New Delhi, Dec 15 : President Pratibha Patil will give away the National Awards and the Shilp Guru Awards to the master craftspersons and weavers here today.

Union Minister for Textiles Shankersinh Vaghela and the Minister of State for Textiles E. V. K. S. Elangovan will also be present on the occasion.

77 National Awards for the year 2005 and 2006 are being conferred to selected master craftspersons and weavers by the President, as a token of recognition to their excellent craftsmanship.

New Delhi, Dec 15: US Senator John Kerry will meet Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh here today.

Kerry, who arrived here on Sunday, is expected to hold discussions on the situation arising out of the Mumbai terror strikes.

During his visit, Kerry is also scheduled to meet External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and other leaders.

New Delhi, Dec. 14 : The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is set to reopen the Nanded bomb blast case.

Talking to reporters on Sunday here, CBI Director Ashwani Kumar said: "We have reopened the Nanded investigations."

The decision to reopen the case was taken after some leads emerged during the investigations into the Malegaon case in which eleven people, including Lt Col Shrikant Purohit, were arrested.

The CBI has also taken into custody Rakesh Dhawde, one of the accused in the September 29 Malegaon blast.

New Delhi, Dec 14 : British Prime Minister Gordon Brown met his Indian counterpart Dr. Manmohan Singh here today.

Both are understood to have discussed the situation in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks.

Senior officials including Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon and Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister TKA Nair were also present during the meeting.

New Delhi - The Indian Navy in another successful anti-piracy operation in the Gulf of Aden Saturday foiled an attack on an Ethiopian merchant vessel and arrested
23 Somali and Yemeni pirates, news reports said.

Pirates on two boats had surrounded the merchant vessel MV Jibe, 160 nautical miles east of Aden, when the Indian navy warship INS Mysore intervened and staved off the attack, the IANS news agency reported.

"Around 12 noon, INS Mysore received a SOS from the Ethiopian vessel, that it was under attack from two vessels," a navy spokesman told the IANS.