Rants of a nerd
Weird News
Twenty five men suffer from ‘retracting’ genitalia
01 year ago
by siva
in Weird News
It does not get weirder than this
Several labourers living in a work camp near Aarey Colony in Goregaon have been spending sleepless nights since Saturday after they found that the size of their genitals have been gradually reducing and getting inside the lower abdomen (Koro: see box). The panicked sit in a bathtub and family members pour water on them to cure them.
House of horror
01 year ago
by siva
in Weird News
A tantrik, his wife and five disciples have been arrested in Bhilai, Chhattisgarh, for sacrificing a two-year-old boy in the belief that it would bring them wealth, police said on Thursday, adding this may not be the first such killing by him.
Clubbed to death
01 year ago
by siva
in Weird News
A twice-divorced boutique owner and mother of three clobbered her live-in partner, six years her junior, to death after he objected to her relations with another man.
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Sources said the body lay at her residence for 24 hours even as she went about cleaning the room and destroying evidence. Shehnaz contacted her brothers in the morning and the body was moved to sector 26 by the three accused on the night of October 6 and disposed of in a nearby tank.
Indian tea tastes different due to climate change
01 year ago
by siva
in Weird News
What can climate change not do?
The numbers are stark. Assam produced 564,000 tons of tea in 2007, slipping to 487,000 tons in 2009. The 2010 crop was estimated to be about 460,000 tons, said Dhiraj Kakaty, who heads the Assam Branch Indian Tea Association, an umbrella group of some 400 tea plantations..
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But even more disturbing for growers is the change in the brew’s taste. They want the government to fund scientific studies to examine the flavor fallout from climate change.
Wish they could be rat catchers too
11 year ago
by siva
in Weird News
The Associated Press helpfully tells us the story of India’s rat catchers. The headline is from this line in the story: “Sheikh’s father is also a rat catcher. His brothers sell vegetables from a cart and wish they could be rat catchers too.” These guys are envied for their steady pay check, which can amount to Rs. 12,000 per month if they meet their quota! That is (the article says) just a little less than what a bus driver or call centre worker makes. Fascinating, if a little morbid reading. It also shows how much further we need to progress as a country.
The competition for rat catcher jobs in Mumbai is stiff. Only men aged 18 to 30 need apply. They must be able to lift a 50 kilogram (110 pound) sack and run a few kilometers (miles). They must demonstrate their ability to catch and kill a rat in the dark within ten minutes.
Each rat catcher must kill 30 rats a night, six nights a week. If he doesn’t make the quota, he doesn’t get paid.
Arun Bamne of the city’s insecticide department, which oversees the rat-catching, says people badly need jobs. The last time the city recruited, he said, over 4,000 people — some with university degrees — applied for 33 rat catcher positions.
Joining the war on rats does not lead, with time and diligence, to a desk job in a fan-cooled administrative office. After half a dozen years, a man might be moved to the day shift, laying traps and setting poison bait. But there is little else to look forward to.