Herbal Supplements and Organic Tulsi Teas from Organic India only avaialble at singaporeherbals.com in South East Asia

A decision by the Reserve Bank of India to buy 200 tonnes of gold from the IMF for $6.7 billion does not reflect a preference for the How to invest in gold metal over the dollar, the finance minister said Tuesday. The International Monetary Fund kicked off its planned sale of more than 400 tonnes of gold with an announcement Monday that it had sold almost half to India, the world's biggest gold consumer, at near-record prices. The purchase "doesn't mean we don't prefer the dollar any more or like gold any better," Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters in New Delhi. Some analysts expect central banks around the world to diversify their holdings and purchase more gold as a shield against a weakening dollar. [Note: It will be real interesting to see what other countries start buying up gold.]

Tensions have flared between both China and India militaries along their disputed 2,175 mile-long border, with both sides alleging more frequent troop incursions in recent weeks. China is upset when the Indian prime minister recently visit the disputed region. China considers an Indian-occupied piece of it’s own Tibetan Autonomous Region, has added flames to the fire. China of course already deeply resents the fact that the top Tibetan leader, and several hundred thousand exiled Tibetans, are allowed to reside in India. India’s Maoist rebels are now present in 20 states and have evolved into a potent and lethal insurgency. In the last four years, the Maoists have killed more than 900 Indian security officers. Indian leaders are now preparing to deploy nearly 70,000 paramilitary officers to hunt down the guerrillas.The Maoists, however, do not want to secede or be absorbed. Their goal is to topple the system. India’s rapid economic growth has made it an emerging global power but also deepened stark inequalities in society. Maoists accuse the government of trying to push tribal groups off their land to gain access to raw materials and have sabotaged roads, bridges and even an energy pipeline.

"The core challenge to President Barack Obama’s Afghan War may not be the Taliban, nor even al-Qaeda, but rather Pakistan’s shadowy intelligence service, the ISI, with its dual loyalties when it comes to fighting Islamic extremists. Indeed, the success of Obama’s Af-Pak policy may depend on whether Pakistan’s ISI – officially named the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate – can be neutralized or dismantled. If the ISI remains intact, Obama may never know exactly what side of the street the Pakistani government is really working, given ISI’s historic role in organizing many of the miltant Islamic forces that are now challenging U.S. interests in the region."

India has rejected a demand by the Albanian government for the return of the remains of Nobel laureate Mother Teresa, buried in the city of Calcutta."Mother Teresa was an Indian citizen and she is resting in her own country, her own land," Foreign Ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash said.A spokeswoman for the nun's Missionaries of Charity described the Albanian request as "absurd".Mother Teresa, an ethnic Albanian, was born in Skopje, now part of Macedonia. Correspondents say that the row over her resting place could develop into an ugly three-way squabble between India, where she worked most of her life, Albania where her parents came from and Macedonia where she lived the first 18 years of her life.The row is expected to intensify by August next year - the 100th anniversary of Mother Teresa's birth - by which time many commentators expect her to have been canonised as a saint.

NEW DELHIA: India and the United States launched on Monday large-scale military exercises, India's Defense Ministry said. The 15-day war games, codenamed 'Yudh Abhyas' (preparation for war), are taking place in northern India's Jhansi district, part of the state of Uttar Pradesh. The drills involve the Indian Army Motorized Infantry Battalion and the 2nd Squadron of 14 CAV of 25 Stryker Brigade Combat Team, comprising some 320 U.S. servicemen. The ministry said the focus of the exercises was "on mechanized infantry operations for counter-insurgency/counter-terrorism in semi-urban terrain." They are designed to "further enhance interoperability already built through a series of exercises with US,'' a senior Indian officer was quoted as saying. The exercise will comprise a number of special operations, including peacekeeping, patrols, humanitarian assistance, community support and logistics. The ministry said the exercise was being conducted under a UN mandate. [Note: Keep this in mind. This is under a UN mandate, we will be seeing that again.]

