India beat Australia to win Under-19 World Cup

India won the ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup for the third time, beating Australia by six wickets behind captain Unumkt Chand’s 111 not out on Sunday.

Australia made 225-8 after being sent in to bat, with captain William Bosisto scoring 87 not out. India started strongly, then collapsed to 97-4 before Chand guided the winners to 227-4 in the 48th over.

Chand, who hit seven fours and six sixes, shared in a 130-run partnership with Smit Patel (62 not out), who hit the winning runs with eight balls remaining. Australia, who also have three under-19 World Cup titles, had never lost a final in the tournament.

India 227-4 in 47.4 overs (Unumkt Chand 111 not out, Smit Patel 62 not out; Joel Paris 1-33), def. Australia 225-8 (William Bosisto 87 not out; Sandeep Sharma 4-54) by six wickets.

Sony Mobile launches Xperia ion for Rs 36,999

The Android smartphone has a 4.6-inch screen, 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 16GB internal storage, 12 MP rear camera and VGA front facing camera.

"With Xperia ion, we're bringing together a seamless experience across the multiple screens that we use to play, watch, listen, and share," Sony Mobile Communications Marketing Head Prasun Kumar said in a statement.

SpiceJet flight makes emergency landing at Bagdogra

A SpiceJet flight with 127 people on board, including crew members, on Tuesday made an emergency landing at Bagdogra airport in Darjeeling district, airport sources said.

The Bagdogra-Kolkata flight took off from Bagdogra airport in the afternoon but after sometime the pilot suspected some technical problem in the aircraft and decided to return back and asked the airport for permission to make emergency landing, the sources said.

The plane landed safely at the Bagdogra airport and all the passengers are safe, the sources said.

Salman to celebrate Ek Tha Tiger success

Salman's Ek Tha Tiger touches Rs. 100 crore mark, he plans a party in his farm house in Panvel to celebrate Ek Tha Tiger success. The bash would be organised on either Tuesday or Wednesday, reports Mumbai Mirror. “With just three days to go, the entire Salman khandaan is busy.

Ek Tha Tiger breaks first weekend record Salman's Ek Tha Tiger to have a sequel? Salman Khan's Ek Tha Tiger makes fastest 100 crore helping him make arrangements for the khaana peena. Salman has told them to leave no stone unturned,” a source close to Salman told the tabloid.

“It will be a double celebration of sorts. Salman will celebrate Eid also, along with the success of Ek Tha Tiger,” the source was quoted by the tabloid.

Can India bring 2012 T20 World Cup home for the second time?

The Indian team would leave for Sri Lanka to compete in the T20 World Cup in quite some time. The selectors once again announced a team that has some of the best names but also a few which have raised many eyebrows.

Gautam Gambhir, MS Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Rohit Sharma, Irfan Pathan, Harbhajan Singh are the seven players who were a part of the Indian squad than won the maiden T20 World Cup organised in Johannesburg in 2007.

The announcement would have come as a huge relief for two players-Harbhajan Singh and Rohit Sharma. Bhajji went into hibernation after his struggle in the Indian Premier League where he failed both as a Mumbai Indians skipper and as a spin bowler.

The Indian selectors have played a gamble by including a few players out of the blues. These could be the players who can make it or break it at the big stage for the 2007 T20 world champion.

T20 squad: MS Dhoni (capt/wk), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Manoj Tiwary, Irfan Pathan, R Ashwin, Zaheer Khan, L Balaji, Piyush Chawla, Harbhajan Singh, Ashok Dinda. 

Two strong earthquakes rock Iran

At least 80 people died in two strong earthquakes that jolted northwest Iran on Saturday, the head of the regional natural disasters centre, Khalil Saie, told state television.

The figure was double that given just a short while earlier by the head of the country's emergency services, 

Gholamreza Masoumi, who was quoted by the ISNA news agency saying "about 40 to 50 people have been killed."

Masoumi was referring to the biggest cities in the region and a neighbouring province.

The two temblors, registering 6.2 and 6.0 on the moment magnitude scale according to Tehran University's Seismological Centre, struck within minutes of each other, damaging scores of villages northeast of Tabriz.

The US Geological Survey, which monitors quakes worldwide, ranked them as more powerful than that, at 6.4 and 6.3, respectively.

Sun surrounded by dark matter, claim scientists

Scientists have claimed that the Sun is surrounded by dark matter, a phenomenon first proposed in the 1930s by a Swiss astronomer. 

Researchers from the University of Zurich have developed a new theory - and built a simulation of the Milky Way to test their mass-measuring method before applying it to real data, the 'Daily Mail' reported. 

"We are 99 per cent confident that there is dark matter near the Sun," lead author Silvia Garbari was quoted as saying by the paper. 

The study claims that the techniques used over the past 20 years were biased, always tending to underestimate the amount of dark matter in the universe. 

