The Afghanistan Challenge: India will be a crucial country for consultation at the G7 virtual meeting this week on Afghanistan. British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has already called India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to discuss developments. Pakistan is seen as the key player, and power, behind the Taliban push. It will undoubtedly look to extract all it can for a show of support over containing the Taliban. A new Great Game is on, with India in the thick of it.
Fans have a ball: Celebrations to mark the start of the 75th year of Indian independence kicked off on Sunday, quite literally, with a football tournament. An unusual one. The Bengal Heritage Foundation got six teams to play in a day-long event it called the Indian Superfans League UK, inspired by the Indian Super League. The event is the first major Indian diaspora gathering post the relaxation of lockdown norms in the UK. The six fan clubs participating in the tournament are SC East Bengal Fans, ATK Mohun Bagan Fans, Odisha FC Fans, Mumbai City FC Fans, FC Goa Fans and Kerala Blasters Fans. The fan clubs have been planned and organised in discussion with the ISL team owners.
Where cricket has outscored football: Indian-origin players have often made it to the England cricket team. The Chennai-born Nasser Hussain, Mark Ramprakash, and others. But on the football scene, the day seems far when a player from an Indian-origin family will play for England. Far but not impossible by any means. In the shadow of the revival of football in India, England may yet produce one.
Indian denim weaves its magic: With India now set to make import of Scotch whisky cheaper, it finds encouragement for its counter-push for its textiles exports. That has come by way of unexpectedly strong growth in the export of Indian denim to the US, the UK and Europe. It’s climbing already rapidly to pre-Covid levels and looks ready to overtake them. About 60 per cent of India’s denim production is in Gujarat.
Saving Sikhs: Sikh groups in Britain are stepping up a campaign for the rescue of about 270 Sikhs still left in Afghanistan, down from about 80,000 in the 1990s. Under the last Taliban government, Sikhs were required to wear yellow patches to mark them out. They suffered several casualties in militant attacks. British Sikhs are pressing for the urgency in bringing the remaining Sikhs out by the deadline for withdrawal at the end of this month.
