The year was 1930. Joe Jacobs, one of world's most colourful and smartest managers in the prizefight business, had unleashed his 'German Dempsey' Max Schmeling in the heavyweight ring that year against Jack Sharkey. It was a fight to the finish with each one matching the other punch for punch, hook for hook. At the end, though, Max appeared to have handily won, but the decision instead went to Jack Sharkey. "We wuz robbed!" shouted Joe Jacobs. When Jacobs, who was always a favourite for sportswriters because of his quotable quotes and the colourful stories that he provided, died nine years later; most of the world press paid tribute to him with his most memorable three words. These words won't have sounded outlandish on Sunday when Aussie sportswriters scampered for words to explain the whacking of Ponting and Co at the WACA, only that they didn't fit the context. "We wuz had!" said Courier Mail in Australia. The wordplay,...

Why is Hindi India's national language? This question on The Sunday Times of India in its question-answer column called 'Open Space' made me curious enough to find out if the questioner, presumably a young student, has any links to what I want to call the 'Hindi hatred' belt. As I went about flipping one after another STOI (as the names of the questioners are published much ahead in this column), my mind fanned out from Assam to Andhra and from Manipur to Mumbai, trying to fix the usual suspect. But no, in no way could one possibly link this 'young student' to the hoodlums killing the 'Hindi-speaking' people in Assam. The latest killing spree apart, what had made Assam a suspect spot for me was an existing ban by the ULFA on Hindi films, which has been in force for over two years now. So much so that 90 per cent of cinema halls in Assam have stopped operating ever...

How do a few hundred innocent seasonal daily wage earners stand on the way of United Liberation Front of Asom's struggle for sovereignty for Assam? The question flies on the face of the barbaric carnage that an outfit of a few hundred hoodlums has carried out in some remote corners of the north-eastern state. Their target, the softest one possible; the site of violence, some remotest corners amid vast agricultural tracts from where they can easily beat a hasty retreat; and their very modus operandi stand to bear out three very easy conclusions. That what is left of ULFA today is just a bunch of goons, who have no ideology whatsoever and who are all amateur elements seeking their glory in blood in the name of a so-called revolution under the active patronage and tutelage of their leaders sitting in their safe havens in some foreign soil. That ULFA is today a spent force with its old rank and file...