Why Gold Is best for investment?

Why Gold Is best for investment?

The ultimate dollar hedge investment will always be gold. Investing in gold through ownership of the metal itself, mutual funds, or gold mining stock provides the most direct counter to the dollar. As the dollar falls, gold will inevitably rise. In a moment, we’ll provide you with many ways for positioning your portfolio to profit from a bull market in gold. For now, we emphasize the high probability of gold’s future. The real potential for profits in the coming years and decades is not going to be found in the traditional American blue chip industry. That is a financial dinosaur that can no longer compete in the world market.

The future growth is going to be seen in gold. The world economy may remain off the gold standard, but ultimately the tangible value of gold as the basis for real value-whether acknowledged by central banks or not-will never change. Historically, this has always been the case, and it always will be. In other words, we are on a “gold standard” in spite of the popularity of fiat.

5 Best reasons why gold is best for investment.


1. Direct ownership. There is nothing like gold bullion, the ultimate expression of pure value. Historically, many civilizations have recognized the permanence of gold’s value. For example, Egyptian civilizations buried vast amounts of gold with deceased pharaohs in the belief that they would be able to use it in the afterlife. Great wars were fought, among other reasons, to pillage stores of gold. Why the allure? The answer: Gold is the only real money, and its value cannot be changed or controlled by government fiat-the underlying reason for governments to go off the gold standard, unfortunately.Gold’s value will rise based on the pure forces of supply and demand, no matter what Mr. Greenspan decrees regarding interest rates or greenbacks in circulation. The big disadvantage to owning gold is that it tends to trade with a wide spread between bid and ask prices. So don’t expect to turn a fast profit. You’ll buy at retail and sell at wholesale, so you’ll need a big price jump just to break even. However, you should not view gold as a speculative asset, but a defensive asset for holding value. Since your dollars are going to fall in value, gold is the best place to preserve value. The best forms for gold ownership are through minted coins: one-ounce South African Krugerrands, Canadian Maple Leafs, or American Eagles.


2. Gold exchange-traded funds. The recent explosion in exchange traded funds (ETFs) presents an even more interesting way to invest in gold. An ETF is a type of mutual fund that trades on a stock exchange like an ordinary stock. The ETF’s exact portfolio is fixed in advance and does not change. Thus, the two gold ETFs that trade in the United States both hold gold bullion as their one and only asset. You can locate these two ETFs under the symbol “GLD” (for the streetTRACKS Gold Trust) and “IAU” (for the iShares COMEX Gold Trust). Either ETF offers a practical way to hold gold in an investment portfolio.

3. Gold mutual funds. For people who are hesitant to invest in physical gold, but still desire some exposure to the precious metal, gold mutual funds provide a helpful alternative. These funds hold portfolios of gold stocks-that is, the stocks of companies like Newmont Mining that mine for gold. Newmont is an example of a senior gold stock. A senior is a large, well-capitalized company that has been around several years and has a profitable track record. They tend to own established mines that produce known quantities of gold each year. For many investors, selection of such a company is a more moderate or conservative play (versus picking up cheap shares in fairly young companies).

4.  Junior gold stocks. This level of stock is more speculative. Junior stocks are less likely to own productive mines, and may be exploration plays-with higher potential profits but also with greater risk of loss. Capitalization is likely to be smaller than capitalization of the senior gold stocks. This range of investments is for investors whose risk tolerance is broader, and who accept the possibility of gold-based losses in exchange for the potential for triple-digit gains.

