Press Trust of India Two Border Security Force (BSF) troopers including an officer were killed and four injured Saturday in a guerrilla attack in Pulwama district in south Kashmir.
A senior police officer told IANS in Srinagar that a BSF vehicle was attacked by militants in Koil village of Pulwama district Saturday afternoon and an assistant sub-inspector and a head constable were killed while four other troopers were injured.
Islamic State (IS) militants have massacred at least 80 men from the Yazidi faith and abducted women and children in a village in northern Iraq, a media report said Saturday.
Senior Kurdish leader Hoshyar Zebari said the men were killed in two groups by the IS militants who arrived in Kawju Friday on a column of vehicle, BBC reported.
A US drone strike later destroyed two vehicles from the convoy near another village, he said.
The militants reportedly told men to convert to Islam or die.
Hoshyar Zebari, who was until recently Iraq’s foreign minister, confirmed the attack.
Film: “Anjaan”; Cast: Suriya, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Manoj Bajpayee, Vidyut Jamwal, Dalip Tahil, Soori, Brahmanandam, Asif Basra and Murali Sharma; Director: N. Lingusamy;
Rating: **
“Anjaan” is like a battle between Suriya, the star, and Suriya, the actor. Interestingly the film features him in a double role – one is a star and the other is an actor. But the director has focused on the star only.
India’s Sania Mirza and her Zimbwean partner Cara Black went down to Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain and Kazakhstan`s Yaroslave Shvedova in the second round of women’s doubles at the Western and Southern Open here.
The fourth seeded Indo-Zimbabwean pair went down 3-6, 3-6 Thursday in this hard court tournament, which is a warm-up event for the US Open.
Sania and Cara had got a bye in the first round.
With Sania’s exit, Indian campaign here ended.
It was an unhappy Independence Day Friday for the families of two West Bengal workers as they wait for the return of their men abducted by Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq.
As many as 25 Indian workers, all from Bengal, were evacuated from Iraq after conflict broke out in that country. They have returned to their villages in Nadia, North 24-Parganas and Burdwan districts.
While 16 others from Nadia district have returned home from Iraq last month, news of Khokan Sikdar and Samar Tikadar still eludes their kin.
Solid play and strategic planning were key to India’s success at the 41st Chess Olympiad in Norway, said team members.
For the first time, India won three medals – a gold, silver and a bronze – at the Chess Olympiad that concluded Thursday in the Norwegian city of Tromse.
India, seeded 19th, scored 17 points and were tied for the second place with Hungary, Russia and Azerbaijan. But owing to better tie-break scores, Hungary got the silver medal while India got the bronze ahead of Russia, Azerbaijan and others. The gold was won by China.
The toll in a firing incident near the Assam-Nagaland border in Golaghat district of Assam rose to 11 Friday with the recovery of nine more bodies, officials said, as simmering tension continued in the area.
Home Commissioner G.D. Tripathy said there was no fresh violence in the area in the past two days.
“The situation is under control now. There has been no violence since Wednesday. However, we have decided to continue the night curfew from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.,” he said.
It was a humid Independence Day in Delhi Friday. The Met department has forecast light rain Saturday.
The maximum temperature was recorded two notches above the season’s average at 35.2 degrees Celsius.
Humidity rose to 71 percent.
The minimum temperature was one notch above average at 27.6 degrees Celsius.
“The sky Saturday will be partly cloudy and light rain is expected,” said an official of the India Meteorological Department.
Saturday’s maximum and minimum temperatures are likely to hover around 35 and 27 degrees Celsius, respectively.
(IANS)
Santosh Sivan says that superstar Suriya’s Tamil movie “Anjaan” shouldn’t be tagged as a regional film because a large part of the dialogues are in Hindi and the story is set in the city.
Explaining the lingual dichotomy of “Anjaan”, the film’s cinematographer Sivan said: “It’s a Mumbai-based subject and a large part of the dialogues are in Hindi. These haven’t been dubbed into Tamil, although it’s a Tamil film.”
England pacers, including a fit-again Stuart Broad, put on a spirited performance to blow away the top Indian batting order and leave the visitors struggling at 43 for five in the first innings at lunch on the first day of the fifth and the final cricket Test at The Oval here Friday.
Put in, after a delayed start due to a heavy outfield, India found themselves at the receiving end of the fury of English pacers as half the side was back in the pavilion for 36 runs in the 19th over.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday urged South Asian countries to work together to remove poverty from the region, praised Nepal for setting an example for renouncing violence but did not mention Pakistan in his Independence Day address.
In his speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort, Modi mentioned Nepal and Bhutan but did not name any other country.
He said he went to Nepal recently and talked about the youths of the country who had opted for the path of violence but were now waiting for their constitution.
A paramilitary trooper engaged in anti-Maoist operations Friday committed suicide by shooting himself in Odisha’s Ganjam district, police said.
“The 40-year-old Central Reserve Police Force trooper K.A. Narayan shot himself in a CRPF camp at Gajalbadi village, about 350 km from Bhubaneswar with the service rifle of one of his colleagues,” a senior district police official told IANS.
“The exact cause of his suicide has not yet been ascertained,” he said.
Narayan was a native of West Bengal and was depressed for the past few days, he said.
Chief match referee Ranjan Madugalle became the first to reach the 150-mark in Tests when he took the field to officiate in the fifth and final Test between England and India at The Oval here Friday.
