High speed train on Delhi-Mumbai route on track with speed as high as 200 km per hour

NEW DELHI: Railways today expressed optimism over progress in its plans to run passenger trains on busy Delhi-Mumbai corridor at 200 km per hour and launching for the first time train sets services on shorter routes.

Maintaining that global crisis is coming in the way from achieving higher growth, it said its earnings have, however, gone up by 20 per cent this fiscal.

Chairman Railway Board Vinay Mittal said even though there are several financial hurdles to overcome for materialising the high-speed corridor project, they are working towards achieving the objective of running train at 200 km per hour on Delhi-Mumbai route.

"Japan is involved in the study of the high speed train on Delhi-Mumbai route and things are progressing well," Mittal said here but did not give any time frame for its implementation.

Currently Rajdhani trains are expected to run at a maximum speed of 100 km to 120 km per hour while other express trains are running at an approximate speed of 80 km per hour because of the dense traffic condition.

Asked about the proposed train set project which will reduce travel time, he said that it was being studied but it will be launched in a limited scale in some Shatabdi routes.

However, on the proposed project on bullet train which will travel at 300 km per hour, he said "it is a long way to go as it involves heavy funding."

Even though railways' finances remain a big challenge, he said the bridge gap funding of Rs 3000 cr has been paid back with interest to Finance Ministry.

He said the foggy condition over north India have affected revenue earnings and the poor market condition led several of its rakes to lie idle.

Expressing optimism over the increased fund allocation, he said plan allocation in the 12th Five-Year Plan to railways has been increased to Rs 1.94 lakh crore from the Rs 77,000 crore in the 11th Five-Year Plan.

"Steps are being taken to curb expenditure as there is a need for fund renewal of assets and safety upgradation," he said.

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Clinton receiving blood thinners to dissolve clot

WASHINGTON (AP) — Doctors treating Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for a blood clot in her head said blood thinners are being used to dissolve the clot and they are confident she will make a full recovery.

Clinton didn't suffer a stroke or neurological damage from the clot that formed after she suffered a concussion during a fainting spell at her home in early December, doctors said in a statement Monday.

Clinton, 65, was admitted to New York-Presbyterian Hospital on Sunday when the clot turned up on a follow-up exam on the concussion, Clinton spokesman Phillipe Reines said.

The clot is located in the vein in the space between the brain and the skull behind the right ear. She will be released once the medication dose for the blood thinners has been established, the doctors said.

In their statement, Dr. Lisa Bardack of the Mount Kisco Medical Group and Dr. Gigi El-Bayoumi of George Washington University said Clinton was making excellent progress and was in good spirits.

Clinton's complication "certainly isn't the most common thing to happen after a concussion" and is one of the few types of blood clots in the skull or head that are treated with blood thinners, said Dr. Larry Goldstein, a neurologist who is director of Duke University's stroke center. He is not involved in Clinton's care.

The area where Clinton's clot developed is "a drainage channel, the equivalent of a big vein inside the skull. It's how the blood gets back to the heart," Goldstein said.

Blood thinners usually are enough to treat the clot and it should have no long-term consequences if her doctors are saying she has suffered no neurological damage from it, Goldstein said.

Clinton returned to the U.S. from a trip to Europe, then fell ill with a stomach virus in early December that left her severely dehydrated and forced her to cancel a trip to North Africa and the Middle East. Until then, she had canceled only two scheduled overseas trips, one to Europe after breaking her elbow in June 2009 and one to Asia after the February 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

Her condition worsened when she fainted, fell and suffered a concussion while at home alone in mid-December as she recovered from the virus. It was announced Dec. 13.

This isn't the first time Clinton has suffered a blood clot. In 1998, midway through her husband's second term as president, Clinton was in New York fundraising for the midterm elections when a swollen right foot led her doctor to diagnose a clot in her knee requiring immediate treatment.

Clinton had planned to step down as secretary of state at the beginning of President Barack Obama's second term. Whether she will return to work before she resigns remained a question.

Democrats are privately if not publicly speculating: How might her illness affect a decision about running for president in 2016?

