1.
Atolls of the Maldives
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The Maldives are formed by a number of natural atolls plus atolls in the form of a few islands and isolated reefs today which form a pattern stretching from 7 degrees 10 North to 0 degrees 45 South. The Maldives is a long and narrow country formed by 26 natural atolls, some atolls are in the form of a number of islands by time and in the form of isolated reefs, which could be classified as smaller atoll formations. All land above the surface in the Maldives is of coralline origin, the atolls of the Maldives form a quite regular chain and, especially in the northern and central atolls, an arrayed structure is apparent. There are broad and deep channels in some atolls. The origin of the atoll itself is in the language of the Maldives. Atoll is now used in languages worldwide. Traditionally, Maldivians call the ending in -madulu or -mathi by their name without adding the word Atoll at the end. For example, it is correct to write simply Kolhumadulhu, without adding the word Atholhu at the end and this is also the case in the atoll known as Faadhippolhu. The atolls of the Maldives are very complex structures and formerly they were dangerous for navigators. These Admiralty charts were printed as three separate large maps by the Hydrographic Service of the Royal Navy, although they contain a few errors, Moresbys charts were so good that they were favoured by Maldivian pilots navigating through the treacherous waters of their atolls until the 1990s. Nowadays there are more accurate maps of the Maldives based on satellite surveys, however, Maldivian navigators still claim that Commander Moresbys charts provide a wealth of data that the modern maps dont give. At the time that they were drawn, the maps of the Maldives were deemed of such a quality that they were inspected personally by Queen Victoria. Owing to the many beautiful diving grounds of the atolls of the Maldives. Hence, during the last couple of decades many guides and maps of the best diving spots have been published and some of them are very accurate, the list below is a description of the atolls of the Maldives. Ihavandhippolhu Atoll is the northernmost atoll in the Maldives and it is a small natural atoll 22 km in length. It has 25 islands lying all around the boundary reef, one long barrier reef forms the western side of the atoll. There are several coral patches in the lagoon and the depth in the centre is 20 to 30 fathoms. Ihavandhippolhu is bounded in the north by the channel known as Māmalē Kandu which separates the islands of Maldives from those belonging to India
2.
Maldives
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The Maldives, officially the Republic of Maldives, is a South Asian island country, located in the Indian Ocean, situated in the Arabian Sea. It lies southwest of India and Sri Lanka, the chain of twenty-six atolls stretches from Ihavandhippolhu Atoll in the north to the Addu City in the south. Malé is the capital and most populated city, traditionally called the Kings Island for its central location. With an average elevation of 1.5 metres above sea level, it is the worlds lowest country, with even its highest natural point being the lowest in the world. Due to the subsequent risks posed by rising sea-levels, the government pledged in 2009 to make the Maldives a carbon-neutral country by 2019, the Maldives have been historically and culturally linked to the Indian subcontinent since the fourth century BCE. The Maldivian archipelago was Islamised in the 12th century and consolidated as a sultanate, developing commercial and cultural ties with Asia. From the mid 16th-century, the region came under the influence of European colonial powers. Independence from the United Kingdom was achieved in 1965 and a republic was established in 1968 with an elected Peoples Majlis. The ensuing decades have been characterised by political instability, efforts at democratic reform, the Maldives is a founding member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. It is also a member of the United Nations, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the World Bank classifies the Maldives as having an upper middle income economy. Fishing has historically been the dominant economic activity, and remains the largest sector by far, along with Sri Lanka, it is one of only two South Asian countries rated high on the Human Development Index, with its per capita income the highest among SAARC nations. The name Maldives may derive from the Malayalam words maala and dweepu or the Tamil maalai and theevu, the Maldivian people are called Dhivehin. The word theevu means island, and Dhives means islanders, the ancient Sri Lankan chronicle Mahawamsa refers to an island called Mahiladiva in Pali, which is probably a mistranslation of the same Sanskrit word meaning garland. Jan S Hogendorn, Grossman Professor of Economics, theorises that the name Maldives derives from the Sanskrit mālādvīpa, in Tamil, Garland of Islands can be translated as Malai Theevu. In Malayalam, Garland of Islands can be translated as Maladweepu, in Kannada, Garland of Islands can be translated as Maaledweepa. This is the name inscribed on the scroll in the Maldive state emblem. The classical Persian/Arabic name for Maldives is Dibajat, the Dutch referred to the islands as the Maldivische Eilanden, while the British anglicised the local name for the islands first to the Maldive Islands and later to Maldives. One such community are the Giraavaru people and they are mentioned in ancient legends and local folklore about the establishment of the capital and kingly rule in Malé
3.
South Asia
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Topographically, it is dominated by the Indian Plate, which rises above sea level as Nepal and northern parts of India situated south of the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush. South Asia is bounded on the south by the Indian Ocean and on land by West Asia, Central Asia, East Asia, the current territories of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka form the countries of South Asia. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation is an economic cooperation organisation in the region which was established in 1985, South Asia covers about 5.1 million km², which is 11. 51% of the Asian continent or 3. 4% of the worlds land surface area. The population of South Asia is about 1.749 billion or about one fourth of the worlds population, overall, it accounts for about 39. 49% of Asias population and is home to a vast array of peoples. The area of South Asia and its extent is not clear cut as systemic. Aside from the region of South Asia, formerly part of the British Empire, there is a high degree of variation as to which other countries are included in South Asia. Modern definitions of South Asia are consistent in including Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar is included by some scholars in South Asia, but in Southeast Asia by others. Some do not include Afghanistan, others question whether Afghanistan should be considered a part of South Asia or the Middle East, the mountain countries of Nepal and Bhutan, and the island countries of Sri Lanka and Maldives are generally included as well. Myanmar is often added, and by various deviating definitions based on often substantially different reasons, the British Indian Ocean Territory, the common concept of South Asia is largely inherited from the administrative boundaries of the British Raj, with several exceptions. The Aden Colony, British Somaliland and Singapore, though administered at various times under the Raj, have not been proposed as any part of South Asia. Additionally Burma was administered as part of the Raj until 1937, the 562 princely states that were protected by but not directly ruled by the Raj became administrative parts of South Asia upon joining Union of India or Dominion of Pakistan. China and Myanmar have also applied for the status of members of SAARC. This bloc of countries include two independent countries that were not part of the British Raj – Nepal, and Bhutan, Afghanistan was a British protectorate from 1878 until 1919, after the Afghans lost to the British in the Second Anglo-Afghan war. The United Nations Statistics Divisions scheme of sub-regions include all eight members of the SAARC as part of Southern Asia, population Information Network includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka as part of South Asia. Maldives, in view of its characteristics, was admitted as a member Pacific POPIN subregional network only in principle, the Hirschman–Herfindahl index of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific for the region includes only the original seven signatories of SAARC. The British Indian Ocean Territory is connected to the region by a publication of Janes for security considerations, the inclusion of Myanmar in South Asia is without consensus, with many considering it a part of southeast Asia and others including it within South Asia. Afghanistan was of importance to the British colonial empire, especially after the Second Anglo-Afghan War over 1878–1880, Afghanistan remained a British protectorate until 1919, when a treaty with Vladimir Lenin included the granting of independence to Afghanistan. Following Indias partition, Afghanistan has generally included in South Asia
4.
