For several years the government in India have maintained a good relation with Palestine, but never before, have they shook hands on a football pitch. That much-awaited first time will be at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium here when India host Palestine in an international friendly on Wednesday.

IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla on Sunday said that the BCCI was not against Pakistan players as yet another IPL auction went away without the involvement of the neighbours.

It was a rollercoaster ride for the Sensex on Monday as it plunged nearly 500 points on opening as a knee-jerk reaction to Standard & Poor’s downgrade of America’s triple-A rating by a notch (to AA+)

Amid signs of the Telangana agitation turning more serious in the coming days, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi grappled with the separate statehood issue on Friday evening.