Ajay Dasgupta on Pitara Kids Network

How Far Away are the Stars?

Thu, 04 Dec 2003 12:42:03 +0000

The sun is a star, just like the thousands of others we see in the sky each night. But it looks so very big. Is it the biggest star? No. The only reason the sun appears so big is because it is closer to us than any other star.

The sun is just 93,000,000 miles (or 14,88,000,000 km) away from the earth. That seems an awful lot of distance, but light can travel so quickly that the sun’s rays reach the earth in a little more than eight minutes! That is the wonder of light.

Little Blue Daisies

Sat, 29 Sep 2001 19:34:09 +0000

Little Blue Daisies [Illustration by Shinod AP]

Little blue daisies

in my flowerbed
First came the ladybird
red red red
Fly away ladybird
said the daisy blue
Poor little ladybird flew flew flew

Then came the grasshopper
green green green
He hid in the leaves
not to be seen
Hop away grasshopper,
said the daisy blue
Poor little grasshopper
Went hop, hop hop

Third came the bumblebee
black black black
Humming to himself
a brand new song
Fly away bumblebee, said

Tiger Move

Wed, 10 Jan 2001 02:44:51 +0000

Santhals are a tribe found in rural Orissa and West Bengal. They believe that every individual born on earth comes destined to die by some specific stroke of fate. How the individual dies is determined at birth and this is called Dana or move (like the moves of a chess game). This move determines the kind of death the person would get – at the hands of a tiger, snake, a fall from a tree or just from old age.