Times of India headlines
And now, a recurring Doug’s World tradition, selected excerpts from the Times of India. The TOI is the world’s largest-circulation English-language newspaper, and sets the global standard for colorful and sophisticated use of the English language. These are from the February 5, 2007 New Delhi edition that was delivered to my room at the Taj Mahal Hotel on Monday morning.
First, a few selected headlines:
- Body found near Regal
- Two crushed to death in separate cases
- Relief in sight for illegal areas
- Fluency, flair will push scores up; Keeping Answer Short, Grasp Over Spellings Fetch Good Marks In English Exam
- Roots of responsibility; Whatever you do, let a part of your being be conscious of your feet, says Swami Sukhabodhananda
- Dutch gym plans exercising in the buff
- Morning-after pill a hit with women: REPORT
- Spar over status of Dalit Muslims, Christians
- Bacteria can give jeans the right ‘fade’
And a few stories I found interesting …
IGI thief returns a few documents. Today’s lead story covered a surprising development in the sad case of Sushil Kumar Rao, who had been robbed of his passport and the passports of his sons, as well as $6000 cash and other posessions, when they arrived at Indira Gandhi International Airport, planning to relocate to Oklahoma. The thief had returned the sons’s passports and a few photos and other memorabilia in 17 postage-due envelopes (900 rupees due), but kept the cash and Sushil’s passport with its valuable visa. “The probe is on as the culprit is yet to be apprehended,” said a senior police official.
LIC ex-chief pulled up for denying claim. The story of an insurance executive who has been fined 50,000 rupees (about $1200) for “unjust repudiation of the claim of a consumer whose policy was revived after he met with an accident and battled for life for almost one year after the incident.” As the State Consumer Commission said in its findings, “We do not know what kind of officers are manning these institutions. To become overzealous and to suffer from the disease of self-aggrandisement and to derive sadistict pleasure in the miseries of consumers on whose money they are surviving and thriving is abominable.”
This story was tucked in the lower left corner of page 1, in its own tiny font (giving it the appearance of an advertisement):
Mahapanchayat on stolen idols: Angry over cops’ failure to recover 10 idols stolen from a Jain temple, a community organisation on Sunday said it would hold a mahapanchayat on February 11 to discuss the matter and also continue the hunger strike. The asthadhatu idols were stolen from a Digambur Jain Mandir in Jacobpura on January 26.
71% say they’re proud to be Indians; But Are Worried About Caste as Barrier to Growth, According To A BBC Poll. Near the end of this story, we find that “47% said corruption is a fact of life which we should accept as the price of doing business.”
On a related note, I visited several federal government buildings in over the last few days, and every one of them had a large sign above the reception desk that said PLEASE DO NOT PAY BRIBES. I guess that’s the idealistic 53% majority talking.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 6th, 2007 at 4:35 am. You can subscribe to comments on this post through its RSS feed.
on February 6, 2007 at 1:42 pm Tom wrote:
Welcome home! Are you all jetlaggy still?
Holding a mahapanchayat (which, as far as I can gather from surfing the Internets, is a meeting or round-table discussion) about stolen idols is nice, but don’t you think they should be out looking for Americans with leather jackets and bullwhips? Once you have an infestation of archaeologists, you’ll NEVER get rid of them. Like mice or love handles.
on February 6, 2007 at 6:10 pm Doug wrote:
Or be on the lookout for Sikhs with knives. Here’s a sign I saw at Indira Gandhi International Airport last night, outside the security area: NO KNIVES ALLOWED OF ANY KIND, EXCEPT KRIPAN FOR SIKH CUSTOMERS WITH UP TO 6″ BLADE AND 3″ HANDLE ON DOMESTIC FLIGHTS.
Yes, extreme jet lag right now. I’m at work, it’s 7:30AM Wednesday in Delhi right now, and I was last in a bed about 50 hours ago. Zzzzz … thankfully Megan is going to drive home.
on February 6, 2007 at 9:00 pm Tom wrote:
Why am I a member of such a dumb, wimpy culture? How is it that there is simply no excuse for me to carry a bigass knife on a plane? I’m an American, for God’s sake — shouldn’t I have the same travel rights as a traditional sword-wielding Sikh man? There must be some kind of religious thing we can fall back on to make this God-given right available to us again.
I’m appalled. I feel wholly unrepresented, given this description of what Sikh guys get to do. I can’t wait until Bush 43 gets around to defending my right to carry a ceremonial sword on a plane again. Right after my right to take back my tax dollars from the ill, the bastards. Let’s not distract him.
By the way, I still have the comb and sword you brought back for me from Amritsar when you went the first time. That was well before 9/11, but did you ship that back? I can’t imagine you’d been able to get that on a plane, even then. It’s small and dull (I swear, I don’t even try to use it anymore on infidels), but it would certainly ground a plane now.
on February 7, 2007 at 8:45 am Doug wrote:
I just remember, reading your comment, about something a guy I knew in Chicago said long ago, pre-911, about airline security. This guy (from Chicago Data) was really into handguns and sort of scary, and he felt that there should be no restrictions on carry weapons on planes, and then thay way anyone who tried to hijack one would have to deal with the possibility that there are a bunch of people with handguns around.
I wonder if the kripan thing has a similar effect. It’s hard to imagine somebody trying to hijack a plane with a box-cutter when every turban on the plane (and there are lots of those on Indian domestic flights) might have a 6″ blade under it.