KT Irfan first Indian athlete to qualify for Tokyo 2020

New Delhi, May 30: The Congress on Friday described the first year of the Modi government as a "year of disappointment, disastrous management and diabolical pain".

Congress leader K C Venugopal said the six years of the Modi dispensation have seen fraying of bonds of empathy, fraternity and brotherhood with increase in acts of communal and sectarian violence.

Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said that at the end of six years, it appears the Modi government is at war with its people and is inflicting wounds on them, instead of healing them.

"It is inflicting wounds on Mother India," he said.

"This government is trying to fill coffers of the select rich and is inflicting pain on the poor," Surjewala said.

On the BJP's charge of the Congress playing politics over the COVID-19 crisis, Venugopal said the opposition party did not indulge in any politics and gave suggestions instead.

"Being a responsible opposition, it is our duty to raise the problems faced by the common people. As opposition, we highlighted the failures of the government," he said.

Venugopal said the government "is totally insensitive" to the plight of migrant labourers and farmers.

Surjewala also demanded that a virtual session of Parliament be convened immediately to discuss pressing issues and the due process be set in motion for holding of meetings of various parliamentary committees.

Modi and his cabinet had taken oath on this day last year for a second term in office.

New Delhi, Jul 25: Former India spinner Anil Kumble said that he has never understood why people compared him with Australia's Shane Warne.

Kumble was doing an Instagram live session with former Zimbabwe pacer Pommie Mbangwa and it was then that the spinner also talked about being the third-highest wicket-taker in Test cricket.

"It feels really wonderful to finish with these many wickets. I never bothered about statistics or what my average should be, I wanted to bowl the whole day and be the one to take wickets. To finish as the third-highest wicket-taker in Tests alongside Murali and Warne is very special. All three of us played in the same era, there were a lot of comparisons, I do not know why people compared me with Warne. Warne was someone really different and he was on a different plane," Kumble told Mbangwa during the interaction.
"These two guys could spin the ball on any surface so it became really difficult for me when they started comparing me with Warne and Murali. I learnt a lot by watching them both bowl," he added.

The Indian spinner announced his retirement from international cricket in 2008. He finished with 619 wickets in the longest format of the game.

He has the third-highest number of wickets in Tests, only behind Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan (800) and Australia's Shane Warne (708).

Kumble is the second bowler in the history of international cricket after England's Jim Laker to take all ten wickets in an innings of a Test match.

He had achieved the feat against Pakistan in 1999 at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in Delhi. Kumble had bowling figures of 10-74 from 26.3 overs in the second innings of the Test match.
Kumble will be coaching Kings XI Punjab in the Indian Premier League (IPL). 

Feb 28: The best economic tonic for the coronavirus shock is to contain its spread and worry about stimulus later, said Raghuram Rajan, former head of the Reserve Bank of India.

There’s little central banks can do, and while more government spending would help, the priority should be on convincing companies and households that the virus is under control, he said.

“People want to have a sense that there is a limit to the spread of this virus perhaps because of containment measures or because there is hope that some kind of viral solution can be found,” Rajan told Bloomberg Television’s Haidi Stroud Watts and Shery Ahn.

“At this point I would say the best thing that governments can do is to really fight the epidemic rather than worry about stimulus measures that comes later,” said Rajan, who is currently a professor at the Chicago Booth School of Business.

The spread of coronavirus is pushing the world economy toward its worst performance since the financial crisis more than a decade ago.

Bank of America Corp. economists warned clients Thursday that they now expect 2.8% global growth this year, the weakest since 2009.

“We have moved from extreme confidence in markets to extreme panic, all in the space of one week,” said Rajan, who previously was chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.

The virus outbreak will force companies to rethink supply chains and overseas production facilities, he said.

“I think we will see a lot of rethinking on this, coming on the back of the trade disruption, now we have this,” Rajan said. “Globalization in production is going to be hit quite badly.”