1.
Dadra
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Dadra is either of two separate but originally linked concepts in Hindustani classical music. This is a Hindustani classical tala, consisting of six beats in two divisions of three. The most commonly accepted theka or basic pattern for this tala is dha dhi na, dha tu na. There is a higher emphasis laid on the first swar in comparison the following two, that is, dha - higher emphasis following dhi na and again a higher emphasis on dha following tu na. In this context dadra is a classical vocal form in Hindustani classical music, mostly performed in Agra. It was originally accompanied by dadra tala, but later dadra compositions are found in other light talas (such as. There have been some Bollywood songs as based on the same for instance Madan Mohan composition -Lag Jaa Gale. Then there is also a famous dadra sung by Mallika-e-Ghazal Begum Akhtar Hamari Atariya Pe Aao, Hindustani classical music Article about dadra
2.
States and union territories of India
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India is a federal union comprising twenty-nine states and seven union territories. The states and union territories are further subdivided into districts and further into smaller administrative divisions, the Constitution of India distributes the sovereign executive and legislative powers exercisable with respect to the territory of any State between the Union and that State. The Indian subcontinent has been ruled by different ethnic groups throughout its history. Between 1947 and 1950, the territories of the states were politically integrated into the Indian Union. The new Constitution of India, which came into force on 26 January 1950, the new republic was also declared to be a Union of States. The nine Part A states were Assam, Bihar, Bombay, Madhya Pradesh, Madras, Orissa, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal. The eight Part B states were former princely states or groups of states, governed by a rajpramukh, who was usually the ruler of a constituent state. The rajpramukh was appointed by the President of India, the Part B states were Hyderabad, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Bharat, Mysore, Patiala and East Punjab States Union, Rajasthan, Saurashtra, and Travancore-Cochin. The ten Part C states included both the former chief commissioners provinces and some states, and each was governed by a chief commissioner appointed by the President of India. The Part C states were Ajmer, Bhopal, Bilaspur, Coorg, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Cutch, Manipur, Tripura, the only Part D state was the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which were administered by a lieutenant governor appointed by the central government. The Union Territory of Puducherry was created in 1954 comprising the previous French enclaves of Pondichéry, Karaikal, Yanam, Andhra State was created on 1 October 1953 from the Telugu-speaking northern districts of Madras State. The States Reorganisation Act of 1956 reorganised the states based on linguistic lines resulting in the creation of the new states, as a result of this act, Madras State retained its name with Kanyakumari district added to from Travancore-Cochin. Andhra Pradesh was created with the merger of Andhra State with the Telugu-speaking districts of Hyderabad State in 1956, kerala was created with the merger of Malabar district and the Kasaragod taluk of South Canara districts of Madras State with Travancore-Cochin. The Laccadive Islands which were divided between South Canara and Malabar districts of Madras State were united and organised into the territory of Lakshadweep. Bombay State was enlarged by the addition of Saurashtra State and Kutch State, Rajasthan and Punjab gained territories from Ajmer and Patiala and East Punjab States Union respectively and certain territories of Bihar was transferred to West Bengal. Bombay State was split into the states of Gujarat and Maharashtra on 1 May 1960 by the Bombay Reorganisation Act. Nagaland was formed on 1 December 1963, the Punjab Reorganisation Act of 1966 resulted in the creation of Haryana on 1 November and the transfer of the northern districts of Punjab to Himachal Pradesh. The act also designated Chandigarh as a territory and the shared capital of Punjab
3.
Daman Ganga River
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The Daman Ganga also called Dawan River is a river in western India. The rivers headwaters are on the slope of the Western Ghats range. The river flows through Maharashtra and Gujarat states, as well as the Union territories of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli. The industrial towns of Vapi, Dadra and Silvassa lie on the bank of the river. The major development project on the river is the Daman Ganga Multipurpose project completed which benefits the state of Gujarat, the two historical forts on either side of the river at Daman, are the Moti Daman on the southern bank and the Nani Daman, on the northern bank. The Daman Ganga, also known as Dawan River, rises in the Sahyadri hills close to Ambegaon village in Dindori taluka of Nasik district of Maharashtra State and it raise at an elevation of 950m. It raise at an elevation of 980.5 metres, the major tributaries of Daman and Vag run a course of 79 kilometres and 61 kilometres respectively before joining at Matunji to become the Daman Ganga River. Major part of the lies in Maharashtra. Its total length from source to the Arabian Sea is 131.30 kilometres, as the river joins the sea at Daman, it is named Daman Ganga. At the estuary there is heavy sedimentation and hence the depth of water is shallow, Daman is located on both banks of the river. At the mouth of the river the bar is level bed made of hard sand, the river basin, which lies entirely on the western ghats, has a total catchment area of 2,318 square kilometres. The mean annual run off from the catchment is 3,771 MCM, the upstream area of the river is hilly and covered with forest 96,222 hectares. Rain fall occurs during the months from June to September with an annual average rainfall incidence of approximately 2,200 millimetres (maximum recorded is reported to be 3,780 millimetres. }. The soil conditions in the basin are categorized as reddish soil, coarse shallow soil, deep black soil. Silvasa, Vapi and Daman are the towns on the banks of the river. The places of tourist interest on the Daman Ganga River in Dadra Nagar Haveli are Van Ganga, there is an existing major irrigation project on the river called the Damanganga Reservoir Project, which is located near Madhuban village in Dharampur taluka of Valsad district of Gujarat. It is a multipurpose project of the Govt. of Gujarat and Union Territories of Dadra & Nagar Haveli. The storage of this project is shared by the states of Gujarat, Union Territories of Dadra & Nagar Haveli
4.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
5.
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
6.
Public administration
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Public administration is the implementation of government policy and also an academic discipline that studies this implementation and prepares civil servants for working in the public service. As a field of inquiry with a diverse scope its fundamental goal, is to advance management and policies so that government can function. Public administrators are public servants working in departments and agencies. In the US, civil servants and academics such as Woodrow Wilson promoted American civil service reform in the 1880s, however, until the mid-20th century and the dissemination of the German sociologist Max Webers theory of bureaucracy there was not much interest in a theory of public administration. In 1947 Paul H. Appleby defined public administration as public leadership of public affairs directly responsible for executive action. In a democracy, it has to do with such leadership and executive action in terms that respect and contribute to the dignity, the worth, and the potentials of the citizen. One year later, Gordon Clapp, then Chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority defined public administration as a public instrument whereby democratic society may be completely realized. This implies that it must relate itself to concepts of justice, liberty, and fuller economic opportunity for human beings and is concerned with people, with ideas. The key term product refers to items that are constructed or produced such as prisons, roads, laws, schools. As implementors, public managers engage these products and they participate in the doing and making of the living democracy. A living democracy is an environment that is changing, organic, imperfect, inconsistent, more recently scholars claim that public administration has no generally accepted definition, because the scope of the subject is so great and so debatable that it is easier to explain than define. Public administration is a field of study and an occupation, scholar Donald Kettl is among those who view public administration as a subfield within political science. The moral purpose of administration, implicit in its acceptance of its role, is the maximisation of the opportunities of the public to satisfy its wants. The North American Industry Classification System definition of the Public Administration sector states that public administration, dating back to Antiquity, Pharaohs, kings and emperors have required pages, treasurers, and tax collectors to administer the practical business of government. Prior to the 19th century, staffing of most public administrations was rife with nepotism, favoritism, and political patronage, Public administrators have long been the eyes and ears of rulers. In medieval times, the abilities to read and write, add, as the European Imperialist age progressed and the militarily powers extended their hold over other continents and people, the need for a sophisticated public administration grew. Far in advance of the rest of the world until almost the end of the eighteenth century, the eighteenth-century noble, King Frederick William I of Prussia, created professorates in Cameralism in an effort to train a new class of public administrators. The universities of Frankfurt an der Oder and University of Halle were Prussian institutions emphasizing economic and social disciplines, johann Heinrich Gottlob Justi was the most well-known professor of Cameralism
7.
High Courts of India
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There are 24 High Courts at the state and union territory level of India which, together with the Supreme Court of India at the national level, comprise the countrys judicial system. Each High Court has jurisdiction over a state, a territory or a group of states. Below the High Courts is a hierarchy of subordinate courts such as the courts, family courts, criminal courts. High Courts are instituted as constitutional courts under Part VI, Chapter V, the High Courts are the principal civil courts of original jurisdiction in each state and union territory. High courts may also enjoy original jurisdiction in certain matters if so designated specifically in a state or federal law, however, the work of most High Courts primarily consists of appeals from lower courts and writ petitions in terms of Article 226 of the constitution. Writ jurisdiction is also original jurisdiction of High Court, the precise territorial jurisdiction of each High Court varies. The appeal order is the following, tehsil-kotwali-criminal/civil courts - district - high court - supreme court, each state is divided into judicial districts presided over by a District and Sessions Judge. He is known as a District Judge when he presides over a case. He is the highest judicial authority below a High Court judge, below him, there are courts of civil jurisdiction, known by different names in different states. Under Article 141 of the Constitution, all courts in India are bound by the judgments, judges in a High Court are appointed by the President of India in consultation with the Chief Justice of India and the governor of the state. High Courts are headed by a Chief Justice, the Chief Justices are ranked fourteenth and seventeenth in the Indian order of precedence. The Calcutta High Court is the oldest High Court in the country, High Courts that handle a large number of cases of a particular region have permanent benches established there. Benches are also present in states which come under the jurisdiction of a court outside its territorial limits, smaller states with few cases may have circuit benches established. Circuit benches are temporary courts which hold proceedings for a few selected months in a year, thus cases built up during this interim period are judged when the circuit court is in session. A systematic implementation of E-courts In India is the way to speed up the process, reduce if not eliminate the ills of the judicial system - corruption, inefficiency. The Madras High Court in Chennai, Bombay High Court in Mumbai, Calcutta High Court in Kolkata, Judge Strength in High Courts Increased. Soon, High Courts in 3 Northeastern States, new Chief Justice of Delhi High Court to Assume Charge on Wednesday. Media related to High Courts in India at Wikimedia Commons
8.
