RIFLE RANGE BOY

At the time of writing, two Air India flights had to make emergency landings after receiving bomb threats. Of late, emails have been coming out from the US of threats of bomb blasts in Air India flights. Many geopolitical observers propose that these disturbances are closely related to the killing of two Khalistani supporters/militants in Canada recently. It is alleged that their killings were masterminded by Indian intelligence, orders of which were coming directly from the Modi Government and executed by Indian gangs. For the uninitiated, there is a significant Sikh diaspora in Canada. After the traumatic tearing up of the State of Punjab during Partition in 1947, Indian Punjab became one of the most prosperous States, becoming one of the biggest contributors to the Indian coffers. Then came Bhindrawale of the Akali Dal Party, who stored arms in the Golden Temple. Operation Blue Star happened then. The 'desecration' of the temple by the Indian Army snowballed into the assassi...

IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack (Hindi, miniseries. Ep1-6) Director: Abhinav Sinha It was the last Christmas season of the 20th century. The airports had not yet begun instructing passengers to remove belts and shoes before check-in, as the Twin Towers had not yet fallen. A simple hand wave would suffice to get one to the boarding area. That was the situation at Kathmandu airport on Christmas Eve 1999, when Indian Airlines flight IC841 departed for Delhi at around 4 p.m.  Forty minutes into the flight, as they were entering Indian airspace, a masked passenger entered the cockpit (yes, it was not a security zone then). Just as a steward entered to serve drinks, the masked passenger put a knife to the steward's throat and announced that the plane had been hijacked. Indian air traffic control was informed; however, the information did not filter down through the chain of command appropriately. Bureaucracy and apathy were to blame. After all, India had just fought a war in Kargil a few mon...

Society of the Snow (La sociedad de la nieve, Spanish; 2023) Director: J.A. Bayona We have discussed this movie before. Check here . This is yet another version depicting one of the greatest human stories about survival. On October 13, 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 flew over the Andes from Uruguay to Chile. It was carrying 45 passengers on board, mostly Uruguayan rugby players. It crashed into the most inaccessible part of the mountain. Presumed to be dead by the authorities after failing to find them in their search-and-rescue, the 29 initial survivors were left to fend for themselves. A few died due to their injury, and some in an avalanche that ensued. Exposed to the element and having no food to eat, they had to use the last of their survival skills, teamwork, and spiritual faith to hang on to their dear lives. When food became non-existent, somebody suggested that they eat the remains of the dead. Initially, the passengers thought a rescue mission would ensue. After seeing ...

There Mohammad was all up cheery in the morning. One more week, and he will be off back to his hometown. His sister was to get married, and he needed to earn extra cash to spend with his childhood friends back home. Off he went answering the requests as the e-hailing app requested. The Klang Valley sun was getting hotter as the day went on. By 2 p.m., he thought he had enough. He would do one last delivery and call it a day. For his latest job, he had to ride to Shah Alam to deliver some foodstuff. “Waze sends me through Elmina to reach, okay!” He told himself. “After that, I can call a day! After all, it’s his childhood friend Amin’s birthday.” He was just reminiscing all his times from kindie to adulthood. After losing Amin to the many gruelling challenges in life, they rekindled their friendship through a mutual friend. They just did not have enough of each other. Stories of so many years cannot be completed in a single session. Tonight they plan to continue where they had stopped. ...

Tun M tried it once, and now in his second lease of life, he is at it again - wanting to change our mindset to be tuned to the frequency of the Japanese. Their zest for improvement and perfection cannonballed them up from a nation devastated by the pulverising effects of a mushroom cloud to morph into the second biggest economy in thirty short years. Somehow, we are deeply immersed and soaked in our mediocrity and lulled with self-glorification that even if we look at the Land of Rising Sun with awe, we remain faithfully as the Land of Twilight. For it is at the twilight of times, do we all become lethargic. Gandhi, among the many things that he admired about the Europeans, includes cleanliness and punctuality. He went as far as to say that stickling to time made them able to rules countries timezones away (paraphrasing). One of the virtues that skyrocketed the Japanese to great heights in discipline and keeping time. Go to any railway station and one can understand. A minute in the...