Kiran Kuppa's List: Incredible India

This is a 360 degree panaromic view of step well in Abhaneri, Rajasthan. Abhaneri is a village in the Dausa district of Rajasthan state in India. It is situated at a distance of 95 km from Jaipur, on the Jaipur-Agra road. The place is popular for the Chand Baori step well and Harshat Mata Temple.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abhaneri

Poonam Devi (28), who had donated one of her kidneys as part of a "dowry deal" to save the life of her ailing husband, succumbed to her injuries after she allegedly self-immolated herself in Hazaribagh district, the police said today.

"The Kolkata Municipal Corporation's tax waiver for people painting their houses in West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's favourite blue and white colours has raised the hackles of the opposition. The KMC's decision came in a meeting of its mayor-in-council Monday"

As documented in the book "100 Things You're Not Suppose to Know" by Russ Kirk (The Disinformation Company, 2008), there is a disturbing conclusion to the story of the death of Gandhi's wife, Kasturba. Kirk sums up the problem with the following title: "Gandhi refused to let his dying wife take penicillin yet took quinine to save himself."

"On May 5, Jitendra asked Uma to get him breakfast. When Uma posed a deaf ear, Jitendra went inside the kitchen and started cooking, said police.Uma got violent after this and began to attack her husband with whatever she got in hand.

During the scuffle Jitendra's towel fell off down exposing his vital parts. She allegedly grabbed his testicles and bit off his genitals. He somehow managed to escape and reported the matter to police."

Dr. Ashok Khemka is a senior Indian Administrative Service officer in the Indian state of Haryana and best known for honest duty and cancelled the mutation of well known Sonia Gandhi's 'son in law' Robert Vadra's illegal land deal in Gurgaon.The State Government constituted an Inquiry Committee of three senior IAS officers to nail Khemka on the cancellation of Vadra's land deal in village Sikhohpur (Gurgaon). Khemka responded to the report of the Inquiry Committee in his Comments to the State Government which is divided into 8 Chapters. The specific land deal of Robert Vadra is detailed in Chapter 6. Khemka's comments are a brilliant exposition of how crony capitalism works in India is sapping the moral fabric of the nation.

The record will show that Rajiv Gandhi was not a great Prime Minister by any yardstick. He had his high points and his low points. He did try hard in some ways, but history will judge him not as a man who left behind a great legacy, but as someone who squandered the greatest opportunity India provided to any Prime Minister in living memory to take the country to new heights. He left the country in chaos and in self-doubt, and the economy in the dust. Almost exactly as his widow is going to leave it.

"Subhash Mukhopadhyay (Bengali: সুভাষ মুখোপাধ্যায় Shubhash Mukhopaddhae) (16 January 1931 – 19 June 1981) was a physician from Kolkata, India, who created the world's second and India's first child using in-vitro fertilisation, Durga who was born 67 days after the first IVF baby in United Kingdom. Unfortunately, he was harassed by the state government, and not allowed to share his achievements with the international scientific community. Dejected, he committed suicide on 19 June 1981.[2]

His life and death has been the subject of countless newspaper reviews and inspired the Hindi movie Ek Doctor Ki Maut (Death of a doctor), directed by Tapan Sinha"

Neem tree in the middle of railway tracks

"Wedding called off due to chicken biryani" - It happens only in India

Trading of sexual favours by an applicant, apprentice, or subordinate, to a superior, or prospective employer, in return for entry into an occupation, or for career advancement, is a malady existent in every domain. But, there’s a reason the term ‘casting couch’ originated in the motion picture industry.

- See more at: http://www.mid-day.com/articles/exposed-bollywoods-casting-couch---sex-today-film-role-tomorrow/15126061#sthash.5RrP8Xqz.dpuf

"The insects are believed to have chewed their way through notes worth some 10 million rupees ($225,000/£137,000).A similar incident happened in 2008, when termites in Bihar state ate a trader's savings stored in his bank.The State Bank of India says an enquiry into the latest incident has been held."

" His story may sound bizarre - his cousins declared him dead and grabbed his land after he married a Dalit woman, but neither is his case an aberration nor is he the only one fighting to get the word 'dead' erased from their records. In the dustbowls of UP, there are many such men and women who have been robbed of their land - and existence - by scheming relatives who procured their fake 'death certificates" by bribing revenue officials."

Despite being the second-most populous country in the world, India could arguably be considered an underdog at these games. Though India has sent athletes to the Winter Games since 1964, the country of 1.2 billion people has garnered just 26 medals, all at the summer Olympics. The athletes participating this year overcame several hurdles, starting with an almost complete lack of institutional support from the country. For instance, luge competitor Shiva Keshavan lacked a personal trainer and built a luge in his garage because the country didn't have one and didn't supply the means for him to buy one. Still, all these amazing athletes will walk into the Olympic stadium for the opening ceremony on Feb. 7 without a flag

The Jan Lokpal Bill, also referred to as the Citizen's Ombudsman Bill, is an anti-corruption bill drafted and drawn up by civil society activists in India seeking the appointment of a Jan Lokpal, an independent body to investigate corruption cases.[1] This bill also proposes improvements to the Lokpal and Lokayukta Bill 2011, which was to be passed by Lok Sabha in December 2011.
The Rajya Sabha passed the Lokpal Bill on 17 December 2013 and the Lok Sabha passed the Bill on 18 December 2013.

The Jan Lokpal Bill aims to effectively deter corruption , compensate citizen grievances, and protect whistle-blowers. The prefix Jan (translation: citizens) signifies that these improvements include inputs provided by "ordinary citizens" through an activist-driven, non-governmental public consultation.

"RAIGARH: A local court on Tuesday sentenced a priest to two years' rigorous imprisonment for not allowing a Dalit woman to enter a temple in Raigarh district of Chhattisgarh.

District judge Anil Kumar Shukla sentenced priest Raja Pandey (63) to two years of imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 2,000 for prohibiting a Dalit woman, Mayawati Sarathi, to step into the temple at Chatipali village of Baramkela in Raigarh district around four months ago, public prosecutor Panchanan Gupta said"

"For almost 30 years, postman Umakant Mishra was forced to live the life of a pauper. During this time, he lost three children to diseases as he had no money to treat them. He had to sell off his house and agricultural land, and he and his wife worked as labourers to make both ends meet. All because of an allegation of having embezzled Rs57.60 from the post office, a charge which was finally proved wrong, but only 29 years later."

""The kidnapper picked up a small girl in the school van who started crying. I volunteered to be kidnapped instead. He clutched my hand and ran with me towards the forests," Gunjan told reporters at her home in Simaluguri. "

"This is Puttaparthi, a small town in the Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh spread over approximately ten square kilometres. The names of almost all hotels and shops start with ‘Sai.’ Pictures of Sathya Sai Baba are everywhere—on all shop hoardings, on the backs of auto-rickshaws, in lifts and telephone booths and even inside the Puttaparthi police station and the post office. The pictures also carry prominent Sai Baba-isms: ‘Help Ever, Hurt Never,’ ‘Love is God, Live in Love,’ ‘Unity, Purity and Divinity,’ ‘Love All, Serve All,’ and so on. With his benevolent teachings, his emphasis on communal harmony, and his numerous social work projects, Sai Baba seems like Puttaparthi’s own deity."

"Cherrapunji, a town in North-East India, which is known to be the second wettest place on earth, is also known for its living bridges. Here the bridges aren't built but grown. The living bridges are made from the roots of Ficus elastica tree whose secondary roots grow above the ground surface. "