5.  Gold options and futures. For the more sophisticated and experienced investor, options allow you to speculate in gold prices. But in the options market, you can speculate on price movements in either direction. If you buy a call, you are hoping prices will rise. A call fixes the purchase price so the higher that price goes, the greater the margin between your fixed option price and current market price. When you buy a put, you expect the price to fall. Buying options is risky, and more people lose than win. In fact, about three-fourths of all options bought expire worthless. The options market is complex and requires experience and understanding. To generalize, options possess two key traits-one bad and one good. The good trait is that they enable an investor to control a large investment with a small, and limited, amount of money. The bad trait is that options expire within a fixed period of time. Thus, for the buyer time is the enemy because as the expiration date gets closer, an option’s “time value” disappears. Anyone investing in options needs to understand all of the risks before they spend money. The futures market is far too complex for the vast majority of investors. Even experienced options investors recognize the high risk nature of the futures market. Considering the range of ways to get into the gold market, futures trading is the most complex and, while big fortunes could be made, they can also be lost in an instant.

Miley Cysrus pregnant?

Miley Cysrus Pregnant?  Singer Addresses Rumor She's Carrying Juicy J's Child While Source Calls Report "Funny" but False.

Miley Cysrus may no longer be engaged, but is she with child?

 

The Internet has been buzzing that the "Wrecking Ball" singer has a bun in the oven following a so-called report that during the BET Hip Hop Awards in Atlanta over the weekend, she and Juicy J announced they were expecting a baby together.  

According to the site Cream Bmp Daily, the rapper allegedly told the crowd that Cyrus has "been doing a lot more than twerking," after which Liam Hemsworth's former fiancée supposedly yelled to the laughing crowd, 'No, I'm really pregnant."

Of course, seeing how the outlet calls itself a "satire" site, it shouldn't come as a complete shock to learn that there really wasn't any big announcement made.

NEWS: Ed Sheeran weighs in on Miley Cyrus' twerking

Sure enough, Cyrus herself playfully addressed the speculation by tweeting on Monday, "Waking up to the news that I'm now pregnant with @therealjuicyj baby."

Her mom, Tish, also couldn't help but be amused, writing, "hahahahaha YEP! read that last night!! This is my favorite one yet!"

And not surprising, a source tells E! News that while "funny," the rumor is false.

Facebook expands ad service for app developers

Facebook expands ad service for app developers

Facebook Inc is expanding an advertising service aimed at developers of smartphone and tablet apps, the social network's latest move to bolster its fast-growing mobile business.

 

Facebook's so-called mobile app ads - which allow companies to promote their mobile apps to Facebook's 1.15 billion users - will include new capabilities designed to boost the amount of time that consumers use the third-party apps, the company said on Tuesday.

Since the start of the year, more than 145 million third-party apps have been installed by Facebook users, said Deb Liu, Facebook's director of platform monetization, providing the company's first public data about that portion of its business. Roughly 8,400 advertisers used Facebook's mobile app ads in the second quarter, Liu said.

That is a small group relative to the more than 1 million total advertisers that Facebook counts, but analysts say that app developers represent an attractive and growing group of customers for Facebook to tap into. Smartphone apps, designed for Apple Inc's iPhone or Google Inc's Android-based phones, have struggled to stand out in a crowded field.

Facebook's new mobile app ads will allow the maker of a travel app to offer to promote an airfare or hotel room, for example, while a music app like Spotify could promote a band's new song. Previously, Facebook's mobile app ads were designed only to entice its users to install a third-party app on their smartphone or tablet, but not to encourage repeat visits to the app.

Shares of Facebook have doubled since July, as the company has increased its mobile advertising revenue. use

Apple iPad Mini with sharper display faces delay

Apple iPad Mini with sharper display faces delay

Apple Inc will be unable to widely roll out a new version of the iPad Mini with a high-resolution "retina" display this month, people who work in the company's supply chain said, leaving the gadget without the sharper screen found on rival tablets from Google Inc and Amazon.com Inc.

 

Apple's supply chain is only now gearing up to make retina displays for the iPad Mini, which means the gadgets could be available in only limited quantities this year, if at all, and the company may miss the chance to cash in on the year-end holiday shopping season, the sources said.

Cupertino, California-based Apple has come under pressure to preserve market share and bolster sales against rivals that are rapidly raising specifications and lowering prices.

It remains unclear exactly what new features and modifications could find their way into the next iPad Mini, which the sources said was due to be unveiled this month.

