Incredible India – 3

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Here’s another instalment of Incredible India featuring some of those only-in-India incredible stories:

* This is weird. Shiv Sena, a political party in Maharashtra, is looking at selling a branded version of the vada paav snack called Shiv Vada Paav.

What next? DMK Idli, AIADMK Pakoda, BJP Bajji, Congress Mysore Pak, BSP Jalebi, Akali Jamun, CPM Rosogolla…Here’s an excerpt from the DNA story:

The Shiv Sena wanted to sell a branded version of the vada paav — made of boiled potatoes dipped in gramflour batter and shallow fried and served between two portions of a bun — at stalls run by the party across Mumbai.

On Nov 24 last year, the Shiv Vada Paav was launched as a trial basis. Two days later, terrorists attacked Mumbai. Over 160 people, including foreigners, were killed in the terror drama that lasted nearly 60 hours.

* Who says our Indian policemen have nothing but encounters (Indian English for murder by policemen) on their mind. A drunk traffic cop in Ahmedabad (yes, in Gandhiji’s state of Gujarat) brought traffic to a standstill and caused traffic chaos the other day. (Thanks to SI reader sumeshy)

* Karunai-illadha-Nidhi is so obsessed with the Sri Lankan Tamil issue that he has now started issuing Final Appeals and making bizarre claims that Sri Lanka is becoming a graveyard of innocent Tamils. Does anyone remember that Indian leader Rajiv Gandhi was killed by these same ‘innocent‘ Sri Lankan Tamils. Yes, Rajiv was blown to pieces by one of these ‘innocent‘ Sri Lanka Tamils in Tamil Nadu.

* Bihar Chief Minister Nithish Kumar is asking the people to fight corruption. We haven’t stopped laughing given that corruption is the lifeblood of Indian society.

* You have a Muslim name? Sorry, even Allah can’t help you in finding a decent flat to stay in Mumbai.

* What happened to the remaining Rs 57-lakh? Yet another story involving our wonderful Indian police. Here’s an excerpt from the TOI story:

Acting on a tip-off, a crime branch team intercepted two vehicles near Variety Square on Thursday and found the passengers travelling with five bags of cash. It took the team nearly five hours to count the notes. Officially police say that it amounted to Rs 1.43 crore. However, reliable sources informed TOI that the occupants had Rs 2 crore with them. The cops have now informed the income-tax about the seizure.

Mera Bharat Mahaan.

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One Response to "Incredible India – 3"

  1. the gora   January 25, 2009 at 10:06 pm

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090125/ap_on_re_as/pharmawater_india

    Hmmmmm… I wonder if the citizens of India believe in change because of Obama because it doesn’t sound like this is about to change any time soon.

    SearchIndia.com Responds:

    Sad. Where is Erin Brockovich when you need her?

    For the lazybones, here’s an excerpt from above AP story:

    PATANCHERU, India – When researchers analyzed vials of treated wastewater taken from a plant where about 90 Indian drug factories dump their residues, they were shocked. Enough of a single, powerful antibiotic was being spewed into one stream each day to treat every person in a city of 90,000.

    And it wasn’t just ciprofloxacin being detected. The supposedly cleaned water was a floating medicine cabinet — a soup of 21 different active pharmaceutical ingredients, used in generics for treatment of hypertension, heart disease, chronic liver ailments, depression, gonorrhea, ulcers and other ailments. Half of the drugs measured at the highest levels of pharmaceuticals ever detected in the environment, researchers say.

    Those Indian factories produce drugs for much of the world, including many Americans. The result: Some of India’s poor are unwittingly consuming an array of chemicals that may be harmful, and could lead to the proliferation of drug-resistant bacteria.

    “If you take a bath there, then you have all the antibiotics you need for treatment,” said chemist Klaus Kuemmerer at the University of Freiburg Medical Center in Germany, an expert on drug resistance in the environment who did not participate in the research. “If you just swallow a few gasps of water, you’re treated for everything. The question is for how long?”

    ….Patancheru became a hub for largely unregulated chemical and drug factories in the 1980s, creating what one local newspaper has termed an “ecological sacrifice zone” with its waste. Since then, India has become one of the world’s leading exporters of pharmaceuticals, and the U.S. — which spent $1.4 billion on Indian-made drugs in 2007 — is its largest customer.

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