Bollywood actress Shraddha Kapoor sent the crowd into raptures with her sizzling dance numbers while singer Monali Thakur performed her peppy hits to set the stage on fire at the Indian Premier League (IPL) extravaganza ahead of Kolkata Knight Riders' (KKR) first home game at the Eden Gardens here on Thursday.

In front of a half-full stadium with the match one-and-half hours away from the start, Shraddha, whose next film Half Girlfriend is scheduled for a May release, turned on the heat in the final segment of the 21-minute programme, dancing to her hit numbers. 

Starting with Tum Hi Ho from the blockbuster Aashiqui 2, the 30-year old shook a leg to Galliyan from Ek Villain, The Humma Song (OK Jaanu) and Main nachu aj Cham Cham Cham (Baaghi) in front of father and veteran actor Shakti Kapoor who was in the stands.

Sporting a golden top and purple coloured track pants, the gorgeous Mumbaikar looked stunning.

Monali, who hails from the city, crooned a number of hits including Moh Moh ke Dhaage, Tune Mari Entriyaan and the title track of Badrinath Ki Dulhaniya which drew the loudest cheers.

The function was a fusion of Bengal's traditional chhau dance and Punjab's bhangra, commencing with a performance by Shillong Chamber Choir.

The chhau dancers introduced the KKR team, while KXIP made an entry with the bhangra dance troupe in the third segment of the opening ceremony.

Home team captain Gautam Gambhir handed Aussie counterpart Glenn Maxwell a Spirit of Cricket token.

A one-minute AV was displayed showing the two- time IPL champions' journey from 2008 till now.

This is the first time that there are eight opening ceremonies taking place across eight venues.
 

The United States is assessing military options in response to North Korea's weapons programmes, a top official confirmed on Friday, while acknowledging another provocative test was a question of “when” rather than “if.”

As speculation mounted that Pyongyang is preparing to fire a trial nuke or missile on Saturday, a White House foreign policy adviser said the United States was poised to deal with the security threat.

“Military options are already being assessed,” the official said on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic.
Describing a fresh test as “possible,” the White House adviser said that “with the regime it's not a matter of if, it's when.” 

Assam on Friday ushered in celebrations for Rongali Bihu, the state's most colourful festival.

Rongali or the Bohag (spring) Bihu starts on the last day of the Assamese calendar month of Chot, which normally falls on April 13 or 14 annually. The first day is known as Goru Bihu and it is dedicated to the cattle.

People in different parts of the state took their cattle to ponds and rivers and gave them a ceremonial bath and rubbed their bodies with 'dighalati pat' (leaf of a plant having medicinal value), which ward off the flies and insects. 

People also recited traditional hymns while praying for good health of the animal.

The second day, which falls on the first day of new Assamese Calendar month of Bohag is known as Manhu Bihu. People put on new clothes along with singing and dancing.

On this day, youngsters visit their elders and seek blessings. 

'Bihuwan' (the traditional Assamese towel known as Gamocha) is exchanged as a mark of respect.

Although Rongali Bihu is a week-long festival, celebrations continue for the whole month various cultural programmes and functions.

Assam Governor Banwarilal Purohit conveyed his greetings on Friday.

The Governor said: "Let this Bihu, which also marks the advent of Assamese New Year be a harbinger of a new dawn of warm and harmonious relationship and peace, prosperity and progress in the state." 

Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal also wished the people of the state and hoped the festival will bring lasting peace and prosperity and strengthen mutual bonding.

Saying that the celebrations of Rongali Bihu would bring the people of Brahmaputra and Barak Valley, plains and hills closer, Sonowal expressed optimism that this festival symbolising Assamese cultural identity would strengthen the friendship and camaraderie among the people across ethnicities, caste, creed and religion.

Intensifying its fight against black money, the Income Tax Department has launched ‘Operation Clean Money-II’ which will detect growth of unaccounted money post demonetisation.

“I-T Dept has launched second phase of Operation Clean Money to detect black money post-demonetisation,” the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said on Friday, adding, “The department will issue notices to 60,000 entities”.

According to CBDT, “More than 60,000 persons, including 1,300 high risk persons, have been identified for investigation into claims of excessive cash sales during the demonetisation period".

“More than 6,000 transactions of high value property purchase and 6,600 cases of outward remittances shall be subjected to detailed investigations (under Operation Clean Money II),” CBDT said.

“All the cases where no response is received shall also be subjected to detailed enquiries,” it added.