But higher-resolution screens and cameras, as well as thinner and lighter dimensions, are among the improvements users have come to expect with updated smartphones and tablets.

"If they don't put in retina ... there will be howls," said Frank Gillett, an analyst with Forrester.

Apple declined to comment about any product launches and the sources at companies in Apple's supply chain declined to be identified due to the confidentiality of the matter.

DISPLAY DISAPPOINTMENT

Apple defines retina display as resolution that is detailed enough that the human eye can't detect pixelation.

The feature is available on some full-sized iPads, and similar resolutions are available on iPad Mini competitors such as Google's Nexus 7, as well as Amazon's seven-inch Kindle Fire HDX due to go on sale this month.

The reason behind the delays in manufacturing the retina display screens for the iPad Mini were unclear. One source at a supplier said there were delays in Apple's certification of panel producers, which were given strict power-saving requirements.

LG Display Co Ltd, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's display unit and Sharp Corp all vied to manufacture the panels, supply chain sources said.

The three display makers declined to comment.

Given the time required to ramp up screen production, a retina display-equipped iPad Mini would not be available in large volumes until early next year, the sources said.

The sources expected Apple to either wait until early next year for a full-fledged launch of a retina display iPad Mini, or to make a retina version only available in limited quantities before the end of the year.

Apple has also told suppliers to reduce costs, two of the sources said, with one person saying the U.S. firm is looking at rolling out an iPad Mini with a smaller 8 gigabytes of memory.

Less memory may allow Apple to lower the price of the Mini to boost sales in emerging markets like China where cheaper tablets, many of them running Google's Android operating system, are gaining market share.

"Right now the iPad Mini is more expensive than everyone else in the 7- to 8-inch tablet segment," said Arthur Liao, an analyst for Fubon Securities in Taipei. "If it could reduce its price by even just $50, it would appeal to more consumers."

The iPad's total market share almost halved to 32.5 percent in the second quarter from a year ago, while Android devices, including Samsung's Galaxy series, gained nearly a quarter to 62.6 percent, a survey by tech research company IDC showed.

Amazon's new 7-inch Kindle Fire is priced from $229 for 16GB wifi-only models, while Google's second-generation Nexus 7 offers a similar screen size and storage capacity at the same price. By comparison, the cheapest model in Apple's current 7.9-inch iPad Mini lineup with 16GB storage size starts at $329.

Anyone expecting Apple to dramatically cut prices is likely to be disappointed, analysts said, pointing to the higher-than-expected price tag for the iPhone 5C unveiled this month.

"Don't expect the prices to be significantly lower," said one of the sources. "Even though Apple aims to cut down on component costs, it still ends up around the same as the current Mini because the new Mini will have upgraded specifications."

South Korea, U.S. new deal to deter North Korea nuclear threat.

South Korea, U.S. new deal to deter North Korea nuclear threat.

The United States and South Korea signed a new pact to deter North Korea's potential use of nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction amid growing threats from Pyongyang, their defense chiefs said on Wednesday.

 

The defense ministers also agreed to review the timing of the transfer of war-time command control of their combined forces on the Korean peninsula from the U.S. military to South Korea, a joint statement issued after their meeting said.

The transfer is scheduled to take place in December 2015, but there have been calls in South Korea for it to be postponed while North Korea continues to push ahead with its nuclear weapons and long-range missile programmes.

"Of particular concern are North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, its proliferation activities, and its chemical weapons," U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told a joint news conference with South Korea's Kim Kwan-jin.

"Given these concerns, as Minister Kim noted, today we signed a bilateral strategy for tailored deterrence against the threat of North Korean nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction," he said.

The ministers did not give any immediate indication of what the "tailored deterrence" strategy might entail despite questions from the media. Hagel said it was prompted by a recent push by Pyongyang to build and deploy nuclear weapons.

"It has increased its capabilities, its missile capabilities, its three nuclear tests. So that is constantly forcing a review of our strategies."

