‘Dust And Glory': Jannik Sinner releases first duet with Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli
Titled 'Polvere e Gloria', translated as Dust And Glory, the song has the 23-year-old Sinner repeat sequences of his winning and losing speeches, which he recorded at Bocelli's studio in Tuscany. The visuals of the track include scenes from the recording session at Bocelli's as well as archival images from the duo's childhoods.
Comprising both Italian and English lyrics, the song is being described as a 'musical dialogue between two Italian icons', mixing storytelling and the tenor's opera.
'I am very happy and honoured to be part of this project with Andrea, who for 30 years has been a unique and extraordinary voice, a flag for our country in the rest of the world,' Sinner said.
'I could never have imagined hearing my voice in one of his songs. It's extremely moving,' he added of the song that exhibits the distinct journeys of the two Italians to the top of their respective professions.
Blind since a football incident when he was 12, the 66-year-old Bocelli has forayed into sport before.
For former England striker Gary Lineker's final Match of the Day show on the BBC in May, Bocelli recorded a special goodbye message and sang 'Con Te Partiro' to close the show. Additionally, he stood with former Leicester City manager Claudio Ranieri at the King Power Stadium, performing 'Nessun Dorma' as the Foxes celebrated their 2015/16 Premier League title win.
Meanwhile, Sinner is coming off a shock R16 defeat to Kazakhstan's Alexander Bublik at the Halle Open, the grass-court event where he was the reigning champion. Sinner, who lost to Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz in an epic French Open final earlier this month, said the early defeat offered him a good chance to rest and reset for Wimbledon, beginning June 30.
'I have to accept what happened. I'm now going to have a few days rest before Wimbledon, which are going to do me good' said Sinner.
'Honestly a little break is going to do me good,' the 23-year-old told Sky Italia.
'I came here (to Halle), I gave it my all after the Roland Garros defeat, it wasn't easy,' he added.
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The Hindu
25 minutes ago
- The Hindu
Telangana's surrogacy scam: The business of selling babies
The Secunderabad railway station in Telangana is a noisy transit hub. Thousands of people enter and exit the concourse every day. Ad jingles in Hindi, Telugu, English, and Bengali, about the various medical procedures offered by hospitals across the city, blare over the din. Billboards outside the station feature smiling couples with babies. The city, along with Hyderabad, is a significant hub for medical tourism in India. In August 2024, after having done some research, Sonam Singh and her husband Akshay travelled to Secunderabad from Kuharwas village near Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan for an in vitro fertilisation (IVF) procedure. They rented a house near the railway station and began searching on the Internet for hospitals nearby. Near the railway station, they found the Universal Srushti Fertility Centre, which promised them an 85% success rate for an IVF procedure. The hopeful couple met the owner, Pachipala Namratha aka Athaluri Namratha, 64. 'The test results showed that we were medically fit to conceive,' says Sonam, speaking over the phone from Kuharwas. 'But the doctor insisted that we opt for surrogacy. She told us that it was safer and more reliable. She also assured us that the clinic would use our sperm and egg, and also handle all the paperwork and legalities.' While an IVF procedure can cost anywhere between ₹2 lakh and ₹6 lakh per cycle, Namratha told the couple that surrogacy would cost them ₹30 lakh. She asked Sonam and Akshay to transfer half the amount through their bank account and pay the remaining in cash, supposedly for the surrogate. Convinced, the couple made their first payment on August 16, 2024. According to the First Information Report filed by Akshay, Namratha also promised the couple that 'a healthy child [would be] delivered... after DNA confirmation.' Nearly a year later, on June 5, Sonam and Akshay were handed a baby at Lotus Hospital in Visakhapatnam. However, the couple grew suspicious when Namratha's clinic refused to perform the DNA test. They took the infant to the DNA Forensics Laboratory in Vasant Kunj, Delhi. To their shock, the results showed that the baby was not theirs. When they returned to Secunderabad to confront Namratha, she had disappeared. Sonam and Akshay approached the Gopalpuram police in Secunderabad, which investigated the matter and uncovered a baby-selling racket. The police booked Namratha under Sections 61, 316, 335, 336, and 340 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Act, 2023, which deal with criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust by carriers, forgery of documents, and related offences. They also booked her under Sections 38, 39, and 40 of the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021, which deal with prohibitions, punishments, and penalties related to surrogacy practices. Sourcing surrogates According to the Gopalapuram police, Universal Srushti Fertility Centre has cheated at least 15 couples. Promising these couples a baby through surrogacy, it has charged them between ₹20 lakh and ₹30 lakh each, and handed them babies not related to them. It has also furnished falsified documents, say the police. An investigation has revealed that the clinic paid commissions to smaller centres for referrals of potential surrogate mothers and women who wanted to undergo abortions, forged medical reports, and operated without proper licensing. According to the police, an agent called Dhanasri Santoshi struck a deal between a couple from Assam and the clinic. They say the Assamese couple's baby was given to the couple from Rajasthan. The police have arrested the couple from Assam on charges of selling their baby. 