I’ll welcome Rahul’s entry into government, says PM

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Saturday said he would welcome the Congress general secretary into the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.

“I have always said that I will welcome Rahul’s entry (in the government),” Manmohan Singh told reporters after Vice President Hamid Ansari’s oath-taking ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Gandhi had recently announced that he was ready for a more proactive role both in the party and the government.

Sources said a clarification to this effect could come in September when a reshuffle in the party and the cabinet is expected after the ongoing monsoon session of parliament ends.

However, the prime minister’s statement failed to excite any major reaction from the Bharatiya Janata Party, which said it was not concerned with the issue.

“Whom they (Congress) induct in government is their prerogative. We are not concerned,” said Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley.

Earlier too, the prime minister had invited Gandhi to join his cabinet but the young Congress leader was reluctant, indicating that rejuvenating the party was his priority.

Saina Nehwal dedicates Olympic medal to father

Ace shuttler Saina Nehwal created history by becoming the first ever shuttler from India to win an Olympic medal at the 2012 Games.

“This medal is for my dad. It is because of him that I am at this stage today,” she said.

Her semifinal loss to China’s world no 1 Yihan Wang was heartbreaking but nevertheless she returned with a medal. She revealed that the loss came as a disappointment for her and she did not speak to anyone after the match.

“I felt bad after losing the semis. I wanted to play in the final. Unfortunately my strategy was wrong for that match.”

“I couldn’t believe that I’ve won an Olympic medal."

“I am happy with the performance. There was some emotional pressure but Olympics is one competition where I don’t feel any kind of pressure. I love and enjoy playing In Olympics,” she said.

Paes/Sania advance to the quarter-finals in London Olympics

Leander Paes and Sania Mirza defeated Serbian pair of Nenad Zimonjic and Ana Ivanovic in staright sets to enter the mixed doubles quarter-final of the Olympic Games.

Paes-Sania beat the Serbian pair 6-2 6-4 in only 64 minutes to set up a last eight clash with top seeds Max Mirnyi and Victoria Azarenka from Belarus.

All the best both of you.

Saina meets world's best Wang in semis in London Olympics

Saina Nehwal created history by becoming the first Indian badminton player to reach the Olympic semi-finals, where she will take on the World No. 1 Yihan Wang of China.

The Indian shuttler, seeded fourth, displayed tremendous skill as well as moments of nervousness in defeating Denmark's Tine Baun 21-15, 22-20 here at the Wembley Arena and en route improved upon her quarter-final finish at Beijing four years ago.

The semi-final will be by far Saina's most difficult match as she has never beaten Wang in the five matches they have played so far.

Four low-intensity blasts in Pune; one injured

Four low-intensity blasts within a one-km range on the busy Junglee Maharaj Road were witnessed in Pune on Wednesday. While one person was confirmed to be injured in the incident, Pune Police Commissioner Gulabrao Pol has ruled out the terror angle and stated that it was a case of mischief.

The explosions were set off by pencil cell detonators placed in a plastic bag, a dustbin and in cycles at two locations, police said.

Speaking to reporters at the blast site, Mr. Pol said, “The situation is under control. There is no need to panic.” The Pune ATS and teams from the National Investigation Agency (NIA) from Mumbai and Delhi will investigate the matter further, he said.

The first explosion occurred around 7.30 p.m. near Balgandharva Rang Mandir, an auditorium on Junglee Maharaj Road. Dayanand Patil, who was injured in the blast, was carrying a cake box kept in a plastic bag, police said.

He was admitted to Sassoon Hospital, where the police recorded the evidence.

“The bomb blasts incident is being probed. We are waiting for more informations”, Sindhe told reporters.

Microsoft replaces Hotmail by Outlook.com

Microsoft is replacing its pioneering webmail service Hotmail with a new browser-based version of Outlook, its desktop email application.

Microsoft has announced an overhaul of its free email service Hotmail.

The service has been rebranded as Outlook.com, and Microsoft describes is as reimaging of personal email, and "modern email designed for the next billion mailboxes".

The new design is intended to reduce clutter in inboxes, and be easier to use, with an interface more inline with Microsoft Office Outlook, and to work better on mobile devices.

Microsoft says that 50% of email in a typical inbox today is newsletters, and another 20% is social network updates. To manage this, Outlook.com will have a cleaner interface with more visibility of messages, rules to better organize emails, and automatic connection to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google, with Skype to follow

Outlook.com will also include Microsoft's Office Web Apps, Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote, so that users can view and edit attachments in the inbox. Outlook.com also incorporates Microsoft's SkyDrive cloud storage solution, with 7GB of storage.

Chris Jones, Microsoft's corporate vice president of Windows Live commented: "We think the time is right to re-imagine personal email, from the data centre to the user experience. So today we're introducing a preview of Outlook.com."

Current Hotmail users can upgrade to Outlook.com through existing Hotmail accounts, and a preview is available at Outlook.com.