Dada becomes BCCI President ~ know the game 'Curling' !

Cricket fans are elated – a ‘3-0’ whitewash – we never expected South Africa to fold so easily.  Lungi Ngidi's bizarre dismissal on the fourth morning in Ranchi - caught off a ball which hit the non-striker - mercifully brought a quick end to what has been an utterly shambolic series for South Africa.  Nadeem is on a hat-trick and not sure how long he will have to wait to bowl that golden ball !   .. another bright thing that has happened is Sourav Ganguly as BCCI President.  Wearing his captain's blazer - he is the first India captain to head the board in 65 years -   though  his term is only for 10 months, he spoke of the issues piled up in his inbox. "Things need to be brought back in place, reforms need to be done, huge amounts of money need to be paid to state associations." ~ and away from Cricket there are other sports too – have never heard of this game ‘Curling’

Sourav Ganguly elected as BCCI President with Ex EC Sri Gopalaswami Iyengar

Saskatchewan is a province in western Canada, the only province without a natural border !  It has an area of 651,900 square kilometres, nearly 10 percent of which is fresh water, composed mostly of rivers, reservoirs, and the province's 100,000 lakes.  What a heaven it sounds to the water-starved places like Chennai. Saskatchewan's population primarily live in the southern prairie half of the province, while the northern boreal half is mostly forested and sparsely populated.  As the place is landlocked with large distances to moderating bodies of waters,  its climate is extremely continental, rendering severe winters throughout the province.   Europeans first explored the area in 1690 and first settled in the area in 1774. It became a province in 1905, carved out from the vast North-West Territories, which had until then included most of the Canadian Prairies. In the early 20th century the province became known as a stronghold for Canadian social democracy; North America's first social-democratic government was elected in 1944. The province's economy is based on agriculture, mining, and energy.

Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice towards a target area which is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take turns sliding heavy, polished granite stones, also called rocks, across the ice curling sheet towards the house, a circular target marked on the ice. Each team has eight stones, with each player throwing two. The purpose is to accumulate the highest score for a game; points are scored for the stones resting closest to the centre of the house at the conclusion of each end, which is completed when both teams have thrown all of their stones. A game usually consists of eight or ten ends. The player can induce a curved path, described as curl, by causing the stone to slowly turn as it slides. The path of the rock may be further influenced by two sweepers with brooms, who accompany it as it slides down the sheet and sweep the ice in front of the stone.  The game has the  nickname of "chess on ice".

Curling was included in the program of the inaugural Winter Olympic Games in 1924 in Chamonix although the results of that competition were not considered official by the International Olympic Committee until 2006. Curling was a demonstration sport at the 1932 Games, and then again after a lengthy absence in 1988 and 1992. The sport was finally added to the official program for the 1998 Nagano Games. Since the 1998 Olympics, Canada has generally dominated the sport with their men's teams winning gold in 2006, 2010, and 2014, and silver in 1998 and 2002. The women's team won gold in 1998 and 2014, a silver in 2010, and a bronze in 2002 and 2006.

The curling competition at the 2018 Winter Olympics was held at the Gangneung Curling Centre. The news is -  Aly Jenkins, a well-known Saskatchewan curler, died Sunday from complications that arose during the birth of her third child, Sydney. She was 30. Family and teammates were told Jenkins died from amniotic fluid embolism, a rare, often fatal occurrence. Reports further stated that Sydney is currently in critical condition and has been placed in a neonatal intensive care unit according to a GoFundMe set up to support the family. As of late Tuesday afternoon, more than $84,000 has been raised.

As a curler, Jenkins competed at women's provincials two years in a row. She played lead for Team Sherry Anderson, which was one shot away from qualifying for the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in the 2018-19 season. "She was] a competitor who absolutely loved to compete and had a clear passion for our sport, just a happy person to be around, a fun person to play against," Curlsack ED, Howard said.  "She's someone who wanted to win, but she would beat you with a smile on her face," said her teammates.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

23^rd Oct 2019.

cattle meance ~ rampaging cow and the new vigilante

Cattle menace ~ problems posed by raging cattle has risen to demonic proportions – sometimes, stray cattle run after people carrying bags, some have fallen in fear, some have been directly hurt too .. .. yet, cattle freely roam on the streets untethered.  Miles away, in Germany, a rampaging cow prompted Police to deploy a helicopter with thermal imaging abilities after the animal ripped through a Bavarian town. The cow attacked its owner, smashed a greenhouse and damaged a patrol car.

