New Delhi, Mar 16 : Sharat Sabharwal, currently the special secretary in charge of administration, consular, paasport and visa affairs in the External Affairs Ministry, has been appointed as India's new envoy to Pakistan.

He will succeed Satyabrata Pal, whose extended term has ended on February 28. He is expected to take up his assignment shortly.

Sabharwal, a 1975 batch Indian Foreign Service (IFS), has served as India's deputy high commissioner in Islamabad between 1995-1999.

New Delhi, Mar 16 : The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has emphasised on the review and re-working of the 123 Agreement with the US for civil nuclear cooperation in its election manifesto released today.

The CPI-M, which had supported the Left parties in withdrawing support to the UPA Government in July last year on the issue of Indo-US nuclear deal, criticised the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for their economic and foreign policies.

New Delhi, Mar 16 : India's leading offshore IT and software development company, the HCL on Monday announced that it has bagged a seven year 350 million dollars IT services outsourcing contract from media and marketing house `Readers Digest Association' (RDA).

According to a HCL statement, under the deal, the IT giant would re-build and migrate RDA's mainframe environment to its New Jersey data centre facility.

New Delhi, Mar 16 : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday released names of seven candidates from Assam for the Lok Sabha elections.

The BJP, which is in alliance with the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) in the state, would contest eight seats while rest of the six seats would be fought by the AGP.

BJP is yet to announce the name of its candidate for Dhubri seat.

The party will field Sudanshu Das (Karimganj), Kabindrapurkayasth (Silchar), Bijoya Chakraborty (Guwahati), Ramen Deka (Mangaldoi), Rajan Gohain (Nowgong),

Imphal, Mar 16 : Two militants of the People''s United Liberation Front (PULF) have been shot down in an encounter with the police in the Imphal East district in Manipur.

The local police informed on Monday that the commandos, who were patrolling the Keirao area in the district on Sunday, were been attacked by militants.

The police commandos, after the encounter, recovered a M21 rifle with six rounds of ammunition and a 9mm pistol with four live rounds from the spot.