South Korean media reported the new strategy involved the use of all available military assets to launch a pre-emptive strike against the North if there is a clear indication of an imminent nuclear attack by Pyongyang.

A senior U.S. defense official denied the pact addressed the possibility of such a strike and said it provided a framework for discussions on the use of various defense capabilities to generate an effective deterrent against the North.

North Korea conducted its third nuclear test in February, two months after successfully launching a long-range rocket that put an object, which Pyongyang says was a satellite, into space.

The launch resulted in tougher U.N. sanctions against the impoverished and isolated North by trying to cut off its arms trade, which had been a lucrative source of income, and disrupt financial transactions in support of those activities.

The 2012 rocket launch was widely seen as a test of its long-range missile capabilities, despite Pyongyang's claims that it was part of its peaceful space project.

Intelligence analysis indicates North Korea has restarted a Soviet-era nuclear reactor at its main Yongbyon atomic complex, which previously produced plutonium that experts believe was used to build up to 10 nuclear weapons.

Pyongyang is believed to have made progress in its pursuit of nuclear arms through its three tests but experts say there is no clear indication yet that it has mastered the technology to miniaturize a device to fit on a missile to deliver it.

The joint statement by the two ministers, which noted "the intensifying North Korean nuclear and missile threats" and the importance of "conditions-based" command transfer, indicated that discussions about the transfer were under way.

The transfer of command was initially discussed eight years ago and was originally set for 2012, before it was pushed back to 2015 to allow more time for the South's military to take over responsibility.

Hagel ends an unprecedented four-day visit to South Korea on Wednesday. He watched as the South marked an armed forces day this week showcasing indigenously developed missiles designed to target the North's artillery and missiles.

Obama Big Reason to short Asia trip as shutdown continues In US.

Obama Big Reason to short Asia trip as shutdown continues In US.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday scaled down a long-planned trip to Asia, as a U.S. government shutdown entered a second day with no end in sight to the funding row in Congress that triggered it.

 

Obama is expected to leave on Saturday for summit meetings in Indonesia and Brunei. Malaysian media quoted Prime Minister Najib Razak as saying he would now skip a subsequent visit to Kuala Lumpur. His last stop, in the Philippines, also now looks in question.

The president would thus be able to return home just days before an even bigger crunch in Congress, which will put the United States at risk of defaulting on its debts if it does not raise the U.S. public debt ceiling.

The fight between Obama's Democrats and the Republicans over the government's borrowing power is rapidly merging with the standoff over everyday funding, which has forced the first government shutdown in 17 years and forced hundreds of thousands of federal employees to take unpaid leave.

The White House announcement followed a fruitless day on Capitol Hill, with Congressional Democrats and Republicans coming no closer to resolving their differences.

Obama accused Republicans of taking the government hostage to sabotage his signature healthcare law, the most ambitious U.S. social program in five decades, passed three years ago.

Republicans in the House of Representatives view the Affordable Care Act as a dangerous extension of government power, and have coupled their efforts to undermine it with continued efforts to block government funding. The Democratic-controlled Senate has repeatedly rejected those efforts.

The standoff has raised new concerns about Congress's ability to perform its most basic duties and threatens to hamper a still fragile economic recovery.

"This is a mess. A royal screw-up," said Democratic Representative Louise Slaughter of New York.

LANDMARKS CORDONED OFF

As police cordoned off landmarks such as the Lincoln Memorial, and government agencies stopped functions ranging from cancer treatments to trade negotiations, Republicans in the House moved to restore funding to national parks, veterans' care and the District of Columbia, the capital.

An effort to pass the three bills fell short on Tuesday evening, but Republicans plan to try again on Wednesday. They are likely to be defeated by the Democratic-controlled Senate.

"That's important - a park? How about the kids who need daycare?" said Democratic Representative Sander Levin of Michigan. "You have to let all the hostages go. Every single one of them."

The shortening of the Asia trip, designed to reinforce U.S. commitment to the region, is the first obvious international consequence of the troubles in Washington. There was no immediate confirmation from the White House that plans had been changed.

