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Report cards
October 21: The two news reports appeared almost at once and said a lot about the state of affairs in education in the world. One was the announcement of a whopping US$210 billion Gates Scholarship set up at England’s prestigious Cambridge University by the richest man on earth, Microsoft boss Bill Gates. The scholarship fund will enable 225 youngsters from across the world to be Gates Cambridge Scholars every year, beginning 2001. Report cards [Illustration by Sudheer Nath] Graduate students from every country in the world, barring the United Kingdom, would be eligible to apply....
Screen Saver that saves
You can find a cure for cancer. Sounds impossible? But, it could become true. Now, there is a way in which you can be a part of a high-tech research team and perhaps hit upon the right combination to make a cancer drug. Screen Saver that saves [Illustration by Shinod AP] All you have to do is download a certain software and use it as a screen saver. This way your computer might find the way to make that wonder drug....
Tiger Target
October 16: A few months ago, the accidental death of a dozen Royal Bengal tigers, at an Orissa zoo, shocked the nation. The news made headlines and gradually got relegated to the inside pages of newspapers before vanishing altogether. Yes, public memory is notoriously short and people eventually forgot about the whole episode. Now, yet another tiger death has shaken us out of our apathy. The gruesome slaughter of a young Bengal Tiger (Saki) at the Hyderabad zoo has once again highlighted the utter negligence on the part of zoo officials....
Prized Skeleton in Museum Closet
September 23: A newcomer has joined the exhibits at Delhi’s prestigious National Museum. She is all of 5000 years old, from the time of the Harappan Valley civilisation, and in skeletal form. Discovered from Rakhigarhi, in the northern Indian state of Haryana, the skeleton is remarkably well-preserved. Even the shell bangles in her left hand, are still intact, says a report in ‘The Hindustan Times’. Several pots were found arranged around her, hinting that the Harappans may have believed in life after death....
She Pulls Airplanes, with her Teeth
September 9 : Eighteen-year-old Seema Bhadoria has no teething problems when it comes to pulling strings with weights attached. She is one of the strongest persons in India. Seema has done something even strong body builders hesitate to do – she has pulled an airplane weighing 3387.33 kg on the runway of the Bhopal airport. What’s even more amazing, she has pulled the plane with her teeth. Seema weighs barely 56 kg and at 5 feet 6 inches, is not even very tall....
How to Write the Right Way
September 9 : These are days of the high-tech child. A child whose grasp of the computer is phenomenal and who knows how to handle the mouse better than he can handle toys. But in this rush to be computer whizzes at age fifteen and below, kids are forgetting how to hold pens and pencils. Or, to put it simply, today’s kids are forgetting how to write. It looks as if the days of the neat homework book, with pages and pages of beautiful, tidy writing – the school-going child’s special pride – will soon be a thing of the past....
Acting Colour Blind?
October 6: England’s world-famous Royal Shakespeare Company has made a break with tradition. It has cast a black Nigerian actor, David Oyelowo, in the lead role of Henry VI, whose insanity unleashed a 30-year bloody civil war between two ruling parties, called the War of the Roses. Acting Colour Blind? [Illustration by Anup Singh] The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is one of the oldest and most prestigious theatre companies of the world....
Camel's Milk and Pet Registration
November 24: Hey, how about trying camel’s milk instead of buffalo’s or cow’s milk with your porridge? Not very keen on the thought? Doesn’t sound appetising? Did you know that many mothers, particularly in the rural regions of Rajasthan and Gujarat, offer camel’s milk to their children? Unlike cow’s milk, a camel’s milk is rather salty and very thick. But as far as being a source of nutrition is concerned, its benefits are considerably more than that of cow’s milk....
The Long and Short of It
November 4: In a throwback to the age of British rule, constables of the Indian police force in a few districts of Andhra Pradesh, might go back to wearing knickers. No, it’s not nostalgia for the uniforms of the colonial period. Neither is it a matter of airing the legs in the intense Andhra heat. It appears that the state police force is short of uniform cloth to make trousers for the constables. The constables are not happy at this turn of events....
The Yellow River
October 21: The Yellow River has been called the cradle of the Chinese civilisation, just as the Indus River made it possible for the ancient Indian civilisation of Harappa and Mohenjodaro to flourish, the Tigris and Euphrates gave birth to the Mesopotamian civilisation (now in Iraq), and the Nile gave birth to the Egyptian civilisation more than 4000 years ago. The magnificent river runs 4345 km, and is second only to the Yangtse river. Called China’s sorrow because of its tendency to overflow and change its course, till date it has overflowed 1600 times and changed its course 26 times, affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people....