After decades in politics, Clinton says she plans to spend the next year resting. She has long insisted she had no intention of mounting a second campaign for the White House four years from now. But the door is not entirely closed, and she would almost certainly emerge as the Democrat to beat if she decided to give in to calls by Democratic fans and run again.

Her age — and thereby health — would probably be a factor under consideration, given that Clinton would be 69 when sworn in, if she were elected in 2016. That might become even more of an issue in the early jockeying for 2016 if what started as a bad stomach bug becomes a prolonged, public bout with more serious infirmity.

Not that Democrats are willing to talk openly about the political implications of a long illness, choosing to keep any discussions about her condition behind closed doors. Publicly, Democrats reject the notion that a blood clot could hinder her political prospects.

"Some of those concerns could be borderline sexist," said Basil Smikle, a Democratic strategist who worked for Clinton when she was a senator. "Dick Cheney had significant heart problems when he was vice president, and people joked about it. He took the time he needed to get better, and it wasn't a problem."

It isn't uncommon for presidential candidates' health — and age — to be an issue. Both in 2000 and 2008, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had to rebut concerns he was too old to be commander in chief or that his skin cancer could resurface.

Two decades after Clinton became the first lady, signs of her popularity — and her political strength — are ubiquitous.

Obama had barely declared victory in November when Democrats started zealously plugging Clinton as their strongest White House contender four years from now, should she choose to take that leap.

"Wouldn't that be exciting?" House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi declared in December. "I hope she goes. Why wouldn't she?"

Even Republicans concede that were she to run, Clinton would be a force to be reckoned with.

"Trying to win that will be truly the Super Bowl," Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker and 2012 GOP presidential candidate, said in December. "The Republican Party today is incapable of competing at that level."

Americans admire Clinton more than any other woman in the world, according to a Gallup poll released Monday — the 17th time in 20 years that Clinton has claimed that title. And a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 57 percent of Americans would support Clinton as a candidate for president in 2016, with just 37 percent opposed. Websites have already cropped up hawking "Clinton 2016" mugs and tote bags.

Beyond talk of future politics, Clinton's three-week absence from the State Department has raised eyebrows among some conservative commentators who questioned the seriousness of her ailment after she canceled planned Dec. 20 testimony before Congress on the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

Clinton had been due to discuss with lawmakers a scathing report she had commissioned on the attack. It found serious failures of leadership and management in two State Department bureaus were to blame for insufficient security at the facility. Clinton took responsibility for the incident before the report was released, but she was not blamed. Four officials cited in the report have either resigned or been reassigned.

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Associated Press writer Ken Thomas in Washington and AP Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee contributed to this report.

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Senate Approves 'Fiscal Cliff' Deal, Sends to House

Two hours after a midnight deadline for action, the Senate passed legislation early New Year's Day to avert the so-called fiscal cliff with an overwhelming vote of 89-8.

Senate passage set the stage for a final showdown in the House, where a vote could come as early as today.

"While neither Democrats nor Republicans got everything they wanted, this agreement is the right thing to do for our country and the House should pass it without delay," President Obama said in a statement shortly after the vote.

"There's more work to do to reduce our deficits, and I'm willing to do it. But tonight's agreement ensures that, going forward, we will continue to reduce the deficit through a combination of new spending cuts and new revenues from the wealthiest Americans."

The bill extends Bush-era tax cuts permanently for individuals making less than $400,000 per year and couples making less than $450,000 but allows the top marginal tax rate on incomes above those levels to rise to 39.6 percent.

Capital gains taxes would rise to 20 percent from 15 percent.

The measure would raise the estate tax from 35 to 40 percent for estates larger than $5 million, prevent the alternative minimum tax from hammering millions of middle-class workers and extend unemployment benefits for one year.

'Fiscal Cliff': Lawmakers Scramble for Last-Minute Deal Watch Video

Lawmakers also decided at the last minute to use the measure to prevent a $900 pay raise for each member of Congress due to take effect this spring.

The steep "sequester" budget cuts scheduled to go into effect with the New Year -- a $1.2 trillion hit to defense and domestic programs -- would be postponed for two months.

"I've said all along our most important priority is protecting middle-class Americans, this legislation does that," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said early this morning prior to the vote.