Reports suggest that a  runaway cow triggered an hour long police chase in the Bavarian town of Sand am Main, with authorities deploying several police cars and a helicopter equipped with a thermal camera. Local volunteer firefighters were also asked to assist in boxing the animal in. The 600-kilogram (1,324-pound) bovine was tracked down four hours after its owner noticed it had fled his nearby farm on Saturday evening.  "It may sound funny initially, but it was a very dangerous deployment," police commander Andreas Winkler was quoted as saying by the local Licha-Media.de news outlet.  Initially, the owner said two cows had escaped from his enclosure, but he soon managed to catch one of them. With help from authorities, the other one was located near a supermarket but then took off again toward the center of the town. The animal trampled through a greenhouse and a camping ground, prompting police to warn residents to move out of the way. The spooked animal also destroyed a scooter and damaged a police car.

The farmer, who tried to help calm the animal down, was also attacked and knocked down by the cow, but sustained no serious injury.  Eventually, a police helicopter discovered the animal in a dead-end alleyway. Police and the volunteer fire department used their vehicles to cut off its retreat and a veterinarian used a blowpipe to shoot the animal with a tranquillizer dart. According to the dpa news agency, the owner managed to transport it back to the farm early on Sunday.

In another interesting news, a geneticist at Pennsylvania State University explains that all of America's cows  have ended up so similar to each other.  Doing computer analysis of the company select Sires, that   sells semen from bulls for the purpose of artificially inseminating dairy cows, the analyst  chooses the lineup of Holstein bulls. This is the breed that dominates the dairy business. They're the black-and-white animals that give a lot of milk.  Dairy farmers can go to this online catalogue  and pick a bull, and the company will ship doses of semen to impregnate their cows.  According to him there perhaps are   well over a quarter-million daughters, to one famous bull.  The companies rank their bulls based on how much milk their daughters have produced. A  bull named Frazzled, has produced daughters capable of yielding 2,150 pounds more milk than daughters of the average bull.

That no ordinary bull story – but back home, there suddenly has splurged another cow vigilante .. .. Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Saturday attacked the Government over the alleged decline in the population of indigenous cattle, saying the government's love for cow is only on paper.

The former finance minister also hit out at the government over what he said was an "acute" job crisis. In a tweet posted by his family on his behalf, Chidambaram, who is currently in the custody of the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case, put out two economic indicators for people to draw their own conclusions. "Over 50 percent of those asked said that the employment situation is presently worse. Over 30 percent said it will worsen. Meaning, the job crisis is acute," he said, posting the first economic indicator.

"Population of indigenous cattle declined by 6 percent between 2012 and 2019. Meaning, the government's love for the cow is only on paper. It does not translate into increased productivity or fertility," he added. Chidambaram had on Wednesday said he would tweet two economic indicators every day for people to draw their own conclusions.

Perhaps immediate result of his concern for cow – today, former Union Minister P Chidambaram was granted bail by the Supreme Court in the INX Media corruption case, but he will not be released as he remains in the custody of the Enforcement Directorate. Mr Chidambaram, arrested by the CBI on August 21, had been in judicial custody in Delhi's Tihar jail until last week, when he was handed over to the Enforcement Directorate.  The 74-year-old Congress leader has been granted bail in the CBI case but will remain in the Enforcement Directorate's custody till October 24.

The three-judge bench made it clear that Chidambaram will not leave the country without prior permission of the court and make himself available for interrogation as and when called by the probe agency. Mr Chidambaram was in Tihar, Asia's largest prison facility, for more than a month. On October 15, the court allowed the probe agency to question Mr Chidambaram in its custody and allowed home-cooked food, a separate cell, a western toilet, spectacles and medicines for the veteran leader.  The probe agency opposed his request for air-conditioning. He is allowed to meet family members and relatives for half-an-hour every day.

The INX Media case involves allegations that Mr Chidambaram, as Finance Minister of the country, facilitated foreign funding for the company INX Media - co-founded by Peter and Indrani Mukherjea -- in 2007 and his son Karti received kickbacks for it. Mr Chidambaram, Karti Chidambaram and 13 others including senior bureaucrats and private companies have been accused in a CBI chargesheet of causing losses to the government.  Peter Mukherjea is also an accused but Indrani Mukerjea, who has turned approver against Mr Chidambaram, does not face charges. Both Peter and Indrani Mukerjea are currently in jail in connection with the murder of Indrani's daughter Sheena Bora.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

22^nd Oct 2o19.

faster than Usain Bolt ~ Saharan silver Ants !!

The Sahara desert is located on the African continent covering an area of 9,200,000 square kilometres (3,600,000 sq mi).  The desert comprises much of North Africa, excluding the fertile region on the Mediterranean Sea coast, the Atlas Mountains of the Maghreb, and the Nile Valley in Egypt and Sudan.  This desert is home for so many animals and insects .. ..

