The Evening When Mary Kom Dons a 'Velvet Glove'

By Hijam Raju Singh

Five-time world boxing champion, MC Mary Kom singing an old hindi Bollywood song with husband Onler Kom playing guitar for her during a private felicitation organised by her fans in New Delhi.

New Delhi, Sep 28 : "Ajeeb daastaan hai yeh..." It was indeed a strange evening. The kind one doesn't expect while meeting a well-known multiple world boxing champ. And it was just a mere clue of what was in store, when I met the five-time world boxing champion MC Mary Kom.

Mary Kom showcased a softer and joyous side of herself, quite different from the one her opponents know and wary about, in front of a very vocal fans from her native place ( Manipur). She talks about her life as boxer, as mother and finally surprised everyone by singing for them at the end.

Magnificent Mary sang an old Hindi classic 'Ajeeb daastaan hai yeh..' and a Manipuri hit number 'Khangna Khangna Khanghaudeko...' with her husband on guitar to show her gratitude towards the privileged fans.

Mary has recently returned from the Caribbean after successfully defending her world title for the unprecedented fifth successive time.

Mother of two, Mary has now really become a 'Super Mom'. Inside the ring, she is still a tough nut who refused to bog down and has won medal in all the six women's world championships held so far. But as a mother, she wishes her children to pick up tennis racket rather than the boxing gloves and follow her glorious career.

"I can't see them suffer as I did. I would love them to pick up tennis rather than boxing," Mary said about her kids. "I know Leander (Paes) now; I can send them to him to learn the nuances of tennis. Though all depends on their interest, I hope at least one of them love the game," she added with a wry smile.

Mary started her boxing career quite late way back in 2000 but to everyone's surprise her talent came to full light in the very first year itself. She straight away became state and national champion in the year 2000 followed with an historic silver medal in the inaugural World Women's Boxing Championship. And rest is history.

"I used to watch boxing great Mohd Ali in TV and in 1998 Dingko Singh's Asian Games gold medal worked as catalyst for me as I replaced my running shoes with boxing gloves," Mary revealed the secret about her switch-over from athletics to boxing almost a decade back.
Combat sport needs an aggressive approach, so where did she gather her thrust during the bouts. "I am very temperamental and get angry very soon. But I also calm down quickly too. And during my bouts, I remain very calm and never went on attacking mode in the initial rounds," Mary said while disclosing her ring strategy.

"I study my opponents' approach and analyse it before unleashing my own accordingly," said the Lioness about her hunting tactics.

Winning gold is the most treasured moment of her career. "I love my first (gold medal) as much as my latest. Gold medal gives me immense satisfaction."

When forced to choose one, she said, "The one after becoming a mother was a special one."
Mary also revealed that she will hang up the gloves after fulfilling her ultimate dream. "I want to be an Olympian and that's something which still drives me forward," she said about her desire to represent India at London Games in 2012.

"I will definitely aim for gold there, but being an Olympian is a reward in itself," she added candidly.

Mary wants to earn a coaching diploma for herself after retiring from the sport so that she can pass on her talent to the coming generation.

She has already started an academy in Imphal (Manipur) and has around 30 residential kids plus some more day boarding students.

"We can't say I have achieved everything and stop. We have responsibility towards society and I am doing my bit through the academy," she said proudly.

"I recruit kids from poor background and give them free training plus food and shelter. I have hired an assistant coach and pay his salary too," she divulged her philanthropic side.
"I didn't get any help from the state and haven't asked for fund either. I want my students to start winning medals in championships before looking for funds. I don't want to look like someone who started the academy to earn money," she explained her decision to keep the academy as a low-key affair.

When reminded that she got married in quite an early age, she said, "I had made my career then, and has my future in control. And also if I hadn't got married at that right time, I would have to face the tough decision of choosing from many suitors now."

Mary has an advice or two for the youngsters too, about relationships before marriage. "Boyfriend-girlfriend is okay if you guys know that you will hook up for life. But just for the sake of it, when your parents send you for higher studies and better future in big cities then you must re-consider it," signed off five-time world boxing champ exhibiting how stronger she is deep inside.

