Bookcopies

Vallabhbhai Patel (31 October 1875  – 15 December 1950), popularly known as Sardar Patel, was the first Deputy Prime Minister of India. He was an Indian barrister and statesman, a senior leader of the Indian National Congress and a founding father of the Republic of India who played a leading role in the country's struggle for independence and guided its integration into a united, independent nation. In India and elsewhere, he was often called Sardar, Chief in Hindi, Urdu, and Persian. He acted as de factoSupreme Commander-in-chief of the Indian army during the political integration of India and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. Patel was born and raised in the countryside of Gujarat.He was a successful lawyer. He subsequently organised peasants from Kheda, Borsad, and Bardoli in Gujarat in non-violent civil disobedience against the British Raj, becoming one of the most influential leaders in Gujarat. He rose to the leadership of the Indian National Congress, organising the party for...

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday(31 oct 2018) unveiled the 182-metre high ‘Statue of Unity’ in honour of country’s first Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, and dedicated it to the nation. Built on Sadhu Bet Island on Narmada river, the imposing statue is touted to be the world’s tallest. The ₹2,389 crore monument is a tribute to Patel who played a major role in integrating the princely states into the Indian Union after the partition of 1947. It is almost 29 metres taller than China’s Spring Temple Buddha that stands at 153 metres, and almost twice as high as the 93-metre Statue of Liberty in New York. Apart from the Patel bronze figure, other major attractions include inauguration of a 17-km-long Valley of flowers, a Tent City for tourists near the statue and a museum dedicated to the life and times of Patel. The Tent City, located around four km from the Statue of Unity can house more than 500 tourists in one go. A viewing gallery at a height of 153 metres has been crea...

In his ‘Kantimati Annai Nee Gati’ (Kanada), Papanasam Sivan sings of the presiding Goddess of Tirunelveli as residing on the northern banks of the Tamiraparani, dignified with streets where sweet Tamil is sung. Yes, this southern river, the only one that originates in Tamil Nadu and enters the sea in the same State, has its musical glory, though perhaps not on the same scale as the Cauvery. The region has its share of Divya Desams, Padal Petra Sthalams and shrines sung on by Arunagirinathar. Of these, Kazhugumalai, which is a magnificent rock-cut temple, was under the control of the Rajahs of Ettayapuram.The estate reached its zenith in the 19th century when it extended its patronage to several musicians. The ruler Venkateswara Ettappa noticed the violin-playing skills of Baluswami Dikshitar, the younger brother of Muthuswami Dikshitar, and invited him to become a palace artiste. That led to Muthuswami Dikshitar coming to Ettayapuram as well, where he eventually passed away. Heritage h...

In the early nineteenth century, European settlers in the South American colonies were to rebel against Spain and Portugal and become independent countries, just as in 1776 the thirteen North American colonies rebelled against Britain and formed the United States of America. South America today is also called ‘Latin America’. This is because Spanish and Portuguese, two of the main languages of the continent, are part of the Latin family of languages. The inhabitants are mostly native European (called Creole), European, and African by origin. Most of them are Catholics. Their culture has many elements of native traditions mixed with European ones.

The  Prime Minister's Office  ( PMO ) consists of the immediate staff of the Prime Minister of India, as well as multiple levels of support staff reporting to the Prime Minister. The PMO is headed by the Principal Secretary, currently Nripendra Misra. The PMO was originally called the  Prime Minister's Secretariat  until 1977, when it was renamed during the Morarji Desai ministry. History During the tenure of Jawaharlal Nehru as Prime Minister, the then Prime Minister's Secretariat was headed by a  Joint Secretary until his death. The post of Principal Secretary to Prime Minister was created during the tenure of Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister. The Principal Secretary to PM is the head of the Prime Minister's Office. Function The PMO provides secretarial assistance to the Prime Minister. It is headed by the  Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister . The PMO includes the anti-corruption unit and the public wing dealing with grievances. The office houses the Prime Minis...

Central Vigilance Commission  ( CVC ) is an apex Indian governmental body created in 1964 to address governmental corruption. In 2003, the Parliament enacted a law conferring statutory status on the CVC. It has the status of an autonomous body, free of control from any executive authority, charged with monitoring all vigilance activity under the Central Government of India, advising various authorities in central Government organizations in planning, executing, reviewing and reforming their vigilance work. It was set up by the Governmentof IndiaResolution on 11 February 1964,on the recommendations of the  Committee on Prevention of Corruption , headed by Shri K. Santhanam Committee, to advise and guide Central Government agencies in the field of vigilance. Nittoor Srinivasa Rau, was selected as the first Chief Vigilance Commissioner of India. The Annual Report of the CVC not only gives the details of the work done by it but also brings out the system failures which leads to corruption ...