Some animals are really fast ..  .. can outmatch humans .. and at first thought, one would be inclined to think of Cheetahs, deers, greyhounds and the like.  There is one yardstick in defining speed – measurement of body length per second – that could throw open newer hitherto unthought of ones.  Cataglyphis bombycina that lives in  Sahara Desert is the unmatched leader.   They track the Sun to always be aware of the shortest route back to the nest. They're covered in unique hairs with a triangular cross-section that keep their bodies cool by reflecting the Sun's radiation, and offloading excess thermal radiation. .. ..  and they move extremely fast, so they can be in and out of the heat as quickly as possible. They spend just a few minutes outside the nest scavenging the carcasses of fallen desert creatures before zooming back in again.

In case you are wondering on what these creatures are – they are ‘Saharan Silver ants’ – to  find out not just exactly how fast, but how the ants get to such speeds, biologists from the University of Ulm in Germany decided to film them in high speed.  First, they had to locate a nest - no easy task, since the ants spend such little time outside. But then, when that was accomplished, the next part was much simpler. They attached an aluminium channel to the entrance, with a feeder at the end to lure them out of the nest. "After the ants have found the food - they love mealworms - they shuttle back and forth in the channel and we mounted our camera to film them from the top," said biologist Sarah Pfeffer. In addition, the team carefully excavated a nest and brought it back to Germany, to see how the ants moved in cooler temperatures.

The sand dunes of the northern Sahara are home to the fastest ants in the world, according to researchers who clocked the insects foraging for food in the blistering midday sun. Video footage revealed the ants galloping across the scorching sand at speeds approaching one metre per second, the equivalent of a house cat tearing about at 120mph. The faster the ants ran, the more they took to the air, in gallops that brought all six legs off the ground at once. At full pelt, the insects travelled 108 times their body length per second, the researchers found.

So with this speed gun – the clear winner is the Saharan silver ant (Cataglyphis bombycina), and the speed is 855 millimetres (33.66 inches) per second.  If it had taken a while to appreciate, that's 108 times the insect's body length per second. Even the cheetah can only manage 16 body lengths per second. Usain Bolt's top speed is 6.2; if he could travel at Saharan silver ant speeds, his top running speed would be around 800 kilometres per hour.  

These tiny ants are amazing. In the Sahara desert, where most creatures avoid going out in the middle of the day to avoid blistering temperatures over 50 degrees Celsius, the Saharan silver ant has evolved a number of adaptations to do just that. They have longer legs than other ants, to keep their bodies farther from the scorching sand. Their bodies produce heat shock proteins not in response to heat, but before even leaving the nest, for maximum heat resistance. To survive, the ants have silvery hairs that reflect the sun’s rays. But even with this coating and other adaptations, the ants can barely survive the 60C (140F) heat and need impressive speed and navigational skills to find food and return to the nest before falling victim to the heat themselves.

Also known as the European fire ant, the common red ant is also found in North America. It can be aggressive and will bite intruders if threatened. The study may also offer potential technical applications for humans, Pfeffer says, such as for walking robots or vehicles that have to deal with staying upright on loose and rapidly shifting sand.  In the Sahara, Pfeffer and her team first located several of the ants’ subterranean nests, then set up small, aluminum channels—with floors lightly covered with sand—on the front steps of the nests. The channels funneled the foraging ants into a more manageable space, so the researchers could film them with high-speed cameras from above as they raced by.  By analyzing the high-speed video, the scientists could calculate the ants’ blistering pace. When the team compared these numbers with speeds of a closely related, slightly larger desert ant, Cataglyphis fortis, the silver ants were twice as fast—despite having proportionally shorter limbs.

The ants also had remarkable coordination on the sand, seamlessly churning between the two sets of three legs that work in unison when running. At higher speeds, the ants would even gallop, leaving all of their feet simultaneously off the ground at certain points. The fast strides and limited contact with the sand may also prevent them from sliding or sinking into dunes as they look for food, the study says.

Interesting !

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

21^st Oct 2019.

Biblio : https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/10/silver-saharan-ants-fastest-desert/

https://www.sciencealert.com/world-s-fastest-ants-clock-855-millimetres-per-second  [pic credit]

fleeting race horses ~ some experiences !

Bookmakers are wary of a Winx-like betting move for the Chris Waller-trained Arcadia Queen and many are now convinced she will start a clear favourite for The Everest at Randwick on Saturday.  Not here but downunder in Australia.  Arcadia Queen, the winner of six of her seven starts, was $6 after the barrier draw on Tuesday night, where she came up with gate three, and has been supported into as low as $4.20 before settling around the $5 mark. Star sprinter Santa Ana Lane remained the $4.60 favourite with BetEasy on Thursday but was being pushed by Arcadia Queen at $4.80 with Pierata out to $6.

