PO BAG 1: meal

22 June 2018

In India, rats have a $19,000 meal

In this Nov. 13, 2016 file photo, an Indian holds 2000 rupee currency notes in Jammu, India. Police say at least one rat slipped through a hole in the back of an ATM in northeastern India and ate more than $19,000 in currency.

It was a cash machine heist with a difference: The attackers were hungry rodents.

At least one rat slipped through a hole in the back of an ATM in northeastern India and started eating. By the time it was finished, police say more than $19,000 in bills were shredded.

When technicians arrived June 11 to fix a broken State Bank of India cash machine in the town of Tinsukia they found a dead rat inside it and Indian currency notes worth nearly 1.3 million rupees, or a little over $19,000, chewed to shreds. The rat had entered the ATM through a small hole for cables, police superintendent Mugdha Jyoti Mahanta said Friday. The notes were in 500-rupee and 2,000-rupee denominations.

23 June 2015

Report: economic growth failing to help world's poorest kids

A homeless girl sits on a footpath as commuters walk past in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, June 23, 2015. A new report by UNICEF warns that economic growth is still failing to help millions of the world’s poorest children. In India, there are countless children living with grinding poverty, sleeping on sidewalks, begging at traffic intersections and relying on government-run lunch programs that often provide their only full meal for the day.

Global resolve to rescue impoverished children from lives of squalor, disease and hunger has fallen short, with economic development in many countries still leaving millions of the most vulnerable behind, according to a UNICEF report released Tuesday.