Birds of prey are those that feed wholly or mainly on meat taken by hunting. They catch other birds, and small animals, for their food. There are two chief families, the hawks and the falcons. The hawks include eagles, such as the bald eagle (symbol of the United States) and the golden eagle. The falcons are smaller but share the …

The vibrant tradition of folk art in West Bengal’s Bankura district includes a variety of clay handicrafts. The district’s most famous product is the Bankura Horse, a very stylised figure with a long neck and elongated ears, in warm terracotta colours. Artisans have used the same techniques of hollow clay moulding and firing for generations. Sizes vary from minute, palm-sized …

The beautiful patterns of green and blue lights that occur in the atmosphere of the polar region are known as auroras. Although there are several mythological stories related to auroras, in 1716, perhaps the first scientific research on auroras began in Europe. They occur in the mesosphere, which is present about 50 to 80 miles above sea level. They are …

The term Arihanta is made up of Ari, meaning enemies, and hant, meaning destroyer. Consequently, Arihanta means destroyer of enemies. In this case the term enemies refers to passions such as anger, greed, ego, and deceit which are internal enemies, because they defile the true nature of the soul. A soul can only reach the state of Arihanta by overcoming …

Have you ever heard your parents complaining about greenfly on the roses or other plants in your garden? Well, the proper name for greenfly is aphids. They are insects, and can be very harmful to plants if they are not dealt with because they suck out the sap from the stem of the plant and make it grow stunted or …

Amphibians are creatures which can live both in the water and on land, and some examples of these are newts and salamanders, frogs and toads. In water, the amphibians can both walk and swim, but they tend to move quite slowly on land unless, like frogs, they can jump. Their skin is soft and damp, unlike snakes whose skin is …

In tennis, there is a specified boundary marked on the court behind which the ball should fall as a player serves. So, if the ball hits the net and falls back to the server’s court or goes beyond the marked boundary on the opponent’s court, it is a wrong serve. As a rule, a player is allowed to serve again …

Some of the dinosaurs were able to deliver venom. It appears from fossil teeth and jaws of the dinosaurs that some dinosaurs had small venomous compys. In  Jurassic Park (If read/seen), you’ll remember the venom-spraying dinosaurs and small venomous compys. Now there are spitting cobras and snakes as well as gila monsters and beaded lizards with venom.

The formation of Mukherjee Commission was not a political decision, for a start. This inquiry came into existence following an order of the Calcutta High Court in 1998. The court also framed the scope of its inquiry. The ruling from the bench of Chief Justice Prabha Shankar Mishra came after the government counsel repeated the official Government of India’s view …

Two days after Utsav Sharma, 30, attacked Dr Rajesh Talwar, social networking sites have received sharp reactions over the act with many users calling him a ‘hero’ and others denouncing his act. Sharma had attacked former Haryana DGP SPS Rathore in a similar fashion in February 2010. One user, Himanshu Agarwal, on Facebook community page ‘Utsav Sharma – Hero or …