"They've shut down the government over an ideological crusade to deny affordable health insurance to millions of Americans," Obama said on Tuesday.

Republicans said Obama could not complain about the impact of the shutdown while refusing to negotiate. "The White House position is unsustainably hypocritical," said Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll indicated that 24 percent of Americans blamed Republicans, while 19 percent blamed Obama or Democrats. Another 46 percent said everyone was to blame.

VETERANS PASS BARRICADES

Republicans said their latest proposal would help elderly veterans who earlier on Tuesday pushed past barricades at the National World War II Memorial to get into the site.

"They're coming here because they want to visit their memorial, the World War II memorial. But no, the Obama administration has put barricades around it," said Republican Representative Mike Simpson of Idaho.

All three bills won support from a majority of the House, but fell short of the two-thirds vote needed to pass under special rules that allow quick action. Republican leaders plan to bring up the bills for a regular vote on Wednesday. Obama said he would veto the bills if they reached his desk.

The veterans in question had gotten in to the memorial with help from several Republican lawmakers. But they did not seem interested in taking sides.

"It's just like a bunch of little kids fighting over candy," said George Atkinson, an 82-year-old veteran of the Korean War. "The whole group ought to be replaced, top man down."

The selective spending plan appeared to temporarily unite Republicans, heading off a split between Tea Party conservatives who pushed for the government funding confrontation and moderates who appear to be losing stomach for the fight.

Representative Peter King, a New York moderate, estimated that more than 100 of the chamber's 232 Republicans would back Obama's demand to restore all government funding without conditions. That would be enough to easily pass the House with the support of the chamber's 200 Democrats.

The shutdown closed landmarks including access to the Grand Canyon and pared the government's spy agencies by 70 percent. In Washington, the National Zoo shut off a popular "panda cam" that allowed visitors to view its newborn panda cub online. In Pennsylvania, white supremacists had to cancel a planned rally at Gettysburg National Military Park.

MARKET REACTION

Stock investors appeared to be taking the news in stride on Tuesday, with investors confident a deal could be reached quickly. The S&P 500 .SPX closed up 0.8 percent and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC gained 1.2 percent.

4 Million US citizen personal data sold by Hacker's online

Hacker's sold personal data of 4million US citizens online  a risk of potential identity theft

An illegal service that sells personal data of US citizens online, which can then be used for identity theft hacked into the networks of three major data brokers and Hacker stole their databases.

Cyber attack has given them access to Social Security Numbers, dates of birth, and other personal details that could put all our finances at risk.

Krebs's blog revealed that the service, known as SSNDOB (ssndob.ms) (Social Security Number Date of Birth) used malware to obtain secret access to the databases of LexisNexis, Dun & Bradstreet and Kroll Background America.
Hackers are charging from 50 cents to $2.50 per record and from $5 to $15 for credit and background checks. It was discovered in March that another website, exposed.su was using data collected by SSNDOB to sell to its customers.

Through the use of a botnet Malware, ID thieves the ID thieves gained access to the networks of LexisNexis, that it provides coverage of more than 500 million unique consumer identities.

"The botnet’s online dashboard for the LexisNexis systems shows that a tiny unauthorized program called “nbc.exe” was placed on the servers as far back as April 10, 2013, suggesting the intruders have had access to the company’s internal networks for at least the past five months,” Krebs’ report.

“The program was designed to open an encrypted channel of communications from within LexisNexis’s internal systems to the botnet controller on the public Internet.”

SSNDOB itself was compromised by multiple attacks earlier this year, and website’s records show that 1,300 customers have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars looking up SSNs, birthdays, drivers license records, and obtaining unauthorized credit and background reports on more than four million Americans.

Hacker's sold personal data of 4million US citizens online  a risk of potential identity theft

16-Year-Old Teenager has been arrested for World's biggest cyber attack ever.

16-Year-Old Teenager has been arrested for World's biggest cyber attack ever.

