The photograph and citation of an 
Indian soldier, Hawaldar Gajendra Singh, a native of village Badalu in 
Pithoragarh district, has been included in the Russian army museum’s gallery of gallant soldiers in Moscow.  Singh was awarded the ‘Order of the Red Star’, a Soviet military decoration, for his bravery in the Second World War in 1944. Apart from him, only one other Indian soldier, hailing from Tamil Nadu, has been honoured with the ‘Order of the Red Star.’ The Indian embassy in Moscow informed the family of the dead soldier about the felicitation last week. A letter signed by DB Venkatesh Verma, the Indian ambassador to Russia, was sent to the family in which the ambassador, referring to the inclusion of Singh’s name in the Russian armed forces museum, termed it “a matter of great pride for India and a testament to the bonds of friendship between India and the Russian federation.” 

Speaking to TOI, Bhagwan Singh, the soldier’s son, said that his father was recruited in the British Indian Army in 1936. “My father told us he was sent to Chakwal (Rawalpindi), which is now in Pakistan, for training after which he was posted in the Royal Indian Army Service Corps. Most of his service was in the North-West Frontier Province which is now Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa area.”

NEW DELHI: Congress’ Rahul Gandhi on Sunday paid tribute to former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao. In a Facebook post, Rahul Gandhi wrote, “My tribute to former Congress President and Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao Ji on his birth anniversary.”
 The Congress official handle said in a tweet: “We honour P V Narsimha Rao, a visionary leader who oversaw major economic transformations of the Indian economy. His contributions to the nation shall never be forgotten.” Narasimha Rao had been Prime Minister from 1991 to 1996.

The Jammu & Kashmi administration has asked state-run fuel retailers to stock up on cooking gas cylinders to keep supplies going for two months in the Kashmir Valley even if road connectivity is disrupted due to frequent landslides or flooding during the monsoon.
 The order triggered wild speculation and people began linking it to the deadly border stand-off with China in Ladakh and the large military deployment there. Food and consumer affairs director Bashir Ahmad said it was a routine order and there was nothing unusual about it. Senior executives from oil companies responsible for maintaining supplies in the Valley also emphatically said the order had no connection with the situation in Ladakh. Indeed, the order very clearly says the buffer stock is being created to avoid shortages when “frequent landslides” disrupt traffic on National Highway-1, the main road link to Jammu and the mainland. It asks oil companies to stock up bulk LPG at their bottling plants and cylinders in godowns of distributors.

A man was walking nearby to a group of elephants that was halted by a small rope tied to their front leg. He was amazed by the fact that the huge elephants are not even making an attempt to break the rope and set themselves free.

He saw an elephant trainer standing beside them and he expressed his puzzled state of mind. The trainer said “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them.

As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”

Moral: It is the false belief of the elephants that denied their freedom for life time. Likewise, many people are not trying to work towards success in their life just because they failed once before. So keep on trying and don’t get tied up with some false beliefs of failure.

The real-life story of Colonel Harland Sanders who was disappointed umpteen times in his life and still made his dream come true late in his life is really inspiring.

He is a seventh grade dropped out who tried many ventures in life but tasted bitter every time. He started selling chicken at his age of 40 but his dream of a restaurant was turned down many times due to conflicts and wars.

Later he attempted to franchise his restaurant. His recipe got rejected 1,009 times before the final approval. And soon the secret recipe, “Kentucky Fried Chicken” became a huge hit worldwide. KFC was expanded globally and the company was sold for 2 million dollars and his face is still celebrated in the logos.

Moral: Have you stopped your attempts to a venture just because you were rejected or failed a few times? Can you even accept a failure of 1009 times? This story inspires everyone to try hard and believe in yourself until you see success despite how many times you have failed.

A marine biologist put a shark into a big tank at the time of a research experiment. Followed by that, he released some tiny bait fishes into it.

As expected, the shark didn’t wait to attack those fishes and ate them. Later, a clear fiberglass was inserted into the tank which partitioned the tank into two and the shark remained in one side.

