timely

Same result, different day.

A glimmer of hope, a door creaked slightly ajar, a creeping sense of “what if” drifting through the crowd and the commentary box – but in the end, Australia win.

This was England’s long-awaited Ashes reunion, their first competitive meeting since the ill-fated 16-0 drubbing.

In some ways, this was a free hit, considering the fact that a semi-final spot at the Women’s World Cup had already been secured for both teams.

Throughout the tournament, England have shown – despite being far from perfect on occasions – that this is not the same dejected England that left the Melbourne Cricket Ground back in February, having barely left a scratch on their opponents – let alone a punch.

Against their great rivals in Indore, they had spells where they competed – again, something that was nothing more than a pipe dream at the beginning of the year.

Amy Jones and Tammy Beaumont dominated the first eight overs, cashing in as the Australian seamers bowled too wide and lacked control.

Alice Capsey played an enterprising cameo to get England to 244, which always felt below par, but when Lauren Bell removed Phoebe Litchfield’s off stump with a beauty and Georgia Voll and Ellyse Perry were dismissed shortly after, England were in unfamiliar territory.

They were favourites.

But against a team of such greatness, a line-up littered with stardom from one to 11 and the three left on the bench, you cannot and will not win a game in moments.

England learned a harsh lesson in Indore. They have improved massively in the field, they look fitter, they look a more cohesive unit willing to fight and scrap for everything.

Still, you can do all of that, and still be outplayed. You can take four top-order wickets for 68 runs and the next two will add a chanceless 180 between them, turning a wobble into a crushing victory with nearly 10 overs to spare.

England’s unbeaten run came to an end, ever so predictably, with a bump down to earth dealt by Australia.

In “Boots,” a new miniseries set in 1990, Miles Heizer plays Cameron Cope, a scrawny, bullied gay teenager who is out only to his best (and only) friend, Ray (Liam Oh). Ray, who is joining the Marines to make his disciplinarian but not unkind father proud, convinces Cam to join alongside him. (The recruiters sell a buddy system, which is a bit of a come-on.) Cam told his messy but not unkind mother, Barbara (Vera Farmiga), where he was going, but she wasn’t listening.

Though the series, which premieres Thursday on Netflix and is based on Greg Cope White’s 2016 memoir, “The Pink Marine,” is novel as regards the sexuality of its main character, it’s also essentially conventional — not a pejorative — and largely predictable. It’s a classic Boot Camp Film, like “An Officer and a Gentleman,” or Abbott and Costello’s “Buck Privates,” in which imperfect human material is molded through exercise, ego death and yelling into a better person, and it replays many tropes of the genre. And like most every military drama, it gathers diverse types into a not necessarily close-knit group.

Cam’s confusion is represented by externalizing his inner voice into a double, “the angel on my shoulder and, honestly, sometimes the devil,” with whom he argues, like a difficult imaginary friend. (It’s the voice of his hidden gayness.) Where basic training stories like this usually involve a cocky or spoiled character learning a lesson about humbleness and teamwork, Cam is coming from a place of insecurity and fear. At first he wants to leave — he had expected nothing worse than “mud and some bug bites and wearing the same underwear two days in a row” — and plots to wash out; but he blows the chance when he helps a struggling comrade pass a test. He’s a good guy. (Heizer is very fine in the part.)

Cameron (Miles Heizer), left, is convinced by his best friend (and only friend), Ray (Liam Oh), to join the Marines with him.

(Alfonso “Pompo” Bresciani / Netflix)

Press materials describe “Boots,” created by Andy Parker, as a comedic drama, although, after the opening scenes, there’s not much comedy in it — even a food fight is more stressful than funny. Using “Also Sprach Zarathustra” as the soundtrack to a long-in-coming bowel movement — I just report the news — was already dated and exhausted in 1990, and is bizarrely out of joint with the rest of the production. “Boots” isn’t anywhere near as disturbing as, say, “Full Metal Jacket” — which Ray told Cam to watch to prepare, though he opted for a “Golden Girls” marathon instead. But it makes no bones about the fact that these kids are being trained to kill. “Kill, kill, blood makes the grass grow,” they chant, and “God, country, Corps, kill.” And sometimes just, “Kill, kill, kill.” And things do turn violent, sometimes for purposes of training and sometimes because someone just goes off his head.

