Cricketer M S Dhoni-backed Indian tech firm Garuda Aerospace on Monday announced its entry into the Sri Lankan market where it will primarily target the agricultural sector to enhance farming practices, besides exploring opportunities in homeland security and industrial applications.

As part of the company’s global expansion plans, the foray into Sri Lanka will also support Garuda in capitalising on the country’s strategic location and drone-friendly regulatory environment, Garuda Aerospace said.

The company said it is looking to spread its presence in at least 50 countries over the next few years, and has set aside $10 million, of the over Rs 100 crore revenue it delivered in FY24, to fuel international growth.

“This (expansion into Sri Lanka) isn’t merely about growth, it’s about unlocking the full potential of drone technology to create substantial impacts across various sectors. Sri Lanka’s diverse landscape allows us to showcase how our innovative solutions can bring tangible benefits, from agriculture to infrastructure,” said Agnishwar Jayaprakash, Founder and CEO of Garuda Aerospace.

Garuda Aerospace, which produces small and medium-category drones, partnered with Greek manufacturer Spirit Aeronautical Systems early this year. It has also signed a pact with French aerospace giant Thales to promote growth and innovation in India’s drone sector.

Spirit Aeronautical specialises in rotary and fixed-wing weaponised drones. (PTI)

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The Madras High Court on Friday (Dec 15) sentenced IPS officer G. Sampath Kumar to 15 days of simple imprisonment in a contempt of court petition filed by ace cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

According to Indian Media, Dhoni had filed a case against the officer for having made contumacious remarks against the Supreme Court as well as the High Court.

In his statement, Dhoni filed a defamation suit demanding Rs.100 crore against the IPS officer who named Dhoni in an IPL betting scam case in the year 2014.

Justices S.S. Sundar and Sunder Mohan, however, suspended the sentence for a period of 30 days to enable the contemnor to prefer an appeal before the Supreme Court. 

The suspension was ordered by the court suo motu though the contemnor had not made any such plea. (NewsWire/ Indian media)

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Surprisingly, for some reason, MS Dhoni, through not efforts of his own starts making news on Twitter each time the Indian cricket team fails to win an ICC trophy. Be it the T20 World Cup or now the World Test Championship final, Dhoni fans on Twitter constantly send reminders about what the great MSD achieved as captain. The only skipper to have won all three major ICC titles – the T20 World Cup, 50-over World Cup and the Champions Trophy, Dhoni’s contributions to Indian cricket will always remain immoral, but to bring it up everytime after every tournament at times, gets a tad too much, even for MSD’s former India teammates.

After India were handed a crushing 209-run defeat at the hands of Australia in the final of the World Test Championship – India’s nine consecutive failure in an ICC event – a tweet praising Dhoni broke the internet. It said, “No coach, no mentor, young boys, most of the senior player’s denied to take part. Never captained any single match before. This guy defeated prime Australia in semifinals and won a T20 World Cup in 48 days after becoming captain,” referring to Dhoni’s famous India win in the inaugural edition of the T20 World Cup in 2007, months after India went crashing out of the 50-over World Cup in the West Indies.

As history has it – Dhoni fearlessly led a bunch of youngsters in that tournament in South Africa defeating teams like South Africa, England, Pakistan twice and as the tweet mentioned Australia in the semifinal. He took it a step further four years later winning the World Cup for India in 2011 and added another feather in his cap when India defeated England in the final of the Champions Trophy in 2013 on their soil.

However, as brilliant, once-in-a-lifetime and special those achievements are, Indian cricket has moved forward, and these frequent Dhoni throwbacks tend to do more harm than good. In a day and age, where social media has become a fodder to trigger emotions, former India spinner Harbhajan Singh tore into the tweet, reminding everyone once again of cricket being a team sport and not a captain’s game.

“Yes, when these matches were played this young boy was playing alone from India… not the other 10. So, alone he won the World Cup trophies. Irony when Australia or any other nation wins the World Cup, headlines say Australia or etc country won. But when India wins, it’s said captain won. It’s a team sports. Win together, lose together,” he tweeted.

Harbhajan was part of both Indian squads that won the World Cups in 2007 and 2011, but despite that, the former spinner was met with criticism. Fans reminded Harbhajan that reacting to a fan tweet is a ‘new low’ for former India cricketers while some of their minds harked back to Bhajji’s ‘slap-gate’ incident involving S Sreesanth in the first-ever IPL. (Hindustan Times)

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Former India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni successfully underwent left knee surgery in a Mumbai hospital on Thursday, raising hopes of playing in the 17th edition of the Indian Premier League next year. 

Dhoni, who led Chennai Super Kings to their fifth IPL title, had flown to Mumbai from Ahmedabad after the final on Monday and consulted renowned sports orthopaedic surgeon Dr Dinshaw Pardiwala, who is also on the BCCI medical panel and had performed surgeries on a number of top Indian cricketers, including Rishabh Pant.

“Yes, Dhoni has had a successful knee surgery at the Kokilaben Hospital in Mumbai on Thursday. He is doing fine and the surgery happened in the morning. I don’t have details. I am yet to get all the details about the nature of surgery and other things,” CSK CEO Kasi Viswanathan confirmed to PTI.

“He will be discharged in a day or two. He would be resting for a few days before his extensive rehabilitation starts. It is now expected that he would have enough time to get fit to play in the next IPL,” another source close to CSK management told PTI on conditions of anonymity.

Dhoni had played the entire season with heavy strapping on his left knee and while he looked absolutely fine during wicket-keeping, he came into bat as low as No. 8 at times and didn’t look in his element while running between the wickets.

On Wednesday, Viswanathan had said that whether Dhoni wants to undergo surgery will be completely the iconic captain’s call.

After the IPL final, Dhoni had said: “If you circumstantially see, it’s the best time to announce retirement. The easy thing for me to say is thank you and retire. But the hard thing to do is to work hard for nine months and try to play one more IPL season. The body has to hold up. But the amount of love I have received from CSK fans, it would be a gift for them to play one more season.

“The way they’ve shown their love and emotion, it’s something I need to do for them. It’s the last part of my career. It started over here and full house was chanting my name. It was same thing in Chennai, but it will be good to come back and play whatever I can. The kind of cricket I play, they feel they can play that cricket. There’s nothing orthodox about it and I like to keep it simple.” (PTI)

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