Indian news round-up

Former Indian skipper Mohd. Azharuddin who has been banned by the BCCI informed his employers - State Bank of India that he was sick and would not be able to report for duty. The Bank had asked Azharuddin to rejoin duty nearly two weeks ago.

Speaking to reporters on Friday in Hyderabad, the SBI Chairman, Janki Ballabh said "it was a routine administrative affair to issue a notice to players, not in the national or regional squad to report for duty and we had done the same."

On the issue of the any action against the former Indian skipper who has been indicted in the CBI report on match-fixing, Ballabh said that it would be taken once "we receive any communication from any competent authority," and added "we have received no such direction from any competent authority. He continues to be our employee and unless we receive any communication from any competent authority, our service rules do not authorise us to take any action."

As a follow up of the earlier raids on the Doordarshan officials in connection with the alleged bunglings in the telecast rights for the cricket matches, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday morning raided the premises of the Central Production Centre of the National channel.

A Press Trust of India (PTI) report said that the investigators attached to the Delhi branch of CBI's Anti-Corruption Unit raided the Central Production Centre and have seized some documents pertaining to the telecast of sports programmes.

On November 13, the CBI had raided nearly 25 premises in connection with the alleged bunglings in the grant of telecast rights. The investigating agency has also registered five criminal cases against KS Sarma, the then Director General of Doordarshan, former Deputy Director General (Sports) K Kunhikrishnan, DDG (Commercial and Sales) Rakesh Bhadur, DDG (Finance) PK Seth, Director (Finance) Sanjeev Dutta and Controller (Sales) Anurag Mishra.

The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate of Calcutta, SK Neogy on Friday deferred the hearing of the defamation suit filed by former ICC president Jagmohan Dalmiya against the former financial expert of Prasar Bharti, Arun Agarwal, till March 21.

The Chief Magistrate attached to the Calcutta court adjourned the case following a plea from Dalmiya that he was unable to be present before the court since he would be out of town.

Dalmiya had filed the defamation suit againt Agarwal after the former accused Dalmiya of allegedly defrauding Doordarshan of US Dollars four million while awarding TV rights for the ICC KnockOut in Dhaka.

Indian star batsman Sachin Tendulkar on Friday was voted the Castrol Cricketer of the Year in a glittering function at the Cricket Club of India lawns amidst the presence of some of the great Mumbai cricketers. New find Yuvraj Singh was named the Castrol junior cricketer of the year.

Speaking on the occasion, Tendulkar said "I am very happy to receive this award for the second time. I think that one can not be successful without support from the other ten guys in the team." Sachin was chosen among the five finalists shortlisted on the basis of their performance in batting, bowling as well as fielding. The other finalists were Indian captain Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble and Javagal Srinath.

The current members of the Mumbai Ranji Trophy team, which has won the national title for a record 34 times, were also felicitated along with their coach Ashok Mankad. Polly Umrigar, Bapu Nadkarni, GS Ramchand, Eknath Solkar, Dilip Vengsarkar and Sunil Gavaskar were among those present at the function.