India

Recently, India has launched a nationwide program involving the allocation of a Unique Identification Number (UID) to every single one of its 1.2 billion residents. Each of the numbers will be tied to the biometric data of the recipient using three different forms of information – fingerprints, iris scans, and pictures of the face. All ten digits of the hand will be recorded, and both eyes will be scanned.

Three near-simultaneous explosions have shaken India's commercial capital Mumbai (Bombay), police say. Twenty-one people were killed and 113 injured, said Maharashtra state's Chief Minister, Prithviraj Chavan.

It was a college romance with a horrific ending. On Wednesday, a student of St Xavier’s College, Ranchi, was beheaded by her boyfriend inside the campus in the heart of the city. Bijendra Kumar alias Golu, 23, an engineering diploma student of Jamshedpur, used a small dagger to severe the head of Kh usbu, 18, an intermediate student. He was nabbed by students and security guards.

India has imposed a three-month ban on imports of food articles from the whole of Japan on fears that radiation from an earthquake-hit nuclear plant was spreading to other parts of the country, becoming the first country to introduce a blanket ban.

India has seized 61 pirates after a naval gunfight in the Arabian Sea. The operation is one of the most successful since Somalian pirates escalated their campaign of extortion and kidnap on the Indian Ocean two years ago.