Meet Anna Kournikova

The hottest star in the history of women's tennis graces the October cover of Maxim in a special 3-D issue that comes equipped with glasses. 
 
The Russian born beauty has been with Spanish singing sensation, Enrique Iglesias since 2001.

The 29-year-old finally became an American citizen in 2009.

Hence the flag.
 
On becoming an American Citizen:

You know, I've always considered myself half Russian and half American. It never seemed to really matter if I had a passport or not. But when I started working with the USO and the troops overseas, it just seemed the logical next step.

Meet Kacey Barnfield

The zombie apocalypse never looked so good, and Resident Evil: Afterlife star Kacey Barnfield is the reason why.

Pay close attention as this British bombshell—who’s known in foggy London town as the mean girl from a long-running teen show called Grange Hill—lets us in on some of her most memorable firsts.


FIRST HOT SHOOT
My Maxim shoot was lots of fun. I’ve been in front of a camera for most of my life, so I wasn’t nervous at all. My fans are used to seeing me as a teenager, though, so the pics might shock some of them.

FIRST SMOOCH

I had a major crush on a boy who lived down the road from me. I had my first kiss with him even though he was mean to me most of the time. Actually, he randomly came up on Facebook not so long ago, and thankfully my taste in boys has improved since I was a 10 year old.

FIRST IMPRESSION

I notice good manners and pretty eyes. A guy scores extra points if he can make me laugh, too.That’s very important.

Ayodhya: An Open Argument

The dispute over the Babri Masjid was a distillation of many historical anxieties. It is, therefore, a matter of relief that all major political parties have given a commitment to abide by the due process of law and avoid violence.

Governments are taking proactive measures to ensure that violence does not take place, making it possible to envisage legal justice being meted out, in an environment free of mob intimidation.

But what does this moment tell us about contemporary India? Is this a genuine turning point?

This question can be answered at different levels. Violence in India is often made possible either by direct state complicity or state indifference to preventing it. At the moment no state government wants to be held responsible for allowing violence. Violence in UP would, in all likelihood, upset the political calculations of both Mayawati and the Congress. Narendra Modi's pre-judgment appeals to avoid violence have been most emphatic. A recasting of his image can do him no harm in the context of on-going legal investigations in Gujarat and the political imperatives outside the state. Most of the leadership of the Sangh Parivar is old, weary and still trying to cope with its own lack of credibility. Advani cannot still make up his mind whether the movement was his great legacy or occasion for regret. All parties are reading, correctly, that the electorate does not at this juncture want polarising politics of any sort. So the political incentives are, ex ante, aligned to defuse violence.

But the question to ask is this. Is the absence of violence an indicator of genuine peace with the subject? Does the absence of political mobilisation indicate the absence of sentiment? Under what circumstances could this equipoise be derailed? A good deal depends on the quality of the final judgment itself, the care and credibility with which it is argued, and the artfulness with which it handles sensitivities. Shah Bano was the last judgment that occasioned significant political mobilisation. But in that case the trigger was not the substance of the ruling itself, but the casualness with which interpretive matters pertaining to the authority of the Koran were handled. Even a stray observation about the claims of faith and history has the potential of derailing a technical land dispute.

Ayodhya itself became an explosive issue in mass politics only under very special circumstances. For decades the issue had no political traction, till it was reinserted into a larger narrative. What happens to the issue in coming years will also depend largely on how broader developments sustain or subvert the elements of that larger narrative. What were those elements? How are they playing out?

There were three elements to the larger narrative that gave the movement momentum. The original movement was shaped in the context of great national anxiety: secessionism and a sense of abysmal national failure. To a certain extent, India's recent success has helped assuage much of the crisis of self-esteem that fuelled the movement. This success has given various stripes of nationalist longings an alternative narrative. But given the general level of political drift, conflict and fragmentation we are seeing, it would be unwise to take it for granted that the new narrative of hope cannot quickly be supplanted by the resentments of memory.

A further element was the long history of inconclusive negotiations between Hindus and Muslims. For some minorities, Ayodhya became the symbol of refusing majoritarian domination. For many Hindus, it became the symbol of an intransigent minority, unwilling to give even a small concession. This made the dispute intractable. From the point of view of law it is a healthy development that all parties seem, at the moment, to treat it as a land title dispute. But there is a political irony in this attitude. If the dispute had been merely a land title dispute, it would have been easy to negotiate and settle. But whether the cold water being thrown over the dispute remains effective will depend on future developments in this history.