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
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.
Island
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An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, an island in a river or a lake island may be called an eyot or ait, and a small island off the coast may be called a holm. A grouping of geographically or geologically related islands is called an archipelago, an island may be described as such, despite the presence of an artificial land bridge. Example, Singapore and its causeway, or the various Dutch delta islands, there are two main types of islands in the sea, continental and oceanic. The word island derives from Middle English iland, from Old English igland, Old English ieg is actually a cognate of Swedish ö and German Aue, and related to Latin aqua. There is a difference between islands and continents in terms of geology, continents sit on continental lithosphere which is part of tectonic plates floating high on Earths mantle. Oceanic crust is also part of tectonic plates, but it is denser than continental lithosphere, Islands are either extensions of the oceanic crust or geologically they are part of some continent sitting on continental lithosphere. This holds true for Australia, which sits on its own continental lithosphere, continental islands are bodies of land that lie on the continental shelf of a continent. A special type of island is the microcontinental island, which is created when a continent is rifted. Examples are Madagascar and Socotra off Africa, the Kerguelen Islands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, another subtype is an island or bar formed by deposition of tiny rocks where water current loses some of its carrying capacity. While some are transitory and may disappear if the volume or speed of the current changes, others are stable, oceanic islands are islands that do not sit on continental shelves. The vast majority are volcanic in origin, such as Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, the few oceanic islands that are not volcanic are tectonic in origin and arise where plate movements have lifted up the ocean floor above the surface. Examples are Saint Peter and Paul Rocks in the Atlantic Ocean, one type of volcanic oceanic island is found in a volcanic island arc. These islands arise from volcanoes where the subduction of one plate under another is occurring, examples are the Aleutian Islands, the Mariana Islands, and most of Tonga in the Pacific Ocean. The only examples in the Atlantic Ocean are some of the Lesser Antilles, another type of volcanic oceanic island occurs where an oceanic rift reaches the surface. There are two examples, Iceland, which is the second largest volcanic island, and Jan Mayen. A third type of oceanic island is formed over volcanic hotspots. A hotspot is more or less stationary relative to the tectonic plate above it
7.
Atoll
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An atoll, sometimes called a coral atoll, is a ring-shaped coral reef including a coral rim that encircles a lagoon partially or completely. There may be coral islands/cays on the rim, the coral of the atoll often sits atop the rim of an extinct seamount or volcano which has eroded or subsided partially beneath the water. The lagoon forms over the crater or caldera while the higher rim remains above water or at shallow depths that permit the coral to grow. For the atoll to persist, continued erosion or subsidence must be at a slow enough to permit reef growth upwards and outwards to replace the lost height. The word atoll comes from the Dhivehi word atholhu, meaning an administrative subdivision, the distribution of atolls around the globe is instructive, most of the worlds atolls are in the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean. The Atlantic Ocean has no large groups of atolls, other than eight atolls east of Nicaragua that belong to the Colombian department of San Andres and Providencia in the Caribbean. Reef-building corals will thrive only in tropical and subtropical waters of oceans and seas. The northernmost atoll of the world is Kure Atoll at 28°24 N, the southernmost atolls of the world are Elizabeth Reef at 29°58 S, and nearby Middleton Reef at 29°29 S, in the Tasman Sea, both of which are part of the Coral Sea Islands Territory. The next southerly atoll is Ducie Island in the Pitcairn Islands Group, at this latitude coral reefs would not develop without the warming waters of the Gulf Stream. However, Bermuda is termed a pseudo-atoll because its general form, while there is no atoll directly on the equator, the closest atoll to the Equator is Aranuka of Kiribati, with its southern tip just 12 km north of the equator. In most cases, the area of an atoll is very small in comparison to the total area. Atoll islands are low lying, with their elevations less than 5 meters, measured by total area, Lifou is the largest raised coral atoll of the world, followed by Rennell Island. More sources however list as the largest atoll in the world in terms of land area Kiritimati, the remains of an ancient atoll as a hill in a limestone area is called a reef knoll. The second largest atoll by dry land area is Aldabra with 155 km², the largest atoll in terms of island numbers is Huvadhu Atoll in the south of the Maldives with 255 islands. In 1842, Charles Darwin explained the creation of coral atolls in the southern Pacific Ocean based upon observations made during a voyage aboard the HMS Beagle from 1831 to 1836. In time, subsidence carries the old volcano below the ocean surface, at this point, the island has become an atoll. Atolls are the product of the growth of marine organisms. Volcanic islands located beyond the water temperature requirements of hermatypic organisms become seamounts as they subside and are eroded away at the surface
8.
Coral reef
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Coral reefs are diverse underwater ecosystems held together by calcium carbonate structures secreted by corals. Coral reefs are built by colonies of tiny animals found in waters that contain few nutrients. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, which in turn consist of polyps that cluster in groups, the polyps belong to a group of animals known as Cnidaria, which also includes sea anemones and jellyfish. Unlike sea anemones, corals secrete hard carbonate exoskeletons which support, most reefs grow best in warm, shallow, clear, sunny and agitated waters. Often called rainforests of the sea, shallow coral reefs form some of the most diverse ecosystems on Earth, paradoxically, coral reefs flourish even though they are surrounded by ocean waters that provide few nutrients. They are most commonly found at depths in tropical waters. Coral reefs deliver ecosystem services to tourism, fisheries and shoreline protection, the annual global economic value of coral reefs is estimated between US$29. 8-375 billion. However, coral reefs are fragile ecosystems, partly because they are sensitive to water temperature. Most of the coral reefs we can see today were formed after the last glacial period when melting ice caused the sea level to rise and this means that most modern coral reefs are less than 10,000 years old. As communities established themselves on the shelves, the reefs grew upwards, Reefs that rose too slowly could become drowned reefs. They are covered by so much water there was insufficient light. Coral reefs are found in the sea away from continental shelves, around oceanic islands. The vast majority of islands are volcanic in origin. The few exceptions have tectonic origins where plate movements have lifted the deep ocean floor on the surface. In 1842 in his first monograph, The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, Charles Darwin set out his theory of the formation of atoll reefs and he theorized uplift and subsidence of the Earths crust under the oceans formed the atolls. Darwin’s theory sets out a sequence of three stages in atoll formation and it starts with a fringing reef forming around an extinct volcanic island as the island and ocean floor subsides. As the subsidence continues, the reef becomes a barrier reef. Darwin predicted that underneath each lagoon would be a bed rock base, where the level of the underlying earth allows, the corals grow around the coast to form what he called fringing reefs, and can eventually grow out from the shore to become a barrier reef
9.
