Mumbai, Sept. 20 : At least 500 Nepalese children have been sold into slavery to Indian circuses over the past year, according to a new report issued in Kathmandu.

The Times quotes the Nepali Central Child Welfare Board report as saying that India is emerging as a major hub for human trafficking.

The paper further goes on to say that Indian circus owners prize young Nepalese girls for their fair skin and “exotic looks” – features also favoured by the pimps who run prostitution rackets that span South Asia and the Middle East.

Impoverished parents in Nepal are paid as little as 10 pounds for their daughters by agents usually linked to powerful organised crime networks, human rights activists claim.

Mumbai, Sept 19 : The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) benchmark Sensex surged by 645 points at midsession on Friday following reassurance from Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram that the Indian economy will remain unaffected from the global financial crisis.

Sensex, the 30-share index, which remained under selling pressure on weak global cues, spurted by 644.98 points to 13,960.58 at 12:45 P. M. on heavy buying by funds.

Dr. Singh''s statement that there will be no impact of US crisis on the Indian economy boosted investor''s confidence, according to reports.

Mumbai may be the next target for terror attacks as it is the financial capital of the country. The city police along with Idea Cellular have launched a campaign against terror attacks.’ 

Alert Mumbaikar' aims at bringing about mass awareness among the general population, so that they are able to notice any unusual activity in there surrounding. A 24 hour helpline no 9702100100 will be made available to the citizens for reporting any such incident. 

There will be posters in all prominent places alerting citizens to be aware of unusual behavior. The campaign has also roped in the bollywood industry which is giving its full support to the program. 

Mumbai/New Delhi, Sept 18 : The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensex rebounded from sharp early losses on Thursday and snapped a seven-day losing streak, as domestic funds stepped in to pick bargains with Finance Minister P. Chidambaram ruling out negative impact of Lehman bankruptcy but the outlook remained shaky on deepening global financial woes.

Mumbai, Sep 18 : Promoters of the Mumbai Special Economic Zone (SEZ), including Reliance India Limited, have filed a petition in the Bombay High Court opposing Maharashtra Government’s decision to hold a defacto referendum on the project.

The Mumbai SEZ is slated to come up in the neighbouring Raigad District.

The Raigad District Collector had last month issued a notice asking the landowners in the 22 affected villages to record their statements regarding their consent for the land acquisition.

Mumbai, Sept 18 : The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex today plunged below 13000 points and lost nearly 705 points in early trading on massive selling by funds, sparked by deepening global financial crisis after the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers.

The 30-share index, which had lost nearly 1,685 points in the last seven sessions, moved down by 704.76 points or 5.31 per cent to 12,558.14, the lowest since July 16 after all the sectoral indices dropped between two to eight per cent with realty, metals and capital goods suffering the most.