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Barcelona, August 1 : Sun Yang wrote his name in the record books of the World Swimming Championships when he became only the second man to defend his gold medal in the 800 metres freestyle with a comfortable victory at the Palau St. Jordi here.

Sun Yang swam the fastest time of the year (7:41.36) Wednesday to finish 2.27 seconds ahead of American Michael McBroom, who was a second ahead of Canada's Ryan Cochrane. The Chinese led the race from start to finish but was content to maintain a lead of around a metre until around 150 metres from the finish when he upped his pace to stretch out his lead, reports Xinhua.

New Delhi, August 1 : Two-wheeler major Hero MotoCorp Thursday reported a marginal increase of 0.68 percent in its sales for July, which stood at 487,545 units from an off-take of 484,217 units sold in the corresponding month of 2012.

The company said it has bucked the trend of an overall slowdown in the industry by this performance.

"We have registered a retail growth of seven percent in the month of July which is usually a lean period due to monsoon all over the country," Anil Dua, senior vice-president, marketing and sales, Hero MotoCorp, said in a statement.

New Delhi, August 1 : The British government Thursday appointed Kumar Iyer, an Indian origin official, as director general for UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) in India.

This is a new top level post and has been created to reflect the increasing importance of business ties between the two countries. As UKTI director general, India, Iyer will have overall responsibility for the bilateral commercial and trade relationship.

Iyer will also be British Deputy High Commissioner for Western India. He will take up both positions, based in Mumbai, Aug 5.

New Delhi, August 1 : In what could be seen as a strong endorsement for P. Chidambaram, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh showered generous praise on his finance minister for being a key backer of reforms and said here was a man "intellectually brilliant" and "politically savvy" while being "capable of taking risks and asserting political leadership."

Islamabad, August 1 : US Secretary of State John Kerry met Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif here Thursday and both sides agreed to work together for peace and stability in Afghanistan and move forward Afghan reconciliation process.

The two leaders held one-on-one meeting which was later on joined by the respective delegations, Xinhua quoted the state-run Radio Pakistan as saying.

"Both sides discussed in length the Afghan situation besides other regional issues including the post-2014 scenario," the radio said.

Mumbai, August 1 :  Sony Six announced Thursday it had acquired the broadcasting rights to Total Nonstop Action (TNA) Wrestling across the Indian sub-continent.

The sports channel will now air all of TNA Wrestling's programmes.

"India's recent success in international wrestling has attracted the youth in India and also captured the interest of audiences. We are proud to have acquired TNA Wrestling as one of our premium international sporting events," said Man Jit Singh, chief executive of Multi Screen Media, of which Sony Six is a subsidiary