8th April

A win to cheer

The article praises the Team India’s success abroad in the recent Test Series against New Zealand. While it was, undoubtedly, a historic win, had Dhoni not been so defensive in his tactics, it could have been a 2-0 win instead of 1-0. 

The most important part of the success was that it was a team effort in all. However, the major stars of the tour were Gautam Gambhir and Zaheer Khan. While Gambhir proved his caliber to bat in any conditions as he slammed two centuries, one while defending the team and the other while launching the attack on the opposition, Zaheer crushed the opposition bowling by his impeccable swing and seam bowling. However, both the players had their partners to support their success. While Gambhir-Sehwag pair has become indisputably most destructive pair in the world, Zaheer-Ishant complements each others bowling attack. Sachin and VVS Laxman also played to their reputation while Dravid broke the world record of most catches by Mark Waugh. Harbhajan Singh also followed the lines of E A S Prasanna of 1958 to bag highest wickets in the tour. 

Finally, had the hostile weather and over-defensive tactics of Dhoni not played the spoil sport, India would have wrapped up the series by 2-0. Dhoni’s men are on a winning mode and winners take risks to maximize their winning chances just like Australia.

Bombs Again

The article contemplates on the worsening situation in Assam as the terrorist organizations regularly bomb the state and get away with it. Better cooperation between Bangladesh and India is the only solution to the problem.

While high security alert in the state ahead of PM’s visit did not prevent serial bomb blasts in Guwahati and other parts of the state, it signals rising confidence of militant groups. While groups like ULFA and HuJI (Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami) have linkages with Bangladesh were even LeT has set up their cells, the world focus is on Pakistan only. The troublemakers are there in Bangladesh as well whose major objective is to destabilize the government as reported by Mainul Islam, head of reconstituted BDR after its director general and senior officials fell victim to the mutiny. While New Delhi can do very little to help any group in Bangladesh since any help to any group there would mean a kiss of death for that group. However, this leads to the core of the problem where lack of trust and skepticism on intentions leads to non-cooperation which in turn is beneficial to the insurgent outfits. Bangladesh’s refusal to allow transit rights leads to poor connectivity between North-Eastern states and rest of India. However, there is still a ray of hope for Bangladesh as it not as worse off as Pakistan. Bangladesh army is not so keen to support Islamists as in Pakistan and even the mutiny was quelled easily. Hasina government is considering setting up of consulates in Shillong and Guwahati to boost trade with the country. 

Thus, only the cooperation is the solution to allaying the troubles and ending the nightmare of Assam.