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Bizarre Bazaar: 12th Mar 2009
MINGORA, Pakistan
Girls in Pakistan’s Swat Valley can attend school but must wear veils that cover their heads and faces, a top official said after the government pledged to impose Islamic law in the area during much-criticized peace talks with Taliban militants. Taliban fighters in Swat have destroyed scores of girls’ schools in fighting that stretches back more than a year, and at one point declared a ban on female education in the one-time tourist haven. The Swat Taliban and the military agreed last month to an open-ended cease-fire after months of fighting.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka
The carcass of a black tigress has been found in Sri Lanka, a media report said. The Daily Mirror said the carcass was found after it got caught in a poacher’s snare in Deniyaya area, about 200 km from here. The newspaper quoted the Wild Life Department as saying that the black tigress’ length from head to tail was 1.1 meters and its height was 0.61 meters. Black tigers are a very rare species in Sri Lanka.
NEW DELHI, India
Aiming to spice up its election campaign, India’s ruling Congress party has bought the rights to Jai Ho, the Oscar-winning song from Slumdog Millionaire. The world’s largest democracy will hold a general election between April 16 and May 13 in which 714 million people will cast their votes. Congress leaders said the song, whose title is Hindi for ‘Let There be Victory’, will be played during rallies in rural towns, villages and cities. Opposition parties have described the latest Congress move as an election gimmick.
AHMEDABAD, India
A special court has sentenced six teachers to life for raping a 19-year-old student at a government college in north Gujarat last year. The six convicts are Kiran Patel, Ashwin Parmar, Suresh Patel, Manish Parmar, Mahendra Prajapati and Atul Patel. The victim complained to her parents in Patan, about 150 km from here, that she was sexually exploited by the six teachers for several months before she gathered the courage to complain.
PATNA, India
A young Buddhist monk committed suicide in the Mahabodhi temple complex in Bihar’s Bodh Gaya town by hanging himself from a tree. Chatindra, another monk, said: “We were not sure about the reason behind his suicide.” The deceased hailed from Tripura and was studying Pali language in Bodh Gaya, he added. The Mahabodhi temple, declared a World Heritage Site in 2002 by UNESCO, is visited by thousands of tourists annually.
BIHAR, India
In another instance of ‘mob justice’ in Bihar, a group of people in Bhagalpur district chased three suspected criminals and snatched one from a police vehicle and lynched them, officials said. The victims had allegedly robbed a truck driver and demanded extortion from a businessman minutes before they were beaten to death at a rural market. Mob violence in the name of instant justice is becoming common in rural Bihar. Over two dozen cases of lynching were reported from the state over the last four months.
BARWAAN KALA, India
A remote Indian hamlet known as “the village of unmarried people” hopes to change its fortunes by building a new road to attract mates, residents say. The village of Barwaan Kala, located in western Bihar state in the Kaimur Hills, hasn’t seen a marriage in 50 years, the BBC reported. Residents say that’s because the village is so remote, so now more than 100 unmarried villagers are building a new, 3.7-mile road. Some 121 villagers aged between 16 and 80 are bachelors, town elders said. “Even those who have managed to get married have done it surreptitiously by taking temporary shelter in the less remote villages of their relatives,” said Ram Chand Kharwar, a 50-year-old bachelor.
CHENNAI, India
In separate incidents, two Dalits, or members of the so-called Untouchable class, were killed following a dispute over worshipping in a temple in Tamil Nadu, the police said. The victims were identified as K. Paramasivan, 27, and E. Easwaran, 55. The killings took place at Sankarankoil in Tirunelveli district. In both cases, the dispute apparently was over worshipping in a temple belonging to the largely pastoral Konar community.
KATHMANDU, Nepal
With Nepal’s royal palace now open to the public as a national museum, the former queen mother, who lives in her mansion inside the sprawling complex, is now yearning to depart, a report said. Deposed king Gyanendra’s stepmother Ratna Shah, who had been the most powerful woman in Nepal during the reign of three kings, now wants to leave the Narayanhity palace.
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