Bombay High Court
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Bombay High Court is located in Mumbai in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is one of the oldest High Courts of India with jurisdiction over the states of Maharashtra and Goa, and, the High Court has regional branches at Nagpur and Aurangabad in Maharashtra and Panaji, the capital of Goa. The court is one of the most distinguished High Courts in the country, the first Chief Justice, the Attorney General and Solicitor General of Independent India were from this court. Since Indias Independence,22 judges from this court have been elevated to the Supreme Court and 8 of them have been Chief Justice of India, the Court has Original Jurisdiction in addition to its Appellate. The decisions of this court can be appealed only to the Supreme Court of India, the bombay high court has a sanctioned strength of 75 judges. The Bombay High Court was one of the three High Courts in India established at the Presidency Towns by Letters patent granted by Her Majesty Queen Victoria and it was inaugurated on August 14,1862 under the High Courts Act,1861. The work on the present building of the High Court was commenced in April 1871 and it was designed by British engineer Col. James A. Fuller. The first sitting in this building was on 10 January 1879, Chagla was the first Indian permanent Chief Justice of Bombay High Court after independence Architecture, Gothic revival in the Early English style. It is 562 feet long and 187 feet wide, to the west of the central tower are two octagonal towers. The statues of Justice and Mercy are atop this building, in 2016, it was announced that the premises of the Bombay High Court would be shifting to Bandra Kurla Complex. Although the name of the city was changed from Bombay to Mumbai in 1995, in 2012, the High Court organized several functions to mark the completion of 150 years of establishment of the High Court. A special postal cover was released by Milind Deora, the then Minister of State for Communications, the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh was the Chief Guest at the concluding ceremony of the year-long Sesquicentennial celebrations on 18 August 2012. In its illustrious history, the Bombay High Court has been the site for numerous noteworthy trials and court cases. Bal Gangadhar Tilak was tried a number of times in the Bombay high Court, the Bombay High Court also saw the last case in the Indian Judicial System to use a jury in the famous K. M. Nanavati v. State of Maharashtra case of 1959. Bar Council had boycotted some judges of the High Court in 1991 under the leadership of Senior Counsel Iqbal Chagla, in 2011, a couple of petitions came to be filed challenging housing societies built by judges upon plots of land reserved for other purposes. The court has a Sanctioned strength of 75 judges, the court handles 340,000 cases, both civil and criminal. 32 sitting judges of the court disposed around 2,000 cases each in 2004, the court has a judge to people ratio of 1 to 1.61 million. Judges elevated to the Supreme Court of India, Judges transferred from the Bombay High Court
9.
Gujarati language
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Gujarati /ɡʊdʒəˈrɑːti/ is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Indian state of Gujarat. It is part of the greater Indo-European language family, Gujarati is descended from Old Gujarati. In India, it is the language in the state of Gujarat, as well as an official language in the union territories of Daman and Diu and Dadra. Gujarati is the language of the Gujjars, who had ruled Rajputana, according to the Central Intelligence Agency,4. 5% of the Indian population speaks Gujarati, which amounts to 54.6 million speakers in India. There are about 65.5 million speakers of Gujarati worldwide, Gujarati was the first language of Mahatma Gandhi and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Gujarati is a modern IA language evolved from Sanskrit, Central, in Gujarati/Rajasthani, Western Hindi, and Punjabi/Lahanda/Sindhi, on the basis of innovation of auxiliary verbs and postpositions in Gujarati/Rajasthani. Gujarati/Rajasthani into Gujarati and Rajasthani through development of such characteristics as auxiliary ch-, grammatically, a new plural marker of -o developed. In literature, the quarter of the 19th century saw a series of milestones for Gujarati. The printing was introduced in Gujarati in 1812, the first printed book published was the Gujarati translation of Dabestan-e Mazaheb prepared and printed by Parsi priest Fardunjee Marzban in 1815. 1822, first Gujarati newspaper, Mumbai Samachar, the oldest newspaper in India still in circulation, 1840s, personal diary composition, Nityanondh, Durgaram Mehta. 1845, first modern Gujarati poem, Bapani Piparu, Dalpatram 1851, first essay, Mandaḷī Maḷvāthi Thātā Lābh, Narmadashankar Dave 1866, first original novel, Karaṇ Ghelo, Nandshankar Mehta. 1866, first social novel, Sasu Vahu ni Ladai, Mahipatram Rupram Nilkanth 1866, first autobiography, Mārī Hakīkat,1900, first original short story, Shantidas, Ambalal Desai. Of the approximately 46 million speakers of Gujarati in 1997, roughly 45, however, Gujarati community leaders in Pakistan claim that there are 3 million Gujarati speakers in Karachi. There is an amount of Mauritian population and a large amount of Réunion Island people who are from Gujarati descent among which some of them still speak Gujarati. According to the 2011 census, Gujarati is the seventeenth most spoken language in the Greater Toronto Area, most, with British passports, settled in the UK. Gujarati is offered as a GCSE subject for students in the UK, a distribution of the geographical area can be found in Linguistic Survey of India by George A. Grierson. Gujarati is one of the recognized constitutional languages and fourteen regional languages of India. It is officially recognized in the state of Gujarat, India, in A simplified grammar of the Gujarati language by William Tisdall, two major dialects of Gujarati are mentioned, a standard Hindu dialect and a Parsi dialect
10.
Vehicle registration plate
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A vehicle registration plate, also known as a number plate or a license plate, is metal or plastic plate attached to a motor vehicle or trailer for official identification purposes. The registration identifier is a numeric or alphanumeric ID that uniquely identifies the owner within the issuing regions database. The first two letters indicate the state to which the vehicle is registered, the next two digit numbers are the sequential number of a district. Due to heavy volume of vehicle registration, the numbers were given to the RTO offices of registration as well, the third part indicates the year of registration of the vehicle and is a 4 digit number unique to each plate. In some countries, the identifier is unique within the entire country, whether the identifier is associated with a vehicle or a person also varies by issuing agency. In the vast majority of jurisdictions, the government holds a monopoly on the manufacturing of vehicle registration plates for that jurisdiction. Thus, it is illegal for private citizens to make and affix their own plates. Alternately, the government will merely assign plate numbers, and it is the owners responsibility to find an approved private supplier to make a plate with that number. In some jurisdictions, plates will be assigned to that particular vehicle for its lifetime. If the vehicle is destroyed or exported to a different country. Other jurisdictions follow a policy, meaning that when a vehicle is sold the seller removes the current plate from the vehicle. Buyers must either obtain new plates or attach plates they already hold, as well as register their vehicles under the buyers name, a person who sells a car and then purchases a new one can apply to have the old plates put onto the new car. One who sells a car and does not buy a new one may, depending on the laws involved, have to turn the old plates in or destroy them. Some jurisdictions permit the registration of the vehicle with personal plates, in some jurisdictions, plates require periodic replacement, often associated with a design change of the plate itself. Vehicle owners may or may not have the option to keep their original plate number, alternately, or additionally, vehicle owners have to replace a small decal on the plate or use a decal on the windshield to indicate the expiration date of the vehicle registration. Plates are usually fixed directly to a vehicle or to a frame that is fixed to the vehicle. Sometimes, the plate frames contain advertisements inserted by the service centre or the dealership from which the vehicle was purchased. Vehicle owners can also purchase customized frames to replace the original frames, in some jurisdictions licence plate frames are illegal
11.
Western India
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Western India consists of the states of Goa, Gujarat, and Maharashtra along with the Union territory of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli of India. The region is highly industrialized, with an urban population. Roughly, Western India is bounded by the Thar Desert in the northwest, the Vindhya Range in the north, a major portion of Western India shares the Deccan Plateau with South India. Before the partition of India, the territories of Sindh. Parts of Gujarat were the site of Indus Valley Civilization, places have been uncovered in Gujarat at Lothal, Surkotada, and around Ghaggar river in Rajasthan. The Western Indian region was ruled by the Rashtrakuta Empire, the Maurya Kingdom, Gurjars, Rajputs, Satavahanas, Western Satraps, Indo Greeks, during the medieval age, the region came under Persian influence and also under Mughal rule. Later, the Maratha Empire which arose in western Maharashtra came to dominate a major portion of the Indian sub-continent, however its defeat by the British in the Anglo-Maratha wars left most of India under colonial rule. The region then experienced great upheavals during the struggle for Indian Independence, gandhis Dandi March took place in Gujarat. The region became part of independent India in 1947, and the present state boundaries were based on linguistic considerations in 1956. The region consists of the arid to semi-arid region of Saurashtra. The region South of that of Cambay and Southern Gujarat makes the northern arid region. The Western Ghats and Konkan lie along the coast of Maharashtra, the Deccan plains of the Vidarbha, Marathwada in central and eastern Maharashtra define the rest of the region. The vegetation varies from tropical rainforests along the Konkan coast to thorny bushes, the rivers in this region are the Narmada, Tapi, Godavari, Zuari, Mandovi, Krishna, Ghaggar, Chambal and many other smaller tributaries of other rivers. The climate varies between tropical wet, tropical wet and dry, and semi arid, the coastal regions experience little seasonal variations although the temperatures range between 20 °C to 38 °C. Mumbai and northern Konkan regions experience cooler winters with temperatures hovering around 12 °C. Interior Maharashtra experiences hot summers with temperatures averaging 40 °C. Pune, a city in the region experiences temperatures around 40-42 °C in summers. Gujarat also has a climate with hot summers and cool winters
12.