16-Year-Old Teenager has been arrested over his alleged involvement in the World's biggest largest DDoS attacks against the Dutch anti-spam group Spamhaus.

The teenager, whose name is unknown at this point, was arrested by British police in April, but details of his arrest were just leaked to the British press on Thursday.

16 Year Old Teenager arrested for World's biggest cyber attack ever against SpamhausHe was taken into custody when police swooped on his south-west London home after investigations identified significant sums of money were flowing through his bank account. The suspect was found with his computer systems open and logged on to various virtual systems and forums.

The March 20 attack on Spamhaus has been dubbed as the “biggest cyber attack in the history of the Internet” which saw server of the Dutch anti-spam organization being bombarded with traffic in tune of 300 billion bits per second (300Gbps).

A DDoS attack takes place when hackers use an army of infected computers to send traffic to a server, causing a shutdown in the process.

It's unclear what role the teenager played in the massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. The boy has been released on bail until later this year. A 35-year-old Dutchman was detained and his computers, data carriers and mobile phones were seized, local media speculates that the person is none other than CyberBunker spokesman Sven Olaf Kamphuis.

The attack on Spamhaus is believed to have started after the anti-spam organization blacklisted CyberBunker for allegedly spreading spam.

Kenya Shocked By Al-Shabab

Worst Attack over Kenya done by "Al Shabab", an Islamist militant group based in Somalia.

Religious terrorism has again raised its ugly head and this time, has struck bang in the middle of a bustling city in East Africa. As the toll of Indians dying in this Kenyan replay of 26/11 reaches 3, the total number of dead has climbed to 68 amongst whom are many of Indian origin as well!

  

The tragedy is somehow more personal as it brought back memories from the time I had stayed in Nairobi in a service apartment right next to the Westgate mall. It also brought back terrible memories of being holed up inside the house for three days when Mumbai was under a similar attack from Pakistani terrorists!! Kenya has a sizeable Indian population and the images captured from this incident could very well have belonged to any Indian metro!

 This is how the incident took shape - Masked gunmen stormed into a crowded mall in Nairobi on Saturday and shot dead at least 68 people and wounded more than 175 in one of the most chilling terrorist attacks in East Africa.

The mall, called Westgate, is an impressive five-story building where Kenyans shop for expensive stuff and is also popular with expatriates. A cooking competition was taking place at the mall at the time, and hosting the contest and among the dead was Ruhila Adatia-Sood, a Nairobi local who was a popular TV and radio presenter.

Sood was six months pregnant and posing happily for Instagram photos in the minutes before the attack. One of these showed her with the popular Indian Radio-Africa journalist Kamal Kaur. Kaur, who was with her own two young children, said the attackers threw a grenade at the crowd before shooting. One bullet narrowly missed her son before ricocheting off a wall and killing another child next to her.

Several witnesses said the attackers had shouted for Muslims to run away while they picked off other shoppers, executing them one by one. 

Parents hurled their bodies over their children, people jumped into ventilation shafts to save themselves, and shoppers huddled behind the plastic mannequins of designer clothing stores as two squads of gunmen moved through the mall, shooting shoppers in the head. Hours later, the mall’s gleaming floors were smeared with blood as police officers dashed through the corpse-strewn corridors, trying to find the assailants.

"Al Shabab", an Islamist militant group based in Somalia, took responsibility for the attack, saying it was revenge for Kenya’s military operations in Somalia against the group, which is al Qaeda's proxy in Somalia.

The Shabab, who have pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda, used to control large parts of Somalia, imposing a harsh and often brutal version of Islam in their territory. They have beheaded civilians and buried teenage girls up to their necks in sand and stoned them to death.

But in the past two years, the African Union forces, including the Kenyans, have pushed the Shabab out of most of their strongholds. The worry now, current and former American officials said that this attack could be the start of a comeback. 