Shoal
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Often it refers to those submerged ridges, banks, or bars that rise near enough to the surface of a body of water as to constitute a danger to navigation. Shoals are also known as sandbanks, sandbars, or gravelbars, two or more shoals that are either separated by shared troughs or interconnected by past and or present sedimentary and hydrographic processes are referred to as a shoal complex. The term shoal is also used in a number of ways that can be similar or quite different from how it is used in the geologic, geomorphic. Shoals are characteristically long and narrow ridges and they can develop where a stream, river, or ocean current promotes deposition of sediment and granular material, resulting in localized shallowing of the water. Marine shoals also develop either by the in place drowning of barrier islands as the result of sea level rise or by the erosion. Shoals can appear as a coastal landform in the sea, where they are classified as a type of bank, or as fluvial landforms in rivers, streams. A shoal–sandbar may seasonally separate a smaller body of water from the sea, such as, Marine lagoons Brackish water estuaries Freshwater seasonal stream and river mouths and deltas. They are typically composed of sand, although they could be of any matter that the moving water has access to and is capable of shifting around. Wave shoaling is the process when surface waves move towards shallow water, such as a beach, they slow down, their wave height increases and this behavior is called shoaling, and the waves are said to shoal. The waves may or may not build to the point where they break, depending on how large they were to begin with, in particular, waves shoal as they pass over submerged sandbanks or reefs. This can be treacherous for boats and ships, shoaling can also diffract waves, so the waves change direction. For example, if waves pass over a bank which is shallower at one end than the other. Thus the wave fronts will refract, changing direction like light passing through a prism, refraction also occurs as waves move towards a beach if the waves come in at an angle to the beach, or if the beach slopes more gradually at one end than the other. Sandbars, also known as a trough bars, form where the waves are breaking, sometimes this occurs seaward of a trough. Sand carried by the moving bottom current is deposited where the current reaches the wave break. Other longshore bars may lie further offshore, representing the point of even larger waves. A harbor or river bar is a sedimentary deposit formed at an entrance or river mouth by. Where beaches are suitably mobile, or the river’s suspended and/or bed loads are large enough, deposition can build up a sandbar that completely blocks a river mouth and damming the river
10.
Mid-ocean ridge
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A mid-ocean ridge is an underwater mountain system formed by plate tectonics. It consists of various mountains linked in chains, typically having a known as a rift running along its spine. This type of mountain ridge is characteristic of what is known as an oceanic spreading center. The production of new results from mantle upwelling in response to plate spreading. The buoyant melt rises as magma at a linear weakness in the oceanic crust, a mid-ocean ridge demarcates the boundary between two tectonic plates, and consequently is termed a divergent plate boundary. Mid-ocean ridges are geologically active, with new magma constantly emerging onto the floor and into the crust at. The crystallized magma forms new crust of basalt and gabbro and they are formed by two oceanic plates moving away from each other. The rocks making up the crust below the seafloor are youngest along the axis of the ridge and age with increasing distance from that axis, new magma of basalt composition emerges at and near the axis because of decompression melting in the underlying Earths mantle. The oceanic crust is made up of much younger than the Earth itself. Most oceanic crust in the basins is less than 200 million years old. The crust is in a constant state of renewal at the ocean ridges, moving away from the mid-ocean ridge, ocean depth progressively increases, the greatest depths are in ocean trenches. As the oceanic crust moves away from the axis, the peridotite in the underlying mantle cools. The crust and the relatively rigid peridotite below it make up the oceanic lithosphere, by contrast, fast spreading ridges like the East Pacific Rise are narrow, sharp incisions surrounded by generally flat topography that slopes away from the ridge over many hundreds of miles. The overall shape of ridges results from Pratt isostacy, close to the ridge there is hot. As the oceanic plates cool, away from the axes, the oceanic mantle lithosphere thickens. Thus older seafloor is underlain by denser material and sits lower, there are two processes, ridge-push and slab pull, thought to be responsible for the spreading seen at mid-ocean ridges, and there is some uncertainty as to which is dominant. Ridge-push occurs when the bulk of the ridge pushes the rest of the tectonic plate away from the ridge. At the subduction zone, slab-pull comes into effect and this is simply the weight of the tectonic plate being subducted below the overlying plate dragging the rest of the plate along behind it
11.
Administrative divisions of the Maldives
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The Administrative Divisions of the Maldives refers to the various units of government that provide local government services in the Maldives. Geographically, the Maldives are formed by a number of natural atolls plus a few islands, administratively, there are currently 189 islands,19 atolls and 2 cities in the Maldives. During the regime of Maumoon Abdul Gayyoom, the administrative divisions consisted of 20 administrative atolls, in 2008, in an attempt of decentralization, the Nasheed government divided the country into seven provinces. This maneuver was the first time that power has been moved away from the capital Male since 1117 A. D. The final bill that was passed by the parliament and ultimately ratified by the president, Dhekunu Boduthiladhunmathi, Uthuru Medhu-Raajje, Medhu-Raajje, Dhekunu Medhu-Raajje, Huvadhu and Addumulah. On 15 October 2010, the government released a finalized list of the administrative constituencies established under the Decentralization Act, out of these constituencies,2 constituencies were declared cities, as according to the criteria for determining cities in this act. These two constituencies were Male’ and Seenu Atoll, after a referendum among the people, Seenu Atoll was renamed Addu City. Each city would be served by a city council,181 constituencies were declared islands, as according to the criteria for determining islands in this act. These islands are grouped together into 18 atolls, each atoll shall be served by an atoll council, under which each island has its own island council. 1 constituency, Fuvahmulah, was declared an atoll, and was split into 8 wards at island constituency level, each ward will have its own island council, who shall be governed by an atoll council. Fuvahmulah serves as the country’s 19th atoll, the National Administrations acted as an extension of the central government in Male’, for the convenience of dealing with regional affairs. The National Administrations operated under the Ministry of Home Affairs, all 7 National Offices were abolished by the Waheed administration on 24 April 2012. On 5 February 2011, the countrys first ever Local council elections were held to elect 188 island councils,19 atoll councils and 2 city councils. The island of Felivaru, in Lhaviyani Atoll did not participate in the election, since being a newly declared inhabited island, as of May 2013, the island council election for Felivaru has yet to take place. The first-level divisions are cities and atolls, a city is an inhabited area with a population of 25, 000+. The criteria also includes a level of economic development and facilities available. A city has a city council which governs over the affairs of the city, a city will not be included within an administrative atoll. A city has further subdivisions called wards or districts, a city council will also govern over any uninhabited islands or resort islands within its designated area
12.
Gan (Laamu Atoll)
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Gan (Dhivehi, is one of the inhabited islands of Haddhunmathi Atoll, administrative code Laamu and the proposed capital for the Mathi-Dhekunu Province of the Maldives. Gan is the longest island of the Maldives and it is divided in wards, the northernmost of which is called Thundi in middle Mathimaradhu and at the end Mukurimagu. Gan is connected with Maandhoo, the island at its south. Maandhoo is linked with the domestic airport at Kadhdhoo by a short causeway. Kadhdhoo adjoins at its south with Fonadhoo, the capital of the atoll, the causeway which links between Kadhdhoo and Fonadhoo has almost one kilometer. The four islands Gan, Maandhoo, Kadhdhoo and Fonadhoo where it is linked with causeways stretches up to about 18 kilometers in length making up the longest lengthen of dry land in the Maldives. This island should not be confused with other Maldive islands called Gan in Addu Atoll, Gan is the most developed island in the Laamu Atoll. Tourism has started growing and is going ahead successfully, Gan is the largest island in the atoll and in the Maldives. The island is on the fringes where most islands in the atoll are located. The island Gan is nestled with astounding beaches. The island also has impressive mounds from a pre-historic Buddhist time, the mounds known as “Hawitta” is a pyramid like structure built in pre-Islamic times and have a history of over 600 years. Away from home, experience the unique and the natural environment of the beautiful Maldives through our adventure holiday tour. This opportunity will expose the visitors to the Maldives history, culture and livelihood engulfed in the marine environment. The Reveries Diving Village developed by Bison Maldives Pvt Ltd was officially opened by President Mohamed Nasheed 1 February 2011, as it is the first of its kind in the country due to it being developed on an inhabited island. Gan Regional Hospital provides Preventive and Curative Health services to all the people residing in the South Central Province, GRH had a humble beginning as an Atoll Health Centre on 7 November 1993. The demand for increased and it expanded to an Atoll Hospital on 11 June 2001. Further upgradation took place in the form of facilities and staff, on 1 August 2002, GRH achieved Regional Hospital status. Gan Island has large ruins from the historical Maldivian Buddhist era, a ruin called “Gamu Haiytheli” is situated on Mudhin Hinna in the Mukurimagu ward of the island. It is 91.5 m in circumference and 7.3 m in height, local tradition says that this was the last Buddhist temple of the Maldives
13.
