Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday led the accolades for Sania Mirza after she became the first Indian woman to be crowned the world’s top-ranked doubles tennis player.
“An excellent accomplishment @MirzaSania! Congrats on being World Number 1 in doubles,” Modi, currently on a three-nation European tour, tweeted to his 11.6 million followers.
Mirza, 28, climbed to the top of the rankings after she won the Family Circle doubles title in Charleston, United States, on Sunday while partnering Swiss great Martina Hingis.
It was the third successive title for the duo, also the number one doubles pair, after their victories in the hard court events in Indian Wells and Miami.
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Messages also poured in from cricket great Sachin Tendulkar, current Test captain Virat Kohli and badminton star Saina Nehwal, who had briefly ranked as the number one singles player earlier this month.
“Congratulations to @MirzaSania on being crowned World No. 1 in doubles. Terrific achievement and will inspire more to pursue the sport,” Tendulkar tweeted.
Kohli wrote on his Twitter page: “First Saina and now @MirzaSania. Indian women conquering the No. 1 spot and making us proud! Congratulations!”
Mirza was once ranked in the top 30 in singles before a string of injuries made her take up doubles as a full-time career. She said she hoped her rise to the top would inspire women to believe in themselves.
“I hope this makes girls in India believe that anything is possible; we can achieve anything we want if we put our mind and body to it,” she said in a statement.
“I feel extremely honoured to be No.1. It’s something that I’ve worked for all my life.”
Mirza has been a trail-blazer for women’s tennis in India, despite being hounded by controversy throughout her career. She even faced a fatwa — a ruling by an Islamic religious leader — for wearing short skirts on court.
Last year a member of Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP party in her home state of Andhra Pradesh called Mirza a “daughter-in-law of Pakistan” because of her marriage to Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik.
Modi had to step in to defuse the situation, inviting a furious Mirza for tea in New Delhi.
Only three other Asian women have achieved the top WTA doubles ranking: Japan’s Ai Sugiyama, China’s Peng Shuai and Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei.
The doubles pair of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi are the only other Indians to achieve number one rankings in tennis.
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN GAZA
Starring: Nader Abd Alhay, Majd Eid, Ramzi Maqdisi
Directors: Tarzan and Arab Nasser
Rating: 4.5/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH
Directed by: Shaka King
Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Lakeith Stanfield, Jesse Plemons
Four stars
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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2021 World Triathlon Championship Series
May 15: Yokohama, Japan
June 5: Leeds, UK
June 24: Montreal, Canada
July 10: Hamburg, Germany
Aug 17-22: Edmonton, Canada (World Triathlon Championship Final)
Nov 5-6 : Abu Dhabi, UAE
Date TBC: Chengdu, China
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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