The deal at hand does little to address the nation's long-term debt woes, however, and does not entirely solve the problem of the "fiscal cliff."

Indeed, the last-minute compromise -- far short from a so-called grand bargain on deficit reduction -- could set up a new showdown on the same spending cuts in two months amplified by a brewing fight on how to raise the debt ceiling beyond $16.4 trillion. That new fiscal battle has the potential to eclipse the "fiscal cliff" in short order.

Reid said he is "disappointed" they were unable to achieve a broader deal but that the compromise was necessary.

"We tried," he said. "If we did nothing, the threat of a recession is very real."

Speaking after Reid, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called the deal an "imperfect solution" and noted this should not be the model on how things get done in the Senate.

McConnell also thanked Vice President Joe Biden, who visited Capitol Hill late Monday night and brokered the deal with Senate Republicans.

The measure must now move to the Republican-led House.

Five Senate Republicans and three Democrats voted against the plan, but the large margin of passage was seen as boosting the bill's prospects in the House, even though fiscal conservatives were poised to vehemently oppose the deal when it comes to the floor for a vote.

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio said the House would not vote on any Senate-passed measure "until House members, and the American people, have been able to review" it.

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Assad's forces battle to retake Damascus suburb

AMMAN (Reuters) - Elite Syrian government troops backed by tanks battled on Monday to recapture a strategic Damascus suburb from rebels who have advanced within striking distance of the center of Syria's capital.

Five people, including a child, died from army rocket fire that hit the Daraya suburb during the fighting, opposition activists said. Daraya is part of a semi-circle of Sunni Muslim suburbs south of the capital that have been at the forefront of the 21-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.

"This is the biggest attack on Daraya in two months. An armored column is trying to advance but it is being held (back) by the Free Syrian Army," said Abu Kinan, an opposition activist in the area, referring to a rebel group.

Clashes were also reported near the airport in Aleppo, Syria's largest city, which is in the north. Insurgents have made that airport a target in the hope of limiting government access to Aleppo, which is largely under rebel control.

Rebels have taken much of the north and east of Syria over the past six months, but government forces still hold most of the densely populated southwest around the capital, the main north-south highway and the Mediterranean coast.

Government forces scored a victory on Saturday, pushing rebels out of Deir Baalbeh, a district in Homs, an important central city that straddles the highway linking Damascus with the north and the Mediterranean.

Some opposition activists have said scores or even hundreds of people were executed in Deir Baalbeh by troops that seized it after several days of fighting. However, reports of killings there on a large scale could not be verified.

More than 45,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the 21-month war, the longest and deadliest of the revolts that began throughout the Arab world two years ago. Mainly Sunni Muslim rebels are fighting to topple Assad, a member of the Alawite minority sect whose family has ruled Syria since his father seized power 42 years ago in a coup.

The opposition refuses to hold peace talks unless Assad relinquishes power, and military successes over the last six months have reinforced its belief it can drive him out by force.

However, government troops still heavily outgun the fighters and maintain air bases scattered across the country.

The Damascus suburbs have become one of the major fronts of the war, with the rebels hoping to finally bring their uprising to the capital, heart of Assad's power.

Activist Abu Kinan said that tens of thousands of civilians had fled Daraya during weeks of government assault on the suburb, but that 5,000 remained, along with hundreds of rebels. Daraya is located near the main southern highway connecting Damascus to the Jordanian border 85 km (50 miles) to the south.

Activists said Republican Guard forces are trying to push back rebels who have been slowly advancing from the outskirts of Damascus to within striking distance of government targets and central districts inhabited by Assad's Alawite minority sect.

Assad's forces have mostly relied on aerial and artillery bombardment, rather than infantry. Rebels have been able take outlying towns and have clashed with government troops near Damascus International Airport, halting flights by foreign airlines.

Another activist in Damascus with links to rebels, who did not want to be named, said Daraya has been a firing position for rebels using mortars and homemade rockets. From it, they have been able to hit a huge presidential complex located on a hilltop overlooking Damascus and target pro-Assad shabbiha militia in an Alawite enclave nearby known as Mezze 86.

