Rescuers recovered six bodies late Monday from landslides in Indian Kashmir and were searching for those still buried as hundreds fled their homes after flooding triggered by heavy rain.

Police and witnesses said landslides had buried 16 people in several houses in Chadoora, the worst hit area of the Himalayan region where hundreds were killed in devastating floods last September.

Indian authorities have found the bodies of two navy pilots whose plane crashed into the sea on Tuesday.

A navy statement said the body of a male officer was recovered from the plane's fuselage on Friday, a day after that of a female officer was found.

India is to send ships to Yemen to evacuate thousands of workers stranded there as the fighting intensifies, authorities said.

Around 3,500 Indians are currently working in Yemen, which has been plunged into chaos by a Huthi Shiite rebellion that has triggered Saudi-backed airstrikes on the capital Sanaa.

Indian police have made their first arrest over the rape of an elderly nun that has shocked the country, a senior official said on Thursday.

Investigators traced the suspect to the western city of Mumbai and detained him on Wednesday night, the police official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit France, Germany and Canada next month, the foreign ministry said Wednesday, on a tour expected to focus on attracting investment to the country.

Modi won a landslide election victory last May on a pledge to revive India's economic fortunes, and has embarked on an ambitious drive to attract more foreign investment to the country of 1.2 billion people.

India took delivery Wednesday of the first two refitted Mirage fighter jets out of a total 51 in the pipeline at a ceremony at the Istres airbase in southern France, as talks for more modern Rafales dragged on.

Signed in 2011 after five years of talks, the contract is worth 1.4 billion euros to be shared by Thales and Dassault, according to an Indian defense ministry document cited by the French business website LaTribune.fr.

Police in eastern India said Wednesday they are investigating letters found at a Catholic school which threaten to burn it down, renewing fears about the safety of the Christian minority.

Police have stepped up security at St. Capitaneo School in West Bengal state after the discovery of the five letters, threatening arson unless it was closed and its 13 nuns removed from the area.

A naval aircraft crashed off the western Indian coast leaving two pilots missing, the navy said Wednesday, in the latest of a string of accidents which have hit the force.

Rescue operations were underway after the Indian navy's Dornier aircraft plunged into the sea some 25 nautical miles off the western holiday state of Goa around 10:00 pm local time (1630 GMT) Tuesday.

India's top court Tuesday struck down a controversial law that made posting "offensive" comments online punishable by jail, a rare victory for free speech campaigners in a country criticized for a series of recent bans.

The Supreme Court said the 2009 amendment to the Information Technology Act known as section 66A was an unconstitutional curb on freedom of speech.

India and China agreed Tuesday to foster peace along their Himalayan border after wrapping up two days of talks designed to resolve a long-festering boundary dispute.

In comments issued after the round of talks in the Indian capital, the governments of both countries stressed their common desire to maintain calm and to press ahead with further negotiations.