Friday, October 30, 2009 SRINAGAR: India banned pre-paid mobile telephones in Kashmir on Friday, state television reported, following concerns that militants were using them to trigger bombs and hide their identities.Mobile phones were launched in Kashmir only in 2003 after security agencies gave the go-ahead, but pre-paid versions are suspected to have been used in attacks since.Pre-paid phones -- phones that come with a set number of minutes charged on them -- are easier to buy than their post-paid equivalents.Post-paid -- mobiles paid on a monthly basis -- can only be bought after a series of security checks and official registration of personal details and passport photographs."All pre-paid mobile connections will stop functioning from November 1 after the home ministry's order in this regard," India's state-owned television Doordarshan announced Friday.India's Home Minister P. Chidambaram during his trip to Kashmir this month had raised the possibility that pre-paid mobile telephones might be banned in the disputed region as "they were prone to misuse."He said there was "a vast difference from the security point of view" between pre-paid mobiles, which can be bought without detailed identification, and contract-paid mobiles.Kashmir's insurgency against rule from New Delhi has left more than 47,000 people dead by official count, though separatists put the toll at between 80,000 and 100,000.The region is divided between Pakistani and Indian zones, but both countries claim it in whole and have fought two wars over it.
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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