MAN in MANHOLE

Man goes to sleep in manhole

Kolkata: A deranged man on Thursday went down a manhole and slept there before being lured with the promise of bread to come out.


The man, who later gave his name as Keshav, was spotted by people entering the manhole naked at around 3:00 pm.

The police and fire brigade arrived after being alerted, but they could not find him as he had crept into a sewer connecting two manholes and had fallen asleep.

"The manhole, where the man entered, is connected through a sewer with another manhole 30 metres away. The man was sleeping in the sewer and so we could not find him," officer-in-charge, Hastings police station, Ashoke Banerjee said.

Keshav, who first refused to come out, later agreed after being given bread to eat, Banerjee said.

He was immediately rushed to hospital.

He said that he was very ‘annoyed’ with the police for having ‘disturbed’ his sleep.

Tea vendor paid Rs 8 lakh as income tax

JODHPUR: A vendor who sells tea and snacks in Rajasthan's Pali district has paid Rs eight lakh as income tax after officials found his undeclared assets worth Rs 25 lakh.

The vendor, who has his stall at Rohit village on Jodhpur-Pali road, paid the amount on Wednesday after income tax department sleuths found the undeclared assets.

Meanwhile, the IT sleuths recovered Rs one crore cash during raids from a Gutkha manufacturer here.

The raids were conducted at the premises of the businessman located in Jodhpur, Mumbai, Udaipur, Kota, Bikaner and Ajmer

During the raids, jewellery worth several lakh rupees were also found from four lockers owned by the businessman.

Import Indian bridegrooms for Russian brides

New Russian magic mantra to reverse alarming fall in the country’s birth rate
-Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW: Desperate to reverse a steep decline in their numbers, Russians are coming up with some bold ideas on how to overcome Russia’s demographic crisis.

A Russian feminist has proposed a radical solution to the falling birth rate — importing Indian bridegrooms for Russian girls. Maria Arbatova, writer and TV moderator, who married an Indian businessman a few years ago “after 25 years of keeping marrying Russians”, thinks Indian men make ideal husbands.

“They are crazy about their family and children,” she said presenting her new book, ‘Tasting India’, here. “What is more, Indians, like Russians, are Indo-Europeans, and many Sanskrit and Russian words have the same roots.”

Indian bridegrooms can help ward off a Chinese demographic invasion in Russia, says the feminist: “If we do not balance off the Chinese with Indians, Africans or aliens, by 2050 China will annex Russia’s Siberia up to the Ural Mountains.”

Russia has a population of 142 million spread across a territory five times the size of India. Its population is shrinking at one-third of a million a year. Under a federal programme launched this year, women who give birth to a second or subsequent child are given certificates worth $10,000, which can be used for education, mortgage or pensions. Monthly support payments to young mothers have been raised from $28 to $60. Afraid that the Government measures are not enough, the Governor of Ulyanovsk has suggested his own way of getting Russian couples to have more babies.

This Wednesday, Ulyanovsk residents will enjoy an extra day off work that the Governor decreed to give them more time to produce babies. The holiday, officially called “Family Contact Day”, was quickly renamed by locals as “Day of Conception”. That day the people will be invited to join a festival, “I Love You”, while teams of gynaecologists, midwives and psychologists will fan out to all parts of the region to advise women on having babies.

September 12 has been chosen for the new holiday so that babies conceived that day may be born on June 12, Russia’s National Day. Couples who hit the target date win prizes, including refrigerators, TV sets and washing machines. The main prize is an Ulyanovsk-built all-terrain vehicle called Patriot.(The Hindu)

THE MAN WHO INVENTED THE FUTURE: JULES VERNE

The above cover art suggests various predictions of the author Jules Verne. Among these was spaceflight which is suggested by the sketch of the astronaut at the upper left. JOURNEY FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON was published in 1863. Some call it the "first believable novel of the future ever written" because of its attention to scientific accuracy. Consider the following amazing predictions by Verne in his novel which came to pass:

The United States would launch the first vehicle to go to the moon.

The shape and size of the vehicle would closely resemble the Apollo command/service module spacecraft.

The number of men in the crew would be three.

The vehicle would launch from Florida near the present location of Kennedy Space Center.