Maharashtra
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Four Maharashtra is a state in the western region of India and is Indias second-most populous state and third-largest state by area. It is the wealthiest Indian state and it is also the worlds second-most populous sub-national entity. It has over 112 million inhabitants and its capital, Mumbai, has a population of approximately 18 million, Nagpur is Maharashtras second capital as well as its winter capital. Maharashtras business opportunities along with its potential to offer a standard of living attract migrants from all over India. Ancient and medieval Maharashtra included the empires of the Satavahana dynasty, Rashtrakuta dynasty, Western Chalukyas, Mughals, the major rivers of the state are Godavari, and Krishna. The Narmada and Tapti Rivers flow near the border between Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, Maharashtra is the second most urbanised state in India. The state has several popular Hindu places of pilgrimage including Pandharpur, Dehu and Alandi, other places that attract pilgrims from other parts of India and beyond include Hazur Sahib Gurudwara at Nanded, Sai Baba shrine at Shirdi and Dikshabhumi at Nagpur. Maharashtra is the wealthiest and one of the most developed states in India, as of 2011, the state had a per capita income of ₹1.0035 lakh, more than the national average of ₹0.73 lakh. Its GDP per capita crossed the ₹1.20 lakh threshold for the first time in 2013, however, as of 2014, the GDP per capita reduced to ₹1.03 lakh Agriculture and industries are the largest parts of the states economy. Major industries include chemical products, electrical and non-electrical machinery, textiles, petroleum, Jai Maharashtra The modern Marathi language developed from the Maharashtri Prakrit, and the word Mahratta is found in the Jain Maharashtri literature. The terms Maharashtra, Maharashtri, Marathi and Maratha may have derived from the same root, however, their exact etymology is uncertain. But the Marathas as a people do not seem to be mentioned before the thirteenth or fourteenth century, the most widely accepted theory among the linguistic scholars is that the words Maratha and Maharashtra ultimately derived from a combination of Maha and rashtrika. The word rashtrika is a Sanskritized form of Ratta, the name of a tribe or dynasty of petty chiefs ruling in the Deccan region. Another theory is that the term is derived from Maha and ratha / rathi, an alternative theory states that the term derives from the word Maha and Rashtra. However, this theory has not found acceptance among scholars who believe it to be the Sanskritised interpretation of later writers. Maharashtra was ruled by the Maurya Empire in the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE, around 230 BCE Maharashtra came under the rule of the Satavahana dynasty for 400 years. The greatest ruler of the Satavahana Dynasty was Gautamiputra Satakarni, in 90 CE Vedishri, son of the Satavahana king Satakarni, the Lord of Dakshinapatha, wielder of the unchecked wheel of Sovereignty, made Junnar, thirty miles north of Pune, the capital of his kingdom. The state was ruled by Western Satraps, Gupta Empire, Gurjara-Pratihara, Vakataka, Kadambas, Chalukya Empire, Rashtrakuta Dynasty, and Western Chalukya before finally
13.
Gujarat
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Gujarat is a state in Western India, sometimes referred to as the Jewel of Western India. It has an area of 196,024 km2 with a coastline of 1,600 km, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula, and a population in excess of 60 million. The state is bordered by Rajasthan to the north, Maharashtra to the south, Madhya Pradesh to the east, and the Arabian Sea and its capital city is Gandhinagar, while its largest city is Ahmedabad. Gujarat is home to the Gujarati-speaking people of India, the state encompasses some sites of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization, such as Lothal and Dholavira. Lothal is believed to be one of the worlds first seaports, Gujarat was known to the ancient Greeks, and was familiar in other Western centres of civilisation through the end of the European Middle Ages. Modern-day Gujarat is derived from Sanskrit term Gurjaradesa, the Gurjar nation, parts of modern Rajasthan and Gujarat have been known as Gurjaratra or Gurjarabhumi for centuries before the Mughal period. Gujarat was one of the centres of the Indus Valley Civilization. It contains ancient metropolitan cities from the Indus Valley such as Lothal, Dholavira, the ancient city of Lothal was where Indias first port was established. The ancient city of Dholavira is one of the largest and most prominent archaeological sites in India, the most recent discovery was Gola Dhoro. Altogether, about 50 Indus Valley settlement ruins have been discovered in Gujarat, the ancient history of Gujarat was enriched by the commercial activities of its inhabitants. There is clear evidence of trade and commerce ties with Egypt, Bahrain. The early history of Gujarat reflects the grandeur of Chandragupta Maurya who conquered a number of earlier states in what is now Gujarat. Pushyagupta, a Vaishya, was appointed governor of Saurashtra by the Mauryan regime and he ruled Giringer and built a dam on the Sudarshan lake. Between the decline of Mauryan power and Saurashtra coming under the sway of the Samprati Mauryas of Ujjain, in the first half of the 1st century AD there is the story of a merchant of King Gondaphares landing in Gujarat with Apostle Thomas. The incident of the cup-bearer killed by a lion might indicate that the city described is in Gujarat. For nearly 300 years from the start of the 1st century AD, the weather-beaten rock at Junagadh gives a glimpse of the ruler Rudradaman I of the Saka satraps known as Western Satraps, or Kshatraps. Mahakshatrap Rudradaman I founded the Kardamaka dynasty which ruled from Anupa on the banks of the Narmada up to the Aparanta region which bordered Punjab, in Gujarat several battles were fought between the south Indian Satavahana dynasty and the Western Satraps. The greatest ruler of the Satavahana Dynasty was Gautamiputra Satakarni who defeated the Western Satraps, the Kshatrapa dynasty was replaced by the Gupta Empire with the conquest of Gujarat by Chandragupta Vikramaditya
14.
Enclave and exclave
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An enclave is a territory, or a part of a territory, that is entirely surrounded by the territory of one other state. Territorial waters have the same attributes as land, and enclaves may therefore exist within territorial waters. An exclave is a portion of a state or territory geographically separated from the part by surrounding alien territory. Enclave is sometimes used improperly to denote a territory that is partly surrounded by another state. Vatican City and San Marino, enclaved by Italy, and Lesotho, unlike an enclave, an exclave can be surrounded by several states. The Azeri exclave of Naxçıvan is an example of an exclave. Semi-enclaves and semi-exclaves are areas that, except for possessing an unsurrounded sea border, Enclaves and semi-enclaves can exist as independent states, while exclaves always constitute just a part of a sovereign state. A pene-enclave is a part of the territory of one country that can be approached conveniently — in particular by wheeled traffic — only through the territory of another country, pene-enclaves are also called functional enclaves or practical enclaves. Many pene-exclaves partially border their own territorial waters, a pene-enclave can also exist entirely on land, such as when intervening mountains render a territory inaccessible from other parts of a country except through alien territory. A commonly cited example is the Kleinwalsertal, a part of Vorarlberg, Austria. The word enclave is French and first appeared in the century as a derivative of the verb enclaver. In law, this created a servitude of passage for the benefit of the owner of the surrounded land, the first diplomatic document to contain the word enclave was the Treaty of Madrid, signed in 1526. Later, the term began to be used also to refer to parcels of countries, counties, fiefs, communes, towns, parishes. This French word eventually entered the English and other languages to denote the same concept although local terms have continued to be used, in India, the word pocket is often used as a synonym for enclave. In British administrative history, subnational enclaves were usually called detachments or detached parts, in English ecclesiastic history, subnational enclaves were known as peculiars. The word exclave, modeled on enclave, is a extension of the concept of enclave. Enclaves exist for a variety of historical, political and geographical reasons, in particular, this state of affairs persisted into the 19th century in the Holy Roman Empire, and these domains exhibited many of the characteristics of sovereign states. Prior to 1866 Prussia alone consisted of more than 270 discontiguous pieces of territory, thus, over time enclaves have tended to be eliminated. This exchange thus effectively de-enclaved another two dozen second-order enclaves and one third-order enclave, eliminating 197 of the Indo-Bangladesh enclaves in all, the residents in these enclaves had complained of being effectively stateless
15.
Arabian Sea
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The Arabian Sea is a region of the northern Indian Ocean bounded on the north by Pakistan and Iran, on the west by northeastern Somalia and the Arabian Peninsula, and on the east by India. Historically the sea has been known by names including the Erythraean Sea. Its total area is 3,862,000 km2 and its depth is 4,652 metres. The Gulf of Aden is in the southwest, connecting the Arabian Sea to the Red Sea through the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, the Arabian Sea has been crossed by important marine trade routes since the third or second millennium BCE. Major seaports include Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Mumbai, the Port of Karachi and the Gwadar Port in Pakistan, other important ports include in India, Kandla Port, and Mormugao in Goa. The largest islands in the Arabian Sea include Socotra, Masirah Island, Astola Island, the Arabian Seas surface area is about 3,862,000 km2. The maximum width of the Sea is approximately 2,400 km, the biggest river flowing into the Sea is the Indus River. There are also the gulfs of Khambhat and Kutch on the Indian coast, the countries with coastlines on the Arabian Sea are Somalia, Djibouti, Yemen, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Pakistan, India and the Maldives. There are several cities on the seas coast including Mumbai, Surat, Karachi, Gwadar, Pasni, Ormara, Aden, Muscat, Keti Bandar, Salalah, Duqm. International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Arabian Sea as follows, the Eastern limit of the Gulf of Aden. A line joining Ràs al Hadd, East point of Arabia, a line running from the South extremity of Addu Atoll, to the Eastern extreme of Ràs Hafun. The Western limit of the Laccadive Sea, by the time of Julius Caesar, several well-established combined land-sea trade routes depended upon water transport through the Sea around the rough inland terrain features to its north. Each major route involved transhipping to pack animal caravan, travel through country and risk of bandits. Later the kingdom of Axum arose in Ethiopia to rule a mercantile empire rooted in the trade with Europe via Alexandria, Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Mumbai is the largest port in the Arabian Sea, and the largest container port in India. The Port of Karachi is Pakistans largest and busiest seaport, handling about 60% of the nations cargo and it is located between the Karachi towns of Kiamari and Saddar, close to the main business district and several industrial areas. The geographic position of the places it in close proximity to major shipping routes such as the Strait of Hormuz. The history of the port is intertwined with that of the city of Karachi, several ancient ports have been attributed in the area including Krokola, Morontobara, Barbarikon (the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, and Debal. It warns sailors about whirlpools and advises them to safety in Kaurashi harbour if they found themselves drifting dangerously
16.
