An advertisement for a new luxury train service embarrassed India's rail ministry yesterday by placing the country's capital, New Delhi, inside the territory of arch-rival Pakistan.

Other gaffes made in announcing the inaugural run of the Maharajas' Express placed Kolkata, the Buddhist pilgrimage centre of Gaya and the Bandhavgarh Tiger reserve in the Bay of Bengal.

The agency which designed the ad -- promising to show passengers "an India like never before!" -- amended a version approved by Eastern Railways on March 19, the rail company's spokesman Samir Goswami told AFP.

"The agency decided to mark the train route more prominently in the final copy of the advertisement, given to newspapers, without informing us," Goswami said by phone from Kolkata.