Threatened by Air India's decision to hire more pilots, striking Air India Pilots today today questioned the move saying the cash-strapped national carrier would not be able to afford paying high salaries to the new recruits. 

"We have serious doubts about the Civil Aviation Ministry's move (to hire pilots). Whom do they want to benefit? At a time when the company is under severe financial crunch, can these new pilots be afforded at a salary which is double of ours?" Capt Anil Kumar Rao, Joint Secretary of the Indian Pilots Guild (IPG) that is spearheading the 30-day long agitation, said here. 

The monsoons today entered two north Bengal districts even as south Bengal, including Kolkata, continued to sizzle under heatwave conditions amidst
reports of several heat-related deaths in the last three days. "Monsoon has entered Jalpaiguri and Coochbehar, besides Sikkim which will be lashed by intermittent rains in the next 24 hours," Regional meteorological centre Director G C Debnath said.

The weatherman said scattered rains were forecast in south Bengal districts, as also Kolkata, in the next 24 hours as a result of locally-formed clouds which could not be called a pre-monsoon shower. 

Heatwave warning was re-issued in Birbhum, Bankura, Howrah and Hooghly districts for the next 24 hours when maximum temperature would be three to four degrees above normal, Met officials said. Heatwave conditions prevailed in Kolkata during the day with the mercury ruling at little over 40 degrees Celsius till noon.

In the evening, however, a short shower brought relief to the people. 85 people have died in Bengal due to the heat wave. CM Mamata Banerjee's advice to her state: Have water mixed with salt and sugar. Dont go out in the sun.

Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan today refused to apologise to the Indian Medical Association which has accused him of defaming the medical profession
through his popular TV show "Satyamev Jayate" and said he is ready to face any legal action threatened by it. "I am very comfortable if they (IMA) plan to take legal action if they feel that I have done something wrong. Of course, the courts are available for them. My answer is no, I will not be apologising," Aamir told NDTV. 

The actor denied IMA's charge of defaming and insulting the medical profession. "I deny that I have done that. I have the highest respect and regard for the medical profession," he said. 

In an episode, aired on May 27, the 47-year-old actor highlighted the malpractices in the medical profession. The IMA had demanded an immediate apology from Aamir and warned him of legal action if he failed to do so. 

A British court has deferred the hearing in the extradition case of Naval War Room leak accused Ravi Shankaran till October. CBI sources said they have been informed that hearing in the case has been deferred till October but no reason has been given. 

Shankaran, kin of former Naval Chief Arun Prakash, was arrested in London in May last year on the basis of an Interpol Red Corner notice secured against him by the CBI which has pressed for his early extradition to India. A retired Naval Commander, Shankaran was accused of smuggling sensitive classified information out of the Navy War Room and passing them to arms dealers. 

The CBI had dispatched a two-member team to London to assist British law officers in the extradition trial. It also furnished a 50-page reply to objections raised by the defence on emails submitted as evidence in the court.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa today presented a cheque for Rs two crore to Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand for winning the World Chess Championship crown for the fifth time. 

Anand, along with his wife Aruna, called on Jayalalithaa at the state secretariat where she complimented the world champion for his achievement. The Chief Minister had earlier sent a letter to Anand saying that he had brought laurels both to Tamil Nadu and India and announced a reward of Rs 2 crore. 

Describing his meeting with the Chief Minister as "incredibly nice", Anand thanked her for the efforts of the state government in promoting chess among the students. 

Jayalalithaa had recently said that Anand deserves Bharat Ratna, the country's highest civilian award. Anand defeated challenger  Boris Gelfand of Israel in a tense rapid chess tie-breaker to win the World Championship crown for the fourth time in a row in Moscow on May 30.

The Delhi High court reserves its order for June 8 on the issue of summoning former Army Chief Gen V K Singh in a defamation case filed by Retd Lt Gen Tejinder Singh.

The Delhi High Court had earlier refused to direct the Centre to take back a press release of the Army alleging that Tejinder Singh offered a bribe to the Army chief in connection with a defence deal.

"The Union of India cannot be directed to disown or retract the aforesaid press release," Justice Mukta Gupta said while disposing off a petition by Tejinder Singh seeking withdrawal of the alleged defamatory press release.

The court, however, said that Tejinder Singh could make a representation before the authorities concerned seeking initiation of disciplinary proceedings against five Army officials including Chief of Army Staff Gen VK Singh.

