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New Delhi (dpa) - Police raided hotels and guesthouses and detained several people on Sunday seeking leads about the serial blasts in New Delhi that claimed 59 lives and triggered panic among thousands ahead of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. India's Home Ministry said 114 people had been injured in the Saturday's blasts. Two bombs exploded at busy marketplaces while another exploded outside a bus in the Indian capital. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh condemned the attacks as "dastardly acts of terrorism" that were meant to create disaffection among communities in the festive season. Diwali is to be celebrated...

NEW DELHI: Four persons were injured in an explosion that took place near a DTC bus, in the third of the serial blasts that rocked the city at 5.45 pm on Saturday, near Kalkaji bus depot. Unconfirmed reports said that a man wearing a red shirt got off at Lal Chowk, leaving a white bag in the bus. The bus staff suspected it to be a bomb and when they opened the bag, they found wires in it. After parking the bus at an isolated spot, the driver was about to throw the bag out of the bus when it...

A series of explosions rocked Delhi on Saturday evening, killing at least 65 people and leaving scores injured, some of them critically. As many as 20 people have been killed in an explosion in Sarojini Nagar market and 15 others have reportedly been killed in Paharganj. The markets were filled with shoppers doing their last-minute purchases for Diwali. Most of those injured or killed in the explosions were ordinary people out shopping in the festival season. Suspects detained At least ten people have been detained following the three blasts in Delhi. Five of them were picked up from the New...

New Delhi, Oct. 29 (PTI): Terrorists struck in the capital in a big way on the eve of Diwali today triggering three explosions in two markets and near a bus killing 50 people and injuring over 70 others, including some foreigners. The first explosion toook place at around 5:40 p.m. in the busy Paharganj market in central Delhi in which 11 people died and 60 were injured. The market, which is frequented by foreigners, was bustling with Diwali shoppers. Minutes later, another explosion rocked Sarojini Nagar Market in south Delhi killing where maximum casualties were reported. Another blast took place...

NEW DELHI, Oct 29 (Reuters) - An explosion took place near a crowded market close to the main railway station of the Indian capital, New Delhi, a fire brigade official told Reuters on Saturday. Television channels said many casualties were feared.

At least five people are feared dead and many wounded in two powerful explosions in busy markets in the Indian capital, Delhi. Police say the first occurred in Paharganj, in the heart of the city. The second took place in Sarojini Nagar, south of the city centre. Rescue teams and police have rushed to the scenes. The markets were crowded with people shopping ahead of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. There are also unconfirmed reports that there has been a third blast in another part of Delhi. A police official, who wished to remain unnamed, told the BBC News...

Iran has informed India that the five-million-tonne a year Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) export deal, with deliveries scheduled to begin in 2009 for a 25-year period, is off. This was conveyed to Indian officials in Vienna soon after the anti-Iran vote cast on Saturday by New Delhi in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) governing board. In a communication to the Prime Minister's Office and South Block dated September 24, India's Permanent Representative in Vienna, Sheelkant Sharma, wrote that his Iranian counterpart had told him the LNG deal, signed between the two sides in June, was off. The Iranian Ambassador...

Matt Damon and George Clooney come back together for political thriller Matt Damon and George Clooney, who are currently working together on Steven Soder-bergh's Ocean's Eleven sequel - Ocean's Twelve, will reteam for the Stephen Gaghan-helmed political thriller Syriana. In addition, Amanda Peet is in final negotiations to join the project. Set up at Warner Bros., Clooney and Soderbergh's studio-based Section Eight will produce the project with shooting slated to begin during the summer. Gaghan adapted the script, which is loosely based on the Robert Baer non-fiction novel See No Evil: The True Story of a Foot Soldier in the...

Need a cheering crowd?New Delhi - A former politician in southern India has launched a "rent-a-crowd" company to recruit people to cheer at party rallies and said he has been deluged by would-be recruits, a report Friday said. "When all political parties and organisations are doing it discreetly, why can't we do it professionally?" the Hindustan Times newspaper quoted the company's founder, Devarajan, who goes by one name, as saying. Indian political parties are known for paying people to show up for rallies, often transporting them in fleets of buses, but usually the recruitment is carried out by the...

Source: Reuters NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Police in India arrested a leader of Kashmir's main separatist alliance on Friday for carrying fake currency soon after he left the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi, officials said. The distribution of fake currency comes two days after India and Pakistan agreed to start a bus service between Indian Kashmir and the Pakistani part, boosting a flagging peace process. Aziz, an executive member of the hardline faction of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference and a former militant, was caught by police with 100,000 rupees of fake Indian currency and 94,000 worth of valid...

