BIJU B CYRIAC

journalist @bijucyriacTOI
C certificate Air Wing NCC

[BIJU B CYRIAC @vbbiju]

@blrcitytraffic Major block near Yemalur. Vehicles moving from Old airport road to Bellandur stuck. Lack of lane discipline adding to the chaos.

[BIJU B CYRIAC @vbbiju]

@NammaBESCOM Complaint about a transformer issue from Kasavanahalli road appartment is yet to be attended even after 3 hours. Pl check and help.

[Anish Bhanwala @anish__bhanwala]

Last month while training in Italy, I remember telling Jaspal Rana Sir that I wasn’t an emotional person, that no matter how bad things got in competition or life, I had never cried.

He smiled and said, “Tu bhi mard hai, ek din tootega zaroor.”

Little did I know that just few weeks later, it would be him who would break me 🥺😭Rest in peace, Sir 🫶

Your legacy will live on forever, I will always treasure the wisdom and life lessons you shared with me 😇

#jaspalrana @jaspalrana2806

[Jaspreet Singh @JaspritSingh09]

It was sometime in 2017.

Manu and Devanshi were deep into a training session at the shooting range in Delhi’s Sirifort Sports Complex. I looked at Jaspal for permission to speak with his shooters. I nudged him and asked whether the two girls would be available for an interview.

In quintessential Jaspal fashion, he simply shrugged and gestured. “Ask them.”

The girls glanced back at their coach. It was a fleeting moment, but one that revealed everything. They understood exactly what that shrug meant. They removed their blinders, stepped away from the firing point and walked over for the interview.

That was Jaspal. He commanded respect.

It came from years of excellence, from an uncompromising pursuit of perfection and from the trust he built with generations of young shooters. As the architect of the NRAI’s Junior Programme, he helped construct Indian shooting brick by brick, talent by talent, long before the world began celebrating its success. The foundations he laid continue to bear fruit even today, perhaps most visibly in Manu’s historic double Olympic medal triumph at Paris 2024.

But Jaspal’s story began much earlier.

There was a time when shooting was neither fashionable nor widely accessible in India. Long before Olympic medals transformed the sport’s profile, a young, clean-shaven boy from Uttarakhand emerged as its face. He became a champion, then a phenomenon. After winning the Junior World Championship in 1994, he turned the Asian Games and Commonwealth Games into his personal hunting ground, carrying Indian shooting into arenas where it had rarely ventured before in the manner his pistol did.

Yet for all his achievements as a shooter, his greatest legacy may well be the champions he created.

Jaspal possessed a rare gift; the ability to spot potential where others saw only promise, and then nurture it with relentless dedication. He understood young athletes not merely as shooters, but as individuals. His methods could be demanding, his standards unforgiving but beneath it all was a craftsman’s obsession with helping talent become greatness.

That is why his passing feels so difficult to process. Because figures like Jaspal are not supposed to leave at 49.

There are some individuals whose presence becomes so woven into the fabric of a sport that you begin to assume they will always be there – at the range, on the phone, mentoring the next prodigy, arguing passionately about technique or quietly shaping the future.

And that’s why for many of us, the loss is deeply personal.

Over the years, there were countless phone calls, meetings, interviews, conversations and pieces of advice, especially when it came to my son’s shooting journey. Jaspal was generous with his time, candid with his opinions and always willing to help when it mattered.

Which is why this goodbye feels particularly unfair. Without giving so many of us the chance for one last conversation. One last meeting. One last opportunity to ask, “How are you, Coach Saab?”

Every time I called him ‘Coach Saab,’ he would respond with that familiar chuckle and a faint smile. He never openly acknowledged that he enjoyed it, but you could tell he did. That understated warmth, hidden beneath a tough exterior, was so uniquely Jaspal.

And perhaps that is what makes this loss hurt so much.

Indian shooting has lost a legend. Its young athletes have lost a guiding force. Many have lost a mentor. Some of us have lost a friend.

The void is immense because replacing Jaspal Rana is not simply about finding another coach. It is about finding someone who understands the delicate art of shaping young minds, nurturing raw talent and inspiring belief with the same conviction and authenticity.

That is a much harder task.

This is way too soon, Jaspal. Far, far too soon.

#JaspalRana #Shooting

[BIJU B CYRIAC @vbbiju]

RIP @jaspalrana2806 You were an inspiration for hundreds of Indian shooters. And your face will be embedded in all those young shooters whom you guided as a coach. India's sports fraternity will badly miss you as we gear up to host the Asiad, CWG and beyond. Goodbye, Jaspal.🙏

[Usain St. Leo Bolt @usainbolt]

Namaskara! @pumacricket India sent me the fit so had to represent. Good luck to the team this season 👊❤️ #RCBEverywhere

[BIJU B CYRIAC @vbbiju]

@asianpaints Booked a Beatiful Homes painting service in January. But its still incomplete. How long will be the wait? Calls to Area Manager L4 went unanswered.