The value of Orvillecopter, a Dutch work of art transforming a dead cat into a remote controlled helicopter, has surged by almost tenfold after generating both
headlines and criticism worldwide. Bart Jansen, who turning his dead pet cat Orville into a helicopter by attaching motors and propellers, had originally
put a price tag of EUR 12,500 (Rs 8,68,000) on his art work, which was on display in an art fair in Amsterdam. 

The flying cat, which hogged headlines worldwide, has also been heavily criticised by Dutch animal lovers and the gallery that exhibits it has been daubed with graffiti saying "kill the animal killers". 

Watch the catcopter video

Austrian crematorium officials have blamed a deceased woman's obesity for causing a fire that had to be tackled by fire fighters. Firemen in the southern city of Graz got covered in thick sticky soot as they tried to stop the blaze from taking hold of the building.

The case has been widely reported in Austrian media and has ignited calls for a weight limit on bodies to protect against future fires. Some countries such as Switzerland and the UK already have facilities, which cater for extra large bodies, in line with the growing trend of expanding waistlines.

Funeral director Christea Bogdan, of Gillman Undertakers, Tooting, south London, said he had never before in his career heard of such an event. "I have never come across such a case,' the Daily Mail quoted him as saying. An expert report on the Austria fire has revealed that the woman being cremated weighed more than 200kg and her size had caused the oven to overheat.

The press reports state that the filter temperature reached 300C and officials realised there was a problem when thick black smoke started billowing into the building.

The reply to the RTI enquiry on the Planning Commission Rs 35-lakh loos which have raised a considerable stink.

South Africa have received an official apology from British hockey bosses Wednesday after the apartheid anthem 'Die Stem' was mistakenly played before
their match in the pre-Olympic London Cup. Marissa Langeni, chief executive of the South African Hockey Association, in a letter to tournament organisers, said the country "watched with disbelief as our team stood through what clearly was a most embarrassing and uncomfortable experience".

South Africa's women went on to beat their British counterparts 3-1 in their opening game and GB Hockey apologised today for their embarrassing error. 

The business world loves its buzzwords. From "ideation' (definition: to think) to "buckets' (categories) to "synergy,' management folks have their own lingo -- and often try to foist it on the rest of us.

Read the story on the WSJ

The benchmark Sensex jumped 433 points, or 2.7 percent, to close at 16,454 , while the Nifty closed 133 points higher at 4,997 after leaping past 5,000 during the day. The Sensex's gain was the index's biggest daily percentage gain since 3 January.

Brokers said besides recovery in the rupee, a firming trend on the Asian boures after finance ministers and central bank governors from the world's leading economies pledged to give support to Europe's financial crisis, buoyed the trading sentiments.

London's hotels are facing a dramatic loss in profits as one third of rooms are found to be unsold over the summer, after tourists have been put off by the Olympics, a survey has found.

The economic boom, which the UK Government hoped the Games would bring to the capital, appears to become a bust with tens of thousands to tourists spurning the hiked prices, congestion and heightened security.

The hotel bookings for July and August in Britain are already down by 35 per cent on last year, while other European capitals appear to be prospering from London's gloom.

An elated Trinamool Congress is singing Ekla Cholo Re(Go it alone) after the municipal elections in West Bengal. The party nabbed 72 out of 129 seats and is determined to project that as a triumphant one year report card on Mamata Banerjee's leadership.

Under normal circumstances it would be tricky to read too much into local results from a grab bag of municipal elections. But stung from months of PR disasters, the TMC had a lot riding on these elections. As did the Left and the Congress who needed to prove that disaffection with the Trinamool was real and they were the alternatives. Now the results are out.

More on Firstpost.com

The methylhexaneamine dope scandal that rocked the 2010 Commonwealth Games continues to drag on with the hearing into the case adjourned till September 19 after the lawyer representing the 11 implicated athletes sought to point out procedural lapses by the National Dope Testing Laboratory.

The counsel for the athletes, R K Anand, argued that the NDTL had not followed procedure as it had not maintained a clear internal and external chain of custody of the urine samples and trashed the laboratory for lack of documentation as is required under World Anti-Doping Agency rules.

