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Lessons of life
At the dawn of a new year, a look at some idealists who believe in building a brave new world. They are driven by the desire to provide education to underprivileged children and have brought about innovations in teaching
Kavita Kanan Chandra
Just
enrolment in schools does
not mean access to quality education
for children. In our country's rural hinterland and urban slums there
are many government and private schools that teach children. But only
a few schools provide quality education. When a fourth grade student
could not write a complete sentence in a rural government school,
girls in urban slums work as housemaids rather than get educated or a
village lacking electricity lets education go for a toss; there is
need to worry. Sending these kids to school is not a solution in
itself but ensuring proper education is.
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’Art &
Soul
Saptarishi:
The Seven Sages
The imagined, idealised
renderings of the seven great rishis give an insight into how these
great men were visualised by painters
B.N.Goswamy
Whenever,
I imagine, one speaks of a rishi — unless one is taking into account
today’s motley range of persons who arrogate to themselves this
status, and advertise their ‘spiritual’ wares about — the term
‘saptarishi’ also comes almost involuntarily to the mind. The
reference, of course, is to the seven great sages, who are a part of
our tradition and our imagination: seers who lived a long, long time
ago, men ‘who could reach beyond this mundane world by means of
spiritual knowledge’. We may not be able to recount their names but
most know that in the Vedas, they are spoken of, their word
regarded with the greatest reverence. Rishis figure also in the epics
and the Puranas, of course: from those texts one, at least,
knows the names of Valmiki and Vasishtha, Vishwamitra and Markandeya,
Gautama and Kapila; one has possibly even heard of a blind rishi by
the wonderful name of Dirghatamasa: ‘he whose darkness was long’.
Broad
Brush
Astrology
Written
in stars
A look at what 2014 has in store
for you with a special focus on career, money, love, romance and
relationships
Society
Learning
to write the right way
Movies like Taare Zameen
Par highlighted dyslexia, but there is little awareness about
dysgraphia, which is a "disability of written expression" in
the child. How does one cope?
Aditi Garg
Six-year-old
Parth throws a temper tantrum every evening. Not because he is not
allowed to watch TV or play with his friends but because his mother,
Shikha Handa is begging and cajoling him to finish his homework in his
notebook. Every day, he simply refuses to do it or does it in such a
bad handwriting that all his mother can do is despair. She is under
immense pressure too, with the teachers sending notes in the diary
about bad handwriting and incomplete work. But so far, there hasn't
been a solution.
Travel
Beyond
the White House
For the discerning traveller,
Washington DC has many more attractions to offer than its more famous
ones
Niku Sidhu
The
White House is,
undoubtedly, the most famous home of Washington but the Old Stone
House in DC comes a close second as the oldest surviving building.
Built by carpenter Christopher Layman in 1765 using local bluestone,
it is located on a street of swanky boutiques and upmarket restaurants
in Georgetown. The house is surrounded by unverifiable tales as George
Washington’s headquarters. There are as many books dedicated to
proving this tale, as there are an equal number to falsify the claim.
After much discussion, it was decided that the President did visit
Georgetown with city planner Pierre L’Enfant in 1791 but no
connection was established with the Old Stone House.
Globetrotting
Entertainment
Voices
from the margins
The celluloid representation
of the LGBT identity has most often raised voices demanding social
acceptance, recognition and respect
Shoma A. Chatterji
Lesbian
and gay relationships were
considered a taboo in Indian cinema. This corresponded with the social
rejection of such identities in real life. Times, however, have
changed and slowly, as this discriminated community that is ostracised
only for being ‘differently’ inclined in sexual terms, are coming
out of their closets to raise their voices and demanding social
acceptance, recognition and respect.
Jiri’s
treat for the eyes
In the films of award-winning
Czech filmmaker Jiri Menzel, visual frames speak more than dialogues.
Acclaimed director Shivendra Singh Dungarpur is making a documentary
on him
Nonika Singh
In
times when most directors
keenly and avidly eye film festivals, acclaimed Czech director Jiri
Menzel has no hesitation in stating that he makes films for his
neighbours. In short, his first and foremost audiences are his own
countrymen. He smiles, "It’s only when films don’t run in
cinema halls, they take it to festivals." That his films have
gone on to win international acclaim, however, is a different matter.
He won an Oscar at a rather young age of 28 for his film Closely
Watched Trains. When given the prestigious lifetime achievement
award at the recent International Film Festival of India, Goa, he sums
up his journey that began with silent films in one word,
"surprise."
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