India

At least 23 people have died in protests against the conviction for rape of a popular religious leader in northern India, the BBC reported.

The victims are believed to be followers of the guru Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh. Enraged supporters revolt in the town of Panchulla, near Chandigarh.

At least 10 people were killed on Saturday and 150 injured when a train came off the tracks in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh, the chief medical officer in Muzaffarnagar, where the crash happened, told Reuters, quoted by The Gulf Today. 

A police official earlier said 20 people had been injured but did not mention any people killed.

India's independence from British colonial rule coincided with the partition of the subcontinent into two separate countries, setting off unprecedented communal carnage on both sides of the hastily created border.

Sixty children have died at a hospital in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh this week, prompting local media to blame the fatalities on a lack of oxygen supplies.

The BRD Medical College specified that 34 were babies who died at the neo-natal intensive care unit, while 12 died because of encephalitis. The rest died of other unspecified causes.

India has seized a vessel carrying about 1,500 kilograms of heroin worth 35 billion rupees (5.94 million) off the western state of Gujarat, a navy spokesperson said, quoted by Reuters.

Indian navy spokesman D.K.Sharma said in a statement this was their largest single haul of narcotics substances to date.

Floods in India's northeast have killed at least 83 people and led to the death of three rare one-horned rhinoceros at a national park that has the world's largest concentration of the species, Reuters reports.

India's Supreme Court suspended on July 11 a government ban on the trade of cattle for slaughter, a boost for the multi-billion dollar beef and leather industries mostly run by members of the Muslim minority.

Relations between India and China have deteriorated in recent times. The two Asian neighbours have warned each other over the current situation in Doklam, an area near Sikkim that China claims as its own. India deployed soldiers in Doklam early in June in order to stop the construction of a road by the Chinese Army. New Delhi claimed that the Chinese action has security implications for India.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu extended an "extraordinary" welcome to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi when the latter arrived at the Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv on Tuesday for a three-day "path-breaking" visit to the Jewish nation.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi condemned on Thursday a string of murders targeting minorities under the pretext of protecting cows, which are considered sacred by many Hindus, after critics accused the government of turning a blind eye.