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Where does the Pigeon Post Operate?
Among birds, pigeons have a natural and unerring instinct of returning to their nests or homes after long flights. In the early days besides domesticating animals like the horse, dog and cow, people also bred pigeons to carry messages back and forth. These pigeons are called homing pigeons. Racing pigeons have a life span of 15-20 years. A healthy bird can fly stretches upto 1,000 km. Normally the message is tied around the feet of the pigeon in a plastic capsule to protect the paper....
The Day it Rained Fish
August 12: Last weekend saw some ‘fishy’ happenings across the world. In Britain, for example, it rained fish. The Day it Rained Fish [Illustration by Shiju George] It happened in Great Yarmouth, a fishing port in Norfolk. Residents found a shower of dead but still fresh fish called sprats raining down on them. “I thought at first I might have had something wrong with my eyes. The whole of my backyard seemed to be covered in little slivers,” said a resident to ‘The Times of India’, which carried a report....
India launches the Agni-III missile
Where: Balasore, Orissa, India April 12, 2007: The newspapers have splashed the news across the front page. TV channels have gone ballistic. India today test fired a missile that can reach as far as the Chinese cities of Shanghai and Beijing and most of the region of West Asia. A missile is basically an object or weapon that is fired, thrown, dropped, or otherwise projected at a target. It could be as simple as a rock shot off with a catapult (where the rock is the missile) or a toy car zooming out of a launcher (where the toy car is the missile)....
Precious Boats
July 27: Grooms in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district are singing a different tune these days. They are no more asking for jewels or hard cash. No, they haven’t given up on the dowry. Instead they are demanding for something more practical and useful, a wooden boat. Along with it comes the demand for a bride who can swim, says a report in Hindustan Times. The reason for this lies in the floods that hit this area last year and the people are not taking chances anymore....
Death Threat
March 19: The Olive Ridleys are olive-green coloured sea-turtles that have existed for more than 200 million years. The Gahirmatha beach in Orissa is one of their nesting sites, but unfortunately the fishermen have started catching these turtles for meat to sell in the local market. This has alarmed environmentalists. Nature lover and scientist, BR Ray says that this trend will surely lead to the extinction of the turtles. Thousands of female ridleys travel thousands of kilometres to lay their eggs at Gahirmatha beach....
Flooded by disaster
July 31: Monsoon in Orissa has meant only one thing in the recent past: floods. It’s no different this year. Floods have left 85 lakh people in over 15,000 villages homeless. The official death toll: 80. And one lakh hectare of crops have been submerged. About 5,000 kilometres of roadways, 500 kilometres of the national highways, and piped water supply sources to 61 towns have been submerged, causing widespread chaos and distress. As happens in such situations, water-borne diseases like diarrhoea, malaria and jaundice have affected more than 15,500 people, says a report in...
Orissa Police's Feathered Force is Dying
July 1: The news is that a mysterious disease has killed 35 valuable members of the Orissa’s police service. They are all pigeons. The first of the deaths took place in March in Puri district. Twenty-four more pigeons died soon after, in Cuttack district. They experienced long drowsy spells before dying. The veterinary doctors who examined them said that the mysterious disease could be just the sweltering heat. Pigeons? In this day and age? Yes, Orissa is the only state in India whose police force still employs pigeons as message carriers....
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