Moushumi Mohanty on Pitara Kids Network

Fish That Live in the Desert

Sat, 17 Feb 2001 23:16:27 +0000

We all know that fish live in water. But, there is a kind of fish which lives in the desert.

Difficult to believe? Well, there is a variety of fish called the lungfish, which are found in Africa. When the rivers overflow, their water spreads to the dry regions around. It forms small lakes or ponds. The fish lives in these ponds.

And, when the lakes dry up, the lung fish don’t die. They bury themselves in the wet mud where they can live for months. Specially, if they go deep underground. Sometimes, these fish have been found several metres below the soil.

Do Bananas Grow on Trees?

Sun, 01 Jul 2001 18:01:47 +0000

You think bananas grow on trees? Wrong. They don’t, because the banana tree is actually a plant. It is probably the largest herb in the world.

To know more, look at the banana trunk. Is it wood? No. There are layers of skin placed in circles. These layers are actually the lower ends of banana leaves. In other words, the banana tree is a clump of leaves!

How do they Make an Igloo?

Thu, 31 May 2001 21:41:02 +0000

To many of us, building a house of ice doesn’t sound too good. One might wake up from a good night’s sleep to see it melted. All these things don’t matter to the Inuit, who live in north Canada, Greenland and Alaska. They build igloos or houses of ice knowing that they will not melt. At least, not till winter passes by. The reason is that the walls are made in a special way so that they become rock hard.

The Ungrateful Friend

Sat, 29 Apr 2000 15:40:28 +0000

This happened a long long time ago. In a small village in southern Orissa, there lived an old woodcutter.

One day, when he was going to the forest to cut wood, he met the tiger. The woodcutter stopped in his tracks on seeing the king of the jungle. But, strangely enough, the tiger did not roar on seeing the woodcutter. He remained silent. The woodcutter was baffled. How was he to know that the tiger was blind?

Is Bamboo a Grass!

Fri, 24 Aug 2001 08:38:34 +0000

If you look at a blade of grass and a bamboo tree they remind you of a mouse and an elephant. But unlike those animals, the grass and the bamboo belong to the same family. They are brothers! The bamboo is the largest member of the grass family.

It grows in Asia, South America and Africa. It has about 500 different varieties. They all have smooth, hollow jointed stems with a strong watertight partition at each joint. While most flower every year, there are some that flower only three or four times in a 100 years.

Can Fish Lay Eggs in the Mouth?

Wed, 23 May 2001 04:23:36 +0000

There is a kind of fish which does not use its mouth for just eating. It keeps eggs in its mouth instead of its stomach. And, it is the male fish which does it, not the female.

Jawfish (Opistognathidae) are paternal mouthbrooders. Mouthbrooding, also known as oral incubation, is the care given a parent by holding its offspring in its own mouth for extended periods of time.

Why are Some Plants Non-vegetarian?

Sat, 01 Jun 1996 09:32:17 +0000

Are you scared of going to the forest because you think there are man-eating tigers in the forest? What would you do if there were man-eating plants too?

Don’t worry. Man-eating plants do not exist. But insect and animal-eating plants do. They are what you would call non-vegetarian plants.

In fact, there are 500 varieties of plant species that trap prey and eat it. The most famous among these carnivorous plants are sundews, pitcher plants, bladderworts and the Venus flytrap.

Can Frog Fly?

Sat, 18 Nov 2000 14:17:12 +0000

You must have seen frogs that jump, but have you seen frogs that can fly? Actually not fly, but glide. One member of the treefrog family which is found in Malaya can fly. It flies not for adventure, but to catch its prey.

It is called Wallace’s Treefrog and is more equipped to chase flying insects than other frogs.

Flying or gliding tree frog (Agalychnis spurrelli) is an endangered amphibian. IT lives in Amazon rain forest of Ecuador Colombia Panama and Costa Rica.

It has webbed feet with long fingers and toes. When it cannot catch a particular insect that is flying away, it stretches its fingers and toes wide apart. This increase in surface area allows it to glide downwards for long distances. And, during its descent, it can catch prey for dinner.

Deception and Mimicry Among Animals to Fool Enemies!

