Jadav Payeng In 1979, floods washed a large number of snakes ashore on the sandbar of the river Brahmaputra near Jorhat in Assam, India. After the waters had receded, 16-year-old Jadav Payeng saw the dead reptiles. That changed his life forever. “The snakes died in the heat, without any tree cover. I sat down and…
Month: July 2020
066. Rosa Parks: Not giving up her seat in a bus, sparking a movement
Rosa Parks On the evening of 1st December 1955, 42-year-old Rosa Parks was sitting in the front seat of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, US. Those days, there was segregation in buses with the whites sitting in the front and the blacks in the back. Rosa was in the first row of the black section….
065. Bhutan: Thunder Dragon conserves its biodiversity
Bhutan or the Thunder Dragon, with its thick forest cover and immense biodiversity, is called the ‘oxygen tank’ or the carbon sink of the world. Out of an area of 40,000 sq km, 72% is under forest cover. This ecosystem supports 7000 species of plants, 165 species of mammals, and 700 species of birds. No…
064. Underground Railroad: The escape route for slaves
Harriet Tubman The Underground Railroad was not a real railroad with tracks and trains. It was just a series of routes and hiding places that slaves from the American South used in order to reach places of freedom in the North. It is said that slavery began in America in early 17th century. Black Africans…