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/ 30 October 2008
Eleven bomb blasts ripped through the main city of India’s troubled north-eastern Assam state and three other towns on Thursday, killing at least 65.
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/ 5 November 2007
Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh slammed solid half-centuries to guide India to an emphatic five-wicket victory over Pakistan in the first one-day international here on Monday. Skipper Dhoni top-scored with 63 and Yuvraj made 58 as India surpassed Pakistan’s total of 239-7 with 18 balls to spare.
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/ 5 November 2007
Mohammad Yousuf and Salman Butt hit half-centuries to help Pakistan reach a competitive 239-7 in the opening one-day international against India on Monday. Middle-order batsman Yousuf, dropped on 10, top-scored with an unbeaten 83 while left-handed opener Butt hit a brisk 50 in his comeback match.
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/ 15 September 2007
Nearly 13,5-million people have been marooned or displaced by floods in India and Bangladesh, officials said on Saturday. The flooding in South Asia caused by the June-to-September monsoon has been described as the worst in decades, with more than 2 200 people killed by floods and rains in India since it started.
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/ 11 September 2007
Soldiers in motor boats rescued thousands of marooned people and helicopters air-dropped food as the number of people left homeless after some of the worst flooding in years in India’s north-east rose to 3,5-million. About 10-million people out of the 27-million population of Assam state have been affected by flooding after rains in the past few days.
The snow-preserved body of an Indian soldier was given to his family on Tuesday, nearly 40 years after he died in a plane crash in the Himalayas, an official said. Soldiers discovered the frozen bodies of Mahendranath Phukan and two other victims half-buried in snow on a glacier at an altitude of 5 300m.
Packed hospitals in eastern India struggled to cope with people suffering waterborne diseases on Saturday and marooned villagers clashed with police as some of the worst floods in living memory ravaged South Asia. More than 250 people have died over the past 11 days after torrential monsoon rains that caused rivers to burst their banks.
The army was called out for rescue operations on Sunday as more than a million people were marooned in north-east India, which has been hit by raging floods, officials said. The latest deaths took to 15 the number of people killed in flood-related accidents in the past week in Assam and adjoining Meghalaya.
Separatist rebels in India’s restive north-eastern state of Assam killed 43 people, mostly labourers and traders, in a series of coordinated overnight attacks, police said on Saturday. Police said heavily armed United Liberation Front of Asom guerrillas gunned down at least 12 people in one remote village in Tinsukia.
Floods caused by summer monsoon rains displaced about 66 000 people in India’s north-east, while heavy rains disrupted traffic in eastern India, officials said on Friday. In north-eastern Assam state, floodwaters from the Brahmaputra river had inundated about 13 000ha of land, the state government said.
At least 51 people were killed on Thursday when an overcrowded bus taking them to a wedding skidded off the road and slid into a pond in north-east India, police said. "We have extricated 51 bodies so far. There could be some more people in the pond and divers are at work," a police official told Agence France-Presse.
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/ 27 December 2005
A Hindu youth from north-eastern India has written a Bible in inverse, or "mirror language", which is to be presented to Pope Benedict XVI as a Christmas gift, a cleric said on Sunday. Uttam Das (29) handed over his unique creation to Assam state’s Archbishop Thomas Menamparampil with a request that it be presented to the pope.
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/ 16 September 2005
United States experts arrived on Friday to help Indian firefighters battle a major blaze at a burst oil well which was sending smoke and flames shooting into the sky, forcing the evacuation of thousands of residents. Hundreds of firefighters worked through the night but failed to put out the blaze near Dikom, 520km east of Assam state’s main city Guwahati.
Rebels demanding the introduction of a medieval script in India’s Manipur state torched a repository of hundreds and thousands of priceless books, police said on Thursday. A group of rebels stormed the federal library in the state capital on Wednesday and set it alight by pouring gasoline on racks of literature, some of it up to two centuries old.
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/ 22 December 2004
A poor man in eastern India who fed a flame of hay for more than five decades to mark the 1947 independence of India from the British died in his thatched hut on Tuesday, relatives said. Paduram Mahanta (83) was cremated by one of his sons in their village, Dipila Kamargaon, 75km from Guwahati, the main city of Assam state.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Tuesday he has set up a panel to find a permanent solution to floods that annually ravage the country’s east and north-east, as officials reported another 24 people killed. The death toll due to flooding caused by monsoon rains since mid-June in India has touched 217.
Swirling floodwaters which have left 500 dead and millions homeless continue to affect vast tracts of Bangladesh, India and Nepal.
Flash floods triggered by monsoon rains in India’s northeastern state of Assam have submerged at least 30 villages, marooning up to 20 000 people.
Hundreds of thousands of flood-affected people in India’s northeastern state of Assam face starvation as food supplies dry up and roads are cut off after heavy rains, said officials.