ABRACADABRA

Rs 2 crore worth study - US to tell how India can improve its politicians

Washington: The US is funding a study-worth more than Rs 2 crores – on how local politicians in India can improve as elected officials through better communications, which a key American Senator has determined as a waste of taxpayers’ money, PTI reports.
"With record-low approval ratings for US lawmakers, it is unclear why taxpayers are paying for this type of project in another country", says the report "Wastebook 2011: A Guide to Some of the Most Wasteful and Low Priority Government Spending of 2011," released by the Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn.
In April last year, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded USD 425,642 to research the effects of providing information to citizens on the performance record of local lawmakers.
The investigators will follow citizens and officials in Delhi for two years, seeking to measure how much of an impact the dissemination of information among the citizens has on the decisions and performance of local officials.
"It is unclear, however, why India, one of largest nations in the world, would be interested in taking instructions from the US on how to improve its political culture," the report said.
India is the world’s fifth-largest economy, and is accumulating wealth at one the fastest rates in the world.
Some reports estimate India’s economy will overtake the US by mid-century.
"It is also unclear why the US is paying for research on a country that owns USD 40 billion of our national debt, making them one of the major foreign holders of US Treasury securities," it said.
"Strangely, India is also a significant beneficiary of US foreign aid, receiving over USD 126 million in health, economic, and security assistance last year," it said.
The report has listed some 100 such wasteful expenditures by the US Government. This project of the NSF on India is ranked 80.
"This report details 100 of the countless unnecessary, duplicative, or just plain stupid projects spread throughout the federal government and paid for with your tax dollars this year that highlight the out-of control and shortsighted spending excesses in Washington," Coburn said.

Pen works despite being in woman’s stomach for 25 years!

London: It seems the pen is mightier than the stomach also. A woman who swallowed a pen 25-years-ago has it removed – and it still works. In fact, the surprising find only came to light after the woman, now 76, visited her doctor suffering from weight loss and diarrhoea. An urgent investigation revealed areas of her large intestine had become inflamed, which was causing the abdominal pain. Doctors at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital Foundation Trust then took a CT scan of her abdomen where they were amazed to find a "linear object" that looked much like a pen, the ‘Daily Mail’ reported. When questioned, the patient remembered that 25 years before she had used a felt-tip pen to poke her tonsils while looking at them in a mirror. However, she had then fallen forward off a step and swallowed the pen by accident. The doctors performed a gastroscopy, which confirmed there was a plastic felt-tip pen sitting in the lumen of the women’s stomach, it hadn’t caused her any gastric damage, the ‘Daily Mail’ reported. The medical team decided that they should remove the pen as there was a small risk it could perforate her stomach lining. It was removed under general anesthetic and amazingly the doctors found the pen was still in working order. Reporting the case in the ‘British Medical Journal’ Case Reports, the team led by Dr Oliver Waters, concluded: "Occasionally it may be worth believing the patient’s account however unlikely it may be."

Yoga, work of the devil: Gabriel Gaffe

London: The ancient Indian practice of Yoga that helps in attaining physical and spiritual discipline has been termed a "work of the devil" by a top Vatican priest.
Vatican’s 85-year-old chief exorcist Gabriel Amorth also warned of Satanic influences in the Harry Potter books, The Sun reported.
The priest, who has carried out over 70,000 exorcisms in 25 years, said: "Both seem innocuous but they deal with magic and that leads to evil."
"Yoga is the devil’s work. You think you are doing it to stretch your mind and body. But it leads to oriental religions based on the false belief of reincarnation," he said.
"In Harry Potter, the devil uses his powers of magic and evil," Amorth said at a conference in Terni, Italy.
The Italian Yoga Association termed his claims "outrageous". "Yoga is not a religion but a spiritual discipline," it said.

British kids will get failed teachers

London: Hundreds of new schoolteachers in Britain are going to teach pupils in their classrooms despite having struggled themselves up to 39 attempts to clear even basic literacy and numeracy tests. Trainee teachers are required to pass the online tests to qualify for their chosen profession. But many of them are joining schools despite having repeatedly failed straightforward online tests of their basic skills, the ‘Daily Mail’ reported.
Eight percent of the candidates needed to take three or more re-sits before they passed the literacy test, a number that increases to 10 percent for the numeracy test. According to figures released by the department of education, some teachers took more than 10 attempts before finally passing. One teacher sat the literacy test a total of 36 times before finally passing, while another candidate had 39 attempts at the numeracy test, it has been revealed.