Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and dharma that encompasses a variety of traditions and spiritual practices largely based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. Buddhism originated in India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, from where it spread through much of Asia, two major extant branches of Buddhism are generally recognized by scholars and Mahayana. Buddhism is the worlds fourth-largest religion, with over 500 million followers or 7% of the global population, Buddhist schools vary on the exact nature of the path to liberation, the importance and canonicity of various teachings and scriptures, and especially their respective practices. In Theravada the ultimate goal is the attainment of the state of Nirvana, achieved by practicing the Noble Eightfold Path, thus escaping what is seen as a cycle of suffering. Theravada has a following in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Mahayana, which includes the traditions of Pure Land, Nichiren Buddhism, rather than Nirvana, Mahayana instead aspires to Buddhahood via the bodhisattva path, a state wherein one remains in the cycle of rebirth to help other beings reach awakening.
Vajrayana, a body of teachings attributed to Indian siddhas, may be viewed as a branch or merely a part of Mahayana. Tibetan Buddhism, which preserves the Vajrayana teachings of eighth century India, is practiced in regions surrounding the Himalayas, Tibetan Buddhism aspires to Buddhahood or rainbow body. Buddhism is an Indian religion attributed to the teachings of Buddha, the details of Buddhas life are mentioned in many early Buddhist texts but are inconsistent, his social background and life details are difficult to prove, the precise dates uncertain. Some hagiographic legends state that his father was a king named Suddhodana, his mother queen Maya, and he was born in Lumbini gardens. Some of the stories about Buddha, his life, his teachings, Buddha was moved by the innate suffering of humanity. He meditated on this alone for a period of time, in various ways including asceticism, on the nature of suffering. He famously sat in meditation under a Ficus religiosa tree now called the Bodhi Tree in the town of Bodh Gaya in Gangetic plains region of South Asia.
He reached enlightenment, discovering what Buddhists call the Middle Way, as an enlightened being, he attracted followers and founded a Sangha. Now, as the Buddha, he spent the rest of his teaching the Dharma he had discovered. Dukkha is a concept of Buddhism and part of its Four Noble Truths doctrine. It can be translated as incapable of satisfying, the unsatisfactory nature, the Four Truths express the basic orientation of Buddhism, we crave and cling to impermanent states and things, which is dukkha, incapable of satisfying and painful. This keeps us caught in saṃsāra, the cycle of repeated rebirth, dukkha
Peafowl
The peafowl include three species of birds in the genera Pavo and Afropavo of the Phasianidae family, the pheasants and their allies. There are two Asiatic species and one African species, male peafowl are known for their piercing call and their extravagant plumage. The latter is especially prominent in the Asiatic species, who have a tail or train of covert feathers which they display as part of a courtship ritual. The term peacock is properly reserved for the male, the female is known as a peahen, the functions of the elaborate iridescent coloration and large train of peacocks have been the subject of extensive scientific debate. Charles Darwin suggested they served to attract females, and the features of the males had evolved by sexual selection. The Indian peacock has iridescent blue and green plumage, the peacock tail, known as a train, consists not of tail quill feathers, but highly elongated upper tail coverts. These feathers are marked with eyespots, best seen when a peacock fans his tail, both sexes of all species have a crest atop the head.
The Indian peahen has a mixture of grey, brown. The female displays her plumage to ward off female competition or signal danger to her young, the green peafowl differs from the Indian peafowl in that the male has green and gold plumage with black wings with a sheen of blue. Unlike the Indian peafowl, the green peahen is similar to the male, only having shorter upper tail coverts, a more coppery neck, the Congo peacock male does not display his covert feathers, but uses his actual tail feathers during courtship displays. These feathers are shorter than those of the Indian and green species. Females of the Indian and African species are dull grey and/or brown, chicks of both sexes in all the species are cryptically coloured. They vary between yellow and tawny, usually with patches of brown or light tan and dirty white ivory. Occasionally, peafowl appear with white plumage and this can result in the complete lack of coloration of their plumage, while preserving normal eye colour. By contrast, true albino peafowl have a lack of melanin.