The ripples from the attack reached as far as Trinidad, with a research economist called Ravindra Ramrattan named among the dead. The winner of a presidential gold medal in Trinidad for his academic prowess, Ramrattan, succumbed to the bullets of terrorists. The most high profile victim, and among the first to be named, was Kofi Awoonor, a Ghanaian poet and academic, and former diplomat. The Kenyan president's nephew was also one of the casualties in the dastardly attack!

Time and again religious fundamentalism hits unsuspecting innocent people all over the globe. Yet, there is a reluctance among people to label it as RELIGIOUS terrorism and instead just use the latter term. I find it surprising that even in today's age of information and education, people are STILL unwilling to recognize this violence for what it is!


The attack has come at a time when several violent Islamist groups all espousing an anti-Western, anti-Christian creed are striking at state authority and international interests in many countries in Africa. The three Indians who lost their lives - Sudharshan B. Nagaraj from Bangalore, Sridhar Natarajan from Tamil Nadu and the 8 year old Paramshu Jain were all victims of a travesty that has NO PLACE in a civilized world!

As the gunmen opened fire with assault rifles, Westgate was plunged into mayhem and carnage. People ran out screaming, and victims soaked in their own blood were wheeled out in shopping carts.
The terrorists showed no mercy to even pregnant women and slaughtered a young couple just two weeks before their first child was to be born along with the yet-to-be-born baby!

In the bizarre game of life or death, they killed those who failed to name the Prophet Muhammed’s mother and spared those who could!!

At least 175 people were wounded or injured in the attack, including 11 Kenyan soldiers, and about 1,000 were rescued. Bodies were still sprawled on the mall’s front steps hours afterward, and woozy shoppers continued to emerge from the stores where they had been hiding to save their lives.

Whether one accepts it or not, RELIGIOUS TERRORISM is a reality and no one can just wish it away. And it's not limited to one religion alone; every religion in the world has practiced it at some point in its history.

The Romans persecuted early Christians; Christians prosecuted Jews; Invading Muslims destroyed Hindu temples and killed Hindus/Sikhs/Buddhists/Jains in thouands while Buddhists in Myanmar are today persecuting the Rohingya muslims!!

All over the world there is growing intolerance for others' religion and ethnicity. Post 9/11, the suspicion with which every BROWN man or woman was seen in the US was scary to say the least! For a while it seemed only White Christians were above suspicion in the world! Many Sikhs faced brutality in their mistaken identity of being an Arab (because of their turbans) in US as well as UK.

More recently, when an American girl of Indian origin won the Miss America title, there were racial slurs calling her an Arab and a terrorist!!

And the grass isn't greener on the other side of this fence! The hatred of America and the 'West' has become so visceral in the Muslim world that their is complete REFUSAL to accept any responsibility for what's happening in the name of Islam! Any news that comes out of torture or destruction by Jihadi forces is immediately termed as American propaganda without any attempt to self-analyze what's going wrong with the Muslim youth.

Worst still, it may even be seen as justified on the premise that US has killed so many innocent civilians in its drone attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But people forget that whoever is responsible, it is the INNOCENTS who die! You can't justify your vendetta of killing innocents based on a grievance cause by twisted political agendas. Let religion and politics be separate for the sake of our future! Just two days back, there was a blast in a historical Church in Pakistan which took the life of 78 people who were targeted by Islamic terrorists!

This FUNDAMENTALISM should be recognized as a genuine problem if we REALLY wish to find a solution to it. Denying its existence would be behaving like the proverbial pigeon who closes its eyes and hopes the cat would disappear! It is disappointing that today's educated youth instead of following the true principles of religion choose to follow the extremist fanaticism that many believe will open the gates of heaven for them in the after-life.

If you can't even love your fellow beings and live your life spreading vitriol in this world, what guarantee do you have of even REACHING Heaven in the first place, let alone being happy there!

The only solution it seems in current circumstances is to give less importance to RELIGION and more to HUMANITY! Denial WILL NOT give us Safety. Hoping for an open debate on this issue so that we can save more innocents in the future from such meaningless violence in the name of religion!