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Poll Strategist Prashant Kishor To Guide Separate Vidarbha Movement

Election strategist Prashant Kishor has accepted an assignment to revive the decades-old movement to demand a separate Vidarbha state. He will be visiting Nagpur at the end of the month to begin his homework. His teams have already started collating data useful for framing a forceful argument in support of the demand. Former Congress MLA Ashish Deshmukh has invited Prashant to give direction to the movement that began even before India gained independence. Over the years, the popularity of the protagonists went on waning, finally the movement going into oblivion. With the entry of Prashant, the movement organisers hope to infuse a new life into it. Vidarbha in general and Nagpur in particular are a point of political prestige since the headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is based in the second capital of Maharashtra. With the exception of the 1989 Lok Sabha election, the BJP was never able to win the Nagpur seat till Nitin Gadkari trounced his Congress opponent in 2014 with a huge margin and repeated his victory in 2019. The BJP was the first major political party to resolve the creation of a separate Vidarbha state. However, it kept the issue in cold storage as its then electoral partner, the Shiv Sena, was opposed to the demand, pressing for a united Maharashtra.
Carlos Alcaraz

A Lot More Will Be Heard Of This Young Tennis Star Star Carlos Alcaraz

They give him caffeine shots, which is perfectly legal, of course. And then they sometimes have to give him mild sleeping medication so he can rest properly, that is after hot and cold contrast baths. Every bit of his recovery from time on the court in competition is monitored by his team, which is why Carlos Alcaraz, the tennis player with a comet-like trail in becoming the youngest ever World No 1 at 19 and a Grand Slam winner as a teenager, is considered the Real McCoy of tennis. He was marked out for greatness some years ago but it took him a while to win a tour title. Once he did so last season, he broke through with four titles in the USA and Europe, beating Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic in the Madrid Open, before going on to win the U.S. Open title. He is no cyborg, but every inch the modern tennis player with a scientific training programme and on-court coaching with a former world No. 1 in Juan Carlos Ferrero. His trainer says he has a good genetic predisposition towards hard work. Alcaraz himself says, not immodestly, that he deserves respect – “I am 19 years old and I have worked a lot in a very hard way.” He is not going to fade out like other young winners of Grand Slams who broke the monopoly of the trio of all-time greats.
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Now A New Twist, Return Kohinoor To Lord Jagannath Demands Odisha Group

With Queen Elizabeth II passing away, the world’s largest cut diamond Kohinoor, and the controversies surrounding it, is once again making news. It began with a group in Odisha tweeting that Kohinoor be returned to India. Kohinoor is one of the largest cut diamonds in the world, weighing 105.6 carats. It is part of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom. This demand gathered steam with Odisha’s Shree Jagannath Sena submitting a memorandum to the President Droupadi Murmu seeking her intervention to bring back the controversial prized jewel to Odisha and be placed as the crown of Lord Jagannath. Why Lord Jagannath? In their book, Kohinoor: The Story Of The World’s Most Infamous Diamond written by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand, the authors say that Maharaja Ranjeet Singh of Punjab had indeed willed to donate his Kohinoor crown to Lord Jagannath in consequence of his prayers amidst failing eyesight much before his death in 1839. But the British under Lord Dalhousie following Maharaja Ranjeet Singh’s demise annexed Punjab and shipped the diamond crown to Queen Victoria in 1849. Kohinoor seems like an intellectual, inconclusive, nationalism debate at best.  But the BJP government back in 2014 had buried the Kohinoor controversy to a close saying Kohinoor was gifted to the British crown by Maharaja Duleep Singh.

TRENDS & VIEWS

Editor’s Note: Big Punch In Small Pack

It is the Third Anniversary of Short Post and as a news media startup launched during the Covid-19 pandemic it certainly feels better than good to find ourselves where we are today. Here, I must cite the unstinted support of our seasoned contributors, all senior editors in the country, who brought a great degree of maturity and sagacity to the Short Post newsroom. But for them, our tagline “Authentic Gossip”, an Oxymoron, would not have matured viably. Our user numbers may be small but our stories have created the desired impact among people who matter — decision makers and influencers. We offer a big punch in a small pack and Short Post with its 225-word stories has been punching above its weight category. Having posted close to 3,000 stories in the last 36 months, Short Post, I feel, is an idea whose time has come.
And this is vindicated by our two marquee advertisers – IDFC FIRST Bank and ICICI Lombard. Both believed in our story and have supported us from Day one. A big thank you to both.
If you look at the media landscape – print, TV and digital — it is a mixed bag. There are job losses as some outfits have closed down while a lucky few were bailed out by large corporate houses. Yes, there is a lot of action in the digital space. However, the entry of corporate houses has raised the question of independence of news media outfits. Sadly, there are just a handful of independent media outfits in the country that are highly respected for their neutrality. At Short Post, our credo is not to take sides, prejudge issues or be biased but, informing readers of behind-the-scenes happenings. In essence, Short Post strives to be a neutral editorial platform — neither anti-establishment nor pro-establishment.
As I said last year, disruptions in the media world are moving at a fast and furious pace. Technology is playing a very big role in how content is generated and consumed. But, we are neither alarmed nor perturbed as it is all a part of the evolution process. What gives us comfort is that AI is unable to create original gossipy content. And that is the news arena where we have achieved a distinction.