Supporters of the National Conference and Congress clashed in north Kashmir’s Ganderbal district during Omar Abdullah’s road show there.

United Nations AIDS agency in a report said that if India is unable to check the steep rise in the number of intravenous drug users, HIV/AIDS infection will spread at alarming rates. There are already 2.5 million people suffering from AIDS in India and if unchecked, the number could easily reach 10 million by 2010.

After showing door to Margaret Alva, the Congress on Thursday relieved Yogendra Makwana as chairman of its Scheduled Caste department. And the reason cited was “gross indiscipline” for publicly criticizing the party’s functioning.

“The party has taken a serious view of his conduct and consequently the Congress president has relieved him from the chairmanship of the SC department of the AICC with immediate effect,” general secretary Janardan Dwivedi said.

Dr. Makwana, a former Union Minister had been publicly criticising the party’s policies and functioning for quite a long time.

Indian equities rallied at the opening time on the back of encouraging global signals and domestic inflationary figures calming down to single digit levels.

But, stocks tumbled into the red zone because of profit booking.

Realty, metal stocks gained ground, while consumer goods, IT and oil & gas stocks have shed a major portion of their early gains.. BSE Midcap and Smallcap index declined 0.38% and 0.19% respectively.

The 30-share index BSE Sensex, today, opened with a gain of 262.92 points, at 9,799.25.

Sony Ericsson has made announcement about the launching of its much-awaited Xperia X1a phone, which will hit US market on November 28.

The phone will be available through the Sony Style stores, which have already started receiving pre-orders from Thursday (November 13).

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X1a, which is focused more on lifestyle of a consumer, features a brilliant 3.0-inch 16-bit color TFT touchscreen with a full QWERTY keyboard.