Daman, Daman and Diu
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Daman /dəˈmɑːn/, is a city and a municipal council in Daman district in the Indian union territory of Daman and Diu. Daman is divided by the Daman Ganga River into two parts, namely Nani-daman and Moti-daman, ironically, Nani-daman is the larger of the two towns. The downtown area holds most of the important entities like the major hospitals, supermarkets, while Moti-daman is mainly the old city inhabited. The Portuguese Diogo de Melo arrived at the spot by chance in 1523, soon after it was settled as a Portuguese colony and remained so for over 400 years. A larger fort was built in Motidaman in the 16th century to guard against the Mughals who ruled the area until the Portuguese arrived and it still stands today, most of it preserved in its original form. Today the majority of the government offices are situated inside the fort. Daman was incorporated into the Republic of India in December 1961 after a battle between the Portuguese and the Indians, the battle left four Indians dead and 14 wounded, and ten Portuguese dead and two wounded. There are many villages around Daman, such as Bhenslore, Kunta, Bhimpor, Kadaiya, Devka Mangelad, Varkund. These villages mainly act as residential areas for lower-middle-class families, according to the 2011 census Daman District, India has a population of 191,173, roughly equal to the nation of Samoa. This gives it a ranking of 592nd in India, the district has a population density of 2,655 inhabitants per square kilometre. Its population growth rate over the decade 2001-2011 was 69. 256%, Daman has a sex ratio of 533 females for every 1,000 males, and a literacy rate of 88. 06%. Nani Daman Fort Jain Temple, This 18th century Jain temple is situated in region of Nani Daman Fort and is dedicated to Mahavir Swami. The temple is built with white marbel and has beautiful carvings, the walls have very elegant glass cover with 18th century murals that represents the life of Mahavir Swami. This air station provides ATC and parking facilities to defence as well as civil aircraft, divya Jyoti Hindi Medium School, Dabhel, Daman. Coast Guard Public School, Nani Daman, Government Higher Secondary School, Nani Daman. Government Higher Secondary School, Moti Daman, Government Polytechnic Daman Shree Machchi Mahajan English Medium School, Nani Daman. Stella Maris English Medium High School, Daman AIM English School, Moti Daman Government College, Government Primary School, Devka Mangelwad, Nani Daman Holy Trinity English medium high school, Dunetha, Daman
17.
Western Ghats
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Western Ghats மேற்கு தொடர்ச்சி மலை is a mountain range that runs parallel to the western coast of the Indian peninsula, located entirely in India. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is one of the eight hottest hot-spots of biological diversity in the world and it is sometimes called the Great Escarpment of India. The range runs north to south along the edge of the Deccan Plateau. These hills cover 160,000 km2 and form the catchment area for complex riverine drainage systems that drain almost 40% of India, the Western Ghats block southwest monsoon winds from reaching the Deccan Plateau. The average elevation is around 1,200 m, at least 325 globally threatened species occur in the Western Ghats. The Western Ghats are the mountainous faulted and eroded edge of the Deccan Plateau, geologic evidence indicates that they were formed during the break-up of the supercontinent of Gondwana some 150 million years ago. Geophysical evidence indicates that the west coast of India came into being somewhere around 100 to 80 mya after it broke away from Madagascar, after the break-up, the western coast of India would have appeared as an abrupt cliff some 1,000 m in elevation. Basalt is the predominant rock found in the reaching a thickness of 3 km. Other rock types found are charnockites, granite gneiss, khondalites, leptynites, metamorphic gneisses with detached occurrences of limestone, iron ore. Residual laterite and bauxite ores are found in the southern hills. The Western Ghats extend from the Satpura Range in the north and it traverses south past the states of Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and Kerala. Major gaps in the range are the Goa Gap, between the Maharashtra and Karnataka sections, and the Palghat Gap on the Tamil Nadu and Kerala border between the Nilgiri Hills and the Anaimalai Hills. The mountains intercept the rain-bearing westerly monsoon winds, and are consequently an area of high rainfall, particularly on their western side. The northern portion of the coastal plain between the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea is known as the Konkan, the central portion is called Kanara. The foothill region east of the Ghats in Maharashtra is known as Desh, the range is known as Sahyadri in Maharashtra and Karnataka. The Western Ghats meets the Eastern Ghats at Nilgiris in northwestern Tamil Nadu, Nilgiris connects Biligiriranga Hills in southeastern Karnataka with the Shevaroys and Tirumala hills. In the southern part of the range is Anamudi, the highest peak in Western Ghats, following is a list of some of the highest peaks of the Western Ghats, The Western Ghats form one of the four watersheds of India, feeding the perennial rivers of India. The major river systems originating in the Western Ghats include Godavari, Kaveri, Krishna, Thamiraparani, majority of streams draining the Western Ghats join these rivers and carry large volume of water during the monsoon months
18.
Mumbai
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Mumbai is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India and the ninth most populous agglomeration in the world, Mumbai lies on the west coast of India and has a deep natural harbour. In 2008, Mumbai was named a world city. It is also the wealthiest city in India, and has the highest GDP of any city in South, West, Mumbai has the highest number of billionaires and millionaires among all cities in India. The seven islands that came to constitute Mumbai were home to communities of fishing colonies, during the mid-18th century, Bombay was reshaped by the Hornby Vellard project, which undertook reclamation of the area between the seven islands from the sea. Along with construction of roads and railways, the reclamation project, completed in 1845. Bombay in the 19th century was characterised by economic and educational development, during the early 20th century it became a strong base for the Indian independence movement. Upon Indias independence in 1947 the city was incorporated into Bombay State, in 1960, following the Samyukta Maharashtra movement, a new state of Maharashtra was created with Bombay as the capital. Mumbai is the financial, commercial and entertainment capital of India and it is also home to some of Indias premier scientific and nuclear institutes like BARC, NPCL, IREL, TIFR, AERB, AECI, and the Department of Atomic Energy. The city also houses Indias Hindi and Marathi film and television industry, Mumbais business opportunities, as well as its potential to offer a higher standard of living, attract migrants from all over India, making the city a melting pot of many communities and cultures. The oldest known names for the city are Kakamuchee and Galajunkja, in 1508, Portuguese writer Gaspar Correia used the name Bombaim, in his Lendas da Índia. This name possibly originated as the Old Portuguese phrase bom baim, meaning good little bay, in 1516, Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa used the name Tana-Maiambu, Tana appears to refer to the adjoining town of Thane and Maiambu to Mumbadevi. Other variations recorded in the 16th and the 17th centuries include, Mombayn, Bombay, Bombain, Bombaym, Monbaym, Mombaim, Mombaym, Bambaye, Bombaiim, Bombeye, Boon Bay, and Bon Bahia. After the English gained possession of the city in the 17th century, Ali Muhammad Khan, imperial diwan or revenue minister of the Gujarat province, in the Mirat-i-Ahmedi referred to the city as Manbai. By the late 20th century, the city was referred to as Mumbai or Mambai in the Indian statewise official languages of Marathi, Konkani, Gujarati, Kannada and Sindhi, the Government of India officially changed the English name to Mumbai in November 1995. According to Slate magazine, they argued that Bombay was a corrupted English version of Mumbai, Slate also said The push to rename Bombay was part of a larger movement to strengthen Marathi identity in the Maharashtra region. A resident of Mumbai is called mumbaikar in the Marathi language, the term has been in use for quite some time but it gained popularity after the official name change to Mumbai. Mumbai is built on what was once an archipelago of seven islands, Bombay Island, Parel, Mazagaon, Mahim, Colaba, Worli and it is not exactly known when these islands were first inhabited
19.
Surat
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Surat, is a port city previously known as Suryapur. It is the capital and former princely state in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is the eighth largest city and ninth largest urban agglomeration in India, Surat is the 3rd cleanest city of India, and 4th fastest growing city of the world. Surat is famous for its food, textile, and diamonds, Surat polishes over 90 percent of the worlds rough diamond. It is the capital of the Surat district. The city is located 284 kilometres south of the capital, Gandhinagar,265 kilometres south of Ahmedabad. The city centre is located 22 km south of the Tapti River, a moat divides the older parts of the city, with their narrow streets and historical houses, from the newer suburbs. Surat had a population of 4.5 million at the 2011 census, making it the second largest city in the state of Gujarat and it is the eighth largest city and ninth largest urban agglomeration of India. Surat is the 34th-largest city by area and 4th-fastest developing cities in a study conducted by the City Mayors Foundation, the city registered an annualised GDP growth rate of 11.5 per cent over the seven fiscal years between 2001 and 2008. Surat was awarded best city by the Annual Survey of Indias City-Systems in 2013, Surat is selected as the first smart IT city in India which is being constituted by the Microsoft CityNext Initiative tied up with IT services majors Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro. The city has 2.97 million internet users which is about 65% of total population, Surat was selected in 2015 for an IBM Smarter Cities Challenge grant. Surat has been selected as one of twenty Indian cities to be developed as a city under PM Narendra Modis flagship Smart Cities Mission. Surat is mentioned in Sanskrit epic, the Mahābhārata, when Lord Krishna stopped there on his way from Mathura to Dwarka, the Parsis began to settle there in the 8th century. Local Hindu traditions state that the city was founded in the last years of the fifteenth century A. C. E. by a Brahman named Gopi, in 1512 and again in 1530 Surat was ravaged by the Portuguese Empire. In 1513, the Portuguese traveller Duarte Barbosa described Surat as an important seaport, frequented by ships from Malabar. By 1520, the name of the city was Surat, when the harbour in Cambay began to silt up toward the end of fifteenth century, Surat eclipsed Cambay as the major port of western India. At the end of the 16th century, the Portuguese were undisputed masters of the Surat sea trade, on the banks of the Tapti River, there is still a picturesque fortress that was built in 1540. In 1608, ships from the English East India Company started docking in Surat, using it as a trade, the city was made the seat of a presidency of the East India Company after the success of the embassy God of Wealth
20.
