UPDATE

Two legends

WITH a century on August 23 in the Third Test against England at Headingley, Leeds, Sachin Tendulkar overtook Sir Donald Bradman's record of 29 Test hundreds and moved into second spot in the all-time list of Test century makers. Tendulkar's 193, in India's first innings, was the 30th century of his Test career and only Sunil Gavaskar, with 34 Test centuries, remains ahead of him. Tendulkar achieved this milestone in his 99th Test, while Bradman scored his 29 centuries in 52 matches.

Tendulkar, in his characteristic humility, implored not to be compared with Bradman, who he holds in the highest esteem. "He's not a normal person. You can only dream of scoring a hundred every three innings," Tendulkar said of Bradman after his innings. Bradman had mentioned in a 1996 interview that Tendulkar was the one batsman who reminded him of himself. Incidentally, Tendulkar's knock helped India achieve its highest ever Test total (628 for 8) abroad.

BRYAN CHARTLTON-SACA/AP
Sir Donald Bradman with Sachin Tendulkar on the occasion of Bradman's 90th birthday in 1998 in Adelaide, Australia.

Tendulkar also surpassed several other landmarks during his outstanding 434-minute effort at Headingley. His final score of 193 represented his highest Test score outside India. When he reached 73 in India's first innings, Tendulkar became the seventh highest run getter in Test history. He trails only Allan Border, Sunil Gavaskar, Steve Waugh, Graham Gooch, Javed Miandad and Vivian Richards. Tendulkar's innings at Headingley was made more memorable by the fact that it was his first century in the home ground of his former county side, Yorkshire. Tendulkar in 1991 became the first overseas cricketer to represent Yorkshire, breaking 129 years of isolation. Despite coming under a lot of scrutiny this year in the media for his supposed loss of form, Tendulkar, as of August 25, was the top run getter in Test cricket in the current calendar year, with 932 runs.

Commenting in London's The Daily Telegraph after Tendulkar's superb knock, Gavaskar said that Tendulkar was the most complete batsman the game had seen. Gavaskar added: "I would back him to become the first man to score a hundred international hundreds - that's fifty in Tests and fifty in one-dayers." Interestingly, Tendulkar started his 99th Test with the same number of runs (8,158) that Gavaskar had at the same stage in his career. As of August 25, Tendulkar has played in 99 Test matches and scored 8,351 runs at an average of 57.99.

Tendulkar's 30th Test century underscored the consistency with which he has performed throughout his career and has enhanced his reputation as the premier batsman in world cricket today. Tendulkar's performance in the current series is likely to renew the debate on 'India's Greatest Cricketer', and he continues to make a compelling claim to that title (see related story in this issue on page 82: "Gavaskar: India's Greatest Cricketer").

Kanta Murali

Shekhawat's victory

FORMER Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat was sworn in the 12th Vice-President of India on August 19 by President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. Among those present at the ceremony was former President K.R. Narayanan, who made his first public appearance after demitting office. Also present was Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, who had taken strong exception to not being invited for the President's swearing in in July. Shekhawat, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate who defeated the Opposition's Sushil Kumar Shinde (Congress), had personally invited Jayalalithaa. Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee's was another prominent presence. Ever since the Eastern Railway bifurcation controversy broke out, Mamata Banerjee has kept away from the NDA. In fact, she and other Trinamul Congress members of Parliament boycotted the vice-presidential election.

The election brought to the fore Shekhawat's rapport with leaders of other political parties. His 149-vote victory margin took even BJP members by surprise; he was expected to win by a margin of 110 votes in the best of circumstances.

Shekhawat, who has been Chief Minister of Rajasthan three times, polled 454 of the 766 votes cast by MPs on August 12, the day the Speaker adjourned the Lok Sabha sine die. Shinde got a disappointing 305 votes. Lok Sabha Secretary-General G.C. Malhotra, who was the returning officer, announced the results on the evening of August 12 itself. Of the 788 MPs - the electoral college comprises members of the Rajya Sabha (245) and the Lok Sabha (543) - 766 cast their votes. Seven votes were declared invalid. The intense training given to NDA members in casting their votes properly, apparently helped bring down the number of invalid votes. In the presidential election, the votes of 42 MPs were declared invalid.

Shekhawat's large victory margin suggests that his campaign to woo the 'Thakur' members had its impact, although it could not be ascertained which section of the Opposition broke ranks. Of the 22 MPs who did not vote, nine belonged to the Trinamul Congress. Ajit Kumar Panja, the rebel Trinamul Congress MP, exercised his franchise.

The arrival of jailed Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Vaiko created a commotion inside the Parliament House complex as cameramen jostled for space to take his picture. Vaiko came to Parliament House in the afternoon along with Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan. He left the complex amid tight security, without uttering a word, soon after casting his vote.

Unlike the presidential poll, where the NDA preferred the consensus route, in the case of the Vice-President the BJP insisted on having 'its own man'. And it did.

Purnima S. Tripathi

Veerappan strikes again

IN yet another instance of loss of face for the Karnataka and Tamil Nadu Special Task Forces (STFs), forest brigand Veerappan struck right under their noses on the night of August 25, kidnapping at gun-point former Karnataka Minister H. Nagappa and two police constables from Nagappa's farmhouse at Kamagere, 75 km from Mysore in Chamarajanagar district. The Karnataka STF's camp at Gundal, with around 30 personnel, is located just 5 km from the farmhouse.

