All for a cause  It was great to seethe spontaneous and united action of the people of Assam in condemning the serial bomb blasts that shook the state on October 30 claiming over 80 lives while leaving hundreds of others injured, some of them maimed for life. From housewives to maids, from teachers to students, from scholars to the common men,... all came under one umbrella to condemn the ghastly incident. And the message to the perpetrators of violence and such acts of heinous crime and mindless killing was loud and clear that people want peace at any cost. In this condemnation act however, there was a section of people, mainly politicians, who sought to be in the limelight with a definite aim. With votes being their main priority, the utterance of politicians seemed selfish on many occasions and often self-contradictory, as is their nature of saying this today to come up with a denial the very next day. It’s high time people woke up from their slumber to understand the double-meaning designs of such politicians who simply love to make incidents like the recent serial blasts or the recent communal clashes political issues only for their gain, no matter who died or who suffered.

Vintage act  Master blaster Sachin Tendulkar with his vintage act on Thursday against the ‘mighty’ Australians at Nagpur, where he achieved the rare milestone of becoming the first batsman in the annals of cricket to score 40 Test centuries, showed that he has still much cricket left in him. And not only Tendulkar, the other veterans in the Indian team — Saurav Ganguly, VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid, who along with the Mumbai batsman make the ‘fabulous four’ of Indian cricket, are also not showing any signs of ageing with their increasing hunger for runs. While Ganguly and Laxman made their bat talk at Nagpur, Dravid however failed in the first innings with a rare duck. Unfortunately, Ganguly is appearing in the last Test match of his career even though he could have continued for a couple of years more, had not the Indian selectors played with his career. We will surely miss a dashing cricketer and leader in Ganguly, while we can hope for more fireworks from the rest three.

Simanta / Mridumoloy