Kochi, Nov. 9 : V. T. Jolly, a school dropout, in Kochi has acquired a huge collection of discarded pens. Jolly’s passion started three years ago, and till date, he has collected 2,608 pens of over 1050 varieties. 

Though Jolly has failed to matriculate, his is passionate about collecting pens. His passion for discarded pens began at the age of 15. 

He wasn’t well off to buy new pens of different varieties so he opted to collect used or thrown away pens from wherever he could. 

He says this hobby started while painting a house. He noticed a few used pens lying in a dustbin. With the owners’ permission, he took them and then started his collection. 

Kolkata, Nov. 9 : Sharmistha Mullick, an art collector in Kolkata, is trying to give embroidery; a fabric embellishment technique, a new expression by presenting it in an unconventional art form. 

She has received training in embroidery for about three years and has been seeking to give it a new definition since 1992. 

At first glance, it is possible that one may mistake her collected works for paintings or pencil sketches.

Sharmistha says that painting with a brush and colours is much easier. She says mixing can change colours, one can almost re-do the whole work on canvas by colouring over. However, for embroidery art, there are no such easy avenue. 

Bodh Gaya, Nov. 9 : With the onset of winter, Bodh Gaya, the famous holy pilgrimage center of Buddhists, starts witnessing the arrival of a growing number tourists and pilgrims from different parts of the county and world. 

Not many may know but Bodhgaya is today not just known as an important Buddhist pilgrim center and an archeological site, but also for its various meditation courses offered by a number of institutes, in and around the town. 

Most of these courses are conducted in winters. Hence, the number of visitors keep swelling between October and February. 

Ahmedabad, Nov.9 : Gujarat, a hub of tobacco production, is today a major raw material provider to Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala in the country. 

About 70 per cent of the population in Anand, Kheda, Vadodara, Sabarkantha and Banaskantha districts of Gujarat is connected to this unorganized sector.

But a sense of uncertainty prevails among the tobacco growers of Gujarat, following the Indian health ministry’s directive on mandatory pictorial warnings on all tobacco products from December 1. 

Government''s directive has put a question mark on the livelihood of a majority of the crisis-ridden Gujarat tobacco industry. 

Sharm el-Sheikh/Jerusalem - Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have made serious and intensive progress toward formulating a peace treaty, and the world community should not intervene in the talks, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said Sunday.

In a statement summing up Livni's remarks to the sponsors of the peace process at a summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Livni was quoted as saying that to date, the Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams had held hundreds of meetings and the sides believed the elements, the principles and the guiding principles for an agreement were in place.

Bochum, Germany - Werder Bremen's sporting director Klaus Allofs has said that Italian Serie A club Juventus has not made an offer for the Bundesliga club's Brazilian midfielder Diego.