Still, that Cam survives, and, after a period of adjustment, thrives (that’s not a spoiler, Cope White lived to write the book) makes this, strictly speaking, a comedy. (And, by implication, an endorsement of the program.) “We’re killing our old selves so we can be our best selves,” he’ll say to Ray. The Marines may make a man of him, but it won’t be a straight man.

Rhythmically, “Boots” follows scenes in which someone will break a little or big rule — I suppose in the Marines, all rules are big, even the little ones — with some sort of punishment, for an individual or the platoon. Laid across this ostinato are various storylines involving recruits working out the issues that have brought them to this Parris Island of Misfit Boys. Cody (Brandon Tyler Moore) was taught by his father to look down on his twin brother, John (Blake Burt), who is in the same outfit, because he’s fat. Slovacek (Kieron Moore), a bully, has been given a choice between prison and the military. Mason (Logan Gould) can barely read. Santos (Rico Paris) is slowed down by a bum knee. Ochoa (Johnathan Nieves) is a little too much in love with his wife. And Hicks (Angus O’Brien) is a chaos-relishing loon, having the time of his life. Obviously, not everyone who joins the Marines is compensating for something; Nash (Dominic Goodman), a more or less balanced character who seems to be sending Cameron signals, is there to pad his resume in case he runs for president one day; but he’ll have his moment of shame.

Sgt. Sullivan (Max Parker), left, is one of the drill instructors who takes an interest in Cameron (Miles Heizer).

(Alfonso “Pompo” Bresciani / Netflix)

Though they all raise their voices and get in people’s faces, the drill instructors do come in various flavors. Staff Sgt. McKinnon (Cedrick Cooper), the senior instructor, is imposing but obviously sane and sometimes kind; Sgt. Howitt (Nicholas Logan) is an unsettling sort who will prove to have some depth, while Sgt. Knox (Zach Roerig) is a twitchy racist, soon to be replaced by Sgt. Sullivan (Max Parker), tall, steely and tightly wound. He doesn’t yell as loud as the others, but even his posture is intimidating. He focuses immediately on Cameron; make of that what you will. He’s the series second lead, basically.

There are some respites from the training, the running and marching, the room full of tear gas, the dead man’s float test, the hand-to-hand combat, the flower planting. (That part was nice, actually.) The yelling.

Ray winds up in sick bay, where he flirts with a female Marine. We get a few perfunctory glimpses of what the brass is like when they’re out of uniform and quiet; it comes as a relief. McKinnon’s wife is having a baby; he makes Cookie Monster noises on the phone for his son. Capt. Fajardo (Ana Ayora), “the first woman to lead a male company on Parris Island,” is heard talking to her mother, presumably about her daughter’s wedding: “I would rather not spend the time or the money because she can’t live without love.” Of her position, she observes that it “only took 215 years and a congressional mandate.” McKinnon, who is Black, offers a brief history of Black people in the Marine Corps as lived by his forebears.

The social themes become more prominent in the second half, and we learn or are reminded just how toxic the military was to gay people, and how backward was its attitude. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” wasn’t in effect until 1994, and it wasn’t until 2011 that openly gay soldiers could serve. Now, as civil rights are being beaten back to … backwardness by small-minded politicians, there’s a timely element to this perfectly decent, good-hearted, unsurprisingly sentimental miniseries.

Shohei Ohtani was four weeks into his major league career when former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt pitched a gondola from Union Station to Dodger Stadium. Ohtani, then a rookie with the Angels and now a global superstar with the Dodgers, was 23.

Today, Ohtani is 31, and McCourt still has no official response to his pitch.

