New Delhi, Nov 19, 2008 - India and Egypt, once partners in developing Helwan HA-300 and Marut aircraft, will cooperate in "peaceful" ventures in outer space.

A Joint Communique issued at the end of three-day visit of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, released simultaneously here and in Cairo, said that the two countries signed five agreements to boost bilateral ties in trade, health, technical cooperation and security.

New Delhi, Nov. 19 : Six months after India held its first summit with African leaders, an international conference is being organised in Delhi from Thursday (Nov. 20) to take a closer look at Africa''s economic resurgence, its increasing presence in global affairs and the patterns and impact of the political and economic engagement of external powers in African affairs.

The Minister of State for External Affairs, Anand Sharma, will inaugurate the two-day conference with the theme "Engaging with resurgent Africa", organised jointly by Observer Research Foundation (ORF), a Delhi-headquartered public policy think tank, and Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (RLS), a leading think tank of Germany, an ORF press release said.

New Delhi - The Indian Navy foiled an attack by pirates off the Somali coast and sunk their ship, news reports said Wednesday.

The Indian Navy's INS Tabar stealth frigate, which has been deployed in the Gulf of Aden, was fired at by pirates late Tuesday, the IANS news agency reported.

The INS Tabar returned fire and sank the pirate vessel, a navy official told the IANS.

The NDTV network reported that there were at least three pirate vessels that had attacked the Indian ship.

The strike was the second successful one by the Indian Navy against pirates in Somali waters.

Last week, the INS Tabar staved off an attack by Somali pirates on two merchant vessels - one from India and another from Saudi Arabia.

New Delhi - Indian markets Wednesday snapped a five-session losing streak and were in the positive territory with the benchmark Sensex climbing 3 per cent to breach 9,000 levels.

Lahore, Nov 19 : Following the opening up of Indo-Pak trade through land route, the Pakistan government is considering including 100 new items in the positive trade list with India.

According to a TV channel report, the federal government had directed the Federal Board of Revenue to review the list of additional items in the list.

The government was also considering the abolishment of non-trade barrier to promote trade with India, the Daily Times quoted the report as saying.

Presently, bilateral trade between Pakistan and India stands at 2.12 billion dollars, and is restricted by non-tariff barriers imposed by India besides Pakistan’s positive list.

Ludhiana, Nov. 19: More and more farmers in different parts of Punjab are today taking to pig and turkey farming. The shift from the conventional methods to new avenues is driven from the urge to earn a better income.

In an effort to empower small and marginal farmers, Punjab government is encouraging farmer to take up pig farming and turkey breeding in the rural parts of the State.

A look into the prospects of turkey breeding and pig farming, one learns how both of them are potentially more viable than conventional farming.