Addu Atoll
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Addu Atoll, previously also known as Seenu Atoll, is the southernmost atoll of the Maldives. Addu Atoll, together with Fuvahmulah, located 52.3 km north of Addu Atoll, Addu Atoll is located 541 km south of Malé. Administratively, Addu Atoll is the site of Addu City, one of the two cities of Maldives, Addu City consists of the inhabited areas of Addu Atoll, namely the natural islands of Hulhudhoo, Meedhoo, Maradhoo, Feydhoo, and Hithadhoo. In addition to the areas that are included as a part of Addu City, Addu Atoll has a number of uninhabited islands, including the island of Gan, where Gan International Airport is located. Unlike other atolls of Maldives, Addu city possesses a natural anchorage within the city basin and this results in a natural harbor that is very calm and safe for sea vessels at all times, and is not affected by seasonal changes. The atoll possesses four channels which lead into the lagoon, in the north are the Kuda Kandu and Maa Kandu, in the south the Gan Kandu, and the broad Villingili Kandu is to the southeast. There are unique features in the islands of Addu Atoll, the islands are protected from the storms and high waves of the Indian Ocean by barrier reefs. Coconut palms, the tree, are able to grow almost everywhere on the Islands. There are small lakes, wetlands, and marshy taro fields in the islands that are unique, also, white terns known as the dhondheeni by Adduans gives the Atoll a uniqueness as it is found only in Addu Atoll in Maldives. Addu Atoll also possesses particularly rich whale and dolphin fauna, a great diversity of species has been found there. Addu Atoll is the area in the Maldives that was not affected by the 1998 global coral bleaching. Traditionally, ‘Addu bas’ was widely spoken amongst the masses of three different atolls from the south, who adopted it as their lingua franca. It has also credited with being the most famous and widespread single dialect in the Republic of Maldives. However, when Addu declared independence and recognized themselves as the United Suvadive Republic, nevertheless, despite the difference in dialects, the written version is common throughout the Maldives. Long ago Addu City was ruled by families appointed by the sultans in Malé, however, there was a recent period in Addu history when the status quo changed for a while, when a more matriarchal society developed and women became the breadwinners. During the Sultanate’s era, social standing in Addu depended upon one’s material, media related to Addu Atoll at Wikimedia Commons
14.
Geographic coordinates
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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
15.
Hithadhoo (Addu)
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Hithaadhoo is a district of Addu City, in the Maldives. Hithadhoo is the administrative district of Addu City, with many of the administrative buildings in this district. The town is situated on the island of the same name, in terms of population count, Hithadhoo is home to the largest population in Addu City. According to the 2014 Census, with 11,129 residents, Hithadhoo also has the largest population of any island in Maldives. Hithadhoo is the second largest island in the Maldives with an area of 525.7 Ha. It has a length of 6.8 km and a width of 1.8 km at its widest point and it is also the second largest inhabited island in Maldives. Hithadhoo Town is marked by dusty roads, narrow lanes, leaning houses, island traffic is generally quite colourful, particularly when hundreds of island school children dressed in a multitude of differently coloured school uniforms are queueing up for the bus. Hithadhoo has a population of some 11,129 residents, and is the second largest settlement in Maldives, the local dialect of Dhivehi, Addu Bas, is spoken by most of the people who live here. Addu Bas is closely related to dialects spoken on nearby atolls and it is also the second most spoken dialect in the whole Maldives. Youth Unemployment Rate is at a high 46% and Proportion of population having telephone is 96%, Hithadhoo has a number of educational institutions, two kindergartens, three primary and two secondary schools as well as a college. Most Hithadhoo residents complete their education up to Ordinary Level on the island itself, several students from other atolls like Fuvahmulah attend secondary schools on Hithadhoo in order to have a better education than can be had on their home islands. The government has provided the residents with a hospital and this hospital has a regional function and provides around-the-clock care. Most residents of neighbouring islands visit Hithadhoo Regional Hospital to receive treatment for their ailments, apart from this, there are some private clinics like Eye Care Clinic. Eye Care is a private organization in Maldives for its quality service with qualified Ophthalmologists and Optometrists. It is the largest eye-care provider in Maldives with its six outlets in different parts of the country including the one in S. Hithadhoo, presiden Nasheed Hithadhoo Addu tourist board site Addu Atoll Pictures
16.
Tropical vegetation
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Tropical vegetation is any vegetation in tropical latitudes. Plant life that occurs in climates that are warm year-round is in general more biologically diverse that in other latitudes. Some tropical areas may receive abundant rain the year round. These seasonal droughts have great impact on the vegetation, such as in the Madagascar spiny forests, plant species native to the tropics found in tropical ecosystems are known as tropical plants. The term Tropical vegetation often is used in the sense of lush and luxuriant, Tropical vegetation may include the following habitat types, Tropical rainforest ecosystems include significant areas of biodiversity, often coupled with high species endemism. Rainforests are home to half of all the animal and plant species on the planet. The most representative are the Borneo rainforest, one of the oldest rainforests in the world, seasonal tropical forests generally receive high total rainfall, averaging more than 1000 mm per year, but with a distinct dry season. Tropical dry broadleaf forests are territories with a forest cover that is not very dense and has often an unkempt, irregular appearance, especially in the dry season. This type of forests often include bamboo and teak as the dominant large tree species, such as in the Phi Pan Nam Range, part of the Central Indochina dry forests. They are affected by very long and intense seasonal dry periods and, though less biologically diverse than rainforests. Tropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands are spread over an area of the tropics with a vegetation made up mainly of low shrubs and grasses. Some of the most representative are the Western Zambezian grasslands in Zambia and Angola, tree species such as Acacia and baobab may be present in these ecosystems depending from the region. Biocoenosis Ecoregion Jungle Vegetation type Archibold, O. W. Ecology of World Vegetation, barbour, M. G, J. H. Burk, and W. D. Pitts. Van Der Maarel, E. Vegetation Ecology, classifying Vegetation Condition, Vegetation Assets States and Transitions
17.
