News

The Hindu : y>

Sri Vani Education Centre, Magadi Road, conducted “Kailasa Darshanam”, a cultural programme recently. It is a tradition and customary practice of the school to bring exhibits in a thematic display on the concept of Indian culture and festivals.

“Kailasa Darshanam” was the theme for this year and it was a grand show. Parents gathered in large numbers to witness the show.The students of the pre-primary section presented the show. It showcased the 12 “Jyothirlingas” spread all over the country. The show also depicted the significance of celebrating festivals with reason.

Many skits, songs and dance numbers were presented so that students understand the richness of our traditions.

In the end, the show was not only entertaining but also informative.

(Inputs by Sudhindr. A.B)

<FONT …More

The Hindu : SUDHINDR.A.B

Comedian Johnny Lever speaks of fun, laughter and the search for talent.

Johnny Lever with students: Developing a bond

Comedian John Prakasa Rao Janumala famously known as Johnny Lever inaugurated the Johnny Lever Ryan Film Academy (JLRFA) at Ryan International School, Kundalahalli recently. And, it was a day filled with laughter, comedy and fun for the students. The ace comedian of Hindi movies charmed his young fans with his brilliant comic sense.

And, in turn, they cheered and asked for more when he performed on stage mimicking his co-stars and choreographers.Unique workshop

He said that the JLRFA proposes to provide courses such as film-making, acting, editing, dance, recording, production, dubbing and many more.

To begin with, they will launch dancing courses across India. This unique workshop will not only hunt for talent in India but also nurture and refine the skills of upcoming dancers. The workshop is open to everyone – not only to Ryanites but also to their parents, teachers and staff and also to the general public. Choreographers Vinod and Sumeet of ‘Boogie Woogie’, ‘All the Best’ and ‘Singh is King’ fame, will conduct these workshops.

Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Lever said that he has never delivered a vulgar dialogue on screen. “I flatly refuse when directors ask me to deliver such dialogues. I believe in family values and realise that the entire family should be able to watch a movie,” he said. He took a break from his career (for eight years) to spend time with his family. Principal Prashanth Fernandez said that with the launch of JLFRA, his chairman Augustine Pinto’s dream of providing huge platform for talented students of the school had come true.

Mr. Lever was also at the Ryan, Yelahanka campus, to inaugurate the academy. In his inimitable style, the actor entertained the students.

<FONT …More

The Hindu : y>

On the other side Jane Fonda is the monster in law

WB airs Matrimonial Mayhem, a series of movies on weddings every Sunday night at 10 p.m. WB presents a unique and hilarious take on wedding mishaps from disastrous events to planning of the wedding ceremony, watch things fall apart….. only to get back together in the end.

On November 8, “Monster in Law” starring Jennifer Lopez, Jane Fonda and Michael Vartan will be aired. On November 15, Rumor Has It starring Jennifer Aniston and Kevin Costner will be aired.

“My Big Fat Greek Wedding” starring Nia Vardalos and John Corbett will be aired on November 22. The film tells the story of Toula Portokalos who lives in a Chicago suburb with her very Greek parents. When Toula falls in love with a non-Greek vegetarian, she struggles to get her family to accept him. And finally on November 29, there will be Tim Burton’s animated Corpse Bride starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Emily Watson.

When a young man mistakenly weds a corpse while on a two-day trek to the village of his real bride-to-be, it is up to the groom’s flesh-and-blood fiancée, who has been pining for the arrival of her intended, to face her wraith-like rival and make peace with her by promising to live her dreams for her and by vowing to remember her always.

<FONT …More

The Hindu : y>Anala P. M rues the self-centredattitude that most people have fallen prey to

One morning, I was running late to college.

I was looking for an auto and noticed a man in a drunken state with a big stone in his hand.

He swung it across and hit a dog . The scared dog ran into an open gate, where another dog was resting.

Even as both the dogs looked at each other, equally frightened, the man proceeded to throw more stones at them.

Even as the incident played before many people on the busy street, nobody tried to stop himfrom harming the dogs and continued to mind their own business. It is indeed shameful that we treatanimalwith arrogance and contempt.

Why are people so cruel? Why cannot we behave humanely with animals?

Why don’t we understand that every living being has feelings too?

Another incident made me feel worse.

As I was walking to the bus stop after college, I heard an ambulance trying to make its way through the traffic.

However, the traffic remained static, and the policestanding nearby made no effort to help clear the traffic jam for the ambulance to pass.

This brings to the forththe attitude of most people in these times. They are self-centred and prefer to live in their own small worlds. The life of strangers and stray animals is no longer valued. It is indeed a sad state of affairs.

