1.
India
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India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
2.
President of India
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The President of the Republic of India is the Head of State of India and the Commander-in-chief of the Indian Armed Forces. The oath of the President is taken in the presence of the Chief Justice of India, the President resides in an estate known as the Rashtrapati Bhavan situated in Raisina Hill in New Delhi. The presidential retreats are The Retreat in Chharabra, Shimla and Rashtrapati Nilayam in Hyderabad, the 13th and current President is Pranab Mukherjee, who was elected on 22 July 2012, and sworn in on 25 July 2012. He is also the first Bengali to be elected as President, India achieved independence from the British on 15 August 1947, initially as a Dominion within the Commonwealth of Nations with George VI as king, represented in the country by a governor-general. Still, following this, the Constituent Assembly of India, under the leadership of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, the Constitution of India was eventually enacted on 26 November 1949 and came into force on 26 January 1950, making India a republic. The offices of monarch and governor-general were replaced by the new office of President of India, the constitution of the Republic of India gave the President the responsibility and authority to defend and protect the constitution of India and its rule of law. Invariably, any action taken by the executive or legislature entities of the constitution shall become law only after Presidents assent, the president shall not accept any actions of the executive or legislature which are unconstitutional. The president is the foremost, most empowered and prompt defender of the constitution, the primary duty of the President is to preserve, protect and defend the constitution and the law of India as made part of his oath. The President is the head of all independent constitutional entities. All his actions, recommendations and supervisory powers over the executive and legislative entities of India shall be used in accordance to uphold the constitution, there is no bar on the actions of the President to contest in the court of law. Legislative power is vested by the Parliament of India of which the president is the head. The President of the Republic summons both the Houses of the Parliament and prorogues them and he can dissolve the Lok Sabha. The President inaugurates Parliament by addressing it after the general elections, the Presidential address on these occasions is generally meant to outline the new policies of the government. All bills passed by the Parliament can become laws only after receiving the assent of the President per Article 111, after a bill is presented to him, the President shall declare either that he assents to the Bill, or that he withholds his assent from it. As a third option, he can return a bill to Parliament, if it is not a money bill, when, after reconsideration, the bill is passed accordingly and presented to the President, with or without amendments, the President cannot withhold his assent from it. Article 143 gave power to the president to consult the Supreme Court about the validity of any issue. These are in the nature of interim or temporary legislation and their continuance is subject to parliamentary approval, ordinances remain valid for no more than six weeks from the date the Parliament is convened unless approved by it earlier. Re-promulgation of ordinances after failing to get approval within stipulated time of the houses of parliament is unconstitutional act by the President
3.
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
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Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam better known as A. P. J. Abdul Kalam /ˈæbdʊl kəˈlɑːm/, was the 11th President of India from 2002 to 2007, a career scientist turned statesman, Kalam was born and raised in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, and studied physics and aerospace engineering. He thus came to be known as the Missile Man of India for his work on the development of ballistic missile and launch vehicle technology. He also played a pivotal organisational, technical, and political role in Indias Pokhran-II nuclear tests in 1998, Kalam was elected as the 11th President of India in 2002 with the support of both the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the then-opposition Indian National Congress. Widely referred to as the Peoples President, he returned to his life of education, writing. He was a recipient of prestigious awards, including the Bharat Ratna. While delivering a lecture at the Indian Institute of Management Shillong, Kalam collapsed and died from an apparent cardiac arrest on 27 July 2015, thousands including national-level dignitaries attended the funeral ceremony held in his hometown of Rameshwaram, where he was buried with full state honours. His father Jainulabudeen was an owner and imam of a local