THE ECONOMIC TIMES

MELBOURNE: India bribed 72 Commonwealth countries $100,000 each to get the hosting rights for the scandal-hit 19th edition of the Games which will start in Delhi from October 3-14, a media report claimed here on Thursday.

A report in the Daily Telegraph claimed that Delhi pipped Hamilton in the bid after offering huge sums of money to the 72 Commonwealth countries during the final presentation in Jamaica.

The report also said that Australia received a kickback of $125,000 from India.

"Delhi sealed the right to host the Games when their delegates emerged at the final presentation in Jamaica and offered all 72 nations $100,000 (then about $140,000) each for athlete training schemes if they were the successful bidders," the newspaper reported.

"The money, subsequently paid to all nations, was not significant to Australia because it had already decided to vote for India and the payment was not an exceptionally large one.

"But for small nations who have minimal interest in the Games, it clinched their vote and India went on to beat Canadian city Hamilton 46-22 in the final poll. Hamilton had offered the nations about $70,000 each," it said.

JAKARTA: A tiger attacked and killed an Indonesian man as he worked on a palm oil plantation, one of the crops blamed for stripping the big cats' habitat, an official said Thursday.

The Sumatran tiger severely mauled the 35-year-old man Tuesday in Bengkalis district of Riau province, local conservation agency head Danis Woro said.

"He was working on his palm oil plantation when a tiger suddenly appeared and attacked him," he told AFP.

The tiger devoured some of the man's organs before it was driven away the following morning, media reports said.

Human-animal conflicts are a growing problem in the archipelago, as forests are destroyed for timber or to make way for crops like palm oil, forcing animals such as tigers and elephants into closer contact with people.

There are fewer than 400 Sumatran tigers left in the wild, according to the environmental group WWF.

Last month a Sumatran tiger killed an 18-year-old rubber plantation worker, also in Riau province on Sumatra island.

NEW DELHI: ICICI Investment Management, a subsidiary of ICICI Bank, has raised $ 50 mn (about Rs 225 crore) for its Emerging India Fund, a private equity player that is looking at total size of $ 100 mn.

The rupee equivalent of $ 50 mn has been raised from domestic investors as part of the fund's first closure, the bank said in a statement.

The fund seeks to invest in growth capital of mid market and emerging corporates primarily through equity and equity-linked instruments. It will invest across sectors including segments related to services, consumption and infrastructure development.

The investors to the fund are mostly domestic institutional and corporate investors.

It is targeting a final closure at $ 100 mn rupee equivalent and is in discussions with various institutional investors, the bank said.

The fund will primarily focus on investments in the sub $ 10 mn segment, it added.