Banana
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The banana is an edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus Musa. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called plantains, in contrast to dessert bananas. The fruit is variable in size, color and firmness, but is elongated and curved, with soft flesh rich in starch covered with a rind which may be green, yellow, red, purple. The fruits grow in clusters hanging from the top of the plant, almost all modern edible parthenocarpic bananas come from two wild species – Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana. The scientific names of most cultivated bananas are Musa acuminata, Musa balbisiana, the old scientific name Musa sapientum is no longer used. Musa species are native to tropical Indomalaya and Australia, and are likely to have been first domesticated in Papua New Guinea. They are grown in 135 countries, primarily for their fruit, worldwide, there is no sharp distinction between bananas and plantains. Especially in the Americas and Europe, banana usually refers to soft, sweet, dessert bananas, particularly those of the Cavendish group, by contrast, Musa cultivars with firmer, starchier fruit are called plantains. In other regions, such as Southeast Asia, many kinds of banana are grown and eaten. The term banana is used as the common name for the plants which produce the fruit. This can extend to members of the genus Musa like the scarlet banana, pink banana. It can also refer to members of the genus Ensete, like the snow banana, both genera are classified under the banana family, Musaceae. The banana plant is the largest herbaceous flowering plant, all the above-ground parts of a banana plant grow from a structure usually called a corm. Plants are normally tall and fairly sturdy, and are mistaken for trees. Bananas grow in a variety of soils, as long as the soil is at least 60 cm deep, has good drainage and is not compacted. The leaves of plants are composed of a stalk and a blade. The base of the petiole widens to form a sheath, the tightly packed sheaths make up the pseudostem, the edges of the sheath meet when it is first produced, making it tubular. As new growth occurs in the centre of the pseudostem the edges are forced apart, cultivated banana plants vary in height depending on the variety and growing conditions
18.
Papaya
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The papaya, papaw, or pawpaw is the plant Carica papaya, one of the 22 accepted species in the genus Carica of the family Caricaceae. It is native to the tropics of the Americas, perhaps from southern Mexico and it was first cultivated in Mexico several centuries before the emergence of the Mesoamerican classical civilizations. The papaya is a small, sparsely branched tree, usually with a stem growing from 5 to 10 m tall. The lower trunk is conspicuously scarred where leaves and fruit were borne, the leaves are large, 50–70 cm in diameter, deeply palmately lobed, with seven lobes. All parts of the plant contain latex in articulated laticifers, unusually for such large plants, the trees are dioecious. The flowers are 5-parted and highly dimorphic, the flowers with the stamens fused to the petals. The female flowers have a superior ovary and five contorted petals loosely connected at the base, male and female flowers are borne in the leaf axils, the males in multiflowered dichasia, the female flowers is few-flowered dichasia. The flowers are sweet-scented, open at night and are moth-pollinated, the fruit is a large berry about 15–45 cm long and 10–30 cm in diameter. It is ripe when it feels soft and its skin has attained an amber to orange hue, Papaya is native to Mexico and extends to South America and has become naturalized throughout the Caribbean Islands, Florida and several countries of Africa. Additional crops are grown in India, Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Papaya plants grow in three sexes, male, female, hermaphrodite. The male produces only pollen, never fruit, the female will produce small, inedible fruits unless pollinated. The hermaphrodite can self-pollinate since its flowers contain both male stamens and female ovaries, almost all commercial papaya orchards contain only hermaphrodites. Originally from southern Mexico, Central America, and northern South America, in cultivation, it grows rapidly, fruiting within three years. It is, however, highly frost-sensitive, limiting its production to tropical climates, temperatures below −2 °C are greatly harmful if not fatal. In Florida and California, growth is limited to southern parts of the states. It prefers sandy, well-drained soil, as standing water will kill the plant within 24 hours, India and Brazil are the major producers of papaya, together providing 57% of the world total of 12.4 million tons in 2013. Gaining in popularity among tropical fruits worldwide, papaya is now ranked fourth in total tropical fruit production after bananas, oranges, global papaya production has grown significantly over the last few years, mainly as a result of increased production in India. Papaya has become an important agricultural export for developing countries, where export revenues of the fruit provide a livelihood for thousands of people, especially in Asia, Carica papaya was the first transgenic fruit tree to have its genome sequenced
19.
Moringa oleifera
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Moringa oleifera is the most widely cultivated species of the genus Moringa, which is the only genus in the family Moringaceae. English common names include, moringa, drumstick tree, horseradish tree, ben oil tree and it can also be used for water purification and hand washing, and is sometimes used in herbal medicine. Moringa derives from the Tamil word, murungai, referring to a twisted pod found in young fruit, M. oleifera is a fast-growing, deciduous tree that can reach a height of 10–12 m and trunk diameter of 45 cm. The bark has a colour and is surrounded by thick cork. Young shoots have purplish or greenish-white, hairy bark, the tree has an open crown of drooping, fragile branches and the leaves build up a feathery foliage of tripinnate leaves. The flowers are fragrant and bisexual, surrounded by five unequal, thinly veined, the flowers are about 1. 0-1.5 cm long and 2.0 cm broad. They grow on slender, hairy stalks in spreading or drooping flower clusters which have a length of 10–25 cm, flowering begins within the first six months after planting. In seasonally cool regions, flowering only once a year between April and June. In more constant seasonal temperatures and with constant rainfall, flowering can happen twice or even all year-round, the fruit is a hanging, three-sided brown capsule of 20–45 cm size which holds dark brown, globular seeds with a diameter around 1 cm. The seeds have three whitish papery wings and are dispersed by wind and water, in cultivation, it is often cut back annually to 1–2 m and allowed to regrow so the pods and leaves remain within arms reach. The moringa tree is mainly in semiarid, tropical, and subtropical areas. It tolerates a range of soil conditions, but prefers a neutral to slightly acidic. In waterlogged soil, the roots have a tendency to rot, Moringa is a sun- and heat-loving plant, thus does not tolerate freezing or frost. Moringa is particularly suitable for dry regions, as it can be grown using rainwater without expensive irrigation techniques, India is the largest producer of moringa, with an annual production of 1.1 to 1.3 million tonnes of fruits from an area of 380 km². Moringa is grown in gardens in Odisha and as living fences in southern India and Thailand. In the Philippines and Indonesia, it is grown for its leaves which are used as food. Moringa is also cultivated by the World Vegetable Center in Taiwan. In Haiti, it is grown as windbreaks and to reduce soil erosion
20.
Citrus
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Citrus is a genus of flowering trees and shrubs in the rue family, Rutaceae. Plants in the genus produce citrus fruits, including important crops like oranges, lemons, grapefruit, pomelo, the most recent research indicates an origin in Australia, New Caledonia and New Guinea. Citrus fruit has been cultivated in an area since ancient times. At various times, citrus plants were thought to be native to Asia, Europe, but the European oranges were originally brought from India at around the time of Alexander the Great, and the native oranges of Florida actually originated with the Spanish Conquistadors. The lemon reached Europe during the time of classical Rome, the generic name originated from Latin, where it referred to either the plant now known as Citron or a conifer tree. It is somehow related to the ancient Greek word for cedar and this may be due to perceived similarities in the smell of citrus leaves and fruit with that of cedar. Collectively, Citrus fruits and plants are known by the Romance loanword agrumes. The large citrus fruit of today evolved originally from small, edible berries over millions of years, Citrus plants diverged from a common ancestor about 15 million years ago, which was about when it diverged from the closely related severinia, for example the Chinese box orange. These estimates are made using genetic mapping of plant chloroplasts, the three original species in the citrus genus that have been hybridized into most modern commercial citrus fruit are the mandarin orange, pummelo, and citron. Within the last few years, all common citrus fruits were created by crossing those original species. Something similar has occurred with the array of chili peppers originating in the hybridization of a few initial species. Natural and cultivated citrus hybrids include commercially important fruit such as oranges, grapefruit, lemons, limes, apart from these four core citrus species, there are Australian limes and the recently discovered Mangshanyegan. Kumquats and Clymenia sp. are now considered to belong within the citrus genus. Trifoliate orange, which is used as commercial rootstock, is an outgroup. Phylogenetic analysis suggests the species of Oxanthera from New Caledonia should be transferred to the genus Citrus and these plants are large shrubs or small to moderate-sized trees, reaching 5–15 m tall, with spiny shoots and alternately arranged evergreen leaves with an entire margin. The flowers are solitary or in corymbs, each flower 2–4 cm diameter, with five white petals and numerous stamens. The fruit is a hesperidium, a berry, globose to elongated, 4–30 cm long and 4–20 cm diameter. The outermost layer of the pericarp is a called the flavedo
21.
