Our news for kids is interesting, relevant, sometimes quirky, always well-informed and about real people and happenings in a real world. News for kids delves deep into the ‘how’ & ‘why’ of news, giving children (and adults) a wider understanding of the events happening around them.
437 items in this section. Displaying page 3 of 44
The South Indian Sikh
October 21: Sardar Bhupinder Singh is 91 years old. He is also a bit of an oddity where he lives – in Kadakarapally, Kerala. He is the only one in his area to keep his hair long, wear a turban and visit the gurudwara or Sikh temple in nearby Kochi. Bhupinder Singh is one of the few living Malayalee Sikhs of his generation, in the south-western state of Kerala. He is known in the area as “Sikh chettan” that is, Sikh elder brother, says a recent report in The Hindustan Times....
Assam's Boys Shine in Asian Cricket
July 22: Two young boys have done the impossible in Assam. They have pushed politicians and the continuing violence, out of the media spotlight. Both boys are stars of the Indian under-15 cricket team. One of them, Palash Jyot Das, is the son of a bank employee. The other, Mrigen Talukdar comes from a poor family. There’s nothing remarkable about their backgrounds. Much is remarkable about their achievements, though. While Palash is Asia’s best batsman, Mrigen is Asia’s best bowler....
Man Who Could Make The Taj Disappear
August 12: Franz Harary is the magician. He has a simple wish: he wants to make the Taj Mahal disappear. Nothing doing, says the Indian government. Harary is an American magician. His specialty is making huge monuments disappear. In ten years, he has done things no other magician has dared do before. In Hawaii he moved a volcano two miles out to sea. In Japan, he made the Tokyo Bay Bridge vanish. At Cape Kennedy in the USA, he made the NASA space shuttle vanish....
Language Split
Language Split [Illustration by Anup Singh] November 18: The English language is believed to have caused one of Sri Lanka’s leading political parties to split. How? Well, the party’s leader, being a member of the upper class, spoke in English during press conferences, a language his local language-speaking cadre or party members could not fathom. This double talk of the politician caused the party members to do a double take and they went ahead and split into two....
Parts of Pakistan Under Taliban Control
Where: Islamabad, Pakistan February 20, 2009 : The Swat Valley, a picturesque region in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province and once a major tourist destination, is completely under Taliban control. The Taliban, the most dreaded extremist Islamic militant group in the world, is present in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. It opposes modernisation and the education of girls and women. Since January 2009, the militants have closed down 400 private schools which had 40,000 girl students. At least 10 schools which re-opened were blown up....
Trees of Delhi – Under the Axe!
Where: The Capital city of New Delhi, India March 26, 2007: Imagine you are in a city where there are a lot of trees, large parks, open spaces, playgrounds. Slowly, the city starts filling up with more and more people. These people need houses. They need transport, to get from one place to another. They need more schools, more hospitals, more office buildings, more markets, more space. How will they get this space, and who decides which space to use?...
World's Largest Blanket
Val Stone, a Devon, UK,-based pensioner has made the world’s largest crocheted blanket and plans to sell it to raise money for a cancer fund. Stone, a leukaemia patient, has spent 11 years making the blanket, which is larger than a tennis court. The blanket measures about 24 metres by 8 metres when stretched out and weighs about 90 kilograms. World’s Largest Blanket [Illustration by Shinod AP] She hopes to raise £3,000 (Rs....
The Beggar who is a Money Lender
August 5: A beggar is someone who is so poor that she has to beg people for money. For, she generally has little that belongs to her. No money to buy food, no proper shelter to live in, not even perhaps, two sets of clothes to wear. Or, at least that’s what we’re told to believe. But Bhanwari Sethani forces us to take a new look at the tired, old pictures of the beggar that we have in our mind....
World Leaders Propose Solutions to Global Hunger
Where: L’Aquila, Italy July 10, 2009 : The leaders of the Group of Eight (G-8) countries met at a summit in L’Aquila, Italy. The G-8 is a group of industrialized countries that includes Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Japan and the United States. After three days of talks, the leaders of these countries launched a new plan to tackle global hunger. The plan was approved by over 30 countries and organizations. Food security, or ensuring adequate access to food, has become a very important issue for governments everywhere after high food prices last year led to riots in some countries....
The Quake that rocked Gujarat
Where: Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India February 5, 2001 : It was 8.45 am on January 26, 2001. A day when the country was celebrating Republic Day. Like their counterparts across India, the people of Ahmedabad, in the western state of Gujarat, were settling down to watch the Republic Day Parade on television. Basant Rawat was one of them. Suddenly the earth began to shake under his feet. Basant ran out of his house. And, the sight that greeted him seemed to be straight out of an action film – Tagore apartments, a five-storeyed building, 400 yards from his house, collapsed like a pack of cards, says a report in ‘The Telegraph’....