The Indian Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, has promised to look into an urgent request for water to be released into the Cauvery river in the southern state of Tamil Nadu from reservoirs in the neighbouring state of Karnataka.

Mr Vajpayee was speaking after a meeting in Delhi with a delegation of political leaders from Tamil Nadu.

The state has been warning that crops in the Cauvery delta will perish if Karnataka does not release the water soon.

But last week Karnataka officials told a central river water monitoring committee that there was to little water in the reservoirs to even consider releasing any at the moment.

Mr Vajpayee said he would speak to the Karnataka chief minister to try to resolve the deadlock.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service