This accident was the worst in the history of railways. The accident in Amritsar Friday (19 oct )night in which at least 59 people were mowed down by a train during Dussehra celebrations was the worst due to trespassing on the tracks, railway officials said. Here is a list of some other such accidents: * June 4, 2002  — The Kasganj level crossing disaster occurred when a Kanpur—Kasganj Express collided with a passenger bus in Uttar Pradesh, killing 30 and injuring 29. * June 4, 2010  — The Coimbatore—Mettupalayam special train collided with a mini-bus at an unmanned level-crossing at Idigarai near Coimbatore, killing 5. * July 7, 2011  — A Mathura—Chhapra Express hit a bus at an unmanned level crossing in Thanagaon of Uttar Pradesh’s Kanshiram Nagar district, killing 38 and injuring 30. * February 26, 2012  — The Trivandrum-Kozhikode Jan Shatabdi Express struck people who were standing on the track to watch fireworks, killing 3 and injuring 1. * March 20, 2012  — A train collided with ...

The recent discovery of 1,000 rock carvings on Maharashtra’s Konkan coast is expected to provide new insights into the early history of the region. Jayant Sriram reports on the archaeological significance of these petroglyphs, which are estimated to be 12,000 years old. Filling a gap in history “These petroglyphs fill a huge gap in the history of the Konkan region,” says Tejas Garge, Director, Directorate of  Archaeology  and Museums, Maharashtra. There is ample evidence that in the medieval age, the Konkan coast was lined with important port towns. It has been reconstructed from epigraphs and contemporaneous records that it has a history of trade and contact with Europe, and even with the Roman Empire. But there was a big void regarding what went on here in prehistoric times. Some evidence has come from the caves in the region. A team of researchers from Deccan College, Pune, discovered stone tools that were estimated to be 25,000 years old. “If you consider that the records of the po...

Incredıble!ndıa  is the name of an international tourism campaign maintained by the Governmentof India since 2002, to promote tourism in India to an audience of global appeal.The "Incredible India" title was officially branded and promoted by Amitabh Kant, the then Joint Secretary under the Union Ministry of Tourism, in 2002. Marketing campaign In 2002, India's Ministry of Tourism launched a campaign to promote India as a popular tourist destination. The phrase "Incredible India" was adopted as a slogan by the ministry. Before 2002, the Indian government had regularly formulated policies and prepared pamphlets and brochures for the promotion of tourism, however, it had not supported tourism in a concerted fashion. In 2002, the tourism ministry made a conscious effort to bring in more professionalism in its attempts to promote tourism. It formulated an integrated communication strategy with the aim of promoting India as a destination of choice for the discerning ...

The  Chief Economic Adviser  ( CEA ) is the economic advisor to the Government of India. The CEA is the ex-officio cadre controlling authority of the IndianEconomic Service. The CEA is under the direct charge of the Minister of Finance.

Gita Gopinath has been named as Chief Economist of the  International Monetary Fund  (IMF), becoming the second Indian to be appointed to the position. Former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan had served as Chief Economist of the IMF. Gopinath would succeed Maurice (Maury) Obstfeld, who is to retire at the end of 2018, the IMF said in a statement Monday.Currently, Gopinath is the John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and Economics at Harvard University. Earlier in 2016, her appointment as financial advisor to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had generated controversy as some communist leaders questioned the CPM-led state government for roping in a person who was more into market economy and liberal policies."Gopinath is one of the world's outstanding economists, with impeccable academic credentials, a proven track record of intellectual leadership, and extensive international experience," IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said. "All this makes her e...

The  International Monetary Fund  ( IMF ) is an international organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of "189 countries working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world." Formed in 1945 at the Bretton Woods Conference primarily by the ideas of Harry Dexter White and John Maynard Keynes,  it came into formal existence in 1944 with 29 member countries and the goal of reconstructing the  international payment system . It now plays a central role in the management of  balance of payments difficulties and international financial crises.  Countries contribute funds to a pool through a quota system from which countries experiencing  balance of payments  problems can borrow money. As of 2016, the fund had  SDR 477 billion (about $666 billion).