According to Subhra Jain, a freelance reporter in New Delhi, she bumped into a very senior Indian Military official in a nightclub in New Delhi. While talking what she came to know will make the rest of the world sit up all night. According to her, Extra Terrestrials have been visiting India and the rest of the world for thousands of years. In recent days most of the super powers have been formally contacted. India is no exception in recent days. ’They always contact through the ground radar stations of the military’, she says. Indian Himalayas and Ladakh (China-India) border...

VIEW: Learning from a neighbour — Syed Ali Zafar India has implemented a law on eve-teasing under which a person is immediately arrested if a woman complains that he has — in any manner — harassed her. The police are extremely vigilant and effective in implementing the law. The result is that women walk around the streets and ride in commercial vehicles freely and safely I visited New Delhi, India, in 1992 and then again this year in connection with my partner’s investiture ceremony as SAARC Law president. The visit came as a breath of fresh air. In 1992 the...

MOSCOW - Russia is again calling for a Moscow-New Delhi-Beijing axis, an alliance of three nuclear-armed countries of some 2.5 billion people that theoretically would be able to balance US power in coming years. Cooperation among Russia, India and China "would make a great contribution to global security", Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in New Delhi. The Kremlin leader, on a visit to India over the weekend, accused the West of pursuing a dictatorial foreign policy and setting double standards on terrorism. A unipolar world could entail dangerous trends globally, Putin said, adding that unilateralism increased risks that weapons of...

GOTTA SEE THIS - War for Enduring Freedom 7/10/04 -Baghdad, Tehran, Syria, Islamabad, New Delhi, Kabul BREAKING: Baghdad - Islamic terrorist attacks on Christians continue unreported BREAKING: Baghdad - Terrorists taken after the firefight with US and Iraqi security forces BREAKING: Tehran - Mullahs refuse to stop nuclear weapons goals BREAKING: Syria - Helping Baathists and Iran BREAKING: Islamabad, New Delhi - Rockets of July BREAKING: Kabul - Afghanis, FREED BY THE USA, prepare for elections QFN ==== YE OLDE QUAGMIRE-FREE NEWS Exclusive to FReerepublic PICTURES YOU PROBABLY WILL NEVER SEE IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA ========= Baghdad ========= In Baghdad,...

While failed actor-turned-director Deepak Tijori's 'Oops!' may have done little to salvage his box office fortunes, male strippers in Delhi can barely hide their delight. According to Ali G Reza, the man whose life reportedly inspired the film, the demand for Full Monty has more than trebled since 'Oops!' was released. "Of late Delhi has become the most lucrative for male strippers, leaving Mumbai far behind", he claims. Reza says that while male striptease may be a novelty for man-on-the-street, it's been a staple at high-society dos for a long time now. "What 'Oops!' did was to bring adult entertainment...

NEW DELHI: A grand spectacle showcasing the nation's awesome military might, economic growth, scientific and technological advancement and cultural diversity unfolded at the majestic Rajpath here marking the 54th Republic Day celebrations. A sense of pride was discernible among the hundreds who thronged to witness the annual martial and cultural extravaganza on a sunny Sunday morning, brushing aside intelligence reports of possible terrorist strikes and consequent unprecedented security. The over two-and-a-half-hour long programme commenced with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and other dignitaries observing two minutes' silence and laying wreath at the Amar Jawan Jyoti to pay homage to martyred...

NEW DELHI: The role of H-1B visa workers in increasing unemployment is generating heat in the upper echelons of US politics. A study is being conducted by the US' federal department for accounting, called the General Accounting Office, on the impact of H-1B visa workers on US jobs. The study will be ready by next year, and will form a significant input to the September '03 debate in the US Congress on letting the H-1B visa cap shrink from 1.95 lakh to 65,000 in '04. GAO undertook the study after two Democrat members on the US House Committee on Science...

UN climate change meeting bogged down over future emission cuts Sharp divisions between the world's rich and poor countries over greenhouse gases are thwarting efforts by delegates at a high-powered UN meeting here on global warming to agree on a draft declaration, officials said Friday. Environment ministers and experts battled until dawn Friday, seeking consensus on a Delhi Declaration due to be adopted later in the day but failed, Indian officials told AFP. Discussions resumed mid-morning in an attempt to break the impasse, and were expected to drag on once again into the night. The officials said the talks...

Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee has snubbed United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan for suggesting last night that he could send special envoys to India and Pakistan to broker peace in Kargil. Turning down the offer, Vajpayee told Annan if he had to send an envoy on a peace mission, he should send one to Pakistan. “Annan rang me up last night to propose that he could send a special envoy to India and Pakistan to sort out the matter between both countries but I told him firmly, if at all such an envoy had to be sent, he should go to...