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In a first, supervisor, tournament director, referee and chief of umpires are all women who have been assigned to an ATP tour event.
There’s a strong Dubai connection to the ongoing Sofia Open in Bulgaria run by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), the governing body of the men’s professional tennis circuits.
This is for the first time, an all-female chair umpire team, including the ATP supervisor, tournament director, referee and chief of umpires, was assigned to an ATP Tour event.
Tournament Director Kay Godkhindi, who is of Indian origin and holds an Australian passport, grew up in Dubai and went to college in the USA.
She told Khaleej Times from Sofia about the exciting aspect of the event.
“Truth be told, we had no clue about history being made in front of our eyes. At the end of the day, it’s a sport where gender is of little consequence. Besides, gender doesn’t define an individual’s capabilities. However, it’s a wonderful concept to have equal opportunity in both the ATP and the WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) and empowering women as and when possible is a step towards the right direction,” she said while lavishing praise on ATP for championing the gender cause.
Tennis has had several prominent female officials, including those officiating in men’s matches, for several decades.
Anne Lasserre, who is the ATP Supervisor for the ATP 250 in Sofia, is the gender-bender pioneer.
“I think it’s an honour as well to be the first female. I worked as a chair umpire for the ATP a long time ago,” Lasserre said.
“I think things and the situation are evolving, which I think is a good thing. It’s an honour, I’m proud of it…
“It’s good to think about the future and being able to break this glass ceiling and give this opportunity to other females to do the same job as we do in every sport,” she told atptour.com.
ATP Senior Director of Officiating Administration Ali Nili told atptour.com: “The ATP Officiating Department prioritises high performance and a diverse officiating team. The tournament in Sofia is an example of our successful efforts in that direction. While the road to progress is long, we are proud of the direction we are heading, and the future seems bright.
Adlers Lombard, a Keralites-run football club, will become the first of its kind to compete in an Italian soccer league on Sunday
They moved from Kerala to Italy for higher studies, work and seeking better lives. But for these soccer maniacs, there was no better life without football. Moving from a football-crazy State to a country where soccer is almost a religion, they took their game to a new level.
Come Sunday, Adlers Lombard, a Keralites-run football club in Italy, will begin its journey in the Italian football system by competing in the CSI (Centro Sportivo Italiano) Regione Bergamo, a lower-division football league competition consisting of 12 teams. The club formed in 2019 plays the 7-a-side football format. It is the first of its kind, with 15 Keralites among its 20-member roster, to play in an Italian league. The CSI Regione Bergamo season lasts 10 months.
“Before moving to Italy from Kerala, one thing we all liked doing most was playing football. We came to Italy from different parts of Kerala at different times. But football has brought us together. After launching Adlers Lombard (Eagles from Lombardy), the team initially participated in some local tournaments. In the last 12 months or so, we have won five tournaments organised by the Kerala European Football Federation in Italy and Germany. The victories prompted the team management to register the club with the CSI and participate in the league,” says club vice-captain Mohammed Naseef C.P. who hails from Malappuram and works as a teacher in Italy. According to him, Adlers Lombard is the first ‘Indian Club’ to compete in an Italian football league.
The team is captained by Muhammed Abir P.T., also from Malappuram. The rest of the Keralite players are from Thrissur, Ernakulam, Thiruvananthapuram and so on. Two other Indians and a couple of Italian players are part of the team. The club has spent around €20,000 (approximately ₹15.84 lakhs) to prepare the team for competing in the league. They raised the money through sponsorships from several funders including an Italy-based automobile giant.
For Adlers Lombard, competing in CSI Regione Bergamo is just a start. “We are currently plying our trade in a lower division. But we are ambitious and have a long-term goal. Our aim is to play professional football in Italy in Serie D, Serie C, Serie B and Serie A and compete against top teams like Juventus, AC Milan and Inter Milan. We hope to recruit Indian players and provide them with a chance to play in the Italian league. It will help the growth of football in India,” says Smento Joseph, president, Adlers Lombard who hails from Angamaly in Kerala.
Nine soldiers from the Indian Army’s Force K6 died in the area after fighting with the British in World War I and II.
A memorial has been unveiled to commemorate a band of war heroes who served with the Indian Army and perished in the Scottish Highlands.
Nine soldiers were buried at a cemetery in Kingussie. The new monument stands prominently in the centre of the town.
