Hyderabad Woman Becomes World’s Second Female to Swim 30-Mile Palk Strait Between India and Sri Lanka

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A 47-year-old Hyderabad-based woman named Shyamala Goli became the world’s second female to swim across the 30-mile long Palk Strait between India and Sri Lanka on Friday.

She swam for 13 hours and 43 minutes from Talaimannar in northern Sri Lanka to Dhanushkodi in India to create the record.

Her swimming journey began a few years ago after she decided to overcome her aquaphobia. Mother of an engineering graduate son, Shyamala runs a play school in Hyderabad. After successfully completing the mission an elated Shyamala said that the experience was unforgettable for several reasons.

“Sri Lankan water was calm and I could swim easily. The Indian water was choppy. The last five miles were really tough. That’s why it took 90 minutes extra time to cover the 30-mile sea which divides India and Sri Lanka”, Shyamala told News18 over a call.

Shyamala was all set to swim across the Palk Strait last year. A day before Sri Lanka declared a country-wide lockdown forcing her to postpone it to the next year. “Namal Rajapaksa, currently the Sports and Youth Affairs Minister of Sri Lanka went out of his way to get me all necessary clearances from his government. He was supposed to flag off my expedition. He could not make it because of some other commitments. I thank him” she said. However, on Friday morning, Namal Rajapaksa tweeted wishing her success.

Talking about her inspiration, Shyamala stated that TRS leader Kalvakuntla Kavitha is her role model and said, “Kavitha has encouraged me a lot. I am from a lower-middle-class background. She has helped me even financially to realise my dreams. I am always indebted to her.”

Shyamala was trained and guided for this sea-swimming event by senior IPS officer Rajiv Trivedi who has also swam the Palk Strait in the past. Considering that Syamala learnt swimming just four years back, her successful effort and the timing are creditable.

Indian Swimming Federation had sent an observer with her to verify and certify her swimming expedition. She was bowled over by the hospitality and the support extended by the Sri Lankan Navy and Coast guard.

“Sri Lankan Navy and Coast guard personnel were awesome. They were too kind and generous”, she added.

Captain Vikas Sood, Naval Attache at the Indian High Commission in Sri Lanka helped her in getting all approvals and he also flagged her expedition at the Thalaimannar.

She hopes her expedition will help India and Sri Lanka to bridge the gaps in their relationship, which has hit roadblocks in recent times.



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Arindam Bagchi to be new spokesperson of Ministry of External Affairs | India News – Times of India

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NEW DELHI: Senior diplomat Arindam Bagchi is set to be the new spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), succeeding Anurag Srivastava, sources said on Thursday.
A 1995-batch Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer, Bagchi is currently serving as the joint secretary (north) at the MEA headquarters here.
The sources said Srivastava will assume charge as the joint secretary (north) in place of Bagchi.
Bagchi served as India’s ambassador to Croatia from November 2018 to June 2020.
He was India’s deputy high commissioner to Sri Lanka and also served at the Prime Minister’s Office as a director.
Srivastava, a 1999-batch IFS officer, took charge as the spokesperson of the MEA in April last year.
He was serving as India’s Ambassador to Ethiopia before becoming the MEA spokesperson.

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Morning Digest: Modi, Gotabaya speak over telephone ahead of Geneva vote; Health Minister says pollution contributes to spread and virulence of SARS-CoV-2 infections, and more

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Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Narendra Modi reviewed “topical developments” during a telephone call on Saturday, an official press release said, just over a week before a crucial vote on Sri Lanka at the U.N. Human Rights Council, where Colombo has sought New Delhi’s support.

There is emerging evidence to suggest that exposure to ambient air pollutants, especially PM2.5 and NO2, contribute to the spread and virulence SARS-CoV-2 infections, said Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Saturday, while inaugurating the new green campus of Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) National Institute for Research in Environmental Health (NIREH), at Bhopal.

North Korea has not responded to behind-the-scenes diplomatic outreach since mid-February by President Joe Biden’s administration, including to Pyongyang’s mission to the United Nations, a senior Biden administration official told Reuters on March 13.

Politics seems to sit very well on Kamal Haasan. A ‘newbie’ in politics, this veteran of cinema, is comfortable with the new skin he wears. He says he hit the ground running with the launch of his party, the Makkal Needhi Maiam, in 2018, and he’s been running since. Things are hectic, possibly more than ever, but his demeanour says “relaxed” and “confident”. Here, he discusses, with The Hindu his ideology, reasons for choice of candidates, caste-politics in Tamil Nadu and missing his long-time friend Rajinikanth’s company in politics.

Sri Lanka will soon ban the burqa or face veil, a Cabinet Minister said on Saturday, as he announced the Rajapaksa administration’s latest policy decision impacting the minority Muslim community.

AIADMK leader and Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniwami on Saturday said the Puthiya Tamilagam (PT), which was in the forefront of the agitation to classify seven Dalit sub-sects under the common title ‘Devendrakula Velalar’ and to be delisted from the Schedule, has left the ruling alliance.

Eight months after the rebellion of former Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot, the discontent simmering in the ruling Congress in Rajasthan has come to the fore through three MLAs from the eastern parts of the State.

Just within six months of Srinagar being declared a militants-free zone, the J&K police on Saturday released a list of nine “wanted militants”, with seven recruits identified from the city and operating from the capital.

As Haryanvi singer Ajay Huda croons “Zindabad kisani, zindabad jawani”, his latest song on farmers’ protests, sons of farmers break into a jig at the Bhojpur panchayat called by the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) against the contentious farm laws.

The BJP on Saturday joined the Valley-based Muslim religious organisation in condemnation of Shia leader Waseem Rizvi’s move to approach the Supreme Court to seek removal of 26 verses of the Quran, a holy book central to the faith of Muslims across the world.

China is no longer compliant with Hong Kong’s joint declaration after Beijing announced sweeping changes to the region’s electoral system, Britain said on Saturday. “The U.K. now considers Beijing to be in a state of ongoing non-compliance with the Sino-British Joint Declaration,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The contradictions began even before a ball was bowled. A day after India skipper Virat Kohli had stated that Rohit Sharma and K.L. Rahul would be the first-choice opening pair, the team management decided to rest Rohit for the first T20 in Ahmedabad on Friday.

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Sri Lanka to ban burqa, shut many Islamic schools, minister says

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COLOMBO: Sri Lanka will ban the wearing of the burqa and shut more than a thousand Islamic schools, a government minister said on Saturday, the latest actions affecting the country’s minority Muslim population.

Minister for public security Sarath Weerasekera told a news conference he had signed a paper on Friday for cabinet approval to ban the full face covering worn by some Muslim women on “national security” grounds.

“In our early days Muslim women and girls never wore the burqa,” he said. “It is a sign of religious extremism that came about recently. We are definitely going to ban it.”

The wearing of the burqa in the majority-Buddhist nation was temporarily banned in 2019 after the bombing of churches and hotels by Islamic militants that killed more than 250.

Later that year, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, best known for crushing a decades-long insurgency in the north of the country as defence secretary, was elected president after promising a crackdown on extremism.

Rajapaksa is accused of widespread rights abuses during the war, charges he denies.

Weerasekera said the government plans to ban more than a thousand madrassa Islamic schools that he said were flouting national education policy.

“Nobody can open a school and teach whatever you want to the children,” he said.

The government’s moves on burqas and schools follow an order last year mandating the cremation of Covid-19 victims – against the wishes of Muslims, who bury their dead.

This ban was lifted earlier this year after criticism from the United States and international rights groups.



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