Alluvial plain
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An alluvial plain is a largely flat landform created by the deposition of sediment over a long period of time by one or more rivers coming from highland regions, from which alluvial soil forms. As the highlands due to weathering and water flow, the sediment from the hills is transported to the lower plain. Various creeks will carry the water further to a river, lake, bay, as the sediments are deposited during flood conditions in the floodplain of a creek, the elevation of the floodplain will be raised. As this reduces the channel capacity, the creek will, over time, seek new, lower paths. These processes, over time, will form the plain. The NCSS glossary instead suggests flood plain
21.
Teak
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Teak is a tropical hardwood tree species placed in the flowering plant family Lamiaceae. Tectona grandis is a large, deciduous tree that occurs in mixed hardwood forests and it has small, fragrant white flowers and large papery leaves that are often hairy on the lower surface. It is sometimes known as the Burmese teak, Teak wood has a leather-like smell when it is freshly milled. It is particularly valued for its durability and water resistance, and is used for building, exterior construction, veneer, furniture, carving, turnings. Myanmars teak forests account for half of the worlds naturally occurring teak. Molecular studies show there are two centres of genetic origin of teak, one in India and the other in Myanmar. CP teak is a description of teak from the states of India. Nagpur teak is another regional Indian teak and it produces small, white flowers arranged in dense clusters at the end of the branches. Flowers contain both types of reproductive organs The word teak comes from, Tamil tekku, Malayalam word thekku, the plant is known as Thekka in Sinhala by Sri Lankan people. Teak is a large, deciduous tree up to 40 m tall with gray to grayish brown branches, leaves are ovate-elliptic to ovate, 15–45 cm long by 8–23 cm wide, and are held on robust petioles that are 2–4 cm long. Fragrant white flowers are borne on 25–40 cm long by 30 cm wide panicles from June to August, the corolla tube is 2. 5–3 mm long with 2 mm wide obtuse lobes. Tectona grandis sets fruit from September to December, fruits are globose and 1. 2-1.8 cm in diameter, flowers are weakly protandrous in that the anthers precede the stigma in maturity and pollen is shed within a few hours of the flower opening. The flowers are entomophilous, but can occasionally be anemophilous. A1996 study found that in its range in Thailand. Heartwood is brownish red in colour, sometimes there are dark patches on it. There is a scent in newly cut wood. Sapwood is whitish to yellowish brown in colour. It can easily separate from heartwood, wood texture is hard and ring porous
22.
Leopard
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The leopard /ˈlɛpərd/ is one of the five big cats in the genus Panthera. It is a member of the family Felidae with a range in sub-Saharan Africa. Fossil records suggest that in the Late Pleistocene it occurred in Europe, compared to other members of Felidae, the leopard has relatively short legs and a long body with a large skull. It is similar in appearance to the jaguar, but has a smaller, lighter physique. Its fur is marked with similar to those of the jaguar, but the leopards rosettes are smaller and more densely packed. Both leopards and jaguars that are melanistic are known as black panthers, the leopard is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List because leopard populations are threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation, and are declining in large parts of the global range. In Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuwait, Syria, Libya, Tunisia and most likely in Morocco, leopards are hunted illegally, and their body parts are smuggled in the wildlife trade for medicinal practices and decoration. The common name leopard /ˈlɛ. pərd/ is a Greek compound of λέων leōn, the name reflects the fact that in antiquity, a leopard was believed to be a hybrid of a lion and a panther. The Greek word is related to Sanskrit पृदाकु pṛdāku, and probably derives from a Mediterranean language, the name was first used in the 13th century. Other vernacular names for the leopard include graupanther, panther and several names such as tendwa in India. The term black panther refers to leopards with melanistic genes, the scientific name of the leopard is Panthera pardus. The generic name Panthera derives from Latin via Greek πάνθηρ, the term panther, whose first recorded use dates back to the 13th century AD, generally refers to the leopard, and less often to the cougar and the jaguar. Alternative origins suggested for Panthera include an Indo-Iranian word meaning white-yellow or pale, in Sanskrit, this could have been derived from पाण्डर pāṇḍara, which in turn comes from पुण्डरीक puṇḍárīka. The specific name pardus is derived from the Greek πάρδος, the leopard is one of the five extant species of the genus Panthera, which also includes the jaguar, the lion, the snow leopard and the tiger. This genus, along with the genus Neofelis - which consists of the clouded leopard, the leopard was first described by Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae. Linnaeus named the leopard as Felis pardus, placing it in the genus Felis along with the cat, the jaguar, the Eurasian lynx, the lion, the ocelot. In the 18th and 19th centuries, most naturalists and taxonomists followed his example, in 1816, Lorenz Oken proposed a definition of the genus Panthera, with a subgenus Panthera using F. pardus as a type species. Okens classification, however, was not widely accepted, and until the early 20th century continued using Felis or Leopardus when describing leopard subspecies, in 1916, British zoologist Reginald Innes Pocock accorded Panthera generic rank defining Panthera pardus as species
23.
Wildcat
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The wildcat is a small cat native to most of Africa, Europe, and Southwest and Central Asia into India, western China, and Mongolia. Because of its range it is assessed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List since 2002. However, crossbreeding of wildcat and domestic cat occurs in particular in Europe and is considered a threat for the preservation of the wild species. The wildcat shows a degree of geographic variation. Whereas the Asiatic wildcat is spotted, the African wildcat is striped, has short sandy-grey fur, banded legs, red-backed ears. The European wildcat is striped, has long fur and a tail with a rounded tip. The wildcat is the ancestor of the domestic cat, genetic, morphological and archaeological evidence suggests that domestication of Old-World wildcats began approximately 7500 years BCE in the Fertile Crescent region of the Near East. Until 2007, twenty-two subspecies of wildcat were recognised, since publication of results of a phylogeographical analysis, only five subspecific groups have been suggested, including the Chinese mountain cat. In 1778, Johann von Schreber described the European wildcat using the scientific name Felis silvestris, in subsequent decades, several naturalists and explorers described wildcats from European, African and Asian countries. As of 2005,22 subspecies were recognised by Mammal Species of the World and they were divided into three groups, Forest wildcats. The domestic cat is thought to have derived from this group, the subspecies jordansi, reyi, cretensis, and the European and North African populations of lybica represent transitional forms between the forest and bay wildcat groups. Based on results of an analysis, scientists proposed in 2007 to recognise the five subspecies F. s. lybica, F. s. ornata, F. s. silvestris, F. s. cafra. The first four are recognised by International Union for Conservation of Nature as subspecies of F. silvestris, the wildcats direct ancestor was Felis lunensis, or Martellis wildcat, which lived in Europe as early as the late Pliocene. Fossil remains of the wildcat are common in deposits dating from the last ice age. At some point during the Late Pleistocene, the migrated from Europe into the Middle East. Within possibly 10,000 years, the wildcat spread eastwards into Asia. The wildcats closest living relatives are the cat, the Chinese mountain cat, the jungle cat. As a whole, the wildcat represents a less specialised form than the sand cat
24.
Striped hyena
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The striped hyena is a species of hyaena native to North and East Africa, the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. It is the smallest of the hyenas and retains many primitive viverrid characteristics lost in larger species, having a smaller. Though primarily a scavenger, large specimens have been known to kill their own prey, the striped hyena is a monogamous animal, with both males and females assisting one another in raising their cubs. A nocturnal animal, the striped hyena typically only emerges in complete darkness, although it has a habit of feigning death when attacked, it has been known to stand its ground against larger predators in disputes over food. The striped hyena features prominently in Middle Eastern and Asian folklore, in some areas, its body parts are considered magical, and are used as charms or talismans. It is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, where it is referred to as tzebua or zevoa, the species may have evolved from H. namaquensis of Pliocene Africa. Striped hyena fossils are common in Africa, with going back as far as the Middle Pleistocene. The striped hyena occurred for some time in Europe during the Pleistocene, having been widespread in France. It also occurred in Montmaurin, Hollabrunn in Austria, the Furninha Cave in Portugal, the European form was similar in appearance to modern populations, but was larger, being comparable in size to the brown hyena. The striped hyena has a massive, but short torso set on long legs. The hind legs are shorter than the forelimbs, thus causing the back to slope downwards. The legs are thin and weak, with the forelegs being bent at the carpal region. The neck is thick, long and largely immobile, while the head is heavy, the eyes are small, while the sharply pointed ears are very large, broad and set high on the head. Like all hyenas, the striped hyena has bulky pads on its paws, as well as blunt, the tail is short and the terminal hairs do not descend below the achilles tendon. The striped hyena lacks the enlarged clitoris and false scrotal sack noted in the genitalia of the spotted hyena. The female has 3 pairs of nipples, adult weight can range from 22 to 55 kg, averaging at about 35 kg. Body length can range from 85 to 130 cm, not counting a tail of 25 to 40 cm, the male has a large pouch of naked skin located at the anal opening. Large anal glands open into it from above the anus, several sebaceous glands are present between the openings of the anal glands and above them
25.
