Rashtriya Seva Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat on Sunday came out in support of the candidature of A P J Abdul Kalam in the Presidential poll, saying he is apolitical and that it will be good if he is elected.
"It will be good if he (Kalam) is elected as President.
The comman man thinks that he is a nice man. While rest of the people have a political background, he does not. We can only give our opinion. But only lawmakers can elect the president," Bhagwat told reporters in Haridwar.
Bhagwat's remarks came on a day the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) deferred its decision on whether or not to contest the Presidential election as it was divided over opposing United Progressive Alliance (UPA) nominee Pranab Mukherjee.
While Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee has rooted for Kalam, the former Indian President is yet to announce whether he will contest.
The NDA failed to firm up a position on the Presidential poll as it was divided over opposing UPA nominee Pranab Mukherjee and there was lack of clarity on extending support to P A Sangma.
With an intention of using the Presidential poll to rope in parties like AIADMK and BJD and possibly Trinamool Congress, the main opposition BJP-led alliance decided at a meeting in New Delhi that talks would be held with these parties to have a common candidate against Mukherjee.
At a two-hour meeting of the NDA which was skipped by Shiv Sena, JD-U leader Shivanand Tiwari is believed to have disfavoured a contest against Mukherjee because of his stature, reflecting a divide in the coalition.
BJP leaders L K Advani and Sushma Swaraj were said to be of the opinion that there should be a contest but there was no consensus as to whether to support Sangma, who has been propped up by AIADMK and BJD, or Kalam, who is being pushed into the race by Trinamool Congress.
There was a strong view that supporting Sangma would help NDA win back AIADMK and BJD. However, to finetune this, talks should be held with leaders of these parties before any decision is reached, sources said.
UPDATE 3-Wall St Wk Ahead: Greek election results may bring respite - Reuters
By Caroline Valetkevitch and Edward Krudy
NEW YORK, June 17 (Reuters) - Greek political parties supporting a bailout for the country won a slim parliamentary majority in Sunday's elections, which may give markets some respite, but any coalition's majority looks set to be narrow and may lack the stability needed to push through painful reforms.
Whatever the outcome, Europe's problems are far from over as the debt crisis threatens to further engulf the larger economies of Spain and Italy.
In a sign of relief over the Greek results, U.S. stock index futures opened up on Sunday, looking to extend the market's recent gains.
S&P 500 futures rose 6.2 points and were above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures added 44 points and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 10.5 points.
"The gain is understandable given the massive fallout that could have happened had the (pro-bailout) New Democracy Party lost," said Michael Yoshikami, chief executive officer at Destination Wealth Management in Walnut Creek, California. "If they're able to construct a majority, as it appears, that will be a huge relief for the market."
The Greek conservative New Democracy party and Socialist PASOK, who broadly back an EU/IMF bailout package keeping Greece from bankruptcy, looked set to jointly secure a slim majority. SYRIZA, the leading leftist party that pledged to tear up the terms of the bailout package, conceded defeat.
If there is any sign of market stress on Monday morning, investors will look for action from the world's central banks who, according to officials, stand ready to intervene if trading becomes turbulent.
"We'll have all kinds of other headlines for Europe over the summer that we'll be trading on, so we're nowhere near the end of volatility," Yoshikami said.
At stake in Greece's election, as investors see it, had been the country's future in the euro zone and possibly the future of the currency bloc itself.
Official results released by the interior ministry, with 97 percent of ballots counted, showed New Democracy taking 29.7 percent of the vote and SYRIZA 26.9 percent. The PASOK Socialists were set to take 12.3 percent of the vote.
Because of a 50-seat bonus given to the party which comes first, that would give New Democracy and PASOK 162 seats in the 300-seat parliament.
The euro hit a three-week high against the U.S. dollar in early Australasian trade according to Reuters data, rising to around $1.2730 from around $1.2655 late in New York on Friday.
But markets have had a tendency to react positively to political developments late Sunday and early Monday only to quickly reverse. That was the case last weekend after the EU announced a 100 billion euro bailout for Spanish banks.
Weeks of worry over the potential outcome of the Greek election have prompted a number of central banks to prepare for market problems.
Central banks from major economies are ready to take steps to calm markets should the outcome of the Greek elections create a market storm, officials from the Group of 20 told Reuters.
Among them, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said the ECB was ready to step in and fund any viable euro zone bank that gets in trouble. The Bank of England on Thursday announced a $155 billion (100 billion pound) offer of loans to banks.
G20 leaders kick off a two-day summit in Mexico on Monday and the rest of the week is not likely to be any quieter.
