Shops and businesses were shut and public transport halted as a two-day strike demanding the creation of a new state in southern India paralyzed the region.

Two gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on a group of tourists near one of India's biggest mosques today, injuring two Taiwanese and raising concerns about security less than two weeks before an international sporting event in the Indian capital.

PRESIDENT Barack Obama warned that an obscure US Christian pastor’s plan to burn the Koran tomorrow to mark September 11 could provoke al-Qaida suicide bombings, as Asian countries urged Washington to prevent the act.

SUSPECTED Maoist rebels derailed an overnight passenger train yesterday in eastern India, triggering a crash with an oncoming cargo train that killed at least 71 people and injured about 200 more, officials said.

AN Indian court yesterday convicted a Pakistani man of murder and waging war for his role in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that left 166 people dead in the heart of India’s financial capital.

Maoist rebels launched a series of devastating ambushes on Indian troops today killing at least 75 in the deadliest strike against the government in their 43-year insurgency.

India kicked off the national census of its billion-plus population today with a 2.5 million-strong army of census-takers fanning out across the country to conduct what has been billed the world’s largest administrative exercise.

India and Pakistan held high-level peace talks today for the first time since the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks in an attempt to reduce tension between them.

A bomb detonated in a crowded bakery popular with foreigners in western India killing nine people and wounding 57, officials said today, the first terrorist attack in the country since the 2008 Mumbai massacre.

Security forces were searching forests in central India today after suspected Maoist rebels ambushed a patrol team, killing at least 17 policemen, a top official said.

India has increased its security after Israel and Australia issued warnings to their citizens to avoid visiting its cities.

A TERROR suspect arrested in New Delhi was a close aide of a prime suspect in the Mumbai terror attacks, India’s Home Minister said yesterday.

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.

India’s home minister said Pakistan could become a failed state and raised doubts about who was in control of the nuclear-armed country, a news report said today.

India produced evidence today about the Mumbai attacks which it said conclusively tied the killers to “elements” in Pakistan.

India’s top law minister announced a massive overhaul of the country’s security and intelligence agencies today, in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.

INDIA acknowledged the Mumbai attacks had uncovered security lapses but Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said yesterday evidence showed the strike originated on a neighbour’s soil, a clear reference to Pakistan.

India’s top security official resigned today as the government struggled under growing accusations of security failures following terror attacks that killed 174 people.

India’s new Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had a cabinet in place today after days of wrangling within his multi-party coalition, with a Harvard-educated veteran appointed as finance minister.