Cricket:England’s Tour of India Cancelled after Mumbai Blasts

The England team are currently in India, where on Thursday they went 5-0 down in a seven-match one-day series after losing by six wickets in Cuttack.

They were due to return to Mumbai, where their tour began three weeks ago, on December 16 ahead of the second and final Test starting three days later.

England had been scheduled to stay at the Taj Mahal Palace, one of two luxury hotels attacked by bands of gunmen, reportedly looking for foreign targets.

The second of the two Tests was scheduled to be played in Mumbai from December 16 and the visiting team was to stay at the Hotel Taj which was also targeted by terrorists.

Team spokesman Andrew Walpole said the squad would take advice from Britain’’s Foreign Office before deciding whether to proceed with the remainder of the tour. We will be guided by the Foreign Office and will await developments, foxsports.com quoted Walpole as saying.

Meanwhile, Cricket Australia has cancelled plans for Western Australia and Victoria to travel to India for next week’’s Champions Twenty20 League because of the deadly terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

“It is an evolving situation and we are taking security advice from a number of different sources, as we always do,” he said. “We are hoping to take it forward in the very near future and have a further statement later this evening.

“We asked BCCI to consider cancelling the sixth and seventh one-day internationals. We are grateful for their co-operation to that effect.

“I read a report this morning that we had asked to cancel the Test series. I would refute those claims. We did not request the cancellation of the Test series. Whenever England go to play cricket we have security advice and we act on that advice.

“At the moment we are awaiting a further security report. If we are then told that it’s safe to continue with the Test series then that’s what we will do.”

This afternoon, Lalit Modi, the vice-president of the BCCI, said he thought the Test series, which begins in Ahmedabad on December 11, would go ahead despite the attacks although he admitted the second Test in Bombay would be have to be moved.

“The two Test matches are going on, the only issue is that the Mumbai test will be moved,” he said. “In the next hour or so I will try to schedule that in another location. Chances are it will be somewhere in the south of India but we need to see which venues are available.”

Although confusion surrounds any new schedule, Modi does not think the tour will be extended. “That will not be necessary as the Champions League Twenty20 has been postponed so we have an additional 10 days in between,” he added

Earlier, Morris met N Srinivasan, the BCCI secretary, before briefing the players with Reg Dickason, the security officer who travels with the squad. The India team are staying at the same hotel, which is being heavily guarded by armed police outside the main gate. Inside, James Anderson was strumming a guitar, Paul Collingwood was playing table tennis and Owais Shah and Ravi Bopara were competing at pool.

Indian television was still reporting that the tour has been cancelled even after the ECB said that they will remain here for a further day. With the second Test in Mumbai – and the team due to stay at the Taj Palace Hotel targeted by the terrorists – there will have to be, at the very least, a change to the itinerary.

The Professional Cricketers’ Association today insisted the wellbeing of the players was paramount.

“The safety of the players is absolutely paramount in this whole thing,” Dougie Brown, cricket chairman of the PCA, said. “The game of cricket is insignificant when people’s lives are at threat.

“We can only judge if someone’s life is at threat from what we are seeing and it is not a safe place for visiting cricketing teams to be at the moment. “Is this just going to be in Mumbai? Who knows? The main thing is we have to look after the security of our players.

“Can the safety of our players be guaranteed? On the basis of what we have seen in the last few hours, no.”

England have their own security experts as part of their entourage but Brown hinted concern among the squad for their own safety would be inevitable.

“We are just cricketers and simply get told what to do,” Brown added. “But the England players will be meeting and talking amongst themselves. I can guess as to what they are thinking about now.

“You can’t be locked in a room in India for six weeks and, as we have seen, being locked in a hotel room might not necessarily be safe anyway.”

At least 100 people have been killed in coordinated attacks by Islamist militants in India’s commercial capital of Bombay.

Eyewitness Accounts: ‘We Were Ready to Die’

Again, there are Terrorists, who have misinterpreted the Koran.
We kill babies, but are against it when those that made it, are killed. No difference. You abortionists have reduced the dignity of life down to the point now where your own life is now meaningless.
The Democrats nary mentioned once, inherent Muslim terrorism, during the campaign. Well here it is again. Live and well and no further than the corner Mosque.
Maybe life will begin to take on renewed meaning for the Democrats that just voted in effect a Terrorist.

