Istanbul: Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta won a silver by pocketing seven points out of nine games while Tania Sachdev turned out to be the best woman performer for India with a bronze medal in the Chess Olympiad that concluded here on Sunday.

The Indian women team dished out its best-ever performance with a fourth-place finish after defeating France 2.5-1.5 in the final round.

D Harika and Soumya Swaminathan won on the first and fourth board while Tania played out a draw on the second to ensure an Indian victory by a minimal margin even as Mary Ann Gomes suffered a reversal.
Chess Olympiad: Abhijeet bags silver, Tania bronze

The Opposition Congress in the south Delhi municipal corporation (SDMC) has demanded a CBI inquiry into the "waterless urinal fraud".

The party alleged that over 1,000 urinals were built ahead of the 2010 Commonwealth Games but most of the toilets built are currently not
functional as there is no mechanism in place to maintain them.

Claiming that a huge fraud has been committed in the name of such urinals, leader of the opposition in SDMC Farhad Suri said the MCD built 997 such toilets before the games at a cost of Rs. 125 crore. But the plan was flawed from its inception and the entire sum has been wasted due to the failure of the project.

Neighbours of an Indian family killed in a murder-suicide grappled with allegations on Sunday that the man accused in the shooting in a small California agricultural town was a former Indian army officer wanted for years for murder in his homeland.

News of Saturday's shooting
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    Ex-Indian Army officer kills family, self in California

boomeranged through the area's close-knit Indian community, which numbers 15,500 in Fresno County, including about 750 in Selma, a small town surrounded by vineyards and peach orchards and known as the "Raisin Capital of the World." The majority of Indians in the area are Punjabi Sikhs, like the family.


"Our community is completely shocked," said Rajbir Singh Pannu, president of the town's Sikh temple. "It's a really bad misfortune, especially for the children who died. Anybody who takes somebody's life, in our religion that's cowardice."

Jodhpur, Sep 9: A batch of 171 Hindus arrived here from Pakistan after a three-month long arduous journey with leader of the group saying they were seeking a refugee status in India for the sake of "self respect", religious freedom and children's future. They have been accommodated temporarily in a temple campus until proper arrangements are made.

"We have intimated the chief minister about this, who was in Jodhpur and expect him to direct the administration to make some arrangements for them," said Singh Sodha, president of Seemant Lok Sangthan, an organisation fighting for the rehabilitation of Hindu migrants.

New Delhi, Sep 9: Telecom regulator TRAI has asked telecom companies to de-activate the international calling facility in pre-paid numbers and restore it only after a subscriber gives his explicit consent to avail this facility.

"Inform all pre-paid subscribers having ISD facility, through SMS, within 10 days of the date of issue of this direction, that ISD facility of the subscribers shall be discontinued after sixty days," Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said in a directive to telcos.

"If such subscribers want to continue with ISD facility, they should give their explicit consent for availing such facility within 60 days of the receipt of the SMS," it added.

Nic Bills, the rookie-contracted New South Wales fast bowler, will face further disciplinary action from his state after being arrested on a drink driving charge.

On August 17, a Friday night, Bills gave a blood alcohol reading of 0.062 following a random breath test. The legal limit is 0.05.

Known as the 'Speedblitz Blues', the NSW state team has been sponsored by the transport arm of the state government since the 2002-03 season, charged with raising awareness about the perils of speeding and drink driving.

Slamming Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi over the Supreme Court's strictures in the Soharabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, his bete noire Keshubhai Patel has asked if Modi is 'Chief Minister' or a 'Crime Manager'.

"I want to ask if CM of Gujarat a Chief Minister or a Crime Manager?" Patel wrote on his blog today.
 

Raipur, Sep 8:  Amid reports that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) may interrogate the chief ministers of some states, including Chhattisgarh, about the allocation of coal blocks, Chief Minister Raman Singh Friday termed this "a waste of time".
"No need to interrogate anyone here. All records are with the central government. Even recommendations made by the state regarding coal blocks allotment are in public domain," Singh said.

Is it a compliment when the government of one of the largest countries in the world demands that you apologise for something you wrote? Ask Simon Denyer, India bureau chief of The Washington Post and a former Reuters editor based in Washington D.C. and India.



Denyer in a Post article called India’s prime minister Manmohan Singh a “dithering, ineffectual bureaucrat presiding over a deeply corrupt government”. Denyer also said that the 79-year-old Singh has fallen from grace, and that he no longer fits the image of being a “scrupulously honorable, humble and intellectual technocrat”.

Beijing, Sept 8: At least 80 people have been confirmed dead and more than 700 were reported injured after multiple earthquakes struck a mountainous region in southwest China’s Yunnan province on Friday, authorities said on Saturday.