Leucistic peachicks are born yellow and become white as they mature. As with many birds, vibrant iridescent plumage colours are not primarily pigments, optical interference Bragg reflections based on regular, periodic nanostructures of the barbules of the feathers produce the peacocks colours. Slight changes to the spacing of these result in different colours
Barkheda, Raisen
Barkheda is a village in the Obedullaganj block of the Raisen District of Madhya Pradesh, India. Alternative English spellings of its name include Bharkada and Barkhera and it is a census designated place with the code 484296. Archaeological excavations at Barkhera have resulted in the history of historical remains. These include pottery with close affinity to Malwa ware and acheulean assemblages similar to the ones found at Bhimbetka, Barkhera has been identified as the source of the raw materials used in some of the monoliths discovered at Bhimbetka. A human skeleton dating to 2nd millennium BCE has discovered at Barkheda. The Betwa River originates near Barkheda, the village is located along the National Highway 69. It has a station, which falls on the Itarsi-Bhopal line
Tiger
The tiger is the largest cat species, most recognisable for their pattern of dark vertical stripes on reddish-orange fur with a lighter underside. The species is classified in the genus Panthera with the lion, jaguar, Tigers are apex predators, primarily preying on ungulates such as deer and bovids. They are territorial and generally solitary but social animals, often requiring large contiguous areas of habitat that support their prey requirements and this, coupled with the fact that they are indigenous to some of the more densely populated places on Earth, has caused significant conflicts with humans. Tigers once ranged widely across eastern Eurasia, from the Black Sea in the west, to the Indian Ocean in the south, they range from the Siberian taiga to open grasslands and tropical mangrove swamps. The remaining six tiger subspecies have been classified as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a 2016 global census estimated the population of wild tigers at approximately 3,890 individuals.
Major reasons for decline include habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation. The extent of area occupied by tigers is estimated at less than 1,184,911 km2, in 2016, wildlife conservation group at WWF declared that worlds count of wild tigers has risen for the first time in a century. Tigers are among the most recognisable and popular of the charismatic megafauna. They have featured prominently in ancient mythology and folklore, and continue to be depicted in modern films and they appear on many flags, coats of arms, and as mascots for sporting teams. The tiger is the animal of Bangladesh, Malaysia. In 1758, Linnaeus described the tiger in his work Systema Naturae, in 1929, the British taxonomist Reginald Innes Pocock subordinated the species under the genus Panthera using the scientific name Panthera tigris. The derivation from Greek pan- and ther may be folk etymology, the specific epithet, tigris, as well as the common name, come from the Middle English tigre and the Old English tigras, both used for the animal.
These derive from the Old French tigre, itself a derivative of the Latin word tigris and the Greek word tigris. The original source may have been the Persian tigra meaning pointed or sharp, the tigers closest living relatives were previously thought to be the lion and jaguar, all of which are classified under the genus Panthera. The oldest remains of an extinct relative, called Panthera zdanskyi or the Longdan tiger, have been found in the Gansu province of northwestern China. This species is considered to be a taxon to the extant tiger and lived about 2 million years ago. It was smaller than the tiger, being the size of a jaguar. Despite being considered more primitive, the Longdan tiger was functionally and possibly ecologically similar to its modern cousin, as Panthera zdanskyi lived in northwestern China, that may have been where the tiger lineage originated
India
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 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 peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Zoroastrianism 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, 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 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 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 and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
Paleolithic
It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools, probably by Homo habilis initially,2.6 million years ago, to the end of the Pleistocene around 10,000 BP. The Paleolithic era is followed by the Mesolithic, the date of the Paleolithic–Mesolithic boundary may vary by locality as much as several thousand years. During the Paleolithic period, humans grouped together in small societies such as bands, the Paleolithic is characterized by the use of knapped stone tools, although at the time humans used wood and bone tools. Other organic commodities were adapted for use as tools, including leather and vegetable fibers, due to their nature, surviving artifacts of the Paleolithic era are known as paleoliths. About 50,000 years ago, there was a increase in the diversity of artifacts. For the first time in Africa, bone artifacts and the first art appear in the archaeological record, the first evidence of human fishing is noted, from artifacts in places such as Blombos cave in South Africa. The new technology generated an explosion of modern humans which is believed to have led to the extinction of the Neanderthals.