A competition for the launch site would ensue between Florida and Texas which actually was resolved in Congress in the 1960s with KSC as the Flordia launch site and Houston, Texas as the Mission Control Center.

A telescope would be able to view the progress of the journey. When Apollo 13 exploded, a telescope at Johnson Space Center witnessed the event which happened more than 200,000 miles from Earth.

The Verne spacecraft would use retro-rockets which became a technology assisting Neil Armstrong and his crewmates in their journey to the Moon.

Verne predicted weightlessness although his concept was slightly flawed in thinking it only was experienced at the gravitational midpoint of the journey (when the Moon and Earth gravity balanced).

The first men to journey to the Moon would return to Earth and splash down in the Pacific Ocean just where Apollo 11 splashed down in July of 1969 one hundred and six years after the initial publishing of Jules Verne's FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON.

DEAD PEOPLES ASSOCIATION

"I'm here. I'm alive," Lal Bihari told revenue officials after discovering he was listed as deceased in 1976. "That may be so," an unruffled clerk replied, "but according to my books you're dead." It took Lal Bihari 18 years to get his life and his land back. During that time, he added the word Mritak, or Dead, to his name and to prove that he was living sought arrest, tried to run for parliament, kidnapped the son of the uncle who had stolen his property, threatened murder, insulted judges, threw leaflets listing his complaints at legislators in the state assembly and demanded a widow's pension for his wife. Each time he was either beaten up by police or rebuked for wasting officials' time. Unable to make headway, Lal Bihari The Dead sought the company of other ghosts in Uttar Pradesh and found an entire underworld of the deceased and dispossessed. A dozen of them demonstrated outside the Uttar Pradesh assembly to publicize their fate, demanding an official investigation into land registry transactions to prevent others from being robbed. Lal Bihari is not sure how many members there are in his Association of Dead People. He's vague about its constitution, it has no funds and no one of importance is paying any attention--at least for now. But in his home district of Azamgarh, 220 km southeast of the state capital, Lucknow, Lal Bihari and his association have become a magnet for the dead souls of the region. He receives letters and secret visits from victims or their relatives hoping he can restore their property. "I've heard about you from friends," wrote a young man late last month. "Exactly the same thing happened to my aunt when her husband died. Can you help?"

Like other eastern districts in Uttar Pradesh, Azamgarh is overcrowded. Land, the only source of income and status for most residents, is scarce. Holdings are getting smaller, divided and subdivided as families grow larger. Rich and poor find it difficult to resist stealing land from an absentee uncle, cousin, nephew, widow or any weak and vulnerable relative. The quickest and simplest way is to bribe land records officials--it costs between $1 and $50, depending on the size of the plot and the wealth of the farmer--declare a person dead and grab his share of the property. "It is a clever ploy," says Lal Bihari. "You don't get your hands dirty by committing murder, and yet the person is as good as dead."

This teacher hasn't taken leave for 34 years

A Government school teacher in Himachal Pradesh has been doing his job so seriously that he has taken no leave in the past 34 years.

As a reward, the State Government has decided to give Todar Ram, 57, a two-year extension in service after he retires later this year from the Government Secondary School Gurkhota in Mandi district, some 160 km from here.

"We have also decided to approach the Guinness Book of World Records to verify our records and consider his achievement (for inclusion)," said Nirmala Sharma, deputy director in the primary education department at Mandi.

Ram, who won a national teacher award a few years ago, belongs to Andretta in the Balh valley of Mandi district. He has taken no leave other than the Sunday weekly offs, school vacations and Government holidays.

"I served for around 28 years in the hard mountainous region of Kullu Valley and had to often walk long distances in the hilly terrain to reach school but I didn't ever take leave," says Ram.

Himachal Pradesh has one of the highest literacy rates in the country at around 80 percent.

NOKIA-IMPORTANT -FAULTY BATTERY ALERT

NOKIA FAULTY BATTERIES

Dear Nokia Customer,

This is a product advisory for the Nokia-branded BL-5C battery manufactured by Matsushita Battery Industrial Co. Ltd. of Japan between December 2005 and November 2006. This product advisory does not apply to any other Nokia battery.

