Naked Girls Plow The Fields

Farmers in an eastern Indian state have asked their unmarried daughters to plow parched fields naked in a bid to embarrass the weather gods to bring some badly needed monsoon rain.

Witnesses said the naked girls in Bihar state plowed the fields and chanted ancient hymns after sunset to invoke the gods. They said elderly village women helped the girls drag the plows.

“They (villagers) believe their acts would get the weather gods badly embarrassed, who in turn would ensure bumper crops by sending rains,” Upendra Kumar, a village council official, said from Bihar’s remote Banke Bazaar town.

“This is the most trusted social custom in the area and the villagers have vowed to continue this practice until it rains very heavily.”

India this year suffered its worst start to the vital monsoon rains in eight decades, causing drought in some states.

Flushable Wipes Not So Flushable

Sitka, Alaska officials are asking residents not to flush the so-called flushable wipes down the toilet.

The city has had to divert wastewater workers away from regular duties to untangle messes in sewer machinery. The wipes can clog and sometimes disable lift station pumps in town and at the treatment plant, requiring some equipment to have to be pulled and cleaned.

City Environmental Superintendent Mark Buggins said his workers have been four or five times as busy in recent months removing baby wipes and a towel product that markets itself as “flushable.”

Buggins said “it’s a real drain” on manpower.