New York  - Bernard Madoff, the high-flying Wall Street investor charged with a 50-billion-dollar fraud, was placed under house arrest on Wednesday.

Madoff, 70, will be required to wear a tracking device and be subject to a curfew, while his wife told the judge she would give up two of her homes if he were to attempt to escape, Bloomberg News reported.

Madoff, a former chairman of the Nasdaq exchange, was arrested last week for running a 50-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme.

Munich - German prosecutors searched the offices Wednesday of troubled mortgage lender Hypo Real Estate, which has emerged as one of the nation's most prominent victims of the US subprime housing crisis.

Munich prosecutors said they searched Hypo Real Estate's premises as well as property linked to the lender's former board members.

The investigations relate to suspicions of market manipulation.

The state owned banks has finally announced special relief measures for home loan buyers and small scale enterprises (SME) after deliberations of more than a week. All 28 state-owned banks have revised home loan interest rates at 9.25% below Rs 20 lakh and
8.5% for loans up to Rs 5 lakh.

The move would prove helpful to lower and middle-income class besides increasing demand in the reality sector. Reality sector is facing the heat of global slowdown with significant decline in growth rate.

Union government is likely to announce a special package for the housing sector on Monday. The special package may include cheaper home loans, full waiver of processing charges and concessions on margin money. There may be reduction in the interest rates and exemption from home processing fees up to Rs 5 lakh. RBI may also announce relaxation in the risk-weight and margin requirement for home loans. Currently, risk weight age for home loans up to Rs 20 lakh is 50 per cent, which is likely to be hiked.

The Reserve Bank of India is taking various measures to control further depreciation of rupee. The bank sold $20.6 billion in October as per the recently released bulletin of the bank. Rupee witnessed a record fall in October and is currently varying at 49-50.50 to a US dollar.