Nokia has identified that in very rare cases the affected batteries could potentially experience over heating initiated by a short circuit while charging, causing the battery to dislodge. Nokia is working closely with relevant local authorities to investigate this situation.

Nokia has several suppliers for BL-5C batteries that have collectively produced more than 300 million BL-5C batteries. This advisory applies only to the 46 million batteries manufactured by Matsushita between December 2005 and November 2006. There have been approximately 100 incidents of over heating reported globally. No serious injuries or property damage have been reported.

Consumers with a BL-5C battery subject to this advisory should note that all of the approximately 100 incidents have occurred while charging the battery. According to Nokia's knowledge this issue does not affect any other use of the mobile device. Concerned consumers may want to monitor a mobile device while charging that contains a BL-5C battery subject to this product advisory.

While the occurrence in the BL-5C batteries produced by Matsushita in the time-period specified is very rare, for consumers wishing to do so, Nokia and Matsushita offer to replace any BL-5C battery subject to this product advisory.

The BL-5C batteries which are subject to the product advisory were used with the following Nokia models or separately as accessories:

Nokia 1100, Nokia 1100c, Nokia 1101, Nokia 1108, Nokia 1110, Nokia 1112, Nokia 1255, Nokia 1315, Nokia 1600, Nokia 2112, Nokia 2118, Nokia 2255, Nokia 2272, Nokia 2275, Nokia 2300, Nokia 2300c, Nokia 2310, Nokia 2355, Nokia 2600, Nokia 2610, Nokia 2610b, Nokia 2626, Nokia 3100, Nokia 3105, Nokia 3120, Nokia 3125, Nokia 6030, Nokia 6085, Nokia 6086, Nokia 6108, Nokia 6175i, Nokia 6178i, Nokia 6230, Nokia 6230i, Nokia 6270, Nokia 6600, Nokia 6620, Nokia 6630, Nokia 6631, Nokia 6670, Nokia 6680, Nokia 6681, Nokia 6682, Nokia 6820, Nokia 6822, Nokia 7610, Nokia N70, Nokia N71, Nokia N72, Nokia N91, Nokia E50, Nokia E60

“Nokia” and “BL-5C” are printed on the front of the battery. On the back of the battery, the Nokia mark appears at the top, and the battery identification number (consisting of 26 characters) is found at the bottom.

CLICK HERE TO CHECK..

PRAYER PIN HEADS

Convicted forger A. Schiller was serving his time in Sing Sing prison in the late 1800s when guards found him dead in his cell. On his body they found seven regular straight pins whose heads measured the typical 47/1000ths of an inch or1.17 millimeters in diameter. Under 500 magnification it was found that the tiny etchings seen on the heads of the pins were the words to The Lord's Prayer, which is 65 words and 254 letters long. Of the seven pins, six were silver and one was gold - the gold pin's prayer was flawless and a true masterpiece. Schiller had spent the last 25 years of his life creating the pins, using a tool too small to be seen by the naked eye. It is estimated that it took 1,863 sepatate carving strokes to make it. Schiller went blind because of his artwork.

INTERESTING

1.Starfish don't have brains. (its a star!)

2.If coloring weren't added to Coca-Cola, it would be green .(not a green cola!)

3.There are more chickens than people in the world(millions and millions!)

4.No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.(so, what!)

5.In most television commercials advertising milk, a mixture of white paint and a little thinner is
used in place of the milk.(when they finish the preparation for the shoot, it is curd!,thats why!)

ULLU MATH BANANA !

When the bananas failed to produce the desired effect, police fed Sheikh Mohsin rice, chicken and local bread.

Finally the necklace, which appeared on an X-ray taken on the suspect, was excreted and retrieved.

Mr Mohsin will appear in court on Monday in the eastern city of Calcutta, and could face a prison sentence.

Police say he snatched a gold necklace worth £550 ($1,100) from a woman as she shopped for toys on Saturday.

When cornered by police, he swallowed the necklace.

The suspect was fed 50 bananas on doctor's advice, after the X-ray dealt a blow to his denials.

But only after a further meal did he yield the necklace, Calcutta police deputy commissioner Gyanwant Singh told AFP news agency.

A sweeper was paid to retrieve the exhibit from the toilet. Mr Mohsin was asked to wash it.

source: BBC South Asia

HOW OUR BRAIN READS.