The Federal Reserve is due to release a policy statement on Wednesday at the end of its two-day meeting, and the steady flow of sovereign debt warnings and downgrades is likely to continue.
In another sign of investor nervousness, the CBOE Volatility index, Wall Street's fear gauge, was up for much of Friday even as stocks rose, although the VIX closed lower. Stocks and the VIX typically have an inverse relationship.
"People have been hedging their positions aggressively over the past two weeks heading into this weekend," said Alec Levine, a derivatives strategist at Newedge Group SA in New York.
"No matter what happens (this) week, we will return to a massive game of chicken between the newly elected Greek government, whoever that may be, and the EU, specifically Germany."
THE FED AHEAD
Despite the fears, stocks ended the week on a positive note, marking a second straight week of gains. The benchmark Standard & Poor's index is now up 6.8 percent for 2012, though still well off its highest levels of the year.
Part of what has spurred optimism for stock investors in recent weeks has been the hope that the Fed and other central banks would provide more economic stimulus. There has been continuing speculation over whether the Fed will engage in a third round of quantitative easing.
"We do think that expectations of QE3 will drive the market one way or the other," said Omar Aguilar, chief investment officer for equities at Charles Schwab Corp, in San Francisco.
But the fact that the Fed has made no recent changes to policy could mean the economic data policymakers are seeing is "not as bad as everyone thinks," Aguilar said.
Also ahead of the vote, Russell Indexes said certain events in Greece could mean changes in its indexes through implementation of its "financial crisis" rule. Its indexes include the Russell Global Index.
ON RATINGS WATCH
Adding to investor nervousness has been a slew of recent ratings cuts.
Among the most recent, Fitch Ratings on Friday downgraded Egypt's sovereign credit rating deeper into junk status. On Thursday, Egan-Jones cut France's sovereign credit rating.
Many investors see that trend continuing as agencies try to gauge the impact of the euro zone and other problems on the global economy.
"We're probably going to see more of it," Peterson said.
Business will benefit from Scottish independence: Salmond - Reuters
LOS ANGELES |
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. companies looking to move operations to Scotland would see a reduction in taxes if Scots approve a referendum, now scheduled for autumn 2014, to secure independence from Britain, Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond said on Sunday.
An independent Scotland would reduced the current 23 percent U.K. corporate tax to 20 percent, Salmond, the leader of the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP), said in an interview in Los Angeles, where he is set to start a four-day trade mission aimed at luring California companies.
The country, which Salmond said would gain a large share of the rich North Sea oil revenues after a split, already offers tax relief of as much as 100 percent to small businesses to encourage investment.
"We will gain more in investment and employment than we'd lose in tax receipts," said Salmond, a former economist with the Royal Bank of Scotland. "We're much more sympathetic to business than Westminster."
The SNP, the devolved government's ruling party, wants to hold the referendum on ending a 300-year union with England in the autumn of 2014. But Britain's Conservative Party-led coalition government has pushed for an earlier vote, warning that any prolonged uncertainty would deter investors and harm the economy.
CALIFORNIA DREAMING
The Scottish Development International agency, which organized the trip, has targeted more than 70 California companies it will encourage to build or expand operations in their country, including Apple (AAPL.O), Chevron (CVX.N) and Yahoo (CVX.N).
Salmond wrote letters to each company, and while in California will meet with executives of LifeScan Inc, a Milpitas, California-based company with a plant in Scotland that manufactures glucose test strips, according to SDI.
The Scottish leader's plans also call for him to meet with California politicians in the state capital in Sacramento, and to tour Stanford, which is collaborating with Scottish universities on research into photonics.
In the last year, online retailer Amazon (AMZN.O) and energy technology supplier FMC Technologies (FMC.N) have opened operations in the country, according to SDI.
Salmond said Scotland intends to be more helpful to new companies than Britain has been traditionally, and that it helped Amazon build a new plant in six months by streamlining the permitting process.
"They'd give testimonials to what it's like to work with us," he said.
The Scottish leader also said the country would provide other incentives, including research grants for companies involved with generating energy from ocean tides and currents.
On Monday, Salmond is scheduled to appear on CBS'S "The Late Late Show," and to take questions from viewers during the program's "Tweets and Emails" segment.
CBS said guests will also include Irish stars Kelly MacDonald and Kevin McKidd, who provided the voices for "Brave", an animated film set in Scotland that Walt Disney's Pixar unit will release on June 22.
Salmond is scheduled to appear at the film's Hollywood premiere on Monday.
(Reporting By Ronald Grover; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
UK to order reactor for nuclear-armed submarine - source - Reuters UK
LONDON |
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will order the first reactor for a new generation of nuclear-armed submarines next week as part of a 1 billion pound ($1.6 billion) contract with Rolls-Royce, a defence ministry source said on Sunday, in a move that could strain the coalition government.