Humankind gradually evolved from members of the genus Homo—such as Homo habilis. The climate during the Paleolithic consisted of a set of glacial and interglacial periods in which the climate periodically fluctuated between warm and cool temperatures, by c. 50,000 – c. 40,000 BP, the first humans set foot in Australia. By c. 45,000 BP, humans lived at 61°N latitude in Europe, by c. 30,000 BP, Japan was reached, and by c. 27,000 BP humans were present in Siberia, above the Arctic Circle. At the end of the Upper Paleolithic, a group of humans crossed Beringia, the term Paleolithic was coined by archaeologist John Lubbock in 1865. It derives from Greek, παλαιός, old, and λίθος, stone, human evolution is the part of biological evolution concerning the emergence of anatomically modern humans as a distinct species. The Paleolithic Period coincides almost exactly with the Pleistocene epoch of geologic time and this epoch experienced important geographic and climatic changes that affected human societies.
During the preceding Pliocene, continents had continued to drift from possibly as far as 250 km from their present locations to positions only 70 km from their current location. South America became linked to North America through the Isthmus of Panama, most of Central America formed during the Pliocene to connect the continents of North and South America, allowing fauna from these continents to leave their native habitats and colonize new areas. Africas collision with Asia created the Mediterranean Sea, cutting off the remnants of the Tethys Ocean, climates during the Pliocene became cooler and drier, and seasonal, similar to modern climates. The formation of an Arctic ice cap around 3 million years ago is signaled by a shift in oxygen isotope ratios and ice-rafted cobbles in the North Atlantic. Mid-latitude glaciation probably began before the end of the epoch, the global cooling that occurred during the Pliocene may have spurred on the disappearance of forests and the spread of grasslands and savannas
Madhya Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal and the largest city is Indore, nicknamed the heart of India due to its geographical location in India, Madhya Pradesh is the second-largest state in the country by area. With over 75 million inhabitants, it is the fifth-largest state in India by population and it borders the states of Uttar Pradesh to the northeast, Chhattisgarh to the southeast, Maharashtra to the south, Gujarat to the west, and Rajasthan to the northwest. Its total area is 308,252 km², the region was ruled by the major dynasties of India. By the early 18th century, the region was divided into small kingdoms which were captured by the British and incorporated into Central Provinces and Berar. This state was the largest in India by area until 2000, in recent years, the states GDP growth has been above the national average. Rich in mineral resources, MP has the largest reserves of diamond, more than 30% of its area is under forest cover. Its tourism industry has seen growth, with the state topping the National Tourism Awards in 2010–11.
Isolated remains of Homo erectus found in Hathnora in the Narmada Valley indicate that Madhya Pradesh might have been inhabited in the Middle Pleistocene era, painted pottery dated to the mesolithic period has been found in the Bhimbetka rock shelters. Chalcolithic sites belonging to Kayatha culture and Malwa culture have been discovered in the part of the state. The city of Ujjain arose as a centre in the region. It served as the capital of the Avanti kingdom, other kingdoms mentioned in ancient epics — Malava, Karusha and Nishada — have been identified with parts of Madhya Pradesh. Chandragupta Maurya united northern India around 320 BCE, establishing the Mauryan Empire, ashoka the greatest of Mauryan rulers brought the region under firmer control. After the decline of the Maurya empire, the region was contested among the Sakas, the Kushanas, the Satavahanas, the Greek Ambassador to the court of the Shunga king Bhagabhadra erected the Heliodorus pillar near Vidisha. Ujjain emerged as the predominant commercial centre of western India from the first century BCE, the Satavahana dynasty of the northern Deccan and the Saka dynasty of the Western Satraps fought for the control of Madhya Pradesh during the 1st to 3rd centuries CE.
The Satavahana king Gautamiputra Satakarni inflicted a defeat upon the Saka rulers and conquered parts of Malwa. Subsequently, the region came under the control of the Gupta empire in the 4th and 5th centuries, and their southern neighbours, the attacks of the Hephthalites or White Huns brought about the collapse of the Gupta empire, which broke up into smaller states. The king Yasodharman of Malwa defeated the Huns in 528, ending their expansion, Harsha ruled the northern parts of the state
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired in the Middle Ages.
In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period.
Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date.
