Young people in India, the engine of its rapidly expanding economy, are committing suicide at a much higher rate than in the West, researchers said Friday, calling for urgent intervention.

Suicide is the second-most common cause of death among young people in India, they wrote in the Lancet, and was set to overtake complications from pregnancy and childbirth as the lead cause among women aged 15 to 29.

They are designed to reduce stress and improve well-being, but one laughing yoga club in Mumbai has been ordered to stop its early morning giggling sessions after complaints from grumpy neighbors.

The Bombay High Court told police to clamp down on the laughing yoga group after a 78-year-old resident complained it caused "mental agony, pain and public nuisance", the DNA newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Indian pharmaceutical tycoon Yusuf Hamied revolutionized AIDS treatment more than a decade ago by supplying cut-price drugs to the world's poor -- and now he wants to do the same for cancer.

Hamied, chairman of generic drugs giant Cipla, last month slashed the cost of three medicines to fight brain, kidney and lung cancer in India, making the drugs up to more than four times cheaper.

At least 32 pilgrims were killed and more than 20 injured on Saturday when their bus plunged off a bridge in western India, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported.

The pilgrims were returning from a visit to the popular Shirdi Saibaba temple, built in honor of an Indian guru, when the accident occurred before dawn in Maharashtra state's Osmanabad district, police told PTI.

Boosted by massive fighter jet deals with Saudi Arabia and Japan, U.S. foreign military sales have shot past $50 billion in a record-breaking year, a senior U.S. official said Thursday.

Andrew Shapiro, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, underlined that the United States also hopes to boost sales with India, which is mulling a $1.4 billion deal for 22 Apache helicopters.

An explosion in a state-owned steel plant in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh has killed at least 11 people, police said Thursday.

At least 16 other workers suffered serious burns in the blast and a massive fire that broke out late Wednesday in the plant in the coastal city of Visakhapatnam, said Police Commissioner Purnachandra Rao.

Pentagon chief Leon Panetta said Wednesday that the U.S. would continue to attack al-Qaida in Pakistan despite complaints from Islamabad that the drone strikes violate its sovereignty.

"We have made it very clear that we are going to continue to defend ourselves," Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said in India a day after the U.S. announced the killing of al-Qaida's number two Abu Yahya al-Libi.

India's Planning Commission, which plots the country's economic future, defended itself on Wednesday over a 3 million rupee ($54,100) bill for upgrading toilets.

The cost sparked outrage after a local activist unearthed the figure through a Right To Information request about work done on toilets at the commission's headquarters in New Delhi.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta held talks Wednesday with his Indian counterpart focused on NATO's planned exit from Afghanistan and China's rising power, officials said.

Panetta's two-day visit to New Delhi is part of a tour of the region that has stressed Washington's strategic shift to Asia, with U.S. officials portraying India as an anchor for the new approach.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta arrived in India on Tuesday for talks focusing on Washington's strategic shift towards Asia, as the United States eyes New Delhi as a potentially pivotal partner.

Security ties with India have steadily improved in recent years but U.S. officials have yet to realize the goal of a game-changing alliance that could check China's role and empower the two countries' economies, analysts say.