Special Reports
When Rules Are Bent and Justice Evaded In the murky corridors of NIPER Mohali, where academic brilliance should have reigned supreme, a quiet scandal is brewing—one that lays bare the systemic abuse of power, the manipulation of institutional processes, and a brazen disregard for merit and ethics. At the heart of this scandal is the…
In the long and storied history of the Olympic Games, few tales capture the essence of friendship and sportsmanship like that of Shuhei Nishida and Suei Oe—two Japanese pole vaulters who transformed a sporting contest into a timeless symbol of human dignity. Their story from the 1936 Berlin Olympics stands not merely as an athletic…
After three riveting Test matches in the much-hyped Tendulkar-Anderson Trophy series, England may have edged ahead 2-1 with a nervy 22-run win at Lord’s, but the larger takeaway is far more heartening—for both sides and for the future of five-day Test cricket. From the outset, this series was expected to test not just skills, but…
MS Shanker The rot in the Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) has deepened dramatically, with last week’s crackdown by the Telangana State CID following a damning Vigilance and Enforcement Directorate (VED) report. Five arrests have already been made — including HCA President Jaganmohan Rao, CEO Sunil Kante, Treasurer CJ srinivas, and others linked to the infamous…
There was a time when we had to wait for years just to get a landline connection, merely to speak with someone outside our city, or the country. The communication revolution truly began with the advent of fiber-optic networks in the late 1980s. It transformed the way we stayed in touch with the world and…
On Wednesday, India witnessed a sweeping nationwide strike as lakhs of workers, farmers, and trade union members took to the streets, protesting the central government’s economic and labour policies—policies they denounced as anti-worker and pro-corporate. Exempting essential services such as hospitals, pharmacies, airports, and metro rail, over 25 crore workers across India participated in the…
By any stretch of cricketing imagination, this wasn’t the kind of theatre Test cricket needed. Day Three of the third Test between India and England had all the ingredients of a classic—except, of course, logic. Or perhaps, a team huddle that didn’t resemble a kindergarten picnic. Let’s start with the Washington Sundar saga. Watching the…
A Fight for the Soul of the Game: Why Revanth Reddy’s Crackdown Must Go All the Way This is in continuation of my pursuit to expose who is responsible for ruining Hyderabad cricket—not just through corruption and incompetence, but by systematically dismantling an ecosystem that once produced legends, pride, and a legacy few cities in…
In 1975, Arthur Ashe made history by becoming the first African American to win the prestigious Wimbledon singles title, defeating the heavily favored Jimmy Connors in a stunning upset. This victory wasn’t just a personal triumph—it was a monumental moment in sports history, breaking racial barriers on one of the world’s grandest tennis stages. Born…
“Merit Is Dead”: Former Hyderabad All-Rounder Slams Rot in State Cricket MS Shanker As part of my continuing series, “How to Revive Hyderabad Cricket,” this week I sat down with one of the city’s most quietly impactful cricketers—M.V. Ramanamurthy. A gritty allrounder who played his cricket in the 1980s and early ’90s purely on merit,…
