The chief minister of the Indian state of Maharashtra has offered to resign after his deputy stepped down over the devastating attacks on the state capital Mumbai.
“I have offered to resign,” Vilasrao Deshmukh told reporters on Monday.
“If the responsibility of the attacks is on the chief minister, then I will go. The final decision is with the high command,” he said, referring to the leadership of the ruling Congress Party.

Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated last night after it was claimed that the only terrorist to have survived three days of deadly battles in Mumbai was from Pakistan, and that his nine fellow Islamist militants were either from that country or had been trained there.
The claims about responsibility for the attack, in which almost 200 people were killed, came from leaked police accounts that gave details of the interrogation of Azam Amir Kasab, 21, said to have been the man pictured at Mumbai’s main train station carrying an …

Indian commandos have killed the last Islamist gunmen barricaded in Mumbai’s Taj Mahal hotel, ending a three-day battle that has left at least 195 people dead and wrecked landmarks across the city.
Heavy gunfire was heard and flames leapt from the windows of the historic waterfront hotel as troops from India’s crack Black Cats unit engaged in a running battle with the remaining terrorists through rooms and corridors this morning.

MUMBAI, India — Death hung over Mumbai on Saturday. Bodies were extracted from the ruins of the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel in the hours after the standoff with militants there ended on Saturday in a gunfight and fire. At the main city hospital morgue, relatives came, clutching one another in grief, to identify their dead. By midafternoon, the morgue was running out of body bags, and by evening the death toll had risen to at least 172. Funerals, among them ceremonies for two policemen and a lawyer, …

BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) — Bangkok’s two main airports remained occupied by anti-government protesters Friday but Thai authorities appeared to have backed down from earlier threats to end the siege by force.
The airports have been closed since Tuesday, stranding thousands of passengers and dealing a severe blow to the crisis-stricken southeast Asian nation’s economy at the height of the tourist season.
Thai prime minister Somchai Wongsawat, whose resignation protesters are demanding, declared a state of emergency Thursday following a cabinet meeting in Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second city.