10
friDAY 19•02•2016
SPORTS
THE MORUNG EXPRESS
NbA's trade deadline smash or crash -- the Mccullum way approaching, so buckle up Jon Krawczynski The Associated Press
Last year there was hardly any action in the days leading up to the NBA's trading deadline. That led some to believe it would come and go quietly. It couldn't have been further from the truth. As the clock ticked down, a staggering avalanche of deals were consummated. When the dust settled, 12 trades involving 39 players clogged the league's approval process for hours after the deadline passed. So even though this week has been fairly quiet, there is still time leading into the 3 p.m. Thursday final buzzer, which will sound just a few hours before the league resumes play after the All-Star break. And the less time there is left, the more chances there are for something major to happen. Charlotte has picked up Courtney Lee and Detroit has added Tobias Harris. But with all due respect to both of them, history says there are bigger deals involving bigger names coming on Thursday. No matter how pragmatic executives try to be as the clock ticks down, and no matter how dominant Golden State appears to be as it steamrolls the rest of the league in pursuit of a second straight championship, the lure of the deal often wins out. Boston, Cleveland, Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, Sacramento and so many others have been
engaging in trade talks all week that figure to only get more heated as the deadline approaches. The Celtics are looking for a star for coach Brad Stevens, the Cavaliers are looking to bolster their role players around LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love not so much to help them in the East, but to give them a better chance in an NBA Finals matchup against the Warriors or another Western power. The Clippers need bench help to compete with the Warriors, Spurs and Thunder. Goran Dragic, Isaiah Thomas, Brandon Knight, Reggie Jackson, Enes Kanter and Kevin Garnett were among the notable names to switch teams at the last minute last year. Here is a look at some of the names that have surfaced: DWIGHT HOWARD: The Rockets have been one of the most disappointing teams of the season, and the chemistry between Howard and shooting guard James Harden appears to be fraying. Rockets general manager Daryl Morey has always been one of the most aggressive dealmakers in the league, and with Howard having the ability to become a free agent this summer, it might be time to part ways. PAU GASOL: The Bulls AllStar is one of the most skilled big men in the league. But the 35-year-old also can become a free agent in July, and the Bulls
could look to get some compensation for him. JEFF TEAGUE: The Hawks could look to shake things up and give themselves a boost while sitting in the fourth spot in the Eastern Conference. With backup point guard Dennis Schroder showing promise, moving Teague could bring some defensive help in the frontcourt after the Hawks lost big man Tiago Splitter for the season to a hip injury.
ChrIstChurCh, FebruAry 18 (AFP): The cap may be tattered but the legacy Brendon McCullum will leave when he calls it quits is of glowing success, destructive batting, recordsetting innings and reshaping the game. McCullum ends his glorious career after the second Test against Australia starting in Christchurch on Saturday. He doubts he will go down as one of cricket's greats and, taken in isolation, his batting average of a shade more than 38.00 after 101 Tests suggests he may be right. But the 34-year-old has never been just a batsman, nor just a wicketkeeper-batsman in his early days. Whenever he strode to the middle there was an expectant murmur in the crowd
RYAN ANDERSON: The Pelicans shooter can be a free agent this summer, so a shootingstarved team like the Cavaliers could bring him in as a rental with the hopes of convincing MANILA, FebruAry 18 (reuters): For all the critihim to stay for the long term. cism over his anti-gay comAL HORFORD: The Hawks All- ment and the loss of a lucrative Star said Wednesday he expects endorsement deal with Nike to remain in Atlanta, and he is the Inc, Philippines world boxing champion Mann Pacquiao still ideal fit for coach Mike Buden- looks set to win election to the holzer's system. But he will be a country's senate in May, acfree agent this summer, and the cording to political analysts. Hawks could look to move him Nike, the world's largest if they think they would lose him sportswear maker, canceled its for nothing in a few months. contract on Wednesday with the 37 year-old boxer-turnedKEVIN LOVE: The Cavaliers politician, who has been the forward has heard his name in world champion in eight differtrade rumors for much of the ent weight divisions, after he deseason, but James shot those scribed gays as "worse than anidown in Toronto during All-Star mals". But voters in the mostly weekend, and it remains un- Catholic Philippines appear likely he is moved on Thursday. unready to abandon support for the country's biggest sporting If the Cavs make a deal, sup- hero, who is running for one of porting parts like Iman Shump- 12 vacant senatorial seats up for ert and Timofey Mozgov seem grabs in the May 9 election. more likely to move. The fighter has apologized
and doubt among the bowlers. "I'll never go down as a great player but I played a role in the team, made some contributions," is how McCullum sees himself. "I've been pretty strong about how I've gone about the style of cricket which I've tried to play throughout my career." Just as he has never changed his Test cap since it was presented to him on the eve of his first Test in 2004, he has never changed his attackat-all-cost batting approach. "That can have its knockers as well and at the same time it can change a game too, so that's one thing I'll look back on fondly as I was able to maintain that even through times which were slightly averse," McCullum said. That black cap, by his own
admission, "is rancid" after years of use but the brutality of his batting has gone from strength to strength particularly after he took over as captain in 2012, since when had averaged 45 in Tests. His long list of achievements include becoming the second player, after West Indian Chris Gayle, to score a Twenty20 international century. In total, he has 11 Test centuries, five in ODIs and two in Twenty20s. Perhaps his best year was 2014, which included scores of 302, two double centuries and a 195, averaging more than 72 per innings, better than Kumar Sangakkara, Angelo Mathews, Younis Khan and David Warner. He is the only player to have hit 200 sixes in ODIs and 100 in Tests and
ahead of his final international, shares the world Test record for sixes with Adam Gilchrist. Many consider the dogged and Test-saving 302 his most memorable innings, with his knock coming when New Zealand trailed India by 246 on the first innings and were 94 for 5 in the second. He plied his "smash or crash" approach with the smash coming off with brutal regularity. McCullum goes into his final Test as New Zealand's second-highest run-scorer with 6,283 behind Stephen Fleming (7,172), third on New Zealand's ODI batting list behind Fleming and Nathan Astle with 6,083 and topping the Twenty20 list with 2,140 runs.