'Instead of getting ₹15 lakh, the couple from Assam got ₹90,000 for selling their baby,' says a police officer. The baby has been moved to foster care at Shishu Vihar, a childcare centre under the Women and Child Welfare Department. The police add that they have discovered a disturbing pattern in how surrogates are sourced. The sealed medical facility in Secunderabad is surrounded by lodges and bed-and-breakfast rooms. These lodging facilities were used to house women. A police officer says, 'The agents would approach vulnerable women, particularly those seeking abortions, and offer them money to continue their pregnancy so that they could take the baby later. These newborns would then be passed off as children conceived through surrogacy. This is how people were misled into believing that the babies were biologically theirs.' In at least four known cases in Telangana, women were not paid at all and completely abandoned post-delivery, the officer adds. On November 26, 2024, a woman engaged as a surrogate by a couple died after falling from the ninth floor of a building in Raidurgam in the western part of Hyderabad. According to the police, the victim and her husband, both natives of Odisha, were given accommodation by Rajesh Babu and his wife at their residence. When Rajesh allegedly tried to sexually assault the 26-year-old woman, she tried to escape through the balcony and slipped and died. She was purportedly brought to the city through middlemen for surrogacy for ₹10 lakh, say police reports. Donors in queue As the police widened their probe, they raided a facility operating under the name, Indian Sperm Tech, near Secunderabad East Metro Station, located about 400 metres away from the fertility clinic. They found 17 sperm donors and 11 egg donors waiting in queue at the facility. 'The women donors were brought from Delhi, and the men from Andhra Pradesh and other parts of Telangana. The sperm donors, mostly aged between 22 and 30, were paid ₹1,000-₹1,500 per sample. The men were in need of quick cash,' says a police officer who led the raid. L. Shiva was among the people arrested by the police in the midnight raid. Shiva, 35, from Vizianagaram, brought egg and sperm donors and connected them to the hospital. Another broker who was arrested hails from Indore in Madhya Pradesh. One of the egg donors caught in the raid was a 30-year-old resident from Baksa, Assam. Indian Sperm Tech, reportedly headquartered in Ahmedabad, had allegedly set up the sperm collection unit in Secunderabad without a valid license. 'It is a diagnostic centre,' says an officer from the District Medical and Health Officer's office. 'They collect sperm samples, freeze them, and send them to Ahmedabad. The processed samples (isolated and concentrated to select the healthiest sperm) are then returned with reports and sold to clinics across Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh. The place has been operating for two years without registration.' In trouble before It is a typically busy weekday afternoon on St. Johns Road in Secunderabad. But just a short turn away from this arterial road, the noise fades. A narrow bylane, about 20 feet wide, is almost hidden in plain sight. Two old gates, one swung wide open and the other barely ajar, lead into it. Two policemen sit here, silent witnesses to what the North Zone police uncovered. The building of Namratha's clinic has been sealed and the clinic shut down, following an investigation that exposed the baby-selling racket running under the guise of fertility treatments. 'The hospital operated only on the first two floors. The rest were empty,' says one constable. The two floors were filled with equipment required for childcare and fertility treatment. Rajesh Ravi lived here for 16 years before moving closer to the city centre. He is shocked by the revelations. 'You live somewhere for over a decade and you think you know your neighbourhood. I found nothing suspicious. The only time we were mildly inconvenienced was when too many patients came and there would be many cars on the street,' he says. Rajesh says there was a police case involving the same place about 10 years ago. 'No one talked about it much because back then, news on social media did not reach us as fast as it does now,' he says. 'We knew what was happening here,' says Manu, a lawyer who lives across the street of the four-storied Rushi Test Tube Bab Cent. While the name in English has missing letters, the name in Telugu etched beneath it reveals the complete name — Srusthi Test Tube Baby Centre. 'This place was sealed five times earlier. But eventually things got back to 'normal'. This time I think it is serious and she (Namratha) will not be allowed to carry on the business.' The Telangana Medical Council says Namratha was involved in a surrogacy scandal in 2016. A U.S.-based couple, who had used the clinic's services, had discovered that the child born to them through a surrogate was not biologically related to them. 'Following a police case and court hearings, we suspended the doctor's license for five years, with a lifetime ban on conducting surrogacy procedures,' says Dr. G Srinivas, Vice-Chairman of the Council. Yet, when the suspension period ended, the doctor returned, seeking to have her license reinstated. 