India’s Tata group is picking up a 26% stake in InfraCo, a new South African telecommunication company, a news report said on Tuesday. InfraCo will offer long-distance telephone services and will build and operate marine telecom infrastructure.
Indian music legend Bismillah Khan, who enthralled generations with his shehnai, an Indian wind instrument, died on August 21 of a heart attack, hospital officials said. He was 90. Khan, a recipient of India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna, or Jewel India, had been ailing for months.
A new restaurant in India’s financial hub, named after Adolf Hitler and promoted with posters showing the German leader and Nazi swastikas, has infuriated the country’s small Jewish community. Hitler’s Cross, which opened last week, serves up a wide range of continental fare and a big helping of controversy, thanks to a name the owners say they chose to stand out among hundreds of Mumbai eateries.
Heavy rains and floods have killed 33 people in the western Indian state of Rajasthan over the last three days, authorities said on Monday. Over 1Â 500 villages and several towns had been cut off by the rising waters, schools and colleges ordered shut in the lake city of Udaipur and electricity and telephone networks disrupted across the region, they said.
Hundreds of people thronged to a midtown city beach in India’s financial capital, Mumbai, on Saturday after word spread that sea water there had turned sweet, with many seeing the development as a divine sign. People, largely Muslims, started gathering late on Friday to collect the water off Mahim beach on the shores of the Arabian Sea.
Health authorities have recovered scores of aborted female foetuses from a well in northern India, media reported on Thursday. The site was discovered by police in the city of Patiala in Punjab state, which has one of the worst gender ratios in the country, newspapers reported.
The flood situation in four states of India remained grim on Wednesday with almost 860 000 people displaced, officials said, as the death toll from the latest lashing monsoon rains rose to 196. Southern Andhra Pradesh state remained the worst hit with 543 000 people displaced by flood waters.
Swirling floodwaters inundated several towns and cities in western and southern India on Tuesday as the military deployed helicopters and boats to help hundreds of thousands of marooned people. Nearly 200 people have been killed in flooding due to incessant rains over the past week in the western states of Gujarat and Maharashtra and the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.
Three Indian doctors caught on camera apparently agreeing to amputate the healthy limbs of beggars are to be questioned by the Indian Medical Council. Footage broadcast on Saturday showed one of the doctors asking for 10 000 rupees (about ) to amputate a lower leg, leaving a stump that may draw sympathy — and a few rupees — from passersby.
The Indian Parliament was adjourned on Tuesday amid a bitter attack on the government over a wave of suicides by debt-ridden farmers in the country’s main cotton-growing belt. Opposition MPs blamed the policies of the Congress party-led government for the suicides, which activists say are continuing despite an economic aid package.
Indian police have arrested a journalist who may know those behind a series of coordinated bombs on Mumbai’s rail network earlier this month that killed 186 people, officers said on Monday. The latest arrest takes the number of people in police custody to nine in an investigation that has spread across several states, and into neighbouring Nepal.
India’s President Abdul Kalam says he has not seen a movie for 50 years because he spends so much time reading scientific literature, a report said on Monday. "You won’t believe it but it’s true," Kalam (74) told Radio Kashmir in a weekend visit to revolt-hit Indian Kashmir, <i>The Hindu</i> newspaper reported.
Another 21 people died from lightning and house collapses in northern India, an official said on Saturday, taking the nationwide death toll to at least 328 since the monsoon season began two months ago. The new casualties were reported in northern Uttar Pradesh state, one of the worst hit by the heavy rains.
Two more Indian Muslims have been arrested in connection with this month’s Mumbai train bombings, taking the number of people in custody to eight, police said on Friday. The blasts that killed more than 180 people have been blamed on Pakistan-based Islamist militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba and Pakistani military spy agency Inter Services Intelligence.
Using snuff or chewing tobacco is associated with an increased likelihood of developing cataracts, Indian researchers report. Dr Prema Raju of the Vision Research Foundation and colleagues evaluated tobacco use among 3 924 adults from rural areas. In all, 1 705 used tobacco in various forms.
India has arrested three men in connection with last week’s Mumbai bombings that killed more than 180 people, and urged Pakistan on Friday to hand over a top Kashmiri militant as a gesture of its determination to fight terrorism. The three men, all Indian Muslims, were arrested on suspicion of being involved in the July 11 attacks.
India’s star batsman Sachin Tendulkar is set to return to international cricket in August after a four-month absence due to shoulder surgery, an official said on Tuesday. ”The report we have got from our physiotherapist John Gloster is that Sachin is fit to play,” Indian cricket board secretary Niranjan Shah told the media.