Sun, 19 Aug 2001 20:05:56 +0000

All living beings have enemies. And they all have developed interesting ways to keep them at bay. Some animals hide, others run, or just fly away when faced with danger. These are their defence mechanisms.

Some animals can hide without moving. They have the unique ability to change their colour to merge with the surroundings. They become invisible to the predator. This method of defence is called “camouflage”.

Some rabbits change colour with the change of season. The snowshoe hare is brown in summer and white in winter. The white fur serves as a camouflage in the snow in winter.

Antlers: A Deer Story

Fri, 20 Apr 2001 12:35:52 +0000

Trees shed leaves in autumn and snakes shed their skin once a year. In the same way, deer shed their antlers every year. Yes, those huge branches on antlers grow fresh every year. At any given point of time, a deer’s antlers will not be more than a year old.

It is always the male deer which has antlers, except in the case of the caribou and the reindeer whose females also have antlers.

It takes about two to three months for the antlers to grow to their full size. And then they break off when the mating season is over.

Save rivers, lakes from worshippers

Sat, 24 Aug 2002 13:33:58 +0000

Before every Ganesh Chaturthi, people from across India, especially Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Orissa, get busy with preparations for celebrations. But, as the momentum of activity increases, officials of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) start feeling queasy in their stomachs. For, though festivals like Ganesh Puja and Durga Puja are a time for fun, it is also the time when rivers and lakes around the country are abused.

Unlike in the past when the idols of gods and goddesses were made of ordinary colours and plain clay that dissolve in water easily, without causing widespread pollution, now they are made of plaster of Paris, distemper, plastic paint, dyes, metallic powders, adhesives, varnish, fluorescent powders and oil paints, which can have an adverse effect on the eyes, skin and respiratory system. These coloured idols with pigments containing harmful chemicals, flowers, coconut shells, plastic bags, wood and other items find their way into the waters.

Do centipedes really have 100 feet?

Wed, 05 Dec 2001 13:50:22 +0000

They are called centipedes because it is believed that they have 100 feet. Actually, they don’t. Of the 3,000 different types of centipedes on our planet, none have 100 feet. Some have 50 and some as much as 350.

The extremely venomous Peruvian Giant Yellow-leg or Amazonian Giant Centipede. These eat everything from insects to birds!

All centipedes have an odd number of body segments, and each segment has two legs attached to it. So, that magic number 100 has never been reached.

Storm Petrel: A Bird that Walks on Water

Sat, 22 Sep 2001 20:28:20 +0000

You must have heard of St. Peter, the saint, who is said to have walked on water. Well, there is a bird which is named after the saint, because it looks as if it is walking on water.

It is called the stormy petrel. It is not known whether the petrel actually walks on water. But, it somehow manages to stay above water. This gives the impression that it is walking on water.

Wilson’s Storm Petrel (Oceanites oceanicus): A bird that seems to walk on water

But, if a storm arises, the petrel cannot “walk on water”. So, it is forced to remain in the air day and night, till the storm subsides!

Why are Moths Attracted to Light?

Thu, 14 Jun 2001 23:16:46 +0000

Have you seen a moth circle a lamp, or fly straight into a candle flame? It looks as if the light is pulling it in.

For a long time, people thought moths used the Moon to find their way. A moth flies in a straight line by keeping a far-off light, like the Moon, at the same angle. So people thought a nearby lamp tricked the moth and made it spin in circles.

But scientists now think that idea is wrong. In 2024, they filmed flying insects in very slow motion, and found something surprising. Insects keep their back turned towards the brightest light. That is how they know which way is up!

Beautiful Flowers that Stink!

Tue, 11 Sep 2001 15:38:50 +0000

A blow-fly was looking for an ideal place to lay eggs. Like rotting meat. So that when her little maggots were born, they could feed on the meat.

As she turned a corner in the grassland, she smelt something stinking in the air. The smell of rotten meat! With great joy she perched on it and laid her eggs. She was happy that her children would have enough food to eat.

The blow-fly did not know she had made a great mistake. What she had sat upon was not meat but a flower, which stinks. It is called a carrion flower.
So, when the blow-fly’s eggs hatched and the little maggots came out, they had nothing to eat. They died of starvation.