The  Me Too movement  (or  #MeToo movement ), with many local and international alternatives, is a movement against  sexual harassment  and  sexual assault .  #MeToo spread  virally  in October 2017 as a  hashtag  used on social media in an attempt to demonstrate the widespread prevalence of sexual assault and harassment, especially in the workplace.  It followed soon after  the sexual misconduct allegations  against  Harvey Weinstein .  Tarana Burke , an American social activist and community organizer, began using the phrase "Me Too" as early as 2006, and the phrase was later popularized by American actress  Alyssa Milano , on Twitter in 2017. Milano encouraged victims of sexual harassment to  tweet  about it and "give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem". This was met with success that included but was not limited to high-profile posts from several American celebrities, including  Gwyneth Paltrow ,  Ashley Judd ,   Jennifer Lawrence and  Uma Thurman . ...

Former Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand chief minister Narayan Dutt Tiwari died in a private hospital in Delhi on Thursday. He was 93 years old and today was his birthday as well. Tiwari is survived by his wife Ujjawala and son Rohit Shekhar. Tiwari, known as "Vikas Purush", had suffered a brain-stroke and was rushed to the hospital in Delhi's Saket on September 20 last year. He was in the ICU of the hospital till October 12 and was thereafter moved to a private room as his health improved. Born on October 18, 1925, Tiwari was the three-time CM of Uttar Pradesh and was the first elected CM of Uttarakhand as well. His tenure as Uttarakhand CM was from March 2002 to March 2007. Uttarakhand was carved out of Uttar Pradesh on November 9, 2000. In the last 18 years, he was the lone CM of the Himalayan state to complete the entire tenure of five years. His first stint as Uttar Pradesh CM was from January 1976 to April 1977. Tiwari became the CM of the state again, from August 1984...

The  H-1B  is a  visa in the United States  under the  Immigration and Nationality Act , section 101(a)(15)(H) which allows U.S. employers to employ  foreign workers  in specialty occupations. If a foreign worker in H-1B status quits or is dismissed from the sponsoring employer, the worker must either apply for and be granted a change of status, find another employer (subject to application for adjustment of status and/or change of visa), or leave the United States. Effective January 17, 2017, the  United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) modified the rules to allow a grace period of up to 60 days but in practice as long as a  green card  application is pending they are allowed to stay.  In 2015, there were 348,669 applicants for the H-1B filed of which 275,317 were approved. The regulations define a "specialty occupation" as requiring theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge in a field of human endeavor  including but ...

Not since New Zealander Keri Hulme got  that  call in 1985 for The Bone People has a Booker jury delivered a bigger bombshell. A consistent outsider in the bookies’ odds, Anna Burns’s Milkman is the sort of boldly experimental – and frankly brain-kneading – novel that is usually let in at longlist stage and gently dropped as  the competition narrows . And for that reason alone it is  a smartly provocative choice  – one that has been waiting to be made as the publishing industry searches for the soul of its next generation. It’s a next generation that has nothing to do with age (Burns is 56 and has two previous novels and a novella to her name). Rather it’s a choice for the Corbyn era, which recognises the worth of a formal contrarian and thumbs its nose at the wisdom of old-school pundits. It will no doubt baffle many readers and depress a good few booksellers as an opener for the festive sales season, but it’s refreshingly not a vote for the status quo at a time when many have been sa...

Until the mid-20th Century, the waters surrounding Antarctica were generally considered to be extensions of the adjoining oceans. But in 2000, members of the International Hydrographic Organization almost unanimously agreed to identify these southernmost waters as the Southern Ocean. Although its definite boundaries are yet to be determined, below 60°S latitude is generally accepted, giving it an area of 7,848,299 sq miles (20,327,000 km²), and making it the fourth largest of the Earth’s oceans. Joining waters of the southern Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans with a persistent easterly current, the frigid Southern Ocean has a great influence on the Earth’s weather patterns.

At 5,400,025 sq miles (13,986,000 km²), the Arctic is the smallest and shallowest of the five Oceans, and falls mostly within the Arctic Circle. It is surrounded by the Eurasian and North American continents, and includes Hudson Bay and the North and Barents Seas. For most of the year, these seas are a mass of ice often hundreds of feet thick; even during the brief summer months ice can make the Arctic Ocean impassable, and it wasn’t known until modern times that there is little solid ground in the most northern reaches of the Earth. Nonetheless, its icy landscape has been inhabited since ancient times by the hardy ancestors of the Inuit of North America, the Sami of Scandinavia, and the Nenets of Russia. The great explorers of the 16th-19th Centuries were determined to find passage from the North Atlantic through to the rich shores of Asia in search of spices, silks and opium. The majority of these explorations ended in failure and disaster; but in the 19th and 20th Centuries accurate...