Breadfruit
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Breadfruit is a species of flowering tree in the mulberry and jackfruit family originating in the South Pacific and that was eventually spread to the rest of Oceania. Its name is derived from the texture of the ripe fruit when cooked, similar to freshly baked bread. According to DNA fingerprinting studies, breadfruit has its origins in the region of Oceania from New Guinea through the Indo-Malayan Archipelago to western Micronesia, the trees have been widely planted in tropical regions elsewhere, including lowland Central America, northern South America, and the Caribbean. In addition to the serving as a staple food in many cultures. Sir Joseph Banks and others saw the value of breadfruit as a highly productive food in 1769, in 1787, William Bligh was appointed Captain of the HMS Bounty, and ordered to proceed to the South Pacific to collect the plants. Although Bligh won the Royal Society medal for his efforts, the introduction was not entirely successful, Breadfruit trees grow to a height of 26 m. The large and thick leaves are cut into pinnate lobes. All parts of the tree yield latex, which is useful for boat caulking, the trees are monoecious, with male and female flowers growing on the same tree. The male flowers emerge first, followed shortly afterward by the female flowers, the latter grow into capitula, which are capable of pollination just three days later. Pollination occurs mainly by bats, but cultivated varieties produce fruit without pollination. The compound, false fruit develops from the perianth, and originates from 1. Breadfruit is one of the food plants, with a single tree producing up to 200 or more grapefruit-sized fruits per season. In the South Pacific, the trees yield 50 to 150 fruits per year, usually round, productivity varies between wet and dry areas. Studies in Barbados indicate a potential of 16 to 32 tons per hectare. The ovoid fruit has a surface, and each fruit is divided into many achenes, each achene surrounded by a fleshy perianth. Most selectively bred cultivars have seedless fruit, whereas seeded varieties are mainly for their edible seeds. Breadfruit is usually propagated using root cuttings, Breadfruit is closely related to the breadnut, from which it might have been naturally selected. It is noticeably similar in appearance to its relative of the same genus, Breadfruit has hundreds of varieties and thousands of common names varying according to its geographic distribution, and is cultivated in some 90 countries
22.
Coconut
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The coconut tree is a member of the family Arecaceae and the only species of the genus Cocos. The term coconut can refer to the coconut palm or the seed, or the fruit. The spelling cocoanut is a form of the word. The term is derived from the 16th-century Portuguese and Spanish word coco meaning head or skull, coconuts are known for their great versatility, as evidenced by many traditional uses, ranging from food to cosmetics. They form a part of the diets of many people in the tropics and subtropics. Coconuts are distinct from other fruits for their quantity of water. When mature, they can be used as seed nuts or processed to give oil from the kernel, charcoal from the hard shell, the endosperm is initially in its nuclear phase suspended within the coconut water. As development continues, cellular layers of endosperm deposit along the walls of the coconut, when dried, the coconut flesh is called copra. The oil and milk derived from it are used in cooking and frying, as well as in soaps. The husks and leaves can be used as material to make a variety of products for furnishing and decorating, the coconut also has cultural and religious significance in certain societies, particularly in India, where it is used in Hindu rituals. Cocos nucifera is a palm, growing up to 30 m tall, with pinnate leaves 4–6 m long. Coconuts are generally classified into two types, tall and dwarf. On fertile soil, a coconut palm tree can yield up to 75 fruits per year. Given proper care and growing conditions, coconut palms produce their first fruit in six to ten years, botanically, the coconut fruit is a drupe, not a true nut. Like other fruits, it has three layers, the exocarp, mesocarp, and endocarp, the exocarp and mesocarp make up the husk of the coconuts. Coconuts sold in the shops of nontropical countries often have had the exocarp removed, the mesocarp is composed of a fiber, called coir, which has many traditional and commercial uses. The shell has three germination pores or eyes that are visible on its outside surface once the husk is removed. A full-sized coconut weighs about 1.44 kg and it takes around 6,000 full-grown coconuts to produce a tonne of copra
23.
Scaevola taccada
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It is a common beach shrub throughout the Arabian Sea, the tropical Indian Ocean and the tropical Islands of the Pacific. It is a large bush reaching up to about 4 m in height typical of littoral zones where it very close to the sea exposed to the salt spray. Leaves are slightly succulent, about 20 cm long, closely alternate and they are glabrous with a fleshy-looking yellowish green color. The fruits and flowers are white, Scaevola taccada blooms the whole year round and the flowers have a fan-like shape which gives them the name fanflower or half flower. The fruits float in seawater and are propagated by ocean currents, Scaevola taccada typically grows directly on the beaches of tropical coasts with a preference for beach crests on coral sands. It grows within in the salt spray area and it is amongst the first pioneer plant colonisers on tropical Atolls, besides seeds, it is easy propagated from cuttings. It prefers well drained soils and it is a very salt tolerant scrub. The plant is featured prominently on tropical island postcards and wallpapers. In some islands of the Pacific, Scaevola taccada is used to prevent coastal erosion as well as for landscaping and it is also planted on the beach crests to protect other cultivated plants from the salt spray. Parts of the plant are used in Polynesian and Asian traditional medicine. Historically in the Maldives the leaves of this bush were often used as famine food, Flora of the Cocos Islands Wildlife of Maldives Merambong or Sea lettuce - Scaevola taccada Flora of China - Scaevola taccada
24.
Heliotropium foertherianum
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Heliotropium foertherianum is a species of flowering plant in the borage family, Boraginaceae. It is native to tropical Asia including southern China, Madagascar, northern Australia, common names include velvetleaf soldierbush, tree heliotrope and octopus bush. It is a shrub or small tree typical of littoral zones reaching a height of 6 m, originally published as Tournefortia argentea, it was transferred to Argusia argentea, and remained under that name until recently. It was subsequently restored to Tournefortia before being transferred into Heliotropium under a new name in 2003, historically in the Maldives the leaves were often used as famine food. The wood of H. foertherianum is used to make handicrafts, tools. Due to its availability, H. foertherianum is used as firewood, octopus bush is used in many Pacific islands as a traditional medicine to treat ciguatera fish poisoning, which is caused by powerful ciguatoxins produced by microscopic Gambierdiscus algae. The researchers think rosmarinic acid may remove the ciguatoxins from their sites of action, data related to Tournefortia argentea at Wikispecies Plants of Midway Atoll
25.