Pacquiao may still win senatorship after losing Nike in anti-gay outburst for the comments, and analysts reckoned the controversy has caused limited damage to his campaign. "Pacquiao has clearly offended the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community with his comments on same sex marriage, but this group represents a minority and this will not affect the boxer's popularity among the voters," Benito Lim, political science professor at the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Manila University, told Reuters. "He may still win in the elections." Many ordinary Filipinos believe Pacquiao made a mistake in his remarks on samesex marriage because he hurt some sensibilities. Many are more interested in what happens in April, when Pacquiao tries to win back the WBO welterweight title he lost last year to Floyd Mayweather. Billed as his final fight, Pac-
quiao is going up against American Timothy Bradley. "The criticism against Pacquiao has no effect on us," said Annabelle Magsipoc, a government employee, told Reuters Television, adding that the boxer retains popular support in the community. "Actually, many people really wanted to say what Pacquiao said about same-sex marriage, but some people are trying to make this an election issue," she said. Independent opinion polls showed Pacquiao, a two-term congressman, consistently ranked eighth with 35 percent support in a field of four dozen candidates vying for one of the 12 vacant seats in the upper house of Congress. Gay and lesbian groups have called on Filipinos not to vote for the boxing icon for his television comment on same-sex marriage, almost a
repeat of what had happened in 2012 when he quoted from the Bible to warn against homosexual activities. Same-sex marriage is not allowed in the Philippines where more than 80 percent of the 100 million population is Roman Catholic. Pacquiao has converted from being a Roman Catholic to a more conservative evangelical Protestant, voting against bills in the lower house of Congress on divorce, same-sex marriage and birth control through use of artificial contraceptives. Ramon Casiple of the Institute of Political and Electoral Reforms said it is too early to say if the latest controversy will hamper Pacquiao's chances of becoming a senator. "He stirred a hornet's nest, so there's danger that he could lose support, but, so far, we don't see any indication of that."
public discourse
it is the same story again of the Government schools
A
Oken Jeet Sandham
gain, as usual, I have seen a story with a photograph in "The Morung Express" - February 16 Edition. "No textbooks, no classes" ran the lead story. The picture of Government Primary School, Mezoma was given as locked because of the non-availability of textbooks meant for teaching the students. I am not surprised at all as such things happened in many places in Nagaland. The fact is in the remote areas, the poor students have been undergoing all kinds of man-made tragedies from the day they started going to schools. A large number of students in extremely remote and inaccessible villages may not even know where they are going and for what purpose because many of them did not see their textbooks throughout the academic sessions. There were reports that they appeared their final exams without seeing even once their textbooks, forget about not getting their school uniforms and mid-day meals. These are the stories used to
float every now and then. Sometime, in an early part of 2014, some complaints surfaced from Dimapur areas that the students and teachers from government Town Middle School, located in Half Nagarjan area were reported to have waited for government’s action to deliver the textbooks to the students before their exams started. The shocking exposé was the Headmistress of the school admitted that all such unwanted thing had happened in spite of their constant submission of details regarding the required study materials to the Education Department. She could not even tell when they would get the textbooks. There were also cases from Dimapur areas that students did not have their school buildings and their teachers were compelled to take classes under trees. Now, one can easily imagine what would be the fate of thousands of poor students in far-flung areas of the State if students studying in Mezoma, near Kohima and Dimapur areas did not receive their textbooks till now. It is really painful to see the innocent and
extremely underprivileged students going to their schools in far-flung areas of the State. They have to walk kilometers in some villages to reach their schools, and many of them do not have walls, toilet facilities, classrooms, etc. In many places, one or two teachers will run the schools while in some places one or two students are found to be only students. But on paper, it claimed enrollments of students in Government schools in remote villages are increasing. They live in the villages and hardly know beyond their village activities. The reality is that they are born in their village, live there and die there without even seeing their neighborhoods. Their village is their own world. It is this situation that the authority continues to indulge in various forms of corruptions and in rare occasions, student bodies from those affected areas aired their grievances that hundreds of students had to appear their final exams without seeing even once their textbooks. From time to time, teachers appointed under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) used to protests against non-releasing of their sala-