English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
Adivasi
Adivasi are the tribal groups population of South Asia. Adivasi make up 8. 6% of Indias population or 104 million, according to the 2011 census, and they comprise a substantial indigenous minority of the population of India and Nepal. The same term Adivasi is used for the minorities of Bangladesh, the native Tharu people of Nepal. The word is used in the same sense in Nepal, as is another word, although the political context differed historically under the Shah. Many smaller tribal groups are sensitive to ecological degradation caused by modernisation. Both commercial forestry and intensive agriculture have proved destructive to the forests that had endured swidden agriculture for many centuries, Adivasis in central part of India have been victims of the Salwa Judum campaign by the Government against the Naxalite insurgency. Although terms such as atavika, vanavāsi, or girijan are used for the tribes of India, adivāsi carries the meaning of being the original. It was specifically coined for that purpose in the 1930s, over time, unlike the terms aborigines or tribes, the word adivasi has developed a connotation of past autonomy disrupted during the British colonial period in India and not yet having been restored.
In India, opposition to usage of the term is varied, critics argue that the original inhabitant contention is based on the fact that they have no land and are therefore asking for a land reform. The adivasis argue that they have been oppressed by the superior group, in Northeast India, the term adivāsi applies only to the Tea-tribes imported from Central India during colonial times. All tribal groups refer collectively to themselves by using the English word tribes, in Article 342, the procedure to be followed for specification of a scheduled tribe is prescribed. However, it not contain the criterion for the specification of any community as scheduled tribe. An often-used criterion is based on such as, Geographical isolation – they live in cloistered, exclusive and inhospitable areas such as hills. Backwardness – their livelihood is based on agriculture, a low-value closed economy with a low level of technology that leads to their poverty. They have low levels of literacy and health, distinctive culture and religion – communities have developed their own distinctive culture and religion.
Shyness of contact – they have a degree of contact with other cultures. So far seventy-five tribal communities have been identified as particularly vulnerable tribal groups in different States of India, the tribes are awakening and demanding their rights for special reservation quota for them. A substantial list of Scheduled Tribes in India are recognised as tribal under the Constitution of India, Tribal people constitute 8. 6% of the nations total population, over 104 million people according to the 2011 census
Elephant
Elephants are large mammals of the family Elephantidae and the order Proboscidea. Three species are recognised, the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, Elephants are scattered throughout sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Elephantidae is the surviving family of the order Proboscidea, now extinct, members of the order include deinotheres, mammoths. Male African elephants are the largest extant terrestrial animals and can reach a height of 4 m, all elephants have several distinctive features, the most notable of which is a long trunk or proboscis, used for many purposes, particularly breathing, lifting water, and grasping objects. Their incisors grow into tusks, which can serve as weapons and as tools for moving objects, Elephants large ear flaps help to control their body temperature. Their pillar-like legs can carry their great weight, African elephants have larger ears and concave backs while Asian elephants have smaller ears and convex or level backs. Elephants are herbivorous and can be found in different habitats including savannahs, forests and they prefer to stay near water.
They are considered to be keystone species due to their impact on their environments, other animals tend to keep their distance from elephants while predators, such as lions, tigers and wild dogs, usually target only young elephants. Females tend to live in groups, which can consist of one female with her calves or several related females with offspring. The groups are led by a known as the matriarch. Elephants have a society in which multiple family groups come together to socialise. Males leave their family groups when they reach puberty and may live alone or with other males, calves are the centre of attention in their family groups and rely on their mothers for as long as three years. Elephants can live up to 70 years in the wild and they communicate by touch, sight and sound, elephants use infrasound, and seismic communication over long distances. Elephant intelligence has been compared with that of primates and cetaceans and they appear to have self-awareness and show empathy for dying or dead individuals of their kind.