mosque. His father owned a ferry that took Hindu pilgrims back and forth between Rameswaram and the now uninhabited Dhanushkodi, Kalam was the youngest of four brothers and one sister in his family. His ancestors had been traders and landowners, with numerous properties. Their business had involved trading groceries between the mainland and the island and to and from Sri Lanka, as well as ferrying pilgrims between the mainland and Pamban. As a result, the acquired the title of Mara Kalam iyakkivar. With the opening of the Pamban Bridge to the mainland in 1914, however, the businesses failed, by his early childhood, Kalams family had become poor, at an early age, he sold newspapers to supplement his familys income. In his school years, Kalam had average grades but was described as a bright and he spent hours on his studies, especially mathematics. He moved to Madras in 1955 to study engineering in Madras Institute of Technology. Kalam met the deadline, impressing the Dean, who said to him, I was putting you under stress. He narrowly missed achieving his dream of becoming a pilot, as he placed ninth in qualifiers. After graduating from the Madras Institute of Technology in 1960, Kalam joined the Aeronautical Development Establishment of the Defence Research and he started his career by designing a small hovercraft, but remained unconvinced by his choice of a job at DRDO
4.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee
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Atal Bihari Vajpayee is an Indian politician who was the 10th Prime Minister of India, first for 13 days in 1996 and then from 1998 to 2004. A leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, he is the first Prime Minister from outside the Indian National Congress party to serve a full five-year term, a parliamentarian for over four decades, Vajpayee was elected to the Lok Sabha ten times, and twice to the Rajya Sabha. He also served as the Member of Parliament for Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, until 2009, Vajpayee was one amongst the founder members of erstwhile Bharatiya Jana Sangh, which he had also headed. He was also the Minister of External Affairs in the cabinet of Morarji Desai, when Janata government collapsed, Vajpayee restarted the Jana Sangh as the Bharatiya Janata Party in 1980. On 25 December 2014 the office of President of India announced the Bharat Ratna award, Indias highest civilian honour, in a special gesture, the President of India conferred Bharat Ratna to Atal Bihari Vajpayee in his residence on 27 March 2015. His birthday,25 December, was declared Good Governance Day, Vajpayee was born to Krishna Devi and Krishna Bihari Vajpayee on 25 December 1924 in Gwalior. His grandfather, Pandit Shyam Lal Vajpayee, had migrated to Morena and his father, Krishna Bihari Vajpayee, was a poet and a schoolmaster in his hometown. Vajpayee studied from the Government Higher secondary school, Gorkhi, Bara, Vajpayee attended Gwaliors Victoria College and graduated with distinction in Hindi, English and Sanskrit. He completed his post-graduation with an M. A. in Political Science from Dayanand Anglo-Vedic College, Kanpur and his activism started with Arya Kumar Sabha of Gwalior, the youth wing of the Arya Samaj, of which he became the General Secretary in 1944. He also joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh as a swayamsevak in 1939, influenced by Babasaheb Apte, he attended the Officers Training Camp of the RSS during 1940-44 and became a full-time worker in 1947, technically a pracharak. He gave up studying law due to the partition riots and he was sent as a vistarak to Uttar Pradesh and quickly began working for the newspapers of Deendayal Upadhyaya, Rashtradharma, Panchjanya and the dailies Swadesh and Veer Arjun. Vajpayee never married and has remained a bachelor his entire life, in 1951, he was seconded by the RSS, along with Deendayal Upadhyaya, to work for the newly formed Bharatiya Jana Sangh, a Hindu right-wing political party associated with the RSS. He was appointed as a secretary of the party in charge of the Northern region. He soon became a follower and aide of party leader Syama Prasad Mookerjee, in 1954, Vajpayee was with Mookerjee when he went on a fast-unto-death in Kashmir to protest against perceived inferior treatment of non-Kashmiri Indian visitors to the state. Mookerjee died in prison during this strike, in 1957, Vajpayee lost to Raja Mahendra Pratap in Mathura for the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Indias Parliament, but was elected from Balrampur. There, his skills so impressed Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru that he predicted that Vajpayee would someday become Indias Prime Minister. By virtue of his oratorical and organizational skills, he became the face of the Jana Sangh, after the death of Deendayal Upadhyaya, the mantle of the leadership of Jana Sangh fell on the shoulders of a young Vajpayee. He became the president of the Jana Sangh in 1968 and, along with Nanaji Deshmukh, Balraj Madhok and L. K. Advani
5.
