New Delhi

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A YOUNG WOMAN is savagely gang-raped and beaten one December evening on a moving bus in New Delhi. Hordes of protesters gather in India's capital and demand that the six perpetrators be hanged or at least castrated. India's electronic media offer continuous coverage of the sort once reserved for important cricket matches. The woman, a medical student, suffers infections in her lungs and abdomen and an injury to the brain, and is flown to a hospital in Singapore, where she later dies.

NEW DELHI - A second suspect was arrested Monday in the rape of a 5-year-old girl who New Delhi police say was left for dead in a locked room. The case has brought a new wave of protests against how Indian authorities handle sex crimes. Pradeep Kumar, a 19-year-old garment factory worker, was arrested in the eastern state of Bihar, about 620 miles from New Delhi, and was being brought to the capital, police said. Police said that questioning of the first man arrested in the case, Manoj Kumar, led them to the second suspect.

Italy retains its president ROME - Italy's Parliament on Saturday reelected Giorgio Napolitano to an unprecedented second term as president after party leaders persuaded him to serve again in hopes of easing the hostile political climate that is delaying formation of a new government for the economically stagnant eurozone member. Napolitano, 87, garnered 738 votes in Saturday's voting, far more than the 504 needed for victory for another seven-year mandate. It took Parliament three days of balloting to choose a president, reflecting the legislature's deep polarization following inconclusive nationwide elections in February.

In a city where there is seldom a reason to celebrate, plans for the first new supermarket in three decades are welcome. The news in Camden may seem like a small thing to suburban residents, who can choose from a variety of supermarkets that compete for their business and offer extensive selections of fruits and vegetables. But many impoverished places like Camden have few stores large enough to carry much fresh food, leading to their classification as "food deserts. " The planned ShopRite holds promise not only for healthier eating habits in Camden, but also a desperately needed economic boost.

Forget about the $1,000 her sister had wired from Ireland, police told Angela Mohan. It's gone. Maybe the Broomall fitness instructor would get back the wallet she lost at the King of Prussia Mall, they said. But even if she did, her chances of getting the $1,000 inside it were akin to winning the Powerball or Mega Millions lotteries. "I said OK, I'm down a thousand," said Mohan, in a brogue that highlights her Irish roots. "But my credit cards, my license. My life is in that wallet.

NEW DELHI - A Swiss woman who was on a cycling trip in central India with her husband has been gang-raped by eight men, police said Saturday. The attack comes three months after the fatal gang-rape of a woman aboard a New Delhi bus outraged Indians. Authorities detained and questioned 13 men in connection with the latest attack, which occurred Friday night as the couple camped out in a forest in Madhya Pradesh state after bicycling from the temple town of Orchha, local police officer R.K. Gurjar said.

HYDERABAD, India - A pair of bombs exploded in a crowded shopping area in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, killing at least 13 people and wounding scores of others in the worst bombing in the country in more than a year, officials said. The blasts occurred about two minutes apart around 7 p.m. Thursday outside a movie theater and a bus station, police said. Storefronts were shattered, motorcycles covered in debris, and food and plates from a roadside restaurant were scattered on the ground near a tangle of dead bodies.

NEW DELHI - Police in the northern Indian state of Punjab said Sunday that they have arrested seven men accused of the gang rape of a 29-year-old woman who was traveling alone on a bus, less than four weeks after the brutal rape and killing of a woman on a New Delhi bus created a national outcry about the safety of women in public places. In the latest incident, police said that a woman was taking a bus home to her village about 5 p.m. Friday. She was the lone passenger on the bus for about 30 minutes.

NEW DELHI - Police said Sunday that they have arrested six suspects in another gang rape of a bus passenger in India, four weeks after a brutal attack on a student on a moving bus in the capital outraged Indians and led to calls for tougher rape laws. Police officer Raj Jeet Singh said a 29-year-old woman was the only passenger on a bus as she was traveling to her village in northern Punjab state Friday night. The driver refused to stop at her village despite her repeated pleas and drove her to a desolate location, he said.

By William Pesek India's much-hyped modernity isn't looking so modern in the wake of the horrific gang rape and murder of a New Delhi woman. All the gleaming skyscrapers, software campuses, and Bollywood gloss in the world can't hide shameful aspects of old India. If India is to thrive, 2013 must be the year of justice. The immediate focus is on the six men accused of torturing a medical student so sadistically that they destroyed her internal organs. Issues of women's rights, safety, and respect have seldom been the stuff of headlines in the world's biggest democracy.

A YOUNG WOMAN is savagely gang-raped and beaten one December evening on a moving bus in New Delhi. Hordes of protesters gather in India's capital and demand that the six perpetrators be hanged or at least castrated. India's electronic media offer continuous coverage of the sort once reserved for important cricket matches. The woman, a medical student, suffers infections in her lungs and abdomen and an injury to the brain, and is flown to a hospital in Singapore, where she later dies.