ries for months and that went up to even six months. During such time, educational careers of thousands of students were affected. SSA is Government of India’s flagship program for achievement of Universalization of Elementary Education (UEE) in a time bound manner, as mandated by 86th amendment to the Constitution of India making free and compulsory Education to the Children of 6-14 years age group, a Fundamental Right. SSA is being implemented in partnership with State Governments to cover the entire country and address the needs of 192 million children in 1.1 million habitations. The program seeks to open new schools in those habitations which do not have schooling facilities and strengthen existing school infrastructure through provision of additional class rooms, toilets, drinking water, maintenance grant and school improvement grants. Existing schools with inadequate teacher strength are provided with additional teachers, while the capacity of existing teachers is being strengthened by extensive training, grants for developing teaching-learning materials and
strengthening of the academic support structure at a cluster, block and district level. SSA seeks to provide quality elementary education including life skills. SSA has a special focus on girl’s education and children with special needs. SSA also seeks to provide computer education to bridge the digital divide. Total Expenditures on Salaries and Allowances in Education Department, Nagaland for the year 2015-16 comes to Rs 99999.96 lakh. Out of this, Rs 4554.00 lakh comes under CSS. Education Department has a budgeted amount of Rs 139292.71 lakh (Rupees one thousand three hundred ninety-two crore ninety-two lakh seventy-one thousand only). Why has the concerned department remained silent while educational systems in most of the government schools have been deteriorating day by day? Why couldn’t the department come up with some ideas as to how the issue could be solved? How many school buildings have been constructed under SSA in the State? Why can't the Government pay salaries, issue textbooks or uniforms to students on time?
A VisioN oF JusTice proud moments of a Govt school Teacher
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hat social condition of Europe those days made Joseph Addison write his essay by the above title is not clear to many of us. He slightly refers to the occasion of his writing as, “I was repining at the sudden rise of many persons who are my juniors, and indeed, at the unequal distribution of wealth, honour, and all other blessings of life.” Then he went to sleep and saw the vision. The heaven was extraordinarily illuminated and all on a sudden a woman by name BALANCE appeared with a mirror in her hand. She bore many emblems by which the goddess of justice is usually named. All the inhabitants of the world gathered in a spacious plain. The accompanying heavenly voice announced the intention of this visit: to restore and appropriate to everyone what was his/her due. Then fear, joy, hope and sorrow filled the gathering. The first edict was then pronounced, “That all titles and claims to riches and estates, or to any part of them, should be immediately vested in the rightful owner.” The inhabitants of the earth were ready with their records to which the goddess of justice moved the mirror of truth which she held in her hand. The rays of this mirror had a particular quality of setting fire to all forgery and falsehood. The fire very often ran through two or three lines only and then stopped. The fire pierced through the dark corners and the recesses of the universe and by that means detected many writings and records which had been hidden or buried by time,
chance, or decision. At the same time the spoils of extortion, fraud, and robbery, with all the fruits of bribery and corruption, were thrown together in a prodigious pile, that almost reached to the clouds, and was called, “The Mount of Restitution” to which all injured persons were invited, to receive what belonged to them. This revolution made several millioners to people of moderate fortunes and certain street of the greatest credit in Europe, from one end to the other become bankrupt. The second command of the goddess of justice was that, “All the posts of dignity and honor in the universe should be conferred on persons of the greatest merit, abilities, and perfection”. Anyway, it will take much time and space to exhaust Joseph Addison’s vision. We may only note the high sense of accountability of the visionary who reminded his fellow citizens of that day (Christians included?) that their daily lives were played on the stage directed by the Living God, the God of Justice. Is our world of today comparable to the world of Joseph Addison? We pray to this Living God day and night, pray in all places of our work and living but fail to realize we are living and acting in the silent presence of this God whose name we profess. The day we settle the account of our lives with the King of kings and the Lord of lords will be more spectacular and rewarding for some and disappointing for the others. (Extracted and paraphrased by Ezamo Murry from The Book of English Essays by W.E.Williams)
