Elections in India’s Uttar Pradesh state are literally going to the dogs as several candidates are reportedly using stray dogs as billboards to make sure their campaign messages reach as many people as possible.

At least two candidates – one in Rae Bareli and another in Ballia district – have been attaching their campaign banners and posters to stray dogs in their areas and letting them roam around. Photos of these walking, barking advertising billboards went viral on social media this past weekend, angering animal protection activists, and inspiring all sorts of memes. But despite the negative feedback to the advertising tactic, one of the candidates who admitted to using dogs to get his message out there has no regrets.

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Doctors recently reported the bizarre case of a 25-year-old woman suffering from an incredibly rare medical condition that caused her to bleed from her eyes during her monthly period.

Haemolacria, the condition that causes people to cry blood, is extremely rare, but Indian doctors documented the case of a woman with a similar, but even rarer condition called “ocular vicarious menstruation”. As the name suggests, it causes female sufferers to bleed from their eyes, but only during their monthly period. The 25-year-old woman, whose name was not revealed for privacy reasons, visited the emergency room at a hospital in Chandigarh, complaining about crying blood. All her tests came back normal, and it was only after the woman revealed that the same thing had occurred around the same time the month before that doctors made the connection to menstruation.

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Police in the Indian state of Jharkhand were in the news recently for settling a marital dispute by ordering a man to spend three days a week with his wife, three days with his girlfriend, and take one day off from both.

It all started when Rajesh Mahato, a married man from Kokar Tiril Road, in Ranchi, decided to get himself a girlfriend as well. Because he was so infatuated with his new conquest and didn’t want to lose her, the man never told her he was married. Instead, he convinced her to elope with him, leaving his wife and child behind without so much as a goodbye. Only things didn’t end there. The man’s wife filed a complaint with police, as did the parents of Rajesh’s girlfriend, who accused him of kidnapping. And that’s just the start of this crazy tale…

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An Indian man who started planting trees in a barren, sand-filled field 15 years ago is now being praised for transforming the wasteland into a 10,000-tree orchard.

Satyendra Gautam Manjhi, a simple man from the small village of Imaliyachak, in the Indian state of Bihar, claims he was inspired to start planting trees after being visited by Dashrath Manjhi, known as “the man who moved a mountain“. The story of how he spent over 20 years chiseling away at a mountain to make a road to his village has inspired a generation, including the protagonist of this story. Satyendrav says that Dashrath himself told him to start planting an orchard, and that’s exactly what he did.

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An Indian man who was under the impression that he and his family were being harassed and extorted by a group of sophisticated, ruthless hackers learned that the perpetrator was his underaged son.

Last month, Indian media reported the case of a desperate man from Ghaziabad who had approached local police about an extortion scheme that he and his family had fallen victims to. Rajiv Kumar complained that his email account had been hacked on January 1st, and that he had been receiving threats and financial demands from a group of hackers ever since. The alleged criminals were demanding Rs 10 crore (one million rupees), or they were going to release sensitive photos of Kumar to the public, and then kill him and his family.

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Respected Indian herpetologist Neelam Kumar Khaire has a very interesting record to his name. In his youth, this reptile lover spent 72 hours in an enclosure with 72 venomous snakes for company. He proved that the snakes only bite when provoked, and set a Guinness record in the process.

Khaire’s legendary feat dates back to 1980, when the then 28-year-old receptionist at a hotel in Pune decided to challenge the record set by South African Peter Snyemaris, a year before. Snyemaris had spent 50 hours with 18 venomous and six semi-poisonous snakes in Johannesburg, South Africa, but Neelam believed that an Indian deserved the world record more, seeing as India was known as a land of snakes. Despite opposition from local authorities like the police, which would neither take him seriously nor permit him to go ahead with his plan, on January 20, 1980, Neelam Kumar Khaire stepped in a glass enclosure with 72 venomous snakes.

Neelam Kumar Khaire fell in love with snakes in his early 20s, while working as the manager of a holiday home at Matheran, near Bombay. Snakes were frequent visitors of that place, and even though the other members of the staff simply killed them on sight, he could never do the same.

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Buying a brand new car is supposed to be one of the happiest moments in a person’s life, but for one poor motorist the experience turned from a dream into a nightmare the moment he put his foot on the gas at the dealership.

A video that shows an Indian man getting ready to drive his brand new Kia Carnival minivan out of the dealership, only to drive it straight into a wall and deploying its airbags has been doing the rounds on social media. The footage shows the buyer getting behind the wheel of the brand new car, and an employee of the dealership giving them some last few pointers before letting them drive out. Things don’t exactly go according to plan though, and the video shows the man driving off and then slamming the new Kia straight into a concrete wall with enough force to deploy the airbags.

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The small Indian village of Gummatapura is famous all over the world for its unique way of ending the annual Diwali celebrations – a massive cow dung battle called “Gorehabba”.