The Indian Ocean covers a 28,400,130 sq mile (73,556,000 km²) area between the eastern coast of Africa, the shores of the Middle East and India to its north, and is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by Southeast Asia and Australia/Oceania. Home to a great variety of humankind throughout history, the Indian Ocean is also rich in exotic plant and animal species, and still supplies the world with spices such as black pepper, nutmeg, and ginger. While these spices are now used primarily to flavor the world’s cuisines, they were used from earliest times to preserve foods, and were thought to have great medicinal properties. Indeed, during the terrible plagues of the 13th through 17th Centuries, Europeans were so convinced of their curative powers that their countries fought repeated wars and gambled untold fortunes to gain control of the Spice Islands, and the number of explorers and sailors willing to risk their lives charting new maps to reach them is difficult to imagine.

The next largest ocean is the Atlantic, with an area of 41,081,270 sq miles (106,400,000 km²). It is bounded by the Americas to its west, and by the western shores of Europe and Africa to its east. It includes the Mediterranean, Caribbean and Baltic Seas, and the Gulf of Mexico. Like the Pacific Ocean, it reaches to the Arctic and Antarctica. In European History, the Indian and eastern Atlantic Oceans were the most completely charted of the world’s seas until the 15th Century; indeed this area was considered the sum total of the known world. With the escalation of the Spice Trade, desire for a Western route to the East Indies led to the eventual navigation of the globe as we now know it. The warm, stormy waters of the North Atlantic once supported great populations of cod and sperm whale. Cod has been an important human food source for hundreds of years, notably during the founding of America’s colonies, when North American settlements relied heavily upon cod’s easily preserved high-qu...

The Pacific is the largest of these oceans, covering 63,784,077 sq miles (165,200,000 km²). It fills the area between the western coastline of the Americas, the eastern coastlines of Asia and Australia, and is capped to the North and South by the Arctic and Antarctic regions. In part because of the numerous tropical islands of East Asia, the Pacific boasts the longest total shoreline, some 84,300 miles (135,663 km). It also holds the deepest point on the earth’s sea floor, the Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench, near the island of Guam. At close to 11,000 meters below sea level, or almost 7 miles, this crevice was first sounded in 1875 by the HMS Challenger. It would be thought that life forms could not exist at that depth and extreme water pressure. But beginning with radiolarians dredged by the Challenger, hundreds of different species have been found in the Challenger Deep, including shrimp, flatworms, and single-celled protists thought to be very similar to Earth’s earliest ...

Global Handwashing Day (GHD) is a campaign to motivate and mobilize people around the world to improve their handwashing habits. Washing hands at critical points during the day and washing with soap are both important. Global Handwashing Day occurs on 15 October of each year. The global campaign is dedicated to raising awareness of handwashing with soap as a key factor in disease prevention.[1] Respiratory and intestinal diseases can be reduced by 25-50%. A global advocacy day dedicated to increasing awareness and understanding about the importance of handwashing with soap as an effective and affordable way to prevent diseases and save lives. Global Handwashing Day is an opportunity to design, test, and replicate creative ways to encourage people to wash their hands with soap at critical times.

The World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims takes place on the third Sunday in November every year as the appropriate acknowledgment of victims of road traffic crashes and their families. It was started by the British road crash victim charity, RoadPeace , in 1993 and was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2005. In 1993, the first day of remembrance which was organised by Brigitte Chaudhry , Founder of RoadPeace. In 1995 the General Assembly of European Federation of Road Traffic Victims (FEVR) added its support and by 1998 the event was being held in a number of countries including Argentina, Australia, Israel, South Africa, and Trinidad in addition to the United Kingdom. The World Health Organisation added its support in 2003 and in 2005 the United Nations General Assembly invited all nations to observe the day 'as the appropriate acknowledgment of victims of road traffic crashes and their families'. In 2007 events were held in 18 countries;it was mar...

