Friday, June 12, 2009 , SRINAGAR: India is to phase out the controversial presence of large numbers of its troops in towns across the held Kashmir, Indian home minister announced Friday. The announcement comes amid sustained protests over last month's rape and murder of two local Muslim women by members of the Indian security forces.Home Minister P. Chidambaran told a news conference in Srinagar, where he has been conducting an urgent review of the security situation, that the army should carry out counter-insurgency operations "far away from towns and cities." "In the inhabited areas we believe maintaining law and order is the primary responsibility of the state police," he told reporters. He did not give a timetable for the redeployment of troops, but said: "It will take some time. That is the direction in which we have agreed to move and we will move."
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in...
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