Golden jackal
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The golden jackal is a canid native to southeastern and central Europe, Asia Minor, the Middle East and South Asia. It is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List, due to its range in areas with optimum food. It is a species, the basic social unit of which consists of a breeding pair. The golden jackal is very adaptable, being able to exploit many foodstuffs, from fruit, although similar to a small grey wolf, the golden jackal is distinguished by a more slender build, a narrower, more pointed muzzle, a shorter tail, and a lighter tread. Its winter fur differs from a wolfs by its more fulvous-reddish colour. Despite its name, the jackal is not closely related to black-backed or side-striped jackals, being instead more closely related to grey wolves, coyotes. It is capable of producing fertile hybrids with both grey and African wolves, in contrast, in Europe it is largely viewed in a negative light as a filthy scavenger, whose presence is indicative of environmental degradation. The word jackal first appeared in English around 1600, and is derived from the French chacal, itself ultimately traceable to the Sanskrit srgala-s, other names for the species include Eurasian golden jackal, common jackal, Asiatic jackal or reed wolf. The golden jackal is very similar to the wolf in general appearance. The end of the tail just reaches the heel or slightly below it, the head is lighter than the wolfs, with a less-prominent forehead, and the muzzle is narrower and more pointed. Males measure 71–85 cm in length, with females being somewhat smaller. It stands 44. 5–50 cm in height, and weighs around 6–14 kg. Its skull is similar to the wolfs, but is smaller and less massive, with a lower nasal region, the projections of the skull are strongly developed, but weaker than the wolfs. Its canine teeth are large and strong, but relatively thinner than the wolfs, occasionally, it develops a horny growth on the skull, which is associated with magical powers in southeastern Asia. This horn usually measures half an inch in length, and is concealed by fur, the iris is light or dark brownish. Females have 5 pairs of teats, the furs base colour is golden, though this varies seasonally from pale creamy yellow to dark tawny. The fur on the back consists of a mixture of black, brown and white hairs. Animals from high elevations tend to have buffier coats than their lowland counterparts, the underparts and belly are of a lighter pale ginger to cream colour than the back
26.
Nilgai
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The nilgai or blue bull is the largest Asian antelope and is endemic to the Indian subcontinent. The sole member of the genus Boselaphus, the species was described, the nilgai stands 1–1.5 metres at the shoulder, males weigh 109–288 kilograms, and the lighter females 100–213 kilograms. A column of pendant coarse hair hangs from the ridge below the white patch. Sexual dimorphism is prominent – while females and juveniles are orange to tawny, only males possess horns, 15–24 centimetres long. The animals band together in three kinds of groups, one or two females with young calves, three to six adult and yearling females with calves, and all-male groups with two to 18 members. Typically tame, the nilgai may appear timid and cautious if harassed or alarmed, it flees up to 300 metres -or even 700 metres, herbivores, nilgai prefer grasses and herbs, though they commonly eat woody plants in the dry tropical forests of India. Females become sexually mature by two years, while males do not become active until four or five years old. The time of the year when mating takes place varies geographically, gestation lasts eight to nine months, following which a single calf is born. As typical of several species, nilgai calves stay hidden for the first few weeks of their lives. The lifespan of the nilgai is around ten years, nilgai prefer areas with short bushes and scattered trees in scrub forests and grassy plains. They are common in agricultural lands, but hardly occur in dense forest, major populations occur in the Terai lowlands in the foothills of the Himalayas, but the antelope is sparsely found in Nepal and Pakistan and is extinct in Bangladesh. Nilgai were first introduced to Texas in the 1920s and the 1930s, as of 2008, the feral population in Texas is nearly 37,000. The nilgai is categorised as Least Concern by the IUCN, the nilgai has been associated with Indian culture since the Vedic period. Hindus revere the nilgai as sacred and associate it with the cow and they were hunted in the Mughal era and are depicted in numerous miniatures. Nilgai have been considered a pest in several north Indian states, as they ravage crop fields, in Bihar, authorities have classified the nilgai as vermin. The vernacular name comes from the fusion of the Sanskrit word nil. The word was first recorded in use in 1882, alternative origins could be from the Sanskrit gabhih, or Persian gaw. The nilgai has been referred to by a variety of names, neelghae, nilgau, nilgo, nylghau and they are also known as white-footed antelope
27.
Four-horned antelope
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The four-horned antelope, or chousingha, is a small antelope found in India and Nepal. This antelope has four horns, which distinguish it from most other bovids, the sole member of the genus Tetracerus, the species was first described by French zoologist Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville in 1816. The four-horned antelope stands nearly 55–64 centimetres at the shoulder and weighs nearly 17–22 kilograms, slender with thin legs and a short tail, the four-horned antelope has a yellowish brown to reddish coat. One pair of horns is located between the ears, and the other on the forehead, the posterior horns are always longer than the anterior horns, which might be mere fur-covered studs. While the posterior horns measure 8–12 centimetres, the ones are 2–5 centimetres long. Though solitary by nature, four-horned antelopes may form groups of three to five –with one or more adults, sometimes accompanied by juveniles. This elusive antelope feeds on grasses, herbs, shrubs, foliage, flowers and it needs to drink water frequently, as such it stays in places near water sources. The breeding behaviour of the four-horned antelope has not been well studied, the age at which they reach sexual maturity and the season when mating occurs have not been understood well. Gestation lasts about eight months, following one or two calves are born. They are kept concealed for the first few weeks of their birth, the young remain with the mother for about a year. Four-horned antelopes tend to inhabit areas with significant grass cover or heavy undergrowth, earlier common throughout deciduous forests in India, the antelope now occurs in widely disjunct, small populations. Most of the populations are in India, and lower numbers can be found in adjoining Nepal, the four-horned antelope is threatened by the loss of its natural habitat due to agricultural expansion. Moreover, the unusual four-horned skull and the horns have been a target for trophy hunters. The four-horned antelope is classified as Vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the scientific name of the four-horned antelope is Tetracerus quadricornis. The generic name Tetracerus is the combination of two Greek words, tetra and ceros, the specific name quadricornis is derived from two Latin words, quadri and cornu. The four-horned antelope is known by several names, chausingha, chowsingha, chousingha, doda, ghutri, kondu kuri, chauka. The four-horned antelope is the member of the genus Tetracerus. The species was first described by French zoologist Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville in 1816, the four-horned antelope has only one other relative in the tribe Boselaphini, the nilgai
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Sambar deer
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The sambar is a large deer native to the Indian subcontinent, southern China and Southeast Asia. Although it primarily refers to R. unicolor, the sambar is also sometimes used to refer to the Philippine deer. The name is also spelled sambur or sambhur, in general, they attain a height of 102 to 160 centimetres at the shoulder and may weigh as much as 546 kg, though more typically 100 to 350 kg. Head and body length varies from 1.62 to 2.7 m, individuals belonging to western subspecies tend to be larger than those from the east and females are smaller than males. Among all living species, only the moose and the elk can attain larger sizes. The large, rugged antlers are typically rusine, the brow tines being simple, the antlers are typically up to 110 cm long in fully adult individuals. As with most deer, only the males have antlers, the shaggy coat can be anything from yellowish brown to dark grey in colour and, while it is usually uniform in colour, some subspecies have chestnut marks on the rump and underparts. Sambar also have a small but dense mane, which tends to be prominent in males. The tail is long for deer, and is generally black above with a whitish underside. Adult males and pregnant or lactating females possess an unusual hairless and this sometimes oozes a white liquid, and is apparently glandular in nature. In the Himalayan foothills, Myanmar and eastern Taiwan it ranges up to 3,500 m, the sambar prefers the dense cover of deciduous shrubs and grasses, although the exact nature of this varies enormously with the environment, because of their wide range across southern Asia. Home range sizes are probably equally variable, but have recorded as 1,500 ha for males and 300 ha for females in India. Sambar feed on a variety of vegetation, including grasses, foliage, browse, fruit. They also consume a variety of shrubs and trees. They are a prey item for tigers and Asiatic lions. In India, the sambar can comprise up to nearly 60% of the selected by the Bengal tiger. Anecdotally, the tiger is said to mimic the call of the sambar to deceive it while hunting. They also can be taken by crocodiles, mostly the sympatric mugger crocodiles, leopards and dholes largely prey on only young or sickly deer, though they can attack healthy adults as well
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Chital
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The chital or cheetal, also known as spotted deer or axis deer, is a deer found in the Indian subcontinent. The species was first described by German naturalist Johann Christian Polycarp Erxleben in 1777, a moderate-sized deer, male chital reach nearly 90 centimetres and females 70 centimetres at the shoulder. While males weigh 30–75 kilograms, the females weigh 25–45 kilograms. The species is dimorphic, males are larger than females. The upper parts are golden to rufous, completely covered in white spots, the abdomen, rump, throat, insides of legs, ears and tail are all white. The antlers, three-pronged, are nearly 1 metre long, the scientific name of the chital is Axis axis. Axis has several origins, the Greek axōn, the Lithuanian ašis. The vernacular name chital is derived from the Hindi cītal or from the Sanskrit citrala, another possible origin is from the Sanskrit citra which means bright or spotted. The name of the cheetah has a similar origin, other names for the chital are cheetal, cheetul, Indian spotted deer or simply the spotted deer, and axis deer. The chital is the member of the genus Axis and is classified under the family Cervidae. The species was first described by German naturalist Johann Christian Polycarp Erxleben in 1777, earlier, Hyelaphus – comprising the Bawean deer, the Calamian deer and the hog deer – was considered a subgenus of Axis. However Hyelaphus has now elevated to generic status a 2004 phylogenetic study showed that Hyelaphus is closer to the genus Rusa than Axis. The study showed that Axis is paraphyletic, and distant from Hyelaphus in the phylogenetic tree, the chital forms a clade with Rucervus duvaucelii and R. schomburgki. The chital diverged from the Rucervus lineage in the early Pliocene, a 2002 study shows that Axis shansius, followed by A. lyra, is the earliest ancestor in the A. axis lineage. Axis is no longer considered a subgenus of Cervus, a 1951 paper identified two subspecies of the chital, A. a. axis and A. a. ceylonensis. The validity of these, however, is disputed, the chital is a moderately sized deer. Males reach nearly 90 centimetres and females 70 centimetres at the shoulder, while males weigh 30–75 kilograms, the lighter females weigh 25–45 kilograms. Exceptionally large males can weigh up to 98 to 110 kg, the tail,20 centimetres long, is marked by a dark stripe that stretches along its length