"So far they have missed the palace but they are getting better. I think the regime has realized that it no longer can afford to have such a threat so close by, but it has failed to overrun Daraya before," he said.

"HELL OR THE POLITICAL PROCESS"

The opposition is backed by most Western and Arab states, while Assad has enjoyed the diplomatic protection of Moscow, which sells arms to his government and maintains a naval base in one of his ports.

Western countries have been searching for signs that Moscow is lifting its protection of Assad, hoping that would bring him down much as Russia's withdrawal of support heralded the fall of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic 12 years ago.

Moscow said on Saturday that it has no power to make Assad leave office, and accused the rebels of prolonging the bloodshed by refusing to negotiate with him.

U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has called on outside powers to push all sides to talk, arguing that Syria faces a choice of "hell or the political process".

Brahimi is touting a peace plan agreed to in principle by international powers six months ago, but the plan does not explicitly call for Assad to be excluded from power, which the opposition regards as a precondition to any talks.

The opposition-linked Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that rebels clashed with government troops near Aleppo's international airport. Rami Abdelrahman, the British-based Observatory's director, told Reuters by phone that fighting flared on Sunday night and continued into Monday morning.

He said no flights were departing or arriving from the airport. Syria's state airline canceled at least one flight there over the weekend.

Nevertheless, the government's seizure of Deir Baalbeh in Homs is a reminder that its forces are still capable of recapturing territory from the lightly armed rebels. Syria's state news agency SANA said government forces seized a large cache of weapons and ammunition after capturing the district.

(Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Oliver Holmes and Mark Heinrich)

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Syria backs plan for talks to end conflict

DAMASCUS: Syria's government on Monday welcomed any initiative for talks to end bloodshed in the country, after UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said he had a peace plan acceptable to world powers.

The Damascus regime's stand, expressed by Prime Minister Wael al-Halaqi, came amid a flurry of diplomatic activity led by Brahimi to find ways to end the 21-month conflict.

But the violence still raged, with activists reporting the gruesome discovery of dozens of tortured, headless corpses in the northern Damascus district of Barzeh and adding that nearly 90 percent of the 45,000 people killed so far died in 2012.

"The government is working to support the national reconciliation project and will respond to any regional or international initiative that would solve the current crisis through dialogue and peaceful means and prevent foreign intervention in Syria's internal affairs," Halaqi told parliament.

He said the revolt against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad must be resolved only by the Syrian people, "without external pressures or decrees."

Halaqi said the country was "moving toward a historic moment when it will declare victory over its enemies, with the goal of positioning Syria to build a new world order that promotes national sovereignty and the concept of international law."

His remarks came after Brahimi said the conflict was worsening "by the day."

Speaking after talks in Russia, the veteran Algerian troubleshooter said on Sunday he had crafted a ceasefire plan "that could be adopted by the international community."

"I have discussed this plan with Russia and Syria... I think this proposal could be adopted by the international community," Brahimi said, without going into detail.

"There is a proposal for a political solution based on the Geneva declaration foreseeing a ceasefire, forming a government with complete prerogatives and a plan for parliamentary and presidential elections," he said, referring to a peace initiative world powers agreed to in June.

That plan was rejected by Syria's opposition, which insists Assad must go before any national dialogue can take place.

Russia and China have so far vetoed three UN Security Council draft resolutions seeking to force Assad's hand with the threat of sanctions.

The violence has escalated, with activists reporting the discovery of 30 tortured bodies in Damascus.

"Thirty bodies were found in the Barzeh district. They bore signs of torture and have so far not been identified," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on medics and activists on the ground in compiling its tolls.

The Syrian Revolution General Commission, a grassroots network of anti-regime activists, gave a higher estimate of 50 bodies, saying "their heads were cut and disfigured to the point that it was no longer possible to identify" them.

These reports could not be verified independently because of restrictions on international media.

The Observatory said three civilians were killed on Monday in air attacks on the town of Douma northeast of Damascus, while fierce clashes erupted in Daraya southwest of the city.

In Idlib province, fighters from Al-Nusra Front -- blacklisted by Washington as a terror group -- and other rebels who are besieging the Wadi Deif base also clashed with troops at a nearby military post, the Observatory said.

