� 400,000 people across the world drown to death every year.

� 10 crore birth certificates will be issued in India on November 14, Children�s Day. This is part of the Registrar General of India�s efforts to strengthen monitoring of female foeticide and girl child survival after the 2001 census reported a deficit of 3.5 crore women compared to the 30 lack in 1901.

� 17,000 Bangladeshi women die of breast cancer every year.

� The Noble Prize was shared by Mr. Yatzhak Rabin, the then Israeli Prime Minister, Mr. Shimon Peres, the then Foreign Minister of Israel and Mr Yasser Arafat, Leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation for their negotiation of the historic peace pact allowing Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

� Lata Mangeskar always sings bearfoot; she treats her singing as prayer. She writes out the song she is to sing in her own handwriting before she sings it.

� Damascus (Dinmashq) in Syria is the oldest capital city in the world. It has been continuously inhabited since 2500 B.C.

� Japan is called the Land of the Rising Sun. The title is a form of the country�s indigenous name of Nippon, which literally means �sun origin�. The allusion is to the geographical location of Japan with regard to China. The Japanese flag shows the sun�s red disc on a white background.