Hyderabad, April 04: Were former Indian captain Mohammed Azharuddin and his wife Sangita Bijlani witness to Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik and his ‘first wife’ Ayesha staying in a city hotel?
If one believes the family friends of Ayesha Siddiqui, who claims to be Shoaib’s first wife, Azharuddin and Sangita were staying in the same hotel where the Pakistani cricketer and Ayesha were sharing a room after their ‘marriage’ in 2002.
New Delhi, April 04: Former Pakistan captain Wasim Akram feels that all juicy news about Shoaib Malik’s past relationship with an Indian girl will harm the Pakistani cricketer’s image.
“Pakistan cricket continues to intrigue me. Quite a few things are making headlines and unfortunately, almost all for the wrong reasons! First up, many congratulations to Shoaib Malik, although the juicy news about his previous relationship will do him no good,” Akram, bowling coach of Kolkata Knight Riders, wrote in his column in ESPNStar.com.
Baghdad, April 04: Three massive explosions, one of them near the Iranian embassy in Baghdad, has killed at least 15 people and wounded 35 in the Iraqi capital.
The explosion rocked the Iranian embassy which is located near the ministry of defense on Sunday.
No group has yet claimed responsibility of the attack.
The Interior ministry confirmed the casualties.
According to the report, Iraqi forces have been deployed to the area and blocked the roads to the scene.
The other two blasts rocked west Baghdad neighborhood of Mansur.
——–Agencies
New Delhi, April 04: Terming the humiliating treatment meted out to former captain Mohammad Yousuf as a sad affair, legendary pacer Wasim Akram has asserted that ”whether it was he or Javed Miandad or pacer Waqar Younis, Pakistan have never respected their former stars.”
”The decision made by Yousuf has saddened me. His retirement will definitely hurt Pakistan in Test cricket. You can’t replace a man with 24 Test centuries and 7000 runs. It’s a pity the way Pakistan have treated their best players,” Akram wrote in his column for espnstar.com.
Bangalore, April 04: After crushing the Deccan Chargers by 63 runs, the Mumbai Indians strengthened their position at the top of the points table in the league phase of the IPL, with 14 points from 8 matches.
Their spot in a semi-final is practically assured, even if they face an unlikely dip in form and lose the rest of their matches.
Harbhajan Singh, who is an integral part of the squad that is beating all comers, revealed that his goals did not stop at qualifying for the semi-finals, but he was thinking bigger than that.
Thiruvananathapuram, April 04: Actress Asin will be declared soon as the IPL ambassador for its Kochi team.
Malayalee actress Asin, who is popular in South Indian cinema, would be a brand ambassador for the recently-formed Kochi IPL cricket team, jointly owned by Vivek Venugopal, Shailendra Gaikwad and Shashi Tharoor, Union Minister of State for External Affairs.
She would be a big star attraction and crowd puller for the Kerala team, which would participate in the 2011 season, sources said.
———Agencies
Bangalore, April 04: Delhi Daredevils captain Gautam Gambhir has come out strongly defending his comments about the Rajasthan Royals, which earned him a reprimand from the IPL.
Gambhir had called Rajasthan an “ordinary” side, and said that apart from Yusuf Pathan there was no one else who posed a threat in the side.
Writing in his column for the Hindustan Times, Gambhir said:
New Delhi, April 04: Taking a leaf out of the methods adopted by Pakistan-based terrorists, Maoists have plans to attack major cities and are trying to enhance their strike capabilities in the urban areas.
Central security agencies have gathered information that the Maoists have plans to strike in the cities in a big way but lack of infrastructure like hideouts for cadres, safe transport to carry arms and explosives are preventing them from doing so.
Rameswaram, April 04: Six Sri lankan refugees were arrested today at the fourth sand dune off Danushkodi coast when they were returning to Sri Lanka without informing authorities at the camps where they were staying. Police said the refugees had left the camps at Karur, Erode, Tiruchirapalli and Bhavani sagar on March 31 and engaged a boat at Rameswaram to go back to their country.
Tehran, April 04: Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast says Tehran’s international conference on nuclear disarmament has been widely welcomed.
According to Mehmanparast, the conference dubbed “Nuclear energy for all, nuclear weapons for none,” will be held in Tehran on March 17th and 18th.
“Officials from various countries, international organizations, and non-governmental organizations have been invited to attend the conference,” the Iranian spokesperson added.
“The conference has been widely welcomed by all countries,” he went on to say.
Washington, April 04: Revelations that a missing Iranian nuclear scientist is in US territory prove that he was abducted by Washington officials and taken to the US against his will, says Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman.
In an interview on Saturday, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast played down media reports suggesting that Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear expert who disappeared while on pilgrimage to Mecca last year, had defected to the United States and helping it to spy on Tehran’s enrichment work.
Bharuch, April 04: Union Minister of State for Tribal Affairs Tushar Chaudhary was on Sunday injured in a road mishap on the Sardar Patel bridge over Narmada river here, police said.
The incident took place this morning when Chaudhary’s car collied with two other cars while overtaking, they said.
According to police, Chaudhary, accompanied by Surat district Congress party president Mohan Chaudhary, who was also injured in the mishap, were on their way to Vadodara from Surat.
