New Delhi  - At least five policemen were killed and six injured Thursday in a landmine blast triggered by suspected Maoist rebels in the central Indian state Chhattisgarh, a news report said.

The incident occurred in a hamlet in the southern Surguja district when a joint police team was conducting a search operation.

Police sources told the IANS news agency that three Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel and two state police died in the blast, 520 kilometres south of state capital Raipur.

London  - A British man has been reunited with his father after spotting him by chance on a television "missing persons" appeal five years after he was told by police the septegenarian had died, the Daily Telegraph reported Thursday.

John Renehan was told by police in Manchester in 2003 that his father, John Delaney, had been found dead in bushes near the city's main hospital, and went ahead with cremating his body.

Police told Renehan at the time that the badly-decomposed body was that of his father who had gone missing three years earlier from a hostel in Manchester.

The man, then aged 71, had been found in a confused state in the city in April, 2000, and put into a care home where he was given a new name.

London, Sept 4 : Keeping a gun at your home may increase the chances for you to pull the trigger and commit suicide, say two doctors at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Following the finding, doctors are asking lawmakers and psychologists to take a new look at the risks of firearms.

Matthew Miller analysed four years of data in the US and discovered that the rate of suicides involving firearms in states with more gun owners was very high—up to four times higher for men and eight times higher for women.

Pune, Sep 4: On the second day of the ten-day long Ganesh Chaturthi festival, that marks the birthday of Lord Ganesha, hundreds of women devotees gathered here to pray together.

Dressed in traditional attire, they performed the ''Maha Arti'' or the main prayer early in the morning.

The women sat on the road in front of the Dagdusheth temple and offered mass prayers, a tradition that is decades old.

Sydney - Australia has its first shopping centre with a ban on hooded clothing, news reports said Thursday.

Tweed City Shopping Centre in the east coast town of Tweed Heads announced that hoodies, such as hooded sweatshirts, would be banned after sunset on Thursdays on a trial basis.

Tweed City manager Michael Tree said the move was about curbing shoplifting rather than enforcing a dress code.

"We haven't been walking around targeting people," he said. "It was all about disguising your appearance to the security cameras."

Beijing - A gas explosion kil