Manu Bhaker-Saurabh Chaudhary pair smashes world record for mixed team gold at Asian Championship
New Delhi: Teenage Indian shooting stars Manu Bhaker and Saurabh Chaudhary smashed the qualification world record before clinching the 10m air pistol mixed team gold in the 12th Asian Airgun Championship in Taoyuan, Taipei on Wednesday.
Their feat came exactly a month after they won the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup stage gold in the same event in Delhi.
The 17-year-old Manu and 16-year-old Saurabh shot a combined score of 784 in the qualification round, breaking the record set by Russians Vitalina Batsarashkina and Artem Chernousov at the European Championships five days ago.
The Indians then went on to win the five-team final with a score of 484.8.
Hwang Seongeun and Kim Mose of Korea won the silver with a score of 481.1 while Wu Chia Ying and Kou Kuan-Ting claimed the bronze for the host country with a score of 413.3.
A second Indian team comprising of Anuradha and Abhishek Verma also reached the finals and finished fourth with a score of 372.1, the National Rifle association of India (NRAI) said in a statement here.
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India-bound LPG tanker clears Hormuz
New Delhi (PTI): A tanker carrying liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for India has sailed out of the Strait of Hormuz and is now headed towards the country, an official statement said on Sunday.
The Marshall Islands-flagged LPG carrier MT Sarv Shakti, loaded with 46,313 tonnes of LPG and staffed by 20 crew, including 18 Indians, cleared the key shipping chokepoint on May 2 and is expected to reach Visakhapatnam on May 13, it said.
The cargo -- enough to meet half a days requirement of the country -- will partly tide over supply constraints being faced since the start of the West Asia conflict more than two months back.
Ship-tracking data showed its position in Oman Gulf on Sunday evening.
The very large gas carrier has previously made runs between the Persian Gulf and Indian ports, has been chartered by state-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC).
Sarv Shakti is the first India-linked tanker to cross the war zone since a weeks-old US blockade of ships tied to Iran began, pushing transits through Hormuz back down to almost zero.
There are as many as 14 Indian flagged or India-owned vessels still stranded on the west side of the Strait of Hormuz.
The statement said no incident involving Indian-flagged vessels has been reported in the past 24 hours. The Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways is working closely with the Ministry of External Affairs, Indian missions and maritime stakeholders to ensure crew welfare and uninterrupted operations.
The Directorate General of Shipping (DG Shipping) control room has handled 8,373 calls and more than 17,965 emails since activation, including 38 calls and 127 emails in the last 24 hours.
India has also facilitated the repatriation of more than 2,953 seafarers so far, including 31 in the past day from across the Gulf region.
Port operations across the country remain normal with no congestion reported, the statement added.
