A rare white lion has made an appearance in an enclosure at a Hertfordshire wildlife park. The female cub was born at Paradise Wildlife Park near Broxbourne to parents Kya and Moto in late January. First-time father, Moto, was rejected by his own pride before coming to the park, the wildlife park said. Director Lynn Whitnall said: “We are at an early stage in her development but she is feeding […]

In Pic :Pattycake in an undated photograph. She was once celebrated as “the Shirley Temple of the animal world.” She was so popular that she became the subject of a custody battle between two competing zoos. When she suffered a broken arm, rapt New Yorkers followed every twist and turn of her convalescence. Her name was Pattycake, and she was the first gorilla born in New York City. She died […]

In Pic :An aerial view of fairy circles — mysterious circular bare spots that new research suggests are created by termites. Have you heard the one about the little termite that could, and did, take on a desert and turn it green? At least a little greener, except for those spots. The reddish barren spots, thousands of them, are called fairy circles, the name itself an invitation to try to […]

South Korean tanks took part in drills northeast of the capital on Wednesday. North Korea has broadcast a barrage of threats and invective as military exercises proceeded in the South. SEOUL—North Korea said it was severing a military hot line with South Korea and showered invective on Seoul’s new leader, even as Seoul pursued plans to improve relations with the North, including the resumption of reunions of families separated by […]

Sahara investor Surendra Kumar Jaiswal, at his shoe-buckle workshop in Baiganwadi slum in central Mumbai. In the narrow lanes of Baiganwadi, a slum in central Mumbai, it’s hard to spot the local office of India’s multi-billion-dollar Sahara Group, which owns hotels in New York and London, and a Formula 1 racing team. Sahara’s one-room Baiganwadi office, just a few kilometers from a municipal garbage dump, is located on top of […]

“Come near Chandrayangutta bridge. Thoda baata karne ka hai (We need to talk to you),” ordered the voice in Hyderabadi Urdu on Sunday morning The man who identified himself as an officer from Hyderabad police’s East Zone was in fact calling Dr Ibrahim Ali Junaid from Mohammed Rayeesuddin’s phone. Rayeesuddin had been called for questioning and the police wanted to quiz Junaid as well. When Junaid told the officer he […]

For the first time, a Muslim woman has become the head of a wing other than the women’s wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party in UP. Among the new office-bearers, whose names were announced on Saturday, Rumana Siddiqui, a housewife, is president of the minority wing of the party. Except the women’s wing, which is always headed by a woman, the BJP has never had a woman heading any of […]

BrahMos Aerospace, an Indo-Russian joint venture, has initiated efforts to develop technology for hypersonic version of the BrahMos missile which can travel at five to seven times the speed of sound, a top company official has said. “The company is roping in academics to develop there quisite technology before going in for designing and developing missiles which can travel at Mach 5 to 7 (five to seven times the speed […]

6 MARCH 2012, the day before Holi, I was on way to my uncle’s place in Dwarka, New Delhi, aboard a DTC bus. After a few stops the flying squad stopped the bus and started checking passengers for tickets. Suddenly, a senior citizen raised his voice, asking the squad to allow the bus to move while they checked the tickets. “By stopping the bus, many of us are getting late”, he […]

PRESUMING THE UPA government gives in to the demand for a separate Telangana state, three issues will merit pondering. First, the creation of India’s 29th state would follow a Congress assessment that it could persuade the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) into an alliance in the 2014 General Election. Second, the impact of an individual — or rather of his sudden death and absence — would have had astonishing and far-reaching consequences. […]