Punching bags, that’s the moniker the fast bowlers and spinners have become in the ongoing One-day series against the West Indies. What transpired in God’s own country in Thiruvananthapuram (Keralam) and around the Brahmaputra (Guwahati, Assam) was nothing short of carnage: the bowlers were put through the shredder. All because of a featherbed of a surface and a team that took the bowlers out of the equation straightaway. Only four Men in Blue batters have stepped out of the dugout; skipper Shubman Gill has piled up 333 in two knocks with a double (223*) at Guwahati, Virat Kohli 168, with an unbeaten 139 near Kovalam and Rohit Sharma 133 with a 101 in the second match. The fourth batter was Ruturaj Gaekwad, who too has an average of 78.57. The authorities cared a fig for the bowlers who were taken apart for 695 runs off 600 balls by the Indian batters. The home team has so far hammered 66x4s and 38x6s. The Men in Maroon have scored 663 off 603 balls with 4x100s. The second ODI was indeed not a good advertisement for the sport; it would be interesting to know how the ICC rates the surface at Guwahati. No wonder India’s head coach Gautam Gambhir described the match as “This is not cricket, this is only batting. If I have to be absolutely honest, I feel there has to be a bit more contest between bat and ball.” The third and final match will be played at New Chandigarh on Saturday (Oct 3). The pitch is unlikely to be any different. So far it’s been a graveyard! India has won the series, its aim will be to lift the numbers to 3-0.

The Bengal CPM’s attempt to put younger leaders in the political spotlight appears to have run into a deeper organisational problem. According to the party’s latest Party Letter No 1, members below 30 constitute just 4.55% of its total membership — a figure the document itself describes as “quite concerning”. The admission, on page three of the document, comes against the backdrop of a sustained effort by the party in recent years to project younger faces in elections as well as organisational positions. Leaders such as Meenakshi Mukherjee, Shatarup Ghosh, Dipita Dhar, Kaltan Dasgupta and Sayan Banerjee have been given greater political visibility over the past five-six years. Mukherjee’s rise has been particularly notable, with her induction into the CPM central committee. The party has also brought in age norms at different levels of its committees, ostensibly to make room for a younger generation. Yet the membership figures suggest that the changes at the leadership level have not translated into a significant shift in the composition of the organisation as a whole. The Party Letter also points to another difficulty: the party continues to struggle to attract members from SC/ST, and minority communities. A state secretariat member attributed the present imbalance to organisational decisions taken two decades or more ago, when, the leader said, the party failed to bring in a number of promising young people because of selective recruitment practices. Over time, that gap widened and became embedded in the organisation. The contrast is particularly significant at a time when a large section of the electorate belongs to Gen Z. For the Bengal CPM, therefore, the challenge is not simply to find younger faces for elections or committees, but to rebuild a wider organisational base that can sustain that transition.

In an interesting move ahead of Uttar Pradesh assembly elections early next year, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav was found nominating Dhanraj Nathwani, son of a close Reliance aide Parimal Nathwani to Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh.  It is being said Dhanraj and Anant Ambani are very close buddies. Apparently, Delhi dispensation also gave its quiet nod. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was however kept out of the loop. It is also being said Dimple Yadav and Nita Ambani apparently settled the Rajya Sabha matter in London. Picking a Nathwani for Rajya Sabha was deemed to be useful for the Samajwadi Party which was looking to pad up in an election year. The buzz is Dhanraj Nathwani is said to be close to Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s son Jay. With his entry into the RS, Dhanraj will be teaming up with his father Parimal who got elected to the RS from Jharkhand as an independent candidate backed by the NDA and the JMM in June 2026. Parimal Nathwani had defeated Congress candidate Pranav Jha much to the consternation of the Congress. Dhanraj’s entry into the Rajya Sabha means the father-son duo will remain on the opposite side of political divide. As for Akhilesh Yadav, his high sounding PDA formula for reaching out to Muslim-Yadav-Dalit vote bank will certainly go for a toss.

