The controversial coach of a small boy who ran a marathon in an attempt to set a world record has been shot dead by unidentified gunmen in eastern India, police said.

Seven teenage Christian girl students have gone missing from a convent school in eastern India where Christian-Hindu violence has left at least four people dead over the past 10 days, an official said today.

THE coach of a six-year-old Indian boy, who ran a marathon last year in an attempt to set a world record, was arrested yesterday and charged with torturing the boy, police said.

India today successfully tested an indigenously developed air-to-air missile with a range of up to 50 miles, a defence ministry official said.

A stampede at a Hindu temple in eastern India left at least four people dead and 24 injured today, a temple administrator said.

Meteorologists predicted today that monsoon rains would arrive in much of India in the next few days, bringing relief from a heatwave that has killed more than 150 people.

Thirteen Indian men face the death penalty after being convicted today of the murder of an Australian missionary and his two sons who were burned to death.