Long Memory of Female Elephants is Responsible for the Well Being of their Families

Tue, 16 Apr 2002 01:48:40 +0000

You must have heard the phrase ’elephant’s memory’ being used for people with a long memory.

It seems the long memory of elephants, especially female elephants, is directly responsible for the well being of their families. This fact was discovered by a group of researchers of the University of Sussex who studied the elephants of Amboseli National Park in Kenya, the Telegraph newspaper reported.

Elephants live in matriarchal families or families that are headed by the mothers. The oldest mother in the herd leads half a dozen other adult females and their children when they go looking for food. This is because the oldest female elephant is the one with the longest memory in the family. She can differentiate a friend from a foe more than anyone else.

Do Raccoons Wash their Hands Before they Eat?

Sun, 04 Feb 2001 00:22:23 +0000

We wash vegetables before cooking it. And we wash our hands before we start eating. That is because we have been told that washing would clean our food and that cleanliness is necessary to keep diseases away. But, have you seen cows, dogs or cats wash their food? They don’t.

But there is one kind of furry mammals called racoons, which wash their food before eating. And it has been noticed that racoons refuse to eat if they cannot find water around. Even if they do, they don’t look too happy about it. Some other kinds of racoons eat without washing their food.

A Lizard that Squirts Blood from its Eyes

Thu, 12 Apr 2001 11:47:45 +0000

Are you scared of lizards? There is no need to be unless you come face to face with one kind, called the Horned Lizard. It sprays blood from its eyes, and may just make you jump a bit.

A lizard that squirts blood from its eyes [Illustration by Shridevi]

Not all time. Only when it feels threatened.

The Deadliest Animal in the World

Tue, 06 Mar 2001 22:37:42 +0000

Do you know, it is one of deadliest creatures in the world? No, it’s not the cobra.
It is the sea wasp. It is a kind of jelly fish and is called the Chironex Fleckeri, commonly known as sea wasp.

It has a bell-shaped body with long tentacles that trail behind it. These tentacles have hundreds of thousands of tiny cells, which contain a cobra-like poison. When a victim brushes against the tentacles, the poison is injected into his body, killing him in less than five minutes.

How Stars Came into Being

Tue, 09 May 2000 01:01:21 +0000

This is a story about a long, long time ago.

There was once an old man who smoked tobacco.

He smoked tobacco in terracotta or clay pipes, called pikka.

This old man had three sons.

When the three sons grew up, he got them married one after the other.

It happened once, that the eldest son went to his wife’s parents’ house to attend a marriage.

Looking at the World Upside Down

Sat, 04 Aug 2001 17:37:17 +0000

Have you seen trapeze artists hanging upside down from bars in a circus? They do it with great concentration.

Bats also hang upside down from cave walls or tree branches. And they do not need to put in any effort to do so. For they hang upside down only when they are resting.

They use their legs to hold on to some cracks or crevices on walls or branches of trees. This way, their stretched muscles take the entire weight of the body.

World's Largest Blanket

Sun, 24 Sep 2006 07:37:46 +0000

Val Stone, a Devon, UK,-based pensioner has made the world’s largest crocheted blanket and plans to sell it to raise money for a cancer fund.

Stone, a leukaemia patient, has spent 11 years making the blanket, which is larger than a tennis court.

The blanket measures about 24 metres by 8 metres when stretched out and weighs about 90 kilograms.

World’s Largest Blanket [Illustration by Shinod AP]

She hopes to raise £3,000 (Rs. 206,322) for the Exeter Leukaemia Fund by selling pieces of the blanket for between £10 (Rs. 687) and £25 (Rs. 1,719).

Why do Dogs and Cats Eat Grass?

Sun, 22 Jul 2001 04:21:02 +0000

Cats and dogs sometimes eat grass or leaves. Have you ever wondered why these meat-eaters should be interested in plants?

A dog eating grass

The honest answer is that scientists are not completely sure! But here is what they have found.

