Agra, Feb 19: Hundreds of people from all walks of life participated in a mini-marathon ahead of the opening of the "Taj Mahotsav", the ten-day annual festival at Shilpgram near the Taj Mahal.

"Around 1000 participants took part in this marathon. The participants included officers, athletes, school children and soldiers. They ran almost four kilometres to reach the finishing line. Through this medium, we wanted to give a goodwill message," said Rajeev Rautela, Additional District Magistrate.

A joint study by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and KPMG estimated that the media and entertainment industry will grow at 12.5 percent over the next five years to cross the Rs 1,00,000-crore mark by 2013. The report showed that it grew 15 percent annually since 2006 into an $11.68-billion industry in
2008.

The Study says: "In many ways, 2008 was a testing time for the industry. With the global economic slowdown affecting advertising spends, sectors like TV, print, radio and outdoor that depend on advertising revenues were affected."

New Delhi, Feb 17: Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram on Tuesday said the National Investigation Agency (NIA) will probe only the gravest incidents of terror crimes and a team of officers is already in place to handle such cases.

"Only gravest cases of crimes will be taken up for investigation by the NIA, which will operate in a concurrent jurisdictional framework," Chidambaram said.

Chidambaram was replying to supplementaries in the Lok Sabha.

New Delhi, Feb 17: US civil rights leader Martin Luther King III met Congress president Sonia Gandhi here last evening.

Prominent American civil right activists and lawmakers including John Lewis, Congressman Spencer Bachus, Andrew Young and legendary jazz musician and Grammy winner Herbie Hancock are part of the delegation.

The delegation is on a 12-day trip to India to retrace the steps of Martin Luther King Jr., who came to India to study Mahatma Gandhi.

The delegation will travel around major locations associated with Mahatma Gandhi.

Agral (Madhya Pradesh), Feb 17: Sixteen persons were killed and 30 others were injured on Tuesday morning in a tractor-truck collision that took place near Agral village, about 20 km away from the

Kottayam (Kerala), Feb 17: Eleven Sabarimala pilgrims were killed and 40 others injured when a bus fell into a gorge near Erumeli town in Kerala's Kottayam District in the wee hours on Tuesday.

The victims were on their way to the Sabarimala hill shrine when the bus carrying 60 pilgrims slipped into a 50-foot gorge while it was passing the narrow Pampa Valley road.

All victims are hailing from Andhra Pradesh''s West Godavari District.