Amrita Jhaveri, a jewelry consultant from Mumbai who lives in London, was having dinner last night at the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower’s Wasabi Restaurant with her British husband when they heard gunfire. Hotel staff led the guests from the restaurant down a corridor, through the kitchen into the private club called “Chambers.” Guests from other restaurants at the hotel were also brought to the Chambers.

The staff turned the lights off urged everyone to stay calm and quiet and turn off their mobile phones because terrorists were in a gun battle in the room next door, the dining room of the Chambers club. About 200 people were gathered.

“We were expecting the worst,” Ms. Jhaveri said. “We knew the hotel was on fire, we knew there were terrorists next door. We knew they might storm the room any second, the fire might engulf us, an explosive might go off. It seemed too many things were stacked against us. We were ready to die.”

One man died in the room, apparently of an aneurism. There were many westerners in the room and groups of Indians at the hotel for weddings in the family. The hotel pianist was there.

At about 4 a.m., the hotel staff tried to lead the group outside the hotel. But no sooner did the group begin to head down a corridor than gunshots rang out and the guests fell over one another in fright, dashing back into the room. “We had no idea if we’d be there for one day or five days,” she said. “The uncertainty was terrifying.”

Ms. Jhaveri worried the terrorists would storm in and pick her British husband out of the crowd. “We decided we wouldn’t be separated. It didn’t matter if we had to die, we wanted to be with one another,” she said.

With the bathrooms overflowing, she and others tried to find places to relieve themselves — peeing in glasses behind the bar.

When she was finally led outside the hotel at 9 a.m. into awaiting buses, she heard guns fired from overhead.

“It was a very long, very hairy night,” she said.

—Geeta Anand

Hospital In Chaos

Peter Keep, a Mumbai –based entrepreneur, went to a local Mumbai hospital to help a friend who had been shot in the attacks. He counted more than 40 dead bodies and an equal number of Injured, including foreigners.

“It was just chaos with doctors and nurses running around and lots of blood everywhere,” he said. “There was a British national who had just arrived here with plans to wander around India and he had two or three gunshot wounds in his chest.”

After returning to his home a block from the Taj Mahal Hotel and Café Leopold’s, both of which were attacked, he heard explosions and gunshots throughout the night. From the roof of his home, he watched the Taj burn as a fire threatened to engulf the towering red dome that is one of the most recognizable landmarks of Mumbai.

“It’s familiar, it’s iconic and even if it represents nothing more than a beautiful old building to see it ablaze like that is just shocking,” Mr. Keep said.

Thursday morning he watched as they started bringing bodies out of the hotel. “The authorities have been bringing out a load of bodies. About one dozen ambulances have come and they have been reversing them into the entrance,” he said.

—Eric Bellman

 

Blood at Café Leopold

Farhang  Jehani is the owner of Café Leopold’s a favourite hang out for backpackers and other travelers behind the Taj Mahal hotel. It is always packed with mostly foreign nationals enjoying its inexpensive food and beer as well as its open view to the bustling street life of Colaba Causeway.

Between 9:30 and 9:45 p.m. Wednesday night, two gunmen who appeared to be in their mid 20s pull out machine guns and opened fire on the restaurant full of evening dinners.  The crowd scattered but more than 10 people were shot, he said. “It is still just like it was left,” Mr. Jehani said later. “There is blood all over and not one table is standing. They are all upside down.”

The gunmen moved on after shooting and the injured were stuffed into private cars and Mumbai’s trademark tiny yellow and black taxis. The police didn’t show up for 20 minutes. “We used whatever vehicle was available,” Mr. Jehani said.

The street however had become a big quiet traffic jam as everyone, after hearing the gunshots on the busy street, had just left their cars and ran.

“The street was deserted, it was totally empty as people just stopped, got out of their cars and ran away from the commotion,” Mr. Jehani said.

—Eric Bellman

 

Sushi Chef at Taj Mahal Hotel

As many as 40 people remained hostage in the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel & Resort in Mumbai on Thursday after Wednesday night’s terrorist attacks. Noriyuki Kanda, sushi chef at the Wasabi restaurant in the Taj Mahal, who managed to escape after more than 12 hours holed up in the hotel, spoke on the telephone on his experience during and after the assault.