'We refused. She was still involved in a court case, and our rules are clear on that,' Dr. Srinivas adds. A stringent law As surrogacy has become an increasingly popular option for couples grappling with infertility, Indian law has become more stringent to ensure that the practice remains ethical and free from commercial exploitation. What once operated in legal grey zones is now bound by clear rules, thanks to the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021. Under the Act, only altruistic surrogacy is permitted in India. This means a surrogate mother cannot be paid for carrying a child, except for her medical expenses and insurance coverage. Commercial surrogacy, any arrangement involving monetary compensation or profit, is banned and is a punishable offence. According to the Act, all surrogacy procedures must take place at clinics registered under the Act and authorised by the office officially designated as the State Appropriate Authority. . These clinics must comply with strict medical standards and ethical norms. Any attempt to bypass the law, whether through brokers, unregistered clinics, or financial inducements, is considered a criminal offence, punishable with imprisonment of up to 10 years and fines reaching ₹10 lakh. Fertility specialists say the Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Regulation Act, 2021, and the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021, have brought much-needed order to what was once a loosely regulated and, at times, opaque system. Dr. Preethi Dayal, who runs the Preethi Fertility Centre in Jangaon district, says prior to the enforcement of the ART law in January 2023, 'many centres operated without oversight. You could bring in any random donor, collect the sample, and proceed with checks or documentation. But we are now bound by very strict protocols. Every donor must be sourced only through a registered ART bank, which keeps Aadhaar-linked records of every sample, though the identity is never disclosed to either doctors or patients.' She adds that the new law mandates comprehensive screening of all donors, including genetic testing, and imposes tight eligibility criteria based on age and health. 'There is no room for ambiguity now. Everything has to be documented and traceable.' Dr. Preethi also points out that, legally and ethically, all third-party donor procedures must be conducted with confidentiality. 'Patients are never informed about the identity of the donor. The child born through surrogacy belongs legally and emotionally to the intended parents. That is the framework we follow,' Dr. Preethi says. To reduce the risk of human error, the doctor says many IVF clinics have now adopted the RI Witness system, a high-tech safety protocol that tracks every sample using barcode verification. 'Every patient is given a barcode-linked card. Before processing a sample, we scan the card in the system. If there is any mismatch, the entire hospital is alerted,' she says. While many corporate hospitals have already adopted this system, Dr. Preethi says smaller or less-regulated clinics may not yet have the infrastructure or the will to comply. 'Some centres are still conducting 10 to 15 IVF cycles a day. Without safeguards like the RI Witness system, the chances of mix-ups increase,' she says. Additional reporting by Naveen Kumar Names have been changed to protect privacy
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
'I have a husband': Veronika Kudermetova's bold reply to Holger Rune's private message fuels gossip across tennis world
Holger Rune may be outstanding on the tennis court, but away from it things didn't go exactly as he desired. According to reports, the 22-year-old Danish tennis player sent a letter to Veronika Kudermetova, a 28-year-old Russian tennis star. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Kudermetova responded and made it clear she is married; she did not just dismiss it. Recently, Kudermetova revealed what had occurred during a podcast, where the clumsy tale surfaced. As this off-court incident developed into a viral subject at the National Bank Open, fans and observers were quick to react. Veronika Kudermetova says she told Holger Rune she's married after his message Veronika Kudermetova spoke at a podcast supported by another Russian tennis player, Elena Vesnina. Kudermetova noted in the episode that Holger Rune had sent her just now. The talk was short. 'Rune recently texted me,' Kudermetova said on the podcast, which was covered by the UK outlet Express. 'I told him, 'Boy, I'm probably too old for you. If you looked at my Instagram, you'd see I have a husband.'' After she replied, Rune quickly ended the chat. 'He replied, 'Oh, sorry.' Since then, he doesn't even say hello to me anymore,' Kudermetova added with a laugh. Beginning in 2017, Kudermetova has been married to her trainer, Sergey Demekhine. From Russia as well, Sergey Demekhine, 41, formerly a professional tennis player. Most recently at Wimbledon's Champions Dinner in July 2025, Kudermetova's Instagram often has the pair together. Holger Rune and Veronika Kudermetova both in action at the National Bank Open The gossip resurfaced during the National Bank Open, which is taking place in two Canadian cities, Montreal for the women and Toronto for the men. The off-the-court drama was raised during Kudermetova's singles match on Thursday, July 31, 2025 with Coco Gauff. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Also Read: 'I don't know if you've heard about this tea,' the commentator added on-air. 'Holger Rune, texted Kudermetova, and she said that he was too old for her and already married.' Also still alive in Montreal is Kudermetova's doubles partner, Elise Mertens. In the women's doubles R16 on Friday, August 1, they will take to court against Alexandra Panova and Guo Hanyu. Holger Rune will take on Alexei Popyrin of Australia in the men's singles Round of 16 match in Toronto on Saturday, August 2. It may have been an odd off-court ordeal for fans to witness but both players are still in game mode even if it got a little bit awkward.
