In an open letter to Maoists, the school children urged Maoists not to deprive them of education by damaging and blowing up the school buildings.

“Maoist uncle, what is our mistake that you blow up schools and deprive us of education? You may have problems with the police but we fail to understand why are we your enemy? What is our mistake that our schools have become a soft target for you,” school children wrote in their letter to Maoist guerrillas.

The document is also being interpreted by developing countries as setting unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.

The draft text obtained by the Guardian newspaper in Britain is likely to have changed considerably since it was issued on Nov. 27 but it has already created a rift between those attending the Copenhagen Climate Change conference.

Three hours after the “Danish text” had been leaked to the Guardian, Lumumba Di-Aping, the Sudanese chairman of the group of 132 developing countries known as G77 plus China, spelt out exactly why the poor countries he represents were so incensed. “The text robs developing countries of their just and equitable and fair share of the atmospheric space. It tries to treat rich and poor countries as equal,” Di-Aping said.

While US government background information says that the past three months’ review has focused on Pakistan, the speech was remarkable for its gloss over the fundamental fact that the extremist “cancer” as Obama calls it, originates in Pakistan, not Afghanistan.

According to Indian officials and analysts, Afghani-stan is manageable, Pakistan is the real problem because both al-Qaida and Taliban originate from and are nurtured there.

In addition, the Punjabi terror groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, which have been created by Pakistan are now working in concert with the al-Qaida, which makes the cocktail doubly dangerous. This has not been addressed, even if this may have been discussed. But the gloss in the speech means Pakistan can continue to believe it can run with the hares and hunt with the hounds again.

Former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal said the strategy was disappointing in its absence of fresh thinking. Terrorism analyst B Raman says, “The Pakistani military operations in the Swat Valley and South Waziristan are meant to counter a threat to Pakistan’s internal security from indigenous elements. They are not directed against the external activities of al-Qaida. Nor are they directed towards facilitating the military operations of the NATO forces and the Afghan national army in Afghan territory. The safe havens of organizations, which are seen as an asset and not as a threat to Pakistan, are being shifted from place to place to escape detection and action by the US.”

Police said in a statement on Saturday the men, identified using leads from Indian authorities and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, sent funds overseas using the money transfer business they owned in the north Italian town of Brescia.

Shortly before the Mumbai attacks, the two men transferred money to pay the Internet phone calls of individuals in direct contact with the militants, the statement said.

The 10 gunmen attacked several targets in the western Indian city last year including two plush hotels and a Jewish center. The incident frayed already tense ties between nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan.

Two other Pakistani citizens were arrested in the investigation, accused of links to illegal people trafficking.

Roshan Bairwa, then 14, joined a growing number of girls defying the centuries-old tradition of child marriage in a country where nearly half of all women are married before their 18th birthday.

The British Raj tried to stamp it out. Mohandas Gandhi, himself a child groom, campaigned against it. The United Nations has condemned it. And in 2006, the Indian government explicitly banned it.

A landslide triggered by torrential seasonal rains swept through a hilly region in southern India, killing at least 39 people, an official said Tuesday.

The landslide demolished nearly 300 tin-roofed mud huts Monday in the Ooty and Coonoor region of Tamil Nadu state, a state flood control official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters. The region is nearly 1,120 miles (1,800 kilometers) south of the capital, New Delhi.

Rescuers found 14 bodies in the debris Monday and another 25 on Tuesday, the official said, adding that eight injured people were hospitalized.

Ooty is a popular tourist destination, but none of those killed or injured were foreigners, he said.

India’s June-September monsoon season causes severe flooding and kills hundreds of people across the country. But the annual monsoon brings rains that are vital to agriculture in India.

It is common for the southern parts of the country to receive heavy rains in November and December.

The Reserve Bank of India discovered 400,000 counterfeit notes in its coffers in the year to March 2009 — twice the number found a year before and up fourfold on the year before that. “Behind this racket is an organised effort in Pakistan,” P. Chidamabaram, the Home Minister, said. “It’s not a cottage industry.”

Shopkeepers across India have taken to checking notes assiduously, anxious to weed out a growing number of sham 500 rupee (£6.40p) and 1,000 rupee bills. Many customers have taken to carrying laser torches to identify sophisticated counterfeit currency.

“Once or twice a year we are invited to attend an important climate change event such as this one — often as a keynote speaker,” Mohammed Nasheed told world leaders at the UN headquarters in New York.

“On cue, we stand here and tell you just how bad things are. We warn you that unless you act quickly and decisively, our homeland and others like it will disappear before the rising sea, before the end of this century.