By Byron Kaye and Swati Pandey SYDNEY/PERTH, Australia (Reuters) - A deep-sea drone had completed its much-anticipated first full scan of the seabed in the remote Indian Ocean, the team looking for a missing Malaysian jetliner said on Thursday, as an air and surface search became less likely to yield results. Footage from a U.S. Navy deep-sea drone is fast becoming the most important tool for a multinational team still searching for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared from radar screens on March 8 with 239 people aboard. Authorities believe that is the most likely area where the missing jet hit the ocean after disappearing. However, with no pings received in more than a week and the black box's battery now 10 days past its approximate expiry date, authorities are relying on the drone.

India hosts its biggest day of voting Thursday in its marathon election, with the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty battling to save the ruling Congress party from defeat to opposition Hindu nationalist leader Narendra Modi. The key day comes after India's most famous family cranked up the rhetoric in a bid to claw back support from Modi, saying the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate was a threat to the nation's secular foundations. Surveys have suggested Congress, under Rahul's leadership, is heading for a crushing defeat at the hands of the right-wing BJP. Sonia, 67, the left-leaning Congress party matriarch, told voters Modi would rip India's secular fabric, accusing him of representing a "dangerous combination of religious fanaticism, power and money".

RAJNANDGAON, India (AP) — Voters are casting ballots in India's general election despite threats of violence in some areas by extreme leftist insurgents, who say the country's democracy has failed its marginalized and its poor.

GENEVA (AP) — Ukraine is hoping to placate Russia and calm hostilities with its neighbor even as the U.S. prepares a new round of sanctions to punish Moscow for what it regards as fomenting unrest.

By Ashutosh Pandey and Swetha Gopinath BANGALORE (Reuters) - India kicked off the biggest day of its mammoth general election on Thursday, with a quarter of its 815 million voters set to head to the polls during a week of fresh blows for the ruling Congress party and gains for the Hindu nationalist opposition. Narendra Modi, the prime-ministerial candidate of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has been wooing voters with promises to rescue India from its slowest economic growth in a decade and create jobs for its booming young population. In the latest large opinion poll, the BJP and its allies were forecast to win a narrow majority in the 543-seat lower house of parliament, compared to previous surveys predicting that they would fall short. Voting on Thursday is taking place in 120 constituencies across 12 states, from the fractious Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir - where election materials had to be airlifted to some remote polling stations - to the lush southern state of Karnataka whose capital is the IT and outsourcing hub Bangalore.