Anti-rape protesters staged fresh rallies Sunday sparked by the brutal rape of an abducted five-year-old Indian girl in New Delhi, as doctors said the victim was showing signs of "improvement.”

A team of doctors at New Delhi's top government hospital are treating the child and officials said that she was in "stable condition".

A five-year-old Indian girl who was abducted, raped and tortured in New Delhi was alert and stable, doctors said on Saturday, as fresh protests erupted over sexual violence in the country.

The attack evoked memories of the brutal gang-rape and death of a young female student last December which shook India and sparked weeks of demonstrations against widespread crimes against women and children.

An Indian "witch doctor" who beheaded an 11-year-old boy and offered the head as a sacrifice to a goddess to improve his fortunes has been sentenced to death, police said Tuesday.

A local court in impoverished Chhattisgarh state in central India convicted 32-year-old Dilip Rathia on Monday of murder and sentenced him to hang for beheading the boy, police said.

The parents of an 18-month girl in India whose head has swollen to more than double its normal size reacted with joy on Monday after a top private hospital offered to fly her to New Delhi for tests.

Roona Begum, who suffers from hydrocephalus, a rare but treatable disorder that causes fluid to build up on the brain, was discovered last week living with her parents who are too poor to pay for treatment.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel met Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for a joint cabinet session Thursday as the European export power and the Asian population giant seek to boost economic ties.

While Germany, amid the eurozone crisis, wants to broaden trade and investment links with large emerging markets, India is seeking German technology and expertise in areas such as renewable energies and education.

At least two people were killed and many feared injured when a Bangalore-bound train derailed in southern India on Wednesday morning, a railways official told Agence France Presse.

V.J. Accamma, a spokesman for Southern Railways, confirmed the death of at least two people in the accident, which occurred just after dawn in the small village of Chitteri in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

An Indian lawmaker has threatened to go on hunger strike if a Playboy nightclub is allowed to open in Goa, claiming it would promote prostitution in the tourist hub.

Michael Lobo, a state legislator in India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is opposing a club proposed on Candolim beach -- the first of dozens of Playboy outlets planned across the country.

Five Indian peacekeepers escorting a United Nations convoy in South Sudan have been killed in an ambush by rebels, the Indian foreign ministry announced on Tuesday.

"Five peacekeepers from India with UNMISS (United Nations Mission in South Sudan) killed in ambush in Jonglei," foreign ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin wrote on Twitter.

Authorities on Saturday called off a search for more survivors from the collapse of a multi-storey building on Mumbai's outskirts that killed 72 people, saying there was no hope of finding anybody else alive.

The death toll from the cave-in of the unauthorized seven-storey building was one of the worst in recent years in India. The collapse highlighted widespread shoddy building standards in the country where there is huge demand for housing.

At least 30 people were crushed to death on the outskirts of Mumbai after a building collapsed while under construction, police said Friday, but two toddlers were among more than 50 pulled from the wreckage alive.

The seven-storey illegal structure collapsed on Thursday evening, creating a mangled heap of steel and concrete of about eight meters (26 feet) high that rescuers and local residents struggled to cut through, officials said.