Indian Geography on Pitara Kids Network

Saraswati River in the Thar Desert

Sat, 09 Aug 2003 17:34:07 +0000

The vedas mention the mighty Saraswati river flowing down the Himalayas and then westwards towards Rajasthan. But Rajasthan is a desert. So where did this huge river, which the vedas say was bigger than the Ganga, disappear?

It is widely believed that this river still flows under the Thar desert, though no one has been able to prove this for sure.

Even the epic Mahabharata, written in 1000 BC, mentions Saraswati as the once-mighty river that was drying up. As of now, the Saraswati has completely disappeared from the earth’s surface, which is why several people even doubt that it ever existed. For long scientists have been hunting for traces of the Saraswati in the desert.

The Story of Appu

Fri, 24 Jan 1997 03:31:18 +0000

There was a small village called Pearl Island. But neither were pearls collected in the village nor was it an island. Perhaps the village was named so because it was far away and isolated and difficult to reach. The nearest town was miles away – a two-mile trek to Gudem, an overnight boat journey to Palem, an hour’s horse-cart ride to Gortipadu, and then three hours by bus. By rail, the journey from the city was four hundred miles long.

The Quake that rocked Gujarat

Sat, 07 Aug 1999 20:45:53 +0000

Where: Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

February 5, 2001 : It was 8.45 am on January 26, 2001. A day when the country was celebrating Republic Day. Like their counterparts across India, the people of Ahmedabad, in the western state of Gujarat, were settling down to watch the Republic Day Parade on television. Basant Rawat was one of them.

Suddenly the earth began to shake under his feet. Basant ran out of his house. And, the sight that greeted him seemed to be straight out of an action film – Tagore apartments, a five-storeyed building, 400 yards from his house, collapsed like a pack of cards, says a report in ‘The Telegraph’. He was right in the midst of an earthquake.

My Country is a Land of Plains!

Mon, 30 Jun 2003 20:53:36 +0000

February 26: India is a land of rivers, cows, wheat fields, hot dusty plains and flat-roofed houses. This is what Stanzin Zangpo had learned in his class. But he is from Ladakh and he had never seen these things. The 12-year-old boy could not even imagine them. His part of India had jagged snow-capped mountain peaks, bitterly cold climate, large barren wastes of land and frozen lakes.

But now Stanzin knows differently. He and 29 other children from Ladakh have come to Delhi on a trip. They have finally seen the part of India that their textbook said there was. For the first time in their lives they saw an elephant (and were terrified of it), a zoo and the Qutub Minar. They were also special guests at the Republic Day parade and the Army Day parade, reports

India Quiz : Rivers of India

Sun, 23 Dec 2001 03:02:52 +0000

It’s all about the rivers that flow throughout India – draining it and making life possible.