Monthly Archives: February 2015

Gold for Seema; TN girls top team event

Sports
WINNING COMBO: The Tamil Nadu team which won the women's trap event in Thrissur on Monday. (From left): N. Nivedha, Asiya Khilji and Asila Khilji / The Hindu
WINNING COMBO: The Tamil Nadu team which won the women’s trap event in Thrissur on Monday. (From left): N. Nivedha, Asiya Khilji and Asila Khilji / The Hindu

Seema Tomar of Services Sports Control Board (SSCB) held her nerve to win the women’s trap shooting gold in the 35th National Games at the Police Academy range here on Monday.

In the gold medal clash, Seema found a tough customer in Rajeshwari Kumari of Punjab. The latter applied pressure and the former shook a bit midway through. But, before any damage could be done, Seema recovered strongly for a place atop the podium.

The Tamil Nadu girls pocketed their first gold medal of the Games. It came in the team trap event. The trio of F. Asiya Khilji, N. Nivedha and Asila Khilji edged out strong contenders Delhi and SSCB for the gold.

The TN girls tallied 169 of which Asiya shot a possible 62 out of 75. Asila, who is making her debut at the Games, scored 10 less than her elder sister Asiya. Nivetha completed the tally with a 55. It was Asiya’s second-round effort that sealed the gold in favour of the team. The 24-year-old, who is doing her Phd in Finance at the Madras University, started the day badly but finished with a bang.

“It was windy and I was off target and that resulted in a score of 16 in the first round,” said Asiya, who shot a 62 as well at the senior Nationals in Delhi in 2013.

Asiya followed it up with a 24 and 22 in the next two rounds. “The second round effort is my career best score. I had to literally fight back after a poor first round show.”

Asila, a class nine student and also among the youngest in the shooting crowd, was quite aggressive in the first round but lost ground from there. “Trap is a mind game. If you allow the pressures and the scores to get to you then you will be trapped. I am happy that I contributed a bit as well for the gold,” said Asila.

After playing a part in the team event, Asiya staved off a stiff challenge towards the end from Aakriti Khapra of Delhi for the bronze.

The results: Women: Trap: 1. Seema Tomar (SSCB); 2. Rajeshwari Kumari (PUN); 3. F. Asiya Khilji (TN).

Team event: 1. Tamil Nadu (F. Asiya Khilji 62; N. Nivetha 55, Asila Khilji 52) 169; 2. Delhi 167 (Mahima Kumar Mahajan 61, Aakriti Khapra 60, Kirti Gupta 46); 3. SSCB 158 (Seema Tomar 60, Shikha Bhadauria 58, Varsha Tomar 40).

Asiya Khilji sets four new meet records

Sports

Chennai :

Asiya F. Khilji of Chennai stole the show, creating four new meet records in women’s, junior women’s trap, women’s and junior women’s double trap sections of the 36th Tamil Nadu State shooting championships (shotgun events), which concluded at Sivanthi Adityan Trap and Skeet range (Alamadi) here on Sunday.

The results:

Trap: Men: 1. B. Ashok (Cbe) 42, 2. R. Venkatram (Che) 41, 3. R. Prithvi Raj Tondaiman (Che) 41.

Juniors: 1. Abishek Sanjay Prabhakar (Cbe) 8, 2. N.B. Vignesh Krishna (Cbe) 5, 3. S. Naveen Kumar (Cbe) 5; Veterans: 1. D.V. Seetharama Rao (Che) 34 (NMR, Old: S. Deenadayalan 29 (2007)), 2. K. Umapathy (Che) 23, 3. S. Deenadayalan (Cbe) 10.

Double trap: Men: 1. R. Prithvi Raj Tondaiman (Che) 34, 2. B. Ashok (Cbe) 34, 3. R. Karuppan (Che) 31; Juniors: 1. Abishek Sanjay Prabhakar (Cbe) 19, 2. S. Naveen Kumar (Cbe) 13, 3. N.B. Vignesh Krishna (Cbe) 12.

Veterans: 1. D.V. Seetharama Rao (Che) 28 (NMR, Old: M. Sugumaran 22 (2006)), 2. S. Deenadayalan (Cbe) 20, 3. K. Umapathy (Che) 19.

Skeet: Men: 1. Rajah R Rajagopal Tondaiman (Che) 39, 2. R. Prithvi Raj Tondaiman (Che) 37, 3. K. Rajasekar (Che) 34.

Juniors: 1. S. Naveen Kumar (Cbe) 9, 2. N.B. Vignesh Krishna (Cbe) 5, 3. Abishek Sanjay Prabhakar (Cbe) 3; Veteran’s: 1. M. Britto (Che) 5.

Women:

Trap: Asiya F. Khilji (Che) 32 (NMR, Old: Sumathi Muthalagan 27 (2003)), 2. Radha Niranjani (Che) 17, 3. J. Nandini Bairavi (Che) 15.

Juniors: 1. Asiya F. Khilji (Che) 32 (NMR, old: Asiya 18 (2007)), 2. Radha Niranjani (Che) 17.

Double trap: Women: 1. Asiya F. Khilji (Che) 25 (NMR, Old: Sumathi Muthalagan 19 (2002)) , 2. Malathy David (Che) 14, 3. Radha Niranjani (Che) 14.

Juniors: 1. Asiya F. Khilji (Che) 25 (NMR, Old: Radha Niranjani Devi 13 (2004)), 2. Radha Niranjani (Che) 14 (BMR).

