Its raw materials are plants and it bases its products on texts dating back millennia, but don't dare call India's biggest herbal healthcare group a maker of "alternative medicine".

"It's high time people took us very seriously and did not view us as an alternative form of medicine," says Philipe Haydon, the India chief executive of the Himalaya group from his office in tech and healthcare hub Bangalore.

Five people set themselves on fire in western India, leaving one man dead as they protested official plans to raze their home in a drive to remove illegal structures, police said on Wednesday.

The five people, including three women, belonged to the same family and turned up at a city government office in the western state of Gujarat carrying kerosene-filled containers around noon on Wednesday, local police said.

Four sisters in north India have suffered burn injuries after two men threw acid on them as they were returning from school, police said on Wednesday, with one victim admitted to hospital.

The incident took place in the Shamli district of Uttar Pradesh, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the capital, on Tuesday evening when the sisters, three of whom are teachers, were returning home from a government school.

Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi said Tuesday he was resigning in protest after two Italian marines were ordered to return to India to face murder charges.

The two men were sent back on Friday over the killing of two Indian fisherman in February last year in a case that has strained ties between New Delhi and Rome.

Bollywood stars have joined calls for Mumbai to temper celebrations and reduce water wastage during a riotous Hindu festival this week, as millions face their worst drought in decades.

India's Holi festival takes place on Wednesday at a time when central parts of Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, are reeling under a severe water shortage with no rain due until the monsoon in June.

Police in India's high-tech hub Bangalore are trying a new way to reduce traffic offences -- using cardboard cops to scare drivers into believing the long arm of the law is watching them.

Road deaths have surged in India despite a low rate of car ownership with a lethal combination of poor law enforcement, untrained drivers and bad roads making the country one of the world's leading centers of road deaths.

Leaders from the BRICS emerging nations are expected to launch a joint development bank to rival western-dominated institutions at a summit beginning Tuesday.

The grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and hosts South Africa will meet in Durban to set up an infrastructure-focused lender that would challenge seven decades of dominance by the World Bank.

India's top court upheld the death penalty on Thursday for a mastermind of a series of bombings which killed 257 people in Mumbai in 1993, the deadliest set of attacks in the country's history.

Yakub Memon, brother of the alleged main plotter and fugitive Tiger Memon, was the only one of 11 convicts to see his death sentence upheld by the Supreme Court for his role in the blasts which wounded more than 800 people.

Google chairman Eric Schmidt has warned that India is lagging badly behind in harnessing the power of the Internet because of its failure to invest in high-speed telecom networks.

"It is well behind in the web services model that the rest of the world is adopting," Schmidt told the CNBC-TV18 television channel late Wednesday during a trip to India.

India's lower house on Tuesday approved a bill toughening punishments for rapists and other sexual offenders that was introduced following the fatal gang-rape of a student that sparked national outrage.

Members of the decision-making lower house of parliament gave their assent, following a seven-hour debate, to the Criminal Laws (Amendment) Bill which also contains new penalties for stalking, groping, voyeurism and acid attacks.