New Delhi, Feb 17 : Samajwadi Party General Secretary Amar Singh today lashed out at All India Congress Committee (AICC) General Secretary Digvijay Singh for his "begging bowl" remark.

"The statements emerging from the Congress are very disheartening," Amar Singh said.

He said that Digvijay Singh will be held responsible if ties between the Congress and the Samajwadi Party are severed.

New Delhi  - At least 12 people were killed and 40 injured when their bus fell into a gorge in India's southern Kerala state early Tuesday, news reports said.

The bus was carrying at least 60 pilgrims from the southern state of Andhra Pradesh to the Hindu shrine of Sabarimala in Kerala when the accident occurred, PTI and IANS news agencies reported.

The bus crashed in Kottayam district, 160 kilometers north of the Kerala capital Thiruvananthapuram, while negotiating a narrow road, Kerala Transport Minister Mathew T Thomas was quoted as saying.

New Delhi  - Amid new layoffs each passing day, the evenings at Dubai's Jebel Ali labour camps, home to thousands of South Asian workers, are fraught with economic uncertainty and gloom.

Half a dozen migrants gathered recently at a flat to comfort Indian construction worker Sunam Mallaiah, who had just lost his job. Unsure of their own livelihoods, the men were unable to offer words of hope.

Mallaiah went into debt and sold his land in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh to raise 150,000 rupees (3,090 dollars) for a recruitment agent to get him work in Dubai, one of the seven states of the United Arab Emirates.

New Delhi, Feb 17: Union Textiles Minister Shankersinh Vaghela will lay the foundation stone of "Handloom Marketing Complex" here today.

The new marketing complex, exclusively for the handloom fabrics from various parts of India, is being set up on 1.779 acres of land at Janpath, New Delhi.

It will be built at a cost of Rs. 42.00 crores and will have double two bay basement parking space so as to provide a conducive atmosphere for shoppers.

New Delhi, Feb 16 : The political parties on Monday gave mixed reactions to the Interim Budget 2009-10, as proposed by acting Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Union Minister of Science and Technology Kapil Sibal said, "The economy will kick-start with the whatever expenditure it has and once this money reaches the people they will spend it and once they spend it money will start flowing in the market and with that the economy will improve and that is the idea of this interim budget."

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), however, blamed the Central Government for `doling out lollypops' and said the budget was silent on the concerns of common man, which was the poll plank of the Congress party.

New Delhi, Feb 16 : Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has hailed the Interim budget for 2009-10, presented in Parliament today.

Complimenting acting Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee for his budget speech, Dr. Singh said," The Interim budget is a fine balancing act between the need to restore the economy to its optimum growth path and the constitutional constraints of a pre-election budget.

"I have no doubt that the continued stimulus for the various flagship programmes of the Government will provide relief to all sections - specially the ''Aam Aadmi," he added.