Eating grass is very common and normal. Most dogs and cats that nibble grass are perfectly healthy, so it usually does not mean your pet is ill. People once thought animals ate grass as a medicine to make themselves throw up, but studies show most pets do not actually vomit afterwards.

Scales for Safety

Thu, 14 Jun 2001 08:54:35 +0000

When you go swimming in the river, you are told to be careful about the rocks, as you may bruise yourself if you hit against them.

But, fish swim in the water all the time. Through cracks and crevices in rocks inside the water, and between the branches of thorny water plants. They do not get bruised so easily.

And its not because their parents had given them sound advice. They don’t have to. They know the little fish are safe.

English and Indlish

Fri, 15 Sep 2000 10:59:46 +0000

July 15: Students are often rebuked for using what is known as ‘Indian English’ words. Perhaps these teachers need to know that many Indian words have actually become a part of an Oxford Dictionary.

The Asian Age newspaper reported that the Oxford Advance Learner’s Dictionary of Correct English has a section on Indian English. The section has 2,500 words The fifth edition of the dictionary was released recently.

Words like bandicoot, bungalow, jungle, chit, cushy, juggernaut are commonly known. But, there are others that most of us wouldn’t know had an Indian origin.

Road of Jute

Sat, 17 Feb 2001 07:26:45 +0000

You must have seen jute rugs, jute dolls, even jute clothes. But, have you seen, or even heard of jute roads?

A research centre in Calcutta, the National Institute of Research on Jute and Allied Fibre Technology (NIRJAFT), is planning to make a road with jute. It will be 24 kilometres long.

Road of Jute [Illustration by Nitin Vishwakarma]

The scientists at the centre say the road will be stronger than normal roads. They can talk with such confidence because they have tried it out earlier. And, the road they made was indeed stronger. It did not develop holes after the monsoons got over.

Rat Menace

Sat, 22 Dec 2001 21:18:50 +0000

August 12: About 26 people in Mumbai and nearby Thane died recently due to a strange fever. Initially the doctors in Mumbai were unsure which disease had afflicted these people, because no tests were conducted to find out the nature of the fever.

Most patients had avoided getting the test done because it cost a lot of money (Rs. 750) and they did not see why they should spend so much money for what appeared to be just an ordinary fever. That is, until people started dying like flies and newspapers began writing about it.

Are Fish Dumb?

Thu, 11 Oct 2001 20:22:42 +0000

There was a time when people thought that fish were dumb creatures. Until they invented machines which could detect sounds under water. And guess what these machines heard?

A string of grunts, clicks, thumps and other kinds of sounds. It was the fish doing a lot of underwater talking! It seems that they have a lot to talk about, for each sound has a different meaning.

Microbes begin Deforestation

Tue, 07 Oct 2003 07:34:21 +0000

May 19: The conifer trees on the hills of Himachal Pradesh may soon become history. No, they are not being cut by humans. This time, it is the turn of microbes to go on a rampage.

Insects, fungi and various kinds of insects are eating into the deodar, pine and kail trees of Chopal and the stretch that lies between Sundernagar and Jhenjheli, Suket division in Mandi and at Bharari and Mashobra in Shimla. The trees are drying up due to this.

The Gardener Bird

Mon, 07 May 2001 07:54:42 +0000

Look at this nest. Doesn’t it remind you of a hut? It is built by a bird with an appropriate name. It is called the gardener bird. It works hard at building its house and decorating it.

The Gardener Bird [Illustration by Shridevi R.]

And, after building the house, it makes a garden around it.

The gardener bird likes colourful objects. So, its house is always surrounded with colourful flowers and shells. These objects are not just thrown together haphazardly. The bird arranges them very carefully and even tries out different patterns before deciding on the final look of the garden.

Friendly Neighbourhood Bank: For Kids Only

Wed, 09 Dec 1998 18:58:44 +0000

June 24: This is a bank with a difference. For, you hardly meet any adults here. The place is run by children and has children as members.

Welcome to the kids bank of Juhapura, a working class locality in Ahmedabad. It is called the Sarjan Bank.

The bank was started 22 years ago as part of a programme called Sarjan. It was started by a group called the Ahmedabad Study Action Group. This organisation has been working for poor people in Gujarat since 1973.

