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Mumbai - Pitching for disinvestment in public sector behemoths like LIC, Air India and BSNL, top industry leader Deepak Parekh has said it can unlock huge funds worth "lakhs of crores of rupees" and shares should be given to retail investors without depending on the overseas entities.

However, one of the major requirements for such large- scale disinvestments is a government thinking on those lines, as lack of political will and union pressure have been halting such proposals for a long time including during the tenure of the previous UPA government, he said.

Giving examples from during the UPA regime, Parekh said 'he has been part of many important government panels,' including those on BSNL and Indian Railways, but nothing moved on the suggestions made by those committees.

Melbourne - As if not enough with their embarrassing 130-run loss to India, South Africa were on Monday fined for maintaining a slow over-rate during their World Cup group match against Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his men at the MCG here.

ICC Match referee Jeff Crowe found the South Africans fell one over short after time allowances were taken into consideration in the Group B clash yesterday and docked captain AB de Villiers 20 percent of his match fee and 10 percent for each of the remaining players of the team.

31-year-old de Villiers now runs the risk of being suspended from one match during the World Cup if South Africa are fined a second time before the final.

Wellington, Feb 23 - Kanye West is all set to make a video game based on his latest single 'Only One' as a tribute to his mother Donda and daughter North West, it has been reported.

Mumbai - The Indian Banks Association has decided to hold further talks with leaders of public sector bank unions who have given a call for four-day nation-wide strike from February 25.

"The IBA has invited us for talks on Monday in Mumbai and we have agreed to participate in the talks," United Forum of Bank Unions (Maharashtra) and All-India Bank Employees Union vice-president Vishwas Utagi said.

The unions have threatened the strike to press wage-hike demand. This will be their fifth strike this fiscal.

IBA has offered a 13 percent hike which will put a burden of Rs 4,095 crore on the banks, against the unions' demand of 19.5 percent hike which would increase the salary bill by Rs 10,000 crore per annum.

Geneva : US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart today took a walk by Lake Geneva and then began intense talks here on Tehran's nuclear programme to remove the "significant gaps" that remain ahead of a key deadline.

The bilateral talks between Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif Zarif and Kerry have begun while the P5+1 ?- China, Russia, the UK, the US, France and Germany -- were to meet as a group later.

Ali Akbar Salehi, the director of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's brother and close aide Hossein Fereydoon along with US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz made their maiden appearance in the talks signalling that the deal is entering a sensitive stage.

Washington, Feb. 22 - Katy Perry and John Mayer, who recently rekindled their romance after splitting in February 2014, are reportedly determined to make their relationship work this time.