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.
If you lived in ancient India, you would have to observe a strict code of toilet etiquette that determined how often or where you could relieve yourself, depending on whether you were single, married, a student or a saint. Toilet trivia abounds at the Sulabh International Museum of Toilets in New Delhi, a bit of an oddity in a country where an estimated 700-million people defecate in the open.
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.
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.
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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/ 25 January 2005
Scores of Indian pilgrims, mainly women and children, were killed in a stampede at a temple in the western state of Maharashtra on Tuesday. Conservative estimates put the death toll between 25 and 40, with another 80 to 100 injured, witnesses and officials said. Witnesses said the stampede was triggered by a fire caused by a short circuit.
Indian police have arrested a man who sent people fleeing in panic when he sounded a false tsunami alarm in the southern city of Madras, a report said on Monday. ”The tsunami is coming, run, run,” Jackey (30), who has only one name, shouted on Sunday in a fishing cove along the city’s famed Marina beach.
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/ 19 December 2004
India’s textile and garment makers are cranking up capacity ahead of the lifting of global import quotas at the end of this year as they seek to cash in on a market in which the sky will be the limit. India is expected to be one of the winners of the phasing out of three-decade-old rules that have curbed exports of textiles and clothing from poor nations.
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/ 7 December 2004
India’s highest court has ordered Pepsi and Coca-Cola to print warnings on their bottles sold in the country that the contents may contain pesticide residues. The Supreme Court ruling late on Monday upheld a judgement by the Rajasthan High Court last month. Responding to the ruling, a Coke spokesperson told The Indian Express, ”Our product manufactured in India is world-class and safe.”
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/ 25 November 2004
Indian snake charmers have threatened to let loose thousands of snakes in eastern Bhubaneshwar city, alleging harassment by wildlife officials, it was reported on Thursday. While the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 bans the catching of snakes, the practise thrives.
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/ 19 November 2004
A Hindu seer in India’s eastern Orissa state was berated by angry crowds when he failed to die after declaring his soul would leave his body at an appointed time, a report said on Friday. The chief cleric of the Sriguru Ashram in the Kharagaon area of Konark said he would die a natural death on Wednesday between 6am and noon.
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/ 31 October 2004
Stressed-out Indian MPs will relax at weekends with sack races and other games if a ministerial proposal is accepted, a report said on Sunday. According to a plan by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, a plethora of sporting events will be organised for the MPs at weekends during parliamentary sessions.
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/ 29 October 2004
The lizard biriani served on a Jet Airways flight in India proved just too spicy for a startled passenger who is taking the private carrier to court. The airline admitted in a statement published on Friday that it has launched an inquiry into how the two-inch lizard came to be cooked and served up to businessman Ashok Sharma.
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/ 26 October 2004
The Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, will visit South Africa in November, it was announced on Tuesday. The Dalai Lama will spend a week in South Africa from November 3-7, according to an official release issued by his office in Dharmshala in the northern Indian hill state of Himachal Pradesh.
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/ 26 October 2004
Modern-day Indian English or ”Hinglish”, as the variety of English spoken in India is called, has a distinct time-capsule flavour — harking back to the days of the British Raj. Phrases that are dying out elsewhere remain in common parlance on the subcontinent, where ”sleuths nab” their man, ”miscreants abscond,” youths engage in ”tomfoolery” and politicians say their opponents speak ”balderdash”.
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/ 13 October 2004
The only male elephant in Armenia’s zoo will get an Indian female companion this week, a news report said on Wednesday. Armenian officials had asked the Indian government for a female pachyderm in 1999, for its sole male elephant originally from Moscow. Indian premier Atal Behari Vajpayee promised them an elephant during a visit to Armenia last year.
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/ 11 October 2004
India is to send about 3 000 troops for United Nations peacekeeping operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), making it one of the largest contingents in the strife-torn African nation, a senior official said on Monday. India’s present deployment consists of a 300-strong air force contingent armed with Mi-35 utility and attack helicopters and a 100-member army team.
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/ 17 September 2004
New Delhi’s police chief, who snared former South Africa cricket skipper Hansie Cronje for match-fixing in 2001, faces being fined for allowing mosquitoes to breed at his offices, an official said on Friday. His office was the subject of a sting operation by health workers fighting dengue fever.
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/ 15 September 2004
An illiterate sweeper doubles as the only doctor in an eastern Indian village, highlighting the dismal state of health care in rural areas, it was reported on Wednesday. Ganesh Das is a government-appointed sweeper at Ramchandrapur in Diamond Harbour, about 90km from Calcutta city.
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/ 11 September 2004
Police in the Indian capital Delhi said they have uncovered a racket involving 50 illegal kidney transplants, reports said on Saturday. The scam was revealed when a 24-year-old construction worker went to police alleging his kidney had been removed without his knowledge. It had been transplanted and given to a soldier’s wife in the main military hospital in Delhi, the Indian Express newspaper reported.
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/ 6 September 2004
Indian film directors are recruiting young, fair and blonde leading ladies from abroad to reach out to a larger international market, it was reported on Monday. A slew of new Bollywood films feature usually little-known actresses from Britain, South Africa and the United States, The Telegraph newspaper reported.
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/ 3 September 2004
An Indian man has tried to enter the Guinness Book of World Records by feeding a live grass snake into his right nostril and taking it out through his mouth, media reports said on Friday. Last November, the man swallowed 200 earthworms, each measuring at least 10cm, in 30 seconds.
A 29-year-old Muslim women in the western Indian state of Maharastra was divorced by her husband over the telephone, it was reported on Tuesday. Shabana Sayyed said her husband divorced her by saying ”talaq, talaq, talaq” thrice when she called him up from her parent’s house last week, the Asian Age newspaper reported.
The government of the southern Indian state of Kerala has set up a committee to study its unusually high suicide rate — currently one every hour, it was reported on Monday. According to Kerala’s Chief Minister AK Anthony, about 19 774 people killed themselves in the last two years, taking the state’s suicide rate to 31,5 per 100 000 people.
As the muddy brown flood waters began to recede in the northeastern Indian state of Assam on Tuesday, government officials warned of the threat of water-borne diseases. Meanwhile, flood waters that have submerged two-thirds of Bangladesh leaving 30-million people cut off or homeless will not recede for at least a week, experts warned.
A fire that may have been caused by a short circuit igniting a thatched roof killed at least 70 children and injured more than 100 others in a southern Indian school on Friday. An earlier report quoted a senior police official as saying 77 bodies had been recovered. Most of those killed and injured were four to 10 years old.