Ladke nahi rote hain!” All too often, parents trot this hoary old chestnut, throwing the words “Are you a girl?” or “Don’t behave like a girl” and “Boys don’t cry!” at every sobbing male baby, child or young adult. Only the ‘weaker sex’ can cry, not boys and definitely not men, implies this desi admonition used by parents, grandparents, siblings and teachers to tell boys they are meant to be […]
Single mother Sweety Makwana has an unlikely adversary – her daughter’s digestive system. 3 year old Twisha has Long Gap Esophageal Atresia (LGOA), which means she has an incomplete food-pipe. She’s been operated on 20 times, and the surgeries have only given her scar tissue. Australia based Twisha has only has one hope, a million dollar “Foker Treatment”, created by Dr. John E Foker and a trained team of surgeons. […]
Unique? Suni was much more than that. He was vital to the survival of his kind. So, on Friday, after rangers found the northern white rhino lifeless in his hut on a Kenyan wildlife conservancy, a short countdown to extinction began. Suni was one of only seven northern whites left in the world, all of which live in captivity. There are none known to be left in the wild. More […]
Berlin: Reaching across gulfs of age, gender, faith, nationality and even international celebrity, the Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday awarded the 2014 peace prize to Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan and Kailash Satyarthi of India, joining a teenage Pakistani known around the world with an Indian veteran of campaigns to end child labor and free children from trafficking. Malala, 17, is the youngest recipient of the $1.1 million prize since it […]
The world’s animal population has halved in 40 years as humans put unsustainable demands on Earth, a new report warns. The World Wide Fund for Nature’s Living Planet Index, released Tuesday, revealed the dramatic decline in animal species, and said the trend could cost the world billions in economic losses. Humans need one and a half Earths to sustain their current demands, it said. The index, which draws on research […]
Boyan Slat is a an inspiring young man on a big mission, to remove all plastic from the ocean, and he has no plans of slowing down until his mission is complete. No, he’s not some superhuman 20-year-old wunderkind who magically found a potential fix to a major Global Crisis. He’s simply a shining example of personal dedication, conservation of resources, hard-work and trial and error. Slat says, “But that’s […]
420+ Gold medals, 60+ Silver and 30+ bronze. YET Unknown, and Unsupported | Bhavisha Singh, Sharmila Gharu and Divya Kathawate. Do these names ring a bell ? We guess not. What if we told you that these girls have won a combined total of 422 Gold medals, 61 Silver and 30 bronze in local, national and international tournaments. They have made India proud in Karate tournaments in China, Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan, Chinese […]
A surge in atmospheric CO2 saw levels of greenhouse gases reach record levels in 2013, according to new figures. Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere between 2012 and 2013 grew at their fastest rate since 1984. The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) says that it highlights the need for a global climate treaty. But the UK’s energy secretary Ed Davey said that any such agreement might not contain legally binding […]
An estimated $1tn (£600bn) a year is being taken out of poor countries and millions of lives are lost because of corruption, according to campaigners. A report by the US-based anti-poverty organisation One says much of the progress made over the past two decades in tackling extreme poverty has been put at risk by corruption and crime. Corrupt activities include the use of phantom firms and money laundering. The report […]
Alarmed by a spurt in online child abuse and sex crimes linked to pornography, the Centre on Friday told the Supreme Court that social networking sites – including Facebook, Google and Twitter – will be asked to have servers in India so that authorities can keep tabs on objectionable content. “We wish to have some control over the content of social networking sites but the hurdle is that all of […]