Eleven athletes -- swimmers Richa Mishra, Amar Muralidharan and Jyotsna Pansare, wrestlers Rajeev Tomar, Rahul Mann, Sumeet, Joginder, Mausam Khatri and Gursharanpreet Kaur and athletes Saurabh Vij and Akash Antil -- tested positive for methylhexaneamine stimulant just before the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

Anand contended that in the absence of a logbook at the NDTL for the refrigerator and cold storage, anybody can open and seal any sample.
"Whenever the sample is taken out or opened  or sealed, there should be a signature each time in a logbook maintained. But there is no such logbook for refrigerator and cold storage at the NDTL. Anybody can go and take out the sample," he contended.

The chief minister with a sense of humour.

Omar Abdullah @abdullah_omar Must remember to ask to use the loo next time I visit the planning commission. Gotta see what all the fuss is about :-))

Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh will soon discuss with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee the issue of allowing foreign airlines to pick up
stake in Indian carriers, which her party has been opposing.

"We will talk to Mamata and we will talk to DMK. We have already talked to NCP," Singh told reporters here after a meeting with Home Minister P Chidambaram.

Before meeting Chidambaram, he had told reporters, "We are still talking to our allies" on the issue of allowing foreign airlines to invest in Indian carriers. Singh had met Banerjee once earlier to pursuade her to give a go-ahead to the proposal. 

The proposal was mooted by the Commerce Ministry which was later approved by the Civil Aviation Ministry. Trinamool Congress, a key UPA partner, has been opposing it for quite some time. The RLD chief also said he had discussed with the Home Minister the issue of providing OBC status to Jat community for getting Central government jobs and the forthcoming Presidential election.

Facing flak over expenditure of Rs 35 lakh on toilets, the Planning Commission today termed it as routine maintenance and upgradation work and said it was
"unfortunate" to call it a wasteful expenditure. 

"While the amount of Rs 30 lakh being mentioned is correct, an impression is being created that this has been spent on two toilets. This is totally false because these toilet blocks have multiple seats in addition to separate facility for the differently abled. Each of these blocks can be simultaneously used by approximately 10 people", a statement from the Commission said. 

The Commission came under criticism after it was reported on the basis of an RTI reply that it has spent a whopping Rs 35 lakh for renovation of two toilets. "It is unfortunate that what is routine maintenance and upgradation is being projected as wasteful expenditure", the  Commission said. 

It said because there have been instances of pilferages in the newly constructed toilets, "an access-control system was initially tried but not found feasible in practise". The smart card based access control system had cost over Rs five lakh for two toilets which were renovated at an additional cost of Rs 30 lakh, the RTI reply has said. The Commission said that the toilets being repaired or renovated are public toilet blocks and not private toilets for senior officials or Members. 

"A common complaint over the years was the poor quality of the toilets in the building a complaint made not just by the ministers and foreign dignitaries who visit, but also by the staff and the journalists", the statement said. 

It said during renovation it was found that old plumbing and sewerage systems had deteriorated, and needed almost complete replacement and Fire control systems also had to be added, in accordance with the  regulatory requirements.

Deputy chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia justifies the Rs 35 lakh expenditure on the two toilets in its building. He says expenditure is for two toilet blocks and not just two toilets and says the toilet revamp comes after 50 years.

He says the government has not exceeded the budget and smart card entry was made to ensure safety for women since it would restrict use.

The Planning Commission spent Rs 30 lakh on renovating two toilets in its building; another five lakhs was spent on installing a smart-card system which restricted access to the toilets to 60 senior officials who work at the Yojana Bhawan in the capital. 

The expenditure has been revealed by a Right to Information application filed by activist Subhash Agrawal. The Commission also planned to install security cameras in the corridors leading to these toilets to ensure equipment was not stolen. 

The Rs 35-lakh toilets were, according to plans, to serve as models for upgrading another three toilets in the building at a later stage. 

Rehman Malik has been appointed as an advisor on interior affairs to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, a day after Pakistan Supreme Court suspended former Interior Minister's membership of Parliament on the grounds of dual nationality. 

60-year-old Malik, who has been an advisor to Gilani earlier also, will continue to supervise the affairs of the interior ministry. "The president, on the advice of the prime minister has appointed Rehman Malik as advisor to the prime minister on interior, with the status of federal minister," said President Asif Ali Zardari's spokesman Farhatullah Babar yesterday. 

Malik had held the post of advisor in 2008 before he was elected to the Senate or upper house of parliament the following year.

