New Delhi, Sept. 8 : Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith will visit India from September 8 to September 12. This will be his first visit to India as his country''s Foreign Minister.

Speaking ahead of his visit, Smith said: "My visit reflects Australia’s intention to take India to the front line of its international relationships. In New Delhi, I will meet my counterpart, Minister of External Affairs, Mr Pranab Mukherjee. He and I will continue the broad-ranging and productive talks we had in June when I hosted Mr Mukherjee in Canberra for the fifth Australia-India Foreign Ministers’ Framework Dialogue."

New Delhi, Sep 8 : China has said that relevant cooperation should help maintain the integrity and validity of the international nuclear non proliferation system after the
45 nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) permitted nuclear trade with India.

“China always advocates that all countries are entitled to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, and carry out international cooperation in this regard. However, relevant cooperation should help maintain the integrity and validity of the international nuclear nonproliferation system,” said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu.

New Delhi - India's benchmark Sensex index surged 4.28 per cent in early trading Monday, topping 15,000 after the Nuclear Suppliers Group gave approval for opening nuclear trade with India.

The 30-share index, which had lost 415.27 points in the previous trading session on Friday, moved up by 623.18 points to 15,107.01 soon after the bourses opened for trading.

It later shed some gains and was trading at 15,070, a gain of 4.04 per cent, at 11:40 am (0610 GMT).

New Delhi/Srinagar, Sept 8 : The Election Commission on Monday will hold a meeting of all political parties of Jammu and Kashmir to determine the timing of the State Assembly elections.

The Commission has decided to assess the situation in New Delhi after doubts were expressed whether polls could be held in the wake of the recent violence in the state.

New Delhi, Sept 8 : Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, who arrived in Kolkata on a three-day visit to India on Sunday, will reach here this afternoon to meet Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and to hold delegation level talks with the External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee. 

The Indian leadership is expected to convey its disappointment about Beijing''''s stand at NSG meet at Vienna for granting waiver to New Delhi''''s nuclear trade.

Reports from Vienna suggested that China, which initially refrained from saying much on the India-specific waiver from the (NSG), started playing an "active role" to try to block a consensus before the nuclear cartel decided to give India the waiver on Saturday.

New Delhi, Sept 7: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Sunday said its fight against the Indo-US nuclear deal was not over and it would work now to see a new government in power which would terminate the 123 Agreement.

The CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat told media persons here today, "Our political battle is here and not in Vienna or Washington. Earlier we withdrew support on this issue and we are now fighting against this ruling coalition. The struggle to rescind or reverse this deal is agreement is not over.”

"After the next elections, our goal will be to see that the new government take step to terminate the 123 Agreement. We will work for this," added Karat.