The deal will include an 11-year refit of Britain's sole submarine propulsion reactor factory at Derby in central England, said Defence Secretary Philip Hammond, who will formally announce the plans to parliament on Monday.
"This is sustaining a sovereign capability in the UK and some very high end technical skills in the UK for the next 40 or 50 years," he told BBC television, without giving further details of the contract.
The investment will protect 300 jobs at the Rolls-Royce factory and many others at suppliers elsewhere, the source said.
The 1 billion pound value of the deal will be shared between Rolls-Royce and its other industrial partners, a source close to the company said.
The two-party coalition government is split over plans to replace Britain's four Vanguard submarines at an estimated cost of 25 billion pounds when they retire from service in the 2020s.
Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative Party - to which Hammond belongs - wants a new fleet of submarines that will continue to carry the Vanguard's Trident missiles, maintaining Britain's independent nuclear capability.
Their smaller Liberal Democrat partners are pushing for cheaper and less potent alternatives, arguing that the current capability - the ability to obliterate Moscow - is an outdated hangover from the Cold War.
The two parties have postponed a final decision till 2016, after the next parliamentary election, while agreeing in the meantime to fund the advance work needed to allow the submarines to be built on schedule should they be commissioned.
The Liberal Democrats insist that the advance contracts do not represent a commitment to a like-for-like renewal, but some analysts say it is unlikely that cash-strapped Britain would lay out huge sums on design and equipment that it would later ditch.
Hammond insisted the government had not yet made up its mind about Britain's future nuclear deterrent.
"The government's policy is very clear. We are committed to maintaining a credible nuclear deterrent and we are placing orders now for the long-lead items that will be necessary to deliver a successor to the Vanguard class submarines in the late 2020s," Hammond said.
"But the actual decision to go ahead and build them won't have to be taken until 2016 and what we are doing at the moment is ordering the things that have to be ordered now to give us that option."
The government said last year it expected to spend 3 billion pounds by 2015 on preparatory work for the new submarine fleet.
The Rolls-Royce deal also includes a contract to build the reactor for the last of seven Astute class nuclear-powered attack submarines that Britain already has on order.
The nuclear propulsion plant for the Vanguard's successor will be the more advanced Pressurised Water Reactor 3 (PWR3) system, the government said last year.
Last month Hammond announced 350 million pounds of contracts, mainly with defence contractor BAE Systems, to design the Vanguard's successor submarines.
(Additional reporting by Rhys Jones; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
ForeignPolicy.com's RSS Feeds - Foreign Policy
RSS, which stands for "really simple syndication," is a fast and convenient way of keeping track of the latest and greatest news and views from your favorite Web sites.
Here's how it works: You set up an "RSS reader" (also known as an "aggregator") on your computer and then pick the sites you read regularly -- e.g. www.foreignpolicy.com. Most sites have an RSS feed that displays headlines and a short blurb that explains what the article is about, or in many cases, the full text of the article or blog post in question.
If you already have an RSS reader installed (or if you use on online tool such as Bloglines or Google Reader), simply start the software and add one or more of the feed addresses below:
Featured content (a digest of the day's best items from ForeignPolicy.com):
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Flash Points (running highlights from ForeignPolicy.com's blogs):
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Other feeds:
Foreign Policy's main feed (magazine articles and Web exclusives):
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Modi needs to review style of working: RSS mouthpiece - in.news.yahoo.com
New Delhi, June 2 (IANS) In an apparent disapproval by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's style of working, an article in the organisation's mouthpiece has indicated that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has several prime ministerial candidates.
It also disapproved of Modi's reported insistence on resignation of Sanjay Joshi from the BJP's national executive last week.
The article, which figures in the latest issue of Panchjanaya, said it was being felt that Modi needed to do a rethink about organisational capabilities.
"It seems Narendra Modi needs to review his style of working and organisational ability," it said.
The article assumes significance because its author Devendra Swaroop is a former editor of Panchjanaya and has access to views of the RSS insiders.
"The role of Narendra Modi in the Sanjay Joshi episode at BJP's national executive meeting in Mumbai is worth considering...why despite having faith in the Sangh, Modi could not control his unhappiness towards a fellow RSS functionary is a mystery. He made Joshi's presence a prestige issue and allowed the media to attack the BJP and the Sangh," the article said.
It also attacked Modi over media reports about Joshi changing his travel plans and boarding a plane instead of going by train after the Mumbai meeting as the train would have touched places in Gujarat.
