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New York [USA], Sept. 19 : United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has condemned the attack on the Indian Army base in Uri which killed 17 soldiers yesterday.

A statement from the spokesman for Ban Ki-moon said, "The Secretary-General condemns today's militant attack in Uri, India-administered Jammu and Kashmir. He expresses his deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the soldiers who lost their lives and to the Government of India. He wishes a speedy recovery to those injured. The Secretary-General hopes that the perpetrators of this crime will be identified and brought to justice."

The statement said that the UN is closely following the developments in the case and shares the concerns of people living in the region for peace.

New Delhi [India], Sept. 19 - The Supreme Court will today hear a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in which Google, Yahoo and other search engines have been made a party for allegedly putting up advertisements selling pre-natal sex determination kits.

The apex court in July had concluded that the companies' search engines violated the laws by hosting advertisements for tools, kits and clinics that help determine the sex of a foetus.

"Can these search engines continue to violate the law? Is there nothing that can be done to completely stop them? Google, Microsoft, Yahoo can't continue doing the illegal activity in the name of being an intermediary," the top court had observed.

It had also called on the Centre to come up with a memorandum to stop the "abuse".

New Delhi [India], Sept. 19 : Asserting that the sacrifice of the soldiers, who lost their lives in the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri Sector will not go in vain, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has said that India will give a befitting reply to Pakistan and it will have to bear the brunt.

Speaking to ANI, BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi condemned the Uri terror attack and said "Today's incident of Uri is very unfortunate and painful. Now it is very clear from the observations of the military establishment that the terrorists were trained from Pakistan and they were heavily armed with well equipped planning."

Coimbatore [India], Sept. 19 : Heralding the oncoming of Christmas, excited residents of Coimbatore city on Saturday participated in a cake-mixing ceremony as they mixed 500 kilograms of dry fruits with 120 bottles of the finest spirits.

In a unique move, the ceremony was organised at The Residency Towers Hotel, three months ahead of Christmas.

Executive chef of The Residency Towers, Ashok Kumar, said they have been observing the tradition since 20 years.

Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) [India], Sept. 19 : Navy personnel and civilians came out onto the beach over the weekend to clean up the shores on International Coastal Cleanup Day.

Volunteers from Indian Coast Guard, civil society groups and students took part in a clean-up drive at Rama Krishna Mission beach here.

The volunteers picked up garbage from the shore, including cigarette butts, plastic bags and wrappers among others.

Tura (Meghalaya) [India], Sept. 19 : The Government of Meghalaya recently organised a special program to promote the cultivation of black pepper and to motivate people to preserve trees.

The program was organised by the East Garo Hills District Horticulture Office, whose main objective was to disseminate information on the environmental and economical benefits of black pepper cultivation.

Kharkutta MLA Cherak W Momin was the chief guest at the program.

High yield Panniyur 1 variety black pepper saplings were distributed to 83 villages under Rongjeng C&RD Block.

Black pepper is considered a very valuable commodity fetching around rupees 700 to rupees 800 in the market.