A rarely used mixture of high explosives, fuel oil and ammonium nitrate was used in the Mumbai train blasts last week that killed 182 and wounded hundreds, the lead investigator said on Monday. Anti-Terrorism Squad chief KP Raghuvanshi declined to comment on whether the mixture, which included the high explosive RDX, could be linked to a specific group.
A group of Indian villagers presided over the marriage of two donkeys at an ancient Hindu temple in southern India in a bid to promote world peace, a report said on Monday. The wedding took place on Sunday evening in the Sri Thirumoola Natha Swamy Temple in Tamil Nadu state, the United News of India news agency reported.
At least 25 villagers were hacked to death and 21 others injured in a major attack by Maoist rebels in India’s central Chhattisgarh state on Monday. ”Between 500 to 800 rebels surrounded a village in Dantewada district shortly after midnight and killed 25 people using axes and knives,” OP Pal, the district’s superintendent of police told Deutsche Presse Agentur.
Indian police have detained about 350 people in connection with the deadly Mumbai train bombings, as a top official said on Thursday that investigators believe they ”should have something substantial soon”. A man claiming to represent al-Qaeda reportedly claimed on Thursday that the terror network has set up a wing in Kashmir.
Serial blasts that killed 200 people in Mumbai will "test the resilience" of the peace process between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan but are unlikely to derail it, analysts said on Thursday. New Delhi has not attributed the attack to Pakistan-based Islamic militants, but Indian police say Tuesday’s rush-hour bombings that also wounded nearly 800 people bore the hallmark of one such group.
The well-coordinated bomb attacks on Mumbai’s rail network that left 183 dead bore the hallmarks of Islamic militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, a senior officer said on Wednesday. Police, however, said they were awaiting test results from evidence at the scene of the blasts including several commonly-used timing devices.
Indian police used sniffer dogs and picked through the wreckage for clues on Wednesday after a series of bombs blew apart trains and killed 190 people in the financial capital, Mumbai. The teeming city, symbol of the growing economic power of the world’s largest democracy, was trying to get back to normal a day after the seven apparently coordinated blasts, which also left hundreds wounded.
Seven explosions ripped through commuter trains and stations during evening rush hour in India’s financial capital, Mumbai, on Tuesday, killing at least 163 people and wounding 464 in an attack blamed on terrorists. Ambulances raced to hospitals with what seemed to be an endless number of the injured and the dead.
India’s prime minister on Tuesday vowed to "defeat the evil designs of terrorists" after blasts killed scores in the country’s financial capital, Mumbai, and eight others in revolt-hit Kashmir. Manmohan Singh called for calm in Mumbai and Srinagar after an emergency meeting at his official residence with Home Minister Shivraj Patil.
At least six explosions rocked the railway network in India’s financial capital, Mumbai, during the evening rush hour on Tuesday, officials from the state-run railway told the Press Trust of India. Officials said at least 40 people died in the blasts and hundreds were injured, and the country has been put on high alert.
Seven tourists were killed and 35 people injured on Tuesday in a series of grenade attacks targeting holiday areas in the main city of revolt-hit Indian Kashmir, police said. In the bloodiest of the attacks blamed on Islamic separatist rebels, six tourists, including five women, were killed and 15 people wounded.
India’s new nuclear-capable Agni III missile failed in its first test-firing over the weekend because it was unable to reach its target, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee said. The Defence Ministry had initially declared Sunday’s test of India’s longest-range missile a success, but it plunged into the ocean in the Bay of Bengal, short of its target.
Large tracts of India’s western financial hub of Mumbai were under water on Wednesday as the weather bureau warned further heavy rains were on the way and the death toll from the monsoon deluge rose to nine. The deaths brought to at least 234 the number who have been killed across India since the arrival of the monsoon in May.
Asia may be swamping the world with its cheap exports, but the region as a whole offers a huge market for nuclear reactors and technology, driven by the fast-expanding, fuel-deficient economies of India and China. South Korea, 40% dependent on nuclear power, has been pushing the development of the industry over the last three decades.
Hard-line Muslims in southern India have launched a campaign to dissuade youths from watching too much World Cup action, saying they had "gone mad" over football. "Wherever you go, you see [youths] wearing jerseys of various teams. It’s like idol worship, which our religion doesn’t promote in any form," said Sattar Pathallur, secretary of the Sunni Students Federation.