People came from all corners of the UK for a pilgrimage to honour the men.
The Indian Army’s Force K6 was a transport unit that used mules to deliver vital supplies to frontline troops. It was despatched to various UK destinations.
The nine soldiers who died during training in the Cairngorms are remembered on the new stone-built tribute.
Among those attending the unveiling was 99-year-old Isobel Harling from Kingussie who had served in the Navy.
Legendary musician and composer Sachin Dev Burman’s palatial home in Cumilla district of Bangladesh is all set to be transformed into a cultural complex, with the Sheikh Hasina government having sanctioned Taka 1.10 crore (Rs 86 lakh) for the project.
Dev Burman, born in 1906, spent the first 18 years of his life in this South Chartha village rajbari (palace) in Cumilla, said Golam Faruk, an advocate and a prolific writer who edited a 596-page book on the musician.
“His musical talent was honed under the supervision of his father, who was a sitarist. Dev Burman completed his schooling from Cumilla Zilla School and graduated from Victoria Government College in 1924,” Faruk, also a historian, said.
His father, a descendant of Tripura royal family, had moved to Cumilla to look after the princely estates.
The palace, where the music maestro was born and raised, was listed as a protected monument on Nov 30, 2017, officials in Bangladesh said.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had visited Agartala to attend the convocation of Tripura University in 2012 and assured a delegation of writers and cultural activists there that the house would be preserved and converted into a cultural centre and museum, the officials said.
In May 2017, Hasina had visited Cumilla to attend the 116th birth anniversary of poet Kazi Nazrul Islam, and laid the foundation stones of seven projects, one of which was for the ‘Sachin Dev Burman Cultural Complex’, they said.
Faruk pointed out that the palace was built on seven acres of land, but a major part of it was encroached upon, over the years, as it lay abandoned.
“Cumilla MP AKM Bahauddin Bahar, however, was able to vacate the land to a considerable extent with the help of the district administration,” he told PTI.
The MP, when approached, underlined that the government sanctioned Taka 1.10 crore for building the complex.
The district collector of Cumilla, Md Kamrul Hasan, said the administration was waiting to hand over the house to the archaeology department, have completed all repair work.
“The restoration work was completed long ago. Since the site is yet to be taken over by the archaeology department, the district administration is still looking after it. Two staff members of the district administration and the archaeology department are currently taking care of the house,” he told PTI.
Faruk, also a ‘mukti joddha’ (freedom fighter), said, “Many geniuses, including renowned Bengali poet Kazi Nazrul Islam, had visited Dev Burman’s house and played music with him.”
An official said on the condition of anonymity that the abandoned house was used as a military warehouse during the Pakistan regime.
After the warehouse was removed, part of the house was converted into a poultry farm, and since then, the place was known as ‘Cumilla poultry farm’, he said.
“Former cultural affairs minister and theatre personality Asaduzzaman Nur had earlier announced that a complex would be built around the house with a floating stage in the pond. A music library was also part of the plan. The poultry farm will have to be done away with,” he added.
Dev Burman, popularly known as ‘sachin karta’, lived in Cumilla until 1924, said Faruk.
“He left for Kolkata that year to pursue higher education and then later to Mumbai in 1944. Those of the Dev Burman family, who lived in the Cumilla house, migrated to India after 1947,” Faruk added.
Dev Burman’s first major breakthrough in Mumbai came in 1947 with ‘Do Bhai’.
He went on to compose music for several epic Hindi films including ‘Pyaasa’, ‘Kagaaz ke Phool’, ‘Guide’, ‘Abhimaan’ and ‘Mili’.
He also sang songs in semi-classical and folk styles of Bengal.
The maestro was conferred Padma Shri in 1969 for his contribution to music.
Two Indian-origin artists from west London are working on a giant mural of Queen Elizabeth II as a tribute to the late monarch who passed away aged 96 in Scotland last week.
Jignesh and Yash Patel have been working on the community project since the news of the 96-year-old Queen’s death broke on Thursday, which will be visible from a distance in the Hounslow area of west London.
An Indian Diaspora in UK (IDUK) group is supporting their project with an online fundraiser on the Go Fund Me website, which has already raised donations of over GBP 1,000.
“This artwork will not only give tribute to the Queen but also will be a piece of art that will be enjoyed by thousands of people across the UK for many years to come,” IDUK said.
