9 APRIL 2014

Ø  Thirteen people were killed and 35 injured in a bomb blast on a train in Pakistan’s restive southwestern Balochistan province on Tuesday. The blast took place inside coach number 9 of passenger train Jaffar Express, which was on its way to Rawalpindi from Quetta.

Ø  The Navy last week sold the iconic INS Vikrant to a ship-breaking company here for Rs. 63.2 crore. The decommissioned aircraft carrier, which played a major role in the 1971 war and was retired in 1997, is now the property of IB Commercial Private Ltd. INS Vikrant (formerly HMS Hercules) was purchased by India from the United Kingdom in 1957. It was operated from 1961 to 1997.

Ø  The coming Commonwealth Games in Glasgow will emulate the security apparatus India used when it hosted the tournament’s last edition, according to organising officials. A Scottish Police team was in Delhi recently as part of a “transfer of knowledge” exercise on security provisioning.

Ø   The number of Indian tourists visiting the U.S. is likely to cross 10 lakhs in 2015 and Indian visitors will register the third fastest growth after Chinese and Columbians from 2013 to 2018. The Department of Commerce in its latest report on international visitors and their projections, said 69.8 million international visitors travelled to the US in 2013, generating a record USD 181 billion in receipts.