Toddy or Kallu, a palm alcoholic drink

Photos of the milky and cloudy palm wine called Toddy called Kallu in Tamil. It is also known as palm toddy. It is an alcoholic beverage made from the sap of some type of date palms or coconut trees. It has a strange taste for those who have never had it. It tastes strongly of coconut and is slightly acidic in taste. It is available very cheaply in the southern states although its sale is restricted to government shops in Kerala. Toddy has to be consumed the same day as it is produced as afterwards it becomes sour and even more acidic.

A bottle of Toddy bought at a store in Kerala.

A close up of this slightly sour strong tasting alcoholic drink which is popular with the locals.

Related Images: Beer shops in small towns in India or Alcohol and hard drinks photographs or Wine bottles and a wine bar or  Coconut water vendor in India

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Views from the Mumbai Pune Expressway Ghat section

These are some spectacular views and sunsets from the Western Ghat section of the Mumbai Pune Expressway.

This is a panormaic image (three photographs combined into one) with the Expressway on the left of the image and the mountains and hills of the western ghats on the right and in the background.

This is a single image giving a panoramic view of a sunset on the mountains of the western ghat. The Mumbai-Pune Expressway is in the foreground and the hills and the sun and the sky in the background.

A picture showing how crowded the Western Ghat becomes and it becomes a little risky at sundown. The road in the ghat section is narrow and vehicles always try to overtake one another. It can be quite treacherous as often larger vehicles drive on the right side blocking other motorists.

A clean image of the western ghats from the Mumbai-Pune Expressway.

A long shot of the winding road through the mountains of the Western Ghats in Western Maharashtra between Mumbai and Pune.

Related Images:  Mumbai Pune Expressway  or Mumbai Nashik Road Pictures or Mumbai Ahmedabad Highway scenes

Or Expressway Accident Photographs  or Accidents scenes - overturned and smashed vehicles photos

or Toll Plaza on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway

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Merry Go Round

Colourful pictures of a merry go round in Florence, Italy. Pretty merry go round with white painted horses and a shiny exterior.

Father and child at a merry go round at Florence in Italy.

You might also like Children's Playground with slides, jungle gym and play station
Or Children playing without toys  or City parks and gardens in India

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Crime Statistics in India

These crime statistics from the National Crime Records Bureau of India are for the public.

Murder and rape are common crimes, but kidnappings are much more. Shockingly there are more  riots in India than other crimes! 68000 riots as against 34305 murders in 2011. And we all know who are behind riots - political parties! Looks like criminal elements are disproportionately present in political parties. And I am sure all riots are not even registered.

Under - reporting of crime is rampant and that thought is frightening. It's not just crimes against women which are under-reported, but also assaults and burglaries. While there is no figure given for assaults, we can assume that the attempt to murder (31385) are serious assaults. Minor assaults are not even listed! Actually, if one counts all assaults, these are usually over 100 times higher than homicides and in India they the figure would go into crores of assaults every year!

Find out How many rapes take place in India in actuality
Related Images: Mumbai Police vehicles or  Mumbai Police at work

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Genuine 500 rupee notes mistaken for fake

All five hundred rupee notes do not look the same! This seems obvious, considering that some are old and some new, but because of the panic over fake notes, genuine notes can be mistaken for fake. The 500 rupee notes in this post are all genuine, but you can see the difference between an older note of the nineties and the newer ones.

This is a sample of the front of the newer 500 rupee note. It matches with the critieria of all genuine notes as put out by the RBI  the see through number in the left margin, the watermark, the thick shiny security thread and so on. By clicking on the link you can check the points.

The note below can be mistaken for fake by an over zealous person trying to check for genuine notes. It is the front of a 500 rupee note and it looks quite different from the one above. However, this note, signed by the RBI Governer Bimal Jalan is absolutely genuine. The note has a thinner shiny vertical band (security thread) unlike the newer note which has a thicker one, and it does not have the see through number (register). Instead it has a flower design in the left margin. These notes were printed between November 22nd 1997 to Sep 6th 2003. Why was their design changed? The attempt was to make the 500 rupee notes difficult to copy.

Does this mean that cheats and forgers can make fake notes of this type easily? Perhaps, but now it is difficult because the genuine notes will look old as they are used notes. You can find that out by just looking at them. They will never be crisp and new.

This is the back of the new 500 rupee note. The main difference between this new one and the one below this one is that this new note below has the date of printing (2010) on it. Look at the bottom of the note, right in the centre.  

The one below is the older 500 rupee note. No date of printing there, but it is a genuine note so no need to worry. As mentioned above, such notes will have a used look and that is how you can be sure they are genuine.

Related Images: Indian Coins - Paise or Rupee Notes Images or check out all images filed under the label of Currency, which will have photos of currency notes from the U.K, U.S and other countries.

