From the Editors: New year, new weekend

NEW YEAR, NEW WEEKEND: It’s a brand new year, a time when even the most unfazed amongst us would do well to pause and reflect on the promise that holds forth. It’s also a time when we must look back at our past and take stock of the lessons we learnt. As we embark upon 2022 with new hopes and aspirations, we have much to look forward to, beginning from the new weekend itself. Wishing everyone a happy weekend and a happier new year. [COMMENT BY: Sharmila Dhal, UAE Editor]

LET'S HOPE FOR BEST IN 2022: New Year’s celebrations in most parts of the world were scaled down for a second year in a row. Despite Herculean efforts worldwide to defeat COVID-19, the pandemic is still with us, two years since it first brought normal life to a standstill. It has become by far the most important issue of recent times. Though the fight against the pandemic has had many successes, overall, the battle is far from won. Millions have died across the world, and many more have been infected by the virus. As people worldwide usher in the new year, for the vast majority, their most fervent hopes are for an end to COVID-19 this year. [COMMENT BY: Omar Shariff, International Editor]

2022 - WILL IT BE KL RAHUL'S YEAR?: The timing of announcement of KL Rahul as stand-in India captain for the three One-day Internationals against South Africa -on the last day of 2021 - is quite uncanny. After the initial years of living with the tag of the man who could be the next big thing in India’s batting line-up, his elevation to the vice-captain’s post and now this on the stroke of New Year is an endorsement of the BCCI’s growing faith in him. It’s a different ‘KL’ whom we have seen over the past year as the two valuable overseas centuries against England and South Africa had been a reward of his concentration and discipline. If all goes well, he could also be at the helm of the new IPL franchise of Lucknow. Well, 2022 could well be Rahul’s year! [COMMENT BY: by Gautam Bhattacharyya, Senior Associate Editor]

GOODBYE BETTY WHITE AND THANK YOU FOR BEING A FRIEND: I was not more than nine years old when I first encountered Betty White, beaming back at me from our 32-inch Phillips box TV set, playing the effervescent and peculiar Rose Nylund in ‘The Golden Girls’. To an impressionable young girl, who still lived a few years away from satellite TV and the internet revolution, White’s delightful on-screen shenanigans soon earned her the moniker of ‘Grandma Betty’. Through the years, and shows such as ‘The Golden Girls’, ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ and ‘Boston Legal’, White continued her reign as TV’s perennial matriarch, even when she was playing an evil gossip-monger or a nefarious schemer. Her cracking sense of comic timing and her dead-pan humour was the stuff of legends, and it remained so, even in death, weeks before she would have turned 100 years old, while appearing on the cover of People magazine in an interview where she celebrates her centennial birthday. While the world weeps at her passing, that little girl who grew up in Dubai just has one last thing to say in a true ‘Golden Girl’ trademark style – thank you for being a friend Grandma Betty. [COMMENT BY: Bindu Rai, Entertainment Editor]