The Bengal Tiger

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There are more Bengal tigers than any other type in the world. Most live in India - maybe 1800 - but there are about 500 in Bangladesh, 150 in Nepal and 60 or 70 in Bhutan. Perhaps there are around 2500 in these countries today.

Begum Rokeya – Sultana’s Dream

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Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain was an influential social activist in British India, born in 1880 in Rangpur, a district of what is now Bangladesh. Her home life was comfortable as her father was a wealthy zamindar. He had four wives and Rokeya had five brothers and sisters. The girls were not allowed to go to school but educated themselves at home. Her sister, Karimunessa, was very important to Rokeya, especially because she wanted to be educated in Bangla, the language of the people, rather than the Arabic or Persian their father thought more suitable languages for schooling. Luckily, their brother, Ibrahim, taught them Bangla as well as English.

Sheikh Mujib’s Six-Point Programme

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The meeting in Lahore of Pakistan’s political leaders from both the East and the West parts of the country had been intended to allow for discussion of the Tashkent Declaration, which was signed on 10th January, 1966, to end the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 over the rights and responsibilities of each nation in Kashmir. Although the Soviet-sponsored peace agreement was regarded as a great success by the international community, that was not how it was seen at home. In the first place, the day after the Declaration was signed, Indian Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri died in unexplained circumstances in Uzbekistan. The Indian government has never made any statement on his death. On the contrary, it has avoided saying anything at all about it and has refused to conduct an investigation, despite Shastri’s widow blaming her husband’s death on poisoning.

Aileen Wournos

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A serial killer is a person who kills three or more times because of an emotional need; they usually kill one person at a time. They don't do it for money. Most serial killers are men but sometimes women. In the late 1980s in North Florida, USA, the police had a problem. Prostitutes were using the busy highway system to pick up men. The women waited by the side of the road for a car to stop. The man would then drive the prostitute down one of the many side roads that came off the main highway and went nowhere, just ending in the forest, a kilometre or two away. There would be nobody else around.

Bringing up a better baby

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Benjamin Spock, the famous American pediatrician, comforted several generations of anxious parents in his best-selling ‘Baby and Child Care’. He wrote 'Your baby is born to be a reasonable, friendly human being'.

Frankenstein – the Creation of Human Life

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Most people link Frankenstein with Jimmy Whale’s films of the same name, made in black and white in the 1930s. Here, a frightening monster is created by a bright young scientist from the body parts of recently dead people. In this way, Dr. Frankenstein puts together a stronger and, supposedly, more intelligent being than humankind and brings him to life with electricity generated by a lightning storm.

The Roots of War

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It can never be proved, but it is a safe assumption that the first time five thousand men were ever gathered together in one place, they belonged to an army. That probably happened around 7000 BC - give or take a thousand years - and it is an equally safe bet that the first truly large-scale slaughter of people in human history happened very soon afterwards.

The Washington Sniper

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A sniper is a person who shoots a gun, usually a rifle, and kills someone far away; maybe five hundred metres away, sometimes a kilometre. Most snipers are soldiers killing others in wartime; or special police officers killing terrorists or bank robbers. They are not only good at shooting people at a long distance but they are also good at hiding and planning the kill. Sometimes, not often, the sniper is a criminal. The Mafia use snipers, for example, but the worst kind of sniper is the one who does it for fun – like a deer hunter – laughing at the police who find it hard to catch such a cold-blooded killer.

WHO SAYS WHO IS MAD?

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David Rosenhan wondered what would happen if a number of entirely sane people tried to gain admission to a mental hospital by pretending to have one of the symptoms of insanity. Would these sane individuals be classified as insane? If they were admitted to the mental hospital, would the staff realize that a mistake had been made? The answers to these and other questions were obtained in a study in which eight normal people, five men and three women, tried to be admitted to twelve different psychiatric hospitals.