COLOMBO, Sri Lanka

A Sri Lankan court has denied bail for the consul general of Singapore, who has been arrested and detained in connection with the island's largest ever financial scandal. Lalith Kotelawala, a Sri Lankan national, was accused of defrauding depositors of $645 million. Thousands of people deposited money into Kotelawala's Golden Key company expecting high returns. He commanded the confidence of investors partly with his credentials as Singapore's representative in Sri Lanka. Golden Key, a unit of Ceylinco Group, collapsed in December after failing to pay back thousands of investors.

NEW DELHI, India

Two police officers, including an assistant commissioner of police, were injured in stone pelting by a mob after carcasses of a number of cows were discovered in south Delhi last weekend. “The police had received a complaint about carcasses. When the two policemen reached there a group of more than 20 people had already assembled there and were shouting slogans. The policemen were trying to redress their grievances when some men started throwing stones at them,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) H.G.S. Dhaliwal. The police have registered cases for cow slaughter against unknown people.

NEW DELHI, India

A key prosecution witness in the 2001 murder of bandit-turned-politician Phoolan Devi turned hostile in a city court last week, when he claimed that his earlier statement indicting Sher Singh Rana as the main accused was made at the behest of the public prosecutor. Raja Kumar, who had studied with Rana at St. Gabriel School at Roorkee in Uttarakhand, said his statement recorded Feb. 21, 2004 in a court, was not true as it was influenced by the public prosecutor. Rana, with 11 others, allegedly conspired and killed Phoolan Devi on July 25, 2001, to avenge the 1981 Behmai massacre in which the then bandit queen killed 17 people of the Thakur community.

CHANDIGARH, India

Chandigarh's Alliance Francaise is to get a new director after the previous head was arrested for possession of drugs. French national Isabelle Normand, who held the post, was deported from India after she was caught in Himachal Pradesh near Kullu town, with 250 gm of charas (cannabis) on Feb. 22, police said. Normand joined Alliance Francaise in 2007. Kullu Valley is known for illegal cultivation of opium and high-quality charas. The 'Malana cream' variety of charas from the valley is considered one of the best in the international drug market.

CHENNAI, India

Accused of killing his four-day-old daughter, IT engineer S. Niranjan Kumar, 29, has said he is insane, but authorities are examining the claim. According to police sources, Kumar allegedly dumped his infant daughter into a well and admitted to murder when he was caught by neighbours and relatives. “Kumar said he flung the child into the well because he suspected she would bring ill-luck to him. He had even asked his wife Sangeetha to abort the pregnancy. It is strange how a well educated man believes in such matters,” Deputy Commissioner of Police M.T. Ganeshamurthy told IANS.

RAIPUR, India

A woman in Chhattisgarh allegedly killed her husband by throwing him from the roof of a two-storey building for being an alcoholic and beating her regularly, the police said. The police said that Kesar Bai murdered her husband Kewal Ram and confessed that she had killed him. She said he was an alcoholic who would beat her daily, the police said.

NEW DELHI, India

Assam’s wildlife reserve is in the headlines but for the wrong reasons. Kaziranga National Park, known as a safe haven for the endangered one-horn rhinos and Indian tigers, grabbed media attention with the poaching of over 20 rhinos in last two years and the death of ten tigers in the last 100 days.

NEW DELHI, India

Indian media is abuzz about the trial of an Indian-American doctor found with more than $1 million worth of machine guns and grenades in a raid at his home in Arkansas. Denying Randeep Singh Mann bail pending his federal trial, U.S. Magistrate H. David Young in Little Rock said he was unconvinced the accused would remain in the country if freed on bond. The 50-year-old Mann, an immigrant from India who has become a naturalized U.S. citizen, is charged with possessing unregistered weapons.

DHAKA, Bangladesh

Seven people died and dozens were injured in a fire that engulfed the top six floors of a high rise building housing Bangladesh's largest shopping complex. Media reports put the number of injured at 40. The Daily Star newspaper said firefighters were ill equipped to deal with fires in high rise buildings. The Bashundhara City complex opened in 2004 and was Bangladesh's first modern shopping centre.

PATNA, India

The authorities have uncovered 12 illegal “factories” in Bihar producing guns for use by thugs during the Lok Sabha or India’s upcoming general elections, police said. The crackdown follows an Election Commission directive to ensure violence-free polls. Elections in Bihar have witnessed widespread violence in the past. In the 1999 Lok Sabha polls, 74 people were killed. About 20 were killed in 2004. The 2001 panchayat (village council) elections saw 158 deaths.