New Delhi, April 04: The Gulf is on the verge of a boom and there will be thousands of jobs for skilled Indians, especially in the petrochemical sector, says Ravi Pillai, managing director of the Saudi Arabia-based Nasser S. Al-Hajri Corporation.
Billions of dollars are being invested in major projects in the Gulf, particularly in Saudi Arabia and the UAE emirate of Abu Dhabi, and nearly 300,000 new jobs will be created in the next five years, said Pillai, who hails from Kollam district of Kerala.
Jeypore, April 04: At least seven jawans of the elite Special Operation Group (SOG) of Orissa Police, raised specially to fight Maoists, were feared killed, and 15 others injured, some of them critically, in a powerful landmine blast triggered by the Maoists at Mantriamba village under Baipariguda police station of Koraput district today.
Police said 22 jawans of the SOG were moving in a vehicle from Jeypore towards Malkangiri to clear the road for the movement of BSF jawans to conduct anti-Maoist operation when the incident occurred, about eight km from Baipariguda.
New Delhi, April 04: A ministers’ panel meeting tomorrow is likely to consider raising poor families’ entitlement for rice or wheat to 35 kg per month at Rs 3 a kg.
The Empowered Group of Ministers of Food, headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, earlier on March 18 cleared the Food Security Bill, which provided poor families right to 25 kg of the foodgrain in a month .
Riyadh, April 04: Two Britons convicted of kissing in public had their one-month prison sentence upheld by a Dubai court today.
Ayman Najafi, 24, and Charlotte Adams, 25, were arrested by police in the Gulf resort last November after a woman complained they had been seen kissing on the mouth in a restaurant, breaching Dubai’s strict decency laws.
They were sentenced last month when a judge at Dubai’s Misdemeanours Court heard written evidence from a 38-year-old mother who complained to police.
Kabul, April 04: The Afghan parliament’s upper house has voiced support for President Hamid Karzai in limiting the role of foreigners in the five-seat election fraud watchdog.
Karzai had issued a decree in February to reduce the number of foreigners in the watchdog body which includes three foreigners and two Afghans. The move led to a dispute with the White House over how to run a September parliamentary election.
Beijing, April 04: China has voiced its readiness to accelerate talks with India aimed at negotiating a bilateral trade agreement in a bid to balance trade between the two Asian giants.
China expects trade between the two countries to rise to $60 billion this year, as both countries are recovering from the global crisis but there is a $16 billion trade deficit in China’s favor that has been a bone of contention between the two countries.
China’s ambassador to India Zhang Yan said that China was preparing for a bilateral trade deal with India “similar to a free trade agreement.”
Gaza, April 04: Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad says Palestinians are determined to establish an independent state with Jerusalem (al-Quds) as its capital by next year.
“Our people, joined by all humanity, will celebrate the creation of the Palestinian independent state on all the 1967 borders, a state whose capital shall be al-Quds,” Ynet quoted Fayyad as saying at the end of Easter celebrations in Beit Lahm (Bethlehem).
“We are determined to reach a safe haven and freedom and are continuing to work on establishing state institutions and infrastructure,” Fayyad added.
London, April 04: Bond girl Olga Kurylenko has vowed never to date a Russian man because they treat women like assets to be bought.
The Ukrainian actress, who appeared opposite Daniel Craig in “Quantum of Solace”, said she had little respect for the women who date rich Russians, reports telegraph.co.uk.
Baghdad, April 04: At least 25 people were killed in Iraq when gunmen stormed houses in a village near the capital, an interior ministry source said Saturday.
The attack occurred late Friday in Sufiya in Rasheed district when gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms raided three houses, Xinhua reported quoting an interior ministry source.
The victims apparently were families of government-backed “Awakening Council” paramilitary group members, who had turned their guns against the Al Qaeda network in Iraq.
Hyderabad, April 04:Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik continued to stay in the residence of Indian tennis star Sania Mirza amid speculation that their marriage was being advanced to avoid any problems due to the raging row over Shoaib’s alleged first marriage with a resident of this city.
Shoaib, who arrived here Friday night from Dubai, did not come out of Sania’s house in Jubilee Hills. With Sania’s relatives and friends visiting her till late Saturday night, speculation was already doing the rounds that the marriage, originally scheduled for April 15, had been advanced.
Ranchi, April 04: Maoists guerrillas bombed a forest guest house in Jharkhand’s Latehar district early Sunday, police said.
Around 20 to 25 Maoists rebels raided the guest house, which was vacant at the time, at Matlong village, about 140 km from Ranchi, and later triggered the blast.
The guest house was badly damaged in the blast, the police said, adding that a pamphlet was recovered from the site, which claimed that the guerrillas targeted the guest house as it was used by security forces.
–IANS
New Delhi, April 04: Speculation is rife in Congress circles that the party is keen to re-launch the National Herald, a newspaper founded 70 years ago by India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Perhaps it has something to do with his great grandson?
The newspaper, which published its last editorial April 1, 2008, had announced it has “temporarily suspended” operations.
But rumours started doing the rounds after renovation at the building, located at Bahadurshah Zafar Marg, known as Delhi’s Fleet Street where omany other newspapers are also based, picked up pace.
New Delhi, April 04: For Sheena, concealing her income from a city court in a divorce matter proved costly as the court rejected her maintenance plea stating that it cannot allow the law to be used as a tool to get enriched unjustly at the expense of the spouse.