Radiation and health experts across the world charge that toxic materials and radioactivity released by the mining and processing operations are causing widespread infertility, birth defects and cancers. A 2008 health survey by the Indian chapter of International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), found that “primary sterility was found to be more common in the people residing near uranium mining operations area.”Jadugoda residents Kaderam Tudu and his wife, Munia, considered themselves fortunate when their infant was born alive, until, “I found that my baby son did not have his right ear and instead in its place was a blob of flesh,” says Tudu, a day worker in his late thirties. Their son, Shyam Tudu, now eight, has a severe hearing impairment. The public hearing on UCIL's new application took place at the heavily fortified camp of the Central India Security Force (CISF) within the UCIL colony at Jadugoda. Conducted by the Jharkhand State Pollution Control Board, the proceedings were marked by restrictions on personal liberties under sections of a law applying to situations with the potential to cause civil unrest.Leaving little room for the public or protesters, the hall was packed with hundreds of UCIL workers and other company beneficiaries who held placards reading: “When compared to hunger, pollution is a small issue," and "Save UCIL.”

The United States, with under 5 percent of the world’s population, accounts for more than 20 percent of total carbon emissions. India, with more than 17 percent of the global population, accounts for just 5.3 percent of emissions. Why, people ask, should India pay a price for the West’s profligacy? It’s a fair question; the American and European positions have a whiff of hypocrisy. Still, when I see what’s going on around me — when I see how the farms are drying up, how forests and the coastline are disappearing, when I smell the dioxins in my house — I can’t help but feel that it’s a form of hypocrisy we had better learn to live with. If we sacrifice nature at the altar of material progress and global fairness, we risk, as Murugayian put it to me, losing a part of ourselves. Poverty is a serious problem. But pollution, I’ve come to believe, is itself a form of poverty.

Vikram Buddhi, a PHD student studying Math at Purdue University is now languishing in a US prison for posting an anti-Bush post he says he never wrote. His father, a former Indian Navy Captain has been fighting a lone legal battle to help his son and maintains he does not want mercy, but justice for his son. Vikram was picked up from the Purdue University campus in April 2006 for allegedly posting an online threat to former US President George W Bush and others on a website. Though technically it has not been proved that he sent the threat message from the campus, he still remains in prison, awaiting a sentence.

An updated Congressional report released last month says Washington signed arms transfer agreements with Pakistan in excess of $3.5 billion in the year 2006 alone, ''ranking Pakistan first among all arms clients of the United States during that calendar year.''In fact, the report says, the total value of Pakistan’s 2006 arms purchases from the US nearly matches the total value of all Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program purchases by Pakistan from the US for the period from 1950-2001.The report lists the key elements in Pakistan’s arms purchases from the United States as follows: 36 F-16C/D Block 50/52 fighter aircraft for $1.4 billion; a variety of missiles and bombs to be utilized on the F-16 C/D fighter aircraft for over $640 million; the purchase of Mid-Life Update Modification Kits to upgrade Pakistan’s F-16A/B aircraft for $890 million; and 115 M109A5 155mm self-propelled howitzers for $52 million.The There has also been some disquiet in the military about the wisdom of arming Pakistan when there are 100,000 US and Nato personnel next door in Afghanistan who don’t share Washington’s rosy view of ties with Islamabad, especially after a few firefights on the border.

A planned Unique Identification (UID) number for Indian citizens will be backed by biometric authentication, the head of the project has told BBC. Fingerprints and photographs of more than a billion people will be taken when they are registered for the identity number, Nandan Nilekani said.The biometric evidence will be stored online in what will be the biggest such national database in the world.

Health workers in the Punjabi cities of Bathinda and Faridkot knew something was terribly wrong when they saw a sharp increase in the number of birth defects, physical and mental abnormalities, and cancers. They suspected that children were being slowly poisoned. But it was only when a visiting scientist arranged for tests to be carried out at a German laboratory that the true nature of their plight became clear. The results were unequivocal. The children had massive levels of uranium in their bodies, in one case more than 60 times the maximum safe limit.