After the venus showing, another piece of astronomical news.

Scientiests have found what they say is a huge black hole several million times the size of the Sun that is hurtling through space near a galaxy four billion
light years away. Supermassive black holes are thought to lurk at the
centre of most galaxies, including our own Milky Way. But the newly found black hole, the researchers said, may have been kicked out of its home galaxy.
They predict that there could be many such hurtling black holes out there and that the objects, moving at milluions of miles per hour, would be completely invisible to telescopes.

An Indian-American former McKinsey consultant has told a US court that he "committed a crime" by passing on secret information to convicted hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam after the Sri Lankan "chided and taunted" him for not knowing enough about what was happening at various firms. 

Anil Kumar, 53, is a government witness in the insider trading trial of his mentor and fellow Indian native and ex-Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta. Kumar, an IIT Mumbai and Wharton Business School alumnus, has pleaded guilty to criminal charges of passing inside information to Rajaratnam and had testfied at the Galleon founder's trial last year.

In a courtroom in the provincial town of Ghaziabad, near Delhi, a fascinating murder case has entered its final stages. A successful dentist couple, Rajesh and Nupur Talwar, stand trial for the murder of their daughter Aarushi and their Nepali manservant Hemraj.

Avirook Sen reports from Ghaziabad for Firstpost.com. Read

Swapnil Jain, 22, was a bit nervous when he was first interviewed by a software honcho from Twitter, the social networking and microblogging service provider, in the last week of May.

It was one of his seven interviews - all ranging from 45 to 50 minutes duration - conducted through online video conferencing from the Twitter headquarters at San Francisco.

What's more, he was hired for an annual package of about Rs 70 lakh by the $9 billion US firm after the final interview in Delhi in May last.

Read the report on the TOI:

Accusing the Jayalalithaa government of pursuing vendetta politics, DMK chief M Karunanidhi today criticised the arrest of two former Ministers, includingVeerapandi S Arumugam.    "Power will come and go. This will be decided once in five years in a democratic way. Those in power should not forget that they will have to go to the people. The ruling AIADMK is indulging in vendetta", he said in a statement on the arrest of the two former DMK ministers. The DMK leader said Arumugam was arrested in Chennai and taken to Salem. After the remand, he was again brought back here and lodged in a Chennai prison.  

"Arumugam is a heart patient and undergoing treatment. Why this vendetta politics. Is it not misuse of power"? he asked. Karunanidhi said he had tried to meet Arumugam yesterday but was told the meeting could be possible today.  

He along with his son M K Stalin and some other party leaders wanted to meet him today but Arumugam was taken from the jail early this morning. It was not known whether he was taken either to Salem or Vellore jail, he said.

Ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak is suffering from severe depression in jail with his psychological deteriorating after being sentenced to life imprisonment for complicity in the killing of protesters to his rule.

Cairo's Torah prison officials said that 84-year-old Mubarak had collapsed several times and had to be placed on ventilators for breathing disorders. 

Mubarak's elder son, Gamal has been moved to a ward next to the hospital to allow him to monitor his father in the intensive care unit. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the officials said Mubarak has lost weight and is having difficulty walking, butdoctors managed to convince him to take his medicine, which he was initially refusing.

With the Air India pilots' strike entering the 30th day and a large part of the Kingfisher fleet grounded, rival airlines are having a field day at the expense of passengers.

If you are planning to fly to Mumbai from Delhi on Thursday, you will have to fork out  Rs 24,357 for a one way ticket and R 48,700 for return on a full fare airline.  Fares of even low cost carriers are touching stratospheric levels. For instance, an Indigo ticket from Delhi to Mumbai and back on Thursday will leave you poorer by Rs 16,998.

Read more

The common belief that people should drink eight glasses or two litres of water a day is a 'myth' that needs debunking, a Melbourne academic says.

The new Australian recommendations suggest an adequate daily fluid intake is about 2.8 litres for women and 3.4 litres for men. However, this includes fluid found in food and beverages. People could get their daily fluid intake from fruit, vegetables, juices and even tea and coffee.

"If you're feeling thirsty then drink by all means a beverage. It doesn't have to be water,' the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health said.

"I'm not saying you shouldn't drink water. I'm saying the need to drink two litres of water on a regular basis is a complete myth. "We should be telling people that beverages like tea and coffee contribute to a person's fluid needs and despite their caffeine content, do not lead to dehydration,' Tsindos said.

