World record wash-off: India versus South Africa
The World Health Organization launched their second annual Global Handwashing Day on October 15, 2009. The purpose of the two events was to break current world record holder, Bhiddwa School Niketon of Dhaka, Bangladesh, with 1,213 participants.
South Africa broke the current record with 1,802 Gauteng school-children participants with help from rugby hero Bryan Habana.
But it was India that demolished the current record holder with an amazing 15,000 students from 23 schools in Chennai. The handwashing celebration was held in Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. Students had mixed feelings about the event saying, “Our teachers insisted that we came, otherwise we would not have bothered about this” and, “we knew that we are going to be part of a record-setting event. Despite being a bit tired, we find it great to be here.”
Congratulations, India.
India: 400 pilots out with food poisoning on same day (not); 20,000 passengers stranded
If the president of the newly formed Jet Airways pilots' union is to be believed, the reason for some 400 of its members falling "sick" Tuesday, perhaps, was food poisoning.
"We are not on strike. This is an individual decision by each pilot," said Girish Kaushik, president of the National Aviators Guild, after member pilots reported sick and inconvenienced some 20,
Asked if it was not too much of a coincidence that so many pilots reported sick at the same time, Kaushik told IANS,
"We could all have had food poisoning. That's why we all could have become ill."
The civil aviation ministry has taken strong exception to what it calls a "wildcat" strike.
India: Red hot chillis to be used in hand grenades
India's security forces are planning to mix one of the world's hottest chilli powders in hand grenades to control riots and during insurgency operations in the remote northeast.
India's defense scientists say they will replace explosives in small hand grenades with a certain variety of red chilli to immobilize a person without killing him.
Scientists said the chilli found in the country's northeast generates so much heat it was enough to startle a person for a while when used as a weapon.
The bhut jolokia chilli is said to generate 1,000,000 heat units on the Scoville scale -- a measure of hotness -- at least a thousand times more than a common kitchen chilli.
The Scoville scale was named after American scientist Wilbur Scoville, the first to measure the heat component in chillies.
India to launch cow urine as soft drink
India's Hindu nationalist movement is preparing to market a new soft drink made from cow urine.
Om Prakash, the head of the Cow Protection Department of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), India's biggest and oldest Hindu nationalist group, said the drink – called "gau jal", or "cow water" – in Sanskrit was undergoing laboratory tests and would be launched "very soon, maybe by the end of this year".
"Don't worry, it won't smell like urine and will be tasty too."
In 2001, the RSS and its offshoots began promoting cow urine as a cure for ailments ranging from liver disease to obesity and even cancer.
Paan can carry Salmonella
A study by researchers at the National Salmonella Centre at the Indian Veterinary Research Institute in Uttar Pradesh's Izatnagar, found salmonella in Paan as well as betel leaves.Sandeep Budhiraja, head of the department of internal medicine said,
"It is not surprising if it is found in Paan, as the shopkeepers keep the betel leaves soaked for long hours in water that may be infected."
Rajan Gupta, MD pathology, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, said,
"This disease is not acquired because of lack of personal hygiene but because of contamination via food or water. In India, when people go out to eat in a restaurant they drink mineral water but they never think of cleanliness when it comes to Paan."If everybody makes sure that what they eat is prepared in a clean place with pure hands and water then it can be easily avoided. It is best to make a Paan at home."
