Urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu said a case of “wilful absence” had been proved against electrical engineer AK Verma. Mr Verma had been under investigation since 1992, but had refused to co-operate, the minister said.

Mr Naidu said in a statement that Mr Verma joined the Central Public Works Department in 1980. He had risen to the rank of executive engineer by 1990, when he went on leave.

An inquiry was set up in 1992, but formal proceedings to dismiss him were not begun until 2007. It took a further seven years for the department to reach a decision and dismiss him.

It is not clear whether he was paid during his time off.

In a similar case,  a state school in Madhya Pradesh sacked a teacher who had been absent for 23 years of her 24-year career.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised to curb slack working practices when he took office last year. He makes unannounced visits to government offices, and absenteeism has since plummeted.

The 57-year-old former policeman James McCormick claims to have designed a bomb detector. He has made huge sums of money by selling more than $40 million of devices to the Iraqi government while bombing attacks were claiming hundreds of lives throughout Iraq.

How many people died in Iraq after being tricked into a false sense of security by the bomb detectors? We don’t really know but Iraqi officials have been known to have bought 6000 of the so-called bomb detectors. The only problem is that these bomb detectors are fake. Iraq government is now faced with the task of tracking down more than 6,000 bogus detectors bought between 2008 and 2010.

On one occasion, an insurgent drove a truck laden with explosives through 23 checkpoints in Baghdad where the ‘detectors’ were being used. Three Iraqi officials have since been jailed for corruption for taking part in the fraud.

Military and police forces from Niger, Georgia, Egypt, Thailand, Libya, and other countries also bought devices that experts described as “completely ineffectual as a piece of detection equipment”. The devices, which were supposed to keep people safe from bombers, were actually based on a golf ball finder that could be purchased in the US for less than $20. James McCormick used glossy brochures, fake demonstrations, and bribes to tout his devices as suitable for use at checkpoints, military bases, and other sensitive installations.

In fact, experts found that the aerial supposed to detect suspicious substances was unconnected and that there were no actual sensors inside the “detector”. A former business partner of James McCormick cited by the BBC said that the millionaire conman was fully aware that the detectors didn’t work.

He recalled confronting him after becoming suspicious about the bomb detectors’ effectiveness. James McCormick bluntly replied: “It does exactly what it’s designed to do: it makes money”

Flies in public toilets in Beijing may be making them unusable. It is because of new cleanliness standards which require that Beijing’s public toilets must not exceed two flies. Officials striving to clean up China’s filthy toilets have announced this new standard.

The new standard applies to lavatories in parks, railway stations, airports, hospitals, malls and supermarkets in the capital.

In addition to the above standard, the municipal committee in charge of the cleanliness of the city include an order that there is no accumulation of urine or water in the public toilets and that bins aren’t overflowing.

It is not clear how the city plans to enforce the cleanliness standards. What would for example happen if a person wishes to use a toilet that has more than two flies in it.

When thegarlic reporter contacted the Beijing Municipal Commission of City Administration and Environment he was told that the city officials will regularly count the fly numbers and swat excessive flies with a fly swatter. The inspection methodology will be flexible.

Police said the man first approached a 9 ft saltwater crocodile and tried to give it a drink of beer before jumping on the back of the larger 15 ft beast, named Fatso. The animal turned and grabbed hold of his right leg. Amazingly the crocodile did not try to eat the man. Perhaps the man did not taste that good!

The man was taken to Broome Hospital to undergo surgery for severe lacerations to the leg.

It is understood the park’s owner, well-known bush adventurer Malcolm Douglas, does not want to press charges over the incident.

But not long after describing the mystery craft to police and hanging up, the man sheepishly rang back.

“I made a mistake,” the caller admitted.

“I thought I saw something that was really strange and it wasn’t actually … You won’t believe this, it’s the moon.”

In 2008 there were 680 accidental shooting deaths in the United States, with more than 15,500 shooting injuries. Furthermore, it has been reported that on the average five children are injured or killed daily on a nationwide basis in gun accidents. One of the primary causes of these accidents is that people find loaded handguns in the home.