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Sport / by Principal Correspondent / September 01st, 2009

The tale of the idli

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Travel & Tourism, World Opinion

If I say the idli was brought to southern India by Arab settlers, it could raise hackles, especially among South Indians. But the truth cannot be suppressed. References to the modern way of making the idli appear in Indian works only after 1250 CE.

K.T. Acharya, the food historian, speculates that the modern idli might have originated in the region that is now Indonesia, which has had a long tradition of fermented food. According to him, cooks employed by the Hindu kings of the local kingdom may have invented the steamed idli there, and brought the recipe to India during the period 800-1200 CE. But this theory is being questioned by modern food historians such as Lizzie Collingham, Kristen Gremillion, Raymond Grew, Makhdoom Al-Salaqi (Syria), Zahiruddin Afiyaab (Lebanon). References available at the Al-Azhar University Library in Cairo also suggest that Arab traders in the southern belt brought in the idli when they married and settled down in those parts. Now the question is: how did that happen? It is known that Arab traders used to come to the southern coast for trade, and that pre-dated even the advent of Islam. The first mosque outside the Arab peninsula was erected by Arab settlers who came here as traders.

The Arab settlers were strict in their dietary preferences; many of them came here when Mohammed was still alive and they were neo-converts to Islam from Paganism. They insisted on halaal food, and Indian food was quite alien to their palate. To avoid all such confusion regarding what is halaal orharaam in food, they began to make rice balls as it was easy to make and was the safest option available. After making the rice balls, they would slightly flatten them and eat with bland coconut paste (Encyclopaedia of Food History, edited by Collingham and Gordon Ramsay of Britain, Oxford University Press, and Seed to Civilisation, The Story of Food, by Heiser Charles B, Harvard University Press, 1990). Later it was improved upon, and from the 8th century onwards, the idli in its modernavatar came into existence.

sumitmaclean@hotmail.com

source: http://www.thehindu.com  / The Hindu / Home> Opinion> Open Page / by Sumit Paul / February 01st, 2015

5 City Students Selected for Global Business Competition

Education
Hyderabad :
Five high school students from Hyderabad got a unique chance to compete in the TiE Young Entrepreneurs (TyE) global business plan competition for their innovative project ‘TICH’, which will provide online services even to those who don’t have access to the Internet.

Keshav, Rishi Reddy, Neha Acharya, Yagna Agarwal and Zayaan will compete in the global competition where the winners will be awarded a cash prize of $10,000. The best project will also receive funding from top corporate companies, according to Safir Adeni, president of TiE Hyderabad. The children earned this rare opportunity for developing a professional business plan for an innovative idea to provide online services through a call centre.

According to the plan, a call centre will be set up where customers can call and seek various services. This will process the requests of the customers and send the results to them. The services include online shopping, ticket booking and applying for jobs and admissions.

This project was developed by the children as part of the TYE Hyderabad business plan competition where the best team was selected to be sent for the global competition.

Other participants in the Hyderabad competition have also come up with innovative business ideas which included app-based services to manage booking of playgrounds in the city and a techno-glass which is similar to the Google glass. Around 25 children, who participated in the competition in Hyderabad, were mentored by experts from prestigious institutes like Indian School of Business (ISB) and International Institute for Information Technology and some experts from  industry. During the 16-week course they were trained in several business-related topics such as conducting market research.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Hyderabad / by Express News Service / February 02nd, 2015

A spelling bee with a difference

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Education, Sports
Winners of the spelling bee contest: (from left) Bindu Shree (3rd place), Sandhya (2nd place), Archana N.S. (1st place), Syed Arbaz (4th place), and Vishwanath R. (5th place). / The Hindu
Winners of the spelling bee contest: (from left) Bindu Shree (3rd place), Sandhya (2nd place), Archana N.S. (1st place), Syed Arbaz (4th place), and Vishwanath R. (5th place). / The Hindu

The air is thick with tension as students from 23 schools across the city struggle to get their words right.

“How do you spell Gemini?” a judge asks Preethy of Madivala Government High School. She hesitates and asks for a Kannada translation, then proceeds to answer correctly, amid loud claps and cheers.

It was the sixth year that Sahasra Deepika International for Education (SDIE) was holding a spelling bee competition for Class 9 students of Kannada-medium government high schools across the city.

It is unique in many ways: the students do not come from top private schools and many cannot speak English beyond constructing basic sentences. As many as 92 students were drawn from 23 schools as part of a programme to impart English grammar and vocabulary skills among Kannada-medium students. They performed admirably, tackling words from ‘celebration’ and ‘vague’ to ‘heliocentric’ and ‘echinodermata’. The winning word was ‘chorus’.

“We want to give these children an opportunity to be on stage, and to gain confidence through such competitions,” says Vijayalakshmi Ramakrishnan, founder and treasurer of the SDIE. “Some of these kids have never celebrated a birthday. Some do not get English textbooks until the end of the school year.”

The goal is to try to ensure that these children do not feel left out, she says, pointing out that without a working knowledge of English, the children have little chance of getting jobs in the future.

The winners of the event are: Archana, Krishna Iyer School; Sandhya, Honnagonahatti Government High School; Bindu Shree, Honnagonahatti High School; Syed Arbaz, Fort High School, and Vishwanath Doddagolarahatti Government High School.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National> Karnataka / by Cinthya Anand /Bengaluru – February 01st, 2015