The first phase of Operation Clean Money was launched on 31 January. Under the operation, the department had sent online queries and investigated 17.92 lakh persons out of which 9.46 lakh persons have responded.

(With inputs from agencies)

The first 1,000 MW unit in Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP) belonging to Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) was shut down for around two months for refuelling purposes on Thursday, said a senior official.

Kudankulam is in Tirunelveli district around 650 km from here and NPCIL has two 1,000 MW nuclear power plants there built with Russian equipment.

"The first unit was shut down at 3.38 a.m. on Thursday for refuelling purposes. The shut down will be for around 70 days," H.N. Sahu, Site Director, KNPP said on Friday.

Every year, one third of the reactor's 163 fuel assemblies — 54 assemblies — will be replaced.

This coming refuelling cycle will be the second for Unit 1.

According to Sahu, the second unit at KNPP is generating power at full capacity.

Meanwhile, the first 220 MW unit of Madras Atomic Power Station (MAPS) belonging to NPCIL under annual maintenance shutdown is expected to come into operation from April 27 onwards.
 

The central government on April 13 extended the deadline for import of five lakh tonnes of raw sugar from June 12 to June 30 following representations from sugar mills and trade associations.

As per a release, the extension of date means mills and refiners can complete the import of raw sugar until June 30.

Last week, the government had allowed raw sugar imports till June 12 to ensure timely availability of sugar in the country and to maintain domestic price at reasonable levels.

Life returned to normal on Friday in Jammu and Kashmir after train services and internet facilities were restored in the valley.

Train service between north Kashmir's Baramulla town and Jammu's Bannihal town was resumed after five days.

Internet facility on mobile phones which had been suspended on April 8 was restored on Thursday evening. Broadband connections on fixed landline also started functioning after a day's interruption.

Markets, other businesses, both public and private transport have started functioning normally throughout the Kashmir Valley.

Government offices, banks and educational institutions were, however, closed because of a public holiday.

Road to the famous hill station of Sonamarg in north Kashmir was opened on Thursday after remaining closed during the winter months.

Very few tourists were seen going to Sonamarg on Thursday because of the heightened tensions in the valley during the last five days.

Officials of the state Tourism Department, however, expect the valley to have a normal rush of tourists as temperatures in the Indian plains are soaring high early this year.

Given a 'shutters-down' situation faced by the local hoteliers, houseboat owners, tour and travel operators and others connected with tourism due to the 2016 summer unrest, these people literally face the prospect of starvation unless the season picks up.

Both mainstream politicians and the separatists have welcomed visitors to Kashmir. 

Local hotels, houseboats, Shikaras floating on the Dal Lake are all spruced up to welcome the visitors this season.

Borussia Dortmund face the difficult challenge of recovering from Tuesday's frightening bomb attack on their team bus as they prepare to host Eintracht Frankfurt in the Bundesliga this weekend.

Players and staff alike were badly shaken after their team coach was rocked by three explosions on the way to Signal Iduna Park ahead of their Champions League tie against Monaco.

Defender Marc Bartra underwent emergency surgery on a fractured wrist and to remove glass that became planted in his arm after the blast shattered windows on the Dortmund bus.

His team-mates also felt the psychological effects, losing 3-2 to Monaco after their quarter-final first leg was pushed back to Wednesday.

Many in the Dortmund squad said they had not wanted to play, while manager Thomas Tuchel railed at the decision to reschedule the match less than 24 hours after the planned kick-off.

"Unless you experienced it, you can't understand how bad it was for us," said defender Sokratis Papastathopoulos.

"I am just happy to be alive, it was the worst day of my life," he added, referring to the night of the attack.

Tuchel accused UEFA of treating Dortmund as if only a "beer can" had been thrown at their bus.

But European football's governing body rejected the claim, insisting that both clubs had agreed to play on Wednesday.

German police are still hunting the culprits and an officer was also hurt in the blast.

Tuchel is sure to rotate his fourth-placed squad to try to help give those worst affected by the attack time to recover.

"We must find a way of overcoming that. But we still don't know how that's going to happen," admitted Tuchel.

"Everyone must face up to it in their own way. No one felt it in exactly the same way.

"Some players saw the explosion… there were lots of different feelings and therefore many different ways of handling the trauma." 

Germany winger Marco Reus, sidelined for the past six weeks by a hamstring injury, is set to return for Dortmund but Bartra faces four weeks out.

Frankfurt were quick to extend their best wishes to the Spaniard, but solidarity aside, Niko Kovac's men need the points on Saturday having dropped to ninth following a run of nine games without a win.