“Jignesh and Yash Patel are renowned artists who have five Guinness World Records such as the world’s largest bubble wrap painting, which they created in the year 2021 by filling 200,000 bubbles to set a new world record. The duo is very active in various charity and community projects via their art,” the group said.
The mural is being created on a two-floored building in Kingsley Road area of Hounslow east as a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. The artists, who have also painted a large mural of Dutch impressionist artist Van Gogh in the area, said they have been wanting to cover their street with murals to uplift the area.
“It was only right that we show our tribute to Her Majesty the Queen with the one skill we are good at,” said Yash Patel.
He said the project has also brought together people of the local area and has been a “collective community effort” with the local councilors also on board.
Former US Presidents including Obama & Bush as well as Hollywood elite like Tom Hanks have been part of Major League Baseball’s celebrity ritual of throwing the first pitch. The Canada-based crooner from Gurdaspur, was the chosen one at Robers Centre stadium, playing to the beats of his hit number Brown Munde.
In a first, Punjabi singer and artist AP Dhillon, who shot to fame with his chart-topping numbers like Brown Munde, Summer High and Fate, threw the official ceremonial first pitch for Canadian Major League Baseball team Toronto Blue Jays in their American League baseball match against the Tampa Bay Rays at the Roberts Centre stadium in Toronto on Tuesday night.
The Gurdaspur-born 29-year-old Dhillon, who is now based in Canada and does shows across the world, was donning a blue and white two-time Major League Baseball champions Toronto Blue Jays jersey, and accompanied the team’s mascot Ace on the pitch before making the official ceremonial first throw of the match.
World’s largest coffee chain, Starbucks has appointed Indian origin Laxman Narasimhan as the chief executive officer on August 3. Here are the list of Indians who are heading several global corporations
-Laxman Narasimhan – CEO – Starbucks / Leena Nair – CEO – Chanel / Satya Nadella – CEO – Microsoft / Sundar Pichai – CEO – Google / Arvind Krishna – CEO & Chairman – IBM/ Parag Agrawal- CEO – Twitter / Shantanu Narayan – Chairman, President , CEO – Adobe Inc / …
The 42-year-old barrister was among the first contenders to throw her hat in the ring to replace Boris Johnson.
Suella Braverman, nee Fernandes, the Conservative Party member of Parliament for Fareham in south-east England, on Tuesday appointed as the UK’s new Home Secretary, succeeding fellow Indian-origin colleague Priti Patel.
The 42-year-old barrister, who until now served as the Attorney General in the Boris Johnson led government, was among the first contenders to throw her hat in the ring to replace Johnson as Tory leader and Prime Minister.
Braverman was named as the Home Secretary by newly-appointed Prime Minister Liz Truss.
“I want to embed the opportunities of Brexit and tidy up the outstanding issues and cut taxes, said Braverman, a prominent member of the pro-Brexit wing of the Conservatives who wants a clear break from Europe, including taking the UK out of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
She referenced her personal migrant story as the London-born daughter of Hindu Tamil mother Uma and Goan-origin father Christie Fernandes, who migrated to the UK from Mauritius and Kenya respectively in the 1960s.
They loved Britain. It gave them hope. It gave them security. This country gave them opportunity. I think my background’s really informed by approach to politics, said Braverman in her leadership campaign launch video in July.
However, she was knocked out in the second round of the initial ballot of Tory MPs and threw her support behind Truss, who as Prime Minister has rewarded her with one of the highest offices in the UK government.
Suella Braverman, nee Fernandes, the Conservative Party member of Parliament for Fareham in south-east England, on Tuesday appointed as the UK’s new Home Secretary, succeeding fellow Indian-origin colleague Priti Patel.
The 42-year-old barrister, who until now served as the Attorney General in the Boris Johnson led government, was among the first contenders to throw her hat in the ring to replace Johnson as Tory leader and Prime Minister.
Braverman was named as the Home Secretary by newly-appointed Prime Minister Liz Truss.
“I want to embed the opportunities of Brexit and tidy up the outstanding issues and cut taxes, said Braverman, a prominent member of the pro-Brexit wing of the Conservatives who wants a clear break from Europe, including taking the UK out of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
She referenced her personal migrant story as the London-born daughter of Hindu Tamil mother Uma and Goan-origin father Christie Fernandes, who migrated to the UK from Mauritius and Kenya respectively in the 1960s.