It said at least 160 people were killed on Sunday, including 78 civilians, and that nearly 90 percent of the 45,000 people killed so far died in 2012.

It put the 2012 death toll at 39,362 people, including 28,133 civilians.

On Sunday, regime forces unleashed a fierce offensive in the central city of Homs after overrunning Deir Baalbeh, a key neighbourhood, a day earlier in fighting which left dozens dead.

A video released by the Syrian Revolution General Commission showed the bodies of nine male victims from Deir Baalbeh lying on the ground, their faces bloody and mutilated.

- AFP/xq

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Armed forces cancel New Year parties, Sonia Gandhi to shun celebrations

NEW DELHI: The Armed Forces called off their Year's Eve parties while Congress president Sonia Gandhi will shun celebrations as the country numbed by the death of the gang-raped girl is set to usher in 2013 in a sombre mood.

Several hotels, clubs and residents associations in Delhi have decided to either cancel planned festivities or scale back parties in a show of sympathy for the 23-year-old physiotherapy student who died last Saturday in a Singapore hospital after she grimly fought for her life for nearly two weeks.

Several young protesters assembled at Jantar Mantar on a day when the Capital witnessed the season's coldest day at 13.3 degree Celsius said there will be no revelries for them and that they would light candles to express their solidarity with the victim.

Reports of toned down celebrations by business houses and star hotels were also coming in from across the country.

Defence Ministry and the three Services have decided against organising their New Year bashes, Defence Ministry officials said. Like on previous occasions, defence minister A K Antony will have a quiet new year this time too.

In view of the December 16 gang-rape incident here, Antony had not even accepted birthday wishes from anyone on December 28.

The Army has issued advisories to all formations that they should not organise New Year parties, Army officials said.

The Navy and the Indian Air Force have also told their formations not to organise any bashes this year in view of the death of the gang-rape victim.

"Sonia Gandhi has appealed to partymen and well-wishers against coming to her to extend New Year greetings in the wake of gang-rape incident," party general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi said.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Gandhi were present at the airport when the mortal remains of the victim were flown in here from Singapore in the small hours yesterday. Both Singh and Gandhi had spoken to the family members and consoled them.

"December 28 is close to New Year. Normally, we wish each other but not so this time as our thoughts are with the young woman...," she had told reporters on the 127th Foundation Day of Congress at AICC headquarters here on Friday.

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Kenya hospital imprisons new mothers with no money

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The director of the Pumwani Maternity Hospital, located in a hardscrabble neighborhood of downtown Nairobi, freely acknowledges what he's accused of: detaining mothers who can't pay their bills. Lazarus Omondi says it's the only way he can keep his medical center running.

Two mothers who live in a mud-wall and tin-roof slum a short walk from the maternity hospital, which is affiliated with the Nairobi City Council, told The Associated Press that Pumwani wouldn't let them leave after delivering their babies. The bills the mothers couldn't afford were $60 and $160. Guards would beat mothers with sticks who tried to leave without paying, one of the women said.

Now, a New York-based group has filed a lawsuit on the women's behalf in hopes of forcing Pumwani to stop the practice, a practice Omondi is candid about.

"We hold you and squeeze you until we get what we can get. We must be self-sufficient," Omondi said in an interview in his hospital office. "The hospital must get money to pay electricity, to pay water. We must pay our doctors and our workers."

"They stay there until they pay. They must pay," he said of the 350 mothers who give birth each week on average. "If you don't pay the hospital will collapse."

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the suit this month in the High Court of Kenya, says detaining women for not paying is illegal. Pumwani is associated with the Nairobi City Council, one reason it might be able to get away with such practices, and the patients are among Nairobi's poorest with hardly anyone to stand up for them.

Maimouna Awuor was an impoverished mother of four when she was to give birth to her fifth in October 2010. Like many who live in Nairobi's slums, Awuor performs odd jobs in the hopes of earning enough money to feed her kids that day. Awuor, who is named in the lawsuit, says she had saved $12 and hoped to go to a lower-cost clinic but was turned away and sent to Pumwani. After giving birth, she couldn't pay the $60 bill, and was held with what she believes was about 60 other women and their infants.