The silver lining is that the third element which made this dispute so explosive seems less urgent at the moment. This was the majority's minority syndrome. A section of the Hindu consciousness managed to talk itself into a psychologically damaging sense of victimhood based on three issues. The first was a discourse on pseudo-secularism, which the Congress played right into. There is now a greater realisation that the so-called concessions to minorities, which occasioned a political backlash, were largely symbolic; the actual material and political conditions of Muslims have in fact been deteriorating. The challenge now is to address those without falling into the procrustean trap of identity politics.

The second issue was a sense of being a community that was at the receiving end of history, unable to stand up for itself. It would be hard to deny that for many there was an element of catharsis in the Ayodhya movement. But a catharsis cannot be long sustained, and much of that desire has dissipated. There is still a great deal of concern about terrorism and fundamentalism. But there is also a recognition that polarisation can only help the cause of terrorists, not combat it.

The third element was a deep intellectual crisis. It was thought that the canons of modern historical consciousness somehow denied the legitimate claims of tradition. The status of important forms of knowing and being were under assault from a range of ideologies. But this element has also dissipated somewhat. In self-proclaimed secular circles there was an ignorant denigration of the complexity of tradition, and often an unthinking embarrassment about religiosity. This had created a constricted intellectual discourse. At one level this challenge remains. But it is largely an intellectual challenge. Its force is also blunted by the fact that there was no genuine intellectual flowering of Hindutva thought along with the Ayodhya movement; if anything the movement decisively killed of flickers of creativity Indian intellectual history had seen earlier in the century. The vitality of Hinduism requires that it be liberated from being colonised by the Ayodhya movement.

It is worth thinking about how these long-term trends will play out. We are perhaps being a little too blase in our claims that India has moved on. The extent to which it has will be tested by our willingness to peaceably submit to the due process of courts. And there is reason to be optimistic on this score. But how much we have really moved on will be decided not today or tomorrow, but by how the long march of our history unfolds.

The writer is president, Centre for Policy Research, Delhi express@expressindia.com

Source: Indian Express

PlayBook, BlackBerry Tablet, Unveiled

New York, Sep 28 : The company that gave us the BlackBerry - still the dominant phone in corporate circles - thinks its business customers will have room in their briefcases for at least one more device: the PlayBook.

Research in Motion Ltd. showed off the tablet for the first time Monday and is set to launch it early 2011, with an international rollout later in the year. With it RIM is betting on a smaller, lighter device than Apple Inc.'s iPad, which kicked-started the tablet market when it launched in April.

The PlayBook will have a 7-inch screen, making it half the size of the iPad, and weigh about 400 grams (14 ounces) to the iPad's 680 grams (1.5 pounds). And unlike the iPad, it will have two cameras, front and back.

The PlayBook will be able to act as a second, larger screen for a BlackBerry phone, through a secure short-range wireless link. When the connection is severed - perhaps because the user walks away with the phone - no sensitive data like company e-mails are left on the tablet. Outside of Wi-Fi range, it will be able to pick up cellular service to access the Web by linking to a BlackBerry.

But the tablet will also work as a standalone device. RIM co-Chief Executive Jim Balsillie said its goal is to present the full Web experience of a computer, including the ability to display Flash, Adobe Systems Inc.'s format for video and interactive material on the Web. That means the tablet will be less dependent on third-party applications or "apps," Balsillie said.

"I don't need to download a YouTube app if I've got YouTube on the Web," said Balsillie, who leads the company along with co-CEO Mike Lazaridis.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has resisted allowing Flash on any of the company's mobile gadgets, arguing the software has too many bugs and sucks too much battery life.

"Much of the market has been defined in terms of how you fit the Web to mobility," Balsillie said. "What we're launching is really the first mobile product that is designed to give full Web fidelity."

In part, the PlayBook is a move by RIM to protect its position as the top provider of mobile gadgets for the business set. Balsillie says he has had briefings with company chief information officers and "this is hands-down, slam-dunk what they're looking for."