In an effort to accelerate a decision, as The Times reported last month, McCourt’s lobbyists latched onto a state bill designed to expedite transit projects and persuaded legislators to add language that would put an even speedier timeline on potential legal challenges to the gondola.

That bill is scheduled for consideration by an Assembly committee Wednesday, and more than 100 community members rallied Monday in opposition to the bill — or, at least, to the part that would benefit the gondola project.

The Los Angeles City Council last week approved — and Mayor Karen Bass signed — a resolution urging state legislators to drop the gondola part of the bill or dump the bill entirely.

“We are fighting a billionaire,” City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez told the crowd. “How you doing today?”

There were snacks and stickers, T-shirts and tote bags, even bandanas for dogs (and there were lots of very good dogs). There were signs, both earnest and amusing (“Frank McCourt and the Aerial Cabins of Doom”).

Even if McCourt wins in Sacramento, Hernandez said, the City Council must approve the gondola project. In 2024, the council authorized a Dodger Stadium traffic study, intended to evaluate alternatives to the gondola, which could include expanding the current bus shuttles from Union Station and introducing the park-and-ride buses such as the ones that have operated for years at the Hollywood Bowl.

Last month — 16 months after the council authorized the study — the city’s department of transportation invited bidders to apply to conduct the study, via a 56-page document that explains what the city wants done, how to do it, and when the work should be completed.

Sixteen months?

Colin Sweeney, spokesman for the transportation department, said the preparation of contracts requires compliance with various city rules, coordination with several city departments, and availability of city staff.

“This process can take up to 24 months,” Sweeney said.

An artist’s rendering of the Dodger Stadium landing site of a proposed gondola project that would ferry up passengers to games.

(Aerial Rapid Transit Technologies / Kilograph)

The traffic study is due next fall. If it is delivered on time, that could be nearly a three-year wait for one study in advance of one vote for one of the several governmental approvals the gondola would require.

Is the city — or, at least, the elected representatives opposed to the gondola — slow-walking the project?

“We’re not slow-walking nothing,” said Hernandez, whose district includes Dodger Stadium. “This is how the city moves.”

The councilmember pointed to the tree behind her.

“It takes us 15 years to trim a tree,” she said.

Excuse me?

“We’ll trim this tree this year,” Hernandez said, “and we won’t get to it again for 15 years.”

The industry standard, she said, is five years.

In L.A. she said, it can take 10 years to fix a sidewalk, three to five years to cut a curb for a wheelchair, nine months to one year to repair a street light.

“When you have enough resources, you can do things like put a new section into a bill to fast-track your project,” Hernandez said. “When you have money, you can do that.”

But I wanted to flip the question: If McCourt can spend half a million bucks on lobbyists to try to push his project forward, and if he is approaching a decade with no decision, what hope do the rest of us have?

We need housing. We need parks. We need shade. And, yes, we need better ways to get in and out of Dodger Stadium.

Los Angeles Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez speaks during a news conference in December.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

“Do I believe we need to fast-track really good projects that have shown that there are financial plans behind them that will benefit the community?” Hernandez said. “If there are ways to do that ethically, let’s do it. But, if we’re talking about fast-tracking a project because you’ve got access to change state law, that’s not something we should be doing.

“Do I think there’s a lot of barriers to achieving good projects, whether they are housing developments or other transportation? I do. I think we can cut through some of that. I think we should.

“We need to deliver quicker for our people.”

It’s not just the city of Los Angeles. The gondola project has slogged through Metro since 2018.

Love him or loathe him, like the gondola or hate it, does Hernandez believe McCourt — or any other developer — should be able to get a yes or no on his proposed project within eight years?

“I believe he should, yeah,” Hernandez said. “One hundred percent. I think he should.”

Even if the gondola is approved, who knows whether any fan would be able to ride it to see Ohtani play? For now, the gondola is not approved, not financed, and not under construction. Ohtani’s contract with the Dodgers expires in another eight years.

