Articles

By the mid-first millennium CE the landscape of the subcontinent was dotted with a variety of religious structures - stupas, monasteries, temples.

Vijayanagara or "city of victory" was the name of both a city and an empire. The empire was founded in the fourteenth century. In its heyday it stretched from the river Krishna in the north to the extreme south of the peninsula.

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries about 85 per cent of the population of India lived in its villages. Both peasants and landed elites were involved in agricultural production and claimed rights to a share of the produce. This created relationships of cooperation, competition and conflict among them. The sum of these agrarian relationships made up rural society.

In this chapter you will see what colonial rule meant to those who lived in the countryside. You will meet the zamindars of Bengal, travel to the Rajmahal hills where the Paharias and the Santhals lived, and then move west to the Deccan.

Late in the afternoon of 10 May 1857, the sepoys in the cantonment of Meerut broke out in mutiny. It began in the lines of the native infantry, spread very swiftly to the cavalry and then to the city. The ordinary people of the town and surrounding villages joined the sepoys. The sepoys captured the bell of arms where the arms and ammunition were kept and proceeded to attack white people, and to ransack and burn their bungalows and property.

In the history of nationalism a single individual is often identified with the making of a nation. Thus, for example, we associate Garibaldi with the making of Italy, George Washington with the American War of Independence, and Ho Chi Minh with the struggle to free Vietnam from colonial rule. In the same manner, Mahatma Gandhi has been regarded as the ‘Father’ of the Indian nation.

The Indian Constitution, which came into effect on 26 January 1950, has the dubious distinction of being the longest in the world. But its length and complexity are perhaps understandable when one considers the country’s size and diversity. At Independence, India was not merely large and diverse, but also deeply divided.

The Harappan seal is possibly the most distinctive artefact of the Harappan or Indus valley civilisation. Made of a stone called steatite, seals like this one often contain animal motifs and signs from a script that remains undeciphered.

There were several developments in different parts of the subcontinent during the long span of 1,500 years following the end of the Harappan civilisation. This was also the period during which the Rigveda was composed by people living along the Indus and its tributaries.

In the previous chapter we saw that there were several changes in economic and political life between c. 600 BCE and 600 CE. Some of these changes influenced societies as well. For instance, the extension of agriculture into forested areas transformed the lives of forest dwellers; craft specialists often emerged as distinct social groups; the unequal distribution of wealth sharpened social differences.

Citizenship has been defined as full and equal membership of a political community. In the contemporary world, states provide a collective political identity to their members as well as certain rights.

If we were to take a quick poll of what people commonly understand by the term nationalism we are likely to get responses which talk about patriotism, national flags, sacrificing for the country, and the like.

Though Jews faced discrimination for centuries throughout Europe, in the present state of Israel, Arab minorities, both Christian and Muslims, are excluded from social, political and economic benefits available to Jewish citizens. Subtle forms of discrimination also continue to persist against non-Christians in several parts of Europe.

The Constitution of India has made alternate provision for the structure and functioning of all the three branches of the government i.e. executive, legislature and judiciary.

A political party is an organised group of citizens who have similar political views and who by acting as a unit try to control the government to translate their policies into practice.

In a Democracy, people's participation is very important. People, participate to elect their representatives by voting in elections. Discussing the working of the government, public debates, newspaper’s editorials, protest demonstrations, public meetings working for a political party and standing as a candidate are all examples of people's participation.

India is called the largest democracy in the world. It is democratic because elections take place at regular intervals at different levels.

The diversity of plants and animal provide us food, fuel, medicine, shelter and other essentials without which we cannot live. These species have evolved over thousands of years. This rich diversity is being lost at an alarming rate due to human activities.

India is said to be the land of farmers and these farmers are mostly living in the rural India. They are practising farming and are helping the country. Hence, the agriculture in the country is very important.

Transport and Communication is the life line of the country. The major role of transport is to facilitate trade and commerce by carrying goods, movement of people from one place to another. The communication keeps on updating information about the world's events. It helps in establishing the social, cultural and economic relationships.

The total number of human heads is considered to be the population of a country. It is counted every ten years in India. Qualified, well developed, productive and healthy human head is the asset for the country.

Mineral and power resources play an important role in the industrial development of a nation. They provide the industrial raw materials and fuel.

