New Delhi

Amid the multinational continent of cuisines in West Philadelphia - Korean, Thai, Ethiopian, Japanese, Filipino et al. - a Little India has emerged with the opening of a fifth Indian restaurant in the area of 40th and Chestnut streets. The latest stop on the Bombay Express is New Delhi which, in case you're wondering, does not serve lox, Punjab-style. The 3-week-old restaurant is sandwiched between the wildly eclectic Sweet Basil and the strictly Mexican Margarita's. You can pick up a six-pack of Dos Equis at the latter (New Delhi is dry but has applied for a liquor license)

NEW DELHI - A briefcase bomb tore through a crowd of people waiting to enter a New Delhi courthouse, killing 11 people and wounding scores more Wednesday in the deadliest terrorist attack in India's capital in nearly three years. An al-Qaida-linked group claimed responsibility, though government officials said it was too early to name a suspect. The attack outside the High Court came despite a high alert across the city and renewed doubts about India's ability to protect even its most important institutions despite overhauling security after the 2008 Mumbai siege.

Every time Sikh terrorists strike - as they have two nights in a row, killing scores of Hindus - the leader of the Punjab Hindu Sad People's Family Organization in New Delhi braces for more members. "The Hindus in the villages near the killing, they will be coming here, I know," said Dharmpal Kad, general secretary of the New Delhi group, after Sikh extremists killed 38 people, mostly Hindus, on a crowded bus in Punjab Monday night. "I am sorry this is true because this is what the terrorists want.

A fire roared through a luxury hotel here early today, killing at least 44 people and injuring at least 35 others, police and hospital officials said. Police Commissioner Ved Marwah told Reuters that at least nine of the 44 dead were foreigners. Other officials said that figure included two Japanese and a Chinese. Nationalities of the other foreign victims was not immediately known. At least five people died of injuries when they jumped from the second and third floors of the Siddharth Intercontinental Hotel to escape the flames, said a doctor at Safdarjang Hospital, one of the hospitals where the injured and dead were taken.

All in a row, the frail bodies of several dozen young children lay nearly lifeless last week on stretchers in a crowded ward of the Tegh Bahadur Singh Hospital. Many of the children stared glassy-eyed at the doctors coming by to examine them; some were already in a state of physical shock. All of them, doctors said, were severely dehydrated. "We give them intravenous glucose and most of them pick up," explained M. A. Faridi, head of pediatrics at the hospital. "But of course, some will be too far gone when they reach us. " Just a short distance from India's seat of power and some of its wealthiest neighborhoods, these children of New Delhi's slums are suffering and dying from an epidemic of cholera - a fast-killing disease that flourishes only amid the most foul and unsanitary living conditions.

Hardev Singh's Philadelphia friends and relatives couldn't get enough of his Greenwich Village Indian restaurant. They figured if they could persuade him to move here, they wouldn't have to keep traveling to New York. Seven years ago, Singh decided he really liked Philadelphia, so much to everyone's delight he made the move. He opened New Delhi, on Chestnut Street just west of 40th. The kindest description of the West Philadelphia restaurant's decor would be unpretentious.

If, while discussing restaurants, someone says what sounds like "new deli," that person may not be talking bagels and lox. Indian food may be the subject. And the place then will be the New Delhi restaurant. Hardev Singh operated an Indian restaurant by that name in New York's Greenwich Village for about 18 years. A year and a half ago, relatives persuaded him to bring his expertise to University City. "Everyone tells me my place (in New York) is very good, so I found this spot near the university," Singh said.

A day after gunmen executed 40 Sikh civilians in India's disputed northern territory of Kashmir, President Clinton voiced outrage at the crime yesterday. Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee vowed it would not prod India closer to war with Pakistan. But Vajpayee rejected Clinton's call to slow India's nuclear weapons program amid the tension. Indian officials privately asserted that the massacre, which took place as Clinton was flying to New Delhi from Bangladesh, was part of a Pakistani-supported terror operation to focus world attention on Kashmir and entice Clinton to intercede in the conflict.

As India and Pakistan braced for war, President Bush pressured India yesterday to act with restraint in light of Pakistan's efforts to combat terrorism and said his administration was "working actively to bring some calm" to relations between the two nuclear powers. Bush, who relies on Pakistan to help catch fleeing al-Qaeda fighters - and possibly Osama bin Laden - in western Pakistan, said he was pleased that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had arrested 50 "extreme terrorists" as demanded by India.

MUNISH Narula already knows what a lot of you think about Indian restaurants. All those unfortunate stereotypes you hold on to. He knows you usually think of Indian food for cheap, super-spicy takeout, or perhaps a hangover meal at one of those longtime spots on University City's Curry Row. Narula even empathizes with you, a little bit. "Indian food in Philadelphia has never been presented in a good manner," he said. "The yellow walls, the crammed-in tables, the dirty bathrooms and the $9.99 buffet.