As a result of the Dortmund attack, authorities are beefing up security across the country ahead of this weekend's fixtures.

Runaway league leaders Bayern Munich, who are at Bayer Leverkusen, have for the first time introduced security checks at open training sessions.

Bayern are 10 points clear of RB Leipzig but will again be without striker Robert Lewandowski, this time through suspension after he picked up his fifth yellow card last weekend.

The Poland star is the league's top scorer with 26 goals but missed Bayern's 2-1 defeat to Real Madrid in the Champions League with a bruised shoulder.

Carlo Ancelotti will hope to have both Lewandowski and Mats Hummels (ankle) back in time for Tuesday's quarter-final return leg in Madrid.

Leverkusen are desperately looking to stop their slide down the table after just one win in their last seven league games.

Second-placed RB Leipzig are edging ever closer to finishing their debut Bundesliga season by qualifying directly for the Champions League but have a tricky trip to Freiburg.

Freiburg, last season's second division champions ahead of Leipzig, have exceded expectations this term by challenging for a Europa League place.

Ex-Bayern striker Nils Petersen equalled the Bundesliga record of 18 goals off the bench when he came on to secure their 1-0 win over Mainz last weekend.

Brazilian President Michel Temer has angrily rejected an allegation that he was involved in a multi-million dollar bribe paid to his party by the Odebrecht construction conglomerate.

“This never happened. Not at this meeting nor at any other which I held during my public life with any person or legal entity. I would never put my reputation at risk,” he said in a video address yesterday.

This week, a Supreme Court justice opened corruption probes into almost 100 politicians, including many close to the president.

Temer is not being targeted in any investigation because he has immunity while in office.

However, testimony underpinning the decision to launch the probes included an allegation that in 2010 Temer headed a meeting in Sao Paulo where his PMDB party negotiated a bribe from major Brazilian engineering firm Odebrecht.

Former Odebrecht executive Marcio Faria told prosecutors as part of a plea bargain that his company made the deal to win a contract with state oil enterprise Petrobras. The amount was allegedly USD 40 million, or five per cent of the contract's value.

“It was clear that we were talking about a bribe,” Faria said in his testimony.

Temer responded Wednesday in a written statement, then took the unusual step of making a second statement in a short video address yesterday.

“I'm not afraid of fact, I never was. What repulses me is lies. It's a fact that I participated in a meeting in 2010 with a representative of one of the largest firms in the country,” he said.

“But it is a lie that in our meeting I would have heard reference to financial amounts or scandalous business between the company and politicians.”

“My greatest ally is the truth, the raw material of the justice system, which will reveal all the truth of the facts.”

Former cricketer Sachin Tendulkar on Thursday said the upcoming movie Sachin: A Billion Dreams is not just about cricket.

"This movie is not just about my cricket career. It has many different chapters and we have tried to show those chapters as well. James has shown many sides of my personality in the movie, which many people are not aware of," said the iconic cricketer.

The cricketer, who was present at the trailer launch of the film at PVR Juhu, said that for him winning the cricket world cup in 2011 was the most memorable moment of his 24-year-long career.

"I was 10 when India won the world cup in 1983. Since then I only had one dream and that was to win the world cup. On April 2, 2011 that dream came true. So without any doubt it is my most memorable moment."

James Erskine, director of the film, said: "I wanted to make Sachin's story since a long time and I didn't know how to collaborate but then Ravi (producer) came to me and talked about this project, it was like telling India's story through one man."

When asked about his views on Sachin's legacy, James said: "I have seen, how Sachin is looked upon, in England so I can imagine how he is in India."

Sachin shared the most interesting part of his world cup memory. He said: "I remember my daughter saying 'the whole Mumbai and the country is celebrating the victory. It took hours for us to reach Taj hotel from Wankhede stadium'."

"Sachin: A Billion Dreams" will see the cricketer in the lead role. The film is directed by James Erskine and produced by Ravi Bhagchandka with a touch of Oscar winning music composer AR Rahman.

The movie will hit the theatres on May 26, 2017.
 

Revealing details of demonetisation impact on black money, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) on Friday said the Income Tax Department has detected Rs.9,334 crore undisclosed income post demonetisation.

“IT Department has detected Rs.9,334 crore undisclosed income post demonetisation till 28 February,” the CBDT stated.

Demonetisation or note ban of Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 notes was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8 midnight to curb black money and terrorism and promote digital transactions.

