India's president Monday told lawmakers to stop disrupting parliament with protests, saying a "noisy minority cannot be allowed to gag a patient majority", as the government has struggled to pass legislation despite its strong mandate.

President Pranab Mukherjee said there was a growing tendency for lawmakers to resort to holding up parliament with protests, after a winter session in which the new government failed to push a number of key reforms through the house. 

Police have arrested nine people after a mob torched a house and burnt to death three men thought to be Muslims in an outbreak of communal violence in northern India, an official said Monday.

Police in riot gear were patrolling a village where Sunday's hours-long rampage and attack occurred in Bihar state, with tensions still high between the majority Hindu and minority Muslim communities.

Sri Lanka's new foreign minister Mangala Samaraweera met his Indian counterpart in New Delhi Sunday during a visit to improve strained ties after elections in the island toppled longtime strongman Mahinda Rajapakse.

Relations suffered under Rajapakse, who cultivated close links with China which has invested heavily in Sri Lanka to try to counter regional rival India.

Government forces in Indian Kashmir killed five suspected rebels on Thursday in a fierce hours-long gun fight in a forested area of the disputed region, police said.

Clashes erupted when police and army officers launched a hunt for the militants after receiving "specific information" they were in the Gadar forest south of the main city of Srinagar.

A U.S. judge on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that accused him of "attempted genocide" over deadly anti-Muslim riots in 2002.

New York judge Analisa Torres threw out the suit on the grounds that Modi is not under her court's jurisdiction after the US government argued he was entitled to immunity as a sitting head of government.

Around 80 bodies have been found floating in a stream of India's Ganges, sparking renewed concerns Wednesday about the health of the sacred river where millions of Hindus cremate their dead, an official said.

The bodies were discovered in a shallow tributary of the Ganges near a cremation area in the northern state of Utter Pradesh, police and a local official said.

A batch of home-brew liquor has killed at least 31 people in northern India, with more than 100 others ill in hospital, police said Tuesday, in the latest incident of alcohol poisoning in the country.

The figure jumped from Monday's toll of 14 after more people died in hospital after drinking the toxic alcohol in a village on the outskirts of Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon urged India Monday to help shore up stability in war-torn Afghanistan after the departure of U.S. troops, saying the world was relying on South Asia's powerhouse to play a lead role.

Speaking on a visit to the capital New Delhi, Ban said India had a "huge role" to play on the security front in a region that has been beset by unrest.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his staff were involved in a minor road accident Monday during his visit to western India, but none of the party were injured, an official said.

Kerry was heading to the airport in Ahmedabad city in Gujarat state when his car and another in the motorcade were involved in the accident, a State Department official said. 

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday he hopes to accelerate the progress of complex nuclear negotiations when he meets his Iranian counterpart later this week.

Kerry told reporters he will hold talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Geneva on Wednesday, hoping to "accelerate the process to make greater progress."