Manmohan Singh
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Manmohan Singh is an Indian economist and politician who served as the Prime Minister of India from 2004 to 2014. The first Sikh in office, Singh was also the first prime minister since Jawaharlal Nehru to be re-elected after completing a full five-year term, born in Gah, Singhs family migrated to India during its partition in 1947. After obtaining his doctorate in economics from Oxford, Singh worked for the United Nations during 1966–69 and he subsequently began his bureaucratic career when Lalit Narayan Mishra hired him as an advisor in the Ministry of Foreign Trade. Over the 70s and 80s, Singh held several key posts in the Government of India, such as Chief Economic Advisor, Reserve Bank governor and Planning Commission head. In 1991, as India faced an economic crisis, newly elected Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao surprisingly inducted the apolitical Singh into his cabinet as Finance Minister. Over the next few years, despite opposition, he as a Finance Minister carried out several structural reforms that liberalised Indias economy. Subsequently, Singh served as Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government of 1998–2004, in 2004, when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance came to power, its chairperson Sonia Gandhi unexpectedly relinquished the premiership to Manmohan Singh. In 2008, opposition to a civil nuclear agreement with the United States nearly caused Singhs government to fall after Left Front parties withdrew their support. Although Indias economy grew rapidly under UPA I, its security was threatened by several terrorist incidents, the 2009 general election saw the UPA return with an increased mandate, with Singh retaining the office of Prime Minister. After his term ended in 2014 he opted out from the race to the office of the Prime Minister of India during 2014 Indian general election. Singh was never a member of the Lok Sabha but continues to serve as a member of the Indian Parliament, Singh was born to Gurmukh Singh and Amrit Kaur on 26 September 1932, in Gah, Punjab, British India, into a Sikh family. He lost his mother when he was young and was raised by his paternal grandmother. After the Partition of India, his family migrated to Amritsar, India and he completed his Economics Tripos at University of Cambridge as he was a member of St Johns College in 1957. Joan Robinson was a brilliant teacher, but she sought to awaken the inner conscience of her students in a manner that very few others were able to achieve. She questioned me a deal and made me think the unthinkable. She propounded the left wing interpretation of Keynes, maintaining that the state has to play more of a if you really want to combine development with social equity. Kaldor influenced me more, I found him pragmatic, scintillating, stimulating. Joan Robinson was an admirer of what was going on in China
6.
Border Security Force
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The Border Security Force is the primary Border guarding force of India. It is a Central Armed Police Force charged with guarding Indias land border during peacetime and it is a Union Government Agency under the administrative control of Ministry of Home Affairs. The BSF has its own cadre of officers but its head, designated as a Director-General and it is an Armed Force of the Union of India tasked with various assignments from time to time. It currently stands as the worlds largest border guarding force, BSF has been termed as the First Line of Defence of Indian Territories. From independence in 1947 to 1965, the protection of Indias international boundaries was the responsibility of local police belonging to each border state, BSF is a Central Armed Police force charged with guarding Indias land border during peacetime and preventing transnational crime. It is a Union Government Agency under the control of Ministry of Home Affairs. It is one of law enforcement agency of India. It currently stands as the worlds largest border guarding force, the KF Rustamji, from the Indian police service, was the first Director General of BSF. Till 1965 India’s borders with Pakistan were manned by the State Armed Police Battalion, Pakistan attacked Sardar Post, Chhar Bet and Beria Bet on 9 April 1965 in Kutch. As a result of the recommendations of the Committee of Secretaries, in fact, for BSF the war on eastern front had started well before the war actually broke out in Dec 71. BSF had trained, supported and formed part of Mukti Bahini and had entered erstwhile East Pakistan before the hostilities broke out. BSF had played an important role in Liberation of Bangladesh which Indira Gandhi. Over 100 women have been deployed on the highly volatile Indo-Pak border, in total,595 women constables will be deployed on the border in different phases. Mr K F Rustamji IPS was the first Director General of Border Security Force from 21 July 1965 to 30 September 1974 & current Director General is Mr K K Sharma IPS since 29 February 2016. This attracts a number of spectators from both countries, as well as international tourists. Similar parades are being organised at Mahavir/Sadqi border near Fazilka and Hussainiwala/Gandasinghwala border near Firozpur, BSF contribution in reducing militancy in J&K is widely acknowledged. The BSF killed Ghazi Baba—chief of Jaish-e-Mohammed and the mastermind of the 2001 Indian Parliament attack—in August 2003 along with his deputy commander, the BSF raided Babas hideout in Srinagar and he was killed in the ensuing gun battle along with his deputy chief. In 2006 the Indian government has decided to implement recommendations to each security agency to its mandate
7.
