16 August, 2013

Submarine INS Sindhurakshak sinks after blasts; shows sub-par naval abilities

India's worst naval accident in at least three decades that gutted and sank INS Sindhurakshak early morning on Wednesday remains unexplained, but will inevitably call to attention the country's submarine programme, marked by islands of achievements in an ocean of delays, political indecision and administrative bungling.

A massive fire lit up the sky near the Mumbai Naval Docks in Colaba around midnight after a series of explosions tore through INS Sindhurakshak, a Russia-made Kilo class submarine first commissioned in 1997 and comprehensively upgraded last year.

Wipro eyes more deals as US banks trim vendor list

India's third-ranked software exporter WiproBSE 0.88 % is looking to gain from a trend among large banks in North America to reduce the number of technology service providers they work with.

Many of these banks were among early outsourcers and used to work with several service providers but are now looking to bring down the number from as much as six vendors to as few as three, sometimes moving work from smaller, local firms to global vendors, a senior Wipro executive said. By offering more work to fewer service providers, these banks are also looking for discounts.

In search of form, Gautam Gambhir heads to England

The Indian cricket board's loss of camaraderie with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) notwithstanding, left-handed opener Gautam Gambhir has been allowed to fly to Essex, north-east of London, to play with the first division county for the remaining season. The BCCI, in the recent past, had been reluctant to allow Indian cricketers to play in English counties following the ECB's snub more than a year ago in refusing to let Indian Premier League (IPL) teams play in Ireland and Scotland.

Dhoni to lead Kapil's greatest all-time Indian ODI team

He can walk into any Indian team on a given day but former captain Kapil Dev decided to keep himself "out" of the best-ever Indian ODI line-up which he feels should be led by another limited overs legend Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

The World Cup winning captain's team of 12 has young Saurashtra all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja while Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble are the other two spinners.

Apart from Dhoni, the team has legendary Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Sourav Ganguly, Virat Kohli and Mohammed Azharuddin while Zaheer Khan and Javagal Srinath are the two fast bowlers.

Interestingly, Kapil didn't select a single member of the victorious 1983 squad.

Aamer backs Dravid's call to make fixing criminal offence

His international career ruined due to involvement in spot-fixing, banned Pakistan pacer Mohammad Aamer has backed former Indian captain Rahul Dravid's suggestion to make fixing a criminal offence.

In a an interview on a channel, Aamer, who is serving a five-year ban, said the ICC needed to do more to control the menace of fixing in cricket.

Setback for cricket board as SC refuses to stay HC order

N Srinivasan's hibernation as president-in-exile of the world's richest cricket board is set to continue as the Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to stay the Bombay High Court judgment quashing a two-member inquiry panel that had given a clean chit to him and his son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan in the IPL spot-fixing controversy.

Senior advocate C A Sundaram tried to convey to a bench of Justices A K Patnaik and J S Khehar that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had acted well within its rules in instituting the inquiry panel and maintained independence of the panel by acceding to Arun Jaitley's suggestion to continue with the inquiry with two retired judges after the third member of the panel, Sanjay Jagdale, resigned.

PV Sindhu enters top 10 in world rankings

Backed by her bronze medal-winning performance at the World Championships last week, PV Sindhu entered the top-10 of the women's singles rankings for the first time in her career.

In the latest Badminton World Federation (BWF) rankings, released Thursday, the 18-year-old jumped two places to No.10 while citymate Saina Nehwal retained her No.4 position.