HISTORIC is the only word that b e s t d e s c r i b e s the feat of Ms. Manu Bhaker, of winning two medals in one Olympics. It is a matter of pride that she is the first Indian player to achieve the honour. The athlete, who has won medals in 10m air pistol events, has a calm strength and composed personality. This composure is what distinguishes from others a sportsperson pursuing excellence. The pursuit of excellence goes beyond a flash of brilliance. A flash may fade soon, but the pursuit of excellence builds consistency in performance, which ultimately makes an athlete confident. Ms. Manu Bhaker’s achievement becomes all the more inspiring considering that she had made her Olympic debut in 2020, but ended up in tears as her pistol had malfunctioned. It takes a lot of steel for a person to come out of that horrendous phase, regain calmness, draw lessons from the bad experience and keep working to attain a position where nothing is left to chance The fact that she built herself extremely well since 2020 is reflected in her stupendous achievement now. It speaks a lot about her personality. Youngsters aspiring to do something better in life, should draw inspiration from icons such as ‘Magical Manu’

 

 

 

T RAGEDY has struck Kerala again, as landslides following torrential rains in Wayanad have snuffed out more than 150 lives so far and many are still feared trapped in debris. Landslides, torrential rains, and even floods are not new to Kerala. In fact, it has been suffering the natural disasters for long. After each tragedy, Central Government and even some other States have come forward to help Kerala, irrespective of political parties in power. But, it is the responsibility of Kerala only to draw right lessons from each such incident and take corrective measures. The latest incident sends out a message that the efforts taken by Kerala so far have not proved to be adequate. It needs to improve on handling the fragile ecology, regulating infrastructure growth so that it does not harm environment, shape better disaster response, take up massive public awareness drive, and enhance co-ordination with Central Government. In the larger interest of people of Kerala, the State Government there needs to lay more emphasis on climate change, disaster management, environment science in education at school and college levels instead of focussing on political conditioning of young minds.