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.
435 items in this section. Displaying page 28 of 44
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....
Historic Station Soon to be History
November 24: A historic railway station, that once linked the Indian city of Jammu, with Sialkot in Pakistan, is soon going to be demolished. A Kala Kendra Complex or centre to preserve art and culture will be established in its place. The catch is that the Jammu & Kashmir government, that ordered the demolition, itself does not know what exactly it is going to preserve in the art centre. But that clearly does not seem to bother it....
No Dalmatians Please
Have you seen the movie ‘101 Dalmatians?’ Remember the cute cuddly spotted puppies scampering around and performing tricks? Well, if you loved the movie, here’s some news for you – Disney is coming out with yet another puppy-filled movie and it is going to be called ‘102 Dalmatians’ – a sequel to the original movie. No Dalmatians Please [Illustration by Anup Singh] Dalmatians are believed to have originated in Dalmatia (now in Croatia, Europe), long, long ago....
Messing Up, Alphabetically
November 4: Central Asian countries that proclaimed independence after the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) disintegrated in 1991 are not merely beset by the usual political and economic uncertainties that mark all new nations. They are uncertain about their alphabets too. At the root of all this confusion is an identity crisis that the countries are suffering. Messing Up, Alphabetically [Illustration by Sudheer Nath] Take Azerbaijan, for instance. Since most people here speak Azeri, verbal communication is not a problem....
Finding a Match for an Elephant
Where: Rome, Italy July 1, 2000 : Calimero, a twenty-year-old African elephant, who has been pining for his lost love, may soon find a new love. But romance may not come easy for this lovelorn jumbo because he will have to travel across the Alps in order to find his dream girl. Calimero was brought to the Rome Zoo when he was barely a year old. Soon after, Carla, an African she-elephant from Gabon, joined him....
Pope Benedict XVI Completes Weeklong Tour of Holy Land
Where: Nazareth, Israel May 15, 2009 : Pope Benedict XVI, head of the worldwide Catholic Church, made a weeklong trip to the Middle East, touring the Holy Land in a bid to promote peace and unity in the region. The pope prayed at some of Christianity’s most sacred destinations and visited Muslim and Jewish holy sites. He also visited Israel’s Holocaust* memorial and saw the conditions in which Palestinian refugees live. In the birthplace of Jesus Christ, Bethlehem (in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory) the pope appealed for a separate state for Palestinians....
A Glider at the Railway Station
Where: Sarnath, India December 11, 2008 : Passengers at the Sarnath Railway Station noticed that a paper box, left abandoned near a railway track, was behaving a little oddly. They alerted the railway authorities, who found that the box carried the inscription, “It is a rare animal, please send it to the zoo”. It was a Flying Lemur, a species native to China and the Philippines. The forest department sent a team that recovered the animal, identified it, and moved it to the local zoo....
Underwater Terminator
It is not an animal or disease. It is a collective name given to plants, which live underwater. Algae do not have specialised body parts such as roots, stems and leaves. They range in size from very tiny cells to 30 metre long weeds. A special characteristic of algae is that they multiply very fast. Underwater Terminator [Illustration by Kusum Chamoli] US researchers recently identified the algae, which has caused large-scale destruction of European sea habitats – almost 4,050 hectares of sea habitats along the Mediterranean coast, according to a report in ‘Down To Earth’ magazine....
Bermudas on Beaches — and in Parliament
August 12: Very soon members of Parliament in Bermuda will go to work wearing Bermuda shorts. This is what the lawmakers of Bermuda Islands have decided. Usually, parliaments across the world are known for their sober dress sense to convey that being a member of the legislature is no laughing matter, and the prestige of the Parliament has to be kept in mind while dressing for it. Bermudas on Beaches — and in Parliament [Illustration by Sudheer Nath] The Bermudian House of Assembly, which is where the members of Parliament assemble, recently voted to relax the dress code of its parliament....
Schools of Failed Teachers and Students
September 6: Three schools in Hyderabad are changing people’s views of government schools – they showed a 90 per cent pass percentage in this year’s Senior Secondary Certificate (SSC) examination. At the same time 12 government schools in Hyderabad have set another record of sorts. All students of the schools appearing for the SSC exam flunked the exams. The SSC exam is the most important exam of a school student’s life. It marks the end of a student’s school life and the beginning of college life – which in many cases decides the student’s future course in life....