Thinking aloud- Marwa Sajjad

  Earth Science and the Kerala Floods Kerala has a timeline with very less major natural disasters. A few small-scale tremors, landslides and a ride in waves. That’s all, but on August 15 2018, a warning for extremely heavy downpour and red alert was issued for all the districts for 16th August. That year, Kerala experienced the worst flood in about a century. It was caused mainly due to unusually high rainfall in the monsoon. 35, out of the 54 dams in the state were opened due to the flooding. Scientists need a better understanding of the interplay between gravity, weather and the form of the oceans to predict storms and their resultant floods better. Consider this as a story where there are two heroes and the sidekick of the first hero (Team Name:  Earth Science ), working as a team to defeat the villain: The Flood. The story will tell us more about how these heroes help saving the people from the great villain. First Hero; Meteorology : The deluge that occurred...

There isn’t a person who does not have a support, an inspiration, a friend, and a helping hand… You might think finding all this in a single person is hard. But, there is a person; your father. He will always be there to help you, to support you in tough times, to question your actions so that you improve, to motivate you… For me, my father is all this and more. He makes me a better person, student, player and so on… He has always been with me to help me with my studies, play with me, does everything with me. He is a kind-hearted soul who takes every decision for the benefit of others. My father stays up all night if I am sick… My father is abroad. So, when I fall sick, the person for whose presence I yearn for most is my father’s…When he would come home, we used to go for outings and movies together… Now, when I and my mom go for an outing together, I really miss his presence. When we have family gatherings or outings with all my cousins, his humour keeps our spirits up the whol...

Tomorrow is World Environment Day. So, I guess it will be usual for a person to think of what humankind has done for, and done to, nature… Thinking about it, will make one realize, that man has done much more harm to nature, than good for it. How many lives have we taken? How many homes have we destroyed? I remember reading that if you put the events in which different creatures first appeared on earth, humans were  very late. So, compared to other creatures, we spent very less time on earth. But, we have given it most losses… Our generation never got to see the marvellous sight of a Tasmanian tiger looking out on to lowlands standing on its tail, or a dodo bird   swallowing stones and our future generations might not even see the adorable sight of a panda if the situation goes on like this… Nature gave us a home, shelter, clothes, food, knowledge and medicines… But what have we given it? We only started thinking about our mother nature, when we were also affected by the...

  Once upon a time there was a little girl, and she was sad. ‘Why?’ you may ask. She was six. This was the reason for her sadness. She had just got her hat and the rolled up paper thingy (those are the girls’ words) and spend her last day at her preschool, Time Kids. “How wonderful it would have been if I could go to school at Time Kids!! ’’ she would think. The girl had got admission at an unfamiliar place with an unfamiliar name and unfamiliar people. Trying to be a brave little kid, she dressed up in her smart new uniform and took her new bag with some of her new school books and set off for her first day of school. Walking through the gate with her parents and her grandparents, she felt weird to be going with a bag and uniform to somewhere other than Time Kids. ‘Christ Nagar International School’ she read looking at a board in the front of the school. She had cried so many times saying “I don’t want to go to first grade!!!’’ and look where she was, going to first grade. After t...