US Shutdown, looming debt-ceiling and their effects on the Indian market

Since the beginning of this month, the US government has been in partial shutdown. That means all government services and activities barring a few emergency and security services have come to a halt and government employees have been asked to proceed on unpaid leave. Why?

I had written a guest post for Subhankar which can be accessed here:
http://investmentsfordummieslikeme.blogspot.in/2013/10/us-shutdown-looming-debt-ceiling-and.html