Tharoor's ‘squeamish’ tweet kicks of controversy
Thiruvananthapuram: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor found himself on a sticky wicket Saturday as his tweet following a visit to the fish market here kicked up a row, with the ruling CPI(M) and BJP alleging he had insulted the fishermen community and demanded an apology.
The former Union minister, who is trying to score a hat-trick from the prestigious Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency, had visited a fish market in the state capital recently and spoken to the women selling fish there and had also posted some pictures of his visit.
"Found a lot of enthusiasm at the fish market, even for a squeamish, vegetarian MP," Tharoor had later tweeted.
As controversy erupted over the use of the word "squeamish", Tharoor in another tweet quoted the meaning of the word from an online English-Malayalam dictionary "For those Malayali leftist politicians who are currently having difficulty understanding my English"!
In another tweet, Tharoor wrote "order delivered" and put its word by word Malayalam translation as "Kalapana prasavichu" (Kalapana has given birth)" to pinpoint the pitfalls in translations.
The CPI(M) and BJP attacked the Congress MP, saying he had insulted the fishing community by his choice of words.
BJP candidate Kummanam Rajasekharan said Tharoor should apologise and said his act of "humiliating" the fishermen community through the social media was "extremely deplorable."
He had insulted the fishermen community who had saved several lives during the devastating floods in August last year, the former Mizoram Governor said.
Fishermen have taken out marches in Kochi, Kollam and Kozhikode protesting the tweet, saying they had been insulted.
During the August floods last year, it was the fisherfolk who had saved thousands of life, they said and demanded an apology from the two-time sitting MP.
When reporters sought his reaction, a visibly upset Tharoor, said he was busy with campaign work and did not wish to comment.
Tharoor had in February this year recommended Kerala fishermen, whose deeds of courage were the main highlight of the rescue operations during the 2018 Kerala floods, for the Nobel Peace prize.
"It was during the height of this tragedy that fishermen groups of Kerala, at great risk to their lives and potential damage to the boats that are the source of their livelihood, jumped into the fray to save their fellow citizens," Tharoor had written to the chairperson of the Norwegian Nobel committee.
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) March 29, 2019
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
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.
