Staff correspondent, NewsCrunch

A family was shocked to find an entangled mass of snakes in their backyard on Wednesday. 

Manjunath Tailor and his family members in Puttur, South India, spotted several snakes bundled together with several more hovering around in the vicinity. 

As the terrified family raised an alarm, a crowd quickly gathered at the spot and many suggested that the snakes be killed to ensure they did not harm anyone.

Manjunath called Gururaj Sanil, a snake conservationist, to tackle the situation. 

After examining the snakes, Gururaj Sanil told the family not to worry. He advised them not to interfere with the snakes saying they were just in the middle of a mating ritual and would go away on their own. 

He identified the snakes as buff striped keel backs, which are non-venomous, and usually live close to human habitats. 

During the mating season, between March and November, female striped keel backs secrete a pheromone, which draws suitors, who tussle to mate with her forming a ‘ball’. 

Gururaj Sanil, who filmed the ‘mating ball’ in Puttur, said, “About four snakes competed in the mating ritual which lasted for nearly three hours. Seven to eight more snakes were seen in the vicinity.”

The female later lays 8 to 10 eggs, which may take up to 45 days to hatch depending on the temperature of the area. 

Gururaj Sanil, author of 6 books on snakes, says these snakes are harmless and people who spot them should leave them alone. 

Staff correspondent, NewsCrunch

The front wheel of a running bus came loose and took off in its own direction in Bangalore recently. 

Twenty five passengers of the bus, which was heading from Peenya to Kempegowda Bus Stand, had a lucky escape as the driver managed to slam brakes and stop the bus immediately. 

The bus is owned and managed by the government-owned public transport agency, Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC). 

CCTV cameras of a factory in the vicinity shows the front-right tyre getting detached and rolling into its campus as shocked onlookers watch.

Though the incident occurred at 9.16 am on August 26 it has come to light now. 

None of the bus passengers and staff were injured in the mishap. As it was a Saturday morning, there was not much traffic on the road as well. 

BMTC Chief mechanical engineer Ganganna Gowda B C told Deccan Herald that the bearing box of the right front wheel had been worn out and blamed the mishap on negligence in regular maintenance work. 

“It is a serious issue as it could have been disastrous had the road been crowded,” he said.

Staff correspondent, NewsCrunch

A 17-hour marathon rescue effort pulled out a chained elephant from a swamp where it had got trapped while trying to escape captivity.

The 45-year-old elephant, Mullackal Balakrishnan or Bala for short, had broken through barricades and jumped from a truck, which was carrying it in Kerala.   

But after fleeing for 6 kilometres, Bala ran into a waterlogged area and got stranded in a marsh. 

A rescue team of 200 people managed to pull out the elephant after a prolonged operation. 

They emptied the water from the swamp, tied ropes to Bala and pulled it up.

The starving and exhausted animal, which was losing conscious, was rescued in the nick of time. A team of veterinary doctors injected glucose through the day to save its life. 

Bala, owned by Travancore Devaswom Board, was being transported to Mullakkal from Thrikkakara  temple where it had been taken to attend a local festival.

The driver of the lorry stopped to have tea at 4 am on Tuesday when  Bala used the opportunity to make a dash for its freedom. It broke through the barricade,  jumped down the truck and fled. 

Sreekumar Gopi, assistant mahout, told The Times of India that the elephant had been secured with a rope and four iron rods. “Its legs were chained. But the chain was not interconnected with legs,” he said. 

Around 5 am, pursued by its captors, the fleeing elephant ran into a marshy land and got trapped in it. 

Reports of captive elephants, which are usually illtreated,  fleeing for their freedom frequently surface from Kerala. 

In early August, a 35-year-old elephant Dhruvan fell into a well while trying to flee captivity, and met with a slow and agonising death.

Animal welfare activist Rajeev N Kurup estimates that 16 captive elephants have died in in Kerala this year alone.

Staff correspondent, NewsCrunch

A poor farmer in rural Maharashtra has built an unlikely friendship with a wild cat fish whose life he saved a year ago. 

Prakash Patil, 54, visits a local pond in his village Yede Machindra in Sangli district everyday and calls out for the fish. Amazingly, the fish surfaces, swims close, even lets him pull it out of water. 

Patil calls the fish ‘Narayana,’ another name for popular Hindu deity Lord Vishnu. 

He recalls that the unlikely friendship started on 14 July, 2016, on the eve of ‘Ashada Ekadashi,’ an auspicious day in the Hindu calendar. 