They loved Britain. It gave them hope. It gave them security. This country gave them opportunity. I think my background’s really informed by approach to politics, said Braverman in her leadership campaign launch video in July.
However, she was knocked out in the second round of the initial ballot of Tory MPs and threw her support behind Truss, who as Prime Minister has rewarded her with one of the highest offices in the UK government.
Liz is ready now to be PM. She won’t need to learn on the job. And the job is hard and needs to be done properly. The party has had a difficult six years and stability is urgently and swiftly needed, Braverman said of her future boss at Downing Street.
The Cambridge University law graduate married Rael Braverman in 2018 and her maternity leave famously brought about an overdue legal change last year to allow her to remain a Cabinet minister while away to give birth to their second child.
Braverman is a Buddhist who attends the London Buddhist Centre regularly and took her oath of office in Parliament on the Dhammapada’ scripture of Lord Buddha’s sayings.
There’s nothing surprising about Indians in positions of prominence in global politics. It was always going to happen.
The flap of a seagull’s wings can alter the course of weather forever. And that a UK PM candidate of Indian origin would one day worship a Hereford or Holstein bovine in London to gain political mileage, however hysterical, was going to happen from the moment the first lascars were herded onto British steamships docked in Indian ports way back in the 18th century.
That two centuries later, there would be a Priyanca Radhakrishnan of Kerala connect as minister in Jacinda Arden’s cabinet in New Zealand; that a Pravind Jugnauth with roots in Ballia/UP would be Prime Minister of Mauritius; and that Vivian Balakrishnan and K. Shanmugam would be ministers in Singapore’s Lee Hsien Loong government is anything but chance.
Everything was leading up to each of these milestones, for years now. Like when in the early 19th century, waves of Indian indentured labourers sailed out from famine-ravaged geographies to Mauritius, Reunion, Guyana, Trinidad, Jamaica, Surinam, Fiji, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa… Slavery had been abolished in the British and European colonies and these not-slaves were to fill the need gap. Still later that century, south Indians migrated to Southeast Asia — Ceylon, Burma, Malaya.
What a great centrifugal force imperialism was! How the subcontinent churned and what a great scattering resulted!
Many of the abandoned lascars stayed on in London, Liverpool, Cardiff and Glasgow. Rishi Sunak may not have any friends from the working class, but in Kenya, where his family settled down after they left Punjab, Indians worked hard to build the Kenya-Uganda railway line. A good many of them died during this time, mostly of heat and disease, while nearly a hundred wound up in the stomachs of man-eating lions. Of those who stayed on and their progeny, most upped and left for the UK in the 1960s after Kenya became a Republic.
The great-grandparents of the current President of Guyana, Mohamed Irfaan Ali, had left India for the sugar plantations of British Guiana, a British colony in South America. The paternal grandfather of Portugal’s Prime Minister Antonio Costa is from Goa. Then there is President Prithvirajsing Roopun of Mauritius — you might have seen photographs of him offering puja at the Mahabodhi temple in Bodhgaya — and President of the Republic of Suriname Chandrikapersad Santoshi, who is in news right now because of Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla’s visit to Paramaribo last week.
Early 20th century saw the “other kind of migration”. Traders, students and single men moved from India to Canada, Australia and South Africa. And you could say that history started to leaven time for Kamala Harris and the Samosa Caucus way back in the 1900s, when the first Punjabis arrived in California and the Pacific Northwest.
In “Colour and Citizenship”, a report on British race relations from 1969, Joseph Rose quotes a Sikh immigrant in London as saying: “We had started feeling British but then there were so few Indians but now there are so many of us, that we have started feeling Indian again.” Today, with 32 million people of Indian origin all over the world, it should be a matter of little surprise that not just Sunak-in-waiting, but worldwide there are five Indian origin heads of government, three deputy heads of government, 56 cabinet ministers, and four additional ministers, according to the 2021 Indiaspora Government Leaders’ List.
After Dalip Singh Saund graduated from Panjab University, he left for the US to study food canning. That was 1920. His plan was to return and set up business, but that never happened. Saund lobbied for Congress to pass a bill that would allow Indian immigrants to become naturalised citizens. In 1949, he became an American citizen and in 1957, he became the “first Asian, first Indian American, first Sikh and first follower of a non-Abrahamic faith” to be elected to the Congress.