NOTE on 1st Jan 2015: The Indian government is soon discontinuing with the older notes. So anyone who has the older notes, the ones without the date of printing on them, please turn them over to your bank. Today they are legal tender, but they are being phased out so best return them.

Note on 13th of  November 2016:  On the 8th of November the Prime Minister announced that all ₹500 and ₹1000 notes will cease to be legal tender from midnight. New notes will be issued.

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How many rapes take place in India in actuality?

2011 figures from the National Crime Records Bureau of India –  42923 murders (34,305 murders + 8618 dowry deaths) and just 24,206 rapes. But what are the actual, real, figures for rape in India? What is the Indian reality for rape?

(Update - The gang rape of a young photo journalist in the Shakti Mills Compound in August 2013 brought up the gruesome fact that 4 other gang rapes took place in the same area and these crimes were committed by the same people, a criminal gang of four and none were reported by the victims.)

In my estimation - at least 2,40,135 rapes are committed per year in India, not 24,206, and this estimate is a conservative one!  But 4,29,230 rapes every year is probably a more accurate figure! Read on to know how I arrived at this conclusion.

First lets find out how I arrived at the conservative number of 2,40,135 rapes in India per year.

Methodology: It is accepted that murders/homicides are the crimes most likely to be reported with accuracy and there is also an accepted statistical relationship between murder and rape. Countries like Germany, Denmark, France and the US have the best record for correct reporting of all crime so I used their crime and homicide data as a barometer.

In these 4 countries on an average:

• Assaults are 100 times higher than homicides
• Assaults are 12-25 times higher than rapes
• At least 3 of 4 countries had 7-8 times more rapes than murders. One had a lesser figure but in all cases rapes were far more in number than killings.

In India assaults are under-reported, with assault figures only a little higher than the murder figures (6 and a half times as against over a 100 times in the reference countries!) Shocking! Clearly, assaults are highly under-reported in India and cannot be used as an accurate barometer to measure rapes in India.

Strangely, Indian crime data reveals that rapes are actually lower than homicides - in India!
Fewer rapes than murders? Impossible! In most countries the figures are about 7-8 times more rapes than murders.

(portrait of a woman in pain)

As there are 7-8 more rapes than murders in the reference countries, therefore, India would have had in reality about 2,40,135 rapes in 2011 - that is how I arrived at that figure! But this is assuming that we have just 7 times more rapes than murders, like in the reference countries. And also assuming that homicides are being correctly reported in India. Homicides are a crime which are difficult to hide and we have to assume that the homicide figure for India is more or less correct although dowry deaths have not been included in this homicide figure for India.

If dowry deaths of women are added to the murder figure and assuming a figure of 10 times more rapes in India than homicides (because of a patriarchal society where women are forced into submission and the low status of women who are seen as objects), the rape figure jumps to 4,29230!!

Therefore a more accurate number of rapes in India every year is 4,29,230.

More than 4 lakh rapes per year in India is probably depicts reality better. And this is not even counting marital rape as it is not illegal in India to rape your own wife. Marital rape is probably rampant in India, far more than in developed countries as it is legal to rape the spouse.

Indians live in a patriarchal society where women are supposed to be submissive non-earning partners, and this in conjunction with poverty and ignorance leads to exploitation of women far more than in the reference countries.

(Photo of a homeless women)



And this is not taking into account the reported cases of molestation (42968) and kidnapping of women and girls (35565) and sexual harassment (8570). These cases are also under-reported. And then there are the scores of acid attacks on women every year!

Every single Indian woman who has stepped out into a crowded public place or travelled in public transport has been molested or sexually harassed, more than once. The population of Indian women is more than half a billion (1.21 is total population of India) so just calculate the sexual harassment and molestation cases which are probably more than half a billion as women are not molested just once in their life, but up to 7-10 times easily, if not more. And once you count the female foeticide, infanticide, acid attacks and so on, it's not surprising that India is in the top five most dangerous place for women. I think it is the most dangerous place for women. Only countries like Afghanistan and Somalia are worse. Shameful.


More related images: Crime Statistics in India or check out other images on Poverty.

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Alpine Railway

This is the train that took us to the Jung Frau summit, popularly called "Top of Europe" in Switzerland. The small train station is at the foot of the Swiss Alps and the train journey to the Jungfraujoch is through the mountains of the Eiger and Mönch. There are two viewing stations on the way from which one can get breathtaking views of the snow-covered Swiss Alps.

Here is the tiny train winding its way across the grassy knolls towards the intimidating Swiss Alps.

A shot taken out of the train window. The train is in the foreground and the snow-covered mountains in the background.

You might also like panoramic views of the Swiss Alps: Photos taken from Jungfrau, a summit in the Swiss Alps or Glaciers on the Swiss Alps
More beautiful scenery from Switzerland: Swiss Alps from the air or Lake Lucerne Photos
Or check out all the photographs on Switzerland including that of people and places.

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