An idiom in Kannada which used to be cited often by old-timers conveys the message that quarrels between married couples happily ends at bed time (Ganda-Hendira jagala undu malaguva thankaka). A wit, adding pep to the time-honoured saying, averred that their wordy battles would ultimately get settled in the bed. In a certain sense, their…

Scholarly chroniclers often cite many civilisations of the distant past in glorious terms. Indus Valley Civilisation of more than thirty centuries vintage shines in the august company of Roman as well as Greek Civilisations that existed about 3,000 years, both resting in the pages of their history. Other regions of the world, including China, Japan…

Comparing cities with villages in the northern hemisphere is a different ball-game from the exercise in the southern hemisphere. So also, the relative profiles of the two regions in any country of the West present a strikingly diverse scenario from those of the East. In this context, comparing cities of India, numerically on the cusp…

Planet earth’s age has been determined chemically to be 4.5 billion years. Human beings have inhabited the planet for about 2,00,000 years, according to anthropologists. All other life forms have a much longer tenancy of the only planet playing host to living creatures. The processes of change-progress-development credited to the ingenuity of human beings contrast…

Emergence of the wheel and fire, both of which are so ubiquitous that hardly anyone spares time to think or talk about them have their origins in times of an undetermined date in the distant past, given the accepted feature that humans have made planet earth their home for over nearly two lakh years. The…

The current medium age of India’s human population is officially stated as 25 years, meaning that age accounts for half the total headcount of the country. The figure for life expectancy of the nation’s people at large, accepted as 68.35 years (2015), is a statistical measure of the average time a person is expected to…

Simply stated, selfie is a photograph that one takes by oneself. For the benefit of the small number of smart-phone-illiterate section in the country’s headcount, whatever fraction of it is left, “A selfie is a self-portrait photograph, typically taken with a smart phone which may be held in the hand or supported by a selfie-stick….

Mother Earth and its atmosphere don’t seem to interest people at large except on occasions of unusual happenings such as earthquake, unbearable heat, high levels of air pollution, excessive or scanty rains, hurricanes, tornados, forest fires and what have you. Reports appearing in dailies nowadays such as Chandrapur in Maharashtra records a high temperature of…

The rebellious show of angst by the land’s soldiers staged in the year 1857 against their British lords ruling over the country, made known by the historians as Sepoy Mutiny has acquired a patriotic colour with the event being currently described as the First War of Independence. While the countless mass of activists who took…