Around when Saund was setting foot in the Congress building in Washington D.C., in British Guiana, Cheddi Jagan of the People’s Progressive Party was already a big name. In 1953, he had won elections to become chief minister and though Winston Churchill with ample help from John F. Kennedy branded him a Communist and tripped his government, his political run continued. In a speech in the US, he said: “I am, I believe, generally dismissed in this country as a Communist. That word has a variety of meanings according to the personal views of the man who makes the charge… I wish to see my country prosperous and developing, its people happy, wellfed, well-housed, and with jobs to do… in this I am a socialist.” Jagan became the president of independent Guyana in 1992.
Around the early 1900s, the Indians in Kenya, who had been there for some years, started to demand elective representation. The European settlers opposed this. These circumstances saw many Indians take to politics. A.M. Jeevanjee, a Muslim businessman along with some others went on to form the East African Indian National Congress in 1914. Other Indians in Kenyan politics from the time were Manilal Desai, Pio Gama Pinto founded the political party called Kenya African National Union in 1960, and there was Fitz de Souza who campaigned for the independence of Kenya.
In 1994, when Nelson Mandela formed the government in South Africa, there were seven cabinet ministers of Indian origin. And in Canada, long before Harjit Singh Sajjan became minister in the Justin Trudeau government, there was Herb Dhaliwal (Harbance), the first Indian Canadian to become a federal minister in 1997. Ujjal Dev Dosanj became the 33rd premier of British Columbia in 2000.
As times changed and context, their core politics and -isms changed. Not all of it was determined by their brownness.
Basdeo Bissoondoyal had been involved with the Arya Samaj and inspired by Gandhi. He launched the Jan Andolan Movement to educate the Indo-Fijians. After the 1982 polls, when he was offered the post of the first president of the Republic of Mauritius, he refused. Anerood Jugnauth, however, was prime minister for four consecutive terms and President from 2003 to 2012. When he did step down, it was to hand over the reins to his son.
Mahendra Chaudhry was the fourth PM of Fiji. When he was overthrown in a coup, Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala asked the Indian government to intervene. Chaudhry’s grandfather had been from Rohtak after all. Chaudhry never got the support of ethnic Fijians, and neither Dhaliwal nor Dosanjh supported the cause of the indigenous people of Canada.
So there is brown and there is brown. And, brown for many of these politicians today is just a shade to powder over their actual convictions come election time. Remember Kamala Harris on the Mindy Kaling show bonding over masala dosa just before the US presidential elections? Sunak’s temple visits are of the same genre.
On September 5, the ruling Conservative party of Britain will have a new leader; the name of the next incumbent of 10 Downing Street is unlikely to be Rishi Sunak. But no matter what the outcome, history is flapping its wings and nothing will be quite as before.
source/content: telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph Online/ Home> Culture / by Upala Sen / September 04th, 2022
Sandeep Pandey worked as research scientist at Yahoo, before joining Twitter as staff engineer.
Senior Indian-origin Twitter executive Sandeep Pandey, vice president of engineering, is leaving the Parag Agrawal-led platform after more than a decade to join Meta (formerly Facebook).
According to an Insider report, Pandey, who joined Twitter in 2012, will work on Meta’s artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning teams.
Pandey led the central machine learning, data science and data platform at Twitter.
Studied at Carnegie Mellon University, he started his career at IBM India Research Lab and Google.
Later, Pandey worked as research scientist at Yahoo, before joining Twitter as staff engineer.
At Twitter, he worked in various capacities, like senior director of engineering, head of revenue science and led the brand and video team, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Twitter has been seeing several high-profile exits after Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced a $44 billion takeover, and then terminated it over the actual number of bots on the platform.
These are Katrina Lane, former VP of Twitter service; Ilya Brown, VP of Health; and Max Schmeiser, head of data science.
Agrawal in May fired consumer product leader Kayvon Beykpour and head of revenue product Bruce Falck, saying there is a hiring freeze now and Twitter will also pause spending in most areas.
Twitter recently laid off 30 per cent of employees from its talent acquisition team.
Twitter paused most hiring and backfills, except for business-critical roles as determined by ‘Staff’ members.
