New Delhi, Sept 4 : The Congress led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government has rejected the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) charge of having surrendered the country’s right to conduct nuclear tests to the United States.

The Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma while terming the BJP’s charges as preposterous said, “India reserves its right to conduct nuclear tests under the 123 Agreement.”

The government was forced to issue clarification after details of the letter sent by the Bush administration to the US Congress were revealed.

New Delhi, Sept. 4 : External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday said that the UPA Government was not in a position to go beyond its commitment to Parliament on the US-India civil nuclear cooperation deal, even as an atmosphere of uncertainty prevails over India getting a waiver for nuclear commerce from the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

In an interview to All India Radio, Mukherjee said that there was no room for speculation and that the Government would wait for the outcome of the two-day deliberations before initiating the next steps to have the deal operationalised.

New Delhi, Sept 4 : Delhi police has nabbed a Nigerian national with heroin worth Rs. 25 million here today.

While talking to media about the haul Deputy Commissioner of police, Special Cell, Alok Kumar said, “A team of special cell led by Inspector Attar Singh under the supervision of Deputy Commissioner Ravi Shankar exposed an international drug cartel. The team has recovered 2.5 kilograms of heroin which is worth Rupees 2.5 crore in international market.”

Acting on a tip-off the police team arrested Abdul Latif alias Johnson, a resident of Lagos, Nigeria, and an Indian Mohammad Akhtar with one kilogram of heroin.

New Delhi, Sept 4 : Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Kamal Nath on Thursday said that auto exports from India should reach 25 billion dollar in the next decade.

He was speaking at the “Making India a Global Automotive Export Hub” at the Annual Convention of Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), here today. He said the government will play its part by providing the “enabling policy framework” and added that the auto sector should take advantage of these and leverage their strengths for expanding to other parts of the world.

New Delhi - The Indian army Thursday said there was an acute shortage of tents to house hundreds of thousands of flood victims in the eastern state of Bihar, news reports said.

The army, tasked with relief and rescue operations, has been able to send only 500 tents adequate for accommodating 5,000 people, the IANS news agency reported.

This was due to a shortage resulting from sending 1,750 tents to earthquake-hit China in May.

The number of tents was inadequate, with some 3.5 million people being affected or displaced by floods triggered after the monsoon-driven Kosi river changed course.

New Delhi, September 4 : An Asian elephant in China is being sent to the Yunnan Wild Animal Park in Kunming city, following a three-year detoxification program to cure his addiction to drugs.

Four-year-old male elephant, Xiguang, became addicted to drugs in March 2005, after eating a banana smeared with heroin.

According to the China Daily, he was among six elephants lured by animal smugglers along the Sino-Myanmar border.

The report reveals that the smugglers used the bananas as bait for the animals, which were being brought into China''s Dehong Autonomous Prefecture of Dai and Jingpo nationalities.