India team management bans Twitter for players

Team management instructs players to stop using Twitter and Facebook to interact/voice opinions

After back-to-back defeats to Australia in the Sydney and Melbourne Test matches, the Indian team management Down Under has instructed players not to use social networking sites to voice their opinions. This comes in the wake of Virat Kohli justifying his middle finger gesture to the Sydney Cricket Ground fans, who reportedly heckled him on Day Two of the second Test last week. "I agree cricketers don't have to retaliate.



What can i say: Virat Kohli gestures to the crowd during Day Two of
the second Test on January 4. Pic/Getty Images

What when the crowd says the worst things about your mother and sister. The worst I've heard," Kohli said on his Twitter account after the incident. The young Delhi batsman was fined 50% of his match fee by International Cricket Council match referee Ranjan Madugalle for his finger gesture.

According to the ICC, Kohli was charged with a Level 2 offence under article 2.2.8 of the code which relates to "Using language or gesture(s) that is seriously obscene, seriously offensive or of a seriously insulting nature to another Player, Player Support Personnel, Umpire, Match Referee or any other third person during an International Match".

However, Kohli's tweet attracted other comments including England batting star Kevin Pietersen, who tweeted: "Ha ha ha ha ha!!! Welcome to Australia buddy!!" Kohli replied: "Never heard crap like that. EVER". It is learnt that the team management was wary that responses to tweets could cause a storm and hence instructed to stay away from their keypads.

A source said yesterday that the team management don't want players to pay any attention to any comments. Virat's behaviour and reaction has not been well accepted within the team and the management is hell bent on avoiding any controversy whatsoever on this tour. It can be recalled that the 2007-08 tour of Australia was marred by controversy.

Twitter to block Taliban's account?

The United States has called on the social micro-blogging site, Twitter, to block the Taliban’s account. US senators want to stop feeds which boast of insurgent attacks on Nato forces in Afghanistan and the casualties they inflict. Aides for Joe Lieberman, chair of the Senate


Homeland Security Committee, said the move was part of a wider attempt to eliminate violent Islamist extremist propaganda from the Internet and social media, The Telegraph reports.

The Taliban has embraced the social network as part of its propaganda effort and regularly tweets about attacks or posts links to its statements.

Twitter feeds including @ABalkhi, which has more than 4,100 followers, and @alemarahweb, which has more than 6,200 followers, regularly feature tweeted boasts about the deaths of “cowardly invaders” and “puppet” Afghan government forces.

The information on Taliban’s account ranged from highly accurate, up-to-the-minute accounts of unfolding spectacular attacks, to often completely fabricated or wildly exaggerated reports of American and British casualties.

Meanwhile, Twitter has declined to say if they had been asked to block the feeds by Lieberman.

According to the paper, Twitter is rejecting the move after pointing out that unlike al Qaeda, the Taliban movement is not registered by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organisation.

Cleric banning phallic fruits for women, lambasted on Twitter

An Islamic cleric's ban on women touching fruits and vegetables resembling the male sexual organ to avoid sexual thoughts, has evoked a strong response from people across the globe. While some are disgusted by the diktat, others are amused.

Here's a sample of what people are tweeting.

Kajraaare Cleo : Unbelievable! And to think banana's my favourite fruit! What does that make me

ResurgentIndian: Some clerics tell women to stay away from bananas. some women worship ling. which community standards should prevail, Mr Sibal.
drskyskull: So... this "cleric" has sexual thoughts about bananas & cucumbers, and it's the *women* who need to stay away from produce?

GH05T_CAT Brad: make sure to stay away from the roof, they have monkeys there who occasionally toss bananas

Helen Hajjaj: So if Muslim women should stay away from cucumbers and bananas, should men stay away from melons?

Sidra Rizvi: Oh Lord you especially should stay away from all cucumbers and bananas now

Zaheer Husain Khan: Stay away from bananas: Cleric to women . Can there be a more absurd fatwah, must be a salafi/wahabi cleric

Praveen Subash: Perhaps Men shuld also B banned frm eating bananas 2 prevent thm frm becoming a Gay..!!!

Navin Kumar: Next Kapil Sibal will ban pic of banana, cucumber and gourds on internet coz it offends a community.

Sunil Kumar: Some people need to be sent back to caves. horrible.

Raghu Kalra: You got to be kidding me.

More on the Islamic cleric
"If women wish to eat these food items, a third party, preferably a male related to them such as their a father or husband, should cut the items into small pieces and serve," the cleric dictated.

This Islamic cleric residing in Europe was asked by an interviewer how to "control" women when they are out shopping for groceries and if holding these items at the market would be bad for them. The cleric answered saying this matter is between them and God

Obama's first 'tweet' for the aid of Haiti quake victims

US President Barack Obama `tweeted` his very first message, joining the millions who have used the Twitter micro-blogging site as a vital information vehicle for the Haiti disaster.

The president and First Lady Michelle Obama visited an unadorned office in the American Red Cross headquarters serving as a disaster operations centre, and lent encouragement to staff and volunteers helping coordinate humanitarian aid activity in earthquake-devastated Haiti.


"We`re just here to say `thank you` for the great work you`re doing," Obama said as he entered the operations centre with American Red Cross board chairwoman Bonnie McElveen-Hunter.

As he moved about the room, where large maps of Port-au-Prince were tacked to the walls, he stopped at a media team desk and hit the "Send" button on a message that had just been typed on Twitter: "President Obama and the First Lady are here visiting our disaster operation centre right now."

This was followed by: "President Obama pushed the button on the last tweet. It was his first ever tweet!"

During his presidential bid in 2007 and 2008, Obama`s team harnessed the power of the Internet to raise record funding for his campaign.

His administration, too, has been praised for its tech-savvy use of the web.

Yuvraj the most tech-savvy and well-networked in the national cricket team,

Emboldened cricket fan Swati Jha asks the colourful Yuvraj Singh what he likes doing best apart from cricket and gets a mere smiley.

But at least it's a reply, something Indian fans would trade an arm or a leg for, because she's one of the 5,550 tweeters who follow Yuvraj Singh's posts on social networking site Twitter. And Yuvraj, perhaps the most tech-savvy and well-networked in the national cricket team, has not only been remarkably active on Twitter, but has learnt to use frequent tweets and prompt tweet-replies to keep in touch with fans.

"It has been a great way to connect with my fans," Yuvraj told MiD DAY recently. A devoted Tweeter, he says, "As kids, we wanted to know what our icons did off the field and found out only through media reports. But with these social networking sites, stars can now interact with fans directly... without the fear of being misquoted or misrepresented. It's definitely a safe and direct way to interact with fans."

The flamboyant left-hander gets suggestions, requests and some overwhelming tweets too, he says. One fan told him he'd watched his ICC World Cup T20 innings 500 times. "Wow, that's a lot of times," came the southpaw's quick response.

Yuvraj manages to respond to his fans' tweets three to four times a week. "Time is a big factor, but I have my Blackberry," says Yuvraj, who follows the activities of a smattering of Bollywood tweeters including Preity Zinta, Karan Johar, Gul Panag, Neil Nitin Mukesh and A R Rahman, as well as international sportspersons like Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Rafael Nadal and Sania Mirza.

The response from his fans has been fabulous. "They keep coming back to me," he says. "When I started, I had about 100 fans. The register has increased to thousands now."

Yuvraj also plays big brother to fans, occasionally. One fan tweeted about bunking classes to watch his superstar play.

The star bat's response was mildly admonishing. "Even we bunked school and college to watch games. Obviously it is not right," Yuvraj says. "I tell my fans on Twitter to do the right thing."