New Delhi

India’s one-day series with South Africa in Ireland next month is in doubt following the cancellation of a deal between the Indian cricket board and the broadcast rights holder, a report said on Wednesday. Private broadcaster Zee Television pulled out of the five-year deal they signed with the Board of Control for Cricket in India, the Press Trust of India news agency said.

A wild elephant in India’s eastern state of Orissa has been waylaying motorists who complain that the animal refuses to let their vehicles pass unless they give it food, a media report said on Monday. Witnesses told the Hindustan Times daily that the elephant has been scouting for food on a highway in the northern Keonjhar district.

Former Indian cricketer Maninder Singh has been arrested for possessing 1,5g of cocaine, a police spokesperson said on Wednesday. Singh (41) was arrested at his New Delhi residence after a police raid on Tuesday and would be produced in a city court on Wednesday, the spokesperson said.

There were no positive dope tests at the recent Cricket World Cup in the West Indies, the International Cricket Council (ICC) said on Thursday. A total of 68 players were tested during the 47-day event, which ended on April 28 with Australia clinching an unprecedented third successive title.

Indian MPs demanded protection on Wednesday from hordes of monkeys that have invaded the Parliament building, ministries and departments in the national capital. The debate coincided with court orders on Wednesday to transport captured monkeys from New Delhi to a nearby wildlife sanctuary.

A discotheque with a condom theme is scheduled to open in the northern Indian town of Chandigarh as part of an effort to make young people aware of Aids and the need for safe sex, news reports said on Tuesday. The bar’s interior is decorated with real condoms, and it serves beer in mugs the shape of the prophylactic

India on Monday successfully placed an Italian astronomical satellite into orbit, marking its entry into an exclusive group of nations conducting commercial space launches, officials said. The Indian Space Research Organisation launched the 352kg Italian satellite Agile atop its rocket, the PSLV-C8 from the Sriharikota spaceport.

Sick of the hullabaloo over India’s dismal performance at the Cricket World Cup, a string of villages in the north of the country have banned the game. Elders from 28 villages in Jind district decided enough was enough, the Asian Age reported on Wednesday.

Nepal’s elderly Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala said on Tuesday he had gambled his 60-year political career to strike a deal with Maoist rebels and bring peace to the Himalayan country. The veteran leader’s comments came after former rebels were sworn into a new interim government on Sunday, a major step in a peace process that ended a decade of civil war.

The wife of Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer has dismissed the possibility of a conspiracy behind the death of her husband and rejected suggestions of any match-fixing link. ”I don’t see any conspiracy in his death,” Gill Woolmer told India’s NDTV television in an interview late on Wednesday.

Climate change, pollution, over extraction of water and development are killing some of the world’s most famous rivers including China’s Yangtze, India’s Ganges and Africa’s Nile, conservation group WWF said on Tuesday. The Geneva-based group said many rivers could dry out, affecting hundreds of millions of people and killing unique aquatic life.

More than 1,6-million people are dying every year from the effects of breathing in poisonous smoke from animal dung, wood and coal used for cooking, experts said on Monday. More than three billion people rely on the burning of solid fuels to prepare their meals because they cannot afford cleaner alternatives.

The expensive silverware to be awarded to the winner of the Cricket World Cup in the Caribbean has been damaged while on display in India, organisers said on Friday. A gold ring below the coins depicting previous winners of the sport’s biggest prize got detached from the wooden base of the 11kg trophy.

The 2003 World Cup was not only about Australia’s triumph over adversity, but also about a drug ban, boycotts, protests and some prominent cricketers’ farewell. Australia suffered a setback even before the show had begun when champion leg-spinner Shane Warne was ruled out of the tournament.

West Indies cricketer Marlon Samuels will be allowed to play in next month’s World Cup despite an ongoing probe of his links with an alleged bookmaker, the sport’s governing body said on Wednesday. ”If he is selected by the West Indies, Samuels is free to play in the World Cup,” International Cricket Council (ICC) spokesperson Brian Murgatroyd told reporters.

Anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela joined top leaders, Nobel laureates and elder statesmen in calling on the world to reinvent non-violent approach to solving conflicts.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov questioned on Wednesday the purpose of a United States plan to place an anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic. US officials say the system will protect it and it European allies from missiles that could be fired from North Korea, Iran or other ”rogue regimes”.

The family of Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty hailed on Saturday the eviction of her chief tormentor from Celebrity Big Brother as a triumph of ”good over evil,” amid a furore over racist bullying on the show. ”This vote has shown that goodness always prevails, like in Bollywood films,” a spokesperson for Shetty and her family said.

An Indian court sent a former Test cricketer and MP to prison Thursday for killing a man in a road-rage outburst in 1988, officials said. Navjot Singh Sidhu surrendered before the Punjab and Haryana High Court in line with orders of the Indian Supreme Court and was arrested and sent to prison, court officials from the northern city of Chandigarh said.

A leopard loped into the bathroom of a home in western India, attracting thousands of curious onlookers for hours before it was captured by officials, a report said on Monday. The leopard strolled around a neighbourhood in western Vadodara city for a few hours before settling down in the bathroom of the Sukhadia family, the <i>Times of India</i> said.

India ordered a high-level probe on Wednesday into the discovery of skulls and bones of at least 17 people, many of them children, at a house outside New Delhi, which police say is a gruesome case of serial killing. The remains were dug up last week from the backyard of a house in Noida, an industrial town on the outskirts of the Indian capital.

A two-year-old calf that escaped slaughter at an abattoir in Mumbai for a Muslim festival has been named George, after the American president, a report said on Wednesday. George bolted and ran into a scrap yard where he kept butchers at bay for 20 hours, the <i>Times of India</i> reported.