"We were sleeping three to a bed, sometimes four," she said. "They abuse you, they call you names," she said of the hospital staff.

She said saw some women tried to flee but they were beaten by the guards and turned back. While her husband worked at a faraway refugee camp, Awuor's 9-year-old daughter took care of her siblings. A friend helped feed them, she said, while the children stayed in the family's 50-square-foot shack, where rent is $18 a month. She says she was released after 20 days after Nairobi's mayor paid her bill. Politicians in Kenya in general are expected to give out money and get a budget to do so.

A second mother named in the lawsuit, Margaret Anyoso, says she was locked up in Pumwani for six days in 2010 because she could not pay her $160 bill. Her pregnancy was complicated by a punctured bladder and heavy bleeding.

"I did not see my child until the sixth day after the surgery. The hospital staff were keeping her away from me and it was only when I caused a scene that they brought her to me," said Anyoso, a vegetable seller and a single mother with five children who makes $5 on a good day.

Anyoso said she didn't have clothes for her child so she wrapped her in a blood-stained blouse. She was released after relatives paid the bill.

One woman says she was detained for nine months and was released only after going on a hunger strike. The Center for Reproductive Rights says other hospitals also detain non-paying patients.

Judy Okal, the acting Africa director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said her group filed the lawsuit so all Kenyan women, regardless of socio-economic status, are able to receive health care without fear of imprisonment. The hospital, the attorney general, the City Council of Nairobi and two government ministries are named in the suit.

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Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed to this report.

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Deal or No Deal, 'Cliff' Debate Will Linger Into 2013

Dec 31, 2012 6:00am

AP Photo/ Evan Vucci

Analysis

The fiscal cliff is just the beginning.

Regardless of whether Democrats and Republicans reach some kind of last-minute bargain to avoid the worst effects of tax hikes and spending cuts, the disaster that has been the fiscal cliff negotiations has broad implications for the Washington agenda in 2013 and beyond.

The tone has been set for the new year, and possibly for the rest of President Obama’s time in office: Washington’s divisions are the only point that matters anymore. Call if dysfunction or call it just plain broken, just don’t call it capable of even small legislative moves that involve compromise.

Hopes of a grand bargain on fiscal policy, involving entitlement spending, tax rates, and the debt ceiling, disappeared weeks ago. All that’s left are fading possibilities involving the delaying portions of tax increases and restoring some planned cuts.

Those are moves that actually make the deficit outlook worse. More saliently, they should be the politically easy things to get done, yet Congress is paralyzed and the president appears powerless to do anything meaningful to prod action.

The other items Obama ticked through this weekend as part of his second-term agenda – immigration reform, energy and environmental policy, infrastructure investments, gun control – look like dreams in this environment.

The causes are manifold, and the blame doesn’t have to be equally distributed for the ramifications to be real. The fact is that Republicans – who will control at least one house of Congress for at least half of the president’s second term – do not now and may not ever see sufficient political benefit to offer the types of concessions Democrats are insisting on.

If an election couldn’t change that, there’s precious little left that can. Name the issue and it’s all too easy to see similar dynamics derailing meaningful reform.

Washington is now broken beyond the point where bold individual leadership can even fix it. The forces at play are bigger than the ability of the president, House Speaker John Boehner, or any other person or persons to turn them around without the certain promise of a revolt in the party ranks that would leave them out of effective power.

The cliff metaphor suggests a jump into a void, but at least one that has a bottom. Yet as the nation watches this slow-motion wreck, the depths of dysfunction have yet to be fully explored.

SHOWS: World News

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Body of India rape victim cremated in New Delhi

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The body of a woman, whose gang rape provoked protests and rare national debate about violence against women in India, arrived back in New Delhi on Sunday and was cremated at a private ceremony.

Scuffles broke out in central Delhi between police and protesters who say the government is doing too little to protect women. But the 2,000-strong rally was confined to a single area, unlike last week when protests raged up throughout the capital.

Riot police manned barricades along streets leading to India Gate war memorial - a focal point for demonstrators - and, at another gathering point - the centuries-old Jantar Mantar - protesters held banners reading "We want justice!" and "Capital punishment".

