By Aeman Nishat / Hyderabad
Laughter is really not the best medicine, especially for animals—at least according to the Andhra Pradesh Forest Department, which has ordered a laughter club evicted from a national park, reasoning that it disturbs animals.
The KBR Haasya Yoga Club meets daily at KBR National Park, a piece of lush forest in the heart of Hyderabad. Recently, they were told to take their laughter out of the park. Forest officials told them that the loud sounds were scaring away birds and animals. Members of the club were not amused and have contested the ban as an infringement of their fundamental rights.
By Kareem Kutty / Kozikode
Kerala CPI state secretary Pannian Raveendran maintains his mane for political gain. If you discount film actors and popular artistes, then the most famous hair in Kerala belongs to Pannian Raveendran. This is something of an anomaly because Pannian is a politician.
A former Member of Parliament and current state secretary of the Communist Party of India, Pannian’s long flowing hair goes all the way past his shoulders.
By Rizwan Khasmi / Delhi
The culture of pigeon-racing in Old Delhi is a remnant of a Mughal era practice. The winding lanes of Chitli Qabar, near Jama Masjid in old Delhi, might be crowded but it is not hard to find 30-year-old Mateen Qureshi, even without an address or telephone number. He runs a 55-year-old sweet shop known as Shireen Bhawan. This is the only known shop in the capital that serves aloe vera halwa, but only in winter. He is also one of the few pigeon rearers, known as kabootarbaaz, in Old Delhi and owns the largest collection of pigeons in the area.
By Khaja Pasha / Bangalore
Saalumarada Thimmakka, 101, has planted 1,000 trees along a 3 km stretch of road. Turning off the four-lane Bangalore-Hassan highway, built after axing thousands of trees, you reach Kudoor, a small town 40 km from Bangalore. From Kudoor to Hulikal is a 3 km distance traversed under a canopy of tall trees. The trees, mostly banyan, rise from both sides of the asphalt road to form an arc, as if in salute to the old lady who planted and nurtured them. The woman in question, celebrated environmentalist Saalumarada Thimmakka, lives in a house painted green at the end of the stretch. ‘Saalumarada’ is an honorific in Kannada. It means ‘one who planted rows of trees’.
By Paagal Patrkaar / Delhi
Accounts and HR managers from various companies have agreed to make a major policy change that follows from the the observed practice of office romance and flirting.
“We realize that many young men, sometimes old men too, whom we hire, tend to treat the office as a dating zone. They eventually save membership fee that online dating or matrimony websites charge,” a senior accounts manager explained.
By Sarah Williams / New York
For a while, New York City was trying to make the world a better place by forcing us to take better care of ourselves - like decreasing soda consumption. Now the city is forcing us to take better care of each other, by forcing companies to give paid sick leave. The problem is that the sick leave policy is a trap for everyone -- employers look bad for having their hand forced, and employees look bad if they take advantage of the new policy.
By Pratap Bhanu Mehta (Guest Writer)
Disaster exposes ways in which our social self-knowledge has not kept pace. Whatever one's views on the myth that moving the Dhari Devi idol unleashed nature's fury on Kedarnath, the story is a perfect metaphor for the faultlines the tragedy in Uttarakhand exposes. According to one version of the myth, the idol is in two parts, the head located at Dhari Devi and the base at Kalimath. For the devout, the important thing is that the head and the base need to be aligned on a particular axis, with the head and feet matching directionally.
From CJ Rashmi Kalia in Chandigarh
It’s monsoon time in India and while the showers of the monsoon are a welcome relief from the sweltering heat, the season is also associated with hordes of diseases that one needs to protect oneself against. It is a well known medical fact that monsoons reduce the immunity of our body and make us susceptible to infections.
The common diseases that are associated with the monsoon season are malaria, dengue, gastro intestinal infections and eye flue. Viral infections such as cold and cough also abound in the monsoon season. It is necessary that we boost our immunity with a well supplemented diet and take the necessary precautions against the diseases prevalent during monsoons.
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