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The Wonderful World of Insects
What is an Insect? Insects are found all over India from the icy Himalayas to the burning sands of the Thar Desert. They are found in the murky depths of rivers and lakes, and in the grass in your neighbourhood park. In fact, insects are everywhere-flying in the air, hidden among leaves and flowers, buried deep in the ground and even swimming in the water! Some insects are so small that you may not be able to see them while others like certain beetles are as big as a mouse....
Which Insects Live the Longest?
Take a look around. Which insects do you see? A fly sitting on your computer screen, a mosquito buzzing in your ear just as you drop off to sleep, a butterfly flitting about in the garden outside, or how about the ants that made off with the remains of a dead moth? Most of the insects we see around us have rather short lives. A few hours, a few days, that’s about how long most insects last....
Which is the World's Oldest Working Locomotive?
The Indian Railways is one of the world’s oldest railways dating back to 1849. It also has the largest network in terms of route length covering nearly 63,000 route kilometres touching every nook and cranny of India. The Indian Railways is also the world’s single largest employer with about 1.6 million people working in nine zones. Among its many unique gems are the toy train that runs on the Darjeeling Himalayan rail route, the rack railway at Udagamandalam in south India, the busiest narrow gauge network in the world, etc....
The Golden Fish
There are many islands in the Bay of Bengal and not all of them are inhabited. But on one island, at one time, there was a small hut which belonged to an old man and his wife. They were very poor. The husband used to make nets and fish in the sea, for that was the only food they could get. One day he went fishing as usual. He cast his net and waited. Suddenly there was a pull....
The Fish and the Dinosaur
The Fish and the Dinosaur [] Once there was a pond in a jungle. In that pond there were 63 fish. One day a Dinosaur came to the pond. In one day it drank half of the water of the pond. The fish were worried that the Dinosaur will drink the whole pond. The fish queen asked everyone that who would defeat the Dinosaur? One poor fish said, “I will defeat him”....
Two Girls and a Lotus
On top of a three-hundred-foot hill was a quaint old temple. A hunched, old man performed puja here. Enshrined in the centre of the temple was a beautiful idol. Usha and Lalita, two good friends, enjoyed talking to the kindly temple priest and watching him adorn the beautiful idol with multicoloured flowers. Often in the morning, Usha and Lalita climbed the hill, dancing between the rhododendron bushes, jumping, singing and playing hide-and-seek. Woken from its slumber, a dovelet would coo sleepily, “Coo!...
The King who Played Marbles
The little kingdom was plunged in darkness. There were no festivities, no sounds of music or laughter. Grief was writ large on the faces of the people and the lamps in the palace burned low. Outside the curtained bedroom of the young ruler, the men and women who worked for him stood and sat in anxious postures, full of sorrow. Many were weeping softly. The king was ill. He was on his deathbed. The short illness that had struck so suddenly but a week before, had been pronounced beyond treatment by the doctors who had come their heads together and tried every possible medicine… but death was stronger than their medical knowledge....
The Rumour
“Bajai,” as we called grandmother, was the best storyteller in the whole world, says Madhu Gurung. She lived in the foothills of Mussoorie in a tiny village called Johri Gaun. And she always started her stories with a saying, “To the listener a garland of gold, to the storyteller a garland of all forest flowers and this tale that I tell you today will be heard in heaven.” Here Madhu Gurung presents one of the many stories that she heard from Bajai in her childhood....
The Tiny World of Ants
It is believed that ants evolved from wasps and have lived in the Earth for at least 100 million years. It is said that at any one time there are at least 1 quadrillion living ants on the Earth. Ants are no doubt the most successful of all social insects of Hymenoptera, an order that also includes wasps and bees. Ants are colony makers and their colonies may contain from a few to 20 million individuals....
Paris is Bugged by Termites!
Recently Parisians have been facing quite a bit of trouble; bookshop owners live in mortal terror of their precious books disintegrating, while owners of wooden houses are constantly worrying that their homes might collapse into a pile of rubble. Strangely enough, the cause of all this problem is really teeny. In fact the culprit that has most of Paris, France, upset is able to squeeze through an opening as small as 1/32 of an inch! Not so terrifying after all, but then these creatures live in gigantic colonies – consisting of more than a million members and love munching on wood and paper....
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