Analysts agree that RIM's close relationship with its corporate clients could help the company establish a comfortable niche in the tablet market despite Apple's early lead.

"We do think that RIM has a play with enterprise customers because it has established relationships with so many businesses, and its technology is so deeply integrated with their IT departments," IDC analyst Susan Kevorkian said.

RIM is using a new operating system, built by QNX Software Systems, which it took over earlier this year, to harness the power of the tablet, but Balsillie said it will run existing apps for BlackBerry phones.

IDC predicts that the corporate market for tablet computers will grow as a portion of overall sales over the next few years. The firm forecasts that roughly 11 percent of overall tablet shipments, or 6.5 million units, will be to businesses, government agencies or schools by 2014. That would be up from just 2 percent, or 300,000 units, this year. And that figure doesn't count those who buy tablet computers on their own and use them for work.

RIM doesn't want the PlayBook to be just for work - the company invited video game maker Electronic Arts to help introduce the Playbook at an event in San Francisco on Monday - but it's clear that its advantages will lie in the work arena.

The iPad has prompted a wave of competitors, so RIM won't be alone going after the tablet market. Computer maker Dell Inc. came out with its own tablet computer in August called the Streak. Samsung Electronics Co. plans to launch the Galaxy Tab next month and has already lined up all four major U.S. carriers to sell it and provide wireless service for it. Cisco Systems Inc. is also going after business customers with a tablet called the Cius early next year.

Learn more about tablets by checking out our comprehensive guide to 13 tablets to try instead of the iPad.

TEC BlackBerry

Mike Lazaridis, president and co-CEO of Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM), holds the new PlayBook during the BlackBerry developers conference 2010 in San Francisco, Monday, Sept. 27, 2010. RIM showed off the tablet for the first time and is set to launch it early 2011, with an international rollout later in the year. With it RIM is betting on a smaller, lighter device than Apple Inc.'s iPad, which kicked-started the tablet market when it launched in April. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Blackberry

This product image provided by Research In Motion, shows the new Playbook. (AP Photo/Research In Motion) NO SALES

TEC BlackBerry

Mike Lazaridis, president and co-CEO of Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM), holds the new PlayBook during the BlackBerry annual developers conference, Monday, Sept. 27, 2010, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Detention Without Sufficient Cause Violates Fundamental Right: SC

New Delhi, Sept 28 : A person cannot be held under preventive detention without sufficient cause as it would be violating his or her fundamental right of right to liberty, the Supreme Court has held.

Setting aside the detention order passed against Ranjit Oinamcha, Editor of a Manipur daily under the National Security Act, the apex court said such orders are liable to judicial scrutiny if they are found to be passed in an arbitrary manner.

"The court is entitled to scrutinize the material relied upon by the authorities in coming to its conclusion and accordingly determine if there is an objective basis for the subjective satisfaction.

"The objective satisfaction must be two fold. The detaining authority must be satisfied that the person to be detained is likely to act in any manner prejudicial to the security of the State or from acting in any manner prejudicial to the maintenance of the public order and the authorities must be further satisfied that it is necessary to detain the said person in order to prevent from so acting," a Bench of Justices D K Jain and H L Dattu said in a judgment.

In the case in point, Ranjit, Editor of `Paojel' having its printing press at Keisamthing Top Leirak, Manipur, was detained under the NSA by an order dated September 24, 2009.

He was charged with indulging in anti-national activities on the ground that he was extorting money from various people in collusion with Ratan alias Inao alias N. Ibochouba Singh, finance in-charge of the United National Liberation Front (UNLF),Imphal West, which is fighting for independence from India.

The Guwahati High Court had dismissed the petition filed by Singh's wife Pebam Ningol Mikoi Devi on his behalf, after which she appealed in the apex court. Upholding her appeal, the apex court said the authorities could not produce any document or sufficient material that could substantiate the order of detention.

The apex court said there was also considerable delay by Manipur government in forwarding the representation made by Singh to the central government against his detention as mandated under the Act.

"None of the other documents substantiate the involvement of the detainee in unlawful activities as alleged in the detention order. Thus, it is clear that there was no pertinent or relevant material on the basis of which the detention order could be passed.

