New Delhi, Sept 29 : The Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) on Monday presented the family of slain Delhi Police Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma a sum of Rs. 19.98 lakhs.

LIC’s Senior Divisional Manager A K Sharma personally visited Sharma’s house in Dwarka and handed over cheques to his wife Maya Sharma, who was the nominee under all his insurance policies.

In a press release, the company said that the family wasn’t aware about his polices, but it came forward to settle the entire insured amount. 

Inspector Sharma died of excessive bleeding after leading an encounter in Delhi’s Jamia Nagar on September 19, 

Tokyo, Sept. 29 : Cultural ties between India and Japan have taken a giant leap forward with Tokyo hosting the two-day Namaste India 2008 festival at the weekend.

Vaibhav Kant Upadhyay, the Chairman of the India Center Foundation (ICF), which organized the event in the Yoyogi-koen park of Central Tokyo on Saturday and Sunday, said the objective of the festival was to showcase India''s culture, society and economy and to provide an opportunity for the Japanese to connect with India. 

He said that the ICF has been constantly working towards creating better relations between India and Japan.

Srinagar, Sept 29: The death toll today in the ongoing operation to track town militants in high-altitude areas of Kashmir valley has gone up to nine.

According to sources, two bodies of the two slain militants were recovered from Kangan, 40 km from Srinagar today.

The identity and group affiliation of the deceased are yet to be established.

The operation was launched on Thursday following information that a group of militants was moving from Bandipora to Kangan in Ganderbal district.

New Delhi, Sep 29: India and Russia today agreed to extend the term of the Indo-Russian Inter-Governmental Commission for Military-Technical Cooperation (IRIGC-MTC) for another ten years -- till 2020, leading to a further strengthening of ties between both countries.

Russia’s Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov today met his Indian counterpart A K Antony for one-to-one talks and later co-presided over a session of the Indo-Russian Inter-Governmental Commission for Military-Technical Cooperation.

Antony termed today’s meeting of the IRIGC-MTC as very successful, and was hopeful of it having a positive outcome.

New Delhi  - At least eight people, including six children, were killed in an explosion in a village in eastern India as people were making firecrackers ahead of a festival, news reports said Monday.

Two villagers were injured in Sunday's explosion in Balasore district, 230 kilometres north of Orissa's state capital, Bhubaneshwar, the PTI news agency reported.

The blast occurred when people were illegally making firecrackers in a house and some of them caught fire, police told The Statesman daily.

New Delhi  - Indian equities extended their losses from last week as the benchmark Sensex fell more than 3 per cent Monday, tracking weakness in global markets despite an agreement on a 700-billion-dollar bailout plan for US financial institutions.

The 30-share-sensitive index fell below 13,000 and was trading at 12,657.76 at 12:30 pm (0700 GMT), down 444.42 points, or 3.39 per cent.

Similarly, the broader S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange was trading at 3,863 for a midday loss of 3.07 per cent.