Mangrove
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A mangrove is a shrub or small tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are salt tolerant trees, also called halophytes, and are adapted to life in coastal conditions. They contain a complex filtration system and complex root system to cope with salt water immersion. They are adapted to the low oxygen conditions of waterlogged mud, the saline conditions tolerated by various mangrove species range from brackish water, through pure seawater, to water concentrated by evaporation to over twice the salinity of ocean seawater. The term mangrove comes to English from Spanish, and is likely to originate from Guarani and it was earlier mangrow, but this word was corrupted via folk etymology influence of the word grove. Mangrove swamps are found in tropical and subtropical tidal areas, areas where mangal occurs include estuaries and marine shorelines. The intertidal existence to which trees are adapted represents the major limitation to the number of species able to thrive in their habitat. High tide brings in water, and when the tide recedes. The return of tide can flush out these soils, bringing back to salinity levels comparable to that of seawater. At low tide, organisms are exposed to increases in temperature and desiccation. About 110 species are considered mangroves, in the sense of being a tree grows in such a saline swamp, though only a few are from the mangrove plant genus. However, a mangrove swamp typically features only a small number of tree species. It is not uncommon for a mangrove forest in the Caribbean to feature three or four tree species. For comparison, the tropical rainforest biome contains thousands of tree species, though the trees themselves are few in species, the ecosystem that these trees create provides a home for a great variety of other organisms. Mangrove plants require a number of adaptations to overcome the problems of anoxia, high salinity. Each species has its own solutions to problems, this may be the primary reason why, on some shorelines. Small environmental variations within a mangal may lead to greatly differing methods for coping with the environment, once established, mangrove roots provide an oyster habitat and slow water flow, thereby enhancing sediment deposition in areas where it is already occurring
26.
Pemphis acidula
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Pemphis acidula is a species of flowering plant in the family Lythraceae. Pemphis acidula is a halophyte bush found in locations in the tropical areas of the Indo-Pacific. It is one of the types of growing in sandy and calcareous soils of the littoral zones of the Indian Ocean. It is also found in mangroves, the wood of this species has been traditionally valued in many cultures for it is hard and heavy, as well as resistant to rot and warping. It also has naturally a fine finish and may be fashioned into walking canes, fence posts, tool handles, Pemphis acidula is also one of the plant species used in bonsai, particularly in Asia. Mangroves Media related to Pemphis acidula at Wikimedia Commons
27.
Marsh
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A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species. Marshes can often be found at the edges of lakes and streams and they are often dominated by grasses, rushes or reeds. If woody plants are present they tend to be low-growing shrubs, Marshes provide a habitat for many species of plants, animals, and insects that have adapted to living in flooded conditions. The plants must be able to survive in wet mud with low oxygen levels, many of these plants therefore have aerenchyma, channels within the stem that allow air to move from the leaves into the rooting zone. Marsh plants also tend to have rhizomes for underground storage and reproduction, familiar examples include cattails, sedges, papyrus and sawgrass. Aquatic animals, from fish to salamanders, are able to live with a low amount of oxygen in the water. Some can obtain oxygen from the air instead, while others can live indefinitely in conditions of low oxygen, Marshes provide habitats for many kinds of invertebrates, fish, amphibians, waterfowl and aquatic mammals. Marshes have extremely high levels of production, some of the highest in the world. Marshes also improve water quality by acting as a sink to filter pollutants, Marshes are able to absorb water during periods of heavy rainfall and slowly release it into waterways and therefore reduce the magnitude of flooding. The pH in marshes tends to be neutral to alkaline, as opposed to bogs, Marshes differ depending mainly on their location and salinity. Both of these factors influence the range and scope of animal and plant life that can survive. The three main types of marsh are salt marshes, freshwater marshes, and freshwater marshes. These three can be found worldwide and each contains a different set of organisms, saltwater marshes are found around the world in mid to high latitudes, wherever there are sections of protected coastline. They are located close enough to the shoreline that the motion of the tides affects them and they flourish where the rate of sediment buildup is greater than the rate at which the land level is sinking. Salt marshes are dominated by specially adapted rooted vegetation, primarily salt-tolerant grasses, salt marshes are most commonly found in lagoons, estuaries, and on the sheltered side of shingle or sandspit. The currents there carry the fine particles around to the side of the spit. These locations allow the marshes to absorb the nutrients from the water running through them before they reach the oceans. Coastal development and urban sprawl has caused significant loss of these essential habitats, although considered a freshwater marsh, this form of marsh is affected by the ocean tides
28.
Alkaline
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Alkalinity is the name given to the quantitative capacity of an aqueous solution to neutralize an acid. Measuring alkalinity is important in determining a streams ability to neutralize acidic pollution from rainfall or wastewater and it is one of the best measures of the sensitivity of the stream to acid inputs. There can be changes in the alkalinity of streams and rivers in response to human disturbances. Alkalinity is related to the pH of a solution, but measures a different property, roughly, the alkalinity of a solution is a measure of how strong the bases are in a solution, whereas the pH measures the amount of chemical bases. A good example is a solution, which can have many available bases despite having only a moderate pH level. Alkalinity roughly refers to the amount of bases in a solution that can be converted to uncharged species by a strong acid. The cited author, James Drever, provides an equation expressed in terms of molar equivalents, which means the number of moles of each ion type multiplied by the charge of the ion. For example,1 mole of HCO31− in solution represents 1 molar equivalent, the total charge of a solution always equals zero. On the left-hand side of the equation is the sum of conservative cations minus the sum of conservative anions, balancing this on the right side is the sum of the anions that could be neutralized by added H+ ions minus H+ ions already present, as indicated by the pH. This right side term is called total alkalinity and it is, quoting Drever, formally defined as the equivalent sum of the bases that are titratable with strong acid. The listing of ions shown on the right in Drever was mHCO3− + 2mCO32− + mB4− + mH34− + mHS− + morganic anions + mOH− - mH+, total alkalinity is measured by adding a strong acid until all the anions listed above are converted to uncharged species. The total alkalinity is not affected by temperature, pressure, or pH, though the values of individual constituents are, Drever further notes that in most natural waters, all ions except HCO3− and CO3−2 have low concentrations. Thus carbonate alkalinity, which is equal to mHCO3− + 2mCO3−2 is also equal to the total alkalinity. Alkalinity or AT measures the ability of a solution to neutralize acids to the point of carbonate or bicarbonate. The alkalinity is equal to the sum of the bases in solution. Other common natural components that can contribute to alkalinity include borate, hydroxide, phosphate, silicate, dissolved ammonia, the bases of some organic acids. Solutions produced in a laboratory may contain a virtually limitless number of bases that contribute to alkalinity, Alkalinity is usually given in the unit mEq/L. Commercially, as in the pool industry, alkalinity might also be given in parts per million of equivalent calcium carbonate
29.