At Thiruvallikkeni Sri Parthasarathi swami temple – in the purappadu – there would be ‘Alwar’ – the majestic elephant, a white horse, a good looking bull – leading the temple procession.  The horse reportedly was retired from racing and donated to temple.

Horse racing, like all sport and entertainment, relies on social approval - what is often referred to as social licence - to thrive and prosper. The casual sports fan, the once-a-year punter, and the regular whose life merged with horses and their history  will turn up on the big race days.  At Guindy there would whiff in the air, crowds – so many, trying to hit a jackpot.  Remember seeing a Muthuraman film, where he would embezzle [take out Rs.10000/-] office cash on a Saturday thinking that he would play horse race, and put back money on Monday – but losing the money and losing life !  ~ had heard of an employee, receiving PF loan for daughter marriage, withdrawing cash, fly to Bangalore, book a star hotel, lose the total money – much to bewilderment of his family !!  ~ there have been many sob stories of punters.   This is no post on race-goer and the plight of their family !

The 7.30 report aired by the ABC on Thursday night has shone a light in some very dark places which those at the top of the industry would rather have stayed hidden from public gaze. The violence that was visited upon former racehorses condemned to a brutal death in slaughter houses was appalling and the work practices there were nothing short of barbaric. Sure, there would be animal activists whose wider agenda would almost certainly be to either ban or severely curtail the racing industry as a whole. But all animal lovers and horse racing fans would also be horrified by the vision. All would demand action. The program uncovered some inconvenient truths that the racing industry must confront. And racing must act for the sake of its own survival.

Subsequently there have been harsh responses.  Racing Victoria  would  audit former racehorses after ABC report into inhumane treatment.  "Wastage" is a word many don't like to hear when the fate of ex-racehorses is brought up, but it is the most accurate description.  The report states that a horse is bought to run, compete and win prize money. If it can't. then. for an owner it becomes a bottomless money pit of training fees, feed and care with no likelihood of a return. Those horses have to go somewhere. And owners and trainers cannot suddenly abrogate responsibility just because their horses can't run fast any more. Many are rehomed and found new vocations. Many end up as family pets, hacks, show jumpers, eventers and the odd one even trains as a police horse.

But, given the current quantity of racing in Australia and the relentless breeding of horses to fill the fields required to fuel betting on each contest, there are always likely to be too many to be rehomed. The reality is that a large number will end up in pet food or slaughtered and exported for animal or human consumption. That in itself is not illegal - as the program pointed out. It is part of the industrial process where all livestock - be it cows, sheep, chickens or pigs - are concerned.  But it is more jarring where racehorses, who have a name, an identity, a character and a public history, are concerned. The ABC report showed racing in a bad light as it is the source of these horses. It showed the slaughterhouse industry in an even worse light because of the cruel and vicious methods employed (at least in those slaughter yards filmed and televised).

But it is racing that will and must cop the criticism and racing that has to find a solution. That may be lessening the number of races run, minimising the number of horses that need to be produced and thus reducing the "wastage". It may now become the industry's responsibility to buy and create huge farms, properly staffed, so that far more horses than at present can be catered for once their days in the sun are over. Racing's image has been tarnished and its authorities have some serious questions on this issue to face up to if they want the sport's social licence to be retained. At the moment, the sport as we know it is in jeopardy. The ABC's 7.30 program aired claims on Thursday night that hundreds, possibly thousands, of healthy Australian racehorses are being sent to slaughterhouses.

Consequently, major sponsors and partners of Australia's largest racing carnivals have put pressure on racing bodies to take action on the "alarming and horrific" footage of abused and slaughtered horses aired on the ABC.  Over the two-year investigation, investigators recorded extensive footage of horses being abused and mistreated prior to slaughter, including profitable racehorses with thousands of dollars in winnings. The revelations come just days before The Everest and the Caulfield Cup, two of Australia's largest racing carnivals, which between them offer nearly $20 million in prize money and attract a raft of prominent sponsors and partners.

For those totally new to punting, horse racing is an equestrian sport generating billions of money.   In 1980s the name in the circuit was Shergar. It won the 1981 Epsom Derby Gold by 10 lengths  - the longest winning margin beating the much touted Glint of  Gold.  Shergar was rode by Walter Swinburn and won Chester vase.  At Irish Derby,  Lester Piggot rode to win with ease.  With six wins, he won £436,000 in prize money.    This acclaimed Irish race horse was the European horse of the year in 1981 and also had the fame of a spot in The  Observer’s 100 most memorable sporting moments of the 20th century.  It was a bay colt with a distinctive white blaze.  It was retired for breeding and on 8th Feb 1983 was stolen from the Stud in Ireland by masked gunmen.  The sad story became the theme for several books, documentaries and a film.   

Interesting !

With regards- S. Sampathkumar

18^th Oct 2019.