Bailout blow triggers stampede to safety

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Recession fears grew and investors raced for safe havens after U.S. lawmakers' shock rejection of a $700 billion rescue plan for the financial industry, with Asian stocks skidding after Wall Street's biggest fall since the crash of 1987.

Violent market reaction increased pressure on Washington to approve compromise bailout legislation and fueled expectations that the Fed would cut interest rates on or before its next meeting, which is scheduled for October 29.

"The markets are sending a clear message of the need for a U.S. government scheme of administration of its banking system soon -- anything short of this is not an option," said Peter Pontikis, a strategist at Suncorp Medway in Sydney.

"Unwarranted delays will merely prolong the timeframe of an eventual U.S. recovery," he said.

A week that started badly with the rescue of three banks in Europe and the distressed sale of big U.S. lender Wachovia to Citigroup grew worse after the U.S. Congress was unable to agree on a rescue package.

Shares in Asia were down 3.4 percent in the afternoon, with Tokyo falling more than 4 percent. European stock markets were set to open between 2.5 and 4.4 percent lower after dropping 5.2 percent on Monday to a three-and-a-half year closing low.

Russia's stock exchanges suspended trading on Tuesday after the benchmark index lost more than 7 percent on Monday.

Uncertainty about what comes next, and whether the U.S. Congress can agree on legislation to relieve the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression sent investors into gold and U.S. Treasuries. Oil fell on fears of further economic slowdown, and the Japanese yen hit a 4-month high.

Investors worried that a collapse in financial markets would tip the United States economy into a painful recession that drags the rest of the world down with it.

"We do not rule out a U.S. recession being deep and long and having a severe global impact," said Gerard Lyons, chief economist at Standard Chartered in London.

However, Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President Thomas Hoenig said that despite a sense that "the sky is falling," the U.S. economy is resilient and will emerge stronger from the current credit crisis.

"We need to take a deep breath and think about what is happening," he told a Kansas City Fed economic forum in Gering, Nebraska.

Fed funds futures showed the market saw a 76 percent chance of a 50 basis point rate cut by October 29.

"With the financial storm as strong as ever and investors now looking to scramble and seek shelter, many see the Fed coming in and cutting rates to stimulate some confidence," Martin Batur, deputy head of dealing at IG Markets wrote in a note.

U.S. President George W. Bush was scheduled to make a statement on the rescue package at 1245 GMT on Tuesday after meeting on Monday with economic advisers including Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to consider the administration's next move.

"I was disappointed in the vote that the United States Congress (had) on the economic rescue plan," Bush told reporters in Washington. "Our strategy is to continue to address this economic situation head-on and we'll be working to develop a strategy that will enable us to continue to move forward."

Both supporters and opponents complained about the way the administration presented the proposal as an urgent demand, accompanied by warnings of potential economic collapse, after years of sky-rocketing Wall Street bonuses, abusive mortgage lending, and regulatory neglect by the administration.

Zardari gets Fatwa for flirting with Palin

THE PRAYER leader of the Lal Masjid in the heart of Islamabad, has issued a fatwa against Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari. The decision has been taken by Maulana Abdul Ghafar for his compliments to US Vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. The compliments like "You’re gorgeous" and “...I might hug you”, have attracted wide spread criticism from the Islamist clergy.

Maulana Abdul Ghafar declared the act was un-Islamic and unbecoming of a head of state of a Muslim country. According to Maulana, Zardari shamed the entire Pakistani nation by publicly making indecent gestures towards Sarah Palin in Washington last Thursday. In this meeting with Palin, when Zardari was asked to keep shaking hands with Palin for the cameras, he said, "If he’s (the aide) insisting, I might hug you".


After those flirting comments, Zardari attracted the attention of media worldwide. Zardari’s behavior and compliments given to Palin, broke all the protocols that should have been adhered to in such an official meeting. Since then several jokes are doing the rounds on the meeting with in Pakistan and abroad as well. Zardari has been known for his ’Playboy’ image in past as well but this incident has drawn criticism from all directions as this was an official meeting, where he was representing his nation.

Maulana has described Zardari’s conduct as a shame for entire nation. Maulana also said that President Zardari’s indecent gestures, filthy remarks and repeated praise of a non-Muslim lady wearing a short skirt is not only un-Islamic but also unbecoming of a head of state o f a Muslim country. He said that the manner in which Zardari shook hands with Sarah Palin and expressed his deep desire to hug her is intolerable and shameful.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ACypohHsYts

Let sanity prevail over Sangh Pariwar!

AT THE outset, every Hindu should condemn the attacks on churches in various parts of India, particularly in Karnataka and Orissa.