PASHUPATINATH TEMPLES

There are TWO Pashupatinath temples in the world.One is in Nepal-everyone know this,another,Ashtamukhi Pashupatinath Temple in Madhya Pradesh(Mandsuar District).The Priests of Nepal Pashupatinath Temple were traditionally appointed from the South of Vindhyachal.

The unique feature of this temple is that only four priests can touch the idol. The priests are always from south India. This tradition is supposed to have started by Sage Shankaracharya in sixth century, ostensibly to stop human sacrifice which was prevalent in that temple.

The more official view of Indian priests being stationed at Pashupatinath is because when the King passes away, the entire Nepali people are supposed to stop religious services and enter a year long period of mourning. As the Pashupatinath needs to be eternally worshipped, Indians were brought to make sure that the Pashupatinath is worshipped even at the time of official mourning.

Brahamanism is strictly practiced by them.Eastern Indian Brahmins take Fish/egg in their meals,Nepali Brahmins(not all brahmins) take fish/eggs/mutton for granted.Tamil Nadu Brahmins adher to the Vedas and never shed their sweat to earn.Most of them are educators, priests,engineers and scientists.

As Brahmanism spread to South from the North,purity is maintained now only in the Southern part of India.Flexibility of Hinduism entered into the practice in the North & Eastern parts.

Tamil Language traveled to Sri lanka and Singapore from TamilNadu,now it exists there in its pure original form.

Buddhism originated from India and now retain its charm in the South-Eastern and North-Eastern Asian Countries.

I think you got the moral of this post.Everything looses its charm in its locality!

ANACONDA JOB

What do you think about your job?






Did you compared your job with of these men!

Vanilla-product of an Orchid

RAMAMANGALAM, 35 kilometres from Kochi, is a sleepy village. But here is being scripted a success story, in a quiet, unobtrusive manner. Where vanilla is there is the smell of money. Ramamangalam is today perhaps the only village in the country where vanilla, the aromatic cash crop, is being cultivated in an organised, scientific manner. More interestingly, it was the first village in the country to be chosen as a model village by the Spices Board for cultivating vanilla, way back in 1991. And ever since, the farmers of this remote village have strived to achieve success.
"Initially, there were only 14 farmers when we decided to cultivate vanilla on an experimental basis, this after a lot of persuasion by the Spices Board officials," reveals K.V. Mathai, a retired banker and secretary of All Kerala Association for Vanilla Cultivation and Marketing, Ramamangalam.
In fact, Ramamangalam was chosen as a model village purely by chance. T. K. Kesavan, the then Assistant Director of Spices Board's Muvattupuzha office, was looking for a village to try out this cash crop. As many of his attempts to find a willing group of farmers and a village literally found no takers, Rajesh, one of his subordinates, requested him to approach the villagers of Ramamangalam, a fertile place situated on the banks of the Muvattupuzha river. This he did and was successful to find a group of willing farmers.
Since they began this cultivation nearly 12 years ago, none of them had any sort of basic idea about vanilla. They were armed only with limited information, that provided by the Spices Board officials. But, despite several such impediments, all the 14 farmers were willing to undertake this experiment on their own plots of land. They were blessed with boundless energy and bountiful enthusiasm, which helped them to tides over all sorts of problems in the initial years. The results were truly rewarding and gratifying. It was an affirmation of their belief that Nature never betrayed those who had a genuine concern for it.

