NEW DELHI: Pakistan batter Iftikhar Ahmed joined an exclusive club on Sunday, when the right-hander slammed six successive sixes in an over off pacer Wahab Riaz in an exhibition match organised by Pakistan Super League (PSL) at the Nawab Akbar Bugti Stadium in Quetta.
The thrashing in the final over of the innings left Riaz’s impressive spell till then in tatters as he returned figures of 3 for 47 in four overs.

Iftikhar’s 94 not out, off 50 balls, blitzkrieg powered Quetta Gladiators to 184 for 5 against Babar Azam-led Peshawar Zalmi in the game. He was well supported by middle-order batter Khushdil Shah (36 off 24) and opener Abdul Wahid Bangalzai (28 off 19).
Chasing the big target, Peshawar lost the match by a narrow three runs after managing to score 181. Babar scored 23 in the match.

A terror attack a few miles down the road of the stadium forced the match to halt for some time and participating top players like Babar and Shahid Afridi were taken to safety in the dressing room. Play was later resumed after the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) got the green signal from the security officials.
Nine men have previously hit the maximum number of maximums in an over – Garry Sobers, Ravi Shastri, Herschelle Gibbs (the first in international cricket), Yuvraj Singh, Ross Whiteley, Hazratullah Zazai, Leo Carter, Kieron Pollard and Thisara Perera.

NEW DELHI: The central government is likely to increase dearness allowance (DA) for its over one crore employees and pensioners by four percentage points to 42 per cent from existing 38 per cent as per the agreed formula for the purpose.
The dearness allowance for employees and pensioners are worked out on the basis of the latest Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers (CPI-IW) brought out by the Labour Bureau every month. The Labour Bureau is a wing of the labour ministry.
Talking to PTI, All India Railwaymen Federation, General Secretary, Shiva Gopal Mishra said, “The CPI-IW for December 2022 was released on January 31, 2023. The dearness allowance hike works out to be 4.23 per cent. But the government does not factor in hiking DA beyond decimal point. Thus DA is likely to be increased by four percentage points to 42 per cent.”
He further explained that the expenditure department of the Finance Ministry will formulate a proposal to hike DA along with its revenue implication and will put up the proposal before the Union Cabinet for approval.
The DA hike will be effective from January 1, 2023.
Presently over one crore central government employees and pensioners are getting 38 per cent dearness allowance.
Last revision in DA was done on September 28, 2022, which was effective from July 1, 2022.
The Centre had increased DA by four percentage points to 38 per cent based on the percentage increase in 12 monthly average of All India Consumer Price Index for the period ending June, 2022.
The DA is provided to employees and pensioners to compensate them for rising prices. The cost of living increases over a period of time and is reflected through CPI-IW.
The allowance is revised periodically twice a year.

MUMBAI: Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) continue their selling spree in Indian stock markets.
FPIs have sold assets worth about Rs 28,852 crore in Indian stock markets in January 2023, the data from National Securities Depository showed.
So far in February, they sold another Rs 5,753 crore worth of stocks in India. In Total, they withdrew Rs 34,605 crore in 2023.
Foreign investors are apparently cautious amid risks from the ongoing volatility in Indian stock markets.
Barring some exceptions, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) had been selling equities in the Indian markets for over a year, which started in October 2021 for various reasons.
Tightening monetary policy in advanced economies including rising demand for dollar-denominated commodities, and strength in the US dollar had triggered a consistent outflow of funds from Indian markets. Investors typically prefer stable markets in times of high market uncertainty.
In 2022, foreign portfolio investors sold Rs 121,439 crore worth of stocks in India on a cumulative basis, the data on the NSDL website showed.
Meanwhile, their appetite for debt instruments has somewhat seemed to have improved. FPIs have bought debt assets worth Rs 9,033 crore, NSDL’s latest data showed.