Kashmir
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Kashmir is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range. In the first half of the 1st millennium, the Kashmir region became an important centre of Hinduism and later of Buddhism, later still, in the ninth century, in 1339, Shah Mir became the first Muslim ruler of Kashmir, inaugurating the Salatin-i-Kashmir or Swati dynasty. Kashmir was part of the Mughal Empire from 1586 to 1751 and that year, the Sikhs, under Ranjit Singh, annexed Kashmir. The Sanskrit word for Kashmir was, the Nilamata Purana describes the Valleys origin from the waters, a lake called Sati-saras. A popular, but uncertain, local etymology of Kashmira is that it is land desiccated from water, an alternative, but also uncertain, etymology derives the name from the name of the sage Kashyapa who is believed to have settled people in this land. Accordingly, Kashmir would be derived from either kashyapa-mir or kashyapa-meru, the Ancient Greeks called the region Kasperia which has been identified with Kaspapyros of Hecataeus and Kaspatyros of Herodotus. Kashmir is also believed to be the country meant by Ptolemys Kaspeiria, Cashmere is an archaic spelling of present-Kashmir, and in some countries it is still spelled this way. In the Kashmiri language, Kashmir itself is known as Kasheer, the Buddhist Mauryan emperor Ashoka is often credited with having founded the old capital of Kashmir, Shrinagari, now ruins on the outskirts of modern Srinagar. Kashmir was long to be a stronghold of Buddhism, as a Buddhist seat of learning, the Sarvāstivādan school strongly influenced Kashmir. East and Central Asian Buddhist monks are recorded as having visited the kingdom, in the late 4th century CE, the famous Kuchanese monk Kumārajīva, born to an Indian noble family, studied Dīrghāgama and Madhyāgama in Kashmir under Bandhudatta. He later became a translator who helped take Buddhism to China. His mother Jīva is thought to have retired to Kashmir, vimalākṣa, a Sarvāstivādan Buddhist monk, travelled from Kashmir to Kucha and there instructed Kumārajīva in the Vinayapiṭaka. Karkota Empire was a powerful Hindu empire, which originated in the region of Kashmir and it was founded by Durlabhvardhana during the lifetime of Harshavardhan. The dynasty marked the rise of Kashmir as a power in South Asia, avanti Varman ascended the throne of Kashmir on 855 A. D. establishing the Utpala dynasty and ending the rule of Karkota dynasty. According to tradition, Adi Shankara visited the pre-existing Sarvajñapīṭha in Kashmir in the late 8th century or early 9th century CE, the Madhaviya Shankaravijayam states this temple had four doors for scholars from the four cardinal directions. The southern door of Sarvajna Pitha was opened by Adi Shankara, abhinavagupta was one of Indias greatest philosophers, mystics and aestheticians. He was also considered an important musician, poet, dramatist, exegete, theologian, and logician – a polymathic personality who exercised strong influences on Indian culture
8.
Grenade
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A grenade is a small bomb typically thrown by hand. A variety of hand grenades exist, the most common being explosive grenades designed to detonate after impact or after a set amount of time, Grenadiers were originally soldiers who specialized in throwing grenades. The word grenade derives from the French word for an explosive shell. Its first use in English dates from the 1590s and it is likely derived from Old French pomegranate and influenced by Spanish granada, as the fragmenting bomb is reminiscent of the many-seeded fruit. Rudimentary incendiary grenades appeared in the Eastern Roman Empire, not long after the reign of Leo III. Byzantine soldiers learned that Greek fire, a Byzantine invention of the century, could not only be thrown by flamethrowers at the enemy. The use of Greek fire spread to Muslim armies in the Near East, in China, during the Song Dynasty, weapons known as Zhen Tian Lei were created when Chinese soldiers packed gunpowder into ceramic or metal containers. In 1044, a military book Wujing Zongyao described various gunpowder recipes in which one can find, according to Joseph Needham, the Chinese also discovered the explosive potential of packing hollowed-out cannonball shells with gunpowder. The mid-14th-century book Huolongjing, written by Jiao Yu, recorded an earlier Song-era cast iron cannon known as the flying-cloud thunderclap cannon, the manuscript stated that, The shells are made of cast iron, as large as a bowl and shaped like a ball. Inside they contain half a pound of divine fire and they are sent flying towards the enemy camp from an eruptor, and when they get there a sound like a thunder-clap is heard, and flashes of light appear. If ten of these shells are fired successfully into the enemy camp, the first cast iron bombshells and grenades did not appear in Europe until 1467. A hoard of several hundred ceramic greandes were discovered during building works in front of a bastion of the Bavarian City of Ingolstadt. Lots of the grenades obtained their original blackpowder loads and igniters, most probably the grenades were intentially dumped the moat of the bastion before the year 1723. In 1643, it is possible that Grenados were thrown amongst the Welsh at Holt Bridge during the English Civil War and these grenades were not very effective and, as a result, saw little use. Improvised grenades were used from the mid-19th century, being especially useful in trench warfare. In the American Civil War, both sides used hand grenades equipped with a plunger that detonated the device on impact, the Union relied on experimental Ketchum Grenades, which had a tail to ensure that the nose would strike the target and start the fuse. The Confederacy used spherical hand grenades that weighed about six pounds and they also used Rains and Adams grenades, which were similar to the Ketchum in appearance and mechanism. Improvised hand grenades were used to great effect by the Russian defenders of Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War
9.
