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.
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The Privileged Moles
April 4: When you take a walk in the streets of Canada’s largest city, Toronto, you will probably come across people who hold out their hats for money. At least this is what a Reuters report in The Indian Express says. Though Toronto is a prosperous city, there are many homeless, sick and destitute who have made the streets their home. To avoid running into them, the city’s richer citizens have gone underground. Literally. Here is where they are: Toronto’s underground is made up of 27 tunnels, that are about 10 km long....
Illiterate Americans
October 6: Last week we had written about Ganga, a teenaged girl who taught the women in her slum how to read and write. These women are not an isolated case. A very large percentage of the Indian population does not know how to read and write. In fact, the mass illiteracy of its citizens is one of the biggest problems staring the Indian government in its face today. Illiterate Americans [Illustration by Anup Singh] Now there’s news that the richest country in the world, the United States of America, is struggling to cope with ‘illiteracy’ too....
Made to Order
December 9: We’ve heard of gene therapy for humans. But for seeds? And yet, this is exactly what seeds in India will be treated for in the future. Thanks to gene therapy, the seeds will have made-to-order properties. Some scientists are introducing a gene (the element that gives hereditary characteristic to a living thing) from a weed into the Indian mustard seed to make the crop consume less water. This is to help farmers survive droughts in India....
Federer is Number One Again
Where: London, United Kingdom July 5, 2009 : It was a day of tennis records and grand performances at the Wimbledon Men’s Final. Swiss Roger Federer, ranked second in the tournament’s listings, faced a tough fight over five sets by Andy Roddick before he could win his sixth Wimbledon title and 15th Grand Slam title. The American Roddick (ranked sixth), who’d defeated Britain’s Andy Murray in the semi-finals, often looked as if he could win his first Wimbledon crown....
Japanese Government Announces Green Stimulus Package
Where: Tokyo, Japan April 11, 2009 : The recession has prompted many governments to inject ‘stimulus packages’ to boost their countries’ economies. Japan’s Prime Minister Taro Aso announced a package with a green focus. His government will encourage the start of mass production of electric cars in three years. It also has plans to boost solar power generation to 20 times the current level of 1.42m kilowatts. Then there is a car scrappage scheme, under which motorists who trade in cars that are more than 13 years old for environment-friendly vehicles will receive subsidies....
International Appeal to stop Iceland's Whaling for Jobs Program
Where: Reykjavik, Iceland February 16, 2009 : In a letter signed by senior diplomats in Reykjavik, the governments of six countries appealed to Iceland to rethink its decision to permit the hunting of 150 fin and 100 minke whales in a year. The countries are the United States, Germany, Britain, France, Finland and Sweden. The former Iceland government took the decision before stepping down in the face of the country’s economic collapse. The letter expressed “extreme disappointment” and asked the new government to consider the long-term interests of the whaling industry....
The Olympic Gold Rush
September 30: At the Millennium Olympics in Sydney, Barbados, the tiny island nation in the Caribbean, has overtaken the United States and China to head the medals tally – if you calculate the number of medals against the population. When sprinter Obadele Thompson won the bronze in the 100-metre race in 10.04 seconds, on September 23, Barbados topped the medal table list maintained by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). This is because Barbados has a population of only 270,000....
Destination Mir
Destination Mir [Illustration by Shiju George] August 19: Dennis Tito is a very excited man. This businessman-cum-space-enthusiast has won the first prize in a game show called Destination Mir. He is now all set to be the world’s first space tourist, and is training at Russia’s Star City space-base for his unusually long journey. Russia has launched a television game show to revive interest in its ageing space station, Mir. The winner of the show gets to shoot into space, straight to the Russian space station Mir, which has been in space for 14 years now....
Protest Without Clothes
July 1: See this picture. What do you think the children were doing? No, they were not waiting for a community bath. They were at a gram sabha (village meeting). They had gone there to tell officials that the increased cost of power is making them miserable. This kids protest happened at Sitarampura near Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh recently. Protest Without Clothes [Illustration by Sudheer Nath] The gram sabhas were being conducted last week by officials of the Andhra Pradesh Transmission Corporation (AP Transco)....
A Soldier's Death is a Soldier's Death
Where: New Delhi, India May 16, 2000: Today’s newspapers must have given some relief to Indian Army men. For, George Fernandes, the Defence Minister of India, has finally agreed to their demands. Their demand was that the family of every jawan, or soldier, killed in action must get the same compensation amount of Rs 1 million ($23,255) from the Government of India. It did not matter where the soldier died: Kargil, Srinagar, or the north-eastern part of India....