NEW DELHI: At least five people were injured in a blast in Pakistan’s Quetta on Sunday in yet another terror strike by the banned militant outfit Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
Claiming responsibility for the attack, the TTP said that it meant to target security officials in the blast.
The attack comes just days after a deadly suicide bombing by TTP at a mosque in Peshawar claimed over 100 lives.
Shortly after the attack, top Pakistani cricketers, including captain Babar Azam and Shahid Afridi, were moved to safety as they were playing a stadium just a few miles down the road.
The exhibition match of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) at the Nawab Akbar Bugti Stadium was halted for some time following an explosion in the Police Lines area, PTI reported.
“As soon as the explosion happened, as a precautionary measure, the match was stopped and players taken to the dressing room for a while. Later, after the green signal, the match resumed,” the police official said.
The ground was packed for the match.
It is not clear what was the nature of the explosion.
(With inputs from PTI)

Veteran singer Vani Jayaram passed away on February 4 and she was cremated today with full state honours. The 78-year-old singer breathed her last after succumbing to injuries on her forehead at her residence in Chennai yesterday afternoon. According to reports, a police case has been filed by the police.
Reportedly, Vani Jayaram lived alone in her house in Nungambakkam, Chennai and did not open the door when her servant maid arrived yesterday noon. Later with the help of the singer’s sister who had a spare key, they entered the house and found the singer laying on the floor after getting injured.

The demise of the singer has bought a lot of sorrow to the Indian musical and film industry and from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Chief Minister MK Stalin shared their condolences. Film fraternities Kamal Haasan, Harris Jayaraj, Ilaiyaraaja, KS Chitra and Nithyasree Mahadevan also shared their grief.
Vani Jayaram has sung more than 10,000 songs and she just completed 50 years in the music industry. She was awarded the Padma Bhushan on January 25 but the veteran singer passed away even before receiving her national award in hand.

NEW DELHI: Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that regulators like the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) should always be “on their toes” and act in time to keep the markets stable amid the growing crisis plaguing the Adani Group.
Speaking to Times Now about the massive stock rout of Adani following allegations by Hindenburg Research, the finance minister said that she does not have any view on the report but added that banks and insurance companies who are facing exposure are themselves speaking out and reassuring the common man.

Without naming the Adani Group, she said banks and insurance companies are “not overexposed” to any one company and assured that Indian markets are very well managed by its regulators.
“Yes, there have been occasional blips in the market, maybe small or big, but they do address issues like that. And I strongly believe that our regulators are seized of this matter,” Sitharaman said in an interview to Times Now.
“Yes, there have been occasional … I don’t know for want of a better word, I will use occasional blips in the market … which may be small or big. But they do address issues like that and I strongly believe that our regulators are definitely seized of this matter,” she said.
‘Discussion okay, not disruption’
Sitharaman also lashed out at the opposition parties for attacking the government over the issue and accusing it of evading the issue.
“During every Parliament session, who is the one who’s stopping discussions from happening,” she said, recalling how the opposition parties have created ruckus during parliamentary debates time and again.
The finance minister said that the opposition parties cannot disrupt the proceedings and completely bring the House to a standstill and then claim that the government doesn’t want to discuss the issue.
‘Don’t see any impact on India’s image’
Asked about how the Adani issue could be a plot to damage India’s image, as claimed by the crisis-hit firm itself, Sitharaman said that the issue is unlikely t have any impact on investments and fund flow into India or trust in its banking system.
She pointed out how India’s forex reserves have gone up by $8 billion in just the last few days even in the backdrop of this incident.

“The trust in India, trust in India’s leadership, trust in India’s role for having kept an economy carefully nurtured during the Covid period … are all intact,” she asserted.
The finance minister added that the problem is just a company’s internal issue.
Sitharaman also vociferously dismissed opposition charges of government allegedly favouring the Adani Group, saying that there is absolute transparancy when it comes to the tender process.
“Every day, how many people have applied [for tenders], what has been the process, how is it being processed and when is the final bid being opened, all that is there for everybody to see. We don’t indulge in favoritism of any kind,” she said.
Adani crisis
Adani Group stocks are witnessing a massive meltdown on the bourses after the US-based short-seller Hindenburg Research made serious allegations of stock manipulation in a report.
The Adani group has dismissed the charges as lies, saying it complies with all laws and disclosure requirements.
Hindenburg released the report on January 24 — the day on which Adani Enterprises’ Rs 20,000-crore follow-on share sale opened for anchor investors, while the allegations have been rejected by the conglomerate.
Though the follow on public offer (FPO) was over-subscribed, the Adani group decided to scrap the FPO.

