Dead snake in mid-day meal, 51 taken ill

August 27th, 2009 Pakistan suicide bomber hits checkpoint; 18 deadPESHAWAR, Pakistan — Police say a suicide bomber has attacked a Pakistani security checkpoint on the Afghan border. At least 18 people are reported dead.

July 24th, 2009 PATNA - Five people, including the headmaster and two teachers, were arrested in Bihar's Nalanda district after a lizard was found in the mid-day meals served to school children, officials said Friday. In the last three weeks various such cases have been reported in the state.

July 22nd, 2009 RANCHI - A seven-year-old girl was killed when she fell into a cauldron of hot food cooked for students in a Jharkhand school, an official said Wednesday. Class I student Afsari Parveen was in a queue waiting for the midday meal to be served when someone pushed her from behind, an education department official said.

July 22nd, 2009 RANCHI - A seven-year-old girl died in a school near Ranchi after falling into a bucket full of hot daal (pulses) prepared for the midday meal, an official said Wednesday. Afsari Parveen, a class one student was standing in a queue waiting for the midday meal to be served.

July 9th, 2009 RANCHI - Seven students were in critical condition Thursday after eating the mid-day meal in a Jharkhand school into which a lizard had fallen, police said. The incident occurred at the Rajkiya Madhya Vidalaya in Dhanbad district's Chungi Rajganj area, around 270 km from Ranchi.

June 26th, 2009 BHOPAL - The bodies of two panthers and various other animals, who are believed to have been poisoned by poachers, were found in Madhya Pradesh's Katni district, officials said Friday. "Two panthers and some other animals - all suspected to have been poisoned by poachers - were Thursday found dead close to a water hole in the Dheemarkheda range of the Kami forest division some 400 km from here," said Katni divisional forest officer A.K.

June 26th, 2009 SYDNEY - Thieves who stole a 2-metre python from a west-coast Australian wildlife research centre earlier this week were undone by the snake itself, news reports said Friday. The snake was in the Woodvale centre for observation after it caught and swallowed a local rabbit-sized marsupial called a woylie that was wearing a wristwatch-sized radio monitor.

June 23rd, 2009 DC Fire Department says 9 dead in Metrorail crashWASHINGTON — The District of Columbia Fire Department has raised the death toll to nine in Monday's collision of two Metrorail trains. A release on the department's Web site says rescue workers located three more bodies in the wreckage late Monday night.

May 25th, 2009 PATNA - The headmasters of four primary schools in Bihar's Darbhanga district were suspended for irregularities in the mid-day meal scheme for schoolchildren, officials said Monday. The headmasters were suspended Saturday after an enquiry found them guilty of corruption.

May 23rd, 2009 PATNA - After he was caught stealing rice meant for schoolchildren's lunch, the headmaster of a primary school in Bihar's Begusarai district has been banned from the school by irate villagers, police said Saturday. Pitambar Pathak, headmaster of a government-run school in Puwari Tola village under Teghra block of the district, 126 km from state capital Patna, was caught selling rice to a local trader Monday by the villagers, police officers said.

May 20th, 2009 LUCKNOW - Principals and teachers of around 105 government-run schools in Uttar Pradesh's Hamirpur district will face action for irregularities in the mid-day meal (MDM) scheme, an official said Wednesday. 'In the ongoing surprise inspection we found that the schools were not providing regular lunch to their students under the MDM scheme,' official in-charge of primary education in the district Mahendra Kumar told IANS on phone.

March 6th, 2009 LUCKNOW - Authorities of three government schools in Uttar Pradesh's Banda district will face action for making students prepare lunch under the Mid-Day Meal (MDM) scheme, an official said Friday. 'We will take stern action against the staff of three government schools in Banda district, where students prepare the meal,' basic education officer Omkar Rana told IANS on telephone from Banda, some 200 km from Lucknow.

January 26th, 2009 LUCKNOW - Students of a government-run primary school in Uttar Pradesh refused to eat food as a Dalit woman had cooked it, an official said Tuesday. The majority of students, belonging to the upper caste, refused to have lunch provided to them under the Mid-Day Meal Scheme by the Guraini Primary School in Khetaasrai village of Jaunpur, about 150 km from here.

January 9th, 2009 LUCKNOW - Teachers and principals of over 100 government-run primary schools in Uttar Pradesh's Etawah district will face action for irregularities in the Mid-Day Meal (MDM) scheme, an official said Saturday. 'These teachers are under scanner for not providing regular lunch to their students under the MDM scheme,' official in-charge of basic education in Etawah Naresh Verma told IANS on phone.

December 24th, 2008 CHANDIGARH - Middle-level bureaucrats in the union territory of Chandigarh will now supervise the preparation of mid-day meals for government school children in the city. The Chandigarh administration has ordered that all civil servants from Haryana and Punjab cadre on deputation with the administration will visit the cooking institutes and schools to monitor the quality and hygiene of cooked meals under the mid-day meal scheme, an administration spokesman said here Thursday.