Indian rescuers pulled two more bodies from the rubble of a collapsed apartment block, taking the death toll from the country's latest building accident to 17, an official said Monday.

The building, which was under construction, crumbled mid-afternoon on Saturday while more than 40 poorly paid daily-wage laborers were on site in the southern tourism state of Goa.

Indian rescuers raced to find survivors in the ruins of a partly-constructed apartment block Sunday after its collapse left at least 15 people dead in the country's latest building disaster.

Around 15 people are still feared trapped inside the residential building that crumbled mid-afternoon on Saturday while poorly paid daily-wage laborers were working on the site in a coastal village in the southern state of Goa, an official said.

India's new anti-graft party announced Saturday it would contest most of the seats in upcoming general elections after its stunning poll showing in the nation's capital earlier this month.

One of the Aam Aadmi ("common man") Party's top leaders, Prashant Bhushan, announced the decision after the first day of a two-day meeting of the party's top decision-making body in New Delhi to plan strategy for the elections, due in May.

Thirteen bodies were pulled from the wreckage of a building under construction that collapsed "like a house of cards" in a coastal village in the Indian tourist state of Goa on Saturday, authorities said.

The residential building caved in around mid-afternoon, when some 50 daily wage laborers, were working on the site, police said.

India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced Friday he will step down after elections this year and said reluctant political scion Rahul Gandhi should take his place if the ruling Congress party wins an unlikely third term.

Singh also mounted his strongest attack yet on opposition leader Narendra Modi who has been making gains in opinion polls, despite his links to deadly religious riots in western Gujarat state in 2002.

At least 27 people died and 17 were injured in western India on Thursday when a local bus slid off a mountain road into a valley, police said.

"The driver lost control after a tempo (three-wheeled vehicle] rammed into the bus along a sharp turn, causing it to fall into a 250-foot (80-meter) valley," local policeman Sangram Singh Nishandar told Agence France Presse.

An Indian teenager was gang-raped in two separate attacks and then died after being set on fire, sparking protests in the eastern city of Kolkata, police said on Thursday.

The 16-year-old was assaulted first on October 26 and then again the day after by a group of more than six men near her family's home in Madhyagram town, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of Kolkata.

India's president took the final step to create a powerful anti-graft watchdog on Wednesday, signing it into law two years after a mass anti-corruption movement swept the country and galvanized politicians into action.

Parliament saw rare unity last month when the ruling Congress and main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) approved the bill creating a corruption ombudsman with sweeping powers to prosecute all politicians and civil servants.

India aims to throw open its doors wider to overseas investors in coming weeks, a minister said Wednesday, as it seeks to spur a weak economy before the general election.

The government has already relaxed foreign direct investment (FDI) rules in such sectors as civil aviation, retail, telecommunications, defense and state-owned oil refineries as it tries to loosen the shackles on the still mainly inward-looking economy.

With vigils and prayers, India on Sunday marked the first anniversary of the death of a student savagely gang-raped on a Delhi bus -- a tragedy that sparked nationwide protests.

The 23-year-old physiotherapy student died on December 29 last year, nearly two weeks after being attacked by a gang of six men on a moving bus as she returned home from the cinema with a male companion.