Triplicane Triology ! - Temple photographers

 

Limelight is   intense illumination created by using an oxyhydrogen flame directed at a cylinder of quicklime which can be heated to 2572°C before melting.   Though electric lights and focus lamps have long since replaced this quicklime, the expression continues.  The limelight effect was discovered in the 1820s by Goddsworthy Gurney. Limelight was first used in public in the Covent Garden Theatre in London in 1837  

 

Here the Sun specially focusses on the elite trio : Jutur, Kanakaraj, Shyam  (Thiruvallikkeni Perumal photographers)

 
Appreciations are welcome !!
18.5.2024

the health tablet .. . - 'Calcium Sandoz' !!!

An advertisement from Kalki 1975 issue rekindled some nostalgia !!

 

Most likely that you too had these puppy bottles at home  —   a dog with an open mouth and a smiling face and they were so intricately linked with the brand of colourful pills launched by a Swiss pharmaceutical company in India, that most households kept a bottle handy. Kids savoured its taste, while mothers thought chewing that tablet would make their kid strong !! 

Once consumed, the bottles took pride of place in kitchen containing spices or pepper or salt, or kept just as a décor item !  - the once icon healthcare suddenly vanished.  It was  Calcium Sandoz  along with items like Ferradol constituted the dominance of upwardl middle class. With rising incomes, there was a growing emphasis on health and nutrition for the aspirational middle-class and mothers thought a tablet of Calcium a day and a spoon of iron drink would make wonders. 

Calcium Sandoz Tablet is used for the treatment of vitamin D and calcium deficiency. It is used for the treatment of osteoporosis or bone-related disorders. 

Once a flourishing market, the  Sandoz facility was shut down in 2013 (Novartis was the parent company and Sandoz was the company that produced the tablets In India) owing to financial pressures on the parent company and a strategic shift from “generic to differentiated, complex medication”.  They were to call it   as part of a project portfolio optimisation but simply it was closed as it was no longer generating the revenue expected of it. 

After all Company’s health is more important  than what the product was thought to be ! – so few scores of people were out of employment when the shutters were down in Bombay.  It was stated that  though the move was astonishing as India being a  low-cost destination for API development, in the case of Sandoz it may be relatively less significant as the company was  looking at captive use.  

 

Do you remember chewing Calcium Sandoz and saving some coins in that used plastic  bottle !!

 

With regards – S Sampathkumar
18.5.2o24 

Aeroplane landing - thoughts of 1980s

வருஷங்கள் ஓடுகின்றன ! காலங்கள் மாறுகின்றன !  1975ல் ஆண்டி ராபர்ட்ஸின் வேக பந்து வீச்சை அற்புதமாக தடுத்து ஆடிய குண்டப்பா விஸ்வநாத்தின் ரசிகர்களுக்கு இன்றைய IPL T20 madness  பிடிக்காமல் போகலாம்.  நான் விதிவிலக்கு எனக்கு இரண்டுமே, ஏன் யார் கிரிக்கெட் ஆடினாலுமே பார்த்து ரசிக்க பிடிக்கின்றது.  

1980களின் திருவல்லிக்கேணி (கிட்டத்தட்ட தமிழகத்தின் ஏனைய பகுதிகளும்) இருந்த நிலைமையை இன்றைய இளைஞர்களால் புரிந்து கொள்வது கடினம்.  படிப்பு, சினிமா, விளையாட்டு, வேலை பற்றி, எதிர்கால கவலை நடுவே, தெருக்களில் தாவணி பெண்களை நோக்கி புன்னகைத்து, பலர் மனக்கோட்டை கட்டி சந்தோழித்து இருந்த காலம்.  அன்றைய நாட்களின் சின்ன சின்ன நிகழ்வுகள் கூட அதிசயத்யதையும் ஆனந்தத்தையும் அளித்தன. 

