The coronavirus pandemic has us all clamouring for that breath of fresh air while we find out new ways to kill time at home. Most of the world has been on lockdown for more than a month as all of us continue waging this war against the virus. With no major improvement in sight, no one knows until when we will have to wage this war. All we can fight for is the hope that situations will improve and life will be back to normalcy.

So, what should we expect once the lockdown gets over? Do we jump straight in or do we bide our time and wait? How will this major blip impact our lifestyle? Let’s have a gander.

1. Life will NOT go back to what it was before the lockdown. There will be several protocols introduced to ensure that a second wave of the virus does not hit us. Full freedom may not be given to maintain a balance in society. As time passes and so does the threat of a second wave, only then will the rules be relaxed.

2. Yes, the stories about rivers getting cleaner and videos of dolphins emerging in places where they haven’t emerged for a long time are all true. This shows who the ‘real’ virus on this planet is. We can hope to see nature at its splendid best for a few days after the lockdown gets over. What we should strive afterwards for is to maintain the human-nature balance.

3. Workplaces and schools will have several new rules and regulations in place even after the threat of the virus passes away. Plus, the work-from-home formula will be encouraged for quite sometime after the lockdown gets over. Social distancing could be made mandatory in such places along with sanitization stations placed at regular intervals.

4. Usage of public transport will be a bare minimum in cities where it is possible to travel with a personal vehicle. However, in a city like Mumbai, it is next to impossible to not use public transport in your daily life. This will be the biggest challenge to overcome. Also, with increased usage of private vehicles, the burgeoning impact of pollution on nature will grow exponentially. Thereby undoing all the improvement made by Mother Nature during the lockdown.

5. The last but not at all the least is the booze market. One thing that lockdown has shown us is the people’s thirst for hard drinks has risen to a whole another level. An end to lockdown means that the wine shops will open up and long queues forming in front of them will be a common sight everywhere. Don’t be surprised if you see a growth spurt in the number of drunken calls and texts!

Waking up to a new normal is not an easy task by any means. But it can be made easier if there is a mutual co-operation between all of us as we work towards a corona-free world.

(Header: Royalty-Free Photo by Edwin Hooper on Unsplash)

Mumbai's lifeline will be back on track

Only a few days until Mumbai goes back to its glory days when the streets are filled with people, smiles are exchanged between strangers and everyone is in a rush to get somewhere. Here are some photos which will make you relive those days and bring back the feeling of resilience in you.

Our daily routine will kick start

Festivals will colour the streets of the city

Daily wagers will be happiest of all

The iconic sea link will again be featured in thousands of Insta stories

Family outings will take place

Mumbai will see a new tomorrow.

Mumbai will be back being a mess, a mess we all love to be a part of.

A ten year-old girl was rescued yesterday from child slavery in Kalina after the Harmony Foundation lodged a complaint with the Child Helpline. The rescue operation was facilitated with the help of AHTU of the Mumbai police along with a Labour Officer to free this under age minor victim from enslavement and an FIR was subsequently registered at the Vakola police station but surprisingly the perpetrator of this crime was not arrested.

This minor girl of school going age who was trafficked from Bihar ten days ago was being exploited in slave like conditions where she was kept as a domestic servant and subjected to physical abuse by her illegal employers.



Harmony Foundation was able to initiate the process of the rescue after neighbours brought it to their attention by sending in pictures of this under age minor girl being made to undertake such strenuous house hold chores which included the cleaning of the drainage outside the house.

Trafficking of underage school going minors has become such a big racket as perpetrators save money by paying a pittance to these vulnerable minors. According to the International Labour Organization, such child labour deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity which is harmful to their physical and mental development.

As shelter homes such as St.Catherine’s home in this case, go the extra mile to rehabilitate and restore the dignity of these under age minors, it is sad that the law enforcement authorities adopts a lackadaisical approach by not taking any punitive action against the perpetrator of the crime in spite of the FIR being registered. This attitude of government agencies only emboldens the culprits to trick, trap and traffic minors for exploitation.

15th September 2019, India: One of the first James Bond films to have been shot in
India, ‘Octopussy’, had shot a small but vital sequence in Udaipur. The scene where
James Bond rides a Tuktuk rickshaw to fight the other characters.

In an imaginative recreation of the same sequence, Monster Energy, is attempting to
recreate the Roger Moore action scene with 6 times X Games Gold Medalist and world
renowned Stuntman, Jackson Strong in the same city in India on the 18th of September
2019 as part of its promotions for its new product, Monster Energy Ultra.

