Muslims also pray during an eclipse

It’s not just Hin dus, but Muslims too attach religious significance to celestial events like solar or lunar eclipses.

Muslims offer special congregational prayers on solar and lunar eclipses to invoke the blessings of the Almighty. Though they do not attach any superstitious belief to eclipses, it has been a practice since the times of the Holy Prophet to offer special prayers during the celestial event.

“Muslims look at any cosmic event as a sign of the power and existence of the Almighty God. During the time of the Prophet, a solar eclipse occurred. People hurried to link this to a worldly event, namely, the death of the Prophet’s son, Ibrahim. But the Prophet said eclipses have nothing to do with it. He said when you see them glorify and supplicate God, observe prayer and give alms,” said Moulana Hafiz Syed Shujath Hussain.

According to senior Islamic scholar Shaik Tajjuddin Shuaib, Muslims should offer special prayers, Salat al-kusoof (during solar eclipse) and salat al khusoof (during lunar eclipse). “It is better to offer it congregationally in the mosque.

There is no adhan (general call to prayer). The time for the eclipse prayer lasts throughout the eclipse. The prayer must be started during the eclipse, although it can end after the eclipse is over,” he said.

Several mosques in Andhra Pradesh make special arrangements for the exclusive prayers for the benefit of the devout.

Women are also allowed for the congregation, though most of them prefer to offer prayers at home.

Unlike temples, mosques are not closed to enable the devout to turn in large numbers. Many Muslims in India prefer to offer charity to ward off any evil, though Muslims in other countries do not attach bad omen to the celestial event.

“Though Islam does not encourage superstition, some Muslims in the country still feel that eclipses bring bad omen and to avoid it, they should keep indoors,” said Moulana Muhammad Abdul Karim.

“Like orthodox Hindus, they keep pregnant women indoors fearing that children will be born with deformities if the mothers are exposed to the bad rays from the eclipse. We regularly come across many such Muslim families here,” the moulana said.

PNB, Axis Bank hike interest rates, others to follow suit

Taking cue from the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) policy pronouncement to make money costly on Tuesday, banks across the public and private sectors started increasing the lending rates on Wednesday.
Punjab National Bank (PNB), second largest government-owned bank, and Jammu &Kashmir Bank on Wednesday increased their prime-lending rates by one percentage point. The new PLR for PNB will be 14%. Private sector bank, Axis Bank, however, increased it by only half a percentage point to 15.75%.
This will make the home, consumer and personal loan costlier by the same amount. In the case of home loans, the EMI of the existing borrowers, who have borrowed at floating rates, would go up to the extent the rates have been increased. One percentage point rise in the interest rate will lead an increase of Rs 70 per Rs one lakh loan for 20 years.
PNB CMD KC Chakrabarty said that the new policy measures announced by RBI on Tuesday gave a clear indication to banks to increase the interest rates so that credit growth could be slowed down. Prior to this, PNB had increased its PLR just one month back effective from July 1.
But, there is a good news for the depositor also as PNB also increased the lending rates across the board on all maturities.
RBI on Tuesday increased the lending rate on short-term fund to banks by half a percentage point to 9%. This has set the benchmark for the interest rates in the market. Besides this, RBI also increased the cash reserve ratio (CRR) —- the requirement that a bank suppose to keep with the central bank —— from 8.75% of total deposits to 9%. This has evacuated around Rs 9,000 crore from the banking system.
As the banks are already facing liquidity tightness, the measure of increasing the CRR has put further pressure on the availability of funds. Therefore, a senior banker said banks are forced to increase the deposits rate to mobilize more resources to meet the demand.
Other banks are likely to follow the suit soon. CMD of another PSU bank said that the increase in the interest rates have become inevitable with the RBI’s new measures. He said that most of the banks will announce the rate hike within a week.
The increase in the interest rate will affect the growth in retail credit. ICICI Bank, which is the largest bank in the retail credit segment, has already said that with the increase in the interest rate, the bank’s retail credit will grow between 5% and 10%. As against this, the credit growth in the market is around 20%.
However, with rate increasing to around 14%, a senior banker said even the corporate houses will postpone their expansion plan. The bankers apprehend that such a steep rate hike will moderate the economic growth considerably.
At the same time, interest rate hike will lead to increase in the default case from the existing borrowers, who had borrowed at floating interest rate. PNB on Wednesday announced a net profit of Rs 512.40 crore for the quarter ended June 30, a 20.6% increase from that in the same period a year ago on the back of improved asset liability management and NPA recovery.

Cyber cafes turning terror hubs

As terrorists are going hitec and giving advance information about their strike plan using the Internet, the Hyderabad police are seriously planning to formulate rules and regulations for cyber cafes.
Indian Mujahideen, which claimed responsibility for blasts at court complexes in Uttar Pradesh, Jaipur serial blasts and the recent Ahmedabad blasts, had given information about the blasts in explosive e-mails.
To prove the authenticity, the outfit (police suspect that Indian Mujahideen is a new face of SIMI) had sent video footage of an explosive-laden cycle placed in Jaipur. In Uttar Pradesh and Jaipur cases, police were unable to trace the person who had sent the e-mails as the tracking them had led them to unknown servers in France and other countries in Europe.
The e-mail received before the Ahmedabad blasts was traced to an IP address of an American national residing at an apartment in Sanpada, Mumbai. But police officials said that the IP address was hacked for sending the email.
With the terror threat looming large, the Hyderabad police are finally working out plans for putting regulations in place at cyber cafes. Removable drives would not be allowed to use in a cyber cafe and before providing a system, photo identification card will be must. All cyber cafes have to maintain log book with details of customers, sources said.
“In the next few days, the matter will be discussed and regulations will be formulated. The Cyber Crime section of CCS will probably be supervising the implementation part of the regulations,” commissioner of police B Prasada Rao said.
The Andhra Pradesh police have been assisting the Ahmedabad police in the investigation of Saturday’s serial blasts. A city police officer went to Ahmedabad with photographs of the unexploded bomb found at Dilsukhnagar on the day twin blasts rocked the city in August 2007. “The bombs used in Ahmedabad are similar to the one found at Dilsukhnagar and the detonators are also from APEL in Nalgonda,” a police official, who is part of the blasts investigation, said.
Recently, the Uttar Pradesh police had arrested some people at Moghulsarai and seized nearly 7,500 detonators manufactured at AP Explosives Private Limited.
“The detonators sold by APEL are falling into wrong hands after they are sold. Police have to keep a vigil on buyers,” Rao added. A police team has also been despatched to Chennai to gather information about Abdul Gafoor and his terror associates.