New Delhi, India – Getting into one of the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) schools was supposed to be the end of the financial woes for Paras* and his family. Instead, things have only worsened due to the federal government’s long delays in dispensing Paras’s monthly fellowship allowance of 37,000 rupees ($435).

At the IIT, Paras is a research fellow, looking into solutions to a global public health crisis created by the spread of infectious diseases. His fellowship comes from the INSPIRE scheme, funded by India’s Department of Science and Technology (DST).

But delays in the scheme’s payment have meant that Paras was not able to pay the instalments on the laptop he bought for his research in 2022. His credit score plummeted, and his savings plans crashed.

Paras’s parents are farmers in a drought-affected region of western India, and their income depends on a harvest that often fails. So, he has resorted to borrowing money from friends, including as recently as between August and December, he told Al Jazeera.

Paras is not alone. Al Jazeera spoke to nearly a dozen current and former fellows enrolled in top institutes across India under the Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) programme. The interviewees studied at institutions such as the IIT, a network of engineering and technology schools across the country, and the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research, another network.

All had gone from three to as long as nine months without a stipend.

The funding delays and procedural lapses have marred the fellowship and impaired their research capacity, they said.

Many researchers recently took to social media to complain, tagging Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Minister of Science and Technology Jitendra Singh.

“For over a year now, many of us who are pursuing PhDs under DST-funded fellowships have not received our stipends,” Sayali Atkare, an INSPIRE fellow, wrote on LinkedIn. “This has pushed many young researchers into severe financial and emotional stress.”

Last year, India ranked 39th in the Global Innovation Index of 133 countries, up one spot from the year prior. It leads lower-middle-income countries like Vietnam and the Philippines in innovation. China leads upper-middle-income countries and is followed by Malaysia and Turkiye.

The federal government termed the ranking an “impressive leap” in a news release. It said that India’s “growing innovation potential has been supported by government initiatives that prioritise technological advancement, ease of doing business, and entrepreneurship”.

At a federal government conference in April, Modi boasted of India’s growing research acumen. Under his leadership in the past decade, the government has doubled its gross spending on research and development from 600 billion rupees ($7.05bn) to more than 1,250 billion rupees ($14.7bn), while the number of patents filed has more than doubled – from 40,000 to more than 80,000.

The numerous steps taken by the government – like doubling of expenditure on R&D (research and development), doubling of patents filed in India, creation of state-of-the-art research parks and research fellowships and facilities – ensure “that talented individuals face no obstacles in advancing their careers”, Modi said.>

However, an analysis of government documents, budgets and interviews with researchers reveals that the government is more focused on commercial research, primarily product development led by start-ups and big corporations. It is offering little funding for research conducted at the country’s premier universities.

For instance, in the current financial year, 70 percent of the Science and Technology Department’s annual budget has been allocated to a scheme under which interest-free loans are provided to private companies conducting research in sunrise domains, such as semiconductors.

At the same time, the government has made misleading statements about its investments in the country’s research institutes, including with schemes like the INSPIRE fellowship, where funds have actually been cut instead of being increased as touted by the government.

Poor pay, funding delays

The INSPIRE scheme offers PhD and faculty fellowships to “attract, attach, retain and nourish talented young scientific Human Resource for strengthening the R&D foundation and base”.

The fellowships are offered to top-ranking postgraduate students and doctoral researchers to conduct research in areas from agriculture, biochemistry, neuroscience and cancer biology to climate science, renewable energy and nanotechnology.

Under the scheme, PhD fellows are to receive 37,000 rupees ($435.14) to 42,000 rupees ($493.94) per month for living expenses and 20,000 rupees ($235.21) annually for research-related costs, such as paying for equipment or work-related travel.

Faculty fellows are offered teaching positions with a monthly salary of 125,000 rupees ($1,470) and an annual research grant of 700,000 rupees ($8,232).

In the year 2024-25, 653 fellows were enrolled in the PhD fellowship, and 85 in the faculty fellowship programme.

“I couldn’t attend an important annual meeting in our field because it required travel, and I was not sure if I would get my allowance,” a faculty fellow at an institute in eastern India said. He has not received his payments since September 2024.

