Scholars who are credited with writing verses in the distant past have mentioned the term Bharathakhanda, meaning the territory of which present India is only a part. Many explorers, particularly the Italian merchant and explorer Marco Polo (1254-1324), Chinese travellers Fa Hien (337-422) and Hiuen Tsang (602-664) are recollected by many public speakers as having…

Scientific discoveries and technology-based inventions that triggered sea-change in the lifestyle of people all over the world for long seem to have not only witnessed unprecedented pace but also yielded place to computer software as the calling that gets admirable wages to the players in the digital world. Even the language of communication among the…

Milk production in India, reportedly more than 180 million tonnes a year, has earned the country top place among the few countries producing milk in large quantities. Mechanical engineer by training, late Verghese Kurien (1921-2012) and his team are credited with transforming the traditional grossly unorganised milk production and sales of milk in the country…

Judged by the parameter of the family’s monthly income to meet even the basic needs of life, popularly known as roti-kapada-makan, a typical village resident fares very poorly compared to a typical urban resident, thanks to many avenues of earning money in urban space. The comparison, revealing the stinging urban-rural divide on count of cash…

Launching action by the administration to save lives and structures built to meet various needs of the populace invariably follows disasters, both natural and man-made, although some of those happenings are attributed to nature even though human hand is behind them, particularly droughts and floods. To blunt or reduce the intensity of the consequences of…

Museums with authentic information presented in languages that can be grasped by visitors from different regions of a State, a country and the world at large are painstakingly set up but not patronised by tourists at large to the extent matching the effort and cost that go into them. The cases of Rail Museum, Folklore…

Human beings all over the world are vying with the elements in creating conditions threatening the survival of plants, animals and life-supporting resources, not to forget their own orderly living. Many of these conditions, mistakenly portrayed as problems, are the result of blunders by people at large as well as those in the ruling class…

The caption of this column may serve as an example for the figure of speech oxymoron, meditation requiring one to be physically stationary and motion to mean movement. Prescribing meditation for achieving tranquil mind under stressful conditions and recommending brisk walk for a healthy heart seem to be gaining ground on an unprecedented scale among…

Even as the human species has got embroiled in conflicts at the levels of family, society, community, region, country and world at large, for causes that don’t see the species in good light, the phenomenon of man-animal conflict is being frequently reported on in the media. Public opinion in the circles of literati seems to…

Dailies are regularly informing the land’s people about its volatile economic health, often flashing the trend under multi-column headline, with expressions indicating less-than-targetted Gross Domestic Product (GDP), fiscal deficit and current account deficit not within norms, slowdown of the economy, declining volume of public consumption and so on. Even as the reports relating to these…