Shiv Sena activists burn Yediyurappa's effigy, stop screening of Kannada movie in Kolhapur
Kolhapur, Dec 29: Shiv Sena activists burnt an effigy of Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa and stopped screening of a Kannada movie in Maharashtra's Kolhapur city on Sunday as the dispute over Belgaum flared up once again.
The state transport bus services from Kolhapur to Karnataka were also suspended from Saturday midnight as a precautionary measure, a senior police official said.
Maharashtra claims Belgaum, which has a sizable Marathi-speaking population, but is currently a district of Karnataka.
The decades-old dispute over Belgaum escalated after certain remarks by a Kannada organisation against the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MES), which has been fighting for the merger of Marathi-speaking villages of Karnataka into the western state.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray earlier this month appointed ministers Chhagan Bhujbal and Eknath Shinde as co-ordinators to oversee his government's efforts to expedite the case related to the boundary dispute with Karnataka.
The case is pending before the Supreme Court since many years.
Various Kannada organisations staged a protest in Belgaum on Saturday by burning the effigy of Thackeray.
In retaliation, the Shiv Sena held a rally in Kolhapur city on Sunday.
Some Sena activists burnt the effigy of Yediyurappa at the central bus stand and stopped screening of a Kannada movie at Apsara Talkies.
The activists also blackened billboards,having Kannada text, of some shopkeepers in Gandhinagar area.
Sena MP Dhairyasheel Mane and former Congress MLA Satej Patil participated in the protest rally.
A large police force was deployed in the central bus stand area.
The Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MES), which has been fighting for the merger of 800-odd villages with Maharashtra, recently submitted a memorandum of their demands to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.
According to reports in a section of media, some days back, a Karnataka Navnirman Sena leader said that MES leaders should be shot dead on the border between the two states.
Thackeray recently alleged in the Assembly that the BJP-led central government was siding with Karnataka and ignored Maharashtra in the Supreme Court, where a case related to the dispute is going on.
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England sticking with Key, McCullum and Stokes despite Ashes humbling
London (AP): England is not sacking anybody following the 4-1 Ashes loss in Australia.
A review of the tour by the England and Wales Cricket Board, announced within hours of the final match in January, was concluded on Monday. Firing people would “be the easy thing to do,” ECB chief executive Richard Gould said but he insisted, "This is not the time to throw everything out."
Managing director Rob Key, coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes kept their jobs after the best England side to go to Australia in 14 years lost the Ashes in 11 days with two games to spare.
“Moving people on can sometimes be the easy thing to do. That's not the route that we're going to take,” Gould said. “I've seen the driving ambition and determination that we're lucky enough to have within our leadership group to take the lessons from the Ashes and move forward.”
Gould previously was the chief executive of Bristol City soccer club and said the ECB would not follow the same route as soccer's hire-and-fire culture.
“Cricket is a very unique sport in that it takes a team of leadership ... it's not like football where there's a single point of failure or success with a manager," he said. He added the ECB would not “select or deselect management based on a popularity campaign.”
The main criticisms of England's tour were poor preparation, player misbehavior, and selection mistakes.
At a press conference at Lord's, Gould and Key said McCullum and Stokes have not had a “bust up,” they did not want McCullum to “completely change” but “to evolve,” the behavior of some players was “unprofessional,” there will be more consequences for underperforming, and a commitment to “better long-term planning” ahead of major test series.
Some changes were already implemented for the Twenty20 World Cup, where England reached the semifinals. Gould implied that performance saved McCullum.
Key acknowledged that England supporters would be disappointed to see the management team go unpunished.
“I know people want punishment and that people then should be sacked for that,” Key said. “That doesn't mean we don't feel like we've gone through some serious pain: Brendon, myself, Ben. It's been as tough a time as I think I've had.”
