AR Rahman wins two Grammy Awards!

One year after 'Slumdog Millionaire' hit theatres and created a frenzy at the Oscars the buzz still hasn't died - music maestro AR Rahman has won two Grammy Awards for his work in the film.

Rahman won the first Grammy of the pre-show at the Staples Center in the 'best compilation soundtrack for a motion picture' category before his track "Jai Ho" won in the 'best motion picture song' category just moments later. "This is insane, god is great again," Rahman said as he accepted his second award before a VIP audience.

Rahman beat the likes of Bruce Springsteen for his title song for "The Wrestler", Steve Jordan for his song 'Once in a Lifetime' from "Cadillac Records," Quentin Tarantino for "Inglourious Basterds", and the producers of "Twilight" for the song 'Decode', the producers of "True Blood" and the song 'The Client' from 'Hannah Montana: The Movie'.

Full report of the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards to follow.

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Mayawati ridicules Pawar over Price Rise

Lashing out at Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar for the recent rise in food prices, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Thursday said wrong policies of the Central Government had helped "blackmarketeers and hoarders".

"The government is working under pressure of black-marketeers. Prices are rising due to the anti-poor policies of the Central Government," Mayawati told reporters. Pawar's policies helped sugar mill owners, she alleged, and added that the sugar prices were sky-rocketing because of wrong policies of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Central Government.

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief had come under attack from Pawar on Wednesday for the Uttar Pradesh government's sugar policy, which Pawar said had led to a shortage. On Wednesday, Sharad Pawar had stated that soaring prices of essential commodities will start coming down in 8-10 days, adding that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had called a meeting of the chief ministers in New Delhi on January 27 to discuss the issue. "With the measures we have taken, the prices of essential commodities are expected to start coming down in eight to 10 days," he told reporters after a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Prices chaired by Manmohan Singh.

Pawar had said the Prime Minister would also discuss the implementation of the Essential Commodities Act with the chief ministers. Pawar had also stated that state governments were not lifting the wheat and rice stocks made available to them by the Central Government. (ANI)

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Andrew Flintoff out of Indian Premier League

Andrew Flintoff has been ruled out of this year's Indian Premier League (IPL) after another operation on his troublesome knee that is expected to sideline him for about six months.

The Lancashire all-rounder has been out of action since undergoing a micro-fracture operation on his right knee after retiring from Tests having helped England regain the Ashes last year. After an arthroscopy operation this week, the 32-year-old will not now be fit to play for the Chennai Super Kings in the IPL, which runs from March 12 to April 25.

"It is disappointing not to be able to play for Chennai, who have been very supportive throughout my time with them, but I took this decision because I love playing cricket and want to give myself the best chance of extending my career," he said.

Flintoff rejected a central contract from the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in September but said he intended to carry on playing One-Day Internationals and Twenty20s. The operation means he will also be unavailable for the Twenty20 World Cup in West Indies from April 30 to May 16. Once he recovers from surgery, however, Flintoff said he now wants to play all forms of the game for his county.

"My goals have changed since last summer," Flintoff told Lancashire's website. "I trust the surgeon, Andy Williams, implicitly and he is very pleased with the progress of the micro-fracture operation. "When I first had the operation I did not think I would be able to play anything other than One-day cricket, but the news of my recovery has led me to believe I may play in all forms of cricket for Lancashire.

"First and foremost I have to prove to myself that I can regain my fitness and perform for Lancashire," he added. "My first love remains playing for Lancashire and I want to help them win trophies and hopefully I can help achieve that later this summer." Flintoff is confident he will eventually return to action with England as well as Lancashire. "I have worked extremely hard over the last few months to get to this position and realise there is a lot more hard work in front of me if I want to return and play international cricket again," said Flintoff.

"But if I am going to go through another six months of hard rehabilitation and training for long hours, I need a big incentive to be the driving force of that and playing for Lancashire and England again will become that", he added. (ANI)

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Suresh Raina and Virat Kohli rise in ODI rankings

India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni continued to top the ICC Player Rankings for ODI batsmen, while young guns Suresh Raina and Virat Kohli made big strides in the chart because of the their stellar performances in the just-concluded tri-series in Bangladesh.

Left-handed Raina has vaulted 10 places to sit in 20th position after scoring 210 runs in the series. He is now one of six India batsmen inside the top 20. The other Indian batters to feature in top 20 include Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar in eighth place (down by four places), Virender Sehwag in ninth (up by one place), Yuvraj Singh in 12th (down by three places) and Gautam Gambhir in 19th. Kohli, who was the leading run-getter with 275 runs, including 102 not out against Bangladesh, Kohli has rocketed 26 places and is now just outside the top 20 in the 21st spot.

Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara has returned to the top 10 in the batsmen chart after his impressive showing in tri-nation series in Bangladesh, which his side won. Sangakkara not only won the player of the series award for his scores of 74, 60, 17 not out, 68 and 55 but has also been rewarded with a jump of six places in the latest rankings which puts him in 10th position for the first time since February 2009.

The left-hander has now become Sri Lanka's highest-ranked batsman, leapfrogging opener Tillakaratne Dilshan who has also climbed two places to achieve his career-best ranking of 13th. Meanwhile, off-spinner Harbhajan Singh (6th) is the lone Indian to feature in the top 10 in ODI bowlers list, which is being headed by New Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori. In the ICC Player Rankings for ODI all-rounders, Yuvraj Singh has achieved a career-best third position by virtue of his Yuvraj four wickets and 96 that he scored in the tri-series in Bangladesh. (ANI)

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