A 5.2-magnitude earthquake struck close to the Indian capital of New Delhi on Monday, with powerful tremors shaking buildings and sending frightened residents scurrying into the streets.

The quake struck shortly after 1:10pm (07:40 GMT) and the tremors lasted for around 10 seconds.

India's home minister said Wednesday that police had foiled an attack by suspected militants from the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group who were caught with explosives at a rail station.

P. Chidambaram told reporters that two men had been arrested at New Delhi's main station after a tip-off from intelligence agencies and work by three state police agencies.

Israel's Ambassador to the U.N., Ron Prosor, has warned the Security Council that Hizbullah’s alleged powerbase in western Africa is growing, the Israeli Ynetnews website reported Wednesday.

"Israel is particularly concerned over Hizbullah's use of the area as a base of terror operations,” the site quoted Prosor as saying. “Criminal initiatives bolster Hizbullah's efforts to create sleeper-cells in the area.”

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has said the U.S. is closely monitoring the activities of Hizbullah after a failed bomb plot in Bangkok and attacks on Israeli embassy staff in India and Georgia.

Napolitano told lawmakers Wednesday that the Homeland Security Department has contacted Jewish organizations around the country and is working with the FBI and other law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Indian investigators were searching Tuesday for the motorcycle assailant who attached a bomb to an Israeli diplomatic car in the heart of New Delhi, an attack the Jewish state blamed on Iran or its proxies, including Hizbullah.

Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram told reporters investigators were working on the assumption it was a terror attack carried out by a "very well-trained person."

India marked a year since its last new case of polio Friday, a major milestone in a country once considered the epicenter of the disease and one that gives hope the scourge can be eradicated worldwide.

There were 150,000 cases of the highly contagious virus in India in 1985, but the country has now gone 12 months since discovering a new case -- in an 18-month-old girl in the eastern state of West Bengal.

It's late in the evening and the Indian capital's moneyed art crowd is spilling out of congested galleries into a narrow maze of streets, sipping glasses of wine as they peer at catalogues.

Lado Sarai, a warren of bylanes and haphazardly constructed buildings in New Delhi's hinterland, has become a thriving new art district where Mercedes and BMWs jostle with bullock carts for space to pass.

The Indian capital of New Delhi marked its 100th birthday on Monday without any official celebrations of a day that revives memories of British rule over the country.

On December 12, 1911, visiting King George V told crowds at an elaborate imperial ceremony that India's capital would be moved from the eastern port of Calcutta to a new city to be built next to the ancient settlement of Delhi.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Saturday that governments worldwide are curbing personal liberty, privacy and free speech by misusing technology.

"Bulk surveillance of entire nations is on," Assange said in an address from Britain via video to a media conference in New Delhi.

American pop sensation Lady Gaga has been signed up to play at India's inaugural Formula One race next month, which will be held a newly-built circuit outside the capital New Delhi.

The colorful diva will perform at a concert after the Indian Grand Prix on October 30, organizers said in a press release on Saturday.