On the occasion of her 191st birth anniversary, India pays tribute to Savitribai Phule – one of the foremost social reformers, on January 3, 2021. Savitribai was the first Indian female teacher, who established the first school for girls in India, with the help of her husband Jyotiba Phule. Savitribai died on 10 March, 1897, after contracting the bubonic plague from a ten-year-old infected boy who she carried to the hospital on her back. The boy survived.
25-year-old Adithya Nidin, from Kozhikode District, Kerala, has entered the Guinness Book of World Record, for drawing the most number of Mehndi designs on the hands of people – 910 – in an hour. She achieved this feat at an event organized exclusively for her, on 1 January, 2021, from 10 am to 11 am, at the CMHS ground in Kadalundi village, Kozhikode. Samina Hussain, the previous record holder, had drawn Mehndi designs on 600 hands in an hour.
13 years ago, Srivathsa Govindaraju, a software engineer, started his farm Nature Inspires – Chiguru Ecospace, at Singadasanahalli village near Magadi Town, Karnataka. The farm has over 300 species of trees and plants – some native, a few from other countries and some that he calls ‘forgotten foods and healing herbs’. These include edible sweet cactus and flowers. Srivathsa organizes workshops for children on organic farming because he believes that this is knowledge that must be shared with them.
On the occasion of New Year’s Eve on December 31, 2021, Google created a celebratory doodle to prepare for 2022 with zeal. The colourful doodle, decorated with tiny star lights and giant candy in the middle, went live on the Google homepage as soon as the clock struck 12 on 30 December, 2021. New Year’s Eve is the final day of every year, celebrated on 31 December.
2022 is around the corner. People all over the world are looking forward to the New year with great enthusiasm and hope. This year, the celebrations will be low-key in India due to the Omnicron variant scare. Hence, people are making traditional rangolis with festive lights to decorate their homes and to keep the festive spirit alive. Here are some easy rangoli designs to welcome 2022 with love.
The Covid-19 essential materials counter at Trichy railway station, Tamil Nadu, has recently started selling one-time-use linen bed sheets along with face masks, gloves and sanitizers. The railway had stopped providing bed sheets and blankets to passengers as a precautionary measure. But this initiative has pleased several long-distance travellers. This counter on Platform No-1 also provides an RT-PCR testing facility apart from selling these materials.
For the past fifty years, 73-year-old Nagesh Shanbag from Dharwad, Karnataka, has been teaching mathematics to high-school students for free or for a nominal fee which he donates to students in need. Nagesh, who worked at All India Radio (AIR) as a newsreader, feels that teaching mathematics keeps him mentally fit and helps to give his students a strong foundation in learning, by simplifying mathematics and making it interesting for them.
Waste-dumping grounds are being transformed into micro gardens in different places across New Town, Kolkata, due to the efforts of the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA). The dumping grounds have been cleaned and laid with lush green grass. Saplings were planted on each side and a walkway was built with benches for people to take walks in the gardens.
Jahnavi Dangeti, an aspiring astronaut from Palakollu, Andhra Pradesh, became the first Indian to complete NASA’s International Air and Space Program (IASP), at Kennedy Space Centre in Alabama, United States. The second-year engineering student was among the 20 young people selected for IASP, from all over the world. Jahnavi says that her dream is to become one of the first Indians to set foot on Mars.
Christmas is just a day away. The twenty-fifth day of December is celebrated all over the globe as Christmas Day. Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. It is the day of joy and hope. People exchange greetings and gifts and celebrate the day with their families.
