Asia & Region
India has rebuffed a call by the United States for it to ask Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment programme.
The foreign ministry said neither India nor Iran needed external guidance on how to conduct bilateral relations.
It said relations between the two spanned centuries, and they were capable of handling them with due care.
The Sri Lankan army says it has seen its heaviest casualties in a single day since the government pulled out of a ceasefire with Tamil rebels in January.
At least 52 Tamil Tiger rebels and 38 soldiers were killed in fighting in the Jaffna peninsula in the far north of the country, a military spokesman said.
But the Tigers say they killed more than 100 troops and lost 16 of their own, beating back a major offensive.
A powerful explosion has ripped through a house in the Indian state of West Bengal, killing at least three people.
A police chief said the dead have not yet been identified, but that they may be Tibetans.
The owner of the house, in the town of Siliguri, said that it was rented by a Tibetan exile who said he was using it in connection with a computer business.
At least 18 people died after an explosion hit a civilian bus in the central Sri Lankan town of Dambulla. Police said that at least 50 people had also been injured in the blast, which occurred at a bus station. The bus had stopped on its way from the central town of Kandy to the north-central town of Anuradhapura.
The attack comes amid increased security ahead of celebrations on Monday to mark the 60th anniversary of Sri Lanka's independence from Britain.
But Kanwar Dilshad said the final decision would be reached on Wednesday after consulting political parties.
