Indian News Headlines....(30/09/08)

Shrieks punctuate sombre atmosphere in Chamunda temple...

JODHPUR: At least 80 people have died and more than 100 people injured in a major stampede in the Chamunda Devi temple at the start of Navaratri festival on Tuesday according to Police officials.According to reports, rumours of a bomb in Mehrangarh near Jodhpur area led to the stampede.

More than 30 bodies were brought to Mahatma Gandhi Hospital and at least 10 to Mathura Das Hospital here, Divisional Commissioner Kiran Soni Gupta said.The devotees in huge number, especially women, had gathered at the temple from early Tuesday morning in view of the Navratra festival starting from Tuesday.

India, France finalises civil nuclear cooperation pact...

Paris, Sept 30 (PTI) India and France today finalised a landmark agreement on civil nuclear cooperation that covered supply of reactors and atomic fuel in the first concrete step to bring New Delhi back into the nuclear mainstream ending 34 years of nuclear isolation.

The agreement to be initialled later in the day after summit talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and French President Nicolas Sarkozy will form the basis of wide ranging bilateral cooperation from basic and applied research to full civil nuclear cooperation including reactors and fuel supplies, nuclear safety, radiation and environment protection and nuclear fuel cycle management.

Malegaon explosion was bomb blast: police

Malegaon, Maharashtra: The explosion that claimed four lives in this Maharashtra town Monday night was caused by a bomb placed on a motorcycle, police said Tuesday. Earlier reported to be a gas cylinder explosion, the blast at Bhikku Chowk in the heart of the town left over 50 people injured.

U.S. crisis will hit software exports...

The National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) on Monday said the Indian software industry might be hit by the financial crisis in the U.S. and global slowdown; and it could have to lower the software export target set for the current fiscal.

Several injured in fresh violence in Orissa..

More than a dozen people were injured in fresh violence Tuesday in Orissa's Kandhamal district, where clashes between Hindus and Christians have claimed at least 30 lives in the past month.

Indian headline

Delhi blast toll rises to three.........(28/09/08)

New Delhi, September 28: With one more person succumbing to injuries, the death toll in the Mehrauli blast in south Delhi rose to three even as police conducted searches across the city to nab two motorcycle-borne youths, who had dropped a polythene bag containing the bomb.

The unidentified man, who was injured in yesterday's blast at Mehrauli's flower market and admitted to the AIIMS, died today, hospital superintendent John Bera said. A 13-year- old boy and a 60-year-old man had died yesterday.

Police said at least 22 people were injured in the explosion, which came exactly two weeks after the national capital was rocked by five near-simultaneous blasts in which 24 people were killed and more than 100 injured.

Of the injured, 14 were admitted to the trauma center of AIIMS and the condition of six is critical and two extremely critical, M C Mishra, HOD, AIIMS Trauma Centre (Surgery) said in a release. One person was today discharged from the hospital, he said.

Two men, believed to be aged around 30-32 years, riding a black motorcycle with a Delhi registration number, were responsible for the explosion, police said.

As Mehrauli is located on the border with Haryana, checking of vehicles has been intensified at the Delhi- Gurgaon border, a senior police officer said. "We have questioned some people," he said.

Investigators are suspecting the hand of illegal Bangladeshi migrants in yesterday's blast, maintaining that the explosion does not have the signature of Indian Mujahideen, which carried out the serial blasts in Delhi and certain other cities.

Indian Headline

German woman molested in Chandigarh...............(28/09/08)

CHANDIGARH: A young German woman was allegedly abducted and molested by a group of youth in the city on Sunday morning, police said.

The police have registered a case against unidentified youth, who abducted the German woman from the city's upscale Taj Hotel in the main commercial hub of Sector 17.

What has baffled the police is the fact that the woman was abducted in a Scorpio sports utility vehicle (SUV) from a high-security area of the city. The hotel complex has private and police security.

The police registered a case of attempt to rape, abduction, molestation, illegal confinement and other sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against unidentified youth after the woman was dropped outside the house of her friend in Sector 20 Sunday evening in a Maruti car.

The victim told the police that she had come out of the hotel to smoke around 2 a.m. when a youth came to her. He and his friends then pushed her into a waiting vehicle where the youth stifled her mouth, she told the police.

The woman, who had come to the city with a Non-Resident Indian based in Germany for his wedding, said the vehicle was driven for around two hours and she was taken to a room where the youth tried to rape her but she resisted. She claimed that she was molested, beaten and threatened by the youth.

"We are investigating the matter and shall be making a few arrests soon. The victim is also being medically examined," assistant superintendent of police Madhur Verma said.

Police officials were facing difficulties in getting information from the victim as she could not properly communicate in English, an investigating officer said.

Police officials said that the German woman was in an inebriated state after a party at the hotel when she was abducted.

They said the vehicle in which the woman was taken away had been identified and raids were being conducted to arrest the accused youth. They added that a few people had also been rounded up in this connection.

A similar molestation and attempt to rape case involving a foreign national had rocked the city in 1994.

A French national, Katia, was also abducted from eatery in Sector 22 in 1994 by Gurkirat Singh, the grandson of then Punjab chief minister Beant Singh.