Polite Police

Mon, 16 Oct 2000 08:42:10 +0000

July 8: Very soon, a banner will appear in the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport in Delhi. It will read:

The Tourist Police
For you, with you,
Always.

But, most people are scared that it might actually mean “The Tourist Police, For you, with you, after you, Always.

Polite Police [Illustration by Sudheer Nath]

Disappointed with the police force and its rude ways of dealing with the public, the Ministry of Tourism now wants to have its own police force, says a report in ‘The Indian Express’ newspaper.

Mr Fly Rubs his Hands with Glee

Mon, 01 Jan 2001 18:32:25 +0000

Have you seen a housefly rubbing its hands together? It is almost as if it were washing its hands. It actually is. Not with water though.

When the housefly rubs its hands together, it is cleaning them. And, if you have the food it has cleaned itself on, you are in for a bad time. Nothing can save you from a bout of diarrhoea or dysentery after that.

Mr Fly Rubs his Hands with Glee [Illustration by Shridevi]

The whole body of the housefly, including claws and padded feet, is covered with sharp hairs. When it feeds on something, a part of it sticks to its hairs. And that needs to be cleaned. In the process of cleaning, it drops hundreds of germs that it has gathered while feeding on garbage or sewage. When it rubs its hands in glee, it is almost as if it were celebrating the completion of its mission — the mission of contaminating food.

Rats! Rats! Rats!

Thu, 22 Feb 2001 10:08:43 +0000

Rats here, rats there, rats everywhere!

In the kitchen, in the storage cupboards, in shops, in restaurants, all over the place.

People in Paris have no respite. The rat population has suddenly grown in such large numbers that Paris may soon need a Pied Piper to weed them out of the city.

The rat boom happened because of a new underground railway system. When work began on the railway system, workmen began digging the ground to make tunnels for the trains. In the process, they broke hordes of rats’ houses and drove them away from the ground.

Pushkar Lake Water or Sugarcane Juice?

Tue, 29 Apr 2003 20:14:14 +0000

May 19: If you take a glass of water from the famous Pushkar lake in Rajasthan, it looks like sugarcane juice. But, that is where the simile ends. It is neither sweet, nor does it smell fresh.

It has a rotten smell and you will not feel like tasting it. Plus, it has fish bones and mud in it – because, in the past two weeks, 200 fish weighing between 5-20 kilograms have died in the brown depths due to lack of life-sustaining oxygen, The Indian Express newspaper reports.

Answering Nature's Call in Peace

Tue, 30 Oct 2001 12:48:31 +0000

August 5: If the children feel like relieving themselves, they go to the nearby drain or the fields beyond. For their mothers and sisters, matters are even worse. They have
to wait for night to fall. They can attend nature’s call only under the cover of darkness. As if they were committing a crime.

But now things are changing for the 1000 odd residents of Karuvettupatai in Tiruchi district, Tamil Nadu.

Answering Nature’s Call in Peace [Illustration by Shiju George]

Gramalaya, a local nongovernment organisation, has constructed toilets for them. And there are special models for children. These are perhaps the first child-friendly
toilets in the country, says a report in ‘The Indian Express’.

Why Mother's Day?

Fri, 11 May 2001 22:44:58 +0000

Why have a particular day to tell your mother that you love her and respect her, some of us might ask.

Why indeed? We could do that everyday.

Right. We could.

But, do we?

So, is it such a bad idea to have a day to honour mothers? After all, we have specific days to honour freedom fighters, leaders or other heroes. And mothers are no less than heroes, considering the amount of effort they put into making their children’s lives a bit more easy and happier. Perhaps some of us may remember this the rest of the year as well.

No Begging for Merit

Wed, 15 Sep 2004 12:11:52 +0000

May 25: When Nagarathna, a beggar girl from Mysore, was preparing for the Secondary School Leaving Certificate (Class X) examinations, she had to beg to buy books and study under street lights. She passed the exams with flying colours and the Indian Express newspaper published her success story.