African elephants are listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature while the Asian elephant is classed as endangered, one of the biggest threats to elephant populations is the ivory trade, as the animals are poached for their ivory tusks. Other threats to elephants include habitat destruction and conflicts with local people. Elephants are used as working animals in Asia, in the past, they were used in war, they are often controversially put on display in zoos, or exploited for entertainment in circuses. Elephants are highly recognisable and have featured in art, religion, literature
Raisen district
Raisen District is a district of Madhya Pradesh state of India. The town of Raisen is the district headquarters, the district is part of Bhopal Division. Raisen District takes its name from Raisen town, which is named after a fort and this fort is built on a sandstone hill, at the foot of which settles the town. The name is probably a corruption of Rajavasini or Rajasayan, the royal residence, Raisen district is situated between the latitude 2247 and 2333 north and the longitude 7721 and 7849 east. Sehore district lies in west, Vidisha district in the north, Sagar district in the east and south-east, Narsimhapur district in the south-east, Hoshangabad and it covers an area of 8,395 square kilometres. Raisen district has eight tehsils – Raisen, Begamganj, Silwani, Udaipura, the territory of the present-day Raisen district was once part of the Nizamat-A-Mashrif district of the Bhopal princely state. After the Bhopal State of independent India came into being, Raisen was declared a district on 5 May 1950.
The Buddhist monuments at Sanchi, a UNESCO world heritage site, are located in Raisen district. Bhimbetka rock shelters, another UNESCO world heritage site, are located in Raisen district. According to the 2011 census Raisen District has a population of 1,331,699 and this gives it a ranking of 365th in India. The district has a density of 157 inhabitants per square kilometre. Its population growth rate over the decade 2001-2011 was 18. 36%, Raisen has a sex ratio of 899 females for every 1000 males, and a literacy rate of 74. 26%. Raisen is 45 km from Bhopal, Its connected to Bhopal via NH-86, nH-12 passes thru the District
Bhopal
Bhopal is the capital of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and the administrative headquarters of Bhopal district and Bhopal division. The city was the capital of the former Bhopal State, Bhopal is known as the City of Lakes for its various natural as well as artificial lakes and is one of the greenest cities in India. It is the 17th largest city in the country and 131st in the world, a Y-class city, Bhopal houses various institutions and installations of national importance, including ISROs Master Control Facility and BHEL. Bhopal is home to the largest number of Institutes of National Importance in India, namely IISER, MANIT, SPA, the Bhopal disaster continues to be a part of the socio-political debate and a logistical challenge for the people of Bhopal. The city has been adjudged as the 21st cleanest city in India, according to folklore, Bhopal was founded in 11th century by the Paramara king Bhoja, who ruled from his capital at Dhar. This theory states that Bhopal was originally known as Bhojpal after a dam constructed by the kings minister, an alternative theory says that the city is named after another king called Bhupala.
In the early 18th century, Bhopal was a village in the Gond kingdom. The modern Bhopal city was established by Dost Mohammad Khan, an Afghan soldier in the Mughal army, after the death of the emperor Aurangzeb, Khan started providing mercenary services to local chieftains in the politically unstable Malwa region. In 1709, he took on the lease of Berasia estate, Khan received the territory of Bhopal from the Gond queen Kamlapati in lieu of payment for mercenary services and usurped her kingdom after her death. In the 1720s, he built the Fatehgarh fort in the village, Bhopal became a princely state after signing a treaty with the British East India Company in 1818. Between 1819 and 1926, the state was ruled by four women, qudsia Begum was the first woman ruler, who was succeeded by her only daughter Sikandar Begum, who in turn was succeeded by her only daughter, Shahjehan Begum. Sultan Jahan Begum was the last woman ruler who, after 25 years of rule, abdicated in favour of her son, the rule of Begums gave the city its waterworks, railways, a postal system, and a municipality constituted in 1907.
Bhopal State was the second-largest Muslim-ruled princely state, the first being Hyderabad, after the independence of India in 1947, the last Nawab expressed his wish to retain Bhopal as a separate unit. Agitations against the Nawab broke out in December 1948, leading to the arrest of prominent leaders including Shankar Dayal Sharma, the political detainees were released, and the Nawab signed the agreement for Bhopals merger with the Union of India on 30 April 1949. The Bhopal state was taken over by the Union Government of India on 1 June 1949, on December 1984, a Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant in Bhopal leaked around 32 tons of toxic gases, including methyl isocyanate gas which led to the worst industrial disaster to date. The official death toll was recorded around 4,000. The higher estimates have been challenged, the impact of the disaster continues to this day in terms of psychological and neurological disabilities, skin, vision and birth disorders. The soil and ground water near the site have been contaminated by the toxic wastes
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