The strongest rain recorded to date in India shut down the financial hub Mumbai, snapped communication lines, closed airports and marooned thousands of people, officials said on Wednesday. As many as 87 people have been reported killed and another 130 are feared buried in landslides, said authorities and news reports.
At least 57 people were killed on Tuesday in one of the worst floods and landslides in the western Indian states of Maharashtra and Goa, news reports said. With the deaths, the toll from heavy monsoon rains in India since the end of June has touched 348. More than two million people have been displaced in nearly a dozen states.
After yet another huge earthquake and a tsunami scare overnight, some residents of India’s battered Andaman and Nicobar islands say they have had enough and are planning to move. On Sunday, an earthquake that the United States Geological Survey said measured seven on the Richter scale shattered the tranquillity of residents.
India’s supreme court has banned the honking of horns, playing loud music and bursting firecrackers after nightfall in the country’s expanding residential areas. Noise pollution is a growing blight in India, where limited space means flats and houses are built inches apart.
Millions of Indians may sleep easier after the Supreme Court banned loud music, firecrackers and the honking of vehicle horns at night. The court ban — issued on Monday and posted on Tuesday — prevents horns from being sounded between 10pm and 6am, and bans firecrackers, loud music and parties between the same hours.
Police in India’s eastern state of Orissa rounded up about 200 people watching a porn movie in a cinema hall and made them do 10 sit-ups in public as punishment, a report said on Monday. They were also made to take a public vow never to watch a sleazy movie again, the <i>Hindustan Times</i> daily said.
As tears roll down her cheeks Sintamani Shankar (25) stares blankly into the picture of her six-year-old son, Pannerselvam. ”It is all that is left of him. The tsunami took him. But there is nothing, not even a picture of my daughter left for me to remember.”
The escalators proved as much a novelty as the hi-tech underground trains on Sunday as tens of thousands of joy-riders crammed Delhi’s new metro line connecting key transport hubs with the main business district. Though it officially opened on Saturday, the public had to wait a day before being allowed on the 6,3km ”yellow line”.
Over the next decade, two million children will die, 40-million people will be without safe drinking water, and five million children will be forced out of school if current trends continue in 14 countries across Asia and the Pacific that are among the world’s least developed, a United Nations report said on Friday.
SABMiller, one of the world’s largest breweries, announced on Tuesday it will invest more than -million in India’s booming beer market over the next five years.
The South African enterprise, listed on the London and Johannesburg stock markets, aims to increase its share of the Indian market from 10% to 25%.
Indian Railway Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav is beaming after a doll in his likeness has been snapped up from toy stores in the state of Bihar where he will soon contest elections. The plump doll, called Lalooji, sports a mop of white hair and is clothed in the politician’s trademark white kurta pajamyas.
India’s outgoing cricket coach John Wright may not have renewed his contract because he was humiliated by players under his command, Indian legend Sunil Gavaskar claimed on Monday. ”He was told off and sworn at by some players”, Gavaskar wrote in his widely syndicated column.
Former Australian captain Greg Chappell was on Friday named India’s new cricket coach and entrusted with the task of masterminding the country’s campaign at the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies. ”Greg spoke his mind, but he knew what he was talking about. He bowled me over,” a member of the selection panel said.
A former politician in southern India has launched a ”rent-a-crowd” company to recruit people to cheer at party rallies and said he has been deluged by would-be recruits, a report on Friday said. Indian political parties are known for paying people to show up for rallies, often transporting them in fleets of buses.
At least 37 members of a wedding party died and another 25 were injured on Tuesday when their bus plunged down a gorge in a mountainous area of northern India, police said. The overcrowded bus skidded off a winding road and hurtled down the gorge in Rudraprayag district in the state of Uttaranchal.
An Indian company has developed a mobile personal computer that weighs 500g, uses a flexible keyboard that can be rolled up and costs just 10 000 rupees (), reports said on Wednesday. The Mobilis has all the essential features of a PC such as word processing, e-mail, web browser, spreadsheets and personal information manager.
United States PC giant Dell announced on Friday that its Indian subsidiary will employ 10 000 people by year-end and will continue to expand thanks to a cheap and skilled local talent pool. Bangalore, home to more than 1 500 technology firms, exports more than a third of India’s software.