On arriving in India, Jackson Strong said, “I am very excited to be here. It is culturally
different to Australia. I’m a big fan of James Bond and it’s my honor to get a chance of
being a part of the immortalized Octopussy scene after 36 years! James Bond has been
an epitome of stunts in films and I hope to live up to the same!

James Bond in India, Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbl3n2qQ-iQ

Words - Viraj Soni

Words - Paresh Narvekar

As I am writing this article today, the 2019 World Cup is the peak with India still unbeaten and King Kohli ably supported by the wise Mahi is on the prowl. This season of cricket world cup always brings back the memory of the 1983 finals and that was my first childhood memory of watching cricket on the television.

I fondly remember that we had a Bharat brand TV in our house in Worli Dairy Quarters. On our floor, all the children and youngsters used to come to our house to watch TV. We watched our first batting against the mighty Windies team. Shrikant and Gavaskar opened the innings. During those days, the matches were of 60 overs. We scored 183 runs with only 3 batsmen scoring above 20 and the 4th to reach that mark were the extras. The pace attack of Andy Roberts, Malcolm Marshal, Michael Holdings and Joel Garner was the strongest bowling attack in the whole tournament. We lost all hopes as their batting was strong too with Desmond Haynes and Gordon Greenidge. The first wicket of Greenidge was taken by Balwinder Singh Sandhu. He was bowled by an inswinger which later got famous as the banana swing. Our hopes were kindled by this and we all sat together with high hopes. In walked Richards to bat with a swagger which is still unmatched. He had the aura as if he ruled the whole stadium and he started in his usual attacking way. People slowly started losing interest in the match and walked away from the television. Honestly, we switched off the television too. After some time we heard a big roar. We immediately started our idiot box and were fortunate to see the replay of the amazing catch taken by Kapil Dev off Madan Lal to get Richards out. Kapil had just caught the World Cup and there was no looking back after that. That is where the whole nation rejoiced and then on everyone in India was hooked to cricket.

From that day till now we were fortunate to see legends like Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, K Shrikant ( my personal favourite), Vengsarkar and Shastri from the earlier era. We found two gems in the Benson and Hedges cup in 1987 Australia which we won under the leadership of Gavaskar. The two players were Sadanand Vishwanath and Sivaramakrishnan. Vishwanath was a wicketkeeper and later was a leg spinner. Both became famous in that tournament but neither of them lived up to their expectations later. The other big event in this tournament was the rise of another star called Ravi Shastri. We were more fascinated with Ravi Shastri winning the Audi rather than the cup itself.

Then dawned the era of Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. This new kid on the block changed the way we watched cricket. At the age of 16 against the fiery pace attack of Imran Khan, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, his grit and determination were seen in that series itself when he stood his grounds after being hit by a bouncer from Waqar Younis on his face. He went on to write cricketing history after that as the greatest batsmen of Indian cricket. Even Sir Don Bradman compared his batting techniques to his. Sachin was so famous in India that TVs would get On with him playing and go Off when he used to get out. There was a time when the whole team used to depend on his batting for runs. Over a period of time, Sourav Ganguly, Virendra Sehwag, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman dawned on the Indian cricket scene. The team was now strong with no dependence on one person. Sourav Ganguly became the captain of the Indian team and he taught the team to fight. India won many cups and tournaments during his tenure.

In 2004, in came MS Dhoni and a new spirit was seen in Indian cricket. He rose to be the captain of the Indian team in 2007 and also won the inaugural T20 World Cup without any big stars. He further went to win the ODI World Cup in 2011 and made Sachin Tendulkar’s dream of winning the World Cup true. The whole nation rejoiced like never before. During Dhoni’s tenure as captain, he made a fitter team India and that could be seen with improvement in the fielding. Virat Kohli is now the new mainstay in batting supported by Rohit Sharma. A lot of new talent was discovered with Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya playing for India after their brilliant performance in the IPL. Dhoni is playing his last World Cup and we have managed to reach the semifinal now.

I consider myself very lucky to have lived in an era where I have seen greats of Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli. Cheers and all the best to Team India.

Photo Credits - Getty Images

Football and racism have gone hand in hand ever since the dawn of time. It has been a stain on the very soul of football. There have been several big-time incidents that have instigated several governing bodies and people to question the existence and emergence of such racist slurs. Racism is an unnecessary evil in the society and it must be eradicated at every level possible.

