Indian woman shuttler Saina Nehwal on Thursday sailed into the quarterfinal of the ongoing Yonex Chinese Taipei Open Badminton, beating Hong Kong's Kwan Yi Mong 21-8, 21-12.
'China is constantly probing India's weaknesses.' 'The challenge is to implement a strategy that will allow India to buy time, gather its strength, and eventually counter China,' recommends Harsh V Pant and Vinay Kaura.
The Uighurs are China's Turkic Muslims in a volatile region where unrest sits on a keg of cultural alienation.
World number one Saina Nehwal disposed off Nichaon Jindapon's challenge in straight games, but PV Sindhu crashed out of the Indonesian Open Super Series badminton tournament after a close first-round defeat, in Jakarta, on Wednesday. In the men's singles, both the Indians in the fray -- Parupalli Kashyap and Kidambi Srikanth -- advanced to the second round with contrasting victories.
Sindhu yet again struggled to buck the trend of early exits
The top seed was taken the distance by Navdeep Singh before making the semi-finals in the Delhi ITF Futures tournament.
The top seed was extended by Aditya Madkekar in the pre-quarter-finals of the ITF Futures Men's Tennis Tournament in Delhi.
Saina Nehwal and reigning champion Sameer Verma were a step away from clinching the men's and women's singles titles respectively
'Lhasa is more than the Unesco World Heritage Sites it boasts of. It is more than a gateway to the mighty Himalayas.' 'It is about the warmth of its people: Unsaid, unspoken, but felt everywhere,' discovers Shruti Bajpai.
Rupesh Roy and his partner, Hsin Han Lee from Chinese Taipei, lost in the semi-finals of the boys' doubles at Wimbledon.
Pakistan's Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif is in China's militancy hit Muslim-majority Xinjiang province on a rare visit where he met his Chinese counterpart General Fang Fenghui, promising to crackdown on Uighur militants.
Chinese observers believe the Sino-US relationship will be impacted by issues in North Korea, Japan, India, Ukraine and Iran and that conflicts with these 'third parties' will without exception ultimately become conflicts between China and the US, points out former RA&W officer Jayadeva Ranade.
Rohan Bopanna and his Romanian partner Florin Mergea advanced to the pre-quarterfinals of the rain-hit Wimbledon Championships after a straight set win over Andrej Martin and Hans Podlipnik-Castillo in London on Saturday. The sixth seeded Indo-Romanian pair faced early resistance from the Slovakian-Chile combination before prevailing 7-5 6-2 in the second round contest that lasted one hour and 17 minutes.
'The scheduling of Imran Khan's visit to Beijing and its focus on the J&K situation underscores that Beijing shares the Pakistani concern that tensions with India are only going to escalate further in the period ahead,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
According a Chinese health department official the number of SARS cases has shrunk to around 200 from 2,500 during the peak period in late April and May.
The Foreign Ministry also posted a 15-page fact sheet with maps and other details about the standoff since it began on June 16.
While Saina made short work of USA's Beiwan Zhang, second seed Sindhu had to dig deep to get the better of Japanese Sayaka Sato.
Jiaolong, China's manned submersible, has descended to a depth of 3,117 meters in the northwestern Indian Ocean and collected variety of precious metals.
Indian shuttlers Saina Nehwal, Kidambi Srikanth and Sameer Verma also advanced to the second round of the $550,000 tournament at the Barclaycard Arena.
H S Prannoy had things his way as he beat Denmark's Hans-Kristian Vittinghus in straight games to progress to the men's singles quarter-finals at the French Open Super Series badminton tournament, in Paris, on Friday.
Fourth seeded Srikanth, who had claimed a silver medal at this year's Commonwealth Games, had to dig deep in his reservoir to outwit fellow Indian H S Prannoy 18-21, 30-29, 21-18 in a thrilling match, clocking an hour and seven minutes.
In an open letter, BWF secretary general Thomas Lund said the decision to go ahead with the All England Championships was made based on the best advice at that time. "It has been very disappointing to see some members of the badminton community speculate on the sincerity and motives of the BWF in this time of crisis," Lund wrote.
Erratic Saina stunned by Chinese youngster
'The fatal mistake for the USSR was the invasion of Afghanistan.' 'Quite possibly the fatal mistake for the Chinese empire is the assault on Ladakh,' observes Rajeev Srinivasan.
At least 32 people were jailed in China on Friday, three of them for life, for downloading and spreading terror-related audio and video as authorities crackdown on militants groups in the restive Xinjiang province, which they say are behind recent attacks.
At a time when Donald Trump is making belligerent noises, Chinese President Xi Jinping responds by overhauling the People's Liberation Army and restructuring the command of the PLA Navy to emphasise Beijing's resolve to dominate the South China Sea.
Japan's Mima Ito took the bronze medal after beating Han Ying of Germany in straight games.
Experts said the direction is meant to maintain party unity.
The 21-year-old Indian topped the ballot with 129 votes as she led a trio of women onto the BWF Athletes' Commission.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Thursday
'India need to look beyond the economic prism.' 'China had no qualms in taking the Kashmir issue to the UN Security Council last year -- not once, but thrice -- thus violating Indian sensitivities,' observes China expert Srikanth Kondapalli.
The chaos on its stock markets, a fierce battle between the old and new guard in the Communist Party and the restive border provinces of Tibet and Xinjiang forebode tough times ahead for China, says Claude Arpi.
Three-time champion Saina Nehwal staved off a challenge from a lower-ranked Pai Yu Po of Chinese Taipei to make a positive start to her women's singles campaign at the $900,000 Indonesia Super Series Premier badminton tournament in Jakarta on Tuesday.
'Once the military starts to draw up plans for using nuclear weapons, then nuclear weapons could be used earlier in a crisis than otherwise.'
Leading Indian shuttlers Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth won their first round matches in contrasting style at the Star Australian Open Superseries in Sydney on Wednesday.
I look forward to many years of success and friendship, working together to solve not only our problems, but world problems and problems of great danger and security, says President Trump in Beijing.
The Politburo Standing Committee -- the most powerful body in China -- is unveiled, but in a break from Communist party convention, no successor to Xi Jinping is named.
China's major economic problem has been that its heartland is an agricultural region with about one-third of the arable land per person as the rest of the world.
Olympic silver medallist P V Sindhu and National champion Sameer Verma began the new season on a resounding note by winning the women's and men's singles crowns respectively at the USD 120,000 Syed Modi Grand Prix Gold badminton tournament in Lucknow on Sunday.