Most sex crimes in India go unreported, many offenders go unpunished, and the wheels of justice turn slowly, according to social activists, who say that successive governments have done little to ensure the safety of women.

The unidentified 23-year-old victim of the December 16 gang rape died of her injuries on Saturday, prompting promises of action from a government that has struggled to respond to public outrage.

The medical student had suffered brain injuries and massive internal injuries in the attack and died in hospital in Singapore where she had been taken for treatment.

She and a male friend had been returning home from the cinema, media reports say, when six men on a bus beat them with metal rods and repeatedly raped the woman. The friend survived.

New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among India's major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, police figures show. Reported rape cases rose by nearly 17 percent between 2007 and 2011, according to government data.

Six suspects were charged with murder after her death and face the death penalty if convicted.

In Kolkata, one of India's four biggest cities, police said a man reported that his mother had been gang-raped and killed by a group of six men in a small town near the city on Saturday.

She was killed on her way home with her husband, a senior official said, and the attackers had thrown acid at the husband, raped and killed her, and dumped her body in a roadside pond.

Police declined to give any further details. One officer told Reuters no criminal investigation had yet been launched.

"MISOGYNY"

The leader of India's ruling Congress party, Sonia Gandhi, was seen arriving at the airport when the plane carrying the woman's body from Singapore landed and Prime Minister Mannmohan Singh's convoy was also there.

A Reuters correspondent saw family members who had been with her in Singapore take her body from the airport to their Delhi home in an ambulance with a police escort.

Her body was then taken to a crematorium and cremated. Media were kept away but a Reuters witness saw the woman's family, New Delhi's chief minister, Sheila Dikshit, and the junior home minister, R P N Singh, coming out of the crematorium.

The outcry over the attack caught the government off guard. It took a week for the prime minister to make a statement, infuriating many protesters. Last weekend they fought pitched battles with police.

Issues such as rape, dowry-related deaths and female infanticide rarely enter mainstream political discourse.

Analysts say the death of the woman dubbed "Amanat", an Urdu word meaning "treasure", by some Indian media could change that, though it is too early to say whether the protesters can sustain their momentum through to national elections due in 2014.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon added his voice to those demanding change, calling for "further steps and reforms to deter such crimes and bring perpetrators to justice".

Commentators and sociologists say the incident earlier this month has tapped into a deep well of frustration many Indians feel over what they see as weak governance and poor leadership on social issues.

Newspapers raised doubts about the commitment of both male politicians and the police to protecting women.

"Would the Indian political system and class have been so indifferent to the problem of sexual violence if half or even one-third of all legislators were women?" the Hindu newspaper asked.

The Indian Express said it was more complicated than realizing that the police force was understaffed and underpaid.

"It is geared towards dominating citizens rather than working for them, not to mention being open to influential interests," the newspaper said. "It reflects the misogyny around us, rather than actively fighting for the rights of citizens who happen to be female."

(Additional reporting by Ross Colvin and Diksha Madhokin New Delhi and Sujoy Dhar in Kolkata; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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Hotel occupancy rates rise during festive period

SINGAPORE: Despite the grim economic outlook, occupancy rates of hotels and budget hostels rose during the festive period this year.

Hotels which Channel NewsAsia spoke to say on average, room occupancy rates are more than 90 per cent.

Tan Ningxi, marketing communications manager at Royal Plaza on Scotts said: "During this festive period, our business travellers will be home for the holidays. So we'll have more leisure guests. These leisure guests come mainly from Asia Pacific and there are also some locals. There are about 5 to 10 per cent more of the locals and they're usually here for the countdown parties, shopping, or to see the Christmas light-up."

At a hotel located further from town, there are twice as many locals staying during the festive period, compared to non-peak periods.

Budget hostels have also seen occupancy rates rise by some 20 per cent.

As many venues at restaurants and hotels are may be fully booked at the end of the year, a youth hostel has decided to rent out its balcony.

This gives its guests or members of the public another option for events or gatherings.

With the arrival of more tourists and changing minds of locals, those in the hospitality sector feel demand for rooms during the festive season will remain strong.

- CNA/xq

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