A neighbouring farmer in his village told Patil that a fish had washed up into his farm  along with the water released from a canal, and asked him to take it away. The neighbour, a vegetarian, thought Patil would take the fish home and eat it. 

Patil found the fish, which was stranded in a puddle of water, alive but inert. He carried it home in a plastic container with water and was amazed to see it reviving. He then shifted it to a water tank and fed it for over a month. 

As the fish grew in size and turned very active, he released it in the local pond. 

A few days later, he started noticing the fish again in the pond. It would draw close to the bank whenever he approached and once even jumped into a bucket he was using to draw water. 

The fish and the man started spending more time with each other and it gradually grew confident enough to allow him to touch it and even lift it out of water. 

Patil, a devout Hindu, thinks that fish represents a form of Lord Vishnu. 

According to Hindu scriptures, Lord Vishnu took 10 mortal forms to battle evil on earth and one of them was as a giant fish. 

Patil said, “This fish is divine and it is a blessing that it comes to me everyday.” 

Over the last months, he has visiting the pond everyday, calling out for ‘Narayana,’ holding it with his hands, uttering a sacred chant and releasing it back in water.

His village Yede Machindra has a strong tradition of worshipping fish. 

According to a local legend, a Hindu saint, Mrichendranath, who was a devotee of the fish-form of Lord Vishnu, had lived in the village in the distant past. There is a temple named after him in the village where Vishnu is worshipped in the fish form. 

There are a few sceptics in the village who think that the fish comes to Patil as he feeds it biscuits daily. 
He refutes them saying the fish does not eat anything he offers. 

But everyone in the village acknowledges that Patil and the fish share a bond and say the fish even waits for him near the surface.

“If he fails to turn up at the pond any day, the next time he approaches the fish, it tries to bite him,” a villager said.   

The bond between Patil and the cat fish, while rare, may not be all that improbable. 

In June 2016, the journal "Scientific Reports" had published a study which had found that fish had the ability to distinguish between human faces. 

It has also been reported that a Japanese scuba diver Hiroyuki Arakawa has built a 25-year-long relationship with an Asian sheepshead wrasse, which lets him kiss her.

Correspondent, NewsCrunch

A scooter rider came under a bus but escaped without a scratch thanks to an alert traffic police man. 

The incident occurred in North Indian city of Dehradun on Wednesday at 12.30 pm. 

The scooter rider tried to overtake a city bus from the left in violation of right-hand drive traffic rules. 

As the bus driver failed to spot the scooter, he mowed it down. 

A shocking CCTV video from the spot shows the rider falling and disappearing between the wheels as the bus passes over him. 

A traffic policeman, Kani Vijay Prasad, saw the mishap and ran towards the bus to stop it from moving any further. Other passers-by also rushed to help and pulled the rider out from under the bus. 

The man was in shock but managed to stagger to his feet without any injury. 

The scooter rider, who has not been identified, thanked the policeman or saving his life. 

The Superintendent of Dehradun Police Nivedita Kukreti lauded Vijay Prasad’s effort and said he had set a fine example for other policemen. 

Staff correspondent, NewsCrunch

A Class 10 student of a posh school ruptured his eardrum and lost 25 per cent of hearing ability following a bizarre game of slaps with his friends. 

The victim’s parents said the traumatised boy has stopped going to school and weeps constantly. He has not been eating or sleeping properly after the assault, which took place on September 4 at Pathways School in Noida, a suburb of New Delhi. 

A video of the disturbing incident, shot by a classmate, has gone viral drawing widespread support to the victim’s parents, who described it as an act bullying.

School Director Shalini Advani dismissed the allegations by the parents and said that it was a consensual 'slap-bet'.

In a slap bet, popular among  high school students, the winner gets to slap the loser as hard as he can.

In a letter addressed to the parents of the School she wrote that the child who got hit was the one who laid the bet. 
“In that sense, it was not an act of bullying but an act with two participants, who behaved stupidly," she noted. 

The video shows about five students outside the school washroom, where the ‘slap bet’ takes place. As other students watch, one of them gives a stinging slap to the victim, who winces in pain and tries to cover his face with his arm.

After the victim's parents complained, the students involved in the incident were made to apologise in the school assembly in the presence of their parents.

The boy, who slapped has been suspended for a month, and two others for two weeks.  

Correspondent, NewsCrunch

In a breath-taking rescue effort, a brave youngster pulled out a lamb from an abandoned borewell risking his own life. 

A local TV channel TV 9 reported that the incident occurred at a village near South Indian city of Vijayapura. 

