Mid Day International News

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Military protection as PoK goes to polls today Posted: The Pakistan-administered Kashmir is all set for the legislative assembly elections to be held today. Election campaigning came to an end on Friday. Various political parties as well as independent candidates held public meetings and also went door-to-door to woo the voters. There are 421 candidates in the fray. Polling for 41 of the 49 assembly seats will be held on Sunday. Eight seats are reserved for women. According to official figures, some 12,000 armed forces personnel and 15,000 policemen have been deployed for the voting in the state that is officially called "Azad Jammu Kashmir" or referred to as Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in India. Observers said the newly-launched Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) in the region, which mainly consists of Muslim Conference dissidents, has converted the electoral fray into a three-way fight giving competition to the Muslim Conference and the Pakistan Peoples Party. According to the final list issued by the state election commission, the total number of voters is 30,17,816. A total of 5,559 polling stations have been set up with 6,448 booths. As many as 4,351 presiding officers have been appointed to supervise the polling.

New York says 'I do' to same-sex marriage Posted: The Republican-controlled US state senate voted 33-29 to pass the law that legalises same-sex marriage; New York is the sixth, but largest, US state to do so Govenor Andrew Cuomo signed the state's marriage equality bill hours after it passed the Republican-controlled Senate on Friday night, making it the sixth state in the nation to legalise same-sex marriage. Cuomo signed the bill after the legislature cleared the way to legalise same-sex marriage with a 33-to-29 vote, the first time a state Senate with a Republican majority has approved such a bill. NEW YORK Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the state's Marriage Equality Bill that legalises same-sex marriages pic/ getty images The new law, which will allow same-sex couples in New York to marry within 30 days, drew a sharp rebuke from opponents, who spent millions to try to defeat the measure. Gay rights activists said the approval of the bill was a key victory for them, in what is seen as the birthplace of the US Gay Rights movement. But not everyone was celebrating. "We worry that both marriage and family will be undermined by this tragic presumption of government in passing this legislation that attempts to redefine these cornerstones of civilisation," the state's Catholic bishops said in a joint statement released late on Friday. It was signed by Archbishop Timothy M Dolan and seven other bishops. Opponents of the Marriage Equality law have vowed to take political action against any Republican who voted for the bill. Cuomo credited four Republican senators, who joined the majority of the state's Senate democrats for the passage of the bill, saying they were "people of courage". Cuomo said it would grant same-sex couples equal rights to marry "as well as hundreds of rights, benefits and protections that are currently limited to married couples of the opposite sex." Activists on both sides of the issue gathered in the state capitol, Albany. They chanted opposing slogans " petitioning for either "marriage equality" or yelling "one man, one woman" in defense of the institution's traditional definition. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who courted Republicans to approve the bill, called the vote a "historic triumph for equality and freedom."

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