A tiger attacked a girl and a forest official from Betalpara village in Sunderbans on Sunday. The tiger was later caged by forest department personnel.

The injured people were identified as Krishna Pada Mondal, the forest official, and a Class V student named as Usha Sardar.

It is learnt that on Sunday morning, Usha had gone with her relative, Swapna Sardar, to cut grass in a nearby field at 7 a.m. Suddenly the big cat pounced upon Usha.

Sardar's screams for help alarmed the villagers, who compelled the tiger to leave Usha behind and flee into the bushes.

London, December 29: Bakers in Bucharest decorated a new page in Guiness Book of World Records for baking the world's heaviest cake, weighing 619 pounds.

The fruit-and-cream cake, adorned with the Romanian and European Union flags along with reading "Happy New Year 2009", had been commissioned by the capital for the annual winter festivities.

A representative for the annually published reference book handed out a document to Mayor Sorin Oprescu certifying the accomplishment, reports the Telegraph.

The family of the UP PWD engineer, killed by workers of the BSP for refusing to give donation for the Chief Minister Mayawati's birthday, refused the compensation from the government.

Manoj Gupta was beaten to death by the BSP MLA Shekhar Tiwari when he refused to give donation for Chief Minister Mayawati's birthday.

Tiwari was arrested for the killing and has been charged under the National Security Act (NSA) and Gangster Act. The post mortem report of the engineer showed two head injuries, wounds all over his body and fractures in one arm and both legs. Probe by CBI is being continuously demanded by the family of the victim despite Mayawati's refusal.

Meanwhile the political unrest over the killing continues.

On Friday, the honorable Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh met the chiefs of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, who briefed him on the country's defence preparedness.

Other than this, the pay and service conditions in the armed forces against the backdrop of dissatisfaction over the Pay Commission's recommendations were also discussed by the services chiefs.

La Paz  - Two sp

Washington, Dec 27: National Geographic News has outlined its most read stories about creatures in the year 2008.

So, the top ten animal finds of the year 2008 are:

10. Wildlife park official arrested in Gorilla killings:

In March, Congolese authorities arrested a senior park official in connection with the 2007 execution-style killings of several endangered mountain gorillas in Virunga National Park.

9. Colossal squid thawing; hints at even bigger beasts:

A 1,091-pound (495-kilogram) colossal squid, caught near Antarctica in 2007 and frozen for later study, began its big thaw in April in a salty bath at a New Zealand museum.

8. "Extinct" primate found in Indonesia: