Olympics live on Doordarshan

Doordarshan will telecast live the opening and closing ceremony of the London Olympics on its national channel while DD Sports would provide round the clock live coverage of the sporting events.
The coverage would begin from July 27 to August 13, an official release from Doordarshan said.
The Public Broadcaster would also air special programmes capturing significant moments and performance of Indian athletes.
Special daily highlight of half an hour titled, “India at London” will also be telecast on DD-National from 7 to 8 am, which will focus on the overall performance of Indian athletes on day-to-day basis.
One hour highlight programme on daily performances of all the athletes of the Olympic Games will be telecast on DD-National between 9 to 10 am.
In addition another one hour of highlights will be aired Monday to Friday between 3 to 4 pm on DD National.
Live telecast from London from 12 midnight till 2 am will be telecast on DD National besides any event featuring India in semifinals or finals will be covered live on DD National, a statement said. (BJ-26/07)
Olympics live on Doordarshan

GRAVESEND: Indian RAF war hero to publish life story

9:00am Sunday 21st February 2010
Squadron Leader Mahinder Singh Pujji joined the RAF in 1940 looking for an adventure. Now aged 91, he tells DAVID MILLS how he became the eyes of the army.

WHEN 22-year-old Mahinder Singh Pujji spotted an Indian newspaper advert calling on pilots to join the RAF in 1940, he eagerly volunteered.

But the Shell Oil refuelling superintendent had not heard much about Hitler, nor did he know much about the war.

Sqn Ldr Pujji always wanted to fly and his dream was realised when he got his pilot licence in 1937 after serving an apprenticeship with Himalayan Airlines.

His employers gladly released him to join the RAF, stating he could have his job back, if he returned alive.

Sqn Ldr Pujji went on to fly 25 different types of aircraft, including Spitfires, Hurricanes and Tomahawks.

He had more than one dice with death and his military achievements led him to meet world leaders such as Winston Churchill, Gandhi, King Farouk of Egypt, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II.

Sqn Ldr Pujji, who lives in sheltered housing in The Grove, Gravesend, has written a book about his experiences during the war called For King and Another Country, due to be published later this year.

His father, one of the few Indian senior officers in government during the Raj, did not agree with his son’s choice to join the RAF.
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GRAVESEND: Indian RAF war hero to publish life story

Stranded in London October 1984

Munich with Bose of DOE
Hamburg. Lt Col Shamsher Singh deeply engrossed in the specifications of the equipment, Bose looking up, perhaps at a passing aircraft, Sarma contemplating and attentive self.
The Grave of General Rommel that we visited in Munich
Mission
I was leading a delegation to United Kingdom, Germany and Hungary with a mission to scout/ surf for communication equipment for the Indian Army. My foreign hosts were in a real quandary with me, being a vegetarian, a teetotaler and immune to other subtle niceties of life. These are hidden perks one gets when on business deals. These temptations did not interest me in the least.

Delegation
The others three members of the delegation did have their own quirks. LT Col Shamsher Singh, my, self-appointed guide with friends in UK and all over the continent would regularly vanish leaving me stranded as also worried to appear suddenly and only minutes before we were scheduled to leave for the engagement of the day. Armindam Bose of DOE, on the other hand was always on lookout for contributions from all and sundry for the forthcoming Puja festival back home. Shri M S N Sarma, the absent minded professor from DRDO had discovered from his earlier trips, places where he could get rice and curds, the staple diet of South Indians. He would also create embarrassing situations for himself and others like missing from the dinner invitations, entering the ladies toilet or walking nonchalantly through the red channels at the airports with out stopping to be hauled back rudely by the customs.

Stranded and taxiing backStranded
What happened during the delegations visits when I was stranded in London during the trip does merit narration. It was a weekend and I was alone in my eighth floor room with the others members of the delegation away to enjoy the free day. A hotel room with nothing to do can be terribly oppressive and boring. Feeling adventures and a bit bold I came out of Hotel Imperial in Russell Square where I was staying with the earlier experience of travelling by the tube escorted by Shamsher an expert on London streets I felt confident of managing the outing on my own I took the tube from Euston under-ground station to Piccadilly Circus. After a random walk of window shopping and looking around I decided to see a movie one of those that run in an unending loop where one can buy a ticket walk in or walkout any time one feels like. Possibly getting bored I came out of the hall and I decided to return back to the hotel when to my horror and constraint I found that the tube had downed the shutters for the night to add to my misery with no umbrella at hand it also started to rain the typical English falling in light sprays.

Travails
I totally unfamiliar with the metropolis having arrived only a couple of days back and scheduled to leave the next day felt utterly lost and was a worried Indian . Though stranded in the middle of London there appeared to be no one around, Gentleman or lady, Indian or English willing to extend a helping hand. The worry of getting stranded increasing by the minute also of the possibility of some untoward incident happening at back of my mind and a real possibility making the Headline News the next morning in bold letters asking a question as to what a senior Indian Army officer was doing that late in night and at a place where he should not have been more so of getting mugged and loosing the Passport and the precious Pounds in my pocket; the human brain is capable of conjecturing all sort of frightening scenarios.

Taxiing back
Many taxis cruised past some to my surprise driven by ladies as luck would have it all occupied. Fortunately the frightening scenarios remained a figment of imagination and never became real nothing like what I had been imagining all the time happened and with an unoccupied taxi mercifully appearing and dropping me safe and sound at the hotel except that throughout the drive back I had my eyes riveted on the green digital display’s speedily scrolling numerals indicating the alarmingly increasing fare by mile and the minute with me all the time counting the limited cash in my pocket.

Brig Lakshman Singh, VSM (Retd)