HOW OFTEN have you heard that the more you read the more you educate yourself? And yet this is the age of the computer and there’s a growing fear amongst educationists that computer literacy will replace the traditional source of literacy which is reading and writing…witness the fact that children can hardly read and write nowadays! Instead, they speak the language of the computer which may be adequate for instant communication but will hardly educate them.

IT WAS a change from the usually serious academic presentations which usually take place at the National Institute of Oceanography’s auditorium, Cardium! The evening of December 6, 2009, saw the Third Millennium Foundation marking its first anniversary here with the presentation of a one of a kind music programme — “Project Fernando, Music-Ability” — bringing able and differently-abled children together in happy harmony.

THERE WAS a time in the 70s when I could have stepped into the vast down-to-earth Khadi Emporium at downtown Mumbai’s Flora Fountain and bought myself a comfortable cool light cotton khadi kurta for less than Rs.50 to survive the summer heat. But today try getting the same kurta for anything less than Rs.250-Rs.500! In fact, those with a Gandhian disposition - having seen and shared the Mahatma’s political and national sentiments during the heady pre-independence days

Studying patient after patient under his care who benefited from a nutritional package prescribed by him, he concludes, that only when we eat all the necessary nutrients required by our cells can our bodies operate at optimal health! Nutritional packages contain such natural optimizers as his favourite grape seed extract and CoQ10, as also glucosamine sulfate, lutein, zeaxanthine, niacin, magnesium, calcium…in various chronic degenerative diseases like “MS, heart disease, lupus, Crohn’s, cancer, or Parkinson’s…”,

ECO-FRIENDLY has become the catchword for today’s generation. Everybody wants to be eco-friendly, even if they don’t know what being eco-friendly means and how hard it is to be eco-friendly! Let’s say being eco-friendly means being in love with the bounty of Mother Earth - so freely given and so abundantly. The best place to start being eco-friendly is at home, of course.

BY TARA PATEL
THE STORY of silk is fascinating even as it repels! Hey, when did you last make the connection between that treasured silk sari you love to wear and the number of baby silkworm moths which were boiled to death in their cocoons i.e. before they could even hatch and feel the warm caress […]

DO YOU know that in New Zealand you can’t do business with tobacco or tobacco goods? It’s illegal. You can’t buy, sell, import tobacco products…and that plays a vital role in citizens’ good health vis-à-vis heart disease. Tobacco use is practically unheard of in New Zealand now.

TODAY WE turn life into a mindless ritualistic celebration! It’s that time of the year again when we go into one long celebration mode with one celebration after another. How many of us actually stop to think about the origin of most of our celebrations? It’s worth remembering that most of the celebrations of the Hindu calendar are the rites of passage of a mythology steeped in pre-historic times when folk swore by Mother Earth and worshipped her.

THE CHAIRMAN of the Tourism Corporation of Gujarat Limited (TCGL), Kamalesh Patel, must love Goa for he was here again with his entourage to meet the media on September 9, 2009 to woo Goans into visiting Gujarat. This time around he was here with a group of garba dancers to promote the nine-day festival of Navratri from September 19 to 27, 2009. Navratri is to the Gujarati community what Durga Puja is to the Bengali community the world over.

BREAST FEEDING Week” is celebrated year after year from August 1 to 7 and there’re extremely sound reasons for young mothers to breast feed their babies as they come along…but when it comes to breast feeding with any dedication only 18 percent of mothers in Goa breast feed their babies exclusively for even six months!