'Ind h talks'

Making a strong pitch for resumption of composite dialogue stalled after Mumbai attacks, Pakistan has said that India's concerns can be addressed only by cooperating with it and not by accusing it. Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said India, by refusing to talk, would be "promoting and strengthening the hands of terror".

He said terrorism and extremism are a global phenomena and "friends in India" should understand that "this is a common challenge" and "common enemy" which needs to be tackled collectively. "I understand your concern. You can only address that concern by cooperating with Pakistan and not accusing Pakistan. That negative policy will not be in your interest," Qureshi said in an interview to a news channel.

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Kandh raceable

The BJP candidate from Kandhmal Ashok Sahu, wanted by the police for his hate speech, is not traceable. An FIR was lodged against Sahu on April 9 for his inflammatory speech against the Christians in the communally sensitive district. After investigations, an arrest warrant was issued against Sahu on Saturday, but now his son-in-law says he has no idea about Sahu's whereabouts.

Sahu had triggered the controversy when he said in his rally, "Who killed Swamiji? Did he not know that there would be dire consequences for such an act? If I say it too often I am accused of being communal and blamed for spreading communal hatred."

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Future ats

The political scene of whole of Punjab seems to have been contained in two Lok Sabha seats of Patiala and Bathinda, the two constituencies from where the prestige of two most powerful political families is at stake. The families of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and former Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh are involved in do or die battle and surprising

results are expected from both the seats. May 7, 2009 is the date when both Badal and Amarinder would be praying fo the bright career of their wards. Patiala is home constituency of Amarinder and Badal's have adopted Bathinda after their home constituency Faridkot ws reserved during delimitation.

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PMEAC dou tlook

After the Finance Ministry, the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Panel (PMEAC) has raised questions over the global credit rating agency Standard and Poor's (S&P) move to downgrade outlook of India's long-term credit rating on the ground of rising fiscal deficit. "When other economies are going into recession, India is growing. In this type of situation, return on investment (in India) is expected to be reasonable, in which case I don't understand the downgrading of the outlook," PM's Economic Advisory Council Chairman Suresh Tendulkar said.

When pointed out that the stimulus provided by India is widening fiscal deficit which prompted S&P to cut the outlook, he said, "Fiscal deficit being large is not something which one should be worried about in the current context. I basically see that even other economies are also doing that."

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Sania-Chu mpionships

Sania Mirza and Chia-Jung Chuang extended their brilliant run by sailing into the final of the USD 220,000 MPS Group of Championships after a convincing straight set victory over Liga Dekmeijere and Angela Haynes. The unseeded Indo-Taipei pair carved out a 6-4, 6-3 win over the Latvian-American pair in the semifinal match in just one hour and eight minutes.

In the summit clash, Sania and Chuang will fight it out against top seeded pair Kveta Peschke of Czech Republic and Lisa Raymond of United States, who scored a 4-6, 7-5, 15-13 victory over Barbora Zahlavova Strycov and Caroline Wozniacki in their semifinal match.

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