World Cup 2014: Film on Assam girls who are 'bending it like Beckham'

June 21, 2014

Guwahati, Jun 21: At a time when the country is in the grip of World Cup fever, a film brings out the inspiring tale of 40-odd girls from poor, agrarian families who are 'bending it like Beckham' in the hope that football will kick them out of drudgery.

"Soccer Queens of Rani" is about the passion of these girls from Rani area near here along Assam's border with Meghalaya. And they have to thank Hem Das, a veteran coach from here, who spends his own money to teach football to girls like them.

Das had initially gone to the area in search of young boys interested in playing football, but found that more girls were in fact flocking to him to learn the sport.

Bending like BeckhamWhile narrating the stories of the girls, the film also captures the socio-economic life of the area they come from, thereby trying to show how fruits of modern development have not been equitably reached all the people.

The film's subject is also important in the context of North-East India, where football is a passion and states like Manipur and Mizoram and clubs like Shillong Lajong FC have excelled on the national scene.

The documentary by critic-cum-filmmaker Utpal Borpujari is made for Rajya Sabha Television. The 26-minute film was commissioned by RSTV channel as part of a series on developmental and inspirational stories of modern India.

The girls come from poor, agrarian families from villages in the Rani area, which despite not being very far from Guwahati still lacks basic amenities like electricity.

The mother and a brother of one of the girls work in stone quarries to make ends meet. Another girl's father digs sand from the river to earn his family's household expenses. One od the girl's mother pulls a hand cart and sells snacks in the weekly local market.

"For these girls, football provides an outlet to go beyond their mundane lives, and as the film reveals, quite a few of them also see it as an opportunity to get a better life in the future.

They walk or cycle several kilometres every day to practice football, which speaks volumes about their dedication. And they practice football in time they find after attending school and doing household chores," says Borpujari.

The film is also about the dedication of Das, an ex-Assam player who runs the Young Star Football Coaching Club.

"Das spends a major portion of his earnings in going about 20 days a month to Rani to teach football to these girls, and even buying kits for them," says Borpujari.

A number of these girls have made it to the state squads for Under-14 and Under-17 national school tournaments.

The film, apart from focusing on the story of aspirations of a bunch of young, underprivileged girls, also focuses on how individuals can play a role in giving shape to the nation's future, even if in small ways.

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Agencies
January 10,2020

Indian enterprises were flooded with a whopping 14.6 crore malware threats in 2019 - a growth of 48 per cent (year-on-year) compared to 2018, a new report said on Friday.

Manufacturing, BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance), education, healthcare, IT/ITES, and the government were the most at-risk industries in the country, said the report from Seqrite, the enterprise arm of Pune-based IT security firm Quick Heal Technologies.

Interestingly, almost a quarter (23 per cent) of the threats were identified through 'Signatureless behaviour-based' detection by Seqrite, indicating how a growing number of cybercriminals were deploying new or previously unknown threat vectors to compromise enterprise security.

"With the latest Seqrite annual threat report, we want to empower CIOs, CISOs, business leaders and all key public stakeholders with the insights they need to combat the growing complexity of the threat landscape," said Sanjay Katkar, Joint Managing Director and CTO, Quick Heal Technologies.

The most prominent trend was the drastic increase in the volume, intensity, and sophistication of cyber-attack campaigns targeting Indian enterprises in 2019.

The rapid integration of IoT devices, BYOD (bring your own device), and third-party APIs into enterprise networks has created newer security vulnerabilities that might go unnoticed until a major breach occurs.

Threat researchers at Seqrite observed several large-scale advanced persistent threats (APT) attacks deployed against organisations in the government sector.

"The entry of nation-states and organised cybercrime cells into the fray is expected to add more complication to this situation and will require Indian government bodies and corporate enterprises to shore up their cyber defence strategies in 2020 and beyond," the report noted.

More alarming, however, was the continued lack of security awareness amongst enterprises and government organisations.

"Unsecured Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and Server Message Block (SMB) protocols continued to be targeted through brute-force attacks," said the report.

Spear phishing attack campaigns leveraging Office exploits and infected macros were also used extensively by cybercriminals to gain access to enterprise networks and steal critical data.

"India's digital journey depends on ensuring robust cybersecurity for all stakeholders within the enterprise ecosystem," said Katkar.

The sharp spike should be a cause of concern for CIOs and CISOs in the country, especially given the growing digital penetration within their enterprise networks.

"With network vulnerabilities and potential entry points increasing at a rapid pace, threat actors are expected to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to power their malware campaigns in the future to capitalise on newer attack vectors," the report added.

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Agencies
May 15,2020

Kolkata, May 15: Veteran Bengali author Debesh Roy, who was conferred the Sahitya Akademi award for his novel 'Teesta Parer Brittanto', died at a private hospital in Kolkata on Thursday, his family members said.

Roy was 84 and he is survived by his son. His wife had died earlier.

He was admitted to the hospital near his residence at Baguihati, in the eastern fringes of the city, on Wednesday after having symptoms like sodium potasium imbalance, sugar problem and breathing problem, his family members said.

He suffered a massive cardiac arrest and died at 10.50 PM.

A regular contributor to a number of Bengali dailies, he was a staunch critic of the attacks on liberals by in the country in recent times and attended protest meetings despite his failing health.

He was born in Pabna in present-day Bangladesh on December 17, 1936. He had five decades of career as a writer.

Besides Teesta Parer Britanta', he will be remembered for books like Borisaler Jogen Mondal , Manush Khun Kore Keno and Samay Asamayer Brittanto . His first book was Jajati.

His last rites will be performed tomorrow.

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Agencies
February 26,2020

New Delhi, Feb 26: With the government pushing for the disinvestment of Air India, industrial conglomerate Adani Group may emerge as one of the bidders for the debt-laden national carrier, sources said.

According to highly placed sources, the Group has held internal rounds of deliberations on whether or not to submit an Expression of Interest (EoI) and the discussions are still in the preliminary stage.

If the company actually submits an EoI, it would be a major move towards further diversification of the company which has business interests across sectors right from edible oil, food to mining and minerals. 

It also entered into airport operations and maintenance business and won bids for privatisation of six airports, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Jaipur, Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram and Mangaluru in 2019. 

On being contacted by IANS, the company did not comment on the matter.

Air India is one of the most important divestment proposals for the current fiscal to reach the huge Rs 2.1 lakh crore target.

The government in January restarted the divestment process of the airline and invited bids for selling 100 per cent of its equity in the state-owned airline, including Air India's 100 per cent shareholding in AI Express Ltd. and 50 per cent in Air India SATS Airport Services Private Ltd.

After its unsuccessful bid to sell Air India in 2018, the government this time has decided to offload its entire stake. In 2018, it had offered to sell its 76 per cent stake in the airline.

Of the total debt of Rs 60,074 crore as of March 31, 2019, the buyer would be required to absorb Rs 23,286 crore.

Air India, along with its subsidiary Air India Express, has a total operational fleet of 146 aeroplanes.

Further, the disinvestment department has extended the last date for submission of written queries on the Performance Information Memorandum and Share Purchase Agreement to March 6.

The last date for submission of written queries on PIM and SPA was originally set for February 11, following which the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) on February 21 issued 20 clarifications on the queries raised and expected.

Any delay in the tentatively rolled out timeline would also delay DIPAM's plan to identify the pre-qualified bidders by March 31 and the financial bids invitation as well. It is expected to take more than two months after the selection of the pre-qualified bidders to complete Air India's sale.

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