New Delhi - A speeding bus killed 16 people in India's eastern state of Bihar as it ploughed into a group of people watching a movie by the roadside, police and news reports said Thursday.

The accident occurred Wednesday night near a highway in Sitamarhi district, 160 kilometres north of state capital Patna, the IANS news agency reported.

Vijay Kumar, a district administrative official, said 12 people were crushed to death on the scene and four succumbed to injuries at a hospital.

New Delhi - India equities fell sharply for the third day on Thursday as the benchmark Sensex shed 5.3 per cent in early trade tracking the deepening global financial crisis after the collapse of the US investment bank Lehman Brothers.

The 30-share-sensitive index, which has lost 1,685 points in the last seven trading sessions, plunged 704.76 points to fall to below 13,000 soon after opening.

The index touched a low of 12,558.14 points, a loss of 5.31 per cent, on heavy selling by funds and investors. It later recovered and was trading at 12,790.10 points, a loss of 

Mumbai, Sept 18 : The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex today plunged below 13000 points and lost nearly 705 points in early trading on massive selling by funds, sparked by deepening global financial crisis after the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers.

The 30-share index, which had lost nearly 1,685 points in the last seven sessions, moved down by 704.76 points or 5.31 per cent to 12,558.14, the lowest since July 16 after all the sectoral indices dropped between two to eight per cent with realty, metals and capital goods suffering the most.

Washington, Sept 18: Pakistan's efforts to scuttle India’s bid to get a permanent seat in an expanded UN Security Council reportedly suffered a serious setback when the UN General Assembly recently decided to conduct ‘inter-governmental negotiations’ on reforming the Security Council, instead of leaving the matter to the Open-ended Working Group.

In the Working Group, Pakistan, Italy and Argentina have been effectively blocking the induction of any new permanent members since 2005, when India, Brazil, Germany and Japan made an official bid for permanent membership of the UN.

New Delhi, Sept 18: The 12th round of the China-India border talks to resolve their decades-old border dispute issue will commence in Beijing from today.

The Indian delegation will be lead by National Security Adviser M K Narayanan while State Counsellor Dai Bingguo will head the Chinese delegation.

This is the 12th round of boundary negotiations between the two sides since they appointed Special Representatives in 2003 to resolve the decades-old issue from a political perspective after the diplomatic parleys failed to yield results.

New Delhi, Sept 17 : Former President Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam on Wednesday favoured an active teaching role for retired scientists in schools and colleges. 

He was delivering the inaugural address to an international workshop here today on “Emerging frameworks and issues for Science and Technology (S&T) recruitments”. He suggested scientific organisations to utilize their services.