105 items in this section. Displaying page 8 of 11
Eastward Ho!
Britain wants Indian engineers to help modernise their London-Glasgow railway link, and that’s a real about turn! Nearly 150 years ago, Britain was the first country to use steam locomotives. The British also built the first rail tracks in India and set up India’s railway network with one purpose – they wanted to collect raw material such as cotton from different parts of the country so that they could be shipped to Britain. And later, when the ready-made products came back to India, they used the rail network to sell them by reaching different corners of the country....
Patel 20th most popular surname in England
Where: London, UK April 15, 2007: In the UK alone, more than 1.05 million Indians contribute to making the country culturally colourful. Now, there’s more proof that Indians are the largest minority ethnic group in England. According to a study published in The Observer on Sunday, the Indian surname “Patel” is one of the top 500 British surnames. “Patel” is 20th in the list. No wonder too! There were as many as 80,000 Patels in Harrow alone as early as in 1998....
Little Ali's Heart
August 12: One-year old Ali Haider was very sick. His tiny heart had a gaping hole in it. He also had an enlarged liver; lungs clogged with fluid, and he was terribly underweight. His parents searched high and low for someone who could cure their child, but in vain. Little Ali’s Heart [Illustration by Sudheer Nath] The doctors in Pakistan, their own country, did not have the skills to cure Ali. Doctors in the US did not want to risk operating on such a tiny child, either....
IPL Cricket Out of India in Second Season
Where: New Delhi, India March 24, 2009 : The second season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) will now be held in South Africa. IPL is a creation of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). It is a Twenty20 cricket competition, in which each team plays just 20 overs in a game, and each innings takes around 75 minutes to play. The second season was to have been held at different locations in India, just like the first, hugely successful one last year....
An Olympics with a Difference
August 19: For all those who are physically challenged, Abilympics offers a wonderful opportunity to do something special. An Olympic competition featuring ‘sports’ like painting, tailoring, jewellery-making, book-binding, embroidery and computer programming? Welcome to the fifth Abilympics, the three-day International Skill Competition that celebrates the abilities of the physically challenged to stand on their own in a harsh and competitive world. Held in Czechoslavakia starting August 15th, the day India celebrates her independence, the Ablilympics are quite different from the Olympics....
Water-Ice on the Moon?
Where: Bangalore, India January 29, 2009 : The possibility of water-ice existing on the polar regions of the moon is one of the questions that scientists aim to discuss at a meeting to mark the first hundred days of Chandrayaan-I. The scientists include representatives from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA). Chandrayaan-I has so far captured the first-ever images of the dark side of the moon, detected the presence of iron and received X-ray signals from its cratered surface....
The Empire Strikes Back
October 28: The roots of the present-day education system in India lie in British attempts, more than one and a half century ago, to raise a breed of English-speaking Indians who were ‘babus’ or clerks and could manage the affairs of the British rulers. That is why the study of English has always been stressed in India, even if it is at the expense of the country’s languages. And why English is India’s first language today....
India Gets Its Own 'Air Force One' Plane
Where: New Delhi, India April 1, 2009 : The Indian Air Force has now got its own version of Air Force One, the American Presidential aircraft. Three exclusive Business Boeing Jets were added to the Indian Air Force’s fleet on April 1, 2009. Named Rajdhoot, Rajhans and Rajkamal, the three aircraft will be used to transport the Indian President and the Prime Minister. The President or PM will have an executive office on board, a secure communication chamber and facilities to host around 50 guests....
UFO Landing
December 9: Did ‘Unidentified Flying Objects’ (UFOs) cause life on earth? Those UFOs that are supposed to float around in space, which are more like distant dreams of an outer space enthusiast? To test this theory, special balloons filled with neon gas (used in electric lamps) were launched into space from Hyderabad recently by a team of Indian scientists. The balloons are expected to collect air samples at different altitudes in space ranging between 10 and 35 km....
A Train of Villages on the Net
Most people have fond memories of train journeys, though some have unpleasant ones of being left behind at a station, while they waited for a steaming cup of tea or coffee. Many film directors, too, have been fond of shooting action-packed or emotional scenes at railway stations. The famous action scene at the end of the Hollywood Western ‘High Noon’ showed the cowboy hero, Gary Cooper, silencing the villain. In one Indian film after another, the hero and the heroine have rushed across a crowded station to meet each other never to be separated....