Spain has La Tomatina, a famous battle with tomatoes, Italy has the traditional Ivrea Battle of Oranges, and India has Gorehabba, a cow dung battle to end the important Diwali festivities. That may seem like an insult to Indian festivities, but only to those ignorant to the importance and significance of cow dung in Indian culture. It’s held in such high regard that companies use it as an ingredient for beauty products, handcrafted art, and even radiation repelling devices. Some claim it can even ward off the coronavirus… So yes, hurling cow dung at each other is far from disgusting for the dozens who participate in Gorehabba.

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Two Indian conmen from India’s Uttar Pradesh state were arrested this week for allegedly conning a local physician into paying them a whopping $335,000 for a magical lamp capable of granting him any wish.

Dr Laeek Khan, a physician from the Khairnagar area, in Meerut city, first met the conmen in 2018, when visiting a patient’s home to dress her wounds following a surgery. One day, while at Sameena’s home, the doctor met a self-described ‘tantrik’ who boasted about his magical powers, and later promised to make Khan a billionaire. The tantrik, named Islamuddin, soon introduced the doctor to his partner, Anees, and the two offered to sell him a real-life wish-granting Aladdin Ka Chirag (Aladdin’s Lamp) for only 2.5 crore ($335,000). The London-trained doctor agreed…

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Vallabhbhai Kathiria, the chairman of a federal body on animal husbandry in India, recently sparked controversy among his countrymen by promoting cow dung ‘chips’ that can allegedly reduce mobile phone radiation and shield users from disease.

Named ‘Gausatva Kavach’, the cow dung chip is said to be manufactured by Rajkot-based Shrijee Gaushala (cow shelter) as part of an initiative to promote cow dung products. The aim is to have 500 gaushalas produce the anti-radiation dung chips, which cost between Rs. 50 ($0.70) and Rs. 100 ($1.40). Through Rashtriya Kamdhenu Aayoghe (RKA), the federal body on animal husbandry, the Indian Government wants to popularize cow dung chips in India, but also sell its products abroad, including in the United States.

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A 28-yeear-old married man from India recently made international news headlines for lying to his family about getting infected with the new coronavirus as an excuse to run away with his lover.

On July 24, Manish Mishra called his wife to say that he had tested positive for Covid-19 and that he didn’t want to live anymore. He then proceeded to shut off his phone, which caused his family to panic. His wife called her brother for help after receiving the bizarre call, and he advised her to file a missing persons report with the Navi Mumbai police. The investigation that followed showed that the 28-year-old supervisor had actually used the dreaded illness as a pretext to leave his family and elope with his mistress.

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Laungi Bhuiyan, a pensioner from the Indian state of Bihar, has become known as “Canal Man” after it was revealed that he spent 30 years of his life digging a 3-kilometer-long water canal, all by himself, using hand tools.

The remote village of Kothilawa, in the Lahthua area of Gaya district, had always suffered water shortages, with most of the rainwater falling in the nearby hills flowing into the river, instead of towards the village. This was one of the reason that some residents decided to move away and start anew, but one man decided to stay behind and fix the problem instead of running away from it. 30 years ago, local man Laungi Bhuiyan decided to take matters into his own hands and dig a canal to bring the water from the hills to a pond near his village. No one offered to help, so for three long decades he dug the 4-feet wide and 3-feet deep canal himself, using only whatever hand tools he had available.

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A 7-year-old boy from India’s Uttar Pradesh state has been dubbed ‘Spider Boy’ for his ability to effortlessly scale 10ft walls using nothing but his bare hands and feet.

Yasharth Singh Gaur, a class three student from the Indian city of Kanpur, was inspired by Marvel’s popular Spider-Man to try and scale the walls of his home. It seemed impossible at first, but he kept at it and before long he was able to climb the corners of his room with only his hands and feet. His brother started telling people about Yasharth’s special ability and word about the real-life Spider man started spreading around the city.

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At just 23-years-old, Dr. Veeragandham Teja had already worked in 16 private hospitals, conducted several medical camps and had volunteered with Bengaluru police and local migrant workers during the pandemic. Not a bad record for any doctor, let alone a 5th grade dropout with no medical education and little training…

Veeragandham Teja had been working as a doctor for over four years when his luck finally came to an end. It was a double whammy that got him in the end: his second wife filed mental and physical harassment against him, and he made the mistake of making a recommendation to police to cancel a person’s rowdy sheet (criminal record), only to then be spotted driving that person’s registered SUV. All it took was a bit of digging and police uncovered a web of lies going back over a decade, false degrees and certificates and several aliases. Their conclusion was that Teja’s career and pretty much all of his life, for that matter, was a fabrication…

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A 17-year-old teenager from India’s Uttar Pradesh state is allegedly living in fear after being bitten by the same wild snake a whopping eight times in a single month.

Yashraj Mishra, from Rampur village in Basti district, reportedly lives in constant fear after being targeted by a snake for reasons that remain unknown. After learning of his plight, the 17-year-old’s family took him to the village doctor for treatment and also appealed to snake charmers, but nothing seemed to stop the snake. After he was bitten for the third time, the family even shipped the teen to a relative’s home in a neighboring village, but the slithering reptile allegedly tracked him down and bit him again…

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