India elects new president

NEW DELHI (Reuter) - Vice-President Shankar Dayal Sharma, a seasoned politician and scholar, was elected yesterday as India's ninth President.

'I declare Shankar Dayal Sharma has been elected President of India,' an election official, Sudarshan Aggarwal, told a crowd of reporters and legislators at the parliament house.

Mr Sharma succeeds President Ramaswamy Venkataraman in the largely ceremonial post, and will be sworn in on 25 July. He won 64.8 per cent of the vote against 33.2 per cent for George Gilbert Swell, who was backed by two of the main opposition groups in Parliament.