Minister of state for environment and forests Jairam Ramesh admires a cheetah at the Cheetah Outreach Centre near Cape Town, South Africa, on Sunday. Mr Ramesh was in Cape Town to discuss translocation of cheetahs from South Africa to Rajasthan’s Gajner sanctuary. 

Mumbai , April 26: Lalit Modi, the face of the IPL over the last three years, will cease to remain so following his suspension on Sunday night and the elevation of board vice-president Chirayu Amin as interim chairman of the league. 
BCCI president Shashank Manohar waited for the conclusion of IPL-3 before suspending him and issuing him a showcause notice on five charges. “While we rejoice and celebrate the great success of IPL Season 3, the alleged acts of individual misdemeanours of Mr Lalit K. Modi, chairman IPL and vice-president BCCI, have brought a bad name to the administration of cricket and the game itself,” Mr Manohar said in a press release announcing Mr Modi’s suspension from the BCCI, IPL and any other related committee.

New Delhi, April 26: Both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday expressed confidence that the UPA government would comfortably sail through in Parliament by defeating the proposed cut motions on demands for grants and amendment in the Finance Bill. 

Asked how confident the government was in facing a possible cut motion against demands for grants and amendment in the Finance Bill, Dr Singh said: "We are as confident as possible." Asked the same question a little later at a function in Rashtrapati Bhavan, Mrs Gandhi also responded: "Of course we are (confident)."

Thimphu, April 26: Doubts are dissipating about a substantive bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yousaf Raza Gilani on the sidelines of the two-day 16th Saarc summit to begin Wednesday in this scenic capital of Bhutan, but the rationale for it appears to have left top Indian officials with a sense of bewilderment.

New Delhi, April 26: The alleged tapping of the telephones of senior political leaders rocked both the Houses of Parliament on Monday as a united Opposition tried its best to put the government on the mat over the issue. Home minister P. Chidamram’s statement in both Houses, in which he categorically declared that the government had not “authorised”, nor found “any substance” in the allegations, failed to calm completely dissatisfied Opposition members.

New Delhi, April 26: Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty on Monday made it clear that she was the brand ambassador of the Rajasthan Royals IPL team and her husband Raj Kundra a stakeholder.
Shetty tried to dispel confusion about the ownership of the Jaipur-based outfit after BCCI president Shashank Manohar raised doubts about the side’s ownership.

New Delhi, April 26: Rajasthan governor Prabha Rau breathed her last following a cardiac arrest in New Delhi on Monday. She was 75.

Rau was found unconscious in the bathroom at Jodhpur House on Monday morning. She was rushed to AIIMS at 11 am. A team of doctors was constituted to observe her but she was declared her dead at 12.30 pm. Her body was taken back to Jodhpur House where people paid floral tribute.

Hong Kong, April 26: A group of Chinese and Turkish evangelical explorers said Monday they believe they may have found Noah’s Ark — four thousand metres up a mountain in Turkey.

The team said they recovered wooden specimens from a structure on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey that carbon dating proved was 4,800 years old, around the same time the ark is said to have been afloat. "It’s not 100 per cent that it is Noah’s Ark but we think it is 99.9 per cent that this is it," said Yeung Wing-cheung, a Hong Kong documentary filmmaker and member of the 15-strong team from Noah’s Ark Ministries International.

Islamabad, April 25: In an apparent bid to facilitate a meeting between their Prime Ministers at the Saarc summit, Pakistan on Sunday responded to India’s three dossiers given to it in February and asked New Delhi to hand over Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone terrorist captured alive during the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.

New Delhi/Kochi , April 25: Twenty-three people on board an Emirates flight from Dubai to Kochi suffered injuries on Sunday morning when the aircraft hit a “weather cloud” at 35,000 feet over the Arabian Sea about 200 nautical miles west of Bengaluru. The injured included 20 passengers and three crew members.