"It allowed opponents of the BJP to speak against Modi," it said.
Modi apparently insisted that he would attend the conclave only if his bete noire Joshi resigned from the party's national executive and the party bowed to his demand.
In a dig at Modi's prime ministerial ambitions, it said that the BJP had several chief ministers and central leaders who were capable of being its prime ministerial candidates. But it said that the decision should be taken by the the parliamentary party after the party won the Lok Sabha election.
The article in the RSS mouthpiece slamming Modi's action at the BJP executive close to veteran BJP leader L.K. Advani launching an attack on party president Nitin Gadkari, saying "the mood within the party is not upbeat".
Advani said in his blog that people were angry with the Congress-led government but they were upset with the BJP too.
Three contenders ... RSS reader apps - The Border Mail
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Flipboard, free.
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MobileRSS, free ($2.99 Pro removes ads).
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Pulse, free.
YOU probably don't have time to visit all of your favourite sites and services every day. Thankfully RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, can bring them all to you. Many websites include an RSS feed, usually indicated by an orange and white icon. By clicking on the icon and subscribing to the RSS feed you can be automatically notified when new content is posted.
To subscribe to an RSS feed you'll need an RSS reader, which acts a little like an email client. You'll find basic RSS readers built into many web browsers and email clients. But if you're looking for extra bells and whistles, you'll find stand-alone RSS applications for desktops, smartphones and tablets, along with online RSS readers that run in a browser. Google Reader is an impressive online RSS reader and some RSS apps rely on Google Reader for managing your RSS subscriptions. If you regularly jump between desktop and mobile devices, you might find the browser-based Google Reader is best for you.
People often use RSS to keep track of when new blog posts, news stories, podcasts or video clips are published. Often the RSS feed only contains a snippet and a link to the original webpage. But RSS isn't just for news junkies. It can also let you subscribe to everything from television guides, weather forecasts and news bulletins to daily shopping deals and auction results.
In the past few years services such as Facebook and Twitter have started to usurp the role of RSS. But while social media services rise and fall, RSS is a universal standard that can't be controlled, censored or shut down. Another benefit is that you don't need to create an account or hand over your details to subscribe to an RSS feed, so you're not inundated with advertising and spam.
RSS readers were initially simple, text-based affairs that looked like email inboxes. But the rise of touchscreen tablets has spawned a new generation of slick RSS readers that look more like newspapers and draw on a range of news sources. Some RSS readers can also tap into your social media feeds, displaying them alongside your RSS feeds. Today we're looking at three slick RSS readers designed for Apple and Android gadgets.
Flipboard
iPhone, iPad - free
flipboard.com
Reviewer's rating: 4.5/5
Flipboard draws news from a wide range of sources, but it also lets you tap into your Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader RSS feeds. Flipboard mimics the look of a newspaper, with editable sections such as news, sport and technology. You can change the publications from which they draw stories. Each section presents on a newspaper-style layout that mixes stories from different publications. You can swipe to turn pages, tap on a story to read it and then swipe to jump straight to the next story. The layout makes it easy to skim stories from a range of feeds. You can send stories to Facebook, Twitter or email. You can also save them to ''read it later'' services such as Instapaper, Pocket and Readability, but you can't access your saved lists from Flipboard.
MobileRSS
iPhone, iPad - free ($2.99 Pro removes ads)
mobilerssapp.com
Reviewer's rating: 4/5
Lacking a fancy interface, MobileRSS is purely an RSS reader that is entirely dependent on Google Reader. The two-column display lists your feeds on the left. On the right are the six most recent stories in the selected feed and you can swipe down to see more. When reading a story you can swipe across directly to the next item. MobileRSS doesn't contain a categorised library of high-profile RSS feeds, although Google Reader does. You can send stories to a range of services, including Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, Pocket, Instapaper and Evernote, but you can't import feeds from social media or ''read it later'' services. Similar to Pulse, MobileRSS is better suited to people who want to scroll through a few important feeds rather than browse a wide range of news sources.
Pulse
iPhone, iPad, Android - free
pulse.me
Reviewer's rating: 3/5
Pulse presents your RSS feeds in rows, displaying four stories a feed. You can swipe across to see more stories or down to see more feeds. When reading a story you can swipe to jump to the next story. Pulse lets you add RSS feeds from its library as well social media feeds such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, Reddit and Digg. You can save stories to services such as Instapaper, Pocket (formerly Read it Later) and Evernote. Strangely you can't save to Readability but you can read stories you've saved to Readability by other means. Pulse is great if you want to scroll through a few important feeds but if you're looking to browse a wide range of news sources for interesting stories then Flipboard might be more appealing to you.
