The head of India's ruling party, Sonia Gandhi, is to fly to the United States for a medical check-up, according to a report, a week after she was hospitalized in New Delhi.

Gandhi, India's most powerful politician, traveled to the United States in 2011 for surgery on an undisclosed condition and remained out of the public eye for three months afterwards.

India's opposition said Sunday it would seek tougher punishments for juveniles after the first verdict in the New Delhi gang-rape case saw a teenager sentenced to three years' detention, sparking widespread anger.

The rape and murder of a 23-year-old student by six attackers on a moving bus last December sparked nationwide protests and led to reforms that mandated longer sentences for adult sex offenders.

An Indian court found a teenager guilty on Saturday over the fatal gang-rape of a student in New Delhi, a crime that sparked revulsion and angry protests in the country, an official said.

"He has been held guilty for rape and murder and sentenced to three years subject to review," Anil Sharma, the chief investigating officer in the case, told reporters outside the court in the capital, announcing the first verdict in the case.

The Indian army said Saturday it has killed five suspected rebels in northern Kashmir, near the heavily militarized de facto border dividing the disputed Himalayan territory between India and Pakistan.

Rebel leaders on the Pakistan side recently threatened an "unprecedented" surge in attacks on Indian targets as battle-hardened fighters from Afghanistan prepare to target the region.

Indian police and troops killed five suspected rebels in an overnight gunbattle Friday in a forested area of northern Kashmir, triggering anti-India protests by local residents, police said.

Police and an army contingent began a joint operation around midnight near the Najwan forests, 35 kilometers (20 miles) north of Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered Kashmir.

Indian police have arrested the alleged co-founder of top home-grown militant group the Indian Mujahideen, which is suspected of killing hundreds in multiple attacks across the country, a minister said Thursday.

Yasin Bhatkal, believed to be in his 30s, was arrested near the border with Nepal and is in police custody in the northern state of Bihar, Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde told reporters in the capital.

A young photographer gang-raped in Mumbai last week in an attack that sparked outrage has been discharged from hospital after "improving steadily", staff said Wednesday.

The 22-year-old woman was assaulted while on assignment for a magazine in central Mumbai with a male colleague, who was tied up and beaten, police say.

At least five people died and several others were trapped when a four-story apartment block collapsed Wednesday in the western Indian city of Vadodara, officials said.

The government-built block "caved in" at about 4:00 am (2230 GMT) in the city's Manjalpur area, senior administrator Vinod Rao said by telephone.

A lawyer for the men on trial over the fatal gang-rape last year of an Indian student branded her male colleague unreliable on Tuesday and called his testimony "a bundle of lies".

A court in India's capital is hearing closing arguments in the trial of four men for the attack on the student last December, a case that sparked angry protests over violence against women.

India's monument to love, the Taj Mahal, was once even more romantic, cloaked behind towering foliage and only shyly revealing its contours as the visitor approached -- until a British viceroy removed the mystery.

Lord Curzon, an enthusiastic gardener and Britain's viceroy to India from 1899 to 1905, "imposed an imperial stamp" on what has become the nation's most famous monument, says U.S. historian Eugenia Herbert.