nAnsi Pelosi lands in Taiwan. This simple, straightforward headline, whether in Hindi, in English – or in Taiwan – went well with news channels. It seems as if they almost like what Republic TV saw as the ‘China vs US’ standoff. From a very cynical point of view, a conflict makes for good headlines and great news – just imagine how much profit the Ukraine-Russian war has generated – and if Times Now said China would have been left ‘huffing and hissing’ If so, all the better.
From Tuesday evening when we saw a US Air Force plane carrying US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi land in Taipei, to Wednesday afternoon when she left, news channels shouted war slogans: ‘Will there be war on Taiwan? ?’ ‘Xi flexes muscles,’ asked Zee News, added Time Now while India Today began comparing ‘China vs Taiwan arms’.
Times Now Navbharat warns ‘the sound of great war,’ TV9 Amidst headlines like ‘America’s threat’ in India, bombers and helicopters were flying.
News channels also detected a ‘red alert’ in China (NewsX). ‘Dragon Frets and Fumes’, ‘Chinese military exercises around Taiwan’, reported CNN News18 (with a hint of satisfaction, perhaps?), warned India Today. ‘This’, its reporter Abhishek Bhalla said, is how China ‘threats’ nations. After this Pelosi remained in Taiwan for about 18 hours.
Oh!
Read also: Nancy Pelosi landed in Taiwan with the burden of curriculum-correction – ‘America has lost China’
ED’s Kabaddi and India’s Sports Moments
Enforcement Directorate is behaving as if a kabaddi Player, don’t you think? Last week, it successfully ‘raided’ the house of former minister Partha Chatterjee in West Bengal’s Trinamool Congress government, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut in Mumbai and later on Sunday arrested him, and then conducted raids. premises of National Herald Newspaper in Delhi on Tuesday.
In fact, the agency is so adept at raiding that it could have represented India. kabaddi At the ongoing Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, UK – if only the Games were a scheduled event!
Oh well, maybe it can join the Pro Kabaddi League?
Aside from jokes, sports are top of mind this week and with good reason. Apart from the Commonwealth Games (CWG) on several Sony10 channels, there is an India-West Indies T20 event in the West Indies (DD Sports), the Chess Olympiad in Chennai, and let’s not forget the women’s Euro Cup football final that resulted in England’s win over Germany on Sunday.
All these sports are being hailed and promoted as national events, not just individual or team victories or defeats – which bring collective pride to the entire nation. From all media accounts, the British are overjoyed at the success of ‘Lioness’. So, whenever India wins a medal in the Commonwealth Games, and we see it hanging around the athlete’s neck, we imagine it adorning our chest as well.
How lovely it is to celebrate a victory we did nothing to achieve! No matter where we may be divided by religion, class, caste, community, gender, economic status, et cetera, et cetera, we unite in the moment and celebrate as the victory of a fellow Indian, whether it is Jeremy Be it Lalrinnunga (weightlifting) or Lovely Choubey (part of the Lawn Bowls team). Such is the power of nationalism in sports.
Actor Amitabh Bachchan says as much in his Commonwealth Games promo when he asks his fellow countrymen to support the Indian contingent.thrust From‘Because in this 75th year of independence,’victory complete India of,
But as cricketer Sachin Tendulkar had to find out, living up to the expectations of more than 1.30 crore people is a huge burden-players seem to get accustomed to.
Why is India not watching chess?
This is the reason why Chess Olympiad is not being telecast on any major sports TV channel – least not by DD Sports, Star Sports or Sony 10 Sports. Instead, DD Sports is showing us the West Indies-India T20 series and before that, it showed a 50-over competition.
DD Sports telecast the opening ceremony of the Olympiad live, but nothing after that. For television, it seems that this is not the biggest (187 countries) and most important international chess championship taking place, that too in India for the first time. As if India doesn’t have some of the best players in the world on the black and white board, they may well end up as winners.
OK, OK: Chess is one of the hardest games to capture and broadcast on camera—it’s a quiet, mental game of skill and wit not filled with grunts and physical prowess. Nothing can happen till the last minute….
However, it can be exciting, as anyone who has watched a game of chess knows, or if you have seen the series queen’s gambit on netflix. Even if you don’t know, if we’re rooting for our team, as we’ve been asked to do, it’s a TV commentator’s job to explain the moves until so that it does not get checkmate or draw. If golf can be broadcast, live, for days, why not chess?
At least, DD Sports could have come forward to broadcast the Olympiad when the commercial channels failed. Surely, this is an insult to India’s national pride which is being linked to all sports? The Olympiad is being played on Indian soil – we are able to see a cricket tournament thousands of kilometers away for which many top Indian players were rested, but not a tournament in Chennai?
Luckily, the Commonwealth Games took place at Sony Sports and we have been able to enjoy watching it – never thought lawn bowls could be riveting, but it was.
Meanwhile, how about a tricolor Opposing Chess Olympiad?
Thoughts are personal.