The small village in Uttar Pradesh has the potential to run the administrative affairs of the entire country, quite literally! Madhopatti village in Jaunpur district which as 75 households has an astounding 47 IAS officers. The village also holds a unique record of four siblings being selected for IAS. Vinay Kumar Singh, who cracked civil service in 1955 form retired as chief secretary of Bihar.His two siblings, Chatrapal Singh and […]

Travel: How a trip to Dharali changed my life For many months, the following words of Zen Master Eihei Dogen had been reverberating intermittently in my ears: ‘From time immemorial, the mountains have been the dwelling place of all the great sages. Wise ones and sages have all made the mountains their own chambers, their own body and mind, and through these wise ones and sages, the mountains have been […]

45 whales have died after they were washed up off the coast of Tamil Nadu Rescuers and local fishermen have been trying to save the whales As many as 80 short-finned pilot whales have been stranded near Tiruchendur beach since last night   At least 45 whales have died after mysteriously being washed up on to a beach off the coast of Tamil Nadu, India. Officials have confirmed that as […]

For those of you who’re from the wonderful ‘City of Joy’ called Kolkata, you’ll relate to this post more than who’ve not been to Kolkata. If you belong to the later community, you’re missing out on a lot of good food. And when we say GOOD FOOD, we mean GOOD FOOD! An outsider can tell you the posh places to go when in Kolkata, but if you want to taste […]

The spectacular Nelong Valley – a cold desert like area – tucked in the Uttarakhand Himalayas, close to the Indo-China border, was opened to tourists earlier this year after 53 years of remaining out of bounds post the 1962 War. While the state government opened it with much enthusiasm in May, it failed to promote the destination as a result less than 200 tourists visited the valley in the last […]

A giant gold-painted statue of China’s Communist Party founder Chairman Mao Zedong has been suddenly demolished, apparently for lacking government approval, days after his supporters installed it at a cost of whopping $460,000. While the 37-meter statue made up of concrete and steel was installed in Tongxu county near Kaifeng in Henan province with high-profile publicity both at home and abroad, Mao’s supports lamented the decline of his hardline ideology. […]

Despite North Korea’s claim of successfully carrying out its first Hydrogen Bomb explosion, world powers including the US are yet to buy the claim in its entirety. Many believe that Pyongyang doesn’t have the technology to make a H-bomb. A hydrogen bomb also called a ‘thermonuclear bomb’ is highly sophisticated and more powerful than the conventional nuclear bomb. It uses energy from a primary nuclear fission reaction to ignite a […]

The video of an 800-year-old object that appears to resemble a mobile phone, and discovered by archaeologists during a dig in Austria, has gone up viral on social media. The object is believed to be a clay copy of the mobile phone with a Sumerian writing style on its keys. Sumerian was an ancient language spoken in around 2000 BC but was forgotten by the 19th century. On the other […]

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind. Yes, it’s that time of year again already—when people start asking you what you’ll be doing on New Year’s Eve with the expectation that you’ll be having the night of the year. These are some of the world’s biggest parties to give you an idea of what to do—or at least of what to say you’ll be doing. New York’s […]

Images of a squid about 12-feet-long were the ultimate prize for onlookers in Japan’s Toyama Bay on Christmas Eve. It is believed the giant squid can grow as long as 43 feet. As per CNN, Akinobu Kimura, owner of Diving Shop Kaiyu succeeded in taking the first photographs of the giant beast by diving quickly. Discovery Channel with the help of a team from Japan’s National Science Museum, released first […]