"The second issue is that of delay. There has been a delay of 7 days(from 09/10/2009 to 16/10/2009), in forwarding the representation of the detainee to the central government.There has been no explanation of the reasons for this delay given by the respondents, the Bench said.

Assam's Boat Clinic Gets NRL Funds

By Supratim Dey

The unique boat clinic initiative in Assam, which is run by the Centre of North East Studies and Policy Research (C-NES) and caters to people living in islands on the river Brahmaputra, got a boost with Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) coming forward to support the initiative as part of its corporate social responsibly.

NRL has announced a sponsorship amount of Rs 12 lakh to C-NES and the first installment of Rs 4 lakh was recently handed over by BK Das, managing director of NRL, to Sanjoy Hazarika, trustee of C-NES. 

C-NES boat clinic initiative was first launched in 2005 with a single boat called Akha (meaning hope in Assamese) on the river Brahmaputra in Dibrugarh in Upper Assam. In 2008, the initiative got a boost when National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) partnered it.

Today, C-NES has boat clinics in 13 districts of Assam and provides basic healthcare services through these specially designed boats to lakhs of people living on river islands.

On board the boat clinics are full fledged medical teams – two doctors, three nurses as well as lab technicians and pharmacists, which conduct regular camps organized through a network of community health workers and organizers in the districts.

"Among the most marginalized people in Assam, nearly 30 lakh or 10 per cent of the state’s population live on its islands in the mighty Brahmaputra and for decades have struggled to survive at a basic level. The boat clinic initiative aims at catering to this section of deprived people" said Hazarika.

Hazarika said the goal is to reach 10 lakh persons, or one third of the state’s vulnerable population, who live on islands in the Brahmaputra by 2011-12, with a special focus on women and children, who are the most vulnerable in difficult conditions.

The boat clinic initiative has been able to cover 3 lakh people by now, Hazarika added.

Assam has India’s worst Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) at 480, higher than Bihar or Uttar Pradesh, and a high Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) too.

Hazarika said the boat clinic initiative, since its launch, has been getting support from the public sector units such as Oil India Ltd (OIL) and from tea industry as well as from international agencies like the Unicef.

"We are delighted to welcome NRL as our newest partner in this mission of taking sustained health care and other development services to this excluded population. Ours is primarily a partnership with the National Rural Health Mission but we have important support from the public sector units such as Oil India Ltd and members of the tea industry as also from an international organization such as UNICEF," Hazarika said.

The districts covered by boat clinics are Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, Dhemaji, North Lakhimpur, Jorhat, Sonitpur, Morigaon, Barpeta, Nalbari and Dhubri, with new boat clinics soon to commerce work in three new districts of  Kamrup, Goalpara and Bongaigaon.

35,000 People to be Hit by Border Fencing in Mizoram

Aizawl, Sep 28 : Over 35,000 people from 45 villages near the India-Bangladesh border need to be rehabilitated to facilitate the fencing of the frontier in Mizoram, state Home Minister R. Lalzirliana said Monday.

'The union home ministry has asked the state government to relocate residents of the border villages and we have requested the Centre to provide funds to rehabilitate them,' the minister said replying to queries of lawmakers in the assembly.

'We are waiting for the home ministry's response on the issue. The state government had approached Home Minister P. Chidambaram when he visited the northeastern state earlier this year,' the minister said.

Public sector undertakings - National Buildings Construction Corporation Limited (NBCC), Engineering Projects India Limited (EPIL), National Projects Construction Corporation Limited (NPCC) and Border Roads Organisation (BRO) - are fencing 318-km international border in the state.

People, mostly tribals, affected by the fencing on the India-Bangladesh frontier have been occasionally organizing protests demanding their rehabilitation.

A Mizoram home ministry official told reporters that the protesters had also called shutdowns on a number of occasions in Mizoram's four eastern districts of Lawngtlai, Lunglei, Mamit and Saiha demanding compensation.

The central government is fencing India's 4,095-km-long border with Bangladesh running through five states - West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram - to curb infiltration, smuggling, trans-border movement of militants and other anti-national activities.

Around 2,900 km of fencing has so far been completed.