The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may be the only political party in India, which is sincerely concerned about Hindus, Hindu dharma and injustice meted out to Hindus and their beliefs in the name of secularism. It has every right to do so and for this reason alone, Hindus are indebted to this party. No doubt, at times of crisis only BJP has come to the rescue of Hindus in the highly biased political atmosphere.


However, this will not suffice to win the hearts of millions of Hindus. When the highly biased United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government is losing no opportunity for exposing them , the BJP has never utilised this opportunity to expose them, but chose physical attack on churches. It should realise that Hindus would never appreciate this barbaric dance of violence, but on the other hand it may even boomerang and lose the sympathy of its fold.


Even a devout and highly religious Hindu or a political Hindu ideologue would never appreciate or even justify the attacks on churches and on the other hand they even criticise the BJP, with which they rode to power in Karnataka!


It is true that under UPA’s rule, in the past four and half years, evangelism has increased multifolds, and money and manpower is spent in millions to convert the gullible.

Undoubtedly, the conversions are the forcible ones, as in India baring very few incidents where the individual approaches the church to convert to Christianity; every conversion is otherwise is obviously a forcible one as 90 per cent of the gullible are illiterates.


In Andhra Pradesh, the situation is that the chief minister himself is a Christian and his Brahmin Hindu son-in-law (reported to be forcibly converted to Christianity to be accepted to take hand of his daughter, his lover) is now actively propagating Christianity alongwith his family members. Few more ministers in his cabinet are Christians.


With the moral and political support of the AP government, the missionaries made an attempt to grab one of the seven holy hills of Tirupathi Balaji, for constructing a huge church to attract and divert millions of visiting pilgrims to the newly built church.

Mominul Haq sent to 14 days police custody

MOMINUL HAQ, 32 years old law student in Shillong, has been remanded to 14 days police custody, for sending threatening email to BJP leader L K Advani. Haq has reportedly confessed to sending the threatening email. He was produced before Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) in Shillong on Friday.


According to sources, an anti-terror police team is coming to Shillong to interrogate Haq.
Team will try to establish that whether Haq has links to IM or SIMI or not. However, Mother of the accused has told media that her son is innocent and police is harassing him.

The e-mail was sent from a cyber café in the Laban area of Shillong. Email claimed that the sender of the mail, has vowed to kill Advani on his visit to Shillong on
September 29. The email id from which the mail was sent, allegedly belongs to Ali Hussain Badr, field commander of the Indian Mujahideen in the North-East.

GOD IS HELPLESS

Nowadays, grand immersion procession marks our festivals. While seeing one such procession, I felt how helpless our gods are! This was the preparation for the idol immersion in one of the backyard clubs. The God was mounted on a truck amidst floral and light decorations. There was a thick screen of cigarette smoke obscuring the deity’s face. The truck was so thickly crowded that the God shoved with men to stand erect. Sometimes somebody gave a nudge and sometimes someone bumped into him.

The pious custom to lead the God with dhunuchi, which evoked sacred ambience is passé. An indecent cacophonic desi number was screaming aloud. The club owners, heavily drunk, were trying to arrange everything on their wobbling feet. Apart from them, street children, vagabonds and onlookers made for a motley crowd. People from all age groups mostly dressed in tattered clothes made for a good sight. In this kind of street fest, street children put on the garb of self-appointed kings. Scurrying around, their talks acted as fillers in the weighty conversation of the elders. It was really amusing to see a man struggling hard to perform the drink-dance with the group. Old by his grey and white hair, but young by spirit. They were all immersed in a different kind of enjoyment; the excitement of being half conscious and spitting slang at each other.

One can notice that the sprouting of unidentifiable non-existing clubs is a common trend. The club maker’s main purpose is to celebrate each and every festival in the Indian calendar. The reason being very simple and straight - the collection of money. We Indians are rightfully very religious and we fear to deny when the question of God comes. Comments or scoffs are ready for those who don’t give in.

The priest offers his prayers as if hurling mantras at the idol. Except the club leader, who takes the pain of sitting in the puja, others continue their banter or card game. An altogether different fusion is created when the baritone of the priest and the cheap Bollywood song jostle to find space. The urchins, idle walkers and some over-enthusiastic group of women are the audience of this road-side mockery of worship. Some beggars also drop in to make that extra money other than their usual quota.


God remains in this make-shift heaven for a long time even after the worshiping. This is the post-puja gestation period for the God. This is a very viable plea for the club members to refrain from their usual job. During this time, he takes a stock of the surrounding. Most of the evenings the club members are so occupied with their boorish celebrations that the helpless God bears the imposed solitude.

Seeing all these I wonder, is the idol a mere symbol of wonderful craftsmanship? Or the God in the idol is smiling at the demonstration of culture deprivation? Is it that God, for whom homicide or sabotage is nothing, but a proof of being heartily religious? Many such questions storm the mind.