Sexual abuse by clergy a 'mystery,' Pope says - CBC
Pope Benedict XVI risked angering Irish Catholics further on Sunday when he called sexual abuse by clergy a 'mystery.' AP file photoPope Benedict XVI told Irish Catholics on Sunday it is a "mystery" why priests and other church officials abused children entrusted in their care, undermining faith in the church "in an appalling way."
By describing the decades of child abuse in Catholic parishes, schools and church-run institutions in Ireland as a mystery, the pontiff could further anger rank-and-file faithful in Ireland.
Benedict commented on the scandals of sexual abuse and coverups by church hierarchy in a pre-recorded video message for an outdoor Mass attended by 75,000 Catholics, many from overseas, in Ireland's largest sports stadium. Ireland's prime minister and president attended the Mass, the final event of a Eucharistic Congress aimed at shoring up flagging faith.
The weeklong Eucharistic Congress, held by the Vatican every four years in a different part of the world, took place against a backdrop of deep anger over child-abuse coverups and surveys showing declining weekly Mass attendance in Ireland, where church and state were once tightly entwined.
"How are we to explain the fact that people who regularly received the Lord's body and confessed their sins in the sacrament of Penance have offended in this way?" the Pope said, referring to church staff who abused children.
"It remains a mystery," he said. "Yet evidently their Christianity was no longer nourished by joyful encounter with Jesus Christ. It had become merely a matter of habit."
Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has said the church in Ireland is facing a grave fight for survival.
"Your forebears in the church in Ireland knew how to strive for holiness and constancy in their personal lives," Benedict said in his message.
'How are we to explain the fact that people who regularly received the Lord's body and confessed their sins in the sacrament of Penance have offended in this way? It remains a mystery.'— Pope Benedict XVI on sexual abuse by Catholic clergy
In a reference to the Vatican's insistence on Sunday Mass attendance, Benedict said Catholic faith "is a legacy that is surely perfected and nourished" at Mass.
Yet, he said, "thankfulness and joy at such a great history of faith and love have recently been shaken in an appalling way by the revelation of sins committed by priests and consecrated persons against people entrusted to their care."
"Instead of showing them the path towards Christ, toward God, instead of bearing witness to his goodness, they abused people and undermined the credibility of the church's message," the Pope said.
For more than a decade, advocates for those abused by clergy have been demanding that church leaders in Ireland and at the Vatican accept blame for protecting pedophile priests.
Four state-ordered investigations have documented how tens of thousands of children from the 1940s to the 1990s suffered sexual, physical and mental abuse at the hands of priests, nuns and church staff in three Irish dioceses and in a network of workhouse-style residential schools.
In Ireland, the United States and many other countries, bishops and other church leaders have been accused of systematically covering up pedophile priests, often by shuffling them from parish to parish without telling the faithful about the abuse.
Kalam is RSS choice for Prez - Daily Pioneer
Even as after reaching Haridwar Bhagwat did express his willingness to have some ‘important talks’ with the saints in Haridwar, the agenda of these talks remained undisclosed and the RSS officer bearers were shrugging off the question saying only Bhagwat can reply to this question.
However, the present issue of Presidential poll did come up during the casual talks that the RSS chief held with local reporters. “The election of President in India has got a special process and only some selected people can cast their vote. However, according to me, former President APJ Abdul Kalam should contest election again. He is the best Presidential candidate,” Bhagwat said.
“Kalamji is a person with no political linkages and has got a mass support in the form of people who want him back as their President,” Bhagwat said, while answering a question about whether he supports the candidature of Pranab Mukherjee, as the Presidential candidate. “Former President APJ Adbul Kalam is my nominee for the Presidential poll,” Bhagwat said.
About the controversial issue of hydro-electric power projects on river Ganga, Bhagwat said the Central and the State Governments should formulate policies keeping in mind that Ganga is a holy river and needs to be preserved. “Crores of Indian consider Ganga as a goddess and also worship the river. The issue should not be politicised for personal benefits. The RSS wants the Governments to make policies keeping the importance of Ganga in mind,” Bhagwat added.
Meanwhile, Swami Ramanandacharya Rambha-dracharya, whom Bhagwat had come to meet in the former’s ashram said, “I also feel that Kalamji is the best candidate for the post of President. People have seen his tenure as a President once and want him back. He is definitely a far better candidate than Pranab Mukherjee, who is known as a Congressman.”
About the proposed Ganga Raksha programme to be organised in Delhi by Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati soon, Rambhadracharya said that the saint fraternity will support the programme only if Swami Swaroopanand keeps political parties and politicians away from the function.
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