435 items in this section. Displaying page 21 of 44
The China Doll
The China Doll [Illustration by Anup Singh] December 9: A country’s national identity is very much like an individual’s identity. Each country has a name, a past from which it traces its origins and a few distinguishing characteristics that make up its overall personality. Yes, nations have personalities. Just like human beings, those countries with strong personalities are the ones with a sure sense of who they are. Kan Yue-sai appears to be sure of who she is....
World's First Space Tourist
May 11: The world’s first paying space tourist is back on earth after a week-long joyride in space. On Sunday, May 6, American millionaire Dennis Tito and two Russian cosmonauts landed back on earth, as their space capsule gently parachuted down onto the barren steppe in Kazakhstan. World’s First Space Tourist [Illustration by Shinod AP] Emerging unsteadily from the capsule, the exhilarated 60-year-old Tito, who is also a former NASA rocket scientist, said the trip was the culmination of a lifelong dream....
A Film on Anne Frank
March 14: Anne Frank was a teenager when the Second World War broke out. And as Hitler’s Nazi Germany chillingly went about targeting Jews with death, her life changed beyond recognition. She lived in hiding for a while but was caught out and put in a concentration camp, where she died. When in hiding, the young girl had kept a diary in which she had recorded her thoughts and impressions of what was happening to her and around her....
Death Threat
March 19: The Olive Ridleys are olive-green coloured sea-turtles that have existed for more than 200 million years. The Gahirmatha beach in Orissa is one of their nesting sites, but unfortunately the fishermen have started catching these turtles for meat to sell in the local market. This has alarmed environmentalists. Nature lover and scientist, BR Ray says that this trend will surely lead to the extinction of the turtles. Thousands of female ridleys travel thousands of kilometres to lay their eggs at Gahirmatha beach....
The Case of the Stonemasons
December 27: Last year, 10 stonemasons had been taken from Udaipur to London to build a temple. Overjoyed with this opportunity to earn more money, they went along willingly. But what did they get there? Just a dirty shack to live in and only 20 pence an hour. The stonemasons did not know that they were being exploited. However, they did know that they were being treated badly. The moment they reached London, their passports were taken away from them....
The Faithful Dog
April 12: How many of us would have the courage to fight a wild cat like a panther, even if it were to save our own lives? Imagine how scary it is even to face a panther? But one brave dog called Pinto attacked a panther in a forest, and saved the lives of his master and his son. This incident occurred recently in the Challehonda forest in Yellapur taluk (or collection of districts) in Sirsi on the Karnataka-Andhra Pradesh border, reports the Deccan Herald....
My Country is a Land of Plains!
February 26: India is a land of rivers, cows, wheat fields, hot dusty plains and flat-roofed houses. This is what Stanzin Zangpo had learned in his class. But he is from Ladakh and he had never seen these things. The 12-year-old boy could not even imagine them. His part of India had jagged snow-capped mountain peaks, bitterly cold climate, large barren wastes of land and frozen lakes. But now Stanzin knows differently. He and 29 other children from Ladakh have come to Delhi on a trip....
The Final Descent
March 26: After 15 years in the skies, the Russian-made Mir space station finally returned to earth on March 22. Its burning remnants could be seen as they shot across the sky over the Fiji islands. The Final Descent [Illustration by Shiju George] Mir means both ‘peace’ and ‘village’ in Russian. It housed 104 astronauts in its lifetime, 62 of whom were from other countries, including seven Americans. Mir’s first component was launched in 1986....
Building a Giant Lie
February 5: The earthquake that struck Gujarat, one of India’s most prosperous states, will go down as among the worst since India gained independence. Both in terms of the numbers of people killed (about 50,000 are feared dead) and the scale of destruction wrought, it has few contemporary parallels. The images of prosperity in cities such as Ahmedabad have been reduced to the symbols of a wasteland – rubble, dust, twisted steel and wire. Building a Giant Lie [Illustration by Shinod A P] A real tragedy, say many of us, but follow it up with a resigned look and statement about the “fury of natural disasters”....
Beef in McDonald's Fries
May 11: Fast food giant McDonald’s seems to be frying in its own fat once again – quite literally at that. Last week, an Indian-American lawyer, Harish Bharti took the fast food giant to a US court for lacing its french fries with beef flavouring, a chemical compound that mimics the taste of beef fat. Millions of Hindus from across the world freely munch its french fries believing them to be vegetarian. Beefing up Bharti’s case is information provided in Eric Schlosser’s recently published book, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of An All-American Meal....