The man and his friends spotted an abandoned borewell and heard a lamb bleating from inside. The poor animal had fallen inside the borewell, which had been left uncovered,  after it had failed to yield water. 

They could see that the animal had got struck at a shallow depth. 

A video of the incident shows them discussing in Kannada language that someone would have to be lowered inside the borewell upside down to pull the lamb out. 

The know that the manoeuvre is extremely risky as the man would plunge to a suffocating death if the people holding his legs lose grip. 

The first volunteer backs off saying it would be hard to breath inside. 

A second volunteer steps in saying he is willing to go inside if his friends can hold on to his feet. After they assure, he is lowered inside, hands first. 

They find that the lamb is stuck deeper than they thought. 

In the heart-stopping moments that follow, the man risks disappearing into the borewell with two friends hanging on to his feet.

But the effort pays off and the man finally tells his friends to pull him up. He surfaces clutching on to the lucky lamb by its ears. 

Reports of children falling into uncovered borewells surface periodically from all over India. Farmers, who dig these wells abandon them when they fail to yield water, unwilling to incur the additional expense of covering them up.

Many of these wells – literal death traps – are strewn across the country waiting for a young victim to step into them.  

Staff correspondent, NewsCrunch

The ultra-competitive Indian TV industry hit a new low on Monday night when a reporter tried to remove lapel mike of a rival channel from a man being interviewed on a live show. 

It did not matter that the man, Varun Thakur, was grieving the murder of his eight-year-old son who was found in school in a pool of blood.  

The reporter, an employee of Republic TV, has not been identified. She was desperate to get Thakur’s time, who was being interviewed at his home, by a rival channel Times Now. 

Thakur was scheduled to speak to Times Now till 9.15 pm and then switch to Republic TV. 

But he spent a little more time on Times Now and then announced that he was cutting short the TV interviews as he had to attend to a very important guest, who had come to meet him. 

It was then the Republic reporter decided to grab him by his collar. 

Viewers of the Times Noack w show were baffled to see a pair of hands cutting into the frame to remove the mike and another pair of hands restoring them. 

There were five instances where a hand could be seen trying to remove the microphone from Thakur’s lapel. 

Activist Tehseen Poonawalla shared a behind the scenes video of the ugly incident. 

It shows the Republic reporter distracting and arguing with Thakur when he was on the live show. As she tries to snatch away the mike, she is pulled back another unidentified woman, who restrains her. The agitated TimesNow crew can also be  seen protesting. 

The incident drew widespread condemnation as a transgression of media ethics. 

Thakur’s son Pradyuman was murdered by a school worker, who tried to sexually assault him in the washroom, and then slashed his throat. The unfortunate boy died of his injuries in the hospital later.

Staff correspondent, NewsCrunch

A snake rescuer saved a cobra’s life by helping it regurgitate a plastic bottle it had swallowed. 

The incident occurred last week at a village near the South Indian town of Sirsi. 

The cobra had entered the house of Munaf in Landakanahalli village. It ate an egg and then swallowed a plastic bottle that was lying in the backyard. 

The bottle made it sick and the cobra was unable to move. The family saw the inert cobra in their home, panicked and called Prashant Hulikal, a snake rescuer. 

He caught the snake, helped it regurgitate the bottle, though the egg also came out   with it. 

The animal was later released in a nearby forest. 

Staff correspondent, NewsCrunch

A family was shocked after a poisonous cobra took refuge inside a shoe of their . 

Luckily, a team of snake rescuers who were at hand took the shoe away. They took the package to a forest, placed the shoe on ground and tapped it with a stick. 

 As they watched in amazement, a fully grown adult cobra emerged, with his hood fully open and ready to strike. 

The incident occurred in Alwar, which lies in a hilly region and is marked by a healthy population of reptiles. 

On September 10, a family in the city spotted a cobra entering their home. They locked the door and called First Step - Saving Wildlife, a local volunteer-driven animal welfare organisation.

The volunteers searched for the cobra in the house and were unable to find it. 

As they were ready to pack up, the eight-year-old son of the family touched his shoe accidentally, which responded with a hiss sound. 

Vivek Jaiswal of First Step said the cobra scared by the commotion that followed its entry into the home had sought refuge in the shoe, which looks like its natural nesting place. 

He decided to take it to a nearby forest, Sariska Reserve area, and release it there.

Jaiswal, who has been rescuing snakes for the last 12 years,” I have seen snakes  hiding in furniture, automobiles and even refrigerators, but never in a shoe so far.”

He said the incidents of snakes entering homes seeking refuge  shoot up during monsoons. The organisation has been getting about 10 calls a day, he said. 