Soil is defined as upper layer of the earth composed of loose surface material. The soils of India are broadly divided into six groups. They are alluvial, regur or black, red, laterite, desert and mountain soils.

Numbers are classified as natural numbers, whole numbers, integers, rational numbers and irrational numbers. Rational and Irrational numbers together constitute the system of real numbers.

If a is a rational number, multiplied by itself m times, it is written as a^m. Here, a is called the base and m is called the exponent.

Expressions, involving arithmetical numbers, variables and symbols of operations are called algebraic expressions. An algebraic expression is a combination of numbers, variables and arithmetical operations.

The value of an algebraic expression depends on the values of the variables involved it. A polynomial in one variable whose degree is one is called a linear polynomial in one variable. When two expressions are separated by an equality sign, it is called an equation.

A polynomial of degree two is called a quadratic polynomial. When a quadratic polynomial is equated to zero, it is called a quadratic equation.

A pattern in which each term except the first is obtained by adding a fixed number (positive or negative) to the previous term is called an Arithmetic Progression (A.P.).

A fraction whose denominator is 100 is read as percent, for example $ \frac{23}{100} $ is read as twenty three percent or 23%. The symbol % is used for the term percent.

Constitution is a legal document which determines the structure of the government and direction to which society is to move on. A democratic constitution represents consensus among the people on certain rules, principles, procedures and ideals and guides the social and political institutions.

In a Democratic Country like India certain basic and fundamental rights have been granted to every citizen, but in many parts of the world people are still struggling for these rights. This lesson aims at studying Fundamental Rights and Duties enshrined in the Constitution of India.

India is described as a Welfare State. It is a concept of government in which the State plays a key role in the protection and promotion of economic and social well-being of its citizens. A Welfare State is based on the principles of equality of opportunity and equitable distribution of wealth.

Local Government is a government of the local people. Being located nearest to the local people, local government institutions are under constant observation of the society. It is said that Local Government provides services to the individual from "cradle to the grave."

India is a Federation having governments at two levels i.e. State level and Union or Central level. The three branches of government - executive, legislature and judiciary exist and function at both the levels.

Geometry is a branch of mathematics concerned with questions of shape, size, relative position of figures, and the properties of space.

Triangle is the simplest polygon of all the closed figures formed in a plane by three line segments. It is a closed figure formed by three line segments having six elements - three angles (i) ∠ABC or ∠B (ii) ∠ACB or ∠C (iii) ∠CAB or ∠A and three sides - (iv) AB (v) BC (vi) CA.

Two lines in a plane can either be parallel or intersecting. Three lines in a plane may (i) be parallel to each other (ii) intersect each other in exactly one point (iii) intersect each other in two points (iv) intersect each other at most in three points.

If A, B, C and D are four points in a plane such that no three of them are collinear and the line segments AB, BC, CD and DA do not intersect except at their end points, then the closed figure made up of four line segments is called a quadrilateral with vertices A, B, C and D.

A circle is a collection of all points in a plane which are at a constant distance from a fixed point.

The position of a point in a plane is fixed w.r.t. to its distances from two axes of reference, which are drawn by the two graduated number lines XOX' and YOY', at right angles to each other at O.

Mensuration is the part of geometry concerned with ascertaining lengths, areas, and volumes.

Solid figures are three-dimensional figures that include cube, cuboid, cylinder, cone, sphere and hemisphere.

Trigonometry is that branch of Mathematics which deals with the measurement of the sides and the angles of a triangle and the problems related to angles.

Statistics is a branch of Mathematics which deals with collection, presentation, analysis, interpretation of numerical data and drawing inferences and conclusions there from.

Some aspects of the data can be described quantitatively to represent certain features of the data. An average is one of such representative measures.

In day to day life, we sometimes make the statements like "It may rain today" or "Train is likely to be late". The words (may, likely, unlikely, chances, doubt) show that the event, we are talking about, is not certain to occur. It may or may not occur.

The earth is sphere in shape and its visible features can be experienced on the surface. But, huge size of earth, increasing temperature and pressure limited the direct observations. The earth has three concentric layers NIFE, SIMA and SIAL.

A landform is a feature on the Earth's surface that is part of the terrain. Mountains, hills, plateaus, and plains are the major types of landforms.

All living organisms on the earth depend on water. About 71% of the earth's surface is covered by water. The earth is the only known planet in the solar system with abundant water.