A former Sri Lanka captain, who was a mainstay during his nation’s formative years in the Test arena, Madugalle represented his country in 21 Tests and 63 One-Day Internationals (ODIs) between 1979 and 1988, in which he scored 1,029 and 950 runs, respectively.
Producer Guneet Monga, known for backing content-driven films such as “Gangs Of Wasseypur” and “The Lunchbox”, has been named among the ‘Most Powerful Women in Indian Business’ by a magazine.
Having produced over 20 feature films and 75 short movies, Monga was felicitated alongside corporate and industry big-wigs like Nishi Vasudeva, Pallavi Shroff and Ekta Kapoor among others here.
The following is the scoreboard at lunch on the first day of the fifth and the final cricket Test between India and England at The Oval here Friday.
India first innings
Murali Vijay c Root b Woakes 18
Gautam Gambhir c Buttler b Anderson 0
Cheteshwar Pujara b Broad 4
Virat Kohli lbw Jordan 6
Ajinkya Rahane c&b Jordan 0
Mahendra Singh Dhoni batting 6
Stuart Binny batting 4
Extras (b 4, lb 1) 5
Total (for five wickets in 25 overs) 43
Fall of wickets: 1-3 (Gambhir, 0.4 overs), 2-10 (Pujara, 5.6), 3-26 (Kohli, 13.4), 4-28 (Rahane, 15.6), 5-36 (Vijay, 18.5)
Bowling:
A Hindu group has asked the Panaji city corporation to drop Hindu symbol ‘Om’ from signages put up in strategic locations in the Goa capital. The civic body resorted to ‘Om’ to discourage dumping of garbage.
In a memorandum to the Corporation of the City of Panaji, the Hindu Janajagurti Samiti (HJS) said the depiction of ‘Om’ on the signs amounted to denigration of the Hindu symbol.
Successive cricket board treasurers have often asked for the beefing up of their office because of the nature of book-keeping they have to maintain. As a bonanza, the incumbent has not one, two but three offices — including a plush five-star hotel suite!
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) now maintains offices for its treasurer Anirudh Chaudhry in Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi — and surprisingly not in his home town Bhiwani.
At least 16 people were killed in eastern Ukraine over the past one day as government forces stepped up their offensive against independence-seeking rebels, authorities said Friday.
The conflict has reached a critical stage in Donetsk city, where heavy shelling Thursday afternoon killed 11 civilians and injured eight others.
Donetsk City Council said the shelling also damaged several electricity substations and destroyed 20 private houses, Xinhua reported.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist Friday criticised West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for her penchant to introduce awards and “waste tax payers’ money”.
On the occasion of 68th Independence Day, Banerjee awarded “Chief Minister’s Medal” to a host of Indian Administrative Service and Indian Police Service officers for their “outstanding” and “commendable” service to the state.
The Banerjee government earlier introduced the “Banga Bhushan and Banga Bibhushan” set of awards for excellence in the fields of art, culture, sports etc.
Actor Shahid Kapoor, who is currently busy promoting his film “Haider”, is extremely excited about “Finding Fanny” because the film shows him the other side of his father Pankaj Kapur’s personality.
Directed by Homi Adajania, it also stars Deepika Padukone, Arjun Kapoor, and Naseeruddin Shah.
“I haven’t seen the film yet, I have seen the promos and I am dying to see the film,” Shahid told IANS.
Thousands of farmers and widows of land tillers Friday protested in Yavatmal, a district town in Vidarbha, demanding food security and loan waiver due to failed monsoons in the region, an activist said here.
About 10,000 farmers from 300 villages also resolved to launch hunger strikes in their villages during the ensuing Ganesh festival if the state government failed to redress their grievances by then, Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti president Kishore Tiwari said.
Two Goa Police constables were arrested Wednesday for stealing four milk packets of Rs.42 each from a milk-store, a police spokesperson said Friday.
The official said that Prashant Jalmi, 25, and Nilesh Karmalkar, 23, attached to the Pernem police station in north Goa, were caught on CCTV cameras while stealing the milk packets in the early hours of Aug 11.
“The milk vendor lodged an FIR at the Mapusa police station after seeing two police persons stealing his milk packets. The arrests were made after the constables were formally identified,” the official said.
India were left struggling at 43 for five in the first innings at lunch on the first day of the fifth and the final cricket Test against England at The Oval here Friday.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni was batting on six and Stuart Binny four when lunch was called. Murali Vijay was the top scorer with 18 while Gautam Gambhir and Ajinkya Rahane failed to open their account.
(IANS)
Pakistan put up a fine batting display while chasing Sri Lanka”s 320 all out and trail the hosts by 76 runs at the end of day two with four wickets remaining in the first innings of the second Test at the Sinhalese Sports Club. Sri Lanka had scored 261 for the loss of eight wickets on day one. Dhamika Prasad and Rangana Herath had resumed batting for the hosts and lost their wickets on their individual scores of 13 and 17 respectively. Chanaka Welegedara remained unbeaten on 27 for the host side.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday expressed his respect for sages and saints in his first Independence Day address at the Red Fort.
“The country has come thus far because of generation to generation of rigours undertaken by our sages and saints,” he said. “These great people … deserve our deepest respect.”
In his 75-minute address, he also referred to ancient cultural heritage and the Vedic period.
Later on, Modi said: “I strongly believe in the worlds of legends. I have great faith in the statements made by ascetics, sages and saints.”