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New Delhi: Rail Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw faced fierce criticism and a wave of memes on social media after the Opposition branded him the "Reel Minister" during a heated session in the Lok Sabha on Thursday. The mocking label stems from accusations that Vaishnaw prioritizes his social media image over addressing critical safety concerns within the railway sector.

The Opposition's barbs followed a series of recent train derailments, with the latest incident occurring on July 30 near Jamshedpur in Jharkhand, where 18 coaches of the Howrah-Mumbai Mail derailed, resulting in two deaths and 22 injuries. In response, the Congress and other parties have intensified their scrutiny, accusing Vaishnaw of neglecting essential safety measures.

During his speech in the Lower House, Vaishnaw, visibly angered, accused the previous Congress-led administrations of failing to implement Automatic Train Protection (ATP) systems. However, this did little to quell the criticism from the Opposition, who continued to highlight his perceived focus on social media.

Rashtriya Loktantrik Party MP Hanuman Beniwal further fueled the debate by calling Vaishnaw a "reel minister" and a "derail minister," leading to a sharp retort from Vaishnaw, who told Beniwal to "shut up." The exchange quickly went viral, sparking a meme-fest on platforms like Twitter and Instagram, where users flooded timelines with satirical content mocking the minister.

Congress representatives pointed out that Vaishnaw's tenure has seen three major accidents in June and July alone, costing 17 lives. They argue that the lack of accountability and tangible improvements in railway safety infrastructure under his leadership is concerning.

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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.

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