Meanwhile, according to NITI Aayog, "There has been a phenomenal 584 per cent increase in transactions made through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) since demonetisation”.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday paid tributes to dalit icon BR Ambedkar on his 126th birth anniversary.

"Tributes to venerable Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar on Ambedkar Jayanti. Jai Bhim," he tweeted.

Modi will be travelling to Nagpur on Friday to visit a sacred place associated with Ambedkar.

Ekta Kapoor, who has been a trendsetter in the Indian television space, is now out to offer disruptive home-grown content in the digital space via her new app ALTBalaji. She launched a slate of five shows here on Thursday.

Ekta was here with actors Nimrat Kaur, Rajkummar Rao, Ram Kapoor, Sakshi Tanwar and filmmakers Hansal Mehta and Nagesh Kukunoor, giving a dekko of the talent and variety that one must expect from the platform starting April 16.

Coming up on the slate is; Karrle Tu Bhi Mohabbat — a breezy and feel-good story of an actor and his doctor, Boygiri – Men will be Men — a comedy drama about youngsters and their fantasies, The Test Case about a woman army officer in a combat role and Dev DD on a rebellious girl's journey with love, passion, heartbreak, sex, self-destruction and redemption.

There's also Romil and Jugal, a gay love story and its trials and tribulations.

Analysing the content on offer, Ekta said: "Hopefully there's something for everyone. There's a big world between Narcos and Naagin, and we hope to capture that."

Ekta, who is the Joint Managing Director and Creative Director of Balaji Telefilms, said the idea to bring out content different from her signature shows like Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi and Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki first emerged, when they came up with ALT Entertainment. And under that, a film like Love Sex Aur Dhokha.

"ALT was an idea that came into being when Balaji Telefilms, which is known for family entertainment, decided to come up with clutter-breaking content. We felt Balaji Telefilms meant family viewing, home viewing of non-offensive or non-questionable content, which is not always a good thing.

"So we came up with ALT Entertainment. ALT because when you press ALT on your keyboard, a whole new signage comes out," she said, pointing out the different language that the characters and storylines speak vis-a-vis conventional shows on TV or films.

If the trailers of most of the five shows were to be put out in a theatre or on TV, there would perhaps be more beeps than dialogues. But that's the liberty the digital space gives.

"It's for personal viewing," Ekta said, adding that content is her only strategy to compete in the digital app market, which has players like Hotstar, VOOT, Sony LIV, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video at the moment.

There is a sense of relief she gets from web series.

"My biggest source of relief and enjoyment is that I am getting to do 20 episodes for the first time. I used to feel tired when I was doing 1,000 episodes for some of my shows," quipped Ekta, adding that 95 per cent of shows stretch only to 10 episodes.

For now, their plan is to unleash 32 shows in the first year. And these aren't just going to be in Hindi.

"There will also be shows in Bengali, Gujarati and Tamil," said Nachiket Pantvaidya, CEO of ALT Digital Media Entertainment.

Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland on Thursday said the Canadian government will introduce a legislation to enable the country to join the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT).

The landmark ATT, regulating the international trade in conventional arms — from small arms to battle tanks, combat aircraft and warships — entered into force on 24, December 2014, Xinhua news agency reported.

"The Arms Trade Treaty can set a real global standard, and thereby help prevent human rights abuses and protect lives. Canada's existing system of export controls meets most of the treaty's thresholds, and this legislation will set our standards in law," Freeland said. 

She said Canada must continue to encourage other countries to join this treaty and must ensure it is properly implemented globally.

"We are committed to introducing this legislation, and I am very pleased that we will in turn raise the bar with a stronger and more rigorous system for our country," added the Canadian Minister.

The ATT is about protecting people from arms. It ensures countries effectively regulate the international trade of arms, so they are not used to support terrorism, international organised crime, gender-based violence, human rights abuses, or violations of international humanitarian law.

To implement necessary changes, Canada announced last month an investment of 13 million Canadian dollars (about $9.75 million) to strengthen the country's export control regime. These resources will be used to implement new brokering controls, improve transparency, and support enhancements to Canada's export controls.

It also recognises the importance of promoting the ATT and is contributing one million Canadian dollars to the UN Trust Facility Supporting Cooperation on Arms Regulation, in order to help other countries accede to the ATT.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday extended greetings to people across the country on the various festivals.

“May this auspicious day bring joy & prosperity in everyone's lives,” he tweeted.

“Greetings to all Odia people on Maha Vishuba Sankranti. May all your wishes be fulfilled in the coming year,” he said.

