Articles

When India and Pakistan joined the club of nuclear powers, this region suddenly became the focus of global attention. The focus was, of course, on the various kinds of conflict in this region: there are pending border and water sharing disputes between the states of the region.

The Berlin Wall, which had been built at the height of the Cold War and was its greatest symbol, was toppled by the people in 1989. This dramatic event was followed by an equally dramatic and historic chain of events that led to the collapse of the ‘second world’ and the end of the Cold War.

Natural Hazards are elements of circumstances in the Natural environment that have the potential to cause harm to people or property or both. These may be swift or permanent aspects of the respective environmental settings like currents in the oceans, steep slope and unstable structural features in the Himalayas or extreme climatic conditions in deserts or glaciated areas.

Natural vegetation refers to a plant community that has been left undisturbed over a long time, so as to allow its individual species to adjust themselves to climate and soil conditions as fully as possible.

Monsoon connotes the climate associated with seasonal reversal in the direction of winds. India has hot monsoonal climate which is the prevalent climate in south and southeast Asia.

Based on the variations in its geological structure and formations, India can be divided into three geological divisions.

The mainland of India, extends from Kashmir in the north to Kanniyakumari in the south and Arunachal Pradesh in the east to Gujarat in the west. India’s territorial limit further extends towards the sea up to 12 nautical miles (about 21.9 km) from the coast.

The ocean water is dynamic. Its physical characteristics like temperature, salinity, density and the external forces like of the sun, moon and the winds influence the movement of ocean water.

Air expands when heated and gets compressed when cooled. This results in variations in the atmospheric pressure. The result is that it causes the movement of air from high pressure to low pressure, setting the air in motion.

Air is essential to the survival of all organisms. Some organisms like humans may survive for some time without food and water but can’t survive even a few minutes without breathing air.

After weathering processes have had their actions on the earth materials making up the surface of the earth, the geomorphic agents like running water, ground water, wind, glaciers, waves perform erosion.

Continents cover 29 per cent of the surface of the earth and the remainder is under oceanic waters. The positions of the continents and the ocean bodies have not been the same in the past.

The interior of the earth can be understood only by indirect evidences as neither any one has nor any one can reach the interior of the earth.

“Kind sir, have pity; turn your attention to a poor, hungry man! For three days I have had nothing to eat; I haven’t five copecks for a lodging, I swear it before God. For eight years I was a village schoolteacher and then I lost my place through intrigues. I fell a victim to calumny. It is a year now since I have had anything to do.”

MY first year of high school felt awkward. After leaving junior high at the head of my class with all the seniority the upper grade levels could afford me, it felt strange starting over as a freshman. The school was twice as big as my old school, and to make matters worse, my closest friends were sent to a different high school. I felt very isolated.

It is autumn. The wind is blowing hard and it is raining heavily. All the leaves on an ivy creeper have fallen, except one. Why doesn’t the last leaf fall?

The cyclone that hit Orissa in October 1999 killed thousands of people and devastated hundreds of villages. For two dreadful nights Prashant, a young man, was marooned on the roof of a house. On the third day he decided to go to his village.

High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his sword hilt.

In the Kingdom of Fools, both the king and the minister were idiots. They didn’t want to run things like other kings, so they decided to change night into day and day into night. They ordered that everyone should be awake at night, till their fields and run their businesses only after dark, and go to bed as soon as the sun came up.

The story was narrated to Ganesh by a young man, Mahendra by name. He was a junior supervisor in a firm which offered on hire supervisors at various types of construction sites: factories, bridges, dams, and so on.

Grandfather bought Toto from a tonga-driver for the sum of five rupees. The tonga-driver used to keep the little red monkey tied to a feeding-trough, and the monkey looked so out of place there that Grandfather decided he would add the little fellow to his private zoo.

A child goes to a fair with his parents. He is happy and excited and wants the sweets and toys displayed there. But his parents don’t buy them for him. Why then does he refuse when someone else offers them to him?

SCENE: A small cottage interior. There is an entrance back right (which may be curtained). Another door to the left must be a practical door. The furniture is simple, consisting of a small table towards the left, a chair or two, and a divan rather upstage on the right. On the table is a telephone.

A slumber did my spirit seal—
I had no human fears.

I get a cheap room in the centre of town and sleep for hours. The next morning, with Mr Shah’s son and nephew, I visit the two temples in Kathmandu that are most sacred to Hindus and Buddhists.

It takes much time to kill a tree,
Not a simple jab of the knife
Will do it. It has grown
Slowly consuming the earth,

Rising out of it, feeding
Upon its crust, absorbing
Years of sunlight, air, water,
And out of its leprous hide
Sprouting leaves.

So hack and chop
But this alone wont do it.
Not so much pain will do it.
The bleeding bark will heal
And from close to the ground
Will rise curled green twigs,
Miniature boughs
Which if unchecked will expand again
To former size.

No,
The root is to be pulled out —
Out of the anchoring earth;
It is to be roped, tied,
And pulled out — snapped out

Or pulled out entirely,
Out from the earth-cave,
And the strength of the tree exposed
The source, white and wet,
The most sensitive, hidden
For years inside the earth.

Then the matter
Of scorching and choking
In sun and air,
Browning, hardening,
Twisting, withering,
And then it is done.

