INDIA’S home ministry held top-level talks with intelligence services yesterday to discuss suspending BlackBerry services if the smartphone’s makers do not satisfy security concerns.

Railway authorities cancelled all night trains in an eastern Indian state today after a passenger express train derailed and was hit by a cargo train, killing at least 108 people and injuring hundreds.

An Indian investigation into the 1992 demolition of a 16th-century mosque by Hindu nationalists has finally submitted its report to the prime minister Manmohan Singh.

Troops were deployed to protect key areas of Nepal’s capital Katmandu today – a day after police clashed in the streets with protesting communists who are demanding that the president back the firing of the country’s army chief.

NEPAL’S prime minister resigned yesterday amid a power struggle over his firing of the army chief, saying he was stepping down to “save the peace process” that brought the Himalayan nation out of a decade-long civil war.

A leading Indian politician was forced to duck a shoe flung at him during a press conference in New Delhi today in a virtual repeat of President George Bush’s Iraqi incident.

BANGLADESHI police charged more than 1,000 border guards with murder and arson yesterday after a bloody mutiny in the capital that left as many as 148 people dead or missing, most of them army officers.

A series of co-ordinated explosions ripped through courts in three north Indian cities today killing at least 13 people and injuring dozens more.

A UN human rights envoy who has returned to Burma after a four-year ban spoke to officials today about plans to visit prisons.

Authorities today lifted a curfew imposed five days ago on six major cities in Bangladesh in the wake of violent anti-government protests that left at least one dead, the government said.

Nearly 10,000 security forces fanned out across the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka today during an opposition-sponsored general strike that shut down schools and stores and disrupted traffic.

Indian police investigating the Mumbai train bombings have arrested three men, the first arrests in the case, India’s NDTV news channel reported today.

THOUSANDS of people roaring “Down with the monarchy” demonstrated, while state employees were arrested for the first time in the two-week wave of anti-royal protests shaking Nepal.

The death toll from the devastating blaze at a trade fair in northern India rose today to 52, officials said, while people struggled to find their relatives among the charred bodies.

THOUSANDS defied a curfew and shoot-on-sight orders in Nepal yesterday and marched in city streets demanding that King Gyanendra restore democracy.

Police questioned eight suspects today after a suicide bomber blew himself up on a crowded Bangladesh street, killing himself and six others in the latest attack blamed on extremists wanting to create an Islamic state.

Airports in India were on a state of high alert today after intelligence reports warned of a possible suicide bombing or hijacking.

Nepal’s government, which has been battling a communist insurgency, has banned passengers from riding on the back of motorcycles to stop drive-by shootings by rebels, it was announced today.

Paramedics today began vaccinating more than 65,000 refugees in the south of India as authorities rushed aid to survivors of the tsunami that killed at least 4,400 people in India and left 8,000 missing, many of them feared dead, officials said.

An Indian archipelago was jolted by aftershocks from the massive weekend quake today, as emergency aid reached survivors of the tsunamis that killed 4,413 people and left 8,000 missing -many of them probably dead.

A string of Indian islands were rattled by aftershocks today while emergency aid was rushed to survivors of the tsunami waves that killed at least 4,300 people along the nation’s south-eastern coast.

Thousands of opposition supporters joined hands or stood side by side Saturday to form a massive human chain across Bangladesh to demand a new government.

More than 40,000 Malaysians have watched Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ after authorities in the predominately Muslim nation allowed the film to be shown to Christians in designated cinemas.

A heavily-guarded convoy of six buses snaked its way out of Nepal’s capital Katmandu today, the first vehicles to defy Maoist rebels who blockaded Katmandu this week with threats alone and without setting up a single roadblock.

A series of earthquakes have shaken buildings in the western Indian state of Gujarat, injuring at least 25 people.