Do you have anything to say? About the state of the world, the city, your angst? Pen it stylishly and you might get it published.And dash off your piece with your photograph.

Email it tobangmetro@gmail.com or post it to MetroPlus, The Hindu, 19 & 21, Bhagwan Mahaveer Road (Infantry Road), Bangalore 1.

<FONT …More

The Hindu : y>How seriously did you take your nursery rhymes? They are subversive little stories by themselves, and often keep up with the times… or should they, wonders BHUMIKA K.

Photo: P.V. SivakumarSING A SONG Rhymes have taken a serious turn. They have moved beyond their happy word play

Did we really care about a catastrophic plague way back in time when we joyfully jumped around in circles singing the rhyme “Ring-a-ring-a-roses”? It was the thrill of just plopping down at the end of it and giggling… even the anticipation of it kept us happy in our innocent little worlds.Pointless or loaded?

Of late, though, a great deal of hullabaloo is made about the underlying meaning of rhymes and changing them to cosset children from these macabre verses. And one wonders if we’re going too far. Take for example the BBC’s recent attempt at verse on their children’s channel CBeebies: they made “Humpty Dumpty happy again”. Of course, when some people were up in arms against what they saw as an attempt at sanitising the rhyme, the BBC simply explained that they were only trying to be creative.

And by the way, till recently, we probably didn’t even notice that our nursery rhymes were macabre.

Like Sarita Hegde, mom of a 14-month old. “I’m a big nursery rhymes fan. I love them simply because they rhyme,” she says. “I think I love them for their repetitive nature. I sing them over and over again to my son. In fact, till, say five years ago, I never stopped to think how tragic they were; it never occurred to me,” she adds. Sarita believes that though most of the rhymes are glum, morose and even tragic, it is still a way to teach kids about the dangers they may face in life. “If you make everything happy, they’ll never know of the big bad world out there,” she reasons.

Some…More

The Hindu :

This month at indiaplaza.in

The Angel’s Game

Carols Ruiz Zafon

Hachette

Rs. 495

The prequel to “The Shadow of the Wind”, “The Angel’s Game”, is as Gothic and as suspenseful as the first. About books again, this one dwells on Dickens and “Lost Expectations” in a large way, but is itself very different. “The Cemetery of Forgotten Books” and Sempere and Sons are here also, and play as big a role as they did in the earlier book. This one is even darker than “The Shadow of the Wind” because in this one, the hero makes a pact with a devil-like French editor to write a book with the power to change minds and hearts. Good reading. A book worth buying.

The Lost Symbol

Dan Brown

Random House

Rs. 468

A book definitely not worth buying, even borrowing. Something you can skip. “The Lost Symbol” is a stupid book, badly written and badly structured, but above all, stupid. The entire book is based on the old idea that human thought can change things, is “real” like other things. The chapters are short, and use his “Da Vinci Code” formula, where he ends chapters with: “And then they saw it.” Needless to say, it becomes tiresome. If you attempt reading this one, you might find yourself, like me reaching for “The Dancing Wu Li Masters”, “Looking Glass Universe” and all those other books which tell this story in breathtakingly-brilliant ways.

Nine Lives

William Dalrymple

Bloomsbury

£ 20.00

I can’t quite take to this book; perhaps I should not have begun with “The Dancer of Kannur”, in which the theyyam dancer Hari Das delivers up a homily on how theyyam can help “the lower castes fight back against the Brahmins”. Hari Das’s whole life seems more quaint than anything else, as does the idea that in today’s highly-Marxist state of Kerala, a theyyam has the role of “fighting…More

The Hindu :

A signature campaign and a clean-up trip to save the beautiful streams and waterfalls of Tada

SPARKLING BEAUTY LOSES SHEEN Tada in its earlier pristine glory.

The crackle of a beer bottle hit against a rock; the rustle of plastic covers buffeted about by the wind — these are the sounds of a place gone to seed. We are near what is popularly known as the Tada waterfalls, part of the northern tip of the 30-km-long Nagalapuram hills.

Located a little over 80 km north of Chennai, Tada is a non-descript town on the National Highway; the beautiful mountain range with beautiful streams, conveniently called Tada, actually lies about seven km beyond this town. This pretty spot attracts tourists and weekend revellers; not all of them are in their best behaviour.

“Drunken gangs are known to harass tourists, especially women. There have been numerous instances where they’ve broken into cars and stolen valuables,” says Peter Van Geit, the founding member of a 4,000-plus trekking group called Chennai Trekking Club ( www.chennaitrekkers.org).