ஒருவனின் இளம் வயது என்பது லட்சியங்களும் கனவுகளும் நிரம்பி பெருகி வளரும் காலக்கட்டம். அந்தக் கனவுகளை நோக்கி பயணப்பட்டு விட முடியும் என்கிற நம்பிக்கை நிறைந்திருக்கிற வயது. கூடவே சந்தேகமும் நிராசையும் இணைந்திருக்கும் பருவம். விஸ்வம் ஒரு பட்டதாரி இளைஞன். கொஞ்சம் அறிவு ஜீவி. தனக்கு பிடித்த மாதிரி இலக்கியம் வாசித்து கொண்டும், எழுதி கொண்டும், வருமானம் இன்றி காலம் கழிக்கிறான்.  

இந்த விஸ்வம் ஞாபகம் உள்ளதா ! - சுஜாதாவின் கணேஷ் போல இவர் உங்கள் ஆதர்ச நாயகனா !  தரையில் இறங்கும் விமானங்கள், இந்துமதியால் 1982-ல் ஆனந்த விகடன் இதழில் தொடராக எழுதப்பட்டு பின்னர் நூலாக வெளிவந்தது.  இந்த நாவல்   ஆங்கிலத்தில் மொழி பெயர்க்கப்பட்டு எஸ்.ஐ.இ.டி. கல்லூரியில் துணைப்பாடத் திட்டமாக வைக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது என குட்டி செய்தி !!

 

இங்கே தரையில் அல்ல மரத்தில் இறங்கும் விமானம்.

ஞாபக அலைகள் - ஆசாமி சிரிப்பு சிந்தனையான் - மாமண்டூர் வீரவல்லி ஸ்ரீனிவாசன் சம்பத்குமார் .
18.5.2024 

Team selection based on AI - iHawk - 'what it takes to win !"

Soon IPL 2024 would draw to a close –  this season has been extremely entertaining.  IPL provides opportunities to many youngsters to brush shoulders with International stars – whether that is good or bad is debatable.  A similar situation prevailed in mid 1970s / 1980s when there were so many stars from   West Indies and other lands playing in English counties.  Good experience, yet England kept losing badly to WI – and now they are banking on AI – yes Artificial intelligence on a costly business model on ‘what it takes to win !’

Remember there used to be conditioning camps just prior to a tour and there would be some discussions in leading newspapers about probables! – there were times when Bharat Reddy was spoken high as a replacement for Farokh Engineer ! – for Australia tour 1980 – in the Deodhar trophy, perhaps a brilliant innings by Thirumalai Echambadi Srinivasan clinched him a position when most expected Krish Srikkanth to be selected.  Before that all important tour to Pakistan in 1978  under Bishan Bedi, the fast bowling vacancy was discussed as between Abid Ali, Jyoti Prasad and Barun Burman but a lad caught selectors’ attention in the camp and that changed the destiny of pace in India – Kapil Dev !

Stumbled on a scorecard of a Duleep trophy match between South Zone and North Zone in Oct 1977 – the scorecard makes an awesome read of the star value (but perhaps not all of them were Stars at that time)

The match was played at Bangalore.  North had a strong contingent with Test players : Chetan Chauhan, Mohinder Amarnath, Surinder Amarnath, Madan lal& Bishan Bedi; those who later played for India were : Yashpal Sharma, Rakesh Shukla  and mercurial Kapil Dev  - Hari Gidwani, Vedraj Chauhan (wk) & Rajinder Goel completed the list.   

For South – it was :  Abid Ali, Gundappa Viswanath, Brijesh Patel, Syed Kirmani, Srinivasan Venkatraghavan, Erapalli Prasanna and Bhagwat Chandrasekhar;  TE Srinivasan& B Narasimha Rao went on to represent the Nation; others were the tall leftie V Sivaramakrishnan,   Jyothi Prasad

To put it simply, one had to rise through the ranks ie., play league, perform well in Ranji, get a chance for the Zone (Duleep / Deodhar) and if lucky, Irani Cup and .. .. hope to be in with a chance for the National team.  Now the process of selection of England’s squad for next year’s Ashes began this week, using the ECB’s ground-breaking £500,000-a-year camera technology.