Amid the crisis, the 10 listed Adani group firms have faced a combined erosion of over Rs 8.5 lakh crore in just six trading sessions.
Several opposition leaders and some experts have been raising questions about Sebi not acting in the Adani matter, while Parliament proceedings have also got disrupted on this issue for two days.
Meanwhile, stock exchanges BSE and NSE have put three Adani group companies — Adani Enterprises, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone and Ambuja Cements — under their short-term additional surveillance measure (ASM), which basically means that intra-day trading would require a 100 per cent upfront margin and is aimed at curbing speculation and short-selling in these stocks.
(With agency inputs)

Filmmaker Siddharth Anand has all the reasons to be grinning ear-to-ear. He has given his career best film in the form of Pathaan that has created a tsunami at the box office. Starring Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone and John Abraham, the action thriller released worldwide in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu and has shattered about 75 records if not more. When ETimes caught up with the man of the hour, Siddharth was full of exuberance as he said, “I hope the rampage does not stop.”
In today’s #BigInterview, Sid gets candid about his inclination towards the action genre, the stupendous response to Pathaan, being unfazed by the controversies his film faced, bringing Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan together and much more. He also reveals his long cherished dream outside filmmaking and reacts to fan theories of Jim’s (John Abraham) connection to Kabir (Hrithik Roshan) in War.

Pathaan has crossed Rs 700 crore and is still counting. Before the pandemic your film War closed on a lifetime collection of about Rs 500 crore. Bang Bang closed with a business of about Rs 350 crore worldwide. Are you now naturally inclining towards doing more action movies going forward?
Yeah, as of now, what I have on my plate and on my mind is just this genre. I mean, considering I’m making Fighter next, I’m producing Rambo next, right now, it’s only action. I don’t take this too seriously though, if somebody comes up with a story which is anything else, I would love to dabble in it. So I’m not really sticking to this thought, at this brand.

The Hindi film industry had hit a rough patch in 2022, barring few films like Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, Drishyam 2, The Kashmir Files that sent the cash registers ringing. But the response to Pathaan seems to have cemented the belief that the glory days are back…
Honestly, it’s a little surreal. I’ve just been happy to be just a part of the industry and to be able to make films, because I don’t know anything else. And now you’re being credited with so much more, you know, like bringing cinemas back, single screens back, bringing box office back, audiences back… So I really don’t know how to react to all these all these tags. I’m just happy that I have my next job in place. And I can continue making films.

You just mentioned filmmaking is all you know and nothing else. But what would you have been, if not a filmmaker?
There was a point in time, honestly, that I was actually looking at being able to make films to make enough money, to be able to start a restaurant. So I have this very nice idea of opening a small boutique hotel, and running the hotel and that restaurant, somewhere in the world, maybe in India, maybe outside, I don’t know. But I always had this fantasy of doing that. And I’m a big foodie, I love food. I love holidays. I love the beach, so I thought I’d open a small quaint hotel, a 15-20 room hotel and nice restaurant, and I would run it. So I made that into a little dream sequence in Bang Bang where Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif have this kind of a thing that they run in Greece. I tried and saw that dream through them. But you know, at that point, I wanted to do this. Hopefully, I think that that dream is scaled up a little bit. It might be a bigger hotel, but the dream is still there.

Circling back to Pathaan, the film did come with its share of controversies in line with the boycott Bollywood trend that has been around on social media for a while. But when it released, it came out unscathed and with flying colours. It’s as if you checkmated the boycott brigade…
I didn’t say anything, I don’t have to say anything. The audience has said it. The fact that the audiences came in such huge numbers means they knew that there was nothing to what these calls were trying to say. So it was not that they waited and came in the evening to hear about it, like ‘Oh, my god, is this what they’re saying? Is it true what they are trying to say?’ The results came in through advance numbers itself. So I think the audience is too smart. I think we just underestimate the audience’s intelligence. They see through any agenda now. So we didn’t have to say anything or do anything.