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Safari
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A safari /səˈfɑːri/ is an overland journey, usually a trip by tourists to Africa. In the past, the trip was often a big-game hunt, the Swahili word safari means journey, originally from the Arabic سفر meaning a journey, the verb for to travel in Swahili is kusafiri. These words are used for any type of journey, e. g. by bus from Nairobi to Mombasa or by ferry from Dar es Salaam to Unguja, Safari entered the English language at the end of the 1850s thanks to Richard Francis Burton, the famous explorer. The Regimental March of the Kings African Rifles was Funga Safari, literally tie up the March, or, in other words, Amri ya Bwana Kapteni, Amri ya KAR. Which is, in English, Prepare to March, Prepare to March, on the order of the boss captain, On the order of the KAR. On Kenyas independence from Britain, Funga Safari was retained as the Regimental March of the Kenya Rifles, in 1836 William Cornwallis Harris led an expedition purely to observe and record wildlife and landscapes by the expeditions members. These two books gave rise to a genre of Safari adventure novels and films, ernest Hemingway wrote several fiction and non-fiction pieces about African safaris. His short stories The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber and The Snows of Kilimanjaro are set on African safaris and were written after Hemingways own experience on safari and his books Green Hills of Africa and True at First Light are both set on African safaris. The safari provided countless hours of entertainment in sound films from Trader Horn onwards. The safari was used in adventure films such as the Tarzan, Jungle Jim, and Bomba the Jungle Boy film series up to The Naked Prey where Cornel Wilde. The safari genre films were parodied in the Bob Hope comedies Road to Zanzibar, a short 15-minute helicopter safari was shown in Africa Addio where clients are armed, flown from their hotel and landed in front of an unlucky and baffled elephant. There is a theme or style associated with the word, which includes khaki clothing, belted bush jackets, pith helmets or slouch hats. The term safari chic arose after the release of the film Out of Africa and this not only included clothing but also interior design and architecture
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Eco-tourism
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It means responsible travel to natural areas conserving the environment and improving the well being of the local people. Since the 1980s, ecotourism has been considered a critical endeavor by environmentalists, several university programs use this description as the working definition of ecotourism. Generally, ecotourism deals with interaction with components of the natural environments. Ecotourism focuses on responsible travel, personal growth, and environmental sustainability. Ecotourism typically involves travel to destinations where flora, fauna, Ecotourism is intended to offer tourists insight into the impact of human beings on the environment, and to foster a greater appreciation of our natural habitats. Responsible ecotourism programs include those that minimize the negative aspects of tourism on the environment. For these reasons, ecotourism often appeals to advocates of environmental and social responsibility, the term ecotourism, like sustainable tourism, is considered by many to be an oxymoron. Like most forms of tourism, ecotourism generally depends on air transportation, additionally, the overall effect of sustainable tourism is negative, where, like ecotourism, philanthropic aspirations mask hard-nosed immediate self-interest. An ecotourist is different from a tourist in the sense that, he or she is mindful of his environment, Ecotourism is a responsible tourism which conserves the environment and sustains the well being of local people. For many countries, ecotourism is not simply a marginal activity to finance protection of the environment, for example, in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Nepal, Kenya, Madagascar and territories such as Antarctica, ecotourism represents a significant portion of the gross domestic product and economic activity. Ecotourism is often misinterpreted as any form of tourism that involves nature, self-proclaimed practitioners and hosts of ecotourism experiences assume it is achieved by simply creating destinations in natural areas. According to critics of this commonplace and assumptive practice, true ecotourism must, above all, sensitize people to the beauty and these critics condemn some operators as greenwashing their operations, using the labels of green and eco-friendly”, while behaving in environmentally irresponsible ways. Currently, there are moves to create national and international ecotourism accreditation programs. National ecotourism certification programs have been put in place in such as Costa Rica, Australia, Kenya, Estonia. Ecotourism is a late 20th-century neologism compounded from eco- and tourism, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, ecotour was first recorded in 1973 and ecotourism, probably after ecotour, in 1982. One source claims the terms were used earlier, claus-Dieter Hetzer, an academic and adventurer from Forum International in Berkeley, CA, supposedly coined ecotourism in 1965 and ran the first ecotours in the Yucatán during the early 1970s. The failure to acknowledge responsible, low-impact ecotourism puts legitimate ecotourism companies at a competitive disadvantage, many environmentalists have argued for a global standard of accreditation, differentiating ecotourism companies based on their level of environmental commitment, creating a standard to follow. The decisions of the board would be sanctioned by governments, so that non-compliant companies would be required to disassociate themselves from the use of the ecotourism brand
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Buffer zone
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A buffer zone is generally a zonal area that lies between two or more other areas, but depending on the type of buffer zone, the reason for it may be to segregate regions or to conjoin them. Common types of zones are demilitarized zones, border zones and certain restrictive easement zones. Such zones may be, but not necessarily be, comprised by a sovereign state, Buffer zones have various purposes, political or otherwise. Buffer zones often result in large uninhabited regions which are noteworthy in many increasingly developed or crowded parts of the world. For use in conservation, a buffer zone is often created to enhance the protection of areas under management for their biodiversity importance. A buffer zone can also be one of the protected area categories or a classification depending on the conservation objective. The importance and function of a zone and the necessary protective measures derived thereof is a relatively new concept in conservation science. Buffer state Demilitarized zone March Cordon sanitaire Seam Zone Buffer strip United Nations Buffer Zone in Cyprus The World Heritage Convention, kyushu University Graduate School of Law - Programs in English. World Heritage and Buffer Zones Patrimoine mondial et zones tampons, international Expert Meeting on World Heritage and Buffer Zones, Davos, Switzerland 11–14 March 2008. Buffer zones are an important tool for conservation of properties inscribed on the World Heritage List
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Indian Ocean
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The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the worlds oceanic divisions, covering 70,560,000 km2. It is bounded by Asia on the north, on the west by Africa, on the east by Australia, the Indian Ocean is known as Ratnākara, the mine of gems in ancient Sanskrit literature, and as Hind Mahāsāgar, in Hindi. The northernmost extent of the Indian Ocean is approximately 30° north in the Persian Gulf, the oceans continental shelves are narrow, averaging 200 kilometres in width. An exception is found off Australias western coast, where the width exceeds 1,000 kilometres. The average depth of the ocean is 3,890 m and its deepest point is Diamantina Deep in Diamantina Trench, at 8,047 m deep, Sunda Trench has a depth of 7, 258–7,725 m. North of 50° south latitude, 86% of the basin is covered by pelagic sediments. The remaining 14% is layered with terrigenous sediments, glacial outwash dominates the extreme southern latitudes. The major choke points include Bab el Mandeb, Strait of Hormuz, the Lombok Strait, the Strait of Malacca, the Indian Ocean is artificially connected to the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal, which is accessible via the Red Sea. All of the Indian Ocean is in the Eastern Hemisphere and the centre of the Eastern Hemisphere is in this ocean, marginal seas, gulfs, bays and straits of the Indian Ocean include, The climate north of the equator is affected by a monsoon climate. Strong north-east winds blow from October until April, from May until October south, in the Arabian Sea the violent Monsoon brings rain to the Indian subcontinent. In the southern hemisphere, the winds are milder. When the monsoon winds change, cyclones sometimes strike the shores of the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean is the warmest ocean in the world. Long-term ocean temperature records show a rapid, continuous warming in the Indian Ocean, Indian Ocean warming is the largest among the tropical oceans, and about 3 times faster than the warming observed in the Pacific. Research indicates that human induced greenhouse warming, and changes in the frequency, among the few large rivers flowing into the Indian Ocean are the Zambezi, Shatt al-Arab, Indus, Godavari, Krishna, Narmada, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Jubba and Irrawaddy River. The oceans currents are controlled by the monsoon. Two large gyres, one in the northern hemisphere flowing clockwise and one south of the equator moving anticlockwise, during the winter monsoon, however, currents in the north are reversed. Deep water circulation is controlled primarily by inflows from the Atlantic Ocean, the Red Sea, north of 20° south latitude the minimum surface temperature is 22 °C, exceeding 28 °C to the east. Southward of 40° south latitude, temperatures drop quickly, surface water salinity ranges from 32 to 37 parts per 1000, the highest occurring in the Arabian Sea and in a belt between southern Africa and south-western Australia
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Cherrapunji
