Fascinating India - 5

Man 'marries' dog to beat curse

An Indian man has "married" a female dog, hoping the move will help atone for stoning two other dogs to death.

P Selvakumar, 33, said he had been cursed since the killings, suffering paralysis and a loss of hearing.

The wedding took place at a Hindu temple in Tamil Nadu state. The "bride" wore an orange sari with a flower garland and was fed a bun to celebrate.

Superstitious people in rural India sometimes organise weddings to animals in the hope of warding off curses.

Crowds cheered the newly-weds at the end of the ceremony in Sivaganga district, about 50km (30 miles) east of the city of Madurai.

The "bride", who is called Selvi, was led to the temple in Manamudurai wearing a sari before vows were exchanged in a traditional Hindu ceremony.


Read the full story on BBC here.

Fascinating India - 4

Never thought I would find two interesting posts for a day!

Excuse me, but there's a Boeing 737 stuck in the middle of the road

Residents of the Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay) are wondering how long it will take to remove a disused Boeing 737 that has been abandoned in a busy road. The decommissioned aircraft was being driven through the city at the weekend when the driver got lost and then abandoned the plane. The Boeing used to belong to the private company Air Sahara.

Some locals are angry that no action is being taken to move the plane. Others say it is a tourist attraction. It appears that after taking a wrong turn, the driver found himself facing a flyover that was too low for him to take the plane under. The driver has not been seen since and no-one is assuming responsibility for the 737.

Read the full story on BBC here.

Fascinating India - 3

Brother, can you spare a bride?

Villagers at a wedding in eastern India decided the groom had arrived too drunk to get married, and so the bride married the groom's more sober brother instead, police said Monday.

"The groom was drunk and had reportedly misbehaved with guests when the bride's family and local villagers chased him away," Madho Singh, a senior police officer told Reuters after Sunday's marriage in village in Bihar state's Arwal district.

Read the full story here.

Fascinating India - 2

Here is the second in the series on 'Fascinating India'.

Killing spree over electricity lines

Fifteen years and 19 murders later, electricity still eludes two villages in the lawless Indian state of Bihar.

People in Koyli and Khutaha in power-scarce Bhagalpur district have been killing each other since 1991 in a bloody war to light up their villages.

In a state where only 10% of the homes have electricity and per capita consumption is a mere 60kwh compared to the Indian average of 354kwh, electricity remains elusive for most people.

The killing spree over power in the two villages began in 1991 when district electricity officials set up a pair of cement electric poles along with a transformer in Koyli.

It was the first time since independence in 1947 that the authorities had woken up to the need of providing electricity to the area.

Incensed villagers in neighbouring Khutaha uprooted the poles and carried them away to their village at night thinking that the move would help them in getting electricity faster.

When the Koyli villagers discovered, they attacked their neighbours.

Read the full story on BBC here.

Fascinating India - 1

From time to time, I come across facinating news articles about life in India. Here is the latest that caught my eye from BBC. I am sure things like this happen in Sri Lanka too, but they rarely get reported.

Stolen oxen case drags on for 33 years

For the past 33 years, Surajnath Yadav, a farmer in the Indian state of Bihar, has been going to the local court as an accused in a case involving the theft of a pair of oxen in his village.

Forty-six-year-old Yadav is the only survivor of five villagers accused of stealing a pair of oxen from a house in Nawada Ben village on 19 June 1973.

He was 13 years old then. Today, he is the father of four children.

The maximum punishment for Yadav's crime is three years in prison.

The other accused - Ramdeo Yadav, Suresh Yadav, Sabha Yadav and Gopal Singh- are all dead.

So are the oxen. So is the investigating officer, Yashwant Singh, the complainant, Ramvriskha Yadav and his son, Vishwanath Yadav.

All this in a state which has a new policy of fast trials - last week a district court completed the trial of a rape case in five hours flat, sending the accused to prison for five years.

Read the full story here:

BBC bias towards LTTE - 2

BBC did it again today. It was widely reported by news media that 13 unarmed Sinhala villegers have been shot dead by LTTE. This is how BBC reported it:

Source: BBC

Sri Lanka rebels 'shoot dead 12'

he Sri Lankan army has accused Tamil Tiger rebels of shooting dead 12 construction workers in the island's restive eastern province.

An army spokesman said the rebels kidnapped 14 workers from the majority Sinhala community on Monday, killing all but two of them.

The rebels have denied any involvement in the incident.

Cont.

What is interesting it the headline BBC has used for the news article. There was a similar incident few weeks back where 13 Tamil civilians were killed under similar circumstances. This is how BBC reported that incident:

Source: BBC

Probe into 'slaughter' of Tamils

Ceasefire monitors in Sri Lanka are investigating the killing of 13 Tamils near the northern town of Jaffna.

A four-year-old boy and a baby were among those shot dead on Saturday night on the navy-controlled island of Kayts.

Cont.

This was followed by few more articles with headlines such as “Sri Lanka Tamil massacre mystery”. Notice the words used in these cases Slaughter and Massacre, where as the recent killing of Sinhalese civilians is a simply ‘shoot dead’.

These cases demonstrate BBC has deviated from being a neutral point of view into a somewhat sympathetic view towards LTTE. Now that LTTE is listed as a terrorist organization within the European Union, I hope BBC will be cautious about these matters in the future.

Is BBC biased towards LTTE?

A group of Sri Lankans demonstrated yesterday in front of BBC headquarters accusing BBC of being sympathetic to LTTE. There are plenty of examples to prove this. Take a look at the following report on BBC Sinhala service which appeared today.

Source: BBC Sinhala

US concerns on LTTE

The US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Camp who is visiting Sri Lanka said in a television interview that the LTTE is very deserving of being added on the list of banned organizations

“We think it will help cut off financial supplies and weapons procurement and the like”,he said.

The US is concerned with the LTTE provocations that threatened the CFA agreement said the assistant secretary of state.

He also said that the LTTE should give up violence if it needs to find a place within a united Sri Lanka.

Cont.…

This news refers to an interview given by the visiting U.S. Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Camp to Rupavahini TV channel. Mr. Camp gave this response to a question asked by Rupavahini as to what his government’s response towards a possible ban of LTTE in the European Union. [A full transcript of the interview is available on the website of the United States embassy in Colombo]. Here is the particular question and the answer Mr. Camp gave:

Rupavahini: What is your government’s position on attempts by the EU to list the LTTE as a terrorist group?

Camp: We have encouraged the EU to list the LTTE. We think the LTTE is very deserving of that label. We think it will help cut off financial supplies and weapons procurement and the like.

BBC Sinhala does not mention anything about the banning of LTTE in European Union. In tries to give the impression that Mr. Camp is talking about the banning of LTTE in the US. [USA has already grouped LTTE as a terrorist organization].

In fact, the first sentence in BBC Sinhala report does not have a full stop. This could be a typo, but I haven’t seen too many of these typos in BBC news articles. Could it be that somebody at BBC who is sympathetic towards LTTE removed the part “in the European Union.” from the sentence and forgot to insert a full stop?

Also notice the much watered-down headline given to the news. Associated Press reported this with the headline “US encourages European Union to ban Tamil Tigers” and BBC’s very own World Service reported this as “US urges EU to ban Tamil rebels”.

Is BBC really impartial in reporting news regarding LTTE? You decide.