Laugh as much as you breath..

Instead canvas plimsolls will replace uncomfortable and "environmentally hazardous" leather shoes . The move by the country's school boards follows a campaign by Maneka Gandhi, Indira Gandhi's widowed daughter-in-law, who is now an member of parliament for the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party. She is one of India's leading animal rights campaigners and a fierce opponent of slaughtering cows, which are revered among Hindus. India's Central Board of School Education and the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examination has accepted her proposal. Black leather shoes were introduced as mandatory items in Indian school uniforms during British colonial rule and have continued unchallenged ever since. Their widespread use has made school children the country's largest consumers of leather products, according to the People for Animals (PFA) campaign. Sixteen schools in Madras have already banned leather footwear in response to their campaign and proteste...

Yesterday there was jubilation among the scientists of the European Space Agency (ESA) who tracked the launch from the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany. CryoSat-2, which was designed and built in France and Germany but masterminded by British scientists, blasted off on a Russian launcher rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan shortly before 3pm yesterday afternoon. Some time later, a tracking station in Africa picked up the satellite's signal, confirming that it had gone into orbit. CryoSat-2 is part of the ESA's Earth Explorers programme, involving seven spacecraft which will carry out innovative research about issues of pressing environmental concern. The melting ice of the poles and Greenland is considered one of the most pressing of all, with implications for ocean circulation patterns, the global climate and sea levels. If the land-based Greenland ice sheet were to melt completely, it would mean a global sea-level rise of 21 feet, while if ...