Nadira was born as Farhat Ezekiel (some suggest Florence Ezekiel) on December 5, 1932 into a Baghdadi Jewish family in Nagpada, Central Bombay, a predominantly Muslim and Jewish locality. Her parents divorced when she was just four years old and she and her brothers were raised by her grandmother. She was still in her teens when she was spotted by …

Archimedes, the renowned Greek scientist who lived from about 287 to about 212 BC, was asked to find out whether the King’s crown was made of pure gold or of gold mixed with a less valuable metal. The story goes that one day, preoccupied with his seemingly impossible task, he filled his bath to full and the water overflowed as …

Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovski was born in Russia in 1857. He spent his life teaching in school and doing practical and theoretical research work in the fields of aeronautics and astronautics. In 1883, long before the first aeroplane had been built, he began to consider the many different factors involved if man were to journey into space. In so doing, he …

Muttiah Muralitharan (born 17 April 1972), often referred to as Murali, is a Sri Lankan cricketer, who was rated the greatest Test match bowler ever by Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack in 2002. Muralitharan is the highest wicket-taker in both Test cricket and in One Day Internationals (ODIs). He took the wicket of Gautam Gambhir on 5 February 2009 in Colombo to …

Tommy was (and still is) the nickname of the British soldier – the typical private. The custom began with the use of the name in specimen forms laid down in Army Regulations after the Napoleonic Wars, to show how forms should be filled in with the soldier’s name and other details about him. As Rudyard Kipling wrote: Oh, it’s Tommy …

From earliest times man have dreamed of traveling in space, exploring new worlds, reaching for the stars – an apparently impossible dream. Then rocket research which took place during World War II gave a great impetus to space travel for which rocket propulsion is essential. After many experiments the first major break-through came in April 1961 when a Russian, Yuri …

A cragger is a member of a carbon reduction action group. Such a person is interested in reducing her carbon footprint. The word has made it to the growing lexicon of green terms in the Collins Dictionary.

Mushirul Hassan — Professor Mushirul Hasan (Born: 15 August 1949) second son for noted historian and professor at his time Muhibbul Hasan he originally belongs to Village Muhammadpur Tehsil Fatehpur District Barabanki, is an internationally known historian, author and ex-Vice-Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia University at Delhi. He has written extensively on the Partition of India, on communalism , and …

A warmist – or global warmist – is a person who believes that the human race is primarily responsible for warming. Once a term used for scientists who so believed, it has now taken on a pejorative meaning. There are ‘deniers’ who believe that while global warming may be true, warming and cooling has been happening for millions of years, …

Muqtada al-Sadr — Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr was born August 12, 1973 in Baghdad, Iraq. He is an Iraqi Islamic Political leader. He is one of the most influential religious and political figures in the country not holding any official title in the Iraqi government. Muqtada al-Sadr is the fourth son of a famous Iraqi Shi’a cleric, the late Grand Ayatollah …