
Indian businessman Bhanwarlal Raghunath Doshi made headlines last weekend for publicly renouncing his wealth to become a monk. The ‘plastics king’ of Delhi gave up his 600-crore ($100 million) business empire during a ceremony on Sunday, becoming the 108th disciple of Jain guru Shri Gunratna Surishwarji Maharaj.
Doshi’s decision wasn’t an impulsive one: Jain lectures have been drawing him to spirituality since 1982. But his family – his wife, two sons, and a daughter – were always reluctant to let him go. They finally relented last year, allowing Doshi to fulfil his long-time dream of becoming a monk. His initiation into monkhood took place in an extravagant ceremony at Ahmedabad Education Society, in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
For the past month, a Southern Illinois family has been struggling with an unusual infestation of turkey vultures. Dozens of vultures are visiting their rural Buncombe home every single day, disturbing the family at odd hours and damaging their 2015 Chevrolet Silverado. The scavenging birds are also staining the entire area with their feces, and have completely ruined a newly built deck on the premises.
Rick Mize, who lives in the house with his wife, step-daughter, and their dog, said he isn’t sure how much it will cost to fix the damages. He revealed that the birds arrived at around the same time that a terrible stench enveloped the area surrounding their house. When asked to describe the smell, Rick said: “Ok, your cat died in your house and you found it five days later after being on vacation. And you walk into your house. That’s the stench, it’s just foul, death.” However, he hasn’t been able to locate any dead animals nearby.
According to a recent report by state media, 96.7% of all counterfeit bills circulating in China originated from templates hand-drawn by Peng Daxiang, an elderly painter who was arrested in 2013.
Before being apprehended by police, 73-year-old Daxiang, a native of Shantou, Guangdong Province, had single-handedly managed to produce dozens of printing plates worth millions of yuan without the use of computers or other modern technology. Instead, he relied on simple tools like magnifying glasses and film cameras. He apparently made huge profits selling these templates to counterfeiting gangs, charging anywhere between 50,000 yuan ($8,000) and 120,000 yuan ($20,000) per plate.
Officials later discovered that Daxiang, a famous artist in his hometown, was also involved in forging graduate diplomas, official certificates and even food stamps. He was finally sentenced to life imprisonment in 2014, by the Shantou Intermediate People’s Court, on multiple charges including counterfeiting money and forging official documents. All of his possessions were confiscated by the state and he was deprived of political rights for life.
In a puzzling turn of events, Indian authorities have arrested a pigeon on the suspicion of spying for the Pakistani government.
The dubious bird is believed to have landed on the terrace of a barber’s home in the village of Manwal, four kilometers away from the India-Pakistan border. The barber’s 14-year-old son noticed an Urdu message printed on its feathers that read: ‘Tehsil Shakargarh, district Narowal’, along with a series of numbers. The boy immediately turned the pigeon over to the police, asking them to investigate its appearance.
Intrigued by the message and by a wire-like object found on its body, officers rushed the bird to a veterinary hospital in the town of Pathankot for inspection. X-Ray reports did not reveal anything abnormal, but the police said that they plan to detain the bird until they find out more. They do have a hunch that the digits in the message may be a telephone number in Pakistan’s Narowal district and the tension was further intensified by the fact that the bird made an appearance during a top-secret inter-state security conference in India. So the bird was listed in police records as a “suspected spy”.