Harbhajan Singh interview in Delhi

Harbhajan Singh made plenty of news for various reasons in Australia. During the second Test at Sydney, the Indian off-spinner was accused by Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds of racially abusing him and banned for three Tests. The ICC (International Cricket Council) hearing later lifted the ban. Australian opener Matthew Hayden then called him an 'obnoxious little weed' on a Brisbane radio channel and then the Australian media accused him of making 'monkey gestures' towards the crowd during the CB series` first final in Sydney. After coming to Delhi on Thursday, Harbhajan said that he enjoyed the tour Down Under. He said and I quote “I thought only cricket was hard to play in Australia but there were other things as well which were more harder than cricket. Anyways I enjoyed my time there. The best way to do it is if you perform well on the ground and nothing can be more than that. Glad we have done that rather than saying things in the field. We have done it with the bat and ball”.

Meghalaya and Tripura Assembly Polls Results Today

Today is a big day for the two hill states of Northeast India, as Meghalaya and Tripura as the votes polled in the assembly elections will be counted. The main contest in the two states is between UPA allies, congress and NCP. In Meghalaya, the Nationalist Congress Party is trying hard to capture power from the Congress and former Lok Sabha Speaker Purno Sangma is spearheading the operations of the party. In Tripura, it is between the ruling Left Front and the Congress-Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura. The polls conducted on February 23 in Tripura and on March 3 in Meghalaya. Both states have 60 seats each. There are 313 candidates in Tripura while 331 candidates in Meghalaya. Sangma was the CM of Meghalaya from 1988 to 1990. Despite heading a coalition government with 48 members, he was toppled by late chief minister B B Lyngdoh. But it's not just the NCP that the Congress is fighting. The party is also pitted against its partners in power - the United Democratic Party (UDP) and the Meghalaya Democratic Party, the parties that made corruption under congress regime a big issue.

Clinton takes Ohio and McCain wins nomination

Sen. Hillary Clinton won in Ohio, which was very much essential for her to stay alive in the presidential race. Clinton earlier broke Obama's 12-contest winning streak with her victory in Rhode Island. Obama was projected to take Vermont, but the contest in Texas was too close to call.

Senator John McCain won all four Republican contests on Tuesday to become his party's probable candidate. McCain won the primaries in Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island which gave him more than the 1,191 delegates required to clinch the GOP nomination.

"I am very, very grateful and pleased to note that tonight, my friends, we have won enough delegates to claim with confidence, humility and a great sense of responsibility, that I will be the Republican nominee for president of the United States," McCain told supporters on Tuesday night. In the meanwhile, Mike Huckabee dropped out of the Republican race after the results came in. "It's now important that we turn our attention not to what could have been or what we wanted to have been, but now what must be -- and that is a united party," Huckabee told supporters in Dallas.

McCain is planning to go to the White House on Wednesday to receive the endorsement of President Bush, according to reliable Republican sources. This being his second run for the White House was largely written off last summer amid outspoken opposition from the party's conservative base and disappointing fundraising. But he said earlier Tuesday that he was quite confident that he would emerge as the nominee by the end of the night.

Obama's campaign pressed to extend voting by one hour in two Ohio counties. See county-by-county results in Ohio. "Due to reports of ballot shortages in Cuyahoga and Franklin counties, we requested a voting extension in those counties," said Obama spokesman Bill Burton. In Texas, Clinton holds a 2 to 1 advantage over Obama with Hispanic voters, while Obama has the overwhelming advantage with black voters in the state's Democratic primary, according to CNN's exit poll. Eighty-three per cent of blacks voted for Obama, while 16 per cent supported Clinton, according to the exit poll.

CB Series win - A Testimony to Dhoni`s leadership

Mahendra Singh Dhoni led the Indian team to a historic win against Australia in the Commonwealth Bank Series at Gabba in Brisbane on Tuesday. Not many people gave much chance to the young Indian team against Ricky Ponting's team but in the end Dhoni`s youngsters mentored by ageing pro Sachin Tendulkar showed that Ponting`s men can be beaten.

