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Friendly Neighbourhood Bank: For Kids Only
June 24: This is a bank with a difference. For, you hardly meet any adults here. The place is run by children and has children as members. Welcome to the kids bank of Juhapura, a working class locality in Ahmedabad. It is called the Sarjan Bank. The bank was started 22 years ago as part of a programme called Sarjan. It was started by a group called the Ahmedabad Study Action Group. This organisation has been working for poor people in Gujarat since 1973....
Polite Police
July 8: Very soon, a banner will appear in the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport in Delhi. It will read: The Tourist Police For you, with you, Always. But, most people are scared that it might actually mean “The Tourist Police, For you, with you, after you, Always. Polite Police [Illustration by Sudheer Nath] Disappointed with the police force and its rude ways of dealing with the public, the Ministry of Tourism now wants to have its own police force, says a report in ‘The Indian Express’ newspaper....
Mr Fly Rubs his Hands with Glee
Have you seen a housefly rubbing its hands together? It is almost as if it were washing its hands. It actually is. Not with water though. When the housefly rubs its hands together, it is cleaning them. And, if you have the food it has cleaned itself on, you are in for a bad time. Nothing can save you from a bout of diarrhoea or dysentery after that. Mr Fly Rubs his Hands with Glee [Illustration by Shridevi] The whole body of the housefly, including claws and padded feet, is covered with sharp hairs....
Rats! Rats! Rats!
Rats here, rats there, rats everywhere! In the kitchen, in the storage cupboards, in shops, in restaurants, all over the place. People in Paris have no respite. The rat population has suddenly grown in such large numbers that Paris may soon need a Pied Piper to weed them out of the city. Rats! Rats! Rats! [] The rat boom happened because of a new underground railway system. When work began on the railway system, workmen began digging the ground to make tunnels for the trains....
Pushkar Lake Water or Sugarcane Juice?
May 19: If you take a glass of water from the famous Pushkar lake in Rajasthan, it looks like sugarcane juice. But, that is where the simile ends. It is neither sweet, nor does it smell fresh. It has a rotten smell and you will not feel like tasting it. Plus, it has fish bones and mud in it – because, in the past two weeks, 200 fish weighing between 5-20 kilograms have died in the brown depths due to lack of life-sustaining oxygen, The Indian Express newspaper reports....
Answering Nature's Call in Peace
August 5: If the children feel like relieving themselves, they go to the nearby drain or the fields beyond. For their mothers and sisters, matters are even worse. They have to wait for night to fall. They can attend nature’s call only under the cover of darkness. As if they were committing a crime. But now things are changing for the 1000 odd residents of Karuvettupatai in Tiruchi district, Tamil Nadu. Answering Nature’s Call in Peace [Illustration by Shiju George] Gramalaya, a local nongovernment organisation, has constructed toilets for them....
Why Mother's Day?
Why have a particular day to tell your mother that you love her and respect her, some of us might ask. Why indeed? We could do that everyday. Right. We could. But, do we? So, is it such a bad idea to have a day to honour mothers? After all, we have specific days to honour freedom fighters, leaders or other heroes. And mothers are no less than heroes, considering the amount of effort they put into making their children’s lives a bit more easy and happier....
No Begging for Merit
May 25: When Nagarathna, a beggar girl from Mysore, was preparing for the Secondary School Leaving Certificate (Class X) examinations, she had to beg to buy books and study under street lights. She passed the exams with flying colours and the Indian Express newspaper published her success story. After the story appeared in the paper, Nagarathna has been receiving innumerable offers from people who are keen to fund her education. A non-resident Indian, a retired statesman, actress-turned politicians, the list is endless....
We Would All Scream Without Ice Cream
Can you imagine a summer without ice creams? It seems the Chinese, too, couldn’t. For it was they who gave the world its first ice cream. In India, the Mughals are said to have introduced their kind of ice cream — the kulfi. The exact date of origin of the ice cream is not known. Kulfi is a mixture of khoa, pistachio nuts and saffron essence frozen in conical metal containers after sealing it with dough — exactly the same way as it is made today!...
Advertisement for Dogs
Advertisement for Dogs [Illustration by Shiju George] If you are selling a dog’s product, who should you ask to buy it – the dog owner or the dog? A British advertisement firm has decided to get the attention of dogs in their latest ad campaign on a pet awards show. The programme, to be conducted by the television channel Animal Planet, is being publicised with posters that have been sprinkled with dog urine, the Indian Express newspaper reported....