In another tweet, the Prime Minister said he was eagerly looking forward to his two-day visit to Odisha from Saturday.

“Looking forward to being among the people of the wonderful state,” he said.

To the people of West Bengal, he said, “Shubho Nabo Barsho to my Bengali friends. Wishing you all on Poila Boishakh & praying for a wonderful year ahead.”

In another tweet, he said, “On the special occasion of Vishu, I convey my good wishes to the people of Kerala. I pray the coming year brings joy & good health.”

For the people of Tamil Nadu, he wrote, “Greetings on Puthandu to my Tamil sisters & brothers. May the year be full of happiness, good health and prosperity.”

“Wishing the people of Assam on the auspicious occasion of Bohag Bihu,” he said.

Playing his first tournament since the Arnold Palmer Invitational three weeks ago, Indian golfer Anirban Lahiri opened his campaign at the RBC Heritage in style with a four-under 67 that gave him a share of 11th place.

It was yet another good start for the Indian ace, who is seeking to improve his place on the World Rankings, which has now fallen to 80th and he needs to get back to Top-50 to make the Majors.

Despite the fine start, Lahiri is still four behind leader Bud Cauley, who charged ahead with eight-under 63 with eight birdies and no bogeys.

Three players, including Luke Donald, who has a remarkable six Top-3 finishes, including four seconds, was two shots behind alongside Graham DeLaet and Sam Saunders in tied second place. Donald was second even last year when Branden Grace won the title.

Lahiri started from the 10th and had three birdies on 10th, 15th and 17th and when he birdied the first he was four-under through 10. A bogey on third was compensated by a birdie on fourth. He again bogeyed sixth and birdied seventh to finish at four-under.

He said, "You want to get off to a solid start. I think I played well to start, still some work to do in some areas.

I've been off for three weeks. Also just getting my rhythm back on the golf course. So that feels good,"

He added, "It's the kind of golf course where you have to take advantage where you can. You're going to get tough days.

It's probably going to really firm up. It's not going to rain it's going to bake. And it was a little wet in the morning with the dew, made it a little softer. You could almost feel it beginning to firm up underfoot as we were finishing up. I'd expect more of that by Sunday. 

On missing the Masters last week, he said, "I didn't watch Thursday and Friday. It was very hard for me to watch, honestly. I played the last two years. And it was difficult. I tried to drown myself in work Thursday and Friday. But everybody shuts down on the weekend so I watched some golf.

And I was very happy for Sergio winning it. It was fantastic. 

As for the recent rest and coming, he added, "I've been working on my game, particularly on my putting and my short game. I think those two areas have been my weak links, at least in the last two or three months. Today I hit the ball really good.

"And I've just not done justice to my scoring. So I worked on that. Happy to have made a few putts coming in, even though most of the time I was scrambling. I worked on that, took some time off. Got back to work on my fitness. I had a very gruelling travel schedule to start the year, so I needed to take some time off and put my feet up and just recover from that, as well."

Lahiri will play this week and the next at Texas, before taking two weeks off and then go to the PLAYERS and all the way through to the Memorial.

After an early tee off on Thursday, Lahiri will go at noon from the first tee in the second round alongside Luke List and Wesley Bryan.

The Commerce Ministry will take feedback from businesses on implementation of reforms carried out by states while ranking them on ease of doing business this year.

The ministry Thursday said the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) will carry out a comprehensive business-to- government feedback exercise this year.

As part of the exercise, "feedback will be taken from businesses on the quality of implementation of the reforms claimed by the states and UTs," it said.

It added that the feedback scores will be used to generate a ranking of states/UTs in terms of reform implementation.

"Such a ranking will be different from the last year's ranking, which was a ranking of de jure reforms (or reforms based on evidence submitted by states)," the Commerce and Industry Ministry said.

The DIPP, with the help of the World Bank, ranks states in terms of ease of doing business. The exercise was started in 2015. Andhra Pradesh and Telangana jointly topped the chart last year.

This year, the rankings would be based on a 405-point Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP) spread across 12 reform areas such as labour regulation enablers, contract enforcement and property registration.

It said this year there are 103 new set of reforms (out of 405) which include central inspection system, online land allotment, online single window system for granting construction permits and approval for boiler manufacturers.

This year, BRAP also includes two new sectors — healthcare and hospitality. The last date for states to implement these reform is October 31.

The online portal would be soon be enabled to allow states/UTs to upload the reforms implemented along with the evidence, it added.