The Comets are made up of a mixture of rock, dust and ice. This is why astronomers also call it a ‘dirty snowball’. When comets move closer to the sun, the ice evaporates and remains hung as a cover of gas and dust around the comet. This is blown away by the solar wind, a…
In a joint family, several generations of people live together. For instance, we can find parents, grandparents and children living together. In olden days, people lived in joint families and shared labour and expenses. But slowly we have developed a pattern of nuclear family where only married couple and their own children live together. Nuclear…
Films from other languages need to be translated to be understood in countries where the language in which the film was originally made is not understood. This is done in two ways. First among them is dubbing. In dubbing, the local language speaker sits in the studio and the films is shown to him. He…
Genghis Khan, the Great emperor found the Mongol Empire. Many people thing he was a Muslim. He was not. ‘Khan’ meant empire in the Mongol language. He is guessed to have been born in 1162 and died in 1226. His lifespan was very brief. But he carved out the largest contiguous empire in history of…
A.I. MAKKI The great Mughal Emperor Akbar was busy building his empire across the length and breadth of India. His armies had attacked the Pathan stronghold at Bengal and captured its king. The fiercely independent Pathans unfurled the banner of revolt in a short time under the leadership of Isa Khan who challenged the Mughal…
Highest Mountain: Mount Everest, Nepal, 8,850 metres
One day Emperor Harun Rashid was holding court when a messenger begged an audience with him. Harun called him aside and asked him: “What do you wish to convey to me?” The messenger replied: “Your Majesty! I saw it with my own eyes that Jafar, the son of Yahya, dines with one hundred men everyday and fifty soldiers wait upon him to carry out his command. They…
Two children learn the wisdom of being kind to Nature, from Buddy, the bandicoot. Austin City was a settlement dotted with tall buildings. That’s where Giggles lived. Rushing home from school each day, she would sit out in her garden and watch the birds, squirrels, and cats and sometimes even talked to them. Every afternoon, she set out a dish of peanuts…
Khushthar Jamal Yusuf was a prosperous merchant and contented with his life and lived with his wife Arifa and two sons. He loved his family and would have been happy except for his wife’s nasty temper. One day, he called out to his wife: “Arifa, it is time for me to leave for work, have…
In the end, Sabit realized that it is love that begets love. Others would return love only when they are loved by you and that love is part of piety. By Irshad Nayeem Sabit was an angry boy. There was nothing at all that didn’t irritate him. Not surprisingly, no one liked Sabit at all. And that only made Sabit…