Headed by performance analysis lead Stafford Murray, the boffins based at Loughborough will use their vast pool of data, in conjunction with expert input from the likes of England coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes, to produce a photofit of what a winning Test team in Australian conditions looks like.They will then find the players from within the English game whose individual characteristics most closely replicate the required mould.  So, for example, if the boffins suggest England require a bowler taller than six and a half foot, another able to maintain 87-mile-per-hour for the entire day and a left-armer consistently swinging the ball more than X degrees to create the most potent attack for their 2025-26 tour, they will hone in on the best fits from the county game rather than pore through the numbers of those excelling in the here and now.

‘It’s a massive project we’ve just started, on what it will take to win the Ashes,’ Murray said, explaining that while data based, it inevitably incorporates the knowledge of coaches and players past and present.The ECB's performance team are currently in the process of building a "What It Takes To Win" model for the 2025-26 tour to Australia. Its construction will be informed by the knowledge of coaches and players past and present, along with data accrued from previous visits. Once deemed robust enough, it will refine decisions around talent ID and provide selectors all the information required to select a squad capable of a first win Down Under since 2010-11. The aim, ultimately, is to "bring data to life".

Thanks to the ECB's new iHawk technology, collecting that data has never been easier or more qualitative. Through cameras worn by umpires, each delivery is tracked to provide information such as seam movement, release height, pace and swing. An overlay highlighting the path of the ball is then produced, complete with the above information at the top left of the screen. A soft launch in 2023 saw 200 matches and over 50,000 balls logged from more than 250 bowlers. Every domestic men's and women's match will be covered for the first time this season.

A longer-term project is currently in the works to determine the precise difference in behaviour between the Dukes and Kookaburra balls from gleanings during its use in the first two rounds of the County Championship, supplemented by findings when it returns in July and August.With the start of England men's Test summer two months away, all this will be fed to the selection committee made up of captain Ben Stokes, head coach Brendon McCullum, managing director Rob Key and national selector Luke Wright. Whether for the series against West Indies or Sri Lanka, a scientific punt could be in the offing.

"If we're brave, which I know we will be, we'll be selecting in series before the Ashes with the Ashes in mind," says Murray, referencing the fact players best equipped to perform in all conditions will be considered. "It's a blend and it's an ongoing, iterative process, working towards a long-term goal. It's a 'performance backwards' approach."Primarily a business model, "performance backwards" is as it sounds; identifying a future goal and working out the route to that point in reverse. England employed it for the recent tour of India, which led to the selection Shoaib Bashir. The Somerset offspinner took 17 wickets across three Tests, having arrived with a first-class average of 67.00 from just six matches.

"Shoaib is a really good example [of this]," explains Hannah Jowitt, the lead on the iHawk project as well as analyst and project specialist for the ECB's pathway and disability programmes. After Stokes spotted Bashir bowling to Alastair Cook on a social media post by the County Championship account, the gears started turning."One step before that, we analysed what was needed in India. Release height in India was really important. We got data from county cricket. That, combined with scouts' insights, led to his selection for the UAE [Lions] camp. Coaches and selectors had physical eyes on him there. We got more iHawk data on him, more video [fed directly by Murray to a WhatsApp group featuring Key, McCullum, Stokes and Wright], which led to his selection for playing in India."

Essentially, iHawk is HawkEye "lite". The full bells and whistles, which require between four and six cameras, are exclusive to international cricket due to, among other factors, cost.

Technology will scientifically prove that a red cherry hurled at 150 kmph offers less than half of a second for batsman to decide, yet you find batters hitting it over square, over keeper, straight down or over extra cover for a six too!!  Despite all the aura and Science, there are games where individual raw talents can succeed irrespective of data, average, likelihood, analysis, coaching and more.  Whether technology  can ever succeed raw innate talent will be put to test again and again.

With regards – S Sampathkumar
17.5.2024.