247 items in this section. Displaying page 22 of 25
Quizzically Yours
September 6: Eight-year old Neha is the happiest girl in India. Her father has just won a huge amount of money at a popular television quiz show. Neha coached him for the show. The game show, ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’ (KBC), is the Indianised version of the famous American show ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?’ Contestants are given 15 questions to answer. The person who answers all the questions correctly, wins 10 million dollars (in KBC he or she wins one crore rupees....
The Common Man's Film-maker
September 23: From the rollicking ‘Chupke Chupke’ and ‘Golmaal’ to the shades of jealousy in ‘Abhimaan’, from the quiet seriousness of ‘Anupama’ to the tragic ‘Anand’, veteran film maker Hrishikesh Mukherjee has covered an entire range of emotions and relationships in his films. In a career spanning more than four decades, he became known as the man who touched a chord in the common man – the middle class in particular. And the ordinary film viewer responded to his quiet flowering in the only way he or she knew – by seeing Hrishi_da_‘s films again and again....
Villagers go Online
October 28: The internet is quietly transforming the lives of over 20,000 people in six villages around the South Indian state of Pondicherry. Whether it’s sugarcane farmers in Kizhur village using the net to consult an entomologist ( one who fights bugs ) online, to save their crops from being ravaged by bugs, or a farm-worker making incense sticks under a government-sponsored scheme about which she found out on the net, the internet has become crucial to the lives of all the villagers....
All for One
February 26: What happens when someone in authority takes advantage of the position that he is in, to harass someone weaker? In India, more often than not, the victim ends up doing nothing about it. Why not? Fear forces him or her to keep quiet. But not everyone believes in living up to the image of the powerless Indian. And when that ‘someone’ turns out to be an entire village, generally thought to be unchanging, it demands our attention....
They See!
March 19: Among the relief workers who rushed to Kutch, Gujarat, to help the quake-affected people, was 26-year-old Sudha Patel. Sudha, who is the sarpanch or village head of Changa village in the Anand district of Gujarat, began by collecting woollen clothes, foodgrains, blankets and donations of food packs and mineral water. Then she began to send “family kits” consisting of tea, sugar and other necessary items, to the quake victims. Sudha is visually impaired....
Army Comes to the Aid of Birds
October 14: Harike sanctuary, a large wetland in India’s Punjab district, has just undergone a massive clean-up operation. The sprucing-up of a large part of the sanctuary has been done to welcome a special group of tourists who had stopped coming to the sanctuary because it had stopped being hospitable. These tourists used to come all the way from Siberia, China, Central Asia and Ladakh to escape the harsh winter months. They were migratory birds like the cotton teal and common pochard, says a report in ‘The Indian Express’....
Help Save Our Home
Raju Kher has just passed his Madhyamik or class X exams. He is very happy for having scored a first division and achieving ‘distinctions’ in four subjects. A student achieves a ‘distinction’ by scoring at least 75 marks in a subject. But Raju’s distinctions are even more remarkable because he has nothing much to go by. He lives in a Home for the destitute – a home for the homeless and the poor. So there have been no tuitions for Raju, no energy foods to improve his brainpower during exam times, and no parents either to shower all the attention that an achiever usually gets....
Learn while Playing!
Learn while Playing! [] | Done with the exams and looking for a break? How about trying a few mental calisthenics (gym exercises to tone up the body) that will keep your grey cells active during the summer vacations? The books reviewed below help you do just that. At the same time, they don’t tire you out. The Unbelievably Creative Me A Workbook Written by Karle Dickerson and Connie Berg...
Conquering Britain!
Where: Birmingham, UK November 25, 2000: A few weeks ago, we wrote about Indian-born Roshan Doug, who has been selected as the poet-laureate for the city of Birmingham in Britain. Close on the heels of that news comes another: Birmingham councillors will be giving an Indian name to a few suburbs in the city. Birmingham’s Apna Town Apna Town (our town) will be the new name for Sparbrook, a group of suburbs in Birmingham city. So this Christmas, if you drive past the Midlands (160 km north of London) you can see the Apna Town signage in English, Hindi, Gurmukhi and Urdu....
Simayal's Women
September 30: Rows and rows of fresh vegetables and fruits: cabbages, cauliflowers, tomatoes, peas, bananas, apricots and apples in clean surroundings. That’s some of the stuff that greets Delhi-ites at the government-run ‘Mother Dairy’ outlets, which have mirrors on their walls to give a rich sense of plenty to buyers, at reasonable prices. No wonder, these outlets are great favourites with consumers. Ever wondered where the outlets’ seemingly never-ending source of fresh produce comes from? There are many different sources and one of them happens to be Simayal, a remote mountain village in the Kumaon region of Uttar Pradesh (UP)....