Kerala, from time immemorial, has laid out a red carpet to various types of cash crops. And, even though due to many reasons, some of those cash crops have from time to time shattered the dreams of farmers across the State, vanilla has been a success story, at least so far.
Today, this cash crop has brought fortune to the simple villagers of Ramamangalam. This otherwise nondescript village now has almost 500 farmers, the highest in the country, who are fully immersed in this cultivation. The village is also the highest producer and supplier of natural vanilla in India. Of the annual production, which is around 200 tonnes, Ramamangalam's share is a mind-boggling 120 tonnes.
When in 1991, Ramamangalam decided to step into the world of vanilla cultivation, the farmers were quite unsure of its future. The main worrying factor was that they had to wait for long three years for the plant to flower. To top it all, the artificial pollination had to be done by the farmers themselves. Then in 1994, when the first crop was ready, the farmers faced another hurdle. They had no clear idea about the marketing of the crop. This led them to an essence extraction company, at Kadayiruppu, where the authorities, after a lot of persuasion, decided to accept the crop for Rs. 100 per kilogram. But the next year, the company refused to buy the crop, stating that the crop did not command a good price in the international market.
This spurred the farmers to learn how to process raw vanilla bean. They then sold it to traders from Kumily, who in turn packed the dried vanilla bean in single packets and sold it to the foreign tourists who often stopped at Kumily en route to the famous Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary. That year the farmers sold the processed bean to these traders at Rs, 1,600 per kilogram.
Credit for initiating the villagers, who earlier had a bitter experience in dealing with cash crops like rubber and cocoa, should go to the late V.P.Chacko, former president of the Ramamangalam panchayath. Mr. Chacko, a retired schoolteacher, was one of the 14 villagers who volunteered to experiment with this new cash crop.

When the going seemed to be getting a bit complicated by the day, the villagers formed a collective in 1995. Christened the All Kerala Association for Vanilla Cultivation and Marketing, it has today 150 members with representation from across the State. They also bring out a very educative, bilingual booklet on vanilla regularly.
In the beginning the farmers tried this crop in their multiple crop farmlands. Only two hectares of land was earmarked exclusively for vanilla. The success and popularity of this magic crop has forced the farmers to convert nearly 500 hectares, across the country, for this crop. In Kerala alone, Vanilla is grown in 200 hectares of land, with Ramamangalam alone setting apart 75 hectares for vanilla cultivation. Apart from Kerala, many other States like Gujarat, Karnataka,Tamil Nadu and Tripura have also started vanilla farming in a big way.
The future of Vanilla is truly fascinating, since, of the total global consumption only 20 per cent is natural Vanilla and the rest is synthetic. And with the application of Vanilla in clinical treatments like aroma therapy and increased use in confectionary and beverages, the future of vanilla holds good
For the vanilla farmers of Ramamangalam, the big break came in 1996 when AVT McCormick offered to accept raw vanilla bean at Rs. 500 per kilogram. It was a great reward and a morale booster for the villagers who had put their hart and soul into this venture. Today, with the vanilla green bean commanding a steady four-figure price per kilogram, the cash boxes of these enterprising farmers of Ramamangalam have started ringing. And, initially, if the farmers had to approach the buyers with a fervent appeal to accept their yield, today the story has taken a turn-around with all the buyers reaching this remote village twice a week to grab the harvest. In fact, it has the highest concentration of Vanilla farmers in the entire State, perhaps even the country. And for a one-day seminar held recently here more than 500 delegates participated, which was ample proof of the growing enthusiasm among the vanilla farmers.

EVERYONE IS A CROREPATI IN THIS VILLAGE

There’s always been talk of the trickle down effect of India’s economic boom. But few would have reckoned that a trickle gushing into a village near Delhi would have inundated it with crorepatis — more than a thousand of them. Two years ago, Radadhana in Sonepat district, about 50 km northwest of Delhi was a paddy-growing village where bullock carts jostled for space on its dusty tracks. The tracks are still dusty, but now Skodas, Hondas, Endeavours and other SUVs jostle for parking space on them. The homes made of bricks fired at the local kiln are gone, replaced with hurriedly made and often garishly painted three-storey mansions fitted with ACs. Gone are men lolling about in kurta-pyjamas in the off-harvest months. Now sharply dressed people strut around in branded jeans. Seeing the demand jump, store-owners in Sonepat, about 15 minutes away, have let out space for showrooms to well-known clothing brands. What happened isn’t hard to see, although the magnitude of change is mindboggling. Farm-dependent families, even with holdings as large as 10 acres, on an average made a profit of a lakh at the end of each annual paddy season. But then Delhi property prices soared. The zameen here didn’t yield sona, the land itself turned to gold, thanks to the Midas touch of realtors. When developers first approached villagers in early 2005, fat offers started at about Rs 20 lakh per acre. "Money started raining on the village. A person who had never seen a bundle of Rs 1 lakh, suddenly earned Rs 50 lakh," says Suresh Saroha, a government official from this village. Then land prices started galloping and an acre of land went for more than Rs 1.40 crore in Radadhana, which is tucked barely two km off GT Road. "The total land of the village is 2,800 acres of which about 2,000 acres have been acquired by builders at an average rate of Rs 50 lakh per acre. The village has a population of 7,000 grouped in about 1,400 families. Barring some 200 families of backward classes who are landless, every family must have a net worth of over Rs 1 crore," says sarpanch Manoj Saroha, doing a quick back-of-a-postage stamp calculation. What has this windfall done to villagers? "We are yet to come to terms with the effects of this deluge of hard cash," says Sanjay, a man in his mid-thirties. The villagers get VIP treatment at stores in the area. "Radadhana has become a brand name. Wherever we go, we are treated specially. The mere mention of the village’s name is enough to give a jolt to the attendant," he says. (source-Times of India)