The Chief Justice of India (CJI) is the head of the judiciary of India and the Supreme Court of India. The CJI also heads their administrative functions. As head of the supreme court, the chief justice is responsible for the allocation of cases and appointment of constitutional benches which deal with important matters of law. In accordance with Article 145 of the Constitution of India and the Supreme Court Rules of Procedure of 1966, the Chief Justice allocates all work to the other judges who are bound to refer the matter back to him or her (for re-allocation) in any case where they require it to be looked into by a larger bench of more judges.On the administrative side, the Chief Justice carries out the following functions: maintenance of the roster; appointment of court officials and general and miscellaneous matters relating to the supervision and functioning of the Supreme Court. It has been an unbroken convention for decades now, to appoint the senior-most judge of the supreme c...

Of the groups of sufis who migrated to India in the late twelfth century, the Chishtis were the most influential. This was because they adapted successfully to the local environment and adopted several features of Indian devotional traditions. Life in the Chishti khanqah The khanqah was the centre of social life. We know about Shaikh Nizamuddin’s hospice ( c. fourteenth century) on the banks of the river Yamuna in Ghiyaspur, on the outskirts of what was then the city of Delhi. It comprised several small rooms and a big hall ( jama’at khana ) where the inmates and visitors lived and prayed. The inmates included family members of the Shaikh, his attendants and disciples. The Shaikh lived in a small room on the roof of the hall where he met visitors in the morning and evening. A veranda surrounded the courtyard, and a boundary wall ran around the complex. On one occasion, fearing a Mongol invasion, people from the neighbouring areas flocked into the khanqah to seek refuge. There was an op...

By now it is probably evident that there are limits to what epigraphy can reveal. Sometimes, there are technical limitations: letters are very faintly engraved, and thus reconstructions are uncertain. Also, inscriptions may be damaged or letters missing. Besides, it is not always easy to be sure about the exact meaning of the words used in inscriptions, some of which may be specific to a particular place or time. If you go through an epigraphical journal (some are listed in Timeline 2), you will realise that scholars are constantly debating and discussing alternative ways of reading inscriptions. Although several thousand inscriptions have been discovered, not all have been deciphered, published and translated. Besides, many more inscriptions must have existed, which have not survived the ravages of time. So what is available at present is probably only a fraction of what was inscribed. There is another, perhaps more fundamental, problem: not everything that we may consider politically...

We have seen that historians draw on a variety of sources to reconstruct histories of religious traditions – these include sculpture, architecture, stories about religious preceptors, compositions attributed to women and men engaged in the quest of understanding the nature of the Divine. As we have seen in Chapters 1 and 4, sculpture and architecture can only be understood if we have a grasp of the context – the ideas, beliefs and practices of those who produced and used these images and buildings. What about textual traditions regarding religious beliefs? If you return to the sources in this chapter, you will notice that they include a wide variety, written in several different languages and styles. They range from the apparently simple, direct language of the vachanas of Basavanna to the ornate Persian of the farman of the Mughal emperors. Understanding each type of text requires different skills: apart from a familiarity with several languages, the historian has to be aware of the s...

Geeta Rathore belongs to Jamonia Talab Gram Panchayat, Sehore district, Madhya Pradesh. She was elected Sarpanch in 1995 from a reserved seat; but in 2000, the village people rewarded her for her admirable work by electing her again - this time from a non-reserved seat. From a housewife, Geeta has grown into a leader displaying political farsightedness - she has harnessed the collective energy of her Panchayat to renovate water tanks, build a school building, construct village roads, fight against domestic violence and atrocities against women, create environmental awareness, and encourage afforestation and water management in her village. — Panchayati Raj Update Vol. XI, No 3 February 2004. There is another story of yet another woman achiever. She was the President ( Sarpanch ) of a Gram Panchayat of Vengaivasal village in Tamil Nadu. In 1997, the Tamil Nadu government allotted two hectares of land to 71 government employees. This piece of land fell within the vicinity of this Gram Pa...

W HY DO WE N EED AN I NDEPENDENT J UDICIARY ? In any society, disputes are bound to arise between individuals, between groups and between individuals or groups and government. All such disputes must be settled by an independent body in accordance with the principle of rule of law. This idea of rule of law implies that all individuals — rich and poor, men or women, forward or backward castes — are subjected to the same law. The principal role of the judiciary is to protect rule of law and ensure supremacy of law. It safeguards rights of the individual, settles disputes in accordance with the law and ensures that democracy does not give way to individual or group dictatorship. In order to be able to do all this, it is necessary that the judiciary is independent of any political pressures. What is meant by an independent judiciary? How is this independence ensured? Independence of Judiciary Simply stated independence of judiciary means that ± the other organs of the government like the ex...