4 children gunned down
Four children of a Village Defence Committee member were killed in cold blood by a group of unidentified militants in a remote village in Udhampur district late on Friday. Elsewhere in Banihal area, two militants were killed in an encounter.

'Deeds must follow words'
India is carefully assessing the declared intent of Pakistan to observe military restraint on the Line of Control in response to the unilateral ceasefire put in place earlier this week.

Next Budget will be forward-looking: PM
The Prime Minister, Mr. A.B. Vajpayee, today assured industry that steps would be taken to soften the impact of the withdrawal of quantitative restrictions even as he committed himself to making the next Budget ``forward-looking'' to achieve a target of eight per cent GDP growth.

36 killed in train accident
At least 36 passengers were killed and 140 injured, many seriously, when the Amritsar-bound Howrah Mail crashed into overturned wagons of an Assam-bound goods train near this village in Fatehgarh Sahib district early today. (According to PTI, the toll is 40.) Four coaches of the Howrah Mail and six wagons of the goods train, carrying milled rice from Ajitwal in Moga district to New Bongaigaon in Assam, were involved in the accident.

Gore suffers further setback
The U.S. presidential election, which has been dragging on for over three weeks, witnessed another turn on Friday when the Vice-President, Mr. Al Gore, suffered a setback in three Florida courts.

E.C. modifies symbols order
The Election Commission has modified the criteria to determine the status of a political party as `National' or `State' providing the Communist Party of India (Marxist) an opportunity to regain its classification as a national party.