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henever names of Govt. schools appear in news papers people begin to read it with a prejudiced mindset that it might be related to some disappointments. There is no denial that the states of affairs in Govt. schools are not so encouraging and there are lots of things to be done to go in phase with the developed states of our country. In spite of the shortcomings existing in the system, few Govt. schools have been contributing their best to the society and they should be encouraged to continue their efforts for the betterment of the society. One such Govt. school that comes under the above category is Govt. Higher Secondary School, Dimapur which is one among the oldest pioneer schools in Nagaland. I was privileged to serve at GHSS, Di-
mapur as P. G. Teacher (Physics) nearly for 16 years and I had witnessed many students from the underprivileged sections of the society rising to higher positions in life utilizing the limited facilities available in the school. Many of my students from GHSS, Dimapur are now occupying higher positions in the Govt. sector as well as in the highly competitive private sector both in India and in the developed countries such as USA. A teacher’s real moments of pride comes when he sees his students becoming successful citizens and words could not easily describe the happiness he gets while hearing news of their progress in life. Few days back I had such a pride moment in my life. Lieutenant Bikram Sigh, one of my former students from Govt. Hr Sec School, Dimapur (2005-2007) happily informed
me that he has successfully completed his officers training at the National Defense Academy and got Commissioned in the Indian Army. I was so excited to see his photo in Officers Uniform and felt as if my own son has achieved the glory. My memories went back to the year 2005 and recalled the days of his school days. He was a member of the team that secured the State First Position in the Physics Quiz and I accompanied them to represent Nagaland at the Eastern India Physics Quiz held at Kolkata in the year 2005. Born to poor parents, Lieutenant Bikram Singh has proved that limitations could never stand as obstacles to success if one has strong determination. He has risen to today’s position through his hard work with the support of parents, teachers and friends. After completing
his graduation, he had worked in the private sector for some time but never gave up his ambition of becoming an officer in the Indian Army. I pray to the almighty to bless him to climb more heights in his career and bring glorifying successes to his motherland! Let me take this opportunity to congratulate Smt R Amongla Jamir the then Principal of GHSS, Dimapur, and all my former colleagues who contributed their best to the well being of hundreds of students every year through their dedicated services. Let us continue our service to the society and prepare our children to face the challenges of life and overcome the obstacles through sincerity and hard work. Nellayappan B, Principal Govt. Higher Secondary School,Bhandari.
THe QuAliTY oF liFe iN NAGAlANd
Thepfulhouvi Solo
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f a UNIVERSITY cannot differentiate the HONORS from the PASS COURSE in the College, the Vice Chancellor should be removed and the Registrar immediately prosecuted according to his Service Rule. The Qualities of Education in the Honors and the Pass Courses are very different. Honors Course is almost double of the Pass Course. The Honor Course is Special but the other Course is just common Normal. The search for Moral and Ethical qualities more than the search for Economic Affluence in the Church as well as in the Secular World will determine the quality of Naga Society ultimately in Nagaland in the long run:
Since the Protest Demonstrations in Tunisia for change in 2010 December, the popularly known Arab Spring protests touched off change in the whole of Arab World. Dictator Mubarak's of Egypt has been removed in 2011 by the famous Tahrir Square Protesters, but his Military Regime continued. Morsi, replaced him but continued to use Mubarak's Military Regime of 30 years even against his own Muslim Brotherhood. The protest for Change continued, thousands of protesters were killed. Morsi was pushed out by his own Military Chief Al-Sisi but the Military Regime still continues in Egypt. Next to China, Egypt has the highest number of Journalists killed, they died at the hand of repressive Armed Forces of the Government.
In Burma, the Military Ruled for now 30 years and the Regime appears to have extended its lease of the Country. China has adopted democratic Methods in many aspects of development and today nearly half of the luxury Goods produced in the whole developed World is purchased by China. Yet Communist China denies democracy to Hongkong, China's showcase place of affluence in the name of maintaining Stability of the Country. It is the Ethical and Moral Qualities of man and woman we are in the our Society that would decide the value we prefer: lasting quality of spiritual honor or transient qualities of economic affluence. And once a System or Regime is established it stays there until thousands
die for Change. I am worried Nagaland may adopt a Regime of Corruption involuntarily by our overemphasis on Economic Affluence disproportionately over our Morals and Ethical values. Just as the Gospel: preached to the Poor, healed the Broken hearted, proclaimed Liberty to Captives, recovery of sight to the Blind, and set at Liberty those who are Oppressed; the Chief Minister of the State is to give Wealth, Hope, Peace, Justice and Happiness to the Citizens of his State and most of all, change the Regime of Corruption in the land
Readers may please note that the contents of the articles, letters and opinions published do not reflect the outlook of this paper nor of the Editor in any form.