Football Week

So, this week is full of football action.

On Saturday, I watched Crystal Palace vs. Arsenal. Then I watched Ruhr Derby. This is the match between Schalke 04 and Dortmund. Then the biggest match of all, probably the biggest match of this La Liga season. The first El Classico. Yes, the biggest of all the club football rivalries. Then on Sunday, I watched Chelsea vs. City.

Nothing much to talk about Arsenal's match. They are still the league leaders for now but I doubt that they can win the title. For one thing, all other clubs have played big matches and dropped points, while Arsenal had just one North London derby and hence didn't loose many points. Two, Arsenal's bench is weak. Of course, Gnabry and co have been performing well in the main players' absence, but I still doubt they can win, this consistently at the business end of the season. May be if they are still at the top of table during winter's break, Wenger may buy a striker. We will see.Then Dortmund's match. They lost Gotze, but found good replacement in Henry Mkhitaryan. They also bought Aubameyang who plays as a wide midfielder. Even though, Dortmund is on the list of teams that I've decided to watch this season, this is only the first full match that I've seen them play. I don't know much about their possession style play, but their counter attacking is deadly. Their third goal is a testament to that. It is not wrong to I say that Dortmund is the 2nd best counter attacking team in last three seasons after Real. Now that we are having more possession and playing most of the game in opponent's half, Dortmund may become best counter attacking team.

Last two weeks

Two weeks back, I mentioned my GS Paper III preparation plan. But I am very sorry to say that I have not followed the very plan that I made. Well, I couldn't complete the syllabus in two days. Then I had to revise some older topics. Then, I had to get away on some personal business. And things got delayed. Anyway, what I want to say, I will be more practical and less ambitious in planning my study schedule from next time.

Then international break is over and club football is back. But today we don't get to see Real Madird's match because the entire ESPN Star network's slots are blocked telecasting some other live matches. India vs Australia 3rd ODI in two channels, one telecast in English and the other one in Hindi, then ManU, Arsenal and Chelsea matches on three more channels. If everything works out, I will try to watch the match online. It is a very important week for Madrid because any drop in points will make it very difficult to win the league. Unlike BPL, where top teams can drop points now and then, here in La Liga, Real and Barca can not afford to drop points cheaply. Over the whole season, these both teams only loose two or three matches and the last two seasons saw Real and Barca get 100 points out of possible 114, dropping just 14 points. And in this season, while Barcelona haven't dropped a single point, we are already 5 points behind them. So, no place for complacency.

Indian Agriculture - Day 4

Hello there...

So, It took me 3 days to finish the topic Land Reforms in India. I planned to finish this topic in 2 days, but I had to spend one more day on it. I have read 2 chapters from IGNOU materials, then little researching in the net and quickly went through a few papers submitted on this topic by experts. I hope this would suffice. Now, next topic is Food processing. I assume this would take another 2 days.

So, now football. Yesterday, I watched only one match. Levante vs Real Madrid. What a come back. You know after the home team scored the second goal, I was in shock. Like is this really happening again? But when Morata equalised, I remembered the matches against City and Dortmund in last year UCL group stages, hoping for a winner. And we found winner in who else, none other than Ronaldo. After scoring the winner with just one minute left, he took off his shirt and got an yellow card for excessive celebration. I have read that Ronaldo only does massive celebrations for important goals and this one was pretty mportant. Had we not won this match, it would open 7 points gap between Barca and us in the title race, practically conceding the Liga title.

Indian Agriculture - Day 1

So, with regards to my preparation, I decided to start with Indian Agriculture of GS 3rd paper. These are the topics and today I'll start with the last topic, Land Reforms in India. I hope to finish this by today.

1) Major crops cropping patterns in various parts of the country, different types of irrigation and irrigation systems; storage, transport and marketing of agricultural produce and issues and related constraints; e-technology in the aid of farmers

2) Issues related to direct and indirect farm subsidies and minimum support prices; Public Distribution System- objectives, functioning, limitations, revamping; issues of buffer stocks and food security; Technology missions; economics of animal-rearing.

3) Food processing and related industries in India- scope and significance, location, upstream and downstream requirements, supply chain management.

4) Land reforms in India.

Right Ho, Jeeves

Okay, So I managed to finish the novel 'Right Ho, Jeeves' yesterday. This is my first novel of PG Wodehouse and it was okay. The summary of the novel is this, Bertie tries to reunite his cousin Angela and her betrothed after they call off their engagement over some silly fight. He also promises Mr. Fink-Nottle, his old friend who is a shy fellow, that he would help him propose to his love interest Miss Bassett. The entire happenings take place in Brinkley Manor, home of Angela's mother Aunt Dahlia. But Bertie fails in his endeavours. Finally when things go out of Bertie's hand, his butler Jeeves resolves all the issues in a matter of 20 minutes. All in all, a good novel. But I liked 'Yes Minister', even though both of them are somewhat different types of novels.