Lucknow
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Lucknow is the capital of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and is also the administrative headquarters of the eponymous District and Division. It is the largest city in Uttar Pradesh, the eleventh most populous city, in North India, it is the third largest city after Delhi and Jaipur. Lucknow has always known as a multicultural city that flourished as a North Indian cultural and artistic hub. It continues to be an important centre of governance, administration, education, commerce, aerospace, finance, pharmaceuticals, technology, design, culture, tourism, music, the city stands at an elevation of approximately 123 metres above sea level. Lucknow district covers an area of 2,528 square kilometres, bounded on the east by Barabanki, on the west by Unnao, on the south by Raebareli and in the north by Sitapur and Hardoi, Lucknow sits on the northwestern shore of the Gomti River. Hindi is the language of the city and Urdu is also widely spoken. Lucknow is the centre of Shia Islam in India with the highest Shia Muslim population in India, historically, the capital of Awadh was controlled by the Delhi Sultanate which then came under Mughal rule. It was later transferred to the Nawabs of Awadh, in 1856, the British East India Company abolished local rule and took complete control of the city along with the rest of Awadh and, in 1857, transferred it to the British Raj. Along with the rest of India, Lucknow became independent from Britain on 15 August 1947 and it has been listed the 17th fastest growing city in India and 74th in world. Lucknow, along with Agra and Varanasi, is in the Uttar Pradesh Heritage Arc, Lucknow is the anglicised spelling of the local pronunciation lakhnau. According to one legend, the city is named after Lakshmana, the legend states that Lakshmana had a palace or an estate in the area, which was called Lakshmanapuri. However the Dalit movement believes that Lakhan Pasi, a ruler, was the settler of the city and is named after him. The settlement came to be known as Lakhanpur by the 11th century, a similar theory states that the city was known as Lakshmanavati after Lakshmana. The name changed to Lakhanavati, then Lakhnauti and finally Lakhnau, yet another theory states that the citys name is connected with Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth. Over time, the changed to Laksmanauti, Laksmnaut, Lakhsnaut, Lakhsnau and, finally. From 1350 onwards, Lucknow and parts of the Awadh region were ruled by the Delhi Sultanate, Sharqi Sultanate, Mughal Empire, Nawabs of Awadh, the British East India Company and the British Raj. Lucknow was one of the centres of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and actively participated in Indias independence movement. Until 1719, the subah of Awadh was a province of the Mughal Empire administered by a Governor appointed by the Emperor, persian adventurer Saadat Khan, also known as Burhan-ul-Mulk, was appointed nizam of Awadh in 1722 and established his court in Faizabad, near Lucknow
10.
