Sharapova named in India luxury housing fraud probe

Agencies
November 21, 2017

New Delhi, Nov 21: Five-time Grand Slam champion Maria Sharapova is under investigation by Indian police for cheating and criminal conspiracy after the collapse of a luxury housing project that she endorsed, a lawyer said Tuesday.

The firm behind the development is alleged to have taken millions of dollars from homebuyers before the project folded.

Piyush Singh, a lawyer representing one of the buyers, told AFP that police had filed initial charges of cheating and criminal conspiracy against Sharapova as part of a wider case against the firm Homestead Infrastructure Development.

The 30-year-old tennis star travelled to India in 2012 to launch the luxury high-rise apartment complex -- named Ballet by Sharapova -- which prospective buyers were told would house a tennis academy, a clubhouse and a helipad.

The website of the project quotes Sharapova as saying her goal was to "make the owners feel like they own something special and different".

"Any celebrity who endorses any product technically becomes an agent for that company. No one would have invested in the project if Sharapova's name was not there," said Singh.

The project in Gurgaon -- a satellite city of the capital New Delhi -- was supposed to be ready in 2016 but, Singh said, construction work was abandoned after builders collected millions from homebuyers.

Police were not immediately available for comment on the case, which is being heard in a Delhi court.

Calls to the developers also went unanswered. Sharapova has not commented on the case.

The former world number one made almost $30 million in 2015, according to Forbes, with $23 million of that coming from endorsements like the project in Gurgaon.

She has had a stop-start season since her controversial return to the game in April, following a 15-month doping ban.

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News Network
June 15,2020

New Delhi, Jun 15: On Monday, petrol and diesel prices across the country were raised for the ninth consecutive day by 48 paise and 59 paise, respectively.

Petrol price per litre was raised to Rs 76.26 in New Delhi, Rs 83.17 in Mumbai, Rs 79.96 in Chennai, Rs 79.17 in Hyderabad, Rs 78.73 in Bengaluru and Rs 78.10 in Kolkata.

Diesel price per litre was hiked to Rs 74.62 in New Delhi, Rs 73.21 in Mumbai, Rs 72.69 in Chennai, Rs 72.93 in Hyderabad, Rs 70.95 in Bengaluru and Rs 70.33 in Kolkata.

Since 7 June, after ending their 82-day hiatus in daily revision, state-owned oil marketing companies have increased petrol price by Rs 5 per litre and diesel by Rs 5.23 per litre.

These prices are close to levels last seen in October-November 2018 when international oil prices had spiked close to $80 per barrel. In October 2018, petrol price in Mumbai had crossed Rs 90-mark and in Delhi, it was around Rs 83 per litre.

Comparatively, on Monday, Brent crude, the international benchmark for crude oil prices, fell 2.3 percent to $37.84 a barrel over concerns of subdued demand for fuel as new coronavirus infections were reported in China and the US.

The present spike in fuel prices in India could be attributed to the fact that central and state governments, along with oil marketing companies are looking to make up for their loss in revenues due to the lockdown.

Last month, the central government had increased the excise duty on per litre of petrol by Rs 10 and per litre of diesel by Rs 13. Several state governments have also hiked their VAT or cess on fuel in the last month. In fact, now around 70 percent of the retail price of fuel is just some form of tax.

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News Network
June 15,2020

New Delhi, Jun 15: With an increase of 11,502 cases in the past 24 hours, the COVID-19 count in India reached 3,32,424 on Monday, according to the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry.

The spike is marginally lower than the highest-ever spike of 11,929 new cases the country registered a day earlier.

With 325 deaths being reported from across the country, the toll due to COVID-19 has now reached 9,520.

The COVID-19 count includes 1,53,106 active cases while 1,69,798 patients have been cured and discharged or migrated so far.

Maharashtra with 1,07,958 cases continues to be the worst-affected state in the country with 53,030 active cases while 50,978 patients have been cured and discharged in the state so far. 3,950 deaths have been reported due to the infection so far from Maharashtra.

It is followed by Tamil Nadu with 44,661 cases and the national capital with 41,182 confirmed cases.

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Agencies
January 19,2020

Bengaluru, Jan 19: Opening batsman Rohit Sharma on Sunday became the third-fastest batsman to register 9,000 runs in the 50-over format.

He achieved the feat in the ongoing third ODI against Australia here at the M.Chinnaswamy Stadium.

Only Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers have achieved the feat faster than Rohit.

Sharma brought up the milestone in the first over of the Indian innings as he clipped Mitchell Starc away for a single.

With this, the right-handed batsman has become just the sixth Indian to achieve the milestone.

Apart from Sharma, Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, and Sachin Tendulkar have more than 9,000 runs in the 50-over format.

Overall, 20 batsmen have more than 9,000 ODI runs to their name.

In the match between India and Australia, the former won the toss and elected to bat first.

Steve Smith played a knock of 131 runs to propel Australia to 286/9 in the allotted fifty overs.

 

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