The drive to succeed was writ large on East Bengal players’ faces as they scripted history of sorts after securing their maiden berth in the AFC Cup semi-finals, overcoming a spirited Semen Padang playing in front of a vociferous home crowd here on Tuesday.

In an apparent damage-control mode on Tuesday — a day after his explosive utterance that the Army transfers money to ministers in Jammu and Kashmir as part of “stabilising work” in the state — former Army Chief Gen. V.K. Singh (Retd) said the money was not meant to be a “bribe” but was rather meant to win the hearts and minds of people in the state through various welfare activities.

Union law and justice minister Kapil Sibal on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and BJP stating that they had a habit of criticising whatever happened in the country without offering any alternatives.

Grandmaster S.P. Sethuraman was back in the reckoning with a thumping victory over Antonios Pavlidis of Greece in the 10th round of the World Junior Chess Championship at Kocaeli, Turkey.

The Indian cricket board is set to slap life ban on its former IPL chairman Lalit Modi as the Delhi High Court has given go ahead for BCCI’s special general meeting scheduled to be held in the city on Wednesday. Modi, who was at the helm of cash-rich league from 2008 to 2010, is facing charges of financial irregularities.

After 16 months in judicial custody, YSR Congress president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy walked out of Chanchalguda Central Prison on Tuesday evening at 4 pm after getting bail.

In a bid to regain trust of the grassroots level party workers, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday interacted directly with party workers in Nagpur. Mr Gandhi went on to assure them that they were as important for the party as other big leaders.

Top archer Deepika Kumari on Tuesday said that a “few changes” in her shooting technique have begun to show fruitful results in recent times.

Titans collected their first points in the Champions League T20, shutting out a fighting Brisbane Heat by four runs in a low-scoring thriller at the PCA Stadium here on Tuesday.

The Supreme Court will on Friday hear the plea of the Cricket Associ-ation of Bihar seeking to restrain N. Srinivasan from contesting for the post of cricket board president at the BCCI’s annual general meeting on September 29.