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First Post
an hour ago
- First Post
'Did not expect such big reaction from him': Prasidh on how he unsettled a usually composed Joe Root at The Oval
Indian pacer Prasidh Krishna and English batter Joe Root were involved in a heated back-and-forth on Day 2 of the fifth and final Test. Krishna revealed that it was a plan to get a reaction from Root. read more Prasidh Krishna and Joe Root were involved in a heated back-and-forth on Day 2 of the Oval Test. AFP Indian pacer Prasidh Krishna enjoyed the back-and-forth he had with Joe Root on Day 2 of the fifth and final Test. Following the end of the the pacer revealed that he took the onus to provoke the ire of England's batting general. Prasidh and Root indulged in a heated confrontation that required interventions from the umpires. The usually calm and composed Root lost his cool when Prasidh hurled something at him following a boundary in the 22nd over. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Prasidh Krishna on heated banter with Joe Root Krishna's words did not sit well with Root, who showcased his animated side to the Indian pacer. After the culmination of the day, Prasidh made it known that it was nothing but just a banter between the two 'good mates' that comes within the confines of the game. 'Well, it was a very small thing. I think it was just a competitive edge among us that was coming out. Both of us are good mates off the field. It was just a little bit of a banter, and both of us enjoyed it,' said Prasidh in the post-day press conference. The Karnataka pacer further stated that bringing out a reaction from Root was not an accident; rather the act was carried out with a purpose. 'That was also the plan. But I didn't really expect a couple of words that I said to get such a big reaction from him. But like I said, I love the guy that he is. He's a legend of the game. 'And for him to come out there, it's great when two people are out there wanting to do their best,' said Praisdh who took a four-wicket haul alongside Mohammed Siraj to script India's impressive comeback after the onslaught of Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley in the first session. Prasidh further said that trading barbs with the opposition batter tends to get the best out of him. 'I try and enjoy bowling if it means that I have a bit of a chatter with the batsman. And it does help me when the batsman also is, I can get under the nerves and get a reaction from him. And I think I was just running in well,' said the lanky fast bowler. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Prasidh on how bowlers readjusted after morning beat-down As India suffered a clobbering at the hands of Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett in the morning session, the bowlers decided to brush aside the beating and worked on improving. 'As a team we knew what happened before lunch and the three fast bowlers, I think we got together in a small corner and decided, what's happened has happened. 'And all of us know what we need to be doing and we just said, every time we are on the field, at the mark, we trust each other enough, go speak to each other, tell them if you're not on the right track, and just make sure you're bowling the right lines and take it from there. 'And as a team as well, we spoke about the same thing. Like, if the next three, two hours, if we can show some body language, I think it's going to make a big difference and it made a big difference,' he said. The 29-year-old stated that when the chips were against them, they concentrated on getting the basics right and reaped the results in the form of wickets. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'I think they are playing a lot of shots and as a bowling unit, it's very hard for us to keep bowling the same areas, knowing they're going to do all kinds of things and try to score runs. But that's the challenge in itself. 'If you can still come there and know what your lengths and lines are and keep bowling the same good balls again and again, I think it's a matter of time. And that's the challenge, to be able to bowl the good lengths in spite of the aggressive intent of the batsman.' India ended the day at 75/2 after 18 overs, taking a lead of 52 runs. Jaiswal and Akash Deep are currently in the middle. A topsy-turvy day for both teams has set the tone for a thrilling Day 3.
