Khatola Tribune

We have it on the authority of Rediff’s Bharti ends tapas, to meet Advani, that

Ending her 39-day tapas in the holy town of Amarkantak, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Uma Bharti on Sunday left for Delhi to meet party president Lal Kishenchand Advani.

Insider sources reveal that after nibbling on a giant platter of Patatas Bravas, Tortilla Espa?ola, Croquetas de Manchego, Champinones al ajillo and Gambas con Gabardina for thirty-nine days at a stretch, the former chief minister was simply bored with Spanish food. She is now planning to meet Mr Advani and demand some servings of Italian antipasti.

She does, however, plan to parlay her Amarkantak ordeal into a book of Tapas Recipes
.

Will this apply to tree-tree marriages and child-dog marriages, frequently reported from Bengal?

West Bengal is handing a gift hamper of contraceptives to every newly wed couple who register their marriage.

State Health Minister Suryakanta Mishra says the incentive scheme would encourage more people, particularly those from the countryside, to register their marriages.

WB offers free condoms for registering marriage
(more…)

Baby prices declined yesterday to a new low of 25 paise in Bengal. This is well below the moving 50-day average of 29.3 paise. Market sources expect firm support at the psychologically important level of 22 paise.

Abject poverty drove a couple in West Bengal to “sell” their toddler son to a neighbour for a symbolic price of 25 paise.

…

Leprosy-stricken Sukumar Mondal and his wife Meera, who have two daughters, were then left with no option but to hand over their one-and-a-half year old son to their relatively better off neighbours Bimal and Swapna Ghosh, reports said.

Couple sells son for 25 paise

In Mohun Bagan: All decline, no remorse, our beloved Times News Service reports on the Calcutta soccer club thusly:

What they are now intently looking for, like a man ravaged by famine desperately waiting for a slice of bread, is one point that will ensure their continuance in the elite National Football League.

These days, Bagan fans resemble an audience watching a Greek tragedy, but unlike a tragic hero, Bagan do not wet eyes in its fall.

An institution that once united a race and largely inspired it to form a nation has now been reduced to a society of people with blinkered vision, perverse ambition and wicked desire, a group of mean men bent only on self-projection leaving the club mired in a wretched game of politics.

…

More than anything else it is the collective indifference, the nonchalance, the oh-did-that-really-happen (?); Very-sad(!); attitude that is most galling. There?s hardly any flutter or cry. Life goes on, as usual.

Hows that for a flutter or a cry? Very sad (!), you say?

In Sex, lies and a holy mess- The Times of India, ToI aims high for a grand expose of fraudulent godmen and their sordid deeds.

For the record, it turns out thus:

Posing as an unmarried woman looking desperately for a groom, this correspondent approached a Virmanibhadra Jyotish.

The sadhu promptly found out a guru dosh in her palm and advised, “Never mind behen (sister), you will get a first class guy, only a small vidhi has to be done. No, you don’t even need to be present. I will do it myself. I can start right from today. All I need is Rs 4, 500.”

And that’s all there is. Really.