America's top diplomat John Kerry Sunday met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, praising the man once banned by the U.S. as a "visionary" poised to transform India's economy.

The talks in Modi's fiefdom of Gujarat came just two weeks before U.S. President Barack Obama will be guest of honor at India's January 26 Republic Day celebrations -- in what will be an unprecedented second visit to India by a sitting U.S. president.

China on Friday downplayed the impact of Sri Lanka's presidential election upset, dismissing suggestions that the stunning win by Maithripala Sirisena could shake up Beijing's plans in the Indian Ocean.

Sirisena on Thursday ousted longtime president Mahinda Rajapakse, who has relied heavily on Chinese funding for major infrastructure work in his island country.

Cow urine may soon be used to clean the floors of India's government offices in a country where bovines are sacred and their bodily waste considered therapeutic and even thirst-quenching.

A charity working to care for and protect the cows that freely roam India's streets has developed a cleaning product with their urine - distilled and spiked with natural perfumes to remove the pungent odor.

A Pakistani fugitive convicted in India over a 1995 bomb attack that killed 16 people including a chief minister will be extradited after his capture in Thailand, authorities said Tuesday.

Gurmeet Singh, 37, escaped from a high-security Indian jail in 2004 while on trial for involvement in the assassination of Punjab chief minister Beant Singh nearly a decade earlier. In 2007 he was sentenced in his absence to life imprisonment, along with five others.

Police have arrested one of five suspects accused of gang-raping a teenage girl inside a local government office in eastern India, an officer said Tuesday.

The 16-year-old victim was attacked after arriving in eastern Bihar state late Sunday where the gang, including a local administrator's driver, approached her and offered her a lift to a relative's home.

Indian and Pakistani troops traded fire along their tense border on Monday, killing four civilians including a teenage boy and a soldier in the latest in a series of deadly clashes, officials said.

Tension between the nuclear-armed neighbors escalated last week when an Indian border guard and two Pakistani paramilitary soldiers were killed during exchanges of heavy fire.

A low-caste transgender in central India has become the country's first to win civic polls and be declared mayor.

Madhu Bai Kinnar won the municipal election in Raigarh in the central state of Chhattisgarh Sunday, beating her rival from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by more than 4,500 votes, according to the state election commission. 

Five people have now been arrested for repeatedly gang-raping and extorting money from a young Japanese tourist held hostage for nearly a month in a basement close to a famous Buddhist shrine in India, officials said Sunday.

The 22-year-old's ordeal began in Kolkata, capital of West Bengal state, where she was befriended by three local men shortly after arriving on November 20, one of the city's top police officers told Agence France Presse.

Indian and Pakistani troops traded fire along their tense border on Saturday, killing four people including a teenage girl and forcing hundreds to flee their homes in the latest round of deadly clashes.

Indian police have arrested two brothers accused of repeatedly raping a 22-year-old Japanese tourist over three weeks near Bodh Gaya, Buddhism's holiest site, an official said Saturday.

The tourist had been held hostage at gunpoint in a secluded underground room close to a pilgrimage site, according to a preliminary investigation.