When this techie returned to his desk after lunch, he felt a sudden punch to the solar plexus: the dreaded pink slip was waiting for him. Welcome to the AI world. Here are you pink-slip proof? No, say a majority working 24X7. Career cushioning, a side hustle and pink slip insurance are not just mandatory but a survival skill in this age of overwhelming AI. Every survey rings the death knell to job permanencies. Devotion to your company and the bosses who mentored you? You must be joking! The sweeping storm of AI has churned up the job market…it’s a tech revolution that shakes and stirs every norm that we held sacred. A long list of surveys only confirms what is feared. Deloitte’s survey is ominous. It says 63 % of Gen Z and 65% of millennials fear generative AI may wipe out jobs. At the same time, they are convinced that acquiring generative AI skills are de rigueur to go up the tech ladder.  Then there are the wise owls who adopt a new scheme to pink slip proof their jobs. So what options are there for a side hustle? One, consultancy or advisory research data hustles. Two, start an online business of boutique style snacks, services and on call HR or temps. Three, mine data for multiple domains, especially medical fields heavily dependent on past validated research for writing grants …funding for grants makes you an entrepreneur. Four, start local or neighbourhood clubs, golf, book discussion, parenting, coaching for exams. Five, generate surveys for any domain, boost business plans providing statistics. Astrology platforms attract big money …one has turned Unicorn!  Who is overwhelmed by AI? Not the savvy career cushioned, side hustlers who are smart to pink slip proof their futures. Are you ready?

The Ruias-controlled Essar Group after exiting most of its steel assets years ago to clear debts is now more confident and assertive today than ever before. In fact, Essar is now firing on all cylinders for big ticket investment plans spread across the U.S., Saudi Arabia, India and others. Recently, the conglomerate captured major international headlines when the U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Essar-backed Mesabi Metallics will invest $18 billion to build America’s largest integrated steel plant complex in Iowa, America — producing 10 MTPA of steel annually using iron ore from Essar mines in Minnesota, USA. Similarly, in Saudi Arabia also, Essar is said to be gearing up to set up 4 MTPA green steel plant in Ras Al-Khair to capture the Middle Eastern industrial boom. And in India, Essar is executing a Rs 12,000 crore project to build a 14 million tonne iron ore pellet complex in Keonjhar in Odisha and a slurry pipeline to Paradip port. Essar’s aspiration does not end here, it is now going back to its roots Gujarat.  Sources say Essar is also exploring an investment of $ 5 billion in the next few years to set up a 8-million tonne steel manufacturing plant in Gujarat. It may be mentioned Essar Steel was among the first list of the largest 12 stressed accounts that the RBI had drawn up in June 2017. The company was acquired by ArcelorMittal in 2019 under the NCLT and a final Supreme Court ruling.

There is something almost absurd about India’s latest coal crisis: the problem isn’t a supply shortage. Domestic production and imports are both up, and coal is piling up at the pitheads. What is missing is last-mile connectivity—specifically, the railway rakes needed to carry it to power stations. By September 9, as many as 59 thermal power plants across India were operating with critically low coal stocks, some holding barely three days of generation fuel. Maharashtra is right at the centre of this logistics crunch. Plants at Butibori and GMR Warora were down to a single day’s supply, while Dahanu, Amravati, Dhariwal, and Adani Tiroda held roughly three days’ stock, with Khaparkheda and Solapur at four. The Union Coal Ministry notes that rake loading for the power sector actually rose 20% in four days—from 370 rakes a day on September 3 to 444 on September 6. This raises an obvious question: if supplies are stepping up, why are generating stations still running on fumes? The official rationale points to seasonal logistics—heavy rains, evacuation delays, and a bottleneck in rake availability. Coal India itself acknowledged that several subsidiaries have ample coal but cannot move it due to rainfall and transport constraints. Yet monsoons are an annual affair. India has the coal; it simply needs the railways to deliver it. Adding to the drama, Gujarat has reportedly reached out to Maharashtra asking how the state is managing its thermal power operations without major disruptions. With stocks running thin, the question remains: will the Union Coal Secretary step up with answers?

It could prove to be a masterstroke by 69-year-old Noel Tata, chairman of Tata Trusts, which holds 66% in Tata Sons, the holding company of the $180-billion Tata Group. Noel, who has strongly opposed the listing of Tata Sons, seems to have found a possible way out of this vexatious issue. Tata Sons had earlier sought regulatory relief from the Reserve Bank of India as it tried to avoid a mandatory listing. Initially, there appeared to be broad alignment within the Tata establishment. But after Noel expressed reservations about a third term for N Chandrasekaran as chairman of Tata Sons, two camps seem to have emerged. Now Noel has made a bold move. Tata Trusts has proposed a strategic reorganisation of Tata Sons through the merger of Tata Electronics Systems Solutions Pvt Ltd and Tata Consulting Engineers with the holding company. The objective is clear: after the restructuring, Tata Sons would seek to operate neither as a NBFC nor as a Core Investment Company. If the restructuring achieves that regulatory status, the very basis for the RBI-mandated listing could disappear. The ball is now in the RBI’s court.  But Noel has another battle on his hands — N Chandrasekaran’s third term. Chandra had announced on August 12 that he would not seek another term after his current tenure ends in February 2027. But the September 17 Tata Sons board meeting dramatically reversed that position, approving his reappointment for another five years by a majority vote. Noel was the sole dissenter. So, far from ending, the battle for Bombay House may only have entered its next round. In some ways, Noel Tata appears to be going through the same grind that his elder half-brother, the late Ratan Tata, faced after taking charge of Tata Sons in 1991.