He said that drinking a large quantity of water in one sitting to reach the daily intake level was pointless because it would not be distributed where it was needed. It would just dilute the urine. Drinking large amounts of water to lose weight would not work either without a low-calorie diet, he emphasised.

Young IPS officer, Narendra Kumar, who was brutally crushed to death under a stone-laden tractor trolley belonging to the illegal mining mafia, was not murdered, says the CBI. The CBI which filed a chargesheet in the incident says the accused driver Manoj Gujjar is not linked to the stone mining mafia. Gujjar was taking stones for personal use.

The CBI said it was a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder. "Gujjar, the driver of the vehicle had nothing to do with any kind of mining mafia. He was taking the stones for his own personal use," the CBI chargesheet says. Sub-divisional police officer Narendra Kumar was killed when he was trying to stop the tractor loaded with mined stones.

A Hindu temple has been fined $301,869 by the Canada Revenue Agency for sending money to "non-qualified donees," which include a group that Ottawa alleges was part of a support network for the Tamil Tigers.

Read

Spiders invade an Indian town and kill two people while biting several others during a Hindu festival, sounds like a scene from a sci-fi movie. Unfortunately, the scene came true for those in the Sadiya, India. Read

Don't open this link if you have arachnophobia.

Former telecom minister A Raja has been allowed to go to Tamil Nadu. Raja, accused in the 2G spectrum scam, had been set some conditions for the bail granted to him last month.

The minister, who has been in Tihar Jail since February 2011, cannot visit the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) or his home state Tamil Nadu.Raja, the last of the 14 individuals charged in the case to be still in prison, was given bail by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) special judge O.P. Saini.

"Considering the progress of the trial, period of custody of the accused and the fact that all other accused have been released on bail, I am of the opinion that further detention of the accused would not serve any purpose and, for these reasons, I am inclined to grant applicant (Raja) bail," the judge said.Saini also directed that Raja could not visit the DoT or Tamil Nadu without the court's prior permission.

Ruling that a Muslim girl can marry as per her choice at the age of 15 years if she has attained puberty, the Delhi high courthas held the marriage of a minor girl valid and allowed her to stay in her matrimonial house.

"This court notes that according to Mohammedan Law a girl can marry without the consent of her parents once she attains the age of puberty and she has the right to reside with her husband even if she is below the age of 18....," a bench of justices S Ravindra Bhat and S P Garg said.

The full report on what Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh said today.

Addressing a press conference on issues facing Air India, Singh said that the Air India management is planning to hire around 90 more pilots over the next six months, not only for its international operations, but also for its domestic flights.

He further said the airline would also start new routes to Hong Kong, Seoul and Osaka in August. Commenting on the pilots who are on strike, Singh said: "It seems pilots have decided not to come back, they have condemned the Dharmadhikari report, which is part of turnaround plan. If they reject that, no point in their coming back."

"Our stand from Day One has been, that it has been declared illegal by the High Court, they haven''t even followed union rules of giving notice of strike.  I have said in Parliament there will be no victimisation, but they are not willing," he said.

"If they want to come back, they are welcome but there are no pre-conditions," he added. 

Singh had earlier announced a new pay and career progression norms for employees of erstwhile Indian Airlines and Air India to ensure parity in the merged national carrier.

Presenting the Justice CS Dharmadhikari Committee report on the problems arising out of the merger of national carriers, Singh had said after the committee's recommendations are implemented, pay scales, work hours, promotions for Air India and Indian Airlines will be similar.

Bad news for Mr Zuckerberg. The world without Facebook sounds unbelievable, but after its sliding stocks a hedge fund manager has predicted that Facebook will "disappear" in five to eight years. According to Eric Jackson, the founder of Ironfire Capital, said, "In five to eight years they are going to  disappear in the way that Yahoo has disappeared." 

"Yahoo is still making money. It's still profitable, still has 13,000 employees working for it. But it's 10 per cent of the value that it was at the height of 2000. For all intents and purposes, it's disappeared." Jackson noted that so far there have been three generations of Internet companies. Yahoo, a Web portal, is a
great example as an online pioneer. 

Facebook then swept in as the second generation with the wave of social media. The third generation is all about mobile, he said.

