British brutality during colonial rule in India cannot be forgotten but the nation is too polite to ask for an apology, India's vice president Hamid Ansari said, according to a report. "The amount of brutality by the British cannot be forgotten," Ansari was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India at a book launch late on Friday.

"We are too polite to even ask for an apology from Britain" for the mass killings during the 1857 revolt, he said, noting that in contrast Australia's government recently apologised to aborigines for historic injustices against them. The Indian uprising, which helped pave the way for independence 90 years later, was spurred by reports that the British were introducing bullets greased with cow and pig fat - considered unclean by Hindus and Muslims respectively.

China will be stricter on foreign performers after Icelandic singer Bjork shouted "Tibet! Tibet!" at the end of her concert in Shanghai, the government said.

A statement by China's culture ministry said Bjork's outburst "broke Chinese law and hurt Chinese people's feelings". Bjork shouted "Tibet!" after a passionate performance of her song "Declare Independence". The outburst drew rare public attention inside China to Beijing's often harsh rule over the Himalayan region.

 

A second post-mortem examination has been ordered on the body of a British teenager found on a beach in Goa.  Scarlett Keeling, 15, from Bideford, Devon, had been on a six-month holiday to the Indian state with her family. 

  

After her body was found at the resort of Anjuna on 18 February, Indian police said the teenager drowned accidentally.  Her mother, Fiona MacKeown, believes Scarlett may have been raped and murdered and hope the results of the tests could trigger a murder inquiry.

 

A youngster lost his life while two of his friends and a shopkeeper took ill in northeast Delhi after consuming a soft drink that is suspected to be contaminated. Police said a case of food adulteration was registered at the Seelampur police station and the matter was under investigation. "We have taken samples of the drinks and are sending them to a forensic laboratory to check the contents. It is a bottle of the Limca brand," said a police official.

Andhra Pradesh Police will subject three women to narcotic tests in an attempt to solve the mysterious rape and murder of their hostel mate. Kavitha, Preethi and Soumya, aged between 19 and 21, were staying in rooms adjacent to Ayesha Meeran's room in a women's hostel when the latter was raped and murdered on the night of Dec 27, 2007. The girls told the police that they did not hear anything from Ayesha's room on the night while the police feel that it was impossible given the fact that girl was raped, dragged from her bed to the bathroom and stabbed to death.

A woman and her four daughters were killed and her son was injured when their house in Hangu district in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) collapsed in heavy rain. All the members of the family were sleeping when the house collapsed.  The 40-year-old Amna Jan and her four daughters died on the spot.
The police and local residents retrieved the bodies from the debris.

A two-and-half-month-old baby boy being claimed by two women as their child was restored to his "real" mother after a DNA test. The baby was given to Santoshi and her husband. The laboratory established that the baby boy is their son and not that of Padmavati, the other woman. The two women had given birth to male infants at a government-run hospital on the same day in January this year. One child died immediately after birth. Due to a mistake by hospital employees, it was not clear whose child had died.

 

A newly-married couple has pleaded with the Indian Supreme Court for security after the bride's brother, angry at their inter-caste marriage, allegedly shot at and critically injured the groom's mother and sister. According to the couple's petition, the two first met in Delhi where the boy is pursing a PhD programme in social medicine and community health, and fell in love with each other. The girl's family, however, disapproved of her choice of the lower caste boy, and confined her to the house.

The girl somehow managed to escape from her parents' house, met the boy in Delhi and the two married on Feb 29. Infuriated over her decision to marry a low-caste boy, her brother shot at and critically injured the boy's mother Kamla and sister Archana.

 

Enraged parents and Hindu Shiv Sena activists beat up the principal of King George School in Bhandup suburb of Mumbai following allegations by students that a teacher had been molesting them for the past two years. The mob barged into the school and attacked the principal since they could not find the teacher. They beat him up and blackened his face. Students have told the police that the teacher used to molest girls aged 12 and 13.

 

A woman succumbed to burn injuries she suffered when her clothes caught fire while praying in a temple in Orissa on the occasion of the Hindu festival of Shivratri. Mirarani Pati, 45, resident of the Keonjhar town, 150 km from capital Bhubaneswar, went to the temple to offer prayers when her sari caught fire from an earthen lamp, the police said. Hindus celebrate Shivratri a day or two before the new moon in the month of Phalgun (February-March).

 

 Mughal period Qurans written in golden letters valued at around US$1.32 million in the global market were recovered with the arrests of three people. The books are said to be the rarest of the rare available in the country.

One laminated leather hardbound brown book entitled "Quran Mazid" in Arabic, another hard bound brown book entitled "Quran Mazid", also in Arabic and embedded with golden metallic leaves on each face were seized from the suspects.