Tar balls continued to appear on Velsao Beach on Wednesday, albeit in smaller quantities in comparison to the first day when they were washed ashore.

The tar balls resurfaced on Wednesday afternoon, after the beach was cleaned a day ago by tourism officials and Drishti Special Response Service (DSRS) lifeguards.

Local people said during the high tide, a small amount of tar balls appeared on the beach.

“Few tar balls that were left unclean on the beach might have washed again into the sea and resurfaced today,” suspect a local, Caitan Vaz.

“Luckily, the tar balls have appeared during the off season when movement of tourists is very marginal, but still the impact is visible, as few domestic tourists who make their way to the beach, have curtailed their movement since Tuesday,” said Vaz.

The Drishti Special Response Service lifeguards, who have also joined to keep the beach clean, said the tar balls started resurfacing in the afternoon during the high tide, but the amount is very marginal comparatively to what had appeared on August 30.

In a press note, DSRS has raised concern over appearance of tar balls on the beaches, as its business is directly connected with beaches.

“If the influx of tourists on beaches is affected, then it will be matter of livelihood for the lifeguards working on the beaches,” stated DSRS.

Considering these aspect, DSRS lifeguards voluntarily cleaned the beach along with the department of tourism.

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Thirteen years after Mother Teresa’s death and few days after her 100th birthday, the US Postal Service has decided to issue a postage stamp on September 5 to commemorate the remarkable life of the nun from Calcutta.

Mother Teresa was a Catholic nun of Albanian ethnicity and Indian citizenship. She founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta in 1950. For over 45 years she ministered to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying, while guiding the Missionaries of Charity’s expansion, first throughout India and then in other countries.

Following her death she was beatified by Pope John Paul II and given the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. She died in Calcutta on September 5, 1997, and is buried there.

“The US Postal Service will pay tribute to Mother Teresa, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her humanitarian work,” the USPS said in a statement.

“Noted for her compassion toward the poor and suffering, Mother Teresa, a diminutive Roman Catholic nun and honorary US citizen, served the sick and destitute of India and the world for nearly 50 years,” it said.

“Her humility and compassion, as well as her respect for the innate worth and dignity of humankind, inspired people of all ages and backgrounds to work on behalf of the world’s poorest populations,” USPS had said in a statement in December last year.

The stamp features a portrait of Mother Teresa. The stamp was designed and painted by acclaimed artist Thomas Blackshear II. The 44-cent stamp featuring the Blessed Mother Teresa will go on sale after September 5 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.

“The Postal Service decided to go with a smiling image that has been seen everywhere. This portrays her as a happy person who loved life,” Thomas was quoted as saying.

“The Postal Service sent me a number of photos, and I created pencil drawings based on three of these photos. One drawing showed her as somewhat somber. Another one was more pensive. After the smiling image was chosen, I created the final 5- by-7[-inch] image by using water colors. I kept building up the layers over three or four days until I got the look I wanted,” he added

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More than a year after his death, pop icon Michael Jackson’s body will reportedly be exhumed. Dr Conrad Murray, the ‘Thriller’ hitmaker’s physician, has been charged with ‘involuntary manslaughter’ and his lawyers plan to challenge Jackson’s autopsy, which declared that his death was caused due to an overdose of the sedative Propofol.

The lawyers will argue that the ‘King of Pop’ died from the use of recreational drugs and may demand that his body be dug up for new tests ahead of Murray’s trial next year, reported News Of The World online.

“This is a horrifying situation the family have been dreading. They laid Michael to rest and for him to return is just sick,” said a source close to the Jackson family.

Lead attorney Ed Chernoff has already got the green light to re-test tissue samples removed and frozen after Jackson, 50, died last June.

“If the tests don’t concur with the coroner’s findings, they have the start of a strong defence. The logical next step would be to exhume the body to make new tests,” added the source.

The hitmaker is buried at the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Hollywood Hills.

Jackson’s family had gone to extraordinary lengths to keep the exact location secret due to worries that his followers will throng the resting place of their idol.

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Mumbai’s famous army of lunchbox delivery men, whose fans include business leaders and royalty, are being given the chance to upgrade their skills for the first time in their 120-year history. Courses in English and computer skills are to be offered to the 5,000 or so dabbawallahs who criss-cross the city every day delivering home-cooked meals to hungry office workers, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. 

The vice-chancellor of Yashwantrao Chavan Open University, R Krishnakumar, was quoted as saying on Tuesday that the courses,which will run near the dabbawallahs‘ central Mumbai base, will allow them to “improve their lot”.

Most of the delivery men, who are often barefoot and cut distinctive figures on Mumbai’s streets in their white cotton uniforms and Nehru caps, are school dropouts who speak only the local language Marathi or Hindi.

A lack of formal education, English or computer skills has not hindered their ability to deliver a near flawless service to at least 200,000 people every day, winning them plaudits around the world.

Forbes magazine once awarded them a “six sigma” rating, meaning that they have an error rate as low as one per one million deliveries, putting them alongside some of the top businesses in the world.

The tiffin (lunch) deliverers have attributed their success to effective time management and responding to customer feedback.

Fans of the dabbawallahs, who use trains, handcarts and bicycles to deliver the steel tiffin boxes using a complex colour-coded system and 10-digit alpha-numeric code, include the Virgin Group tycoon Richard Branson.

Britain’s Prince Charles, who met the delivery men on a visit to India, also invited two dabbawallahs to his wedding to his second wife, Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005 after they sent the couple a wedding present.

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