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Sales of precious metal coins during the festivals in India, the world's largest consumer of gold, are higher this year as compared to last year, the Times of India reports. Many jewelers ran out of low-denomination gold and silver coins on Wednesday evening, when Dhanteras kicked off the first five days of Diwali. The coins are typically gifted during the holidays. ''Most markets are witnessing a huge crowd," Praveen Khandelwal, president of Confederation of All India Traders, told the newspaper. "Business has been much better in comparison to the past two years." Indian demand for gold typically rises by 40...

New Delhi: President Obama's visit to India next week will be his first appearance in the Indian Parliament and he'll be making his debut with his most trusted friend Mr Teleprompter. November 8th 2010, central hall of Parliament, more than 780 members of our Parliament will see what they have never seen before. US President Barack Obama's old and trusted pal, Mr Teleprompter. Mr TP is always by his side through thick and through thin. It makes him angry, it makes him laugh, even massage his neck and he gets very upset if it ever takes a break.

New York: It may come as news to Avasarala Technologies of Bangalore or Jagran Prakashan of Kanpur, or even the Indian government, that they are influencing the US mid-term elections of November 2 by funding Republican candidates. Yet, this unlikely scenario has been one of the loudest campaign complaints of the Democratic Party in recent weeks, as it prepares for what election observers predict will be major losses in both the US Senate and the House of Representatives.

Boxer Resurrects Indian Tribe Deemed Defunct 40 Years Ago, Son Profits $8 Million Off It It doesn't get more corrupt than this.... For the past 10 years Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) has been playing a game that would make Jack Abramoff blush, a game that can best be described using the language of “Get Smart’s” Maxwell Smart as “the ole family-profiting-off-of-the-Indian-tribe-that-you-created trick.” Here’s the story. In 1998, Lynn Woolsey introduced legislation reinstating an Indian tribe in the wine country of Northern California that had been declared defunct by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1958. None of the Indians of...

Elaborate security arrangements The presidential entourage will have 40 aircraft, including the Air Force One that will ferry the president. There will be six armoured cars, including four Barack Mobiles and a Cadillac.

The Obama administration agreed Tuesday to pay up to $680 million to American Indian farmers to settle an 11-year-old class-action lawsuit alleging discrimination by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who took office promising to address longstanding complaints by minority farmers against the department, said eligible farmers and ranchers can receive up to $250,000 each for showing that USDA discrimination caused them economic losses. However, most farmers will probably opt for a uniform $50,000 payment, which involves less red tape. In the class-action suit, American Indian farmers allege that USDA bureaucrats denied them the low-interest rate loans

NEW DELHI — The Golden Temple, a sprawling and serene complex of gleaming gold and polished marble that is the spiritual center of the Sikh religion, is one of India’s most popular tourist attractions. Revered by Indians of all faiths, it is a cherished emblem of India’s religious diversity. So it was no surprise when the gold-plated marvel was touted as the likely third stop on President Obama’s visit to India, scheduled for early November. But the United States has ruled out a Golden Temple visit, according to an American official involved in planning. Temple officials said that American advance...

BUFFALO (AP) — A federal judge has temporarily blocked New York state’s plans to tax the Seneca and Cayuga nations’ sales of cigarettes to non-Indian customers. Judge Richard Arcara Tuesday granted a request by the tribes for a court order that stops the state from imposing a $4.35 per pack sales tax on cigarettes sold by reservation retailers starting on Wednesday. The ruling delays those collections for at least two weeks. It wasn’t immediately clear if the state will go ahead with taxes on other tribes. Attempts to collect the tax in the 1990s resulted in sometimes violent protests on...

WASHINGTON, July 30 -- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued the following news release: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Pascua Yaqui Tribe today announced the production of the first ever Enhanced Tribal Card (ETC)--designed as a Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI)-compliant document that formally recognizes tribal membership and U.S. citizenship for the purpose of entering the United States through a land or sea port of entry. The Pascua Yaqui are the first tribe in the country to issue an ETC. "Our collaboration with the Pascua Yaqui Tribe has resulted in the historic development of the first-ever...

Two more teenagers were charged today with the murder of a township man who was beaten to death outside of his home last Friday night. Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan said the two boys, one 17 and the other 16, join three other 17-year-olds who were charged with murder Monday after Divyendu Sinha died from the head injuries he received in the beating. The five, none of whom was identified because of their ages, may also face bias charges, the prosecutor said. In addition to the charges arising from Sinha’s fatal beating, the five juveniles, all Old Bridge residents, were...