Indian National Congress
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The Indian National Congress is one of two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. Congress was founded in 1885 during the British Raj, its founders include Allan Octavian Hume, Dadabhai Naoroji, there have been seven Congress Prime Ministers, the first being Jawaharlal Nehru, and the most recent Manmohan Singh. The partys social liberal platform is considered to be on the centre-left of Indian politics. From 2004 to 2014, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, a coalition of regional parties. As of March 2017, the party is in power in five states, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Meghalaya, in Bihar, it is a part of the ruling coalition. The Congress has previously directly ruled Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, in the 2014 general election, the Congress had its poorest post-independence general election performance, winning only 44 seats of the 543-member house. The party primarily endorses social liberalism—seeking to balance individual liberty and social justice, the Congress was founded in 1885 by Indian and British members of the Theosophical Society movement, including Scotsman Allan Octavian Hume. It has been suggested that the idea was conceived in a meeting of 17 men after a Theosophical Convention held in Madras in December 1884. Hume took the initiative, and in March 1885 the first notice convening the first Indian National Union to meet in Poona the following December was issued. Its objective was to obtain a share in government for educated Indians and to create a platform for civic. The first meeting was scheduled to be held in Poona, Hume organised the first meeting in Bombay with the approval of the Viceroy Lord Dufferin. Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee was the first president of the Congress, the first session was held from 28–31 December 1885, representing each province of India, the Partys delegates comprised 54 Hindus and 2 Muslims, the rest were of Parsi and Jain backgrounds. It also included Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, Lala Lajpat Rai, Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Mohammed Ali Jinnah—later leader of the Muslim League and instrumental in the creation of Pakistan. The Congress was transformed into a movement by Surendranath Banerjea and Sir Henry Cotton during the partition of Bengal in 1905. Mahatma Gandhi returned from South Africa in 1915, in 1923 following the deaths of policemen at Chauri Chaura, Gandhi suspended the agitation. In protest, a number of leaders, Chittaranjan Das, Annie Besant, the Khilafat movement collapsed and the Congress was split. Although its members were predominantly Hindu, it had members from other religions, economic classes, at the Congress 1929 Lahore session under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, Purna Swaraj was declared as the partys goal, declaring 26 January 1930 as Purna Swaraj Diwas, Independence Day. The same year, Srinivas Iyenger was expelled from the party for demanding full independence, the British government allowed provincial elections in India in the winter of 1936–37 under the Government of India Act 1935
11.
Sonia Gandhi
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Sonia Gandhi is an Italian-born Indian politician, who has served as President of the Indian National Congress party since 1998. She is the widow of former Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi who belonged to the Nehru–Gandhi family and she finally agreed to join politics in 1997, in 1998, she was elected President of the Congress party. She has served as the Chairperson of the ruling United Progressive Alliance in the Lok Sabha since 2004, in September 2010, on being re-elected for the fourth time, she became the longest serving president in the 125-year history of the Congress party. Her foreign birth has been a subject of debate and controversy. Also controversial was her friendship with Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi. Although Sonia is the fifth person to be leader of the Congress Party. She spent her adolescence in Orbassano, a town near Turin, being raised in a traditional Roman Catholic family and her father, Stefano Maino, was a building mason, who owned a small construction business in Orbassano. Stefano fought against the Soviet military alongside Hitlers Wehrmacht on the front in World War II, he called himself a loyal supporter of Benito Mussolini. Her mother and two still live around Orbassano. In 1964, she went to study English at the Bell Educational Trusts language school in the city of Cambridge, in 1965 at a Greek restaurant she met Rajiv Gandhi, who was enrolled in Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. Sonia and Rajiv Gandhi married in 1968, in a Hindu ceremony following which she moved into the house of her mother-in-law and then Prime Minister, the couple had two children, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Vadra. Despite belonging to the influential Nehru family, Sonia and Rajiv avoided all involvement in politics, Rajiv worked as an airline pilot while Sonia took care of her family. When Indira Gandhi was ousted from office in 1977 in the aftermath of the Indian Emergency, Sonia Gandhis involvement with Indian public life began after the assassination of her mother-in-law and her husbands election as prime minister. As the prime ministers wife she acted as his official hostess, in 1984, she actively campaigned against her husbands sister-in-law Maneka Gandhi who was running against Rajiv in Amethi. At the end of Rajiv Gandhis five years in office, the Bofors scandal broke out, Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian business man believed to be involved, was said to be a friend of Sonia Gandhi, having access to the Prime Ministers official residence. The BJP has alleged that she appeared on the voters list in New Delhi prior to obtaining Indian citizenship in April 1983, former senior Congress leader and current President of India Pranab Mukherjee said that she surrendered her Italian passport to the Italian Embassy on 27 April 1983. Italian nationality law did not permit dual nationality until 1992, so, by acquiring Indian citizenship in 1983, she would automatically have lost Italian citizenship. After Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in 1991 and Sonia Gandhi refused to become Prime Minister, over the next few years, however, the Congress fortunes continued to dwindle and it lost the 1996 elections
12.
Kala Ghoda Arts Festival
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From its inception in 1999, the Festival has grown in stature and popularity, attracting visitors and participants from other parts of the country, and the world. The Festival is organised by the Kala Ghoda Association and curated by teams handling each of the 12 sections of the festival, entry to all events is free to all and costs are met through corporate sponsorship. In recent years, the Festival has expanded beyond the Kala Ghoda crescent and these include the Mumbai Festival, the Celebrate Bandra Festival, and in 2007, the Kitab Festival. The Kala Ghoda Association official site
