High-tech businesses, the Indian space agency and nuclear facilities today stepped up security across southern India following threats to target a top politician and launch suicide attacks against New Year’s revellers in India’s technology hub.

Thousands of people in Indian-controlled Kashmir waited for help today as villagers complained they had run out of food and water following a devastating earthquake that flattened the region.

UP to 40,000 people are now feared dead and 2.5 million are homeless after Pakistan’s worst earthquake razed entire villages and buried roads in rubble.

In a likely suicide attack, unidentified militants blew up a security fence today and stormed a northern Indian Hindu shrine at the heart of a bitter sectarian dispute, setting off a fierce gunbattle with security personnel that left five other attackers dead.

Authorities asked air force helicopters to help evacuate nearly 300 passengers stranded in a train on flooded rail tracks in western Gujarat state where heavy monsoon rains have killed at least 90 people this week, a news report said today.