Assistant coach Ricky Ponting, 10 rooms down the hotel corridor, has heard him shadow practising in England and coach Justin Langer said Smith hones his cover drives in shower.
Kevin Pietersen will be available for the full IPL 7 season. Which of the franchises will grab the dashing batsman at the IPL auction? Rediff.com's Bikash Mohapatra lists the overseas players who could make the big move this IPL season.
'Would not accept the arguments of foreign countries and leaders to meet the Lama as a religious leader'
The board of directors will review the position of Vijay Mallya, under self-exile in Britain, at its next meeting on August 12.
'If you behave like a nail, the adversary will behave like a hammer.'
Steve Smith's defiant century on day one of the Ashes series restored the former Australian captain to hero status in the eyes of a grateful nation.
Taslima had to leave Bangladesh in 1994 in the wake of death threat by fundamentalist outfits for her alleged anti-Islamic views. Since then she has been living in exile.
'When you look at the border -- from Ladakh to Arunachal -- which is called the Sino-Indian border, but in effect it is actually the Indo-Tibet border.' 'Since the borders are still not secure, it has resulted in transgressions in Galwan, Dokalam etc.'
Rediff readers write about their favourite books and authors.
Considering that Qatar is a trusted ally of Washington for decades, it is expected to be a steady influence on the Taliban leadership, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Lionel Messi stole Cristiano Ronaldo's thunder again by plundering yet another hat-trick for Barcelona and Basel ruined Jose Mourinho's Champions League return with a shock win at Chelsea.
'China is concerned about its impact within Tibet.'
Pakistani investigators probing the 2007 assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto have decided to quiz Rehman Malik after being told by Pervez Musharraf that the former interior minister had decided details of her security on the day she was killed.
Kevin Pietersen is setting a 'great example' to the novice players in England's one-day squad, according to limited-overs coach Ashley Giles.
Rajiv Dogra, former ambassador and India's last Consul General to Karachi, talks to Avantika Bhuyan about the reigning mood in Pakistan and people's perception of Pervez Musharraf.
Authorities have put in place special security arrangements in the federal capital for former President Pervez Musharraf, who received a death threat from the Taliban days before he returned to Pakistan from self-exile.
Pakistan's security establishment has demanded foolproof security for ex-military ruler Pervez Musharraf, who is facing a Taliban death threat following his return to the country from self-exile, a media report said. The General Headquarters wrote a letter to the defence ministry, seeking security for Musharraf, who flew into Karachi from Dubai on Sunday.
Pakistan's former military dictator Pervez Musharraf should not be allowed to elude the serious legal proceedings against him and must be held accountable for human rights abuses, a global watchdog has demanded.
Former military dictator Pervez Musharraf on Sunday ended nearly four years in self-exile defying threats of arrest and assassination by Taliban, saying that he returned home to "save" Pakistan and would face all "challenges" that lay ahead.
Boris Berezovsky, a self-exiled Russian tycoon and a staunch critic of President Vladimir Putin, has been found dead in mysterious circumstances in southeast England.
'The deepening of China-Nepal relations need not cause heartburn in India,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
ISI chief Faiz Hameed coerced the Taliban to announce an interim government guaranteed to preserve Pakistan's control over the levers of power in Kabul, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
India issued an advisory to its nationals on Monday, asking them not to undertake non-essential travel to the island nation.
The Taliban have the ISIS in its crosshairs. The Taliban has shown the skill to assimilate extremist elements if they are reconcilable as well as the ruthlessness to eliminate troublemakers, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar
Batsman Jesse Ryder will return to top-level cricket in New Zealand next week, ready to put behind him a year in which he served a six-month doping ban and survived an assault that left him in a coma with serious head injuries.
Pakistan must be deleted once and for all from the vocabulary of Kashmir-related negotiations with a finality that is irrevocable, asserts Vivek Gumaste.
Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri's new novel The Lowland, shortlisted for Britain's Man Booker Prize and longlisted for the US National Book Award is a story of fate and will, exile and return, of the price of idealism and of a love that can last long past death.
I will give answer to the public in 2019, but Akhilesh government must answer to the people as it had ruled it for the last five years, Modi said.
Nilanshu Chaturvedi polled 66,810 votes, while Bharatiya Janata Party rival Shankar Dayal Tripathi got 52,677 votes.
Bugti, former chief minister of Balochistan and head of his tribe, was killed in 2006 in a military operation ordered by Musharraf who was president and army chief at the time.
Three Chinese journalists based in India representing the state-run Xinhua news agency were denied permission for extended stay in the country.
'Despite its noble attempts, tight editing, terrific sound design, good performances and a compelling story, Hotel Mumbai tells a big lie.'
'From exile in India, he keeps the Tibetan cause blazing on the world radar.' 'He could take himself very seriously indeed -- hundreds of millions of people do, after all.' 'Instead,' discovers Mitali Saran, 'he is a joyous, laughing beacon of dissent, both political and spiritual.'
Ending four years of self-imposed exile, Pakistan's former military ruler Pervez Musharraf returned home on Sunday to take part in the May 11 general elections despite a Taliban death threat.
Hours after the Pakistani Taliban threatened to kill him, Pakistan's former military ruler and President Pervez Musharraf on Saturday appeared unfazed and said he will return home from self-exile to lead his party in the upcoming general election. "I am going home as announced. I am not scared of anything -- be it the death threat from terrorists or the arrest on arrival," Musharraf said after addressing his party supporters at a reception.
This word cloud gives the full break-up of Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's speech, the size of the word signifying the frequency with which it was used.
In view of this development, do you think Srinivasan should attend the Board's Committee Meeting scheduled for August 2? Tell us!
'The muscularity of the last three years didn't bring any dividends and if anything, Chinese attitudes only hardened,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The Chagos Islanders were forcibly expelled from their homes and dumped in Mauritius and Seychelles almost 50 years ago when their remote islands acquired a strategic importance during the cold war era. The Permanent Court of Arbitration has now given a ruling rejecting a claim by the British government that the court did not have jurisdiction in the matter.
