Justin Bieber recently lashed out at critics who said he isn’t “experienced enough” to write songs about love as he’s only 16. While the allegation may or may not have some truth, the fact remains that teens’ experiences or opinions are often not given the weight they deserve. The reasons range from “what do you know about life?” to “you’re just not old enough” and teens say striving to make their voice heard among all the naysayers can be tough.

Ikyatha Yerasala (The Asian Age)

Bunking class. Fests. Throwing chalk at each other. Fights, crushes and laughing like you’ve never laughed before.

We all love our friends. Don’t we? We were already so close to each other that we were just short of being called conjoined twins.

The Geddes Scholarship is instituted in honour of Patrick Geddes: biologist, sociologist and city planner of extraordinary vision, who spent almost a decade in India and was impressed by India’s urban centres and what he saw as the spirit of harmony between architecture, water bodies, public spaces and trees.

Most teens consider friends their first priority. But for me, it’s undoubtedly my family. They are the most important people in my life. I’m lucky to have the most generous mother, the most controlling yet loving father and a perfect elder sister. Some of my friends are ridiculously rude to their parents over the phone when all they want to

Everyone wants to be a Miley Cyrus, a Selena Gomez or a Justin Bieber. The craze for teen superstars these days surpasses their adult counterparts. Kids want to look like them, walk and even talk like them. But the idols themselves seem to be doing all they can to shed their teen idol image and join the “big” league. No one seems to want to portray themselves as young, fun, innocent kids anymore. Mature, independent, rebellious, nonchalant – that’s the image they want and their fans are only too eager to follow in their footsteps.

So you’ve been burning the midnight oil trying to cram in all the information you can before the much-dreaded board exams. But are you confident about actually remembering everything you’ve learnt? To avoid overtaxing yourself and ensuring that all your efforts pay off, follow these golden rules:

She’s only 13, but she’s appeared in 22 films, nine television shows and has been nominated for four prestigious acting awards. Meet Elle Fanning, the teen star who has been making a splash with Sofia Coppola’s latest film Somewhere. The film has been quite a hit on the film festival circuit, but this is hardly Elle’s first brush with fame. She has earlier enjoyed roles in high profile films like Babel and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

The recent release of two books, Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom and Wendy Mogel’s The Blessing of a B-Minus, has generated a lot of interest in parenting styles of late. While one group of parents have firmly supported Chua’s militant, pushy approach (she once threatened to burn her daughter’s stuffed animals if she didn’t

Music has always been an essential part of my life and while I was growing up I found that it was the best thing to happen to me. Back in school I was so fond of music that I created a small band with my friends.