NEW DELHI - In fields along a northern Indian highway, mountains of grain have turned black with mildew after getting soaked in the rain. The millions of tons of wheat rotting because India ran out of warehouse space to hold another bumper crop illustrate a core problem of the nation's food crisis: India can grow plenty of food but cannot store or transport it well enough to nourish its 1.2 billion people. Warehouses are overflowing and huge quantities of wheat and rice are stored in fields under tarpaulins and thin plastic sheets, risking decay.

LOS ANGELES - Bill Haas wound up making the biggest putt of them all at Riviera. On the second extra hole of a three-way playoff Sunday - made possible by clutch birdie putts from Phil Mickelson and Keegan Bradley on the final hole - Haas rolled in a 45-foot birdie putt across the 10th green to win the Northern Trust Open. Haas closed with a 2-under 69 and won a PGA Tour event for the third straight year. He was on the practice range at 7-under 277, warming up for a playoff that didn't look likely.

NEW DELHI - A New Delhi court agreed Saturday to try admitted American terrorist David Headley and eight others for allegedly carrying out the deadly 2008 attacks in Mumbai, local media reported. The court's decision allows Indian investigators to seek Headley's extradition from the United States, where he is in prison after admitting to laying the groundwork for the three-day shooting rampage in India's largest city. However, his plea agreement with U.S. authorities said Headley would not be extradited if he cooperated with investigators.

        LOS ANGELES - Phil Mickelson made the most of limited chances Friday to stay in the lead at the Northern Trust Open. Mickelson holed a lob wedge from 110 yards on the eighth hole for eagle and chipped in for birdie for the second straight day. That helped him to a 1-over 70, leaving him 2 shots clear of the early starters at balmy Riviera. Mickelson, coming off a win last week at Pebble Beach, was at 6-under 136. Jimmy Walker had a 66 and was at 4-under 138, along with Carl Pettersson (70)

Serbia struggles to keep power on BELGRADE, Serbia - Serbia was struggling to keep its power system going, officials warned Thursday, after weeks of record low temperatures in Europe that have snarled traffic, frozen rivers, and challenged officials to step up outreach to the homeless. The Serbian state power company said that its system could not hold on for much longer. Authorities urged citizens to save electricity in an appeal aired on national TV. Europe's big freeze has claimed hundreds of lives, mostly of homeless people, while tens of thousands of residents remain trapped in remote villages in Bosnia and Serbia and other areas.

Homai Vyarawalla, 98, a photojournalist celebrated in India for chronicling the country's march toward independence and capturing enduring images of world figures such as Mohandas K. Gandhi, Ho Chi Minh, and U.S. presidents of the mid-20th century, died Jan. 15 in Vadodara, in west India. Hospital officials said she had been under their care for respiratory ailments when she died after falling from her bed and fracturing a thigh bone. Vyarawalla was hailed as the first Indian woman to work as a photojournalist and remembered as a familiar sight on the streets of New Delhi, the capital, riding a bicycle to assignments, her sari flapping behind her, her bulging equipment bags slung across her shoulders.

MUNISH Narula already knows what a lot of you think about Indian restaurants. All those unfortunate stereotypes you hold on to. He knows you usually think of Indian food for cheap, super-spicy takeout, or perhaps a hangover meal at one of those longtime spots on University City's Curry Row. Narula even empathizes with you, a little bit. "Indian food in Philadelphia has never been presented in a good manner," he said. "The yellow walls, the crammed-in tables, the dirty bathrooms and the $9.99 buffet.

NEW DELHI - Aastha Arora is one in a billion. At least that's what they called her when she was born May 11, 2000. Designated with great fanfare as the symbolic one billionth Indian, Aastha - her name means "faith" in Hindi - is now called something different. "They call me 'the special child' at school," the perky sixth grader said in the family's two-room apartment. "Teachers, friends know about the big ruckus when I was born. " In the last 11 years, India has added 240 million people and, according to U.N. estimates, is on target to surpass China as the world's most populous nation in 2020.

ROZAJALALPUR, India - The farmers of Rozajalalpur knew what was coming. They saw others closer to India's expanding capital city pushed off their land to make way for malls, apartments and offices. They saw billboards rise along nearby potholed roads, and tiny sales offices sprout in the grassy medians to hawk homes in Leisure Park, Golf Homes and Dream Valley. Then, in March, they saw the innocuous-looking announcement in the newspaper. In type so small it was nearly unreadable, the state government declared it was seizing their farms under an 1894 national law enacted by British colonists to acquire land for roads and railways.