Mr. Kanda was making sushi at the fine nouveau Japanese restaurant on the second floor of the Taj. The small restaurant with stunning views of the Arabian Sea is a favorite of company executives and Bollywood stars when there were some explosions.

“I was working and we heard a lot of noise, I had only heard gunfire on television before so we weren’t sure what it was. Then we heard rapid fire like a machine gun and people rushed in from the bar downstairs and said that four men were shooting people in the lobby.”

Mr. Kanda and the rest of the staff led the customers through the kitchen and the back hallways for employees, some of which were filled with smoke. Some went back to their rooms and some tried to find the exit.

Mr. Kanda was holed up in his room for hours, keeping tabs on the situation through his cell phone because the telephones and television were cut off. In the morning the power was cut off and he heard explosions again.

Through his network of other employees around the building he heard that a group of hostages were taken to the Taj club (a members only area where the rich eat and drink) and then there was an explosion there. He heard that the lobby is covered in blood. He also heard that there was an explosion at the employees rear exit.

Mr. Kanda managed to escape shortly before 2 pm local time. He said he saw a few bodies and so much blood in the lobby that disinfectant had been put down.

Terrorists blast Mumbai crowds in coordinated attack at 9 places;MORE than 80 people are dead

 

MORE than 80 people are dead after terrorists used grenades and automatic weapons to attack crowds at hotels, a restaurant and train station in Mumbai, India.

 

The Chief Minister of Maharashtra state said the situation was not yet contained as commando units attempted to wrest back control of two luxury hotels, where scores of westerners are believed to being held hostage.

Parts of Mumbai remained under siege, with police and gunmen exchanging gunfire at the Taj Mahal and Oberoi Trident hotels.

Firefighters prepare to rescue employees and guests of the Taj Mahal hotel, site of one of the shootouts with terrorists early Thursday.

“The situation is still not under control and we are trying to flush out any more terrorists hiding inside the two hotels,” said Vilasrao Deshmukh.

Gunfire and explosions were heard at the landmark Taj Mahal hotel and thick plumes of smoke rose from the building, witnesses said.

There were also explosions at the Oberoi hotel and firing at a hospital where gunmen were surrounded.

“The terrorists are throwing grenades at us from the rooftop of the Taj and trying to stop us from moving in,” police Inspector Ashok Patil said.

Police said at least 250 people were wounded in the attacks, but some reports say up to 900 were hurt in the coordinated attacks, which also targeted a railway station, hospitals, the main railway station and airport.

Cafe Leopold, perhaps the most famous restaurant and hang-out for tourists in the city, also faced a series of blasts.

An organisation calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen said it was behind the attacks, television channels said. The previously little known group sent an email to news organisations claiming responsibility.

 

In Washington, the White House and US President-elect Barack Obama condemned the attacks, as did France, current president of the European Union, and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Early unconfirmed reports suggest the disaster has brought the financial capital’s stock exchange to a standstill.

Teams of heavily-armed men launched coordinated attacks overnight that survivors said were aimed at killing Westerners.

Officials now say 86 people have been killed, and at least 120 wounded, with scores of Western hostages still being held.

A previously unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the attacks in emails to several media outlets.

AP SSC 2009 Advanced supplementary Time Table/AP SSC 2009 results /AP 10th class results

Board of Secondary Education – Andhra Pradesh(APBSE) has released out SSC results/X results for year 2009March(Regular & Private).

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SSC EXAMS – 2009 TIME TABLE (Temporary) announced now.

Date Subject

23-03-09           First Language Paper I

24-03-09           First Language Paper II

25-03-09           Second Language

26-03-09           English Paper – I

28-03-09           English Paper – II

30-03-09           Maths Paper I

31-03-09           Maths Paper II

01-04-09           Science Paper I

02-04-09           Science Paper II

04-04-09           Social Paper I

06-04-09           Social Paper II

07-04-09           OSSC Main Language Paper(Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian)

08-04-09          SSC Vocational Course Exam

Totally 13,58,916 students are attending SSC Examination this year.

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Supplementary exams will be held in June 2nd week of 2009.