A similar set of bait fish was sent to the other side of the tank like before. And the shark attempted to attack those fishes but failed by hitting on the fiberglass.

The shark attempted for several days until it gave up. Later, the biologist removed the glass from the tank but the shark didn’t try to attack the small fishes.

The shark always continues to see a false barrier in the tank and stopped his attempts.

Moral: It is quite common for many people to give up after many setbacks and failures. The story is an example for keep trying always and to never give up despite multiple failures.

Some frogs were traveling through woods and two of them accidentally fell into a pit. The other frogs which were safe upside understood how deep the pit was and saw no hope for the frogs to escape out of it.

Both of these frogs started trying to get out of the pit but failed many times. The frogs on the safe side shouted at them to give up the pain of trying as it was not possible.

Eventually, one frog heard the other frogs and decided to stop trying and fell down to death. However, the other frog went on trying and at last managed to reach the top.

The other frogs asked him, “Did you not hear us?” He explained that he was deaf and thought other frogs were encouraging him to get out.

Moral: Some people around you may ask you to be on a safer side always and stop trying and taking risks. However, there is no gain without pain. So try hard to achieve success in life despite what life offers you.

Once upon a time, a merchant named Sam owed a huge sum of money to Tom, a money lender. The time came when the merchant ran out of the last chance given to him to give the money back.

Sam had a beautiful daughter who was very affectionate with her father. Tom asked the merchant to give all the money back failing which he will marry his beautiful daughter.

Tom was not at all good looking and ill minded and so the merchant was in dilemma. Tom proposed a new condition. There was a mix of black and white pebbles on the ground where they were standing. He will take two pebbles on both hands, one will be white and the other will be black.

If the daughter correctly chooses the white pebble, then Tom will write off all the debt and leave the marriage proposal too. But if she chooses the black pebble, he will write off the debt but will marry the daughter.

Tom bent down to pick the pebbles from the ground and the daughter noticed that he took black pebbles on both hands. The girl had three choices- to notify the same to her father which may provoke Tom, take the black pebble and sacrifice her life or simply refuse to take the pebble which might land her father into trouble. But what she did totally surprise Tom.

She took the pebble from his hand and ‘accidentally’ the pebble fell off from her hand to ground. She then asked Tom to see which color pebble was left in his hand to identify the color she picked. Tom had no other choice but to show the black color pebble in his hand and set both of them free.

Moral: Sometimes, life offers you situations which not only demands hard work and perseverance but some creative thinking which saves the situation.

Once a professor entered the classroom with a glass jar, rocks, pebbles, and sand. The students were amused to see what he was up to. First, he started filling the rock parts into the jar until he couldn’t add any more.

He asked the students if the jar was full and everybody nodded yes. He then started putting the pebbles inside the jar which went inside through the small gaps and he shakes the jar to allow the pebbles to get into those vacant spaces in between the rocks.

He asked the same question to the students and they again said that the jar was full. Finally, he poured the sand inside the jar which went through the minute gaps and got filled in the jar.

The professor explained that this is how you should set priorities in life. Rock is like your family, while pebbles are like your career while sand is like the least priorities in life and unnecessary quarrels and egos.

If you put sand on the jar first, it will get easily filled up leaving no space for rocks and pebbles.

Moral: You should identify your priorities in life and develop a good strategy to work towards fulfilling it rather than wasting your time and effort on unnecessary aspects of life.

One day a man was passing by a garden when he saw a butterfly cocoon which was about to get open.

He saw a small opening on it and watched the several hours of struggles the butterfly came through to get the body out of it. After many hours, it seemed that the butterfly stopped trying as there was no progress.

He thought to help the butterfly by cutting the cocoon with a scissor. So the butterfly came out easily but the wings were shriveled and the body was tiny and withered.

Unfortunately, the butterfly was not able to take flight and spend the rest of life crawling with a wounded body.

Moral: This is nature’s way of telling the importance of struggles in life. Sometimes, different kinds of struggles are needed in life to make you stronger in the future. Never feel disappointed in life and stop trying when life offers you struggles but keep on fighting until you see success.