India votes on biggest polling day

Udhampur: India kicked off the biggest day of its mammoth general election on Thursday with a quarter of its 815 million voters heading to the polls in states ranging from the Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir, to the densely-populated plains of Uttar Pradesh and the IT hub of Bangalore in Karnataka. Security has been beefed up and paramilitary forces have been deployed, as voting begins in some of the most threatened states, including the militancy-affected Jammu and Kashmir, recently riot-hit state of Uttar Pradesh, the Maoist-inflicted states and the northeast.