After the story appeared in the paper, Nagarathna has been receiving innumerable offers from people who are keen to fund her education. A non-resident Indian, a retired statesman, actress-turned politicians, the list is endless.

We Would All Scream Without Ice Cream

Sun, 05 Aug 2001 23:14:00 +0000

Can you imagine a summer without ice creams?

It seems the Chinese, too, couldn’t. For it was they who gave the world its first ice cream. In India, the Mughals are said to have introduced their kind of ice cream — the kulfi. The exact date of origin of the ice cream is not known.

Kulfi is a mixture of khoa, pistachio nuts and saffron essence frozen in conical metal containers after sealing it with dough — exactly the same way as it is made today! Khoa is made by boiling milk on slow fire till it becomes semi-solid.

Advertisement for Dogs

Sun, 25 Jul 2004 02:43:12 +0000

Advertisement for Dogs [Illustration by Shiju George]

If you are selling a dog’s product, who should you ask to buy it – the dog owner or the dog?

A British advertisement firm has decided to get the attention of dogs in their latest ad campaign on a pet awards show.

The programme, to be conducted by the television channel Animal Planet, is being publicised with posters that have been sprinkled with dog urine, the Indian Express newspaper reported.

Children e-Lead the Way

Thu, 05 Mar 1998 22:03:00 +0000

Where: San Mateo, USA

June 24, 2000: Many adults think that the decision to buy a computer is theirs. The children just smile. For, they know it is because of them. They are the world’s Webmasters. Now, a US survey has found proof of the fact. Children are taking to the Internet, like ducks take to water. The number of children logging on to the Internet has tripled in the past three years, says a report by the Associated Press. A company called Grunwald Associates, in San Mateo, US, conducted the survey.

The 'English Pinch' in Bangladesh

Mon, 19 Apr 2004 04:27:57 +0000

What would you say if you saw a restaurant billboard saying “You be in our guest and please like any menu from arrangement ultimate sea food”?

Will you brush it aside thinking the billboard painter must be ‘uneducated’. Mark, when I say ‘uneducated’, I actually mean that he does not know English. For a lot of us, being educated also means knowing English.

But, can you brush aside an entire nation – Bangladesh – which has problems with its English? That does not mean people living in this country are not educated. They are, they have simply done their education in another language.

Eight year old rules the publishing world

Wed, 07 Jul 1999 18:57:23 +0000

Where: San Francisco, USA

July 1, 2000: The literary world is in a fix. Poets, scholars and publishers cannot believe their ears. An eight-year-old has accomplished what most of them believe is impossible.

Eight year old rules the publishing world [Illustration by Sudheer Nath]

Sahara Sunday Spain, has received a record advance of £66,000 from the publisher HarperCollins for a book of her poems. That amounts to $100,000 – quite a large sum even for an adult considering that it is for a poetry collection. Even the well-known British poet Ted Hughes received 50,000 pounds for his last collection of poems.

Green Fields in a Concrete Jungle

Thu, 04 Oct 2001 14:51:21 +0000

August 5: Imagine green paddy fields and a calm pond next to it. The breeze that blows over the still waters is cool and refreshing in the afternoons. Imagine all this in the middle of a city.

Sounds dreamlike?

Actually that is what Govind Mhatre’s farm is like. Like a dream. It looks like it has been displaced from a picture book and placed in a wrong setting. Govind’s farm exists in the middle of a bustling city — complete with its concrete buildings and polluting vehicles –in the suburb of Borivli in Mumbai.

He Can't See But He Shows The Way

Thu, 06 Sep 2001 19:28:12 +0000

As a child, he would beat up anyone who dared to call him “andha” or the blind one. Now he does not need to.

Last week, he beat 33 people with his navigational skills at a car rally and emerged the winner.

Meet Vipin Malhotra, who navigated a car through a distance of 50 km in one hour and 10 minutes at a car rally held in Delhi. He did this with the help of a map which had instructions in Braille.

Protest Without Clothes

Fri, 07 Apr 2000 02:48:40 +0000

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). They had not expected a bunch of naked kids to come with their list of woes, reported the Hyderabad-based ‘Deccan Chronicle’ newspaper.

