Kothi (Himachal Pradesh), Jan. 10 : Pushing down temperatures, the recent snowfall here has brought a smile back on the faces of apple growers.

Confident about securing a bumper apple crop in the upcoming season, the farmers say that the timely snowfall is a boon for them.

The apple trees are dormant and require chilling conditions less than seven degree Celsius for a month.

New Delhi, Jan. 10 : Vice-President Mohammad Hamid Ansari and Leader of Opposition and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L. K. Advani, besides people from various walks of life, attended the last rites of the founder and chairman of the Observer Research Foundation, R. K. Mishra, here on Saturday.

Mishra died in Bangalore on Friday night.

Mishra had made his mark on the national scene as an intrepid journalist. An editor of high standing, he was a dynamic and visionary thinker. he was also a parliamentarian of acclaimed integrity and a forceful proponent of social and economic reform.

Thanna Mandi (Jammu and Kashmir), Jan. 10 : A large number of devotees thronged the Shahdara Sharif Dargah (Mausoleum) here on Friday to offer prayers for better relations between India and Pakistan.

Situated approximately 117 kilometers from Jammu, and located atop a beautiful hillock in the Thanna Mandi area of the northern state, the shrine is dedicated to Baba Ghulam Shah Badshah.

People from all walks of life visit the shrine to have their wishes fulfilled. In fact, Thanna Mandi has become quite famous because of this shrine.

Ramnagar (Uttaranchal), Jan. 10 : Wildlife officials captured a tiger on Friday after it had strayed into a human settlement here.

The tiger had been wandering around in the area for past one month and had injured many villagers and their livestock, the officials claimed.

They said that they had put up a cage for past one month, but managed to capture the animal only on Friday, after saving it from the villagers'' ire.

Berlin - Defying recession, the Skoda division of German Volkswagen intends to expand its factory in China and build another in India, according to the chief brand officer at Skoda, Reinhard Jung.

In a report released Saturday by the German weekly Auto Motor und Sport, he said, "This year we want to double our Chinese capacity, which is currently 50,000 to 60,000." He said Skoda would set up new factories in Russia and China.

New Delhi - India has not received a reply from Pakistan on its dossier on Mumbai terrorist attacks, Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma said Saturday.

"We will react to the reply when we receive it. We have not yet received it," Sharma was quoted as saying by IANS news agency.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani had said on Friday that the country's premier spying agency had shared the findings of its investigation into the Mumbai terrorist attacks with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and this had been passed on to India.