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Showing posts from June 13, 2017

Feats on clay: On Rafael Nadal, Jeļena Ostapenko's French Open wins (hindu )

While Nadal sealed his greatness at the French Open, Ostapenko announced her promise In sport, there aren’t many tests tougher than playing Rafael Nadal on Parisian clay. For over a decade, the Spaniard has reduced nearly every player, regardless of reputation, Roger Federer included, to an unrecognisable heap of dust. On Sunday, when he did the same to Swiss Stan Wawrinka to win an unprecedented 10th French Open title and his 15th major overall, it was just a reiteration of the same. Nadal lost only 35 games all tournament, a number second only to Bjorn Borg’s 32 in the 1978 French Open, and did not concede more than four games in any set he played. Coming as it did after two years of under-performance, troubled by a creaky wrist and stripped of his aura, it might well be his most significant title. This does not mean that Nadal’s status as the greatest of all clay-courters was ever in doubt. As the 31-year-old himself said after thrashing Dominic Thiem in the semi-final, “I think ...

The rot in farming: on farmers agitation and sustainable pricing for their produce (hindu )

We must enable a sustainable price discovery for agricultural produce To say it is a domino effect of the loan write-offs for small and marginal farmers by the Uttar Pradesh government may be simplistic, but farmers in different parts of the country have begun agitating for waivers. In Tamil Nadu, they have given the State government two months to meet their demand for a full waiver or face a fresh agitation. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, in the face of protracted protests by farmers, has announced a blanket loan waiver for ‘needy’ farmers, with an estimated outgo of ₹35,000 crore. In Madhya Pradesh, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has resisted announcing a waiver, but unveiled a ‘package’ that includes a ‘settlement scheme’ to bring loan defaulters back into the credit net with interest-free loans. Farm groups in Punjab also began dharnas on Monday for loan waivers and other interventions. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has categorically said States must generat...