Atkare, the PhD student who wrote about the government’s failure on LinkedIn, also wrote, “We’ve made endless phone calls, written countless emails – most of which go unanswered or are met with vague responses. Some officials even respond rudely.”

Another INSPIRE PhD fellow told us of a running joke: “If they pick up the phone, you can buy a lottery ticket that day. It’s your lucky day.”

In May, DST Secretary Abhay Karandikar accepted that there were funding delays and said that they would soon be resolved.

Karandikar told the Hindu newspaper that he was “aware” of the disbursement crisis but said that from June 2025, all scholars would get their money on time. “All problems have been addressed. I don’t foresee any issue in the future,” he said.

Al Jazeera requested a comment from the science and technology minister, the DST secretary and the head of the department’s wing that implements the INSPIRE scheme, but has not received a response.

Dodgy math

In January, the federal government folded three R&D-related schemes to start Vigyan Dhara or “the flow of science” to ensure “efficiency in fund utilisation”. The INSPIRE scheme had been funded under one of those schemes.

But instead of efficiency, there has been chaos.

Under Vigyan Dhara, DST asked institutes to set up new bank accounts, leading to delays in payments for INSPIRE fellowships.

New Delhi also said that it had “significantly increased” funding for the Vigyan Dhara scheme, from 3.30 billion rupees ($38.39m) in the last financial year to 14.25 billion rupees ($167.58m) in the current financial year.

However, that math was incomplete. The 3.30 billion rupees ($38.39m) is what the government earmarked for the scheme, which was only launched in the last quarter of the fiscal year. The budget for the full fiscal year of the three schemes that Vigyan Dhara replaced amounted to 18.27 billion rupees ($214.93m). So, in effect, the current budget saw a 22 percent decrease in allocation from 18.27 billion rupees to 14.25 billion rupees ($167.58m).

Overall, the budget for Vigyan Dhara’s constituent schemes reduced 67.5 percent from 43.89 billion rupees ($513.2m) in financial year 2016-17 to 14.25 billion rupees ($167.6m) in financial year 2025-26.

DST officials did not respond to Al Jazeera’s query requesting clarification of Vigyan Dhara’s budgetary allocations.

Commercialisation of research

On the other hand, the Indian government earmarked 200 billion rupees ($2.35bn) for the new Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) scheme targeting the private sector.

This money is part of a larger 1-trillion-rupee ($11.76bn) corpus previously announced by India’s finance minister to provide long-term financing at low or no interest rates.

These changes in schemes are intended to make India a “product nation”, get more patents filed in India, and curb the brain drain, as Union Minister Aswini Vaishnaw and DST officials explain in different videos.

But the plight of the researchers at state-run organisations remains unaddressed.

“The government throws around big terms, but those toiling in laboratories are suffering,” said Lal Chandra Vishwakarma, president of All-India Research Scholars Association.

“Stipends should be similar to salaries of central government employees. Fellows should get their money every month without fail,” he said.

In the current scenario, most fellows Al Jazeera spoke to said that they would prefer a fellowship abroad.

“It’s not just about funds but the ease of research, which is much better in Europe and [the United States]. We get so much staff support there. In India, you get none of that,” said a professor at an IIT, who supervises an INSPIRE PhD fellow who faced funding issues.

While the private sector is being heavily financed, researchers told us they downplay their funding costs as that improves their chances of landing government research projects.

“Cutting-edge research is so fast; if we lose the first few years due to cost-cutting, we are behind our colleagues abroad,” the IIT professor said.

“Once we submit necessary documents, like annual progress reports, DST takes at least three months to release the next instalment. It’s usual,” said a PhD fellow who is a theoretical mathematician.

“Right now, I would say only people with privilege [and high-income backgrounds] should be in academia. Not because that’s how it should be, but because for others, it’s just so hard,” the IIT professor said.

*Al Jazeera has changed names to protect the identity of interviewees.