Sri Lanka on Saturday deported an Indian journalist arrested on a charge of working in the island's former war zone without media credentials, police said.

The 24-year-old, who was working for a magazine based in the Indian city of Chennai, was arrested on Christmas Day for photographing military installations in Sri Lanka's north, police spokesman Ajith Rohana said.

Fire raced through an Indian train carriage packed with sleeping passengers on Saturday, killing at least 26 people, and forcing terrified passengers to smash windows in a frantic bid to escape.

Some passengers were able to break the train's toilet cabin windows, but other victims were overcome by the thick, swirling smoke and bodies were found heaped at the windows and doors.

India's fiery opposition candidate for premier, Narendra Modi, voiced Friday his "grief" and "misery" over deadly 2002 anti-Muslim riots that swept his home state of Gujarat after he became chief minister.

Modi, in his frankest statement to date about the riots that have dogged him in his quest to become prime minister in looming national elections, said in a blog he was "shaken to the core" by the violence.

A bicycle bomb that killed five people in eastern India was carried out by militants fighting for a separate state in the famous Darjeeling tea district, police said Friday.

Ten people were also injured when the bomb exploded late Thursday in the town of Jalpaiguri in the state of West Bengal. Earlier reports put the number of dead at four but a fifth victim died later in hospital.

A bomb planted on a bicycle killed four people when it exploded near a school in the Indian state of West Bengal on Thursday, the Press Trust of India reported.

Six other people were injured, several critically, after the bomb went off in Bajrapara district of the state in India's east, the news agency said, quoting police and hospital officials.

Leading army commanders from Pakistan and India met Tuesday for the first time in 14 years in a bid to reduce tensions in the disputed region of Kashmir after a year of intermittent clashes.

The directors general of military operations (DGMO) from both nuclear-armed neighbors held face-to-face talks at Wagah border post, near the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore.

Indian police have arrested eight people after the hands of two laborers were chopped off in a dispute over money, an officer said Monday, with the victims in serious condition in hospital.

Two laborers were admitted to a hospital in remote and impoverished Kalahandi district of Orissa state last week after they were discovered bleeding with their hands chopped off, the officer said.

India kept up pressure on the United States on Sunday over a furore at the arrest and strip search of one of its diplomats in New York, saying "they must do something."

Foreign minister Salman Khurshid has sought to ease the crisis, saying the episode should not be allowed to derail "the valuable relationship" between the world's two largest democracies.

India sought to tamp down Saturday a furore over the arrest and strip-search of one of its diplomats in New York, insisting the episode should not be allowed to derail "strong" ties with the United States.

Foreign minister Salman Khurshid said a dialogue with Washington was under way to defuse the crisis sparked by the 48-hour detention of deputy consular general Devyani Khobragade on December 12.

Domestic workers protested outside the Indian consulate in New York on Friday, calling for justice for a housekeeper allegedly mistreated by a Indian diplomat and demanding an end to slavery.

More than 30 workers and their allies took part in the spirited but peaceful protest on a sidewalk outside the mansion house used by the Indian government in New York.