More than numbers, it was the emotions of the fans in the theaters that spoke volumes…
Oh, it was crazy! I mean, I keep getting videos of the rejoicing of people, what they’re doing at the end of the film, in the middle of the film, they’re dancing. In that scene where Dimple Kapadia’s character dies, and Shah Rukh Khan’s character gives a salute, I saw a video where the audience unfolded the Indian flag in the theatre. So the fact that they carried a flag into the theatre means what kinds of emotions the film is carrying.

You did go to Gaiety to check out the audience’s response…
I went to Gaiety, got mobbed and I left.

Should have gone incognito like Deepika Padukone then…
That’s not incognito, that’s more like saying, ‘Look I am here!’ (laughs)

Shridhar Raghavan told me the Shah Rukh Khan-Salman Khan scenes were all you and Aditya Chopra’s joint vision…
I think it’s very Shah Rukh and Salman also. It’s so organic. Also, Adi knows them far better than anyone else. The first thought actually did come from Adi, not even me. So I would call it more Adi’s brainchild than anybody else.

What was most challenging about bringing the two Khans together and how did you tackle creative differences on the sets?
I mean, there was no challenge. Adi just had to make a call. His challenge was only to dial the number. (laughs) But obviously, jokes apart, I think it’s very gracious of Salman to do this in another franchise film. But it’s important that we gave that dignity and respect to him and his character. Also it is Shah Rukh who did a lot to actually make Salman comfortable on his own set. So it was a lot of love that everybody has for each other. That’s why the scene can look like this otherwise, in a situation like this, everybody will be clamoring for attention on screen.

Shridhar also told me that the iconic scarf entry was your idea and not his…
The action, yes, it was completely mine. I mean, it was a lot designed by me in the sense that you want to see the scarf first and then he does this… My action team including Craig Macrae, who’s from South Africa, we brainstormed a lot over the action scenes.

You delivered a blockbuster War before pandemic, and now Pathaan post pandemic. While the conversation still goes on whether the audience’s taste has evolved during the pandemic, you seem to be doing just your thing and winning at it each time…
I think I am just lucky, I would say. The thing is that I haven’t changed as a person or a filmmaker through the pandemic. Obviously, there’s something that you learn, but there’s not much of a shift because I think, by and large, honestly, we’ve been very, very blessed and insulated from what’s happened. All we got was a little time off from work, and we spent time with the family, we watched some content at home, and enjoyed some downtime. So we’ve been very, very blessed, I would say, and very fortunate during that time. I mean, the world is going through a lot, a lot. But we are one of the few people who largely have come out unscathed. We all got COVID, of course, but things were a little mild. God has been very kind is what I would say.

And in terms of filmmaking, I don’t see any change. I am too headstrong as a personality where my work is concerned, my beliefs and convictions are very deep rooted. So I don’t really get shackled with trends and what goes around, what’s fashionable currently. So I think that’s why Pathaan stood out in those times, and War also did. So yeah, you just have to be a little headstrong and hold your convictions.

What would you say about the fan theories that are floating around about Jim’s connection with Kabir in War?
It’s so heartwarming and it shows what deep connects our films have with the audience that they come up with theories that filmmakers haven’t even thought of. It is so validating, it just gives us so much happiness. And honestly, if they’re so creative, I want to call them to my office and ask them to write my stories. (laughs)

What is it that fuels your vision and drives you to do such larger than life stuff, far away from the kind of films you did earlier?
When I made my romantic comedy films also, whether it’s Salaam Namaste or Ta Ra Rum Pum, which had little action in it or Bachna Ae Haseeno, all of them had a certain style, a certain scale to it. So inherently, my romantic comedies also scaled up. Obviously, it also goes with your deep rooted sense of commerce. I like things larger than life. My personality is a little larger than life. I try and do things which have a little more heightened reality in it, even my rom coms. So through an action film, I always try and see how I can break a certain barrier, how I can do some things which are a little unbelievable and yet give it a little logic. So that’s my personality actually. My films stem from there.