The Dharmadhikari report had projected a saving of Rs 250 crore from AI's annual wage bill of Rs 3,000 crore during the first year itself. The savings would mainly be from changing of rules, such as a flying allowance based on actual hours flown, not a pre-fixed amount. And, curtailing the list of staff dependents who could avail of free travel tickets. The report has also recognised the need for certain allowances given to a certain class of employees like pilots, cabin crew and engineers, in line with industry standards.

This is the text of civil aviation minister Ajit Singh's speech on the implementation of the Dharmadhikari report. Read. He also said that as far as the government is concerned,  the pilot's strike is over.

Air India pilots have begun protests at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi and at Azad Maidan in Mumbai. Ajit Singh says AI has decided to hire more pilots and states that as of now, there is no consideration or intent to privatise the airlines.

The Indian Pilots Guild has written to the AI chairman over the issue and has asked for channels to be opened between the government and the pilots. 

Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh at a press conference in Delhi on right now, says if the striking AI pilots don't accept the Dharmadhikari report, I don't think there is any point in their coming back. If AI pilots want to come back, they are welcome but there should be no pre-conditions. If terminated pilots want to come back, they will have to reapply through ads."

The pilots strike enters day 30 today and has cost Air India Rs 350 crore so far.   

"Well apart from the boundary question, I do not think that there are any contentious issues between China and India and I have held consistently to the view in the last three years that we have a process which has been put in place even to iron out the differences on the boundary question and we are hopeful that we would be in a position to find a mutually acceptable resolution of these boundary questions," he added.

He further said both countries have mutually agreed to have peaceful borders and agreed to sort out issues with time.

The Planning Commission spent Rs 30 lakh on renovating two toilets in its building; another five lakhs was spent on installing a smart-card system which restricted access to the toilets to 60 senior officials who work at the Yojana Bhawan in the capital. 

The expenditure has been revealed by a Right to Information application filed by activist Subhash Agrawal. The Commission also planned to install security cameras in the corridors leading to these toilets to ensure equipment was not stolen. 

The Rs 35-lakh toilets were, according to plans, to serve as models for upgrading another three toilets in the building at a later stage. 

Indian-origin surgeon Jayant Patel, who was jailed for killing three patients in Australia, today appealed against his manslaughter conviction. Patel, 62, dubbed as 'Dr Death', was sentenced to seven years' jail in July 2010 after a Brisbane Supreme Court found him guilty of manslaughtering three patients - Gerry Kemps, 77, James Phillips (46) and Mervyn Morris, 75. He was also
found guilty of causing grievous bodily harm to a fourth man.

Patel's convictions are related to his time as a surgeon at the Bundaberg Hospital in south east Queensland between 2003 and 2005.

US defence secretary Leon Panetta, who arrived in Delhi yesterday, has come with an agenda to brief the Indian government on the implications and design of the "re-balancing' of US military strategy towards the Asia-Pacific region.

More on the Telegraph.

Also read: India has permitted the resumption of search sorties to trace the remains of US personnel killed during World War II in the Northeast, mainly in Arunachal Pradesh.

Also on The Hindu: Ok, ok, I'll not bang on about the cost, but, if you wish to know, it was in the region of 1.3 billion; and, I do get the point about the need to "lighten up' occasionally even in the midst of deepening gloom. But shutting down the entire nation for four full days just to humour the Queen?

Read

We were the first to tell you about this bit of news -- read Sheela Bhatt's report yesterday (18:52 post). But here's another go at it.

PCB Chairman Zaka Ashraf says with people on both sides of border keen on restoration of Indo-Pak cricket ties, "good news" would soon come on the issue. "I think it is the desire of the people of countries that Indo-Pak matches should be restored soon," Ashraf, who recently undertook a week long visit of India, said.     

The Pakistan Cricket Board chief said apart from the people even former players wanted to see the two countries play each other in bilateral series soon.
India froze bilateral cricket ties with Pakistan in 2008 after the Mumbai terror attacks. But Ashraf, after his recent visit to India, has announced that both countries will soon be playing a bilateral match this year. Sources in the board say that the PCB wants that both teams play two Twenty20 matches -- one in India and one in Pakistan at the Gaddafi stadium in Lahore -- in last week of
December. 

One source said India had agreed in principle to play one Twenty20 match in December in India. Ashraf said he was hoping for a major breakthrough and confirmation of dates for the one-off match when he met BCCI officials on the sidelines of the ICC meeting in Kuala Lumpur.