Legendary radio broadcaster Ameen Sayani dies at 91
Mumbai (PTI): Famous radio personality Ameen Sayani, the iconic voice behind 'Binaca Geetmala', has died at the age of 91, his son Rajil Sayani said on Wednesday.
Sayani suffered a heart attack on Tuesday night and was taken to a hospital in South Mumbai but could not be saved.
"He passed away last night of heart attack at H N Reliance hospital. He was rushed to the hospital last evening around 6:00pm after he complained of chest pain. They tried to revive him but he passed away around 7:00pm," Rajil told PTI.
Rajil said last rites will be held tomorrow and that the family will be issuing a statement soon.
Sayani, whose introduction Namaste behno aur bhaiyon, main aapka dost Ameen Sayani bol raha hoon' on Radio Ceylon still evokes strong nostalgia amongst listeners, was born in Mumbai in a multilingual family on December 21, 1932.
He had a creative flair since childhood and started writing for his mother's fortnightly journal 'Rehbar' when he was just 13, which was also the age when he became a proficient broadcaster in English and started participating in children's programmes on the English service of All India Radio Bombay.
Sayani, however, was rejected when he auditioned to present in Hindustani because of a slight tinge of Gujarati accent in his voice.
When the then Minister for Information and Broadcasting, B V Keskar banned Hindi songs from AIR, Radio Ceylon started to become popular, which was then broadcasts from Colombo, started to boom.
Sayani got a chance to host 'Binaca Geetmala' on Radio Ceylon in December 1952 and never looked back.
A first of its kind show, the show ran from 1952 to 1994 to massive popularity for 42 long years.
With variations in its name, it continued to woo listeners in the early 2000s too.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
