Thursday, August 27, 2009 NEW DELHI: India on Thursday scrambled a fighter jet to intercept a Bangkok-bound Air France passenger plane after the airliner failed to identify itself correctly, the air force said.A Russian-built MiG-29 took off to intercept Air France flight 164 from Paris after it transmitted incorrect identification codes upon entering Indian airspace, air force spokeswoman Flight Lieutenant Priya Joshi said. Joshi said the pilot of the Airbus-343 did not identify the airliner as a “friendly” aircraft, which prompted a military airbase in northern India to scramble the fighter. “It was only later that the aircraft started transmitting the correct secondary radar response code and was picked up and identified by air defence radar as a civil airliner of Air France,” Joshi said. The MiG-29 was then given instructions to “break off and return to base,” Joshi said, adding that the air force had filed a report with India’s civil aviation authorities
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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