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Russia raids on Syria city kill 23 civilians Russian warplanes pounded an Al-Qaeda-held city in northwestern  Syria  before dawn on Tuesday killing 23 civilians in the heaviest strikes in months, a monitoring group said. Dozens of civilians were also wounded in the raids on Idlib, a provincial capital held by  Al-Qaeda  affiliate  Al-Nusra Front  and its allies since March last year, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Al-Nusra is not party to a Russian-and US-brokered ceasefire that went into force on February 27 between Moscow-backed government forces and Washington-backed non-jihadist rebels. "The air strikes are the most intensive on Idlib since the beginning of the truce," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told. "Even though Idlib is not covered by the truce, it had been relatively calm with only intermittent raids," he added. The strikes hit near a hospital and a public garden. Moscow has been carrying out an air campaign in suppo

MNS files FIR against AIB's Tanmay Bhat for video mocking Sachin Tendulkar, Lata Mangeshkar A  video  from stand-up comic Tanmay Bhat, who is also co-founder of comic group All India Bakchod (AIB), in which he mimics venerated Bollywood playback singer  Lata Mangeshkar  and cricket legend  Sachin Tendulkar  has evoked a sharp reaction from the film fraternity as well as the political class. On Monday, the Raj Thackeray-led  MNS  filed an  FIR  against Bhat and pledged to ban his shows in Mumbai. MNS Chitrapat Sena' president Ameya Khopkar on Monday morning filed the police report in Shivaji Part and has demanded that the video uploaded by Bhatt be removed immediately. The All India Bakchod (AIB) comedian reportedly posted the video on May 26 on Facebook titled "Sachin vs Lata Civil War" and made jokes about both, along with the disclaimer: "I make such nonsense on my Snapchat." Using Snapchat’s face swap filter, Bhat first imitated Tendulkar, m

Star India batsman Virat Kohl i was named CEAT  T20 Player of the Year while former India captain Dilip Vengsarkar was conferred with the Lifetime Achievement Award at a glittering function attended by several past and present players in Mumbai. England batsman Joe Root was named as the Ceat International Cricketer of the Year as well as International Batsman of the Year. India off-spinner R Ashwin won the CEAT International Bowler of the Year award while Rohit Sharma was named as the Indian Cricketer of the Year. Kohli has been in the form of his life in the shortest format recently as he was named as Player-of-the-Tournament in the World T20 held in India earlier this year and won the orange cap for amassing the most runs of 973 in 16 matches in the just-concluded IPL-9. 60-year-old Vengsarkar had amassed 6868 runs in 116 Tests with 17 hundreds to boot that included a hat-trick of tons in successive Test appearances at Lord’s cricket ground in England. Vengsarkar was also a pa

SHANE WATSON 'S FAILURE WITH BAT AND BALL RCB all-rounder Shane Watson had a torrid time with the ball first and then failed to live up to the expectations with the bat. Watson conceded 61 runs without taking a wicket in his quota of four overs including 24 runs in the final over of the first innings which completely shifted the momentum in Sunrisers' favour.   Ben Cutting took a liking to Watto and smashed three mammoth sixes and a boundary in the last over to power SRH past the 200-run mark. Watson then failed to deliver with the bat and could only manage 11 runs from 9 balls as RCB fell eight runs short of the target.

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) lost out to   Sunrisers Hyderabad   (SRH) by eight runs in a dramatic final of the Indian Premier League ( IPL 2016 ) Season Nine on Sunday at the Chinnaswami Stadium. Requiring 209 runs in 20 overs with an asking rate of 12.54, Royal Challengers could only manage 200/7, though it got off to a flying start helped by a pounding Chris Gayle and a stable Virat Kohli. Chris Gayle spearheaded the chase for   Royal Challengers Bangalore   with a superb 38-ball-76. Dominating with the bat, he rarely gave chance to Kohli, so much so that he accounted for 74 of the first 100 runs score by RCB by the end of nine overs. Smashing eight sixes and four fours, Gayle looked like interested in only hitting sixes as long as he was on the crease. The capacity crowd in Chinnaswami Stadium was on the edge of the seat as long as Gayle was firing one six after the other, he looked unstoppable. However, the Gayle show got over to a top edge catch held by Bipul S

Mamata Banerjee during oath taking ceremony in Kolkata West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathy administers the oath of secrecy to West Bengal Chief Minister   Mamata Banerjee   during swearing-in ceremony in Kolkata

Swachh Bharat, Digital India score poorly, top rating for Railways The National Democratic Alliance government under Prime Minister   Narendra Modi   has kicked off a two-part survey where the people will rate its policies and initiatives as it completes two years in office. Thousands have already joined in to answer the 30 questions covering anything from   foreign policy   to signature schemes such as Swachh Bharat,   Digital India   and Make In India, hosted on the citizen engagement platform mygov,in. While Make in India, ease of doing business and controlling corruption figure somewhere in the middle of the ratings, other schemes such as Swachh Bharat, Digital India and unearthing   black money   have scored the least. Initial data captured on the portal will make Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu happy. More than 74 per cent of the people who have participated in the survey so far have given 5 stars to the government effort in modernising Indian Railways, taking it to the

Congress questions the 'achievements' of two years of Modi govt On a day when the Bharatiya Janata party-led government completed two years in office, the Congress party questioned the various celebrations, alleging the record was only of “empty talk and hollow promises”. Dubbing the Narendra  Modi government  “fraudulently dynamic and dynamically fraudulent”, it fielded senior spokesperson in both Delhi and across state capitals to counter the “government propaganda”. Unveiling its 'Do saal desh ka bura haal' (two years of dire national   straits) campaign, party leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said, “The government is surviving because of newspapers and television channels and its media publicity. It has nothing to show by way of work except bombast.” Former Union minister and party spokesperson Kapil Sibal challenged the PM or anyone in the government to a Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Kapil Sibal   and Randeep Surjewala   during a press