decided to use Gideon's fastener on a new type of rubber boots or galoshes and renamed the device the zipper, the name that lasted. Boots and tobacco pouches with a zippered closure were the two chief uses of the zipper during its early years. It took twenty more years to convince the fashion industry to seriously promote the novel closure on garments.

Today Google featured a very attractive doodle remembering - Gideon Sundback

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.

SC refuses to stay release of MV Nordlake

There have been spate of accidents at sea getting reported on Newspapers – Enrica Lexie and Prabhu Daya were widely reported.  On 21^st April 2012, a petition for Special Leave to Appeal filed  by the Union Govt came up for hearing and the Court observed that – ‘We do not see such an urgency in this matter to be taken up on a non-sitting day. Therefore, post the matter on Monday 23.04.2012)’

Then on Monday, The Supreme Court  refused to stay  Bombay high court order permitting a Cyprus merchant vessel MV Nordlake, to leave Indian shores after paying an amount equivalent to the ship's value.  The vessel would now be able to set sail from the Mumbai coast after a single judge bench of the high court accepts the final valuation report.  This in fact involves a high profile victim -  1058 crore valued INS Vindhyagiri.  Some digging of facts for understanding the victim first.

Commonly grouped as Frigates are several types of warships – of various sizes and hues.  In India, INS Nilgiri (F33) was the lead ship of her class of frigates. Commissioned on June 3, 1972 into the Indian Navy, she was decommissioned in 1996.  INS Nilgiri was the first major warship built in India keel up. It was built at Mazagon Docks Limited, Mumbai in collaboration with Yarrow Shipbuilders, Glasgow. The success of Nilgiri led to the Indian Navy along with Mazagon Docks redesigning the last two ships of the class - INS Vindhyagiri and INS Taragiri.  ‘Giri’ ships were all named after hill ranges of India.   Subsequent ships in the class are also named after the beautiful  hill ranges of India.

The victim of the collision - INS Vindhyagiri (F42) is a Nilgiri class frigate of the Indian Navy. Vindhyagiri was commissioned on 8 July 1981.  It is reported that on 30 January 2011, it collided with a Cyprus flag merchant ship MV Nordlake near Sunk Rock lighthouse at the entrance of Mumbai harbour at 3:30 pm. It is reported that several civilians including family members of the crew were on board at the time of the incident. No casualties were reported. A major fire broke out due to the collision which took more than 15 hours to control. It also caused a major crack in the hull of the ship.

On 31 January 2011, the ship sank due to the damage caused by the fire.  Due to flooding of its compartments, the ship touched the bottom. 

After the collision a  FIR was  lodged with Mumbai police and  the container vessel MV Nordlake was arrested and  held back in the Mumbai harbour.  A suit was filed in the Admiralty Court at Mumbai which was decreed on 7^th March 2012.   The Suit had been filed seeking damages to the tune of Rs.1058.54 crores together with interest at 18% per annum from the date of suit till payment.  The defendants MS Nordlake GMBH had filed Admiralty Suit Lodging under part XA of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1958 to limit their liability in respect of claims of whatsoever nature in the aggregate of Rs.20,01,86,113/- being the limit prescribed by Part XA of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1958.

The vessel owners sought release of the vessel stating that the claim for damages was yet to be proved; it would ultimatelybe the value o the vessel which would be the governing factor and the valuation as on the date of sale would be the crucial aspect.  They prayed that upon furnishing security either up to the limitation claimed or up to the value of the vessel and vessel should be released as her condition would deteriorate in value if continued to be under arrest. 

On the other hand, on behalf of Union Govt it was contended that there is a strong triable case; the ship being foreign ship would be difficult to he held if it leaves Indian territorial waters and may not return to the jurisdiction of Indian courts. The claim thereby, even if successful, would remain unexecutable or land in trouble in private international law in its enforcement.

Thus the  Chief Justice at Mumbai had set aside the order dated 26 November 2011 of the learned Admiralty Judge and restore Notice of Motion No.1525 of 2011 on the file of the learned Admiralty Judge for the purpose of deciding the same after getting independent valuation of the arrested vessel.

Now comes the news that the Supreme Court refused to stay the release of  the container vessel.  Refusing the Centre's plea, a Bench of justices H.L. Dattu and C.K. Prasad, however, said it was “keeping open” a question of law on the issue and no interim order can be passed by it at this stage.  “We wonder how vigilant you are that your naval ship has been hit by a merchant ship,” the Bench asked, in response to Additional Solicitor-General Indira Jaising's plea to stay the Bombay High Court's order to release the Cyprus ship.

Will update more on the subsequent posts.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.

24^th April 2012.

Aviva sacks 1300 staff by mistake

Once upon a time there were Stenographers – highly intelligent blokes who would take down dictations and type letters correctly.  Though they were capable of handling communication on their own, they would generally would do only as instructed.  In olden days, even a ‘rejection’ or ‘regret letter’ used to be drafted individually, personally addressed and sent.  At a personal level, people used to write a lot and send letters to near and dear.  Post  Offices were busy selling - Cards, Inland letters and postal covers.

World has changed – even e-mail is now considered obsolete. And in official communication, people try to use templates, auto-fill and look to other tools. Technology helps, assists those who use it, enslaves others who are dependent on it.

One of the fine tools is ‘Mail merge’ – a software function describing the production of multiple (and potentially large numbers of) documents from a single template form and a structured data source.  Mail Merge was originally the name of a utility supplied with MultiMate an early word processing product for the IBM PC, patterned after Wang word processors. This technique of merging data to create gave rise to the term mail merge.  Used generically, the term mail merge is a process to create personalized letters and pre-addressed envelopes or mailing labels for mass mailings from a word processing document which contains fixed text, which will be the same in each output document, and variables, which act as placeholders that are replaced by text from the data source.  The data source is typically a spreadsheet or a database which has a field or column for each variable in the template. When the mail merge is run, the word processing system creates an output document for each row in the database, using the fixed text exactly as it appears in the template, but substituting the data variables in the template with the values from the matching columns.

A common usage is for creating "personalised" letters, where a template is created, with a field for "first name", for example. The templated letter says "Dear ", and when executed, the mail merge creates a letter for each record in the database, so it appears the letter is more personal. Another common usage is for creating address labels from a Customer Relationship Management database, or for mass emails with pertinent information in them.

Daily Mail UK reports that blundering Aviva accidentally 'sacked' 1,300 staff after forwarding goodbye email to everyone.  It is reported that the Human Resources department at Aviva Investors in Britain accidentally sent out a goodbye email to 1,300 staff stating  'goodbye'  to everyone individually. The email was a standard message sent to people leaving the company, covering things such as handing back company equipment and confidentiality rules.   The message sent out was supposed to go to one worker who was leaving that day.  Instead it told all the staff: 'I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and wish you all the best for the future.'  Within minutes bosses realised what had happened and 25 minutes later the email was recalled.  A second email was sent to all staff apologising for the mistake.  Aviva Investors are the investment arm of Aviva insurers and have an office in London.  A spokesman said the message did not tell people that they were fired.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.