What has been your learning about yourself and about your craft over the course of time?
The learnings over each film is what I take back home. There’s some things I learned from Bang Bang, some things I learned from War. Now I’ll take some things from Pathaan, in time, what I have done right or I’ve done wrong. They’re not so deep rooted honestly. I’m really an audience’s director or filmmaker who caters to a large scale audience. When things are going right, I don’t want to take away some learnings and try and spoil the recipe. Happy doing what I’m doing.

There is this conversation going around that with Deepika Padukone’s character Rubai in Pathaan, you’ve finally changed the narrative of a heroine who is not just there to propel the story of the hero forward…
I think that was really organic, because the character that we wrote, it’s someone who actually drives the plot. But that’s when a film actually becomes very wholesome. We have a villain that has a backstory, the girl has a backstory for her motivations. She’s a strong personality, who actually uses the hero, makes him do things that they really want him to do, and then eventually helps him to overcome that also. Sometimes you know, girl’s parts are only there for adding glamour and songs. But if you remove Deepika from Pathaan, there is no Pathaan. So it was not a conscious decision. Deepika delivered a meaty role. The film was written with this character in mind, and fortunately, Deepika agreed to be a part of it.

You have this rare 100 percent track record and none of your films have tanked at the box office. What’s your secret sauce?
Secret boss. (laughs) I wish I can find it. I don’t want to jinx it by saying this!

I have to ask, is Jim coming back in the future?
Everybody wants him to come back and how can we not bring him back! But let’s see when and what happens. Yeah, so let that suspense remain.

WASHINGTON/ BEIJING: The US military has downed the suspected Chinese spy balloon over the Atlantic Ocean and launched a mission to recover all the equipment from its debris, drawing a strong reaction from China which on Sunday warned of repercussions over America’s use of force against its civilian unmanned airship.
At the direction of President Joe Biden, the US military at 2.39 pm EST on Friday shot down the Chinese surveillance balloon in the Atlantic Ocean, some six miles (9.65 kms) away from the US shores in South Carolina, with no damage to the life and properties of Americans, a senior defence official told reporters in Washington.
Fighter aircraft from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia inspired a single missile into the balloon, causing it to crash into the ocean within the US territorial airspace, said the official, adding that as of now there are no indications that any people including US military personnel, civilian aircraft or maritime vessels were harmed in any way.

“I told them to shoot it down,” Biden told reporters in Hagerstown, Maryland.
“On Wednesday, when I was briefed on the balloon, I ordered the Pentagon to shoot it down as soon as possible. They decided — without doing damage to anyone on the ground — the best time to do that was as it got over water, outside within the 12-mile limit,” Biden said.
Responding to the downing of the balloon, China expressed strong dissatisfaction and opposition towards the US use of force to attack China’s civilian unmanned airship, state-run Xinhua news agency cited a statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry as saying on Sunday.

“The US insisting on the use of force is an obvious overreaction and a serious violation of international practice. China will resolutely uphold the relevant company’s legitimate rights and interests, at the same time, reserving the right to take further actions in response,” said the Foreign Ministry statement in Beijing.
The Chinese side has, after verification, repeatedly informed the US side of the civilian nature of the airship and conveyed that its entry into the United States due to force majeure was totally unexpected, the statement said, noting the Chinese side has clearly asked the US side to properly handle the matter in a calm, professional and restrained manner.

Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said that at the direction of President Biden, fighter aircraft assigned to US Northern Command successfully brought down the high-altitude surveillance balloon launched by and belonging to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) over the water off the coast of South Carolina in US airspace.
“The balloon, which was being used by the PRC in an attempt to surveil strategic sites in the continental United States, was brought down above US territorial waters,” Austin said.
China has claimed that the balloon was merely a weather research “airship” that had been blown off course.
This action of downing the balloon of the size of three buses was taken in coordination, and with the full support, of the Canadian government. Defence officials told US media the debris landed in 14m of water – shallower than they had expected – near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
The military is now trying to recover debris which is spread over seven miles (11 km).
The Pentagon official told reporters that they took immediate steps to protect against the balloon’s collection of sensitive information mitigating its intelligence value to China.
By shooting down the balloon, it addressed the surveillance threat posed to military installations and further neutralise any intelligence value it could have produced, preventing it from returning to China.

