World

"India and Sri Lanka have been approaching this as a humanitarian matter which is an emotional issue," the MEA said.

"I am eagerly waiting to visit Bangladesh soon," a spokesman of Hasina's office quoted the letter as saying as Jaishankar called on the Bangladeshi premier and handed it over to her.

Emwazi was revealed this week to be the Islamic State militant known as "Jihadi John," who appears in beheading videos brandishing a large knife.

A counter-terrorism conference attended by senior Muslim scholars from around the world on Wednesday called for education reform to tackle religious extremism.

Pakistan's support is seen as crucial to persuade the Taliban to hold talks with the Afghan government.

The Rafale was picked in 2012 over rival offers from the US, Europe and Russia for a deal initially worth $12 billion but now estimated to have jumped to $20 billion.

Experts gathering in Nairobi said the absence of Pachauri, chairman of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), would not affect this week's meeting.

The head judge of a three-member panel delivered the verdict on Wednesday in Dhaka against 79-year-old Abdus Subhan of the Jamaat-e-Islami political party.

While the first two days of the three-day summit are primarily focused on domestic extremism, the final day would see full participation of more than 60 countries.

Most of the victims were children who had either been selling peanuts or begging for money at the time of the explosion, said witnesses.

Obama will also seek to impose a 19 percent tax on US companies' future foreign earnings, the White House said.

"The Thorn Birds", set in the Australian outback, became a high-rating television series.