Already shaken by a spate of unrest in their homeland, people in Peshawar now have another source of fear on their city’s streets, the notorious US security firm Blackwater. "We are deeply scared by their presence and movement as they have posed a serious threat to our lives and properties," Ahmed Yar Khan, a local businessman, told IslamOnline.net. According to intelligence sources, the company, which gained world notoriety over involvement in dozens of unprovoked civilian killings in Iraq, has set up different stations in Peshawar and its vicinity. Sporting black gaggles and carrying sophisticated assault rifles, Blackwater members move freely in Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), and its adjoining districts. They are often seen in their black-colored armored vehicles carrying diplomatic number plates.

Human Rights Watch have just released this in depth report into human rights violations by Indian Police. Such violations occur to a varying degree in all police forces. Help keep this issue in the public domain by adding YOUR NOTE!!!!!

The US military released graphic images recently confirming vast areas in the arctic have lost their ice cover in summer months. The pictures, kept secret by Washington during the Bush presidency, were declassified by the White House last week. The loss of ice threatens polar bears and other arctic life, and the ability of the planet to cool itself. The latest revelations have also triggered warnings from scientists that they no longer have the funds to keep comprehensive track of climate change. Now the president's up against a problem. Indian officials are already resisting State Department pressure to cap carbon emissions; the Chinese are pretty cool to the idea too.

NEW DELHI — "India on Sunday launched the first nuclear-powered submarine built on its soil, joining just five other countries that can design and construct such vessels, the prime minister's office announced. India does not seek to threaten anyone,[Prime Minister Manmohan] Singh said at the ceremony in the southern port city of Vishakhapatnam. 'Nevertheless, it is incumbent upon us to take all measures necessary to safeguard our country and to keep pace with technological advancements worldwide'"--AP a

Hillary Clinton has been received with feverish media attention here in India on her first visit to the country as secretary of state, but the warm welcome did not win her any of the concessions she sought from New Delhi on climate change, a perennial dispute between the two countries. Her trip also appears to have been overshadowed by Indian skepticism over neighboring Pakistan's efforts to fight terror. At a photo op to highlight green building technology that could reduce energy consumption, India's Environmental Minister Jairam Ramesh said his country would never agree to cap its carbon emissions. The United States wants such a move from the world's largest developing economies in order to curb global warming, but India and others argue it would stunt their economic growth. "India's position, let me be clear, is that we are simply not in the position to take legally binding emissions targets," Ramesh said.

In a landmark decision that promises new rights to the gay, lesbian, and transgender populations of India, the Delhi High Court ruled today to abolish a 150-year-old law criminalizing homosexual sex. The ruling today only impacts New Delhi and it would take further action to decriminalize homosexual sex throughout all of India. While today's decision may provide the momentum needed for an effort of this sort, it may also result in an appeal of the decision by the central government to the Supreme Court.

Indian laws banning gay sex have been overturned in a landmark judgment in New Delhi. The 150-year-old section 377 of the penal code, introduced when Britain ruled the subcontinent, described gay sex as "carnal intercourse against the order of nature" and imposed a 10-year jail term on offenders. However, the High Court yesterday declared the laws were a violation of "fundamental rights" and unconstitutional.

Haji Turkistan Betani, a former close aide of Baitullah Mahsud, has claimed that assassination of Benazir Bhutto was plotted by Baitullah Mehsud. Talking to Sana Bucha in Crisis Cell programme of Geo News, Haji Turkistan said that he was with Baitullah, who had stated that he had sent two persons to Rawalpindi for assassinating Benazir Bhutto. He also revealed that Baitullah is an American agent and this is the reason he has not been targeted by the US drones. Haji Turkistan said that Baitullah is misguiding innocent youths on the instigation by Israel and India to destroy mosques and educational institutions and martyr religious scholars inside Pakistan. This comes after Qari Zainuddin, a rival commander of Tehrik-e-Taliban Chief Baitullah Mehsud, on Wednesday disclosed that the TTP has links with India and Israel. He said that Baitullah Mehsud has acted against Islam as well as the country and if not eliminated now, militancy would surge and problems for the government would grow.