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Hindu devotees across the country are observing the day of Fulpati on Monday amidst religious ceremonies and festivities.

On the day of Fulpati, the seventh day of Navaratri, an assortment of sacred shrubs that are offered to Goddess Durga is taken inside the Dashain Ghar in Hanumandhoka.

The Fulpati, the procession bearing the jamara and other items necessary for the tika, is carried on foot from Gorkha, about a 169 kilometres away from Kathmandu, all the way up to Dhading district from where six Brahmins carry them to Jamal, Kathmandu. From Jamal, the Phulpati filled with holy water, banana stalks, jamara and sugar cane tied with red cloth is carried by Brahmans to the Dashain Ghar today.

A military parade is also organised at Hanuman Dhoka palace.

On this day, Nepal Army organises a parade at Tundikhel. Gunshots are fired and the entire valley echoes with the resonating sound of it. Traditionally the firing continues for ten to fifteen minutes to honour the Fulpati.

By the time the function ends the Fulpati is already taken inside the Dashain ghar in Hanuman Dhoka Palace. With this the Dashain feasting starts. A band associated with the army also plays its music and goes through the old quarter of Kathmandu on this day.

Fulpati also marks the beginning of official weeklong Dashain holidays in government offices.

Ford Motor Co said on Friday that it is selling 500 million dollars in stock to retire short-term debt owed by Ford Motor Credit.

“It’s a debt for equity swap,” Ford spokesman Bill Collins said.

“We’re issuing new shares. We’re going to take the proceeds and use them to retire some short-term debt for Ford Motor Credit.”

The transaction will reduce the company’s outstanding debt which “strengthens our consolidated balance sheet.”

“We also did this back in August when Goldman Sachs sold 500 million dollars in equity that was used to retire short term debt.”

Ford Motor Credit Company LLC, which offers loans to consumers and dealers, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Ford Motor Co.

Ford Credit lost 1.43 billion dollars in the second quarter, mostly because of writedowns of unprofitable truck leases. Ford Motor had a record 8.7 billion dollar second-quarter loss after balance sheet adjustments that included asset writedowns.

Both Ford Motor Co. and Ford Credit have had their credit rating reduced twice in recent months as car sales have plummeted.

The downgrades have driven up Ford’s cost of borrowing, which has also been made more difficult by the credit squeeze unfolding in the United States.

Ford’s September sales fell 34 percent to 116,734 vehicles while year-to-date sales are down 17.3 percent at 1.5 million vehicles. Its market share fell to 12.1 percent from 13.3 percent in September 2007.

British consulting firm Axon Group PLC has agreed to accept a £441 million (US$785 million) bid from India’s HCL Technologies Ltd, rejecting an earlier offer by India’s Infosys Technologies Ltd, company officials said.

HCL offered to buy Axon for 650 pence a share in cash on September 26, an 8.3% premium to the 600 pence per share offer Infosys had made six days earlier. The acquisition, the largest by an Indian IT company, comes at a time of difficulty for India’s information technology sector, which depends heavily on US financial services firms that have been hit hard by the credit crisis.

HCLT does business in 19 countries, with a strong manufacturing client base and a growing life sciences business. Last fiscal year, HCLT relied on the US market for 57.4% of its business, but more than two-thirds of revenues came from non-financial services companies.

HCLT has arranged a £400 million loan from Standard Chartered Bank for the deal. Rest wil be paid from internal accruals, Nayar added.

Axon had reported a profit before tax of £29.5 million for the year ended December 2007. At the present HCLT offer, Axon is valued at 15 times of the pre tax profit. On the other hand, HCLT is quoting at 13.87 times of its post tax profit. A merchant banker pointed out that HCLT is offering higher than the price at which its own share is quoting in the market.

German carmaker Volkswagen on Thursday said it will bring its global research and development to India, which eventually will produce vehicles for global market, in line with other auto majors like Suzuki and Honda.

“India has a good resource of engineering talent. We will build up our technical centre at Pune. After sometime, may be in 5-6 years time, we may have global car developed in India,” Volkswagen Executive Vice-President and Member of Board Ulrich Hackenberg said at the Paris Auto Show here.

Earlier in the day, the group announced its intention to bring in commercial vehicles to India.

He said VW group is currently undertaking a feasibility study, expected to be concluded by this year-end, for its planned foray into the Indian LCV market.

On the cars front, Winterkorn said Volkswagen is developing a family of small cars and one of them could come to India in due course of time.

VW is investing 580 million euros (about Rs 3,600 crore) in setting up a manufacturing facility at Chakan in Maharashtra from where it would roll out its small car for the Indian market.

The company had already announced that it would bring two small cars (a compact and sedan) built on the Polo platform in India by next year, while it is also planning to introduce its compact car ‘Up’ in future.

The World Non-Violence Day is being marked today by organising various programmes in Nepal.

The United Nations from last year on decided to mark October 2, the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, as the World Non-Violence Day, in recognition of Gandhi’s non violent struggle to free India from Britain’s rule. Gandhi’s ideology was to later inspire world leaders like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King.

Dr Sushil Koirala of Peace for Nepal said that at a time when violence has grown all over the world the main aim of the day is to convey the message that all problems can be resolved through non-violent means. Peace for Nepal has also appealed to the government to invite armed groups involved in violent activities in various parts of the country for talks.

Various human rights and civil society leaders are taking out a ‘peace rally’ through the major thoroughfares of Kathmandu and holding interactions on issues like human rights and non-violence.

Meanwhile, Minister for Local Development Ram Chandra Jha speaking at a programme in Janakpur invited the armed outfits operating in Terai for talks, but warned that groups who undermine rule of law would face tough action.

He also claimed that the armed struggle of these outfits is not even least bit inspired by politics.

Speaking at the press meet organised by Press Chautari (Dhanusha) today, Minister Jha said that the government is ready to initiate talks with the Madhesi armed groups operating and invited them into the negotiating table.

But they should stop all armed activities before coming for talks, he said.

The armed groups in Terai claim that they are waging a struggle to ‘liberate’ the Madhesi community from the age-old oppression of the state. To go about this they have stepped up targeted killing of the people of hill community living in Terai, including the government officials in Terai. The armed groups are also involved in abduction, extortion incuding other violent activities.

Jha belongs to the Madhesi community, and caught the national lime light during the Madhesi movement for talking against the “one-Madhesh” demand raised by various Terai-centric parties.