London - Insurers Lloyds of London Tuesday announced 50-per-cent slide in pre-tax profits in 2008 amid a sharp rise in claims resulting from natural disasters around the world.

Lloyd's, the world's biggest insurance market, said pre-tax profits fell by 50.6 per cent to 1.9 billion pounds (2.7 billion dollars) in 2008, compared with 3.85 billion pounds for
2007.

The market has been hit by "significant claims from natural catastrophes, lower insurance rates and a reduction in investment income", said the firm.

New Delhi, Mar 24 : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday urged Pakistan to take concrete steps to fight terrorism and bring perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks to justice.

New Delhi, Mar. 24 : Leading aircraft maker Airbus Industrie is planning to establish a manufacturing base in India within next three-four years.

"We plan to develop manufacturing base in India in the next three to four years. We don''t want to copy what we have done in China. China started more on the manufacturing side, but the biggest development in India was on engineering and services sector," Eric Zenin, Head of Airbus Business Development and International Cooperation, said.

Jammu, Mar 24 : Displaced Kashmiri Pandits staged a protest in front of the Election Commission office in Jammu, demanding inclusion in the voter''s list.

Kashmiri Pandits, who have migrant''s status in the region, want their names to be included in the voter''s list so that they can exercise their franchise in the upcoming general elections.

Stockholm - A Palestinian reading promotion group was Tuesday named winner of the 2009 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, a literary prize created in honour of the Swedish creator of numerous popular fiction characters including Pippi Longstocking.

The Tamer Institute for Community Education became the second reading promotion group to win the award that is considered one of the largest literary awards for children and young people, worth 5 million kronor (621,000 dollars).

Srinagar, Mar 24 : With mustard blossoms in full bloom, farmers in Kashmir are hopeful of bumper mustard crop this year due to timely rain.

Mustard crop is cultivated during winter in an estimated 60 thousand hectares of paddy fields in the Kashmir valley, which according to an estimate is about 40 percent of the total area under paddy.

The crop is sown in September-October after paddy is harvested. As temperatures rise after winter, rapeseed-mustard crop blossoms and is harvested towards the end of May.