ABOUT TEA

The discovery of Tea is as amazing as the consumption of it worldwide.Some believe that it was discovered by the Buddhist monks who traveled in to China to preach Buddhism,they consumed tea decoction to keep them awaken all through the tough journey and preaching.Another story speaks about a Chinese Emperor who accidentally discovered the properties of these leaves when some of it fell in to the boiling waters for his bath(I don't know, why it always falls in to boiling water,like it happened with the discovery of Silk!).Anyway, the Tea Ritual of Japanese is worth considering,elaborate tea ritual for spiritual,physical wellbeing is practised by the japanese.(zen practice.)
Some earn by tasting tea,they are professionals who identify and classify tea as per the taste and flavour.The Tea Tasters Academy in Coonoor in the Nilgiris offers training for new entrants.
imagine sitting in a picturesque place sipping and tasting Tea and be paid for it ,is it not amazing. But it is not as easy as we think..years of experience can only make a Tea taster.

SEVEN WONDERS.

UNESCO is the world authority on these heritage sites.Now some people decided to steal the show.Why should we decide some as seven wonders and leave other heritages as of less importance.I can't understand this! There can be only one Taj Mahal in the world.It is as important to us as the Statue of Liberty is to Americans.We cannot compare one monument with the other.Anyway it was decided and the media published it.These are the seven new world wonders.

1) The Taj Mahal

2) The Great Wall of China

3) The statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro

4) The Incan ruins of Machu Picchu

5) The ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza in Mexico

6) The pink ruins of Petra in Jordan

7) The Coliseum in Rome

SIVAJI-The Boss

TWISTER !

FACE OFF !

SUPER STAR!

FAN TASTIC!

A world without WHEELS

Did you noticed,the important and topmost invention of mankind THE WHEEL is slowly disappearing.Now we can generate elecricity without the wheel using solar panels,LCD panel digital watches can show time without it,without rotating or moving parts we can listen to music nowadays ,hard disk to memory chips,think...! take notice you will find more.But the transportation is solely dependent on wheels until we have slug cars,yes Magnetic Levitation Trains are there!We are about to complete the full circle,wheel less -wheel-wheel less.Till now wheel is the topmost invention in all mechanical applications.Nature itself goes on cycles,from Atom to Universe everything moves on cycles.Indian logic also derived the idea of re-birth/reincarnation from it.Water cycle is a good example from nature.Hello! Iam in need of your comments so that i can improve this blog with more eyeopeners.I am trying to post original materials and photos which are relevant and useful to the readers.

Precious Dzi stones

Centuries ago, Tibetan monks began searching Buddhist symbols from a strongly banded black Onyx/agate stone in the distance of the Himalayas . They firmly believed that the strong positive energy can ONLY be found in Strongly Banded Onyx or Agate stone because they believed that mysterious energy exists in there because they are harder and last longer than rocks which have millions of years of "life" close to "eternity". Stones were shaped when they chanted blessings over them. Magic happened: Patterns emerged while the stone was polished. Circles and swirls appeared as if their praying and blessing rewarded. These stone beads were handed over around the far reach of this isolated country. Legends began to circulate far away from the monasteries who produced them. Locals believed that these amazing "eyes" were thrown down from heaven to give protect to their land and livings, add energy to its owner to keep away from physical disasters and bring GOOD KARMA.