Bangkok

Kolkata, Jan 3 : Two buses were reportedly set ablaze today by protesting Trinamool Congress-backed auto-rickshaw operators who were agitating against a court ban on ageing public transport vehicles in the city.

The strike turned violent with irate auto drivers vandalising a government bus at Park Circus.

The agitators turned violent, and stoned and set fire to a West Bengal Transport Corporation bus. The bus was only partially damaged as locals managed to douse the flames. No one was injured.

This year West Bengal's ruling Left Front will start mobilising cadres for the general elections with a rally in Kolkata February 8, hoping it will not suffer the reverses of the panchayat polls during the last year.

State Left Front chairman Biman Bose announced on Thursday that the rally will be held at the sprawling Brigade Parade Ground.

On Thursday afternoon, Assam's major city Guwahati was rocked by three bomb blasts in which five people were dead and almost 51 others injured just hours before Union Home Minister P Chidambaram reached in the city.

Total of three bomb blasts were of low intensity and are thought to have been carried out by the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) using improvised explosive device (IED).

On the occasion of their 101st birthday, twin sisters Betty Richards and Jenny Pelmore tell the secret of long life. The twins were born half an hour apart on January 1, 1908 in Manchester and there is a strong bond among them since childhood.

Both sisters were married but now they are widows. Earlier Richards was a kindergarten teacher and later she became a beekeeper and Pelmore was a secretary and later in life she became an accomplished painter.

London, Jan 2: A man dressed as Norse god `Thor' for a New Year party scared off a burglar who was trying to break-in his house.

Torvald Alexander, 38, a construction firm manager, was returning home wearing a red cape and the thunder god''s silver-winged helmet when he caught the burglar red handed during the break in.

He said the burglar threw himself out of a first floor window after seeing him.

"As soon as he saw me his eyes went wide with terror," the Telegraph quoted him as saying.

"He looked like he had had a few drinks and decided to do a late night break in, but he hadn''t counted on the God of Thunder living here," he added.