European Aircraft giant Airbus Industrie has cried foul over state-run Air India’s decision to buy 50 Boeing jets, saying it was denied a chance to show off its new A380 superjumbo. Airbus urged the Indian government to order a new tender after Air India approved on Tuesday the purchase of up to 50 Boeing planes worth -billion.
Ace Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar on Wednesday reacted strongly to criticism that he had become a pale shadow of his former attacking self, saying his aim was to serve the team, not to please everybody. Tendulkar, the fourth-highest scorer with 10 134 runs in 123 Tests with 34 centuries, has recently been under fire for shedding much of his flamboyance, a hallmark of his batting.
Rebels demanding the introduction of a medieval script in India’s Manipur state torched a repository of hundreds and thousands of priceless books, police said on Thursday. A group of rebels stormed the federal library in the state capital on Wednesday and set it alight by pouring gasoline on racks of literature, some of it up to two centuries old.
A discharge of water from a dam swept away scores of Hindu pilgrims while they were praying on the banks of the Narmada River in central India, leaving at least 53 dead, senior officials said. About 25 000 people had gathered on the banks of the Narmada at Dharaji to offer prayers during a two-day festival that started on Thursday.
A girl in eastern India has been married to a dog in a bid to ward off tigers, a report said on Thursday. The tribal wedding took place to the beating of drums in a slum on the outskirts of Orissa state capital Bhubaneswar, the Press Trust of India news agency said quoting witnesses.
An animal rights group on Tuesday called for an investigation into the deaths of four sea lions, 10 dogs and seven cats belonging to Russia’s state circus that burned to death in a fire in India. ”We are going to court to ensure that there is an inquiry,” said Anuradha Sawhney of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
If you own an elephant and don’t know how to keep it happy, you could learn a few lessons from Parbati Barua, Asia’s only female mahout (elephant handler).
Did you know that elephants have a ”sour tooth”, with a particular liking for tamarind? Or that they enjoy a daily, hour-long massage, preferably in a circular motion with a pumice stone?
Tax authorities in southern India have found a new way to handle tax evaders: sending teams of traditional drummers to pound away noisily outside their homes or shops until they pay up. Tax officials in Andhra Pradesh state’s Rajahmundry city said on Thursday they have recovered three-quarters of the money owed by people there
Rumours that a witch has been visiting homes in parts of Delhi and is behind several deaths are creating a scare in the Indian capital, it was reported on Friday. So strong are the rumours in Sagarpur and adjoining areas of outer Delhi that a woman ringing a doorbell and asking for an onion runs the risk of being lynched.
The yellow spice turmeric has shown potential as a weapon against malaria, HIV and the virus that triggers cervical cancer, according to reports on <i>SciDev.Net</i>, the Science and Development Network website. The latest findings are of significance to developing countries where malaria and HIV are serious public health concerns.
Calls to strip Zimbabwe of Test status may finally have taken the pressure off Bangladesh, who yearn to gain respect as a cricket team. Long the wooden spooners of Test cricket, Bangladesh may have just turned the corner, leaving Zimbabwe to fill their shoes as the most pitiable team in the world.
Pakistan cricket captain Inzamam-ul-Haq may be banking on the ”passion and enthusiasm” of his young team to tame India in their own backyard, but he requires more than just that to taste success on the arduous tour. India had not lost at home in four years until Australia ruined their impressive record last season with a 2-1 victory.
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/ 24 February 2005
At least two police officers were killed on Thursday when heavily armed militants raided the administrative headquarters of Indian Kashmir, trapping about 250 civilians who were later freed by the security forces, officials said. A paramilitary officer said ”two or more” militants had sneaked into the fortified complex of government buildings.
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/ 10 February 2005
Six people, including four children, were killed in three separate avalanches in Indian Kashmir on Thursday as thousands of motorists remained stranded on a highway due to heavy snowfall, police said. The Indian air force has started dropping food packets to more than 3Â 000 people stranded on a 50km stretch of highway.
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/ 26 January 2005
Scattered garlands, strewn bangles, covered bodies and charred tea stalls and shops in western India bore mute testimony on Wednesday to a stampede that crushed at least 257 Hindu devotees on a temple pilgrimage — nearly a month after tsunamis smashed into southern Indian coastal areas, killing close to 11 000