Staf correspondent, NewsCrunch

An enterprising man rented a crow in Nashik, Maharashtra, to help devout Hindus perform ancestor worship.

The crow he handled took a bite from the offerings made by his customers. For each bite of the crow he charged Rs 10.

Hindus worship their ancestors annually in a 16-day period called Pitru Paksha, which ended on September 19.

They offer prayers and perform rituals to ensure their ancestors find peace in heaven.

A key element of the ritual is cooking a multi-course meal and offering it to crows, which are considered links to the departed souls.

But the expansion of cities have destroyed the habitat of these birds making them a rarity. So, during this period many struggle to find crows to accept the ritual offering, creating a novel business opportunity.

While it was known that crows were being offered for hire in this period, the practice was documented for the first time this year.  

Staff correspondent, NewsCrunch

Video has emerged from India of Bengal tigers attacking and injuring a white tiger at a biological park.

The white tiger succumbed to its injuries later. 

In video shot by a visitor, filmed on Sunday (September 17), two Bengal tigers can be seen mauling the helpless white animal. A third Bengal tiger can also be seen in the video.

In total, three Bengal tigers attacked and injured two white tigers in the incident at the park.  

The two white tigers had accidentally walked into a separate enclosure where the Bengal tigers were kept at Bannerghatta Biological Park (BBP). 

A fight immediately broke out between the two groups, with the Bengal tigers particularly targeting the weaker of the intruder before a group of shocked visitors. 

The park officials struggled to separate the tigers and restore peace.

Santosh Kumar, executive director of the park, said the white tigers may have stepped out of the enclosure when the staff opened the gates to let safari buses out. The big cats managed to walk along safari buses without drawing attention. 

The lapse came to officials’ notice only when a fight broke out among the animals.

Santosh said: "Our staffers are careful while operating gates. But as Sunday was a busy day and three vehicles had lined up, they may have failed to notice the tigers stepping out."

Last month, a zebra had died after falling into a ditch dug by BBP staffers to erect a pole in an enclosure.

Staff correspondent, NewsCrunch

Two girls flew into the air and did a somersault after their scooter collided head-on with a car. 

A third girl, who was riding with them, also fell on the road, and all three luckily escaped with just minor injuries. 

The incident, which took place in Tikamgarh, Madhya Pradesh, on September 21, was caught on a CCTV camera. 

The footage shows the girls overtaking a jeep on a busy road. They fail to notice a white car coming from the opposite direction and collide with it.

The force of the impact hurls the girls in the air and two of them fall on the ground after a mid-air tumble.

The local police have registered a case and are probing. They said the girls may be guilty of negligent driving and were in violation of a traffic rule, which prohibits three riders on a two-wheeler vehicle.  

Staff correspondent, NewsCrunch

A water pipeline burst into a spectacular 30-feet plume on Saturday (September 23) in India after it was hit by an earthmover. 

About two million litres of precious liquid was wasted in the incident that occurred at 11 am at Navi Mumbai in India. 

A Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation official said an earthmover used by a private contractor ruptured the main pipleline at Kamothe, which supplies water to Navi Mumbai.

The force of the water’s flow caused a 30-foot plume which drew onlookers and held up traffic.

The Hindu quoted Mohan Sonawane, executive engineer, Morbe Dam, saying: “The impact displaced the valve leading to wastage of around 2.5 million litres per day (MLD).” 

Though the officials started repair work quickly, the mishap affected water supply to large parts of the city. ‹ see less

Correspondent, NewsCrunch

AP  police arrested on Tuesday a 19-year-old youth, who molested a girl in a revenge attack, after she tried to end their relationship. 

B. Sai’s (19) two friends Karthik (22) and Pawan (21), who aided him in the offence, and  captured the horrifying attack on a mobile camera, have also been arrested. 

The accused posted the video online, where it went viral. 

The attack took place on August 29  but the girl’s father filed a complaint at Kanigiri police in Andhra Pradesh only on September 24. 

The head of Prakasam district police Satya Yesu Babu said his officials acted quickly and took the men into custody.

Media reports said the girl, who cannot be named under the Indian laws, had gone with a woman-friend to meet Sai at a temple on the outskirts of the Kanigiri town. 

After she told Sai that she was not happy with the relationship and wanted to end it, he allegedly molested her in retaliation. 

Sources in police said details of the case were still sketchy and a full probe would establish all the facts. 

The woman-friend tried to intervene to save the girl and has been listed as a witness in the case, the police said.