An Indian minister from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling party said Thursday that rape was "sometimes right, sometimes wrong", amid mounting public anger over sex attacks against women.

Babulal Gaur, the home minister of central Madhya Pradesh state who is responsible for law and order, said rapes could be investigated as crimes only if they were reported to the police.

The prime minister of Tibet's government-in-exile accused Chinese authorities Thursday of blanket repression in the Himalayan region as he launched a new campaign for autonomy in his homeland. 

"There is total repression and total discrimination" in Tibet, Lobsang Sangay told reporters at his government's headquarters in northern India.

Rebels shot dead a woman in northeast India after she resisted their attempt to gang-rape her, police said Wednesday, the latest in a string of sex attacks to shock the country.

Police said the 35-year-old mother of four was at home in a remote village of Meghalaya state when militants of the outlawed Garo National Liberation Army barged in late Tuesday.

Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa has ordered the release of 29 Indian fishermen held on poaching charges, officials said Tuesday, in a move to ease tensions over illegal fishing.

India is making arrangements to evacuate close to 1,000 nationals, mostly students, from Ukraine's violence-hit Lugansk region, an official said Tuesday.  

"There are around 1,000 nationals, mostly medical students who are being evacuated," foreign ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin told AFP. 

India's hawkish central bank kept key interest rates unchanged Tuesday at its first meeting to set monetary policy since new pro-growth Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office.

After meeting in the financial capital Mumbai, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said the benchmark repo rate, at which it lends to commercial banks, would remain steady at 8.0 percent.

A new Indian minister was killed Tuesday in a car accident in the capital just days after being sworn into government, officials said.

Gopinath Munde, rural development and water and sanitation minister, died in hospital after his car was involved in an accident en route to New Delhi's airport early Tuesday.

Indian police fired water cannon on Monday at a group of mainly women protesting against the gang-rape and lynching of two girls in the country's largest state.

Several hundred protesters were demanding an end to violence against women outside the office of the chief minister of the state of Uttar Pradesh, when riot police tried to disperse the crowd by hosing them, footage broadcast on Indian television showed.

Sri Lanka's navy said Sunday it had seized 29 Indian fishermen, the  first arrests since President Mahinda Rajapakse and India's new premier held talks on resolving the thorny issue of poaching.

The navy arrested the Indians along with six trawlers off the island's northwest coast on Sunday, a navy statement said.

The father of one of two girls gang-raped and lynched in northern India said Sunday he had refused compensation from the state government he blamed for failing to stop the horrendous crime.

The father, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said he only wanted justice for the men who attacked his daughter and niece, aged 14 and 12, who were found hanging from a tree on Wednesday.