[Malini Parthasarathy @MaliniP]

Thyagu as we called him was one of the first welcoming presences in the newsroom @the_hindu when I entered as a young reporter in 1983.
Along with my cousin the veteran Sports Editor S Krishnan, they ensured that the sports desk was a magnet where the exciting happening of the day would be passionately discussed.
He was a hockey expert and an ace reporter, his passing is a real loss to Indian sports journalism.

[BIJU B CYRIAC @vbbiju]

#India #football #ISL #RIP Remembering Kushal Das at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru.

[BIJU B CYRIAC @vbbiju]

@BMTC_BENGALURU KA 01 AQ 9970 Volvo bus to Silk Board covering the trip with plenty of seats vacant. Reason? conductor tells driver tp skip many important stops.

[JJohnnymeitei @JohnnyMeetei]

Indian footballer #BrandMeitei from Manipur Sweety Devi Ngangom appealing people of Indian origin in Australia to watch their World Cup qualifier.
Such a pity state of football.

[P. Sainath @PSainath_org]

1/6. At age 86, P. V. Chinnathambi still runs a unique library in the hilly forests of Idukki in Kerala. He has run that library – 2,000 books, all classics – for 15 years now. The books are borrowed, read and returned by poor Muthuvan Adivasis. All this in Edamalakudi, Kerala’s only tribal panchayat and perhaps its – relatively speaking – lowest literacy spot and least educated region. PARI story link https://t.co/VvjratRss7

[Dr. S.Y. Quraishi @DrSYQuraishi]

An Indian guide at a tourist spot explaining to foreigners about Bharatnatyam. What a skill level and what an involvement in his job.!

[The Times Of India @timesofindia]

A #doctor who scored 9 out of 800 marks in the #NEET PG entrance examination was the last person to be allotted a postgraduate medical seat in a private medical college under the management quota for 2025-2026 by the state selection committee in the third round of counselling on Monday.

More details 🔗https://t.co/nmIba3E1br
#neetpg2026

[BIJU B CYRIAC @vbbiju]

@blrcitytraffic Big block on ORR at Bellandur. Vehicles moving towards KR Puram stuck in jam.

[The Tennis Letter @TheTennisLetter]

Wild scenes in Australian Open qualifying

Ofner celebrates because he thinks he won the match at 7-1 in the tiebreak

The umpire reminds him it’s a 10 point tiebreak “Not done yet mate”

Basavareddy wins the match & does the choke celebration

😭😭😭😭

[The First Serve @TheFirstServeAU]

Fair to say 🇦🇹 Sebastian Ofner won’t be forgetting the tiebreak rules anytime soon 😳

Ofner celebrated when he thought he won his second round AO qualifier against 🇺🇸 Nishesh Basavareddy when up 7-1 in the deciding set tiebreak, not knowing that it was up to 10 points.

Basavareddy came back to win the match 13-11 in the tiebreak, and mocked his opponent with a ‘choke’ celebration 😬

[BIJU B CYRIAC @vbbiju]

@AnilAgarwal_Ved 🙏

[Supriya Roy @supriya_speaks]

🚨🚨 ED Bangalore zone has arrested Winzo founders Saumya Singh Rathore and Paavan Nanda yesterday. They were produced at 11:30 AM at a local court today, for detailed arguments.

This is after recent searches conducted by ED at the startup led to the freezing of about Rs 505 crore in bank balances, fixed deposits, bonds and mutual funds. The probe began after FIRs alleging cheating, impersonation, blocking of user accounts, misuse of PAN details and fraudulent loss of customer funds. Complainants also alleged their KYC information had been misused. According to the ED, WinZO continued to offer real-money games in Brazil, the US and Germany from India even after the Union government banned such games from August 22, 2025. The agency said the company still holds Rs 43 crore belonging to customers without refunding it. ED sleuths also alleged that users were matched against undisclosed algorithms instead of human players, withdrawals were restricted and proceeds of crime were generated from user losses. Further said that funds were diverted under the guise of overseas investments, including $55 million (Rs 489.9 crore) allegedly parked in a US bank account of “WinZO US Inc.”

[BIJU B CYRIAC @vbbiju]

@AnchitGupta9 @IAF_MCC All the five crew members who laid down their lives deserve to be honored.