A summary of sports events and persons who made news on Thursday
'The most striking thing about the US strike on Syria is its futility of purpose beyond a symbolic value to impress the domestic constituency that Trump is a forceful decision-maker,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Arsene Wenger often says he has no time to look back because he is so focused on the future but he spent a minute reminiscing on Friday on the 10th anniversary of the defeat to Manchester United that ended Arsenal's famous 49-match unbeaten run.
Nick Kyrgios and Bernard Tomic gave Australia an unwanted reputation as a breeding ground for tennis brats during a tempestuous 2015 and the pair will be firmly under the spotlight in front of home crowds at Melbourne Park. With former world number one Lleyton Hewitt set to retire and the last of his two grand slam titles at the 2002 Wimbledon championships a distant memory, Australia has long yearned for a new force in men's tennis to challenge at the majors. Tomic, 23, and Kyrgios, 20, have both been tagged as the future of the sport in the country but the excitement generated by their undeniable talent gave way to dismay last season as the pair hogged the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Two-time former champions and the most consistent team of the season, Chennai Super Kings will lock horns with late bloomers Mumbai Indians in a high-voltage Indian Premier League summit clash in Kolkata, bringing the 47-day T20 extravaganza to a relatively controversy-free end.
At the event, Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh denied that the attack on the Congolese Masonda Ketada Oliver was a racial one and hoped that such incidents will not ecur.
Ajax to face United in final despite defeat at Lyon
Sreehari Nair introduces you to three promising movies coming up.
Salman and his never-ending list of controversies!
Responding to the concerns of the African envoys, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said government has directed concerned authorities to take stringent action against the culprits involved in killing of the Congolese national.
Expressing serious concern at the unsavoury incident that happened after the Indian Super League final in Goa on Sunday, All India Football Federation president Praful Patel said on Monday he was awaiting the match commissioner's report before cracking the whip on the wrongdoers.
Exasperated at his sudden removal, Mickey Arthur on Sunday said his unfair sacking was the result of a "deliberate campaign" against him but Cricket Australia has challenged his claim.
Vindoo Dara Singh gives his take on the controversy.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
Ultra-nationalist and schooled in their country's historical grievances, Russian soccer hooligans see themselves as fighting the Kremlin's geopolitical battles in miniature when they clash with foreign fans at the Euro 2016 tournament.
Everton have been handed the dubious distinction of being the 'dirtiest' Premier League team after a study on the all-time cards and fouls by www.dirtyteams.co.uk.
'For us, North Indians, who are habitual late comers and lackadaisical in our temple attire; who go to temples in jeans and shorts; who keep our temples dirty; where deities are placed amidst all prasadam and where rotting flowers are strewn on the pathway -- Manipur teaches us grace and discipline,' says Tarun Vijay.
The party has to stop gazing fondly at the trophy shelf of its past, and start envisioning and working toward a future palatable to new generations.
Phillip Hughes's tragic death cast a shadow over an eventful year that saw Ashes rivals Australia and England brawl on the field and bond off it, joining India to pull off a bloodless coup and take charge of the game.
Clashes between Real Madrid and Barcelona are rarely short on drama and Saturday's La Liga 'Clasico' may have more than its usual share with Luis Suarez poised to return from a biting ban and Barca teammate Lionel Messi on the brink of equalling the top-flight scoring record.
Be it Oscars, Kareena Kapoor or Karan Johar, Sukanya Verma's super-filmi week is a study in grace for both the right and wrong reasons.
Chelsea came from behind to secure a 3-1 win at Manchester City and forge further clear at the top of the Premier League as a dramatic top-of-the-table clash ended in a mass brawl and two City players being sent off on Saturday.
A senseless pitch invasion by Serbian fans in last month's Euro 2016 home qualifier against Albania has cost the Balkan nation dearly and the team fear the ramifications ahead of Friday's match against Denmark, Nemanja Matic said.
Director Shanker Raman, with an appetite for noir and a natural temperament for fast-cutting, takes you so swiftly and so deeply inside Gurgaon's anomie that you may mistake his vision of the city for some dystopian view of the future, feels Sreehari Nair.
China's economy is worse than it really is, but then these are emblematic of the baffling self-congratulatory mood that exists in India today.
How many of the 354 films Aseem Chhabra watched in 2017 have you seen?
According to a study, men with facial hair are more likely to cheat on their partners and get into fights than clean shaven men.
Saudi club Al-Hilal have furiously demanded a formal probe into the appointment of the referees for the Asian Champions League final, which they lost 1-0 on aggregate to Australia's Western Sydney Wanderers last weekend.
Two years after a midday meal took the lives of 23 children in Gandaman, Archana Masih sits down to have lunch at the same government school and discovers that much has changed and much remains the same.
The focus on non-issues like 'love jihad' has dragged radicals like Vijaykant Chauhan from the fringes to the mainstream in Uttar Pradesh
A Ganesh Nadar visits the village in Tamil Nadu that shot into national prominence in 1981 when half the Dalits there converted to Islam. He spoke to the Hindus and Muslims and came back with two very different stories.
'Both Main Aur Charles and Titli are essentially stories of two plot-devices that became protagonists. You cannot relate to Titli or Charles, without submitting to the knowledge that neither of them are well-rounded characters; they are more like artifacts -- Charles, a schlock artifact and Titli, an artifact of spirit toughened by years of live brutality.'
Zlatan Ibrahimovic has been named Sweden's footballer of the year for the ninth time and although his eighth victory in a row came as no shock, his acceptance speech showing a more sensitive side surprised many.
Four days after a scuffle between intoxicated young men on Diwali night in Trilokpuri's Block 20 spiralled into a diffused communal riot that resulted in scores of injuries, dozens of arrests, and the incineration of at least one Muslim-owned shop, the violence appears to have abated but tension and suspicion persist.
A group of young guns led by Abhijit Jejurikar showed the world what they are capable of.
'When I woke up on New Year's morning last week, it occurred to me that nobody had bothered to investigate how Christmas and the year end were different in my adopted home town of Bournemouth -- a charming place on the south coast of England -- from what played out on the streets of Pala in Kerala. This was clearly an important omission,' says Chindu Sreedharan, and sets out to correct it.
'The best Indian movies today are ones that portray life as "something that doesn't end when the movies do".' 'There's no real arc to traverse or easy lessons to learn. And Irrfan and Nawazuddin -- who can both swerve a movie purely on the strengths of their instincts -- are just the perfect actors for this kind of movie sensibility,' says Sreehari Nair.
The year threw up quite a few shockers, some rather rude one. Below are Rediff.com's 12 picks that made us sit back and think, 'Did that really happen?'
Upstaged by the swanky malls in town, both M G Road and Brigade Road have lost their "happening" status
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