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Cherrapunji is a subdivisional town in the East Khasi Hills district in the Indian state of Meghalaya. It is the capital of the Nongkhlaw hima known as Sohra or Churra. Cherrapunji is credited as being the wettest place on Earth, the original name for this town was Sohra, which was pronounced Churra by the British. This name eventually evolved into the current name, Cherrapunji, meaning land of oranges, despite perennial rainfall, Cherrapunji faces an acute water shortage and the inhabitants often have to trek very long distances to obtain potable water. Irrigation is also hampered due to rain washing away the topsoil as a result of human encroachment into the forests. The Meghalaya state government has renamed Cherrapunjee back to its original name, there is a monument to David Scott in the Cherrapunji cemetery. The history of the Khasi people – native inhabitants of Cherrapunji – may be traced from the part of the 16th century. Between the 16th and 18th centuries these people were ruled by theor tribal Syiems of Khyriem in the Khasi Hills, the Khasis hills came under British authority in 1883 with the submission of the last of the important Syiems, Tirot Sing. The main pivot on which the superstructure of Khasi society rests is the matrilineal system. Sohra or Cherrapunji is located at 25. 30°N91. 70°E /25.30,91.70 and it has an average elevation of 1,484 metres and sits on a plateau in the southern part of the Khasi Hills, facing the plains of Bangladesh. The plateau rises 600 meters above the surrounding valleys, soils on the plateau are poor owing to deforestation and washout caused by heavy rainfall. Owing to winter droughts, the vegetation in this location is even xerophytic in spite of the fame of Cherrapunji as a wet place. Additional pressure on local ecosystems is created by the increase of the population — from a Sohra-area population of 7,000 in 1960. Valleys around Cherrapunji, however, are covered with lush and very diverse vegetation, containing numerous species of plants. Although there is heavy rainfall in Cherrapunji, there is a scarcity of clean water. The Shillong Plateau is an uplifted horst-like feature, bounded by the E-W Main Boundary Thrust to the North, the N-S Jamuna fault in the west, Sohra or Cherrapunji has a mild subtropical highland climate, with monsoonal influences typical of India. The citys yearly rainfall average stands at 11,777 millimetres and this figure places it behind only nearby Mawsynram, Meghalaya, whose average is 11,873 millimetres. Cherrapunji receives both the southwest and northeast monsoonal winds, giving it a single monsoon season and it lies on the windward side of the Khasi Hills, so the resulting orographic lift enhances precipitation
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Thar Desert
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The Thar Desert, also known as the Great Indian Desert, is a large, arid region in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent that forms a natural boundary between India and Pakistan. It is the worlds 17th largest desert, and the worlds 9th largest subtropical desert, about 85% of the Thar Desert is in India, and the remaining part in Pakistan. In India, it covers about 320,000 km2, forming approximately 10% of the geographic area of India. More than 60% of the lies in the state of Rajasthan and extends into Gujarat, Punjab. This desert comprises a very dry part, the Marusthali region in the west, the Thar Desert extends between the Aravalli Hills in the north-east, the Great Rann of Kutch along the coast and the alluvial plains of the Indus River in the west and north-west. Most of the desert is covered by shifting sand dunes that receive sediments from the alluvial plains. The sand is highly due to strong winds occurring before the onset of the monsoon. The Luni River is the only integrated into the desert. Rainfall is limited to 100–500 mm per year, mostly falling from July to September, salt water lakes in the Thar Desert include the Sambhar, Kuchaman, Didwana in Rajasthan and Kharaghoda in Gujarat. These lakes receive rain water during monsoon and evaporate during the dry season, the salt is derived by the weathering of rocks in the region. Lithic tools belonging to the prehistoric Aterian culture of the Maghreb have been discovered in Middle Paleolithic deposits in the Thar Desert, the soil of the Thar Desert remains dry for much of the year and is prone to wind erosion. High velocity winds blow soil from the desert, depositing some on neighboring fertile lands, the 649 km long Indira Gandhi Canal brings fresh water to the Thar Desert. It was conceived to halt spreading of the desert to fertile areas, there are few local tree species suitable for planting in the desert, which are slow growing. Therefore, exotic species were introduced for plantation. Many species of Eucalyptus, Acacia, Cassia and other genera from Israel, Australia, US, Russia, Zimbabwe, Chile, Peru and Sudan have been tried in Thar Desert. Acacia tortilis has proved to be the most promising species for desert afforestation, there are several protected areas in the Thar Desert. In India, the Desert National Park covers 3,162 km2 and represents the Thar Desert ecosystem and its diverse fauna includes the great Indian bustard, blackbuck, chinkara, fox, Bengal fox, wolf, and caracal. Seashells and massive fossilized tree trunks in this record the geological history of the desert
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Rajput
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Rajput is a member of the patrilineal clans of the Indian subcontinent. They rose to prominence from the late 6th century AD and had a significant role in regions of central. The Rajput population and the former Rajput states are found spread across India where they are spread in north, west, in Pakistan they are found on the eastern parts of the country. These areas include Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Jammu, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, the origin of the Rajputs is the subject of debate. Writers such as M. S. Naravane and V. P, one theory espouses that with the collapse of the Gupta empire from the late 6th century, the invading Hephthalites were probably integrated within Indian society. At the same time, some tribes were ranked as Rajput, examples of which are the Bhatis, Bundelas, Chandelas. Actually vary greatly in status, from princely lineages, such as the Guhilot and Kachwaha, aydogdy Kurbanov says that the assimilation was specifically between the Hephthalites, Gurjars, and people from northwestern India, forming the Rajput community. Pradeep Barua also believes that Rajputs have foreign origins, he says their practice of asserting Kshatriya status was followed by other Indian groups thereby establishing themselves as Rajputs. Thereafter, in the late 12th century Muhammad of Ghor attempted to invade Gujarat but was defeated by the Chaulukya dynasty of Rajputs. The Rajput kingdoms were disparate, loyalty to a clan was more important than allegiance to the wider Rajput social grouping, meaning that one clan would fight another. This and the jostling for position that took place when a clan leader died meant that Rajput politics were fluid. Even after the Muslim conquest of the regions in Punjab and the Ganges River valley, the Rajputs maintained their independence in Rajasthan and the forests of central India. Later, Sultan Alauddin Khilji of the Delhi Sultanate took the two Rajput forts of Chittor and Ranthambhor in eastern Rajasthan in the 14th century but could not hold them for long. In the 15th century, the Muslim sultans of Malwa Sultanate, accordingly, Rana Sanga came to be the most distinguished indigenous contender for supremacy but was defeated by the Mughal invader Babur at Battle of Khanwa in 1527. From as early as the 16th century, Purbiya Rajput soldiers from the regions of Bihar and Awadh, were recruited as mercenaries for Rajputs in the west. After the mid-16th century, many Rajput rulers formed close relationships with the Mughal emperors and it was due to the support of the Rajputs that Akbar was able to lay the foundations of the Mughal empire in India. Some Rajput nobles gave away their daughters in marriage to Mughal emperors, for example, Akbar accomplished 40 marriages for him, his sons and grandsons, out of which 17 were Rajput-Mughal alliances. Akbars successors as Mogul emperors, his son Jahangir and grandson Shah Jahan had Rajput mothers, the ruling Sisodia Rajput family of Mewar made it a point of honour not to engage in matrimonial relationships with mughals and thus claimed to stand apart from those Rajput clans who did so
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Rajasthan
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Rajasthan is Indias largest state by area. Elsewhere it is bordered by the other Indian states, Punjab to the north, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh to the northeast, Madhya Pradesh to the southeast, and Gujarat to the southwest. Rajasthan is also home to two national reserves, the Ranthambore National Park in Sawai Madhopur and Sariska Tiger Reserve in Alwar. The state was formed on 30 March 1949 when Rajputana – the name adopted by the British Raj for its dependencies in the region – was merged into the Dominion of India. Its capital and largest city is Jaipur, also known as Pink City, other important cities are Jodhpur, Udaipur, Bikaner, Kota and Ajmer. Parts of what is now Rajasthan were partly part of the Vedic Civilisation, kalibangan, in Hanumangarh district, was a major provincial capital of the Indus Valley Civilization. Matsya Kingdom of the Vedic civilisation of India, is said to roughly corresponded to the state of Jaipur in Rajasthan. The capital of Matsya was at Viratanagar, which is said to have named after its founder king Virata. Bhargava identifies the two districts of Jhunjhunu and Sikar and parts of Jaipur district along with Haryana districts of Mahendragarh, bhargava also locates the present day Sahibi River as the Vedic Drishadwati River, which along with Saraswati River formed the borders of the Vedic state of Brahmavarta. Manu and Bhrigu narrated the Manusmriti to a congregation of seers in this area only, the Indo-Scythians invaded the area of Ujjain and established the Saka era, marking the beginning of the long-lived Saka Western Satraps state. Gurjars ruled for many dynasties in this part of the country, up to the tenth century almost the whole of North India, acknowledged the supremacy of the Gurjars with their seat of power at Kannauj. The Gurjar Pratihar Empire acted as a barrier for Arab invaders from the 8th to the 11th century, the chief accomplishment of the Gurjara Pratihara empire lies in its successful resistance to foreign invasions from the west, starting in the days of Junaid. Majumdar says that this was acknowledged by the Arab writers. He further notes that historians of India have wondered at the progress of Muslim invaders in India. Traditionally the Rajputs, Jats, Meenas, REBARI, Gurjars, Bhils, Rajpurohit, Charans, Yadavs, Bishnois, Sermals, PhulMali, all these tribes suffered great difficulties in protecting their culture and the land. Millions of them were killed trying to protect their land, a number of Gurjars had been exterminated in Bhinmal and Ajmer areas fighting with the invaders. Meenas were rulers of Bundi, Hadoti and the Dhundhar region, hem Chandra Vikramaditya, the Hindu Emperor, was born in the village of Machheri in Alwar District in 1501. Hem Chandra was killed in the battlefield at Second Battle of Panipat fighting against Mughals on 5 November 1556, maharana Pratap of Mewar resisted Akbar in the famous Battle of Haldighati and later operated from hilly areas of his kingdom
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Dadra and Nagar Haveli travel guide from Wikivoyage
Dadra and Nagar Haveli UT