"Of course it was very important because I believe that this is the building stage of my team. Youngsters are in and we have left a few seniors out of the side and there were a lot of questions asked about whether the team can do well in Australia. They say the conditions are tough here to topple the best team in the world," Dhoni said at the post-match press conference. Dhoni admitted that the team was under pressure at the beginning of the tri-series. The Indian skipper said that after the T20 game the pressure was on them especially in the batting department and the onus was on them to prove the critics wrong and they did exactly that. He also gave full credit to Sachin said that the good starts provided by him were critical to the team's success. The other players, too, were ecstatic after the win.

"Well we have won the series. This is what we wanted to do. We are really happy and it’s a great feeling. It is much relief now. Hopefully everything will settle down," Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh, said.

"I was not bothered about that. I was here to play some good cricket and I have played throughout the summer we have played fantastic cricket. We are really happy and I am really proud," Harbhajan replied when asked if the controversies affected him.

"It's a great feeling. Winning in Australia for the first time is great and personal performance doesn’t matter. To be honest we play for the country and we try and win for the country," Gautam Gambhir, top scored in the series, said.

Microsoft to set up Lab in IIT chennai

Microsoft India has said that it will set up technology lab the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. The company is investing Rs 90 lakhs initially in the IITM Microsoft Windows Technologies Lab that will harness innovation through research and provide a platform for faculty and students to use it for different kinds of research and training programmes. This lab will offer best to date MS technology for the staff and students to work with and can also from helping students with their B Tech and M Tech projects and also the MS and PhD students in their research programmes. The initial focus in the lab will be on Windows Terminal services, device drivers, networking protocols, windows mobile and multi-modal localisation. Six companies have already spoken to IIT for using the lab and TCS was one of them.

Mallya in a new avatar

Liquor baron and sports lover, the admirable Vijay Mallya owns Bangalore IPL team for a hundred odd million dollars and the Force India Formula 1 team. Now he is all set to do the same to football, but his time in a different way. Guess what? Yes, he is planning to launch a football league in India in the lines of Indian Premier League and Indian Cricket League. He already owns the Mohun Bagan team but he feels Indian football deserves more support. The plans are still at a nascent stage and if everything falls in place he may very well succeed in roping in foreign clubs to invest in India and football may become the next big thing. Let’s hope that his happens right and every sport will get their due recognition.

IPL on the right track!

Everything is going right and smooth for the Indian Premier League that is set to start come this April. The franchises have started naming their teams. The Chennai team will be called ‘Chennai Super Kings’ and the Delhi team will called ‘Delhi Daredevils’. Meanwhile, Greg Shippard, who coaches in the Australian domestic circuit, is all set to coach the Delhi team and World cup winning coach John Buchanan has been roped in to perform coaching duties for the Kolkata team to be captained by Sourav.

It has also been rumored that some of the Indian players are not too happy with the cap that has been fixed for bidding players for the different franchises. They are also unhappy with the pay packages as some of the players from other countries are set to earn more than what is being offered to them. Some of the Australian players like Michael Clarke, Brad Haddin and Mitchell Johnson have decided against playing in the IPL. There are also issues relating sharing of tickets with the respective state associations. Things may not be as easy as Lalit Modi would have thought it to be.

In an interesting twist, Sachin may opt against playing in IPL team for Mumbai and may become a non-playing captain providing the much needed guidance and tips to his teammates. Shah Rukh Khan, who won the Kolkata team is right now very busy finalizing the team’s attire and has roped in a high profile designer to design the team clothing and we may expect a tinge of Bollywood in them. He is being guided by Sourav regarding the team composition and support staff. It is no doubt that this league will provide a means for DADA to showcase his skills once again after being shown the door by the selectors.