Glossary

jab: sudden rough blow

leprous hide: discoloured bark

hack: cut roughly by striking heavy blows

anchoring earth: Trees are held securely with the help of the roots in the earth.

snapped out: chopped out

scorching and choking: the drying up of the tree after being uprooted

There is something disarming about Maria Sharapova, something at odds with her ready smile and glamorous attire. And that something in her lifted her on Monday, 22 August 2005 to the world number one position in women’s tennis. All this happened in almost no time. Poised beyond her years, the Siberian born teenager took just four years as a professional to reach the pinnacle.

The only woman in the world who has scaled Mt Everest twice was born in a society where the birth of a son was regarded as a blessing, and a daughter, though not considered a curse, was not generally welcome.

Remember, no men are strange, no countries foreign
Beneath all uniforms, a single body breathes
Like ours: the land our brothers walk upon
Is earth like this, in which we all shall lie.

I was born into a middle-class Tamil family in the island town of Rameswaram in the erstwhile Madras State. My father, Jainulabdeen, had neither much formal education nor much wealth; despite these disadvantages, he possessed great innate wisdom and a true generosity of spirit. He had an ideal helpmate in my mother, Ashiamma. I do not recall the exact number of people she fed every day, but I am quite certain that far more outsiders ate with us than all the members of our own family put together.

“Has a snake ever coiled itself round any part of your body? A full-blooded cobra?” All of us fell silent. The question came from the homeopath. The topic came up when we were discussing snakes. We listened attentively as the doctor continued with his tale.

Albert Einstein was born on 14 March 1879 in the German city of Ulm, without any indication that he was destined for greatness. On the contrary, his mother thought Albert was a freak. To her, his head seemed much too large.

To the little girl he was a figure to be feared and avoided. Every morning before going to work he came into her room and gave her a casual kiss, to which she responded with “Goodbye, Father”. And oh, there was a glad sense of relief when she heard the noise of the carriage growing fainter and fainter down the long road!

Emperor Aurangzeb banned the playing of a musical instrument called pungi in the royal residence for it had a shrill unpleasant sound. Pungi became the generic name for reeded noisemakers.

Rush hour crowds jostle for position on thejostle: push roughly underground train platform. A slight girl, looking younger than her seventeen years, was nervous yet excited as she felt the vibrations of the approaching train. It was her first day at the prestigious Royal Academy of Music in London and daunting enough for any teenager fresh from a Scottish farm. But this aspiring musician faced a bigger challenge than most: she was profoundly deaf.

Margie even wrote about it that night in her diary. On the page headed 17 May 2157, she wrote, “Today Tommy found a real book!”

The people are very important component of a country. India is the second most populous country after China in the world. India’s population is larger than the total population of North America, South America and Australia put together.

International Trade is mutually beneficial as no country is self-sufficient. India’s international trade has undergone a sea change in recent years in terms of volume, composition as well as direction.

Human Settlement means cluster of dwellings of any type or size where human beings live. For this purpose, people may erect houses and other structures and command some area or territory as their economic support-base.

Since life originated on earth nearly 3.8 billion years ago, there had been enormous diversification of life forms on earth. Biodiversity refers to the sum total of diversity that exists at all levels of biological organisation. Of particular importance is the diversity at genetic, species and ecosystem levels and conservation efforts are aimed at protecting diversity at all these levels.

An ecosystem is a structural and functional unit of nature and it comprises abiotic and biotic components. Abiotic components are inorganic materials- air, water and soil, whereas biotic components are producers, consumers and decomposers.

As a branch of biology, Ecology is the study of the relationships of living organisms with the abiotic (physico-chemical factors) and biotic components (other species) of their environment. It is concerned with four levels of biological organisation-organisms, populations, communities and biomes.

Biotechnology has given to humans several useful products by using microbes, plant, animals and their metabolic machinery. Recombinant DNA technology has made it possible to engineer microbes, plants and animals such that they have novel capabilities.

Biotechnology deals with large scale production and marketing of products and processes using live organisms, cells or enzymes.

Microbes are a very important component of life on earth. Not all microbes are pathogenic. Many microbes are very useful to human beings. We use microbes and microbially derived products almost every day.

Health is not just the absence of disease. It is a state of complete physical, mental, social and psychological well-being. Diseases like typhoid, cholera, pneumonia, fungal infections of skin, malaria and many others are a major cause of distress to human beings.

The origin of life on earth can be understood only against the background of origin of universe especially earth. Most scientists believe chemical evolution, i.e., formation of biomolecules preceded the appearance of the first cellular forms of life.

Nucleic acids are long polymers of nucleotides. While DNA stores genetic information, RNA mostly helps in transfer and expression of information. Though DNA and RNA both function as genetic material, but DNA being chemically and structurally more stable is a better genetic material. However, RNA is the first to evolve and DNA was derived from RNA.

Genetics is a branch of biology which deals with principles of inheritance and its practices. Progeny resembling the parents in morphological and physiological features has attracted the attention of many biologists.

She was one of those pretty, young ladies, born as if through an error of destiny, into a family of clerks. She had no dowry, no hopes, no means of becoming known, loved, and married by a man either rich or distinguished; and she allowed herself to marry a petty clerk in the office of the Board of Education. She was simple, but she was unhappy.