ICC chief greets Nepal, Uganda for moving up in world league

Dubai, Oct 31 (IANS) International Cricket Council (ICC) Chairman N. Srinivasan Friday congratulated Nepal and Uganda for qualifying for ICC World Cricket League Division 2 (WCL Div.2), which will be played in Namibia Jan 17-24, 2015.

Nepal and Uganda sealed their progression after reaching the final of Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division 3 in Kuala Lumpur Thursday.

In the final, Nepal defeated Uganda by 62 runs and the two sides will now join hosts Namibia, Canada, Kenya and the Netherlands in WCL Div.2.

“The two finalists competed consistently over the past week, and deserve to be promoted. Their performances demonstrate the strong standard and depth of cricket in Associate and Affiliate countries, and I congratulate both teams on their achievements,” said Srinivasan in an ICC release.

“Nepal and Uganda now progress to Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division 2, which is the final step in the qualification pathway to the ICC Intercontinental Cup, as well as the 50-over Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Championship.

“Following the recent decision to provide Associate and Affiliate Members a clear pathway to Test cricket through the ICC Intercontinental Cup, these two teams are taking the next step on that pathway towards Test cricket, and I wish them well,” he said.

Srinivasan also thanked the tournament organisers and the venues for staging a successful tournament.

“I would like to thank the Malaysian Cricket Association, the venues and all the staff and volunteers for their role in organising this important ICC event,” he said.

ICC chief greets Nepal, Uganda for moving up in world league

Read More

Low key birthday celebrations for Chandy

Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 31 (IANS) Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy celebrated a low-key 71st birthday Friday. He visited the church, heard people’s complaints and met school children.

The morning began with the routine meeting with a crowd and discussing their problems.

He also met school children from two local schools who greeted him with roses.

“He is a person who does not believe in celebrations. After meeting people, he went to the state party headquarters to attend the commemoration meeting of (late prime minister) Indira Gandhi,” a close aide of Chandy told IANS.

“He has many meetings and it will be like any other normal day,” the aide said.

Low key birthday celebrations for Chandy

Read More

Austrian cyclist sets new world hour record

Paris, Oct 31 (IANS) Matthias Brandle of Austria set a new cycling world hour record with his 51.85-km effort, adding more than 700 metres to the old mark set by Germany’s Jens Voigt last month.

Brandle, three-time Austrian time-trial champion, set the new record at Switzerland’s Aigle velodrome Thursday, reports Xinhua.

“I knew after 30 minutes that I was going to succeed,” said the 24-year-old.

“The first minutes were easy and then I wanted to go a lot faster. Halfway through, things became more complicated and I started to feel pain.”

“I am very happy with the result.”

Austrian cyclist sets new world hour record

Read More

Australians looking for surrogate mothers in India denied visas

Canberra, Oct 31 (IANS) Childless Australian couples looking for surrogate mothers in India are being denied visas to enter the country, media reported Friday.

Surrogacy advocates said India had effectively frozen out Australians from the surrogacy industry following recent revelations that a child was abandoned in India by an Australian couple, ABC reported.

“India has put a freeze on all new applications for new intended Australian parents wanting to engage in surrogacy,” said Sam Everingham from Surrogacy Australia.

He said couples trying to embark on the surrogacy process are being denied visas, while those who have pregnant surrogates in India are facing long delays in having their visas issued.

“For those who have got pregnant surrogates we have seen a lot of anxiety and a lot of panic around getting a visa in time for the person,” Everingham said.

In a statement to surrogacy advocates, the Indian Consulate in Sydney said the cause of the current visa delays is over its concern for the welfare of surrogate children born for Australian parents.

It was recently revealed that in 2012 an Indian surrogate gave birth to twins for an Australian couple who left one baby behind, saying they could only afford to take one child.

Indian authorities said they have asked Australia for clearer guarantees that children born under surrogacy arrangements will be granted Australian nationality.

The consulate said it will issue visas if those guidelines are met.

Australians looking for surrogate mothers in India denied visas

Read More

Australia, US lift sanctions imposed on Fiji

Canberra, Oct 31 (IANS) Australia and the US have lifted sanctions they imposed on Fiji after the 2006 coup, media reported Friday.

Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop Friday began a two-day visit to Fiji, and expressed hope the two countries could begin a new and improved relationship together, Xinhua reported.

Both Australia and the US imposed several sanctions on Fiji, mainly relating to visa restrictions, following the bloodless coup by former military commander Frank Bainimarama.

Australia also withheld the sale of military equipment and military cooperation to Fiji, but will now hope to restore those ties following last month’s polls.

Bainimarama’s Fiji First party won September’s general elections by a landslide. He was sworn in as the prime minister.

“Today marks the start of a new era in the relationship between Australia and Fiji,” Bishop said.

“Just an election does not make a country a democracy, there also has to be a commitment to democratic values and democratic institutions. That’s why we will be working with Fiji to support the restoration of a number of democratic values, such as freedom of speech.”

Fiji was restored to the Pacific Islands Forum last week following a six-year suspension.

However, Bainimarama has refused to rejoin the forum, highlighting the difficult process in renewing a stable relationship.

Bainimarama has not publicly announced any measure to restore ties.

Australia, US lift sanctions imposed on Fiji

Read More

Acting with one's wife even more exciting: Hiten Tejwani

Mumbai, Oct 31 (IANS) TV actor Hiten Tejwani is joining the cast of “Meri Aashiqui Tumse Hi”, which stars his wife and actress Gauri Pradhan Tejwani. He is “excited” to work with his real life partner in the show.