“In addition, shooting the balloon down could enable the US to recover sensitive PRC equipment. While we took all necessary steps to protect against the PRC surveillance balloon collection of sensitive information of the surveillance balloons overflight of US territory, which was of intelligence value to us,” the official said without divulging much of the information.
“I can’t go into more detail, but we were able to study and scrutinise the balloon and its equipment, which has been valuable. The Chinese officials have themselves acknowledged the high-altitude surveillance balloon which has been useful to the People’s Republic of China,” said the official.
Now that the balloon has been shot down, the focus has shifted to the recovery mission, which is already underway.
Multiple vessels are on the spot along with the divers, to go down if needed. The US has also deployed unmanned vessels that can go down to get the structure and lift it back up on the recovery ship, said the official. FBI officials are also on board as well as other counterintelligence authorities to categorise and assess the platform itself.
According to the second senior defence official, the Pentagon has been tracking this high-altitude balloon for some time. It entered Alaska on January 28. It then entered into Canadian airspace on January 30 and re-entered US airspace over Northern Idaho on January 31.
“With confidence, the high-altitude balloon was a PRC surveillance balloon. We assessed that it did not pose a threat at any time to civilian air traffic and because of the altitude of the balloons. We also assess it did not pose a military or kinetic threat to US people or property on the ground, although we were constantly updating both of those assessments and prepared to take it out if that threat profile changed,” said the official.
The Chinese authorities have denied it is a spying aircraft, and instead said it was a weather ship blown astray.

“We’re also looking at the intel value of the balloon throughout. We are going to learn more as we pick up the debris that was not likely to provide significant added value over and above other PRC intel capabilities such as satellites in low Earth orbit, for example,” said the official.
But nevertheless, this balloon was clearly crossing over sensitive sites, including sensitive military sites. As such, the Pentagon took additional precautions to make sure that whatever added intelligence value was minimised.
Through constant monitoring and surveillance, the US has learned technical things about this balloon and its surveillance capabilities. “I suspect if we are successful in recovering aspects of the debris we will learn even more,” said the official.
President Biden had been under pressure to shoot the balloon down since defence officials first announced they were tracking it on Thursday. After the balloon was shot down, Biden said: “They successfully took it down, and I want to compliment our aviators who did it.”
Senator Jack Reed, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that Biden made the right decision to shoot down this alleged Chinese spy balloon out of range of American civilians and infrastructure. US First Lady Jill Biden described it as a moment of pride.
“I mean, I felt such a sense of pride about the effort and that our military, you know, shot down the balloon, how coordinated it was, how thoughtful it was, that it was decided to wait until it was over water so that civilians weren’t affected,” she said.
One senior military official told CNN the recovery of debris from the balloon should be “fairly easy” and could take a “relatively short time”. The official added that “capable Navy divers” could be deployed to assist in the operation.
China has a fleet of these types of surveillance balloons, according to another senior defence official, including the one that was spotted flying over Venezuela and Colombia this week.

“These balloons are all part of a (People’s Republic of China) fleet of balloons developed to conduct surveillance operations, which have also violated the sovereignty of other countries. These kinds of activities are often undertaken at the direction of the People’s Liberation Army or PLA,” ABC news quoted the official as saying.
“Over the past several years, Chinese balloons have previously been spotted over countries across five continents, including in East Asia, South Asia and Europe.”
The incident added new tension to the US-China relationship. The Pentagon called it an “unacceptable violation” of US sovereignty.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Beijing it was “an irresponsible act”, He also postponed his trip to China on February 5-6.
But China sought to play down the cancellation of his visit, saying in a statement on Saturday that neither side had formally announced a plan for a trip.