By Sahil Makkar, IANS,

New Delhi : Moustachioed and fierce-looking, they will come riding camels that march with magical precision. India's border guards will regale spectators for the 35th time at this Republic Day parade, with some playing bugles, trumpets and more, in tune with the tinkling bells on their mounts.

The Border Security Force's (BSF) camel contingent will travel down Rajpath, carrying forward an Indian tradition and boasting of the only camel-mounted music band in the world even as some of the troopers hold guns.

By Asit Srivastava, IANS,

Kanpur : A sparrow's nest fell in C.L. Khanna's courtyard. The eggs were smashed. Khanna cried, gave up his job as a banker and has been building nests for the last nine years.

"I derive a unique sense of satisfaction by helping birds in this way. I cannot put in words what I feel when birds use my nests for raising their young ones," 65-year-old Khanna, a former senior branch manager of the Bank of Baroda, told IANS.

By Byomakesh Biswal, IANS,

Bhubaneswar : In 1998, Shashiprabha Devi stood outside the Capital Hospital here with a strange request. A week into retirement, she wanted to return to her job as a nurse. And she did not want to be paid for it.

Shashiprabha, a native of Chikiti in Ganjam district of Orissa, joined the government-run hospital as a nurse after completing her nursing degree in 1961. She worked her way up to becoming a senior staff nurse, handling cases in the cardiology department.

By Azera Rahman, IANS,

Ahmedabad : Twenty-three years back, Hansibaben was just another artisan in a little known village in Gujarat. Today, at 92, she has a cloth brand named after her which has reached such heights that international names are scurrying to have tie-ups with it.

By Madhusree Chatterjee, IANS,

Haridwar : They live in their mountain retreats in the icy reaches of the Himalayas, practising extreme austerities. But many ash-smeared Naga sadhus who have come down here for the Mahakumbh Mela say they are rather concerned about terrorism and environmental pollution.

By Mayabhushan Nagvenkar, IANS,

Panaji : Learning to make do with numb hands, a busted autopilot and a couple of rebellious bolts... that's the sum of Commander Dilip Donde's New Year story on board the Indian Naval Sailing Vessel Mhadei on his daunting marine expedition around the world.

Commander Donde is several thousand nautical miles to the east of New Zealand on a solo sailing expedition around the world in a 56-foot yacht, which was flagged off from Goa in August last year.

By Manzar Bilal and Mudassir Rizwan, TwoCircles.net,

Patna: Abdul Jalil (30) has been selling cane chairs and sofas made with cane in his open-air shop near Gandhi Maidan in Patna for years. Himself an expert in making cane-made items, Jalil has 10 employees to meet the demand for his items. His father has been doing this business for the last 40 years and following into his footsteps, Abdul Jalil along with his three brothers adopted the same trade.

By Manzar Bilal, TwoCircles.net,

To tackle the basic problems of the local Muslim community some Muslim social activists who felt the pain of the community established Al-Khair Charitable Trust in 1998 in Patna. In the last 11 years, the trust has benifited hundreds of Muslims through its services, chiefly interest free loans.

Series on Mewat – Part V

By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net,

By Salman Sultan, TwoCircles.net special correspondent

Mumbai: I have known Janab Reyaz Ahmed Saheb as a member of managing committee of Jamiatul Falah and had the pleasure of being embraced warmly by this cheerful personality whenever we met in Jamiatul Falah, Biliariyaganj, Azamgarh. Incidentally I was surprised to set my eyes on Reyaz Saheb when I was going to offer Asr Salat in the picturesque mosque of Millat Nagar, Bombay/Mumbai.