It was a really happy Sunday for India, as it won the second test match defeating Sri-Lanka by 170 runs to level the series 1-1. Sri Lanka needed 307 to win against India, but could not do so, as the Indian team displayed a fine performance of endurance and expertise.

The dejected home captain of Sri Lanka, Mahela Jayawardene, said that losing three early wickets in their second innings was responsible for the team's debacle.

New Delhi - Six Tibetan activists entered the second week of a hunger strike in New Delhi to protest the upcoming Beijing Olympics and "occupation" of Tibet by China, a spokesman said Monday.

The activists from the Tibetan Youth Congress staged their protest at the capital's Jantar Mantar area in the central business district of Connaught Place.

"The hunger strike has entered its eighth day today," the group's vice president, Dhondup Dorjee Shokda, said. "Their health has deteriorated rapidly as they have lost over 11 kilograms on an average."

He said the activists had so far resisted pleas by local police to take them to hospital.

New Delhi, Aug 4 : Afghan President Hamid Karzai was accorded a ceremonial welcome by his Indian counterpart President Pratibha Patil at the forecourt of the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan today.

Expressing his delight on visiting India, Karzai said, "I''m extremely happy to be in India. The country of long deep friendly relations with Afghanistan, the country that has specially helped Afghanistan in past six years with generosity and affection, the country that has fortunately for all of us growing importance in the world."

New Delhi, Aug 4 : President Pratibha Patil today condoled the loss of lives in the Naina Devi Temple stampede in Himachal Pradesh yesterday.

The President has conveyed her heartfelt condolences to the families of the deceased and has also sent her prayers for the speedy recovery of the injured.

Meanwhile, devotees resumed trekking to Naina Devi temple on Sunday midnight even as the death toll in the worst-ever temple tragedy touches 146 and 129 bodies have been identified so far.

New Delhi - Parents wailed for their dead children as relatives identified their loved ones Monday, a day after a stampede at a Hindu temple in India's northern state of Himachal Pradesh claimed 145 lives, officials and news reports said.

Rumours of a landslide caused the stampede at the hilltop shrine of Naina Devi in the Bilaspur district, 320 kilometres north of New Delhi. At least 80 victims were women and children.

Mumbai, Aug. 4 : Rupert Murdoch''s News Corporation plans to invest 100 million American dollars to launch six regional TV channels in India.