Articles

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.

Earth is a unique planet because the life is found only on this planet because of availability of water and air. The air is a mixture of several gases. The air encompasses the earth from all sides called the atmosphere.

Air has weights and it exerts pressure which varies from place to place. These variations are specified ion pressure belts. The pressure at different location of the world also varies in different seasons. This variation causes the movement of air called winds.

The temperature, atmospheric pressure, winds and precipitation are main elements of weather have an important effect on our lives. For example the houses we construct, the clothes we wear and the food we prefer mainly depend on weather and climatic conditions.

Economics as a subject matter of social science has been treated as a science of (a) Wealth, (b) Welfare, (c) Scarcity and Choice (d) Growth and Development and (e) Sustainable Development.

Economy is a system of socially and legally acceptable ways by which people get a living. An economy is also looked at as a system of cooperation for the satisfaction of human wants.

The issue of choice arises, because a) the resources are scarce and b) the resources can be put to many alternative uses.

Production process is the process of combining inputs, utilising their services and making production of goods and services. The entrepreneur organizes the production activities for which he earns profit or bears loss.

Demand for a commodity refers to the quantity of the commodity that a buyer is willing to buy at given price at given time. Individual demand is the quantity of a commodity that an individual buyer is willing to buy at the given price at given time.

Before money was invented people used to exchange goods for goods which was called barter system. There were many problems of barter system such as absence of a common measure of value, lack of double coincidence of wants, lack of space to store goods to exchange them for other goods etc. This prompted human society to discover money.

The story of Indian economy has two distinct phases. One, the economy during British period and two, the economy after independence.

1. Why do you think ordinary men and woman did not generally keep records of the what they did?

The ordinary men and woman generally did not keep records of what they did as they regarded it as a part of their daily routine and not anything important.

1. What is the Mesolithic Period?

It was period between 10,000 to 8,000 BC.

1. What was Citadel?

Citadel is the west part of Harappan city. It is smaller but higher.

1. What kind of evidence from burials do archaeologists use to find out whether there were social difference amongst those who were buried?

In Brahmagiri, archaeologists located a skeleton buried with 33 gold beads, 2 stone beads, 4 copper bangles and 1 conch shell. Some other skeletons were found but with only a few pots. This helped archaeologists to find out social differences of those who were buried.