Even peace-loving tourists contribute to the problem. Before they return home, they leave behind mementoes of their visit — plastics and other wastes.Unwanted gifts

These unwanted gifts only succeed in marring Tada’s most charming feature — crystal-clear streams. The locals call them ubbulu madugu (Telugu for ‘boiling rivulets’), because they issue forth from tiny perennial springs and resemble bubbles in boiling milk.

So clear are these streams that it is possible to see its bed, full of big, well-formed pebbles. When shafts of sunlight escape the trees standing on the rocky flanks of these streams and hit the water, the pebbles give forth an alluring sparkle.

“It is this beauty we are trying to preserve. These beautiful steams are becoming a dump yard of plastics and broken liquor bottles,” says Geit, whose group spearheads efforts to save Tada.

On November 1, the group made a trip…More

The Hindu :

Here’s the low-down on ectopic pregnancy

Safia had missed her period. A pregnancy test done at home showed up positive. With great excitement, she and her husband fixed up an appointment with their obstetrician for confirmation of the pregnancy.

On the day of the appointment, she developed slight spotting and also a cramping pain in the lower part of her abdomen. When her doctor did an ultrasound scan to find out why she was bleeding, there was no pregnancy found inside the uterus.

A detailed scan showed that the pregnancy was in the Fallopian tube. Safia has an ectopic pregnancy.

What is an ectopic pregnancy?

In the normal course of events, fertilisation of the egg occurs in the Fallopian tube. The fertilised egg then moves into the cavity of the uterus over the next five to seven days. It then implants into the wall of the cavity and starts growing. Sometimes this process does not go smoothly.

An ectopic pregnancy occurs when a fertilised egg does not reach the uterus and starts growing outside the uterus. Since it is in an abnormal location, it can cause complications.

Why must an ectopic pregnancy be treated?

The majority of ectopic pregnancies occur in the Fallopian tube. When the diagnosis is made at an early stage, before there is danger of the tube bursting, it is called an unruptured ectopic.

An unruptured ectopic pregnancy can be treated with medication.

As the pregnancy grows, it can cause the tube to burst. This is called a ruptured ectopic. If this occurs, it can result in life-threatening bleeding inside the abdomen. Emergency surgery may then be required.

Symptoms and diagnosis

An ectopic pregnancy may or may not have the usual symptoms of pregnancy. Some women may not even know they are pregnant.

An obstetrician will usually suspect an ectopic pregnancy if there is:

Abnormal vaginal bleeding which may be light or heavy.

Abdominal or pelvic pain which can be sudden,…More

The Hindu :

No greater problem

Husband: Why do you always carry my photo in your handbag to the office?

Wife: When there’s a problem, no matter how impossible, I look at your picture and the problem disappears.

Husband: Now you know how good I am

Wife: Yes.

I look at your picture and tell myself:

‘What other problem can there be greater than this one?’Lovable mule

A man was travelling down a country road when he saw a large group of people outside a house.

He stopped and asked a person why the large crowd was there.

A farmer replies: “The house-owner’s mule kicked his mother-in-law, and she died.”

“Well,” replies the man, “she must have had a lot of friends.” “Nope,” says the farmer, “we all just want to buy his mule.”All you want is TV!

At a local coffee bar, a young woman tells her friend what her idea of the perfect mate is:

“The man I marry must be a shining light amongst company.

He must be musical.

Tell jokes.

Sing. And, stay home at night!”

An old woman who passes by says:

“Honey, if that’s all you want, get a TV!”

(SOURCE: INTERNET)

<FONT …More

The Hindu : y>Playing a musical instrument could improve cognitive skills

Playing a musical instrument changes the anatomy and function of the brain and may be used in therapy to improve cognitive skills.

There is growing evidence that musicians have structurally and functionally different brains compared to non-musicians.

In particular, the areas of the brain used for processing music are larger or more active in musicians.

Even just starting to learn a musical instrument can change the neuro-physiology (study of the working of nerve cells) of the brain. Lutz Jäncke, a member of the website Faculty of 1000 Medicine, proposes using music in neuropsychological therapy, for example to improve language skills, memory, or mood.

The brain regions involved in music processing are also required for other tasks, such as memory or language skills, says a Faculty of 1000 release.

“If music has such a strong influence on brain plasticity (flexibility),” writes Jäncke, “this raises the question of whether this effect can be used to enhance cognitive performance.” “Hopefully, the current trend in the use of musicians as a model for brain plasticity will continue and extend to the field of neuropsychological rehabilitation,” he says. Faculty of 1000 Medicine is a website for scientists that provides rankings and commentary on current scientific research papers.

Indo-Asian News Service

<FONT …More