H. Nagappa.

The abduction, coming two years after the daring kidnap of Kannada film actor Rajkumar from Gajanur village in Tamil Nadu close to the State's border with Karnataka, has made a mockery of the intelligence gathering systems of the STFs and the local police. It has also called into question the Karnataka government's contention that Veerappan was not active on the State's soil.

Veerappan is reported to have sent a cassette to Nagappa's wife to be handed over to the State government. The S.M. Krishna government held an all-party meeting on August 26, and has dispatched 40 platoons of Karnataka State Reserve Police personnel to the area. But it is pointed out that these personnel have had no training in such terrain.

Nagappa, who has been demanding the arrest of Veerappan, had received a letter about a year ago purportedly from the brigand in which he had threatened to kidnap him. Subsequently, the State government provided Nagappa with security. The politician's name also figures in the list of people under threat from Veerappan in a report authored by former Karnataka STF Superintendent of Police Arakesh Kumar. Veerappan once again proved that his intelligence network could outwit the STFs'. On August 25, the attention of the security forces was diverted to Gajanur because Rajkumar was visiting the farmhouse for the first time since his abduction. Veerappan almost had the entire area to himself. Veerappan, who has repeatedly resorted to abductions, was, according to the police, paid a ransom of around Rs.12 crores and promised safe passage in November 2000 for the release of Rajkumar. In the intervening period Veerappan remained hidden in his lair with the Karnataka and Tamil Nadu police clueless about his whereabouts. Over the past two decades, Veerappan has led a charmed existence always a few steps ahead of his pursuers. According to police records, he has killed 138 people (including 32 police officials and 10 forest officials), slaughtered around 200 elephants for their ivory and looted the forests of tonnes of sandalwood.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa lashed out at what she described as the S.M. Krishna government's lackadaisical attitude in tackling the Veerappan menace. She was particularly critical of its June 15 decision to transfer its STF chief, Inspector-General of Police Kempiah, and downgrade the post to that of a Deputy Inspector-General. This, she said, had allowed the sandalwood smuggler to gain "strength and courage" and had "led to this outrage". She said that the Karnataka government's action in this regard had followed a visit to Bangalore by two delegations from Tamil Nadu.

Ravi Sharma

The death of Abu Nidal

THE death Abu Nidal in Baghdad on August 17 signaled the end of a gory chapter in terrorism. He died unmourned in the Arab world though in the last three decades several governments in the region had reportedly made use of his expertise in carrying out terrorist operations. Abu Nidal was the nom de guerre of Sabri al-Banna. Born in a wealthy Palestinian family in Jaffa, he became a refugee after the creation of Israel. He joined the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) as a young man and was initially close to Yasser Arafat and the rest of its top leadership. But by the mid-1970s Abu Nidal had fallen out with the PLO.

From the outset, he was against any compromise with Israel. When the PLO started taking the first tentative steps towards acknowledging the possibility of a Palestinian state coexisting with Israel, Nidal and his supporters turned their guns on the PLO and moderate Palestinians. His breakaway group, the Fatah Revolutionary Council (FRC), formed in the early 1970s, carried out some audacious attacks on Israeli targets. These included the shooting down of an El Al passenger plane in 1974, which killed 74 passengers. However, it was the FRC's attempt to assassinate the Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1982 that made many people suspect Abu Nidal's bona fides. The attack gave Israel the excuse it wanted to launch an invasion of Lebanon and mount a direct assault on the PLO leadership. Since then many observers of the West Asian scene have suspected that Abu Nidal and the Israeli secret services had some sort of an understanding. Arafat was the foremost enemy of the Israeli right- wing and the Abu Nidal group, and both wanted him dead. Three of the four men who formed the core of the Al Fatah leadership were assassinated - Mohammed Yussuf Najjar in 1973 and Abu Jihad in 1988 by Israeli hit squads, and Abu Iyad in 1991 by one of Abu Nidal's men. Only Arafat is alive today.

The killing of moderate Palestinians suited the goals of hardline Zionists like Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Hardline Palestinians like Abu Nidal gave them the excuse to keep on occupying Palestinian territory and expanding Jewish settlements, while branding the entire Palestinian leadership as extremist.

Many in the Palestinian leadership have pointed out that there is more than enough "circumstantial evidence" to link Abu Nidal to the Israeli security services. Shortly before his death Abu Iyad said that Abu Nidal was Israel's main instrument to stall negotiations for the creation of an independent Palestinian state. The Abu Nidal group's killing of moderate Palestinians began when the right-wing Likud Party, under the leadership of Menachem Begin, came to office in Israel in 1977. Begin was an unabashed champion of "greater Israel" and like his protege, Sharon, knew that negotiations with the PLO would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state.

Suspicions about Abu Nidal were further aroused by Israel's failure to act against him. The FRC on its part never carried out anti-Israeli activities in the occupied territories or within the Jewish state. Instead, it preferred to mount operations in countries otherwise sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.

John Cherian