New Delhi - An Indian woman chopped the head off a man who attempted to rape her and then paraded his head through a village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, police and news reports said Friday.

Police arrested the 35-year-woman on Thursday night after villagers in the Ishanagar area in Lakhimpur district - some 120 kilometers south-east of state capital Lucknow - called the police.

"The woman had gone to fields to gather fodder for cattle, when the man attempted to rape her," Lakhimpur district police chief Ram Bharose said by telephone.

"She beheaded the man with the sickle in order to save her dignity," Bharose added.

New Delhi - Indian markets extended their losses Friday as the benchmark Sensex stock index fell by nearly 4 per cent by midafternoon after opening on a strong note.

The 30-share sensitive index was quoted at 10,175.1, down 406.39 points, or 3.84 per cent.

Besides information technology firms Satyam Computer Services Ltd and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, all the other of its 28 stocks were in the red.

Similarly, the broader 50-share Nifty index fell by 128.2 points, or 3.92 per cent, to 3141.1.

Foreign funds, which have been the main drivers of India's stock market upswing in recent years, have been net sellers this week, pulling out more than a billion dollars.

New Delhi, Oct 17: Both the Houses of the

Now, gold coins can also be purchased from post offices across the country. The department of posts is planning to introduce the scheme in all the post offices in India. It would sell 24-carat gold coins of 0.5gram, one gram, five grams and eight grams.

New Delhi, Oct 17: President Pratibha Patil will today give away the ‘Nirmal Gram Puraskar’ to the sarpanches of 3209 villages of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat.

The award giving ceremony will be held in Hisar, Haryana, the state, which stands first in the awards tally. Gujarat is a close second.

New Delhi, Oct 17: The condition of Union Information and Broadcasting Minister PR Dasmunsi, who was admitted to AIIMS on Monday after suffering a severe heart attack, is stable today, doctors said.

Head of cardiology department VK Behl said: "The condition of the 62-year-old Minister is stable but he is still under close observation. He has been taken off the ventilator and his vital parameters including blood pressure, heart rate are stable. His blood sugar is under control, kidneys are functioning normal and urine output is also normal."

On Thursday, doctors had said that there was no clinical improvement in the condition of Dasmunsi.