Nobody has seen God, but we hold it as the mightiest force above us. Idols are symbolic, in which we invoke Him in the festivals. And that is the main conviction behind religion. Religion is faith in that ultimate force. It is either hypocrisy or the death of humanity to use God for such indulgence. Gods have become alibi for barbarism. They are easy planks to meet seedy wants.

Government says its a crime to be gay

THE LAW against homosexuals in India states, "Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term, which may extend to ten years and shall also be liable to fine."

Homosexuals have always been discriminated against, in our country and have found no political backing whatsoever. No political party has ever come in support of them and it has only been the Indian film industry and some non-government organisations that have been fighting for their rights.

Meanwhile, the government has put an end to the debate of whether or not the century old laws relating to homosexuals should be changed, by categorically denying that such a change is needed. The law as it stands has not served any purpose for and barely have any homosexuals been convicted in the last few years, but they have always been discriminating against the homosexuals and even blackmailed them for their sexual orientation.

What is ironical is that the law against homosexuals in India has been present from the time of the colonial rule when India was under the British rule. The British for that matter themselves realised their folly and changed the law way back in 1967 and even went on to allow gay marriages in Britain from 2005 onwards. The move created a rage of gay marriages in the country with more than five thousand gay couples getting married on the day, when the new law came into effect.

The law in Britain made in the year 1967 goes on to say,

(a) A homosexual act in private shall not be an offence provided that the parties consent thereto and have attained the age of 16 years;

(b) A homosexual act by any person shall not be an offence if he is under the age of 16 years and the other party has attained that age.

But the Indian government has yet restrained from changing the laws though the British woke up to their mistake more than 40 years back. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was once asked by a journalist as to what he thought of the new law in Canada to allow gay marriages, to which the Indian prime minister said, "There would not be much appreciation for a law like that in India."

The Ministry of Health under Ambumani Ramadoss has also come out in support of the gay groups by stating that with the present laws there are more chances of people catching the AIDS virus.


The National AIDS control in a report filed to the government stated that in the case of homosexuals, the chances of AIDS are higher because they are reluctant to accept this is front of society and hence such discussions are always pushed below the carpet. The report also stated that almost 70 per cent of homosexuals know about the dangers of AIDS but yet only 36 per cent use condoms.

On one side, the Indian government is hell bent on reducing the chances of people contracting AIDS by their condom campaign, but on the other side they do not want to change the present laws. When in June this year, there were gay parade in the Indian capital, several anti-gay groups had tried to get that scrapped as well, but the parade went on as planned. The gay community has been begging and protesting against the present laws for they are not only discriminatory but are against the rules of any civilised society. For the timebeing, the gay community will have to keep pushing until their demands are met.

Sex workers plan to build mosque after Fatwa

THE ONGOING tension between the sex workers and the Islamist leaders in Purnia, is taking a serious turn now. A long confrontation has been going on between sex workers and Muslim clergy since last few weeks.

During this stalemate, the Muslim clergy issued a Fatwa against sex workers. The fatwa issued last week banned sex workers’ entry into local mosques. The Fatwa also prohibited them from offering Namaaz on the grounds that they are involved in the flesh trade.

Now the angry sex workers have decided to construct their own mosque as a response to the fatwa issued by Muslim clergy. The sex workers have been facing strong criticism from local Islamist leaders for last many weeks.

The battle of ideologies, has been going on between both the parties over questions like whether sex workers are untouchables or not and whether their profession is anti-Islamic or not? This confrontation has now taken a serious turn and may create law and order problems.

Whole problem started when men from sex worker families went to a local mosque last Friday to offer Namaaz during Ramzan. However, the clerics at the local Madina mosque located at Khuskibagh in Purnia district, strongly objected to their entrance. According to the reports clerics ordered them to leave the place immediately. Clerics pointed that since they were part of the flesh trade so they could not enter the holy place.

The group of men also pleaded clerics to allow them to enter the mosque and offer Namaz. But the clerics remained firm on their decision and did not allow them to offer Namaz.

After few arguments between both the parties, the Clerics went a step further and issued a Fatwa against the sex workers and their families.

Now as a result of this tension, the sex workers have decided to construct their own mosque near the Madina mosque. One of the sex workers has already donated land for the construction. Funds raising exercise has also been started.

Ashique Rehmani, the leader of sex workers while speaking to media said, "It’s a matter of prestige and we will do it come what may”. He also added that Islam does not discriminate between various classes of people. He also told that around 50 of the sex workers have left the job and have joined the mainstream of the society but even then they are facing harsh comments and discriminations in the society.

On the other hand a local Muslim cleric justified the Fatwa on the grounds that the Muslim clergy can not allow sex workers to interfere with Islam and to maintain the sanctity of religion and mosque, banning their entry was really needed.