Operation Clean Up

Mon, 29 May 2000 21:20:38 +0000

The bricks came a tumbling. And the concrete made a rumbling. Leaving behind a huge mound of debris.

And a huge crowd of human beings. With tears in their eyes.

Their houses had been destroyed before them.

Jagmohan, the Minister for Urban Development was in action. He was cleaning up the city, he said. The people were sent to Narela, a far flung area in the suburbs of Delhi.

They would get new houses, they were told.

Injured Deer Lands on Dinner Plate

Fri, 24 Mar 2000 03:51:00 +0000

July 8: A deer was in great pain. It had got injured in the forest. It was discovered by some villagers who lived near the forest.

This incident happened in the Champhai district of Mizoram, in north-east India. The villagers picked up the deer and gave it to Hranleikapa, a leader of the Mizo National Party, to hand over the deer to the zoo in Aizawl, the capital of Mizoram.

But, that was not to be.

The Sweet Taste of Success

Fri, 22 May 1998 08:48:06 +0000

June 24: Vaibhav Bhagate starts work at 5.00 am. He works as an apprentice at the Technical Training Centre of the Bombay Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking. After school, he attends class at the Vikas Night High School and Junior College at night.

Vaibhav is the son of a former municipal employee, Sitaram. He has topped the merit list of night students in this year’s Higher Secondary Examination of the Maharashtra State Board. Last week, he was felicitated by Anil Deshmukh, the Minister of State for Education. This was reported in ‘The Indian Express’.

The Fearless Doctor

Sun, 15 Aug 1999 15:34:22 +0000

Where: Jolo Island, Philippines

July 1, 2000: She has dared to go where most of us wouldn’t. She went inside the jungles of southern Philippines where an armed group of people was holding 21 people, as hostages. Her purpose was to treat the kidnapped hostages, mostly foreigners.

She has made eight trips to the camp since June 10, says a recent report in ‘The Indian Express’.

This brave woman is Nelsa Amin. Nelsa works as a health officer in Jolo island in Philippines. She is 65 years old. And, patients with gunshot wounds are a common sight for her. For a long time there has been some conflict or the other between different groups in this part of the country – either with the government or between themselves. They fight each other to control the area and they all have weapons. Gun fights and bombings are common in this part of Philippines.

Robbing the Rich for Rain

Tue, 15 Feb 2000 20:28:59 +0000

July 8: Life becomes difficult when it does not rain. Farmers try all sorts of things to make the rain gods happy. Some get frogs married, others perform ‘pujas’ or worship. But, the Bhil tribals of Mewar, Rajasthan, are different. They plunder or rob the houses of traders, most of whom happen to be Jains, says a report in ‘The Indian Express’ newspaper.

The Bhils believe that the traders keep the monsoon clouds trapped inside their lockers. The only way to free the clouds is to open the locker. In the process, the traders’ treasure chests are emptied too!

Old PCs Save Precious Lives

Sat, 02 Jan 1999 08:48:39 +0000

Where: Chicago, USA

July 1, 2000: Computers and Internet connections are not for the rich alone. Even the poor should be able to use it, says Zina Munoz. Zina works as a nurse in Chicago.

But Zina is not merely a nurse. She is also one of the people behind an Internet revolution in half a dozen countries across the world.

The idea came to her during a medical conference in Dallas four years ago. Americans keep throwing away old models of computers for newer and faster computers even though the old ones are working fine. Why not send them to hospitals in the developing countries and link them to the Internet, she asked. Hospitals need access, not speed, said the nurse. A report on this was carried in ‘The Indian Express’ recently.

Women's Army of Blood Donors

Tue, 21 Jul 1998 17:29:58 +0000

June 24: In a country like India, the lives of people are often lost because there is no help at hand. Many people think of it as fate and do nothing. But a group of poor village women have shown the way to the people of the southern state of Kerala, says a report in ‘The Indian Express’..

Sometime ago, a woman from Parappa village became seriously ill. She started bleeding heavily. The villagers frantically hunted for a vehicle to take her to the hospital, which was 40 km away. The woman survived. It was almost a miracle that she survived, said the doctor. For, she had lost a lot of blood.