There is speculation that political slugfest over CEC Gyanesh Kumar could all be his own making. The general buzz is that he could be unilateral in decision-making like former CEC T N Seshan and this may not have gone down well with his two fellow Election Commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi. The latest controversy erupted over an Indian Express investigative report alleging that Sandhu and Joshi recorded their objections in writing on at least 14 occasions in the last 10 months. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh says “The CEC has deliberately and explicitly violated the spirit of the Constitution and its provisions on citizenship…by illegally amending Form 6 to deprive Gen Z voters of their voting rights…he is a pawn of the cunning duo of PM-HM”. It is being said when ECs Sandhu and Joshi wrote to Cabinet Secretary T V Somanathan complaining about the CEC, he told them it was not remit of the government to give directions to the poll body as it was an independent institution. Soon after the Express expose, alarm bells were sounded within the NDA and regional parties wanted the EC to function credibly and coherently. It then became incumbent for the CEC and ECs to come together to hammer out a joint statement. Even though appointments to the ECI are made as sinecure postings for retired bureaucrats — all the officials on ECI are close to ruling side — there is still a possibility that they may not always contribute to smooth functioning of the poll body. Gyanesh Kumar has been charged with bias towards the BJP, foisting the SIR on the country, which has removed 13 crore voters. The Congress even dubs the EC’s latest offer to get the BLO to visit the home of electors to get documents of those who received notices of discrepancies as an admission of guilt by the ECI.

It seems Hockey India, the apex body governing the sport in the country, is facing a severe internal crisis as personal agendas, power struggles, and petty politics take precedence over its organizational mission. At the centre of the deep-seated infighting are President Dilip Kumar Tirkey and Secretary General Bhola Nath Singh. Padma Shri and Arjuna Awardee Tirkey has filed a formal police complaint in Delhi against four high-ranking federation officials, alleging criminal breach of trust, conspiracy, and acts endangering his safety during a recent visit to the capital. In his complaint, Tirkey alleged that his Delhi-based driver failed to report for duty and absconded with critical office records, including his personal health files and medical reports. Tirkey named Bhola Nath Singh as the mastermind behind the incident. According to sources, tension had been brewing after Tirkey reprimanded Singh for failing to abide by administrative instructions regarding governance, financial disputes, convening an unapproved Executive Board meeting, and altering the national team’s jersey color to saffron without his consent. The escalating feud threatens to derail one of the country’s most iconic sporting institutions.

An important event took place at the recent Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in Mumbai. BCCI members, as permitted by the Supreme Court, attend the AGM and try to make their presence felt. The representative of the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA), Dr Unmesh Khanvilkar, may have stirred the hornets’ nest by telling the BCCI bigwigs that Mumbai should be considered for prominent Test matches. He even went so far as to propose that Mumbai be awarded a Test match in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy because Gavaskar is from the great city of Mumbai, which has won the Ranji Trophy 42 times. The MCA has hosted 27 Test matches in the last 51 years, the last being the third Test of that series against New Zealand. The city’s second Test venue, the Brabourne Stadium at the Cricket Club of India, has hosted 18 Tests, while the Bombay Gymkhana hosted one, the inaugural Test in India, against England. India has over 30 Test grounds, with the original first five permanent Test venues being Bombay (Mumbai), Madras (Chennai), Delhi, Calcutta (Kolkata), and Kanpur. Some noted former Test players believe that the time has come for the authorities to schedule Test matches at traditional venues. Australia, England, South Africa, and New Zealand have their own Test centres that attract large attendance. Adding Guwahati, Ranchi, Indore, Visakhapatnam, Dharamsala, New Chandigarh and Rajkot has made the rotation policy long and winding. The five Test series against Australia have already been scheduled at Nagpur, Chennai, Ranchi, Guwahati and Ahmedabad, and it looks like Mumbai’s frustration will continue for a long time. But it’s good that the MCA has raised the issue.