HELENA, Mont. (AP) -- The U.S. House of Representatives attached a $3.4 billion government settlement with Indian trust beneficiaries to a war-funding bill that it passed just before breaking for the July Fourth holiday. The settlement was one of several additions made late Thursday to the $80 billion appropriations bill that includes funding for the troop surge in Afghanistan and money for federal disaster assistance. It authorizes the Obama administration to settle a class-action lawsuit with between 300,000 and 500,000 American Indians who claims the Interior Department mismanaged billions of dollars held in trust by the government......

Meet Reshma, Surya, Manan, Raj, Ami, Ravi, Nimrata and Kamala - a new wave of Indian-American politicians. At least eight children of Indian immigrants are running for Congress or statewide office, the most ever. The star of this trend is Nikki Haley, born Nimrata Nikki Randhawa, who is favored to win the election for governor of South Carolina......

ALBANY — The Obama administration approved the Shinnecock Indians on Long Island for federal recognition on Tuesday, culminating a court battle lasting three decades and paving the way for the tribe to build a casino in New York City or its suburbs. While there is still a 30-day comment period before the matter is fully settled, the support of the administration all but assures the 1,292-member tribe’s recognition. The announcement, made by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on Tuesday morning, will almost certainly change the way of life for the relatively impoverished tribe, whose members live on 800 acres in...

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has issued a Tsunami warning for all areas of the Indian Ocean after a 7.7 earthquake struck Nicobar Islands India Region. A Tsunami Watch is in effect for India / Indonesia / Sri Lanka / Myanmar / Thailand / Malaysia. Officials say earthquakes of this size have the potential to generate a destructive local tsunami and sometimes a destructive regional tsunami along coasts located usually no more than a thousand kilometers from the earthquake epicenter. It says areas further from the epicenter could experience small sea level changes and strong or unusual coastal currents. It...

TOHONO O'ODHAM RESERVATION - The Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened an investigation after two Border Patrol agents shot and wounded two suspected drug smugglers after, agents say, the pair threw rocks at them. The FBI's Manuel Johnson says the violence occurred Saturday afternoon on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation about 40 miles west of Nogales. Johnson says border agents intercepted two men hauling backpacks containing drugs. The agents opened fire after the suspects hurled rocks at them.

They were strangers living in different parts of the world till about three months ago, when terminal liver failure brought them together in Delhi. Now, 18-month-old Nigerian boy Dike and 44-year-old Mumbai resident Priya have become India's first patients to successfully undergo a swap liver transplant surgery. Unable to find suitable donors with a matching blood group for either Dike or Priya, doctors from Sir Ganga Ram Hospital decided to try out a liver swap, much on the lines of a swap kidney transplant, which has now become common. Five months after his birth, doctors diagnosed Dike with Billiary Atresia...

WRIGHTSVILLE BEACH | A local captain and his crew have discovered a unique rock and nearby artifacts that might help reveal how the first people came to Southeastern North Carolina thousands of years ago.Geologists said the rock, called black chert or novaculite, was previously thought to only be available in vast quantities in the mountains of Arkansas. Zulu Discovery, a local underwater exploration company, found a very dense version of the rock dozens of feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean off Wrightsville Beach. Chert was used by the first people in North America, called Paleo-Indians, to create the...

A Glendale Heights man charged with killing his two sons by setting them on fire avoided a possible death sentence after prosecutors agreed to allow him to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence, attorneys announced in court Friday. Kaushik Patel, 35, is charged with dousing his sons, Vishv, 7, and Om, 4, with gasoline in the bathroom of their home on Nov. 18, 2007, and setting them on fire. The boys were left with severe burns that led to their deaths months later.

NEW DELHI -- While the contentious political battle over the new health-care law continues in the United States, in India the outsourcing industry is seeing it as a boon for business and is salivating over its prospects. Indian companies are working with U.S. insurers handling back-office operations, including claims processing, supply management and transcription services. The extension of health care to 32 million Americans over the next decade will mean that the need for those services will grow, executives here said. "The health-care reform bill is a very, very big opportunity for us," said Ananda Mukerji, managing director of Firstsource...

ATHENS (WATE) -- There's a new federal ID requirement that says you have to produce a birth certificate when your driver's license expires. A Native American named Aldea "Hawk" Silverhawk called 6 On Your Side to explain why he doesn't have a birth certificate and how difficult it is to prove where he was born. Years ago, many Tennesseans were born at home and delivered by a midwife. In some cases, there's no record of the birth. For those who fall under these circumstances, if you can show documentation of early schooling or your parent's birth, you can get what's...