Hiten and Gauri were the leading pair in “Kutumb”, which went on air in 2001, and after many years, they are sharing the screen space once again.

“Any role for an actor is exciting, but acting with your (one’s) wife is even more exciting. We’ll be spending more time on the sets now. Earlier, we used to shoot on different locations, now we’ll get to spend more time together,” Hiten told IANS by phone from Mumbai.

When asked how the experience of “Meri Aashiqui Tumse Hi” will be different from “Kutumb”, the actor said: “Well, the characters are different. Also, when we were shooting ‘Kutumb’, we weren’t married. But now we’re married.”

“When you are performing opposite to your wife, the comfort level is very high from the beginning. With other co-actors, it takes a little while to reach a certain comfort level.”

The couple tied the knot in 2004 and welcomed twins, son Neevan and daughter Katya, in 2009.

Gauri had previously mentioned that she would like to work with her husband when she joined “Meri Aashiqui Tumse Hi”, and now that her wish has come true, she is pretty excited too.

Although Hiten and Gauri’s five-year-old twins aren’t allowed to watch TV, the actor is willing to bend the rules for this show.

On being asked how his children would react on seeing them together on the screen, he said: “They will be happy to see us together. Actually, they are not allowed to watch TV as of now, but we will let them see a scene or two where we are together.”

Although Hiten’s schedule is busy with “Meri Aashiqui Tumse Hi”, the actor is willing to take up new projects.

“I’ll be busy with ‘Meri Aashiqui Tumse Hi’, but let’s see what happens. Talks are going on. If something really nice turns up and I have time, then I’ll do it,” he said.

Acting with one's wife even more exciting: Hiten Tejwani

Read More

'Roar' - a bore you may abhor (IANS Movie Review - Rating: **1/2)

Film: “Roar – Tigers of the Sundarbans”; Cast: Abhinav Shukla, Achint Kaur, Nora Fatehi, Ali Quli Mirza and Subrat Dutta; Director: Kamal Sadanah; Rating: **1/2

If you’re looking for a rewarding cinematic experience with a coherent plot and well-rounded characters, then “Roar” may just prove a bore that you’d probably abhor.

But if you’re the sort (like me) who grants leeway to movies for stretching its neck out beyond the domain of the conventional, then “Roar” has quite some visual swagger and splendour to it.

Consider this. It’s shot entirely in the dense Sundarbens forest. Now the dilemma that debutant director Kamal Sadanah must have faced is…should he make a documentary about the tigers of Sunderbans (which would get no audience) or a fictional story set in the tiger sanctuary (which hopefully would attract an audience).

Regrettably, “Roar” suffers from an over-written, excessively punctuated plot that groans and heaves forward wheezing with baggage fatigue.

The narrative, underlined by an insistent background score (fortunately no songs), strains so hard for effect that you fear for its life-force. Moreover, the editing is abysmal. Scenes written to highlight the irreconcilable differences between Man and Nature meander to an incomplete full-stop.

Stunning shots of the natural beauty of the Sunderbans cannot compensate for the lack of consistency and logic in the plot about a bunch of adventurers’s revenge on a white tiger, which finally lurches to a whimper rather than a roar. The characters are all written for the sake of creating a shock effect as one by one, the plot’s populace pops off the face of majestic map.

Time after time, the editing exposes the lack of coherence in the plot. Characters jump into the danger zone and then wait for the script to decide their future. The film was obviously written as the shooting progressed, thereby providing a rationale for the vast expanse of incidents that are crammed into this jungle-adventure story.

The killings in the sinister marshland are well-staged. In fact, the film’s cinematography by Michael Watson is so brilliant that it makes you want to shove the characters and their inane prattle out of the way to just savour the magnificence of Sunderbans. Like I said, Kamal Sadanah wanted to tell a fictional story. Wish he had saved the fiction for another day, another location.

The acting is uniformly amateurish with the two female actors Himarsha and Nora Fatehi joining together to create a wildlife cleavage club. They look and speak out of place in the jungles. Attempts to add glamour to the grisly goings-on are downright clumsy. You can almost smell the director’s unease and awkwardness in trying to infuse acceptable commercial trappings into the sun-kissed rugged picturesque locales.

One tiger in Ang Lee’s “Life Of Pi” signified a comment on the entire relationship between Man and the animal kingdom. Here in “Roar”, there are several tigers, plus repeated invocation of snakes and other wild crawly creepy creatures that jump out of nowhere to create more shock than the ‘shauq’ value that the film purports to validate.

What we get to know finally from this film about the relationship between Man and Nature is, it is one helluva screwed-up alliance.

This could have a brutal avatar of “Born Free”. If only it didn’t conceal the exuberant computer-graphics in streams of tribal folklore dressed up in swanky clothes. Images from the National Geographic meet “Fear Factor” in this brilliantly photographed adventure saga.

You may not think much of the characters’s shallow shindings during the time of exceptional stress. But one thing is for sure. You’ve never seen anything like this in Hindi cinema. And I don’t necessarily mean that in a positive way.

The film claims to have not hurt any animals. But what about the poor audience? There ought to be a parallel SPCA — Society For The Prevention Of Cruelty To Audience.

'Roar' - a bore you may abhor (IANS Movie Review - Rating: **1/2)

Read More