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महिलाएं – रेप और सरकार की उदासीनता चाहे हमारी कानून व्यवस्था  हो, पुलिस प्रशासन हो  या सरकार का रवैया , हालात बद से बदतर होते जा रहे है हमारे देश भारत के … बोलने की बात पर कोई बोलता नही है और फालतू के मुद्दो पर बहस किए जा रहे हैं. बेहद शर्मनाक !! यूपी […]

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रेप पीड़ित और लच्चर कानून व्यवस्था निर्भया रेप केस के बाद भी न पुलिस ने, न प्रशासन ने और न ही सरकार ने कोई सबक लिया और रही बात कानून की देवी की .. जब तक उनकी आखों में पट्टी बंधी हुई है कोई उम्मीद नही … महिलाए भगवान भरोसे हैं… बात हाल की है […]

The post रेप पीड़ित और लच्चर कानून व्यवस्था appeared first on Monica Gupta.

Loot by Jude Watson (for ages 9-12)

LOSERS, WEEPERS. STEALERS, KEEPERS.

When Rick Riordan, author of the Percy Jackson series, says a book is “the perfect summer read,” you know it’s got to be good! He (and we!) love Loot, an action-packed heist book by The 39 Clues author Jude Watson.

Loot starts when March McQuin’s criminal father, Alfie, falls off a high rooftop in a heist gone wrong. As Alfie speaks his last words, he manages to tell March to “find jewels.” But March soon learns that “jewels” is actually “Jules” — a twin sister he’s never heard of!

After finding each other, March and Jules plan to follow their father’s footsteps and find a new life for themselves. With just one well-planned heist, the two could be living beyond their wildest dreams! The only question is how? It all becomes clear when March begins to discover hints his father left behind…

Start reading the action-packed Loot here!

Would you have the courage to pull off a heist like March and Jules? What friends would you take along the way?  Post your answers in the Comments below!

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I find it quite delightful that the Oxford English Dictionary has as its first two citations for the word loot entries that relate not only to the word itself, but to men who appear to have been pretty sophisticated looters.

The first citation is from 1788 and a book called Indian Vocabulary.

This gives you a pretty hot clue as to the etymology of the word loot—it’s from Hindi and Sanskrit.

The reason English book buyers were interested in the vocabulary of India was that India represented a growing source of national wealth for England and news from India was hard to follow if you didn’t understand the jargon.

The publisher of the book went further though.

Since improving your vocabulary hasn’t always proven to be motivation enough for buying a book, the full title of the thing was Indian vocabulary: to which is prefixed the Forms of Impeachment.

If this seems to you no better as far as marketing a book by its title is concerned that’s because you don’t know about the scandal out of India at the time.

This book was trading not only on self improvement through vocabulary, but on the titillation of scandal through the recent impeachment of Warren Hastings the Governor General of Bengal.

Hastings wasn’t a looter in the sense that he smashed windows and grabbed valuables, but he appears to have amassed a considerable estate in Calcutta while disregarding the trifling details of governing.

I should say though that he was later acquitted.

The second OED citation is from 1839 and reads

“He always found the talismanic gathering-word Loot…a sufficient bond of union in any part of India.”

I found that an intriguing sentence.

Who found the word loot a bond of union?

This sounds like the stuff of Indiana Jones movies.

Well it turns out that it was a guy named Amir Khan.  For much of his life Amir Khan was the head of a sort of tribal army in India except it was made up of quite a mix of tribes.

He was constantly brokering deals where he’d get paid to attack one area or get paid more not to; or he’d establish alliances with one faction or another depending on the profit margin involved.

It was when asked how he kept his mix of followers onside that he called loot a talismanic gathering-word.

He figured sharing the spoils kept everyone faithful.  And it worked for him with the British too.

Eventually the British got tired of his disruptive plundering activities and managed to turn some of his allies into enemies.  Once it seemed more profitable to fight for the British than against them Amir Khan himself became an ally.

As England continued to extract loot from India Amir Khan was able to keep his cut and was thereafter regarded by the English administration as a model of local leadership.

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