But just like a ray of light in the dark of night, Mohamed Salah has proved as a glowing example of the impact a football player can have apart from the confines of the sport. The Liverpool winger is adored and loved by millions of fans all across the globe. His popularity has played a humongous role in grabbing racism by its horns and tossing it aside. A recent study by the Immigration Policy Lab revealed that ever since Mohamed Salah arrived in Merseyside, North West England; hate crimes against the followers of Islam has reduced quite significantly in the particular area.

The research paper states that:

“We causally estimate the effect of Salah joining Liverpool F.C. on Islamophobic attitudes and behaviours using 936 county-month hate crime observations, 15 million tweets from U.K. soccer fans, and an original survey experiment of 8,060 Liverpool F.C. fans."

"We find that Merseyside county (home to Liverpool F.C.) experienced an 18.9% drop in hate crimes relative to a synthetic control, while no similar effect was found for other types of crime. We also find that Liverpool F.C. fans halved their rates of posting anti-Muslim tweets (a drop from 7.3% to 3.8% of tweets about Muslims) relative to fans of other top-flight English soccer clubs."

"The survey experiment suggests that these results may be driven by increased familiarity with Islam. Our findings indicate that positive exposure to outgroup role models can reveal new information that humanizes the outgroup writ large.”




This is particularly impressive because the football fans in England were notorious for their football hooliganism which eventually resulted in the hints of racism in their support. Such is the love for football which prompts the fans to do something that they haven't done before. If examples such as these are followed by people all across the world, then the world would definitely be a better place to live in.

'World Cup hero' is just not enough to describe the legacy of Yuvraj Singh. Image source: ICC

Yuvraj Singh has announced his retirement from all forms of International cricket with immediate effect. The 37-year old former Indian player played a major role in India's victory in T20 World cup in 2007 and ICC ODI World Cup of 2011. He made a dramatic return in 2012 after fighting rare germ cell cancer in his lungs.

He along with his family announced this decision in a hotel near Wankhade stadium, Mumbai. "I have decided to move on. Cricket has given me everything and that's why I am standing here," he said after being reduced to tears by a video of the highlights of his career.

"It’s been a love-hate relationship."

Yuvraj was last seen playing for the Mumbai Indians (MI) in the Indian Premier League (IPL). However, he played only four games and was dropped for poor performances. This does not sum up the legacy he holds in his golden days. On his days he would hold one side and turn the fortunes of the game, hit 6 ball 6 sixes and carry the team to triumph in ICC tournaments.

The man who starred in India's 2007 World T20 and 2011 World Cup victories, @YUVSTRONG12 announces his retirement from International cricket.

What's your favourite #YuvrajSingh moment in international cricket? pic.twitter.com/7Bw5LnwOFG

— BCCI (@BCCI) June 10, 2019

Players will come and go,but players like @YUVSTRONG12 are very rare to find. Gone through many difficult times but thrashed disease,thrashed bowlers & won hearts. Inspired so many people with his fight & will-power. Wish you the best in life,Yuvi #YuvrajSingh. Best wishes always pic.twitter.com/sUNAoTyNa8

— Virender Sehwag (@virendersehwag) June 10, 2019

It’s been an absolute pleasure playing with Yuvi. You will go down as one of the greatest players in the history of the game. You have been an inspiration to us with your resilience,determination & above all the love & passion you showed towards the game. Good luck @YUVSTRONG12 ! pic.twitter.com/vlXUdkgJSz

— VVS Laxman (@VVSLaxman281) June 10, 2019

End of an era! Yuvi pa, ur ability with the bat, the glorious 6s, the impeccable catches & the good times we've had, will be missed beyond years. The class & grit u brought to the field will be an inspiration forever. Thank u, @YUVSTRONG12 Have an equally remarkable 2nd innings! pic.twitter.com/ZWNeC9WkZL

— Suresh Raina🇮🇳 (@ImRaina) June 10, 2019

End of an era. Your contributions to #IndianCricket is unparalleled and your retirement will definitely create a void amongst all cricket fans all over the world. Not to mention, your journey with cricket is an inspiration to many. Thank You for all the memories. @YUVSTRONG12 pic.twitter.com/Bj7fT35neA

— Wriddhiman Saha (@Wriddhipops) June 10, 2019

It wasn't a happy return for the legend post his recovery from cancer. The team owes Yuvraj a lot for his contribution to the nation.