Supreme Anguish
    Date :22-Jan-2021

Time and Tide_1 &nbs
 
THE adamant stand taken by some farmers unions protesting against the new farm laws will lead the issue to nowhere despite the best efforts to by the Supreme Court to resolve it. Some unions have told the court that they would not be meeting the Court-appointed panel of experts. This is plain blackmail and contempt towards the court’s good gesture aimed at ending a long stalemate. More than the refusal to meet the panel what has irked the Supreme Court more is the aspersions cast by some farmer unions on members of the committee. The apex court’s anguish is absolutely understandable. It had chosen the members not to adjudicate on the matter but to only hear the grievances of the farmers and give a report. Questioning the credibility of the panel members is strictly not done as it will only worsen the entire situation. The panel members are known names in their own fields and hold certain expertise on the matters of agriculture. Instead of helping them by making detailed submission of their grievances the farmer unions are now resorting to subversive tactics. Such atmosphere of distrust will be detrimental for every issue sought to be addressed through mediation in future.
 
ON EQUAL PLANE
 
INDIA’S biggest, if not the greatest, overseas Test series win Down Under by Ajinkya Rahane’s team has now rekindled the demand for having two separate captains for limited over and longer format teams. Rahane’s exploits have raised heat on Virat Kohli as the Test captain. Though it will be premature to say that the selectors would give the suggestion a thought, one thing is sure to change in the Indian dressing room when the team meets for the upcoming Test series against visiting England side. The aura of invincibility around Kohli is set to mellow down a lot. What Rahane has achieved with a mix of experience and youth to script one of the greatest turnarounds in sports has catapulted him to the leadership table like never before. There may not be immediate threat to Kohli’s captaincy but the presence of a worthy contender for the place will keep playing on the minds of the BCCI mandarins. That makes Kohli among the equals, not the prima donna that he used to purely on the dint of his performance and aggressive leadership style. In fact, given Kohli’s style of functioning he will be the first to make total use of Rahane’s captainship skills while forming a robust leaderboard within the team.