Saltwater intrusion
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Saltwater intrusion is the movement of saline water into freshwater aquifers, which can lead to contamination of drinking water sources and other consequences. Saltwater intrusion occurs naturally to some degree in most coastal aquifers, because saline water has a higher mineral content than freshwater, it is denser and has a higher water pressure. As a result, saltwater can push inland beneath the freshwater, certain human activities, especially groundwater pumping from coastal freshwater wells, have increased saltwater intrusion in many coastal areas. Water extraction drops the level of groundwater, reducing its water pressure. Other contributors to saltwater intrusion include navigation channels or agricultural and drainage channels, which provide conduits for saltwater to move inland, saltwater intrusion can also be worsened by extreme events like hurricane storm surges. At the coastal margin, fresh groundwater flowing from inland areas meets with saline groundwater from the ocean, the fresh groundwater flows from inland areas towards the coast where elevation and groundwater levels are lower. Because saltwater has a content of dissolved salts and minerals, it is denser than freshwater. The higher pressure and density of saltwater causes it to move into coastal aquifers in a wedge shape under the freshwater, the saltwater and freshwater meet in a transition zone where mixing occurs through dispersion and diffusion. Ordinarily the inland extent of the wedge is limited because fresh groundwater levels, or the height of the freshwater column. Groundwater extraction is the cause of saltwater intrusion. Groundwater is the source of drinking water in many coastal areas of the United States. Under baseline conditions, the extent of saltwater is limited by higher pressure exerted by the freshwater column. Groundwater extraction can lower the level of the table, reducing the pressure exerted by the freshwater column. Groundwater extraction can also lead to contamination by causing upwelling, or upcoming. Under baseline conditions, a saltwater wedge extends inland, underneath the freshwater because of its higher density, water supply wells located over or near the saltwater wedge can draw the saltwater upward, creating a saltwater cone that might reach and contaminate the well. Pumping of groundwater strengthens this effect by lowering the water table, the construction of canals and drainage networks can lead to saltwater intrusion. Canals provide conduits for saltwater to be carried inland, as does the deepening of existing channels for navigation purposes, in Sabine Lake Estuary in the Gulf of Mexico, large-scale waterways have allowed saltwater to move into the lake, and upstream into the rivers feeding the lake. Additionally, channel dredging in the wetlands to facilitate oil and gas drilling has caused land subsidence
30.
Mango
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Mangoes are juicy stone fruit from numerous species of tropical trees belonging to the flowering plant genus Mangifera, cultivated mostly for their edible fruit. The majority of species are found in nature as wild mangoes. The genus belongs to the cashew family Anacardiaceae, mangoes are native to South Asia, from where the common mango or Indian mango, Mangifera indica, has been distributed worldwide to become one of the most widely cultivated fruits in the tropics. Other Mangifera species are grown on a more localized basis. It is the fruit of India, Pakistan, and the Philippines. Mango trees grow to 35–40 m tall, with a radius of 10 m. The trees are long-lived, as some specimens still fruit after 300 years, in deep soil, the taproot descends to a depth of 6 m, with profuse, wide-spreading feeder roots, the tree also sends down many anchor roots, which penetrate several feet of soil. The leaves are evergreen, alternate, simple, 15–35 cm long, and 6–16 cm broad, when the leaves are young they are orange-pink, rapidly changing to a dark, glossy red, then dark green as they mature. The flowers are produced in terminal panicles 10–40 cm long, each flower is small and white with five petals 5–10 mm long, with a mild, over 400 varieties of mangoes are known, many of which ripen in summer, while some give double crop. The fruit takes three to six months to ripen, the ripe fruit varies in size and color. Cultivars are variously yellow, orange, red, or green, and carry a single flat, oblong pit that can be fibrous or hairy on the surface, ripe, unpeeled mangoes give off a distinctive resinous, sweet smell. Inside the pit 1–2 mm thick is a thin lining covering a single seed, the seed contains the plant embryo. Mangoes have recalcitrant seeds, they do not survive freezing and drying, the English word mango originated from the Malayalam word māṅṅa via Portuguese during spice trade with Kerala in 1498. The origin of the -o ending in English is unclear, when mangoes were first imported to the American colonies in the 17th century, they had to be pickled because of lack of refrigeration. Other fruits were also pickled and came to be called mangoes, especially bell peppers, and by the 18th century, in Mandarin Chinese, mango is 芒果, or mángguǒ in Pinyin. This is most likely a loanword from English, mangoes have been cultivated in South Asia for thousands of years and reached Southeast Asia between the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. By the 10th century CE, cultivation had begun in East Africa, the 14th-century Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta reported it at Mogadishu. Cultivation came later to Brazil, Bermuda, the West Indies, and Mexico, the mango is now cultivated in most frost-free tropical and warmer subtropical climates, almost half of the worlds mangoes are cultivated in India alone, with the second-largest source being China
31.
Nautical mile
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A nautical mile is a unit of measurement defined as exactly 1852 meters. Historically, it was defined as one minute of latitude, which is equivalent to one sixtieth of a degree of latitude. Today it is an SI derived unit, being rounded to a number of meters. The derived unit of speed is the knot, defined as one mile per hour. The geographical mile is the length of one minute of longitude along the Equator, there is no internationally agreed symbol. M is used as the abbreviation for the mile by the International Hydrographic Organization and by the International Bureau of Weights. NM is used by the International Civil Aviation Organization, nm is used by the U. S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Nmi is used by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the word mile is from the Latin word for a thousand paces, mīlia. In 1617 the Dutch scientist Snell assessed the circumference of the Earth at 24,630 Roman miles, around that time British mathematician Edmund Gunter improved navigational tools including a new quadrant to determine latitude at sea. He reasoned that the lines of latitude could be used as the basis for a unit of measurement for distance, as one degree is 1/360 of a circle, one minute of arc is 1/21600 of a circle. These sexagesimal units originated in Babylonian astronomy, Gunter used Snells circumference to define a nautical mile as 6,080 feet, the length of one minute of arc at 48 degrees latitude.3 metres. Other countries measure the minute of arc at 45 degrees latitude, in 1929, the international nautical mile was defined by the First International Extraordinary Hydrographic Conference in Monaco as 1,852 meters. Imperial units and United States customary units used a definition of the nautical mile based on the Clarke Spheroid, the United States nautical mile was defined as 6,080.20 feet based in the Mendenhall Order foot of 1893. It was abandoned in favour of the nautical mile in 1954.181 meters. It was abandoned in 1970 and, legally, references to the unit are now converted to 1,853 meters. Conversion of units Orders of magnitude
32.
Sea level rise
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Sea level rise refers to an increase in the volume of water in the world’s oceans, resulting in an increase in global mean sea level. Sea level rise is attributed to global climate change by thermal expansion of the water in the oceans and by melting of Ice sheets. Melting of floating ice shelves or icebergs at sea raises sea levels only slightly, Sea level rise at specific locations may be more or less than the global average. Local factors might include tectonic effects, subsidence of the land, tides, currents, storms, Sea level rise is expected to continue for centuries. IPCC Summary for Policymakers, AR5,2014, indicated that the mean sea level rise will continue during the 21st century, very likely at a faster rate than observed from 1971 to 2010. A January 2017 NOAA report suggests a range of GMSL rise of 0.3 –2.5 m possible during the 21st century, Sea level rises can considerably influence human populations in coastal and island regions and natural environments like marine ecosystems. On the timescale of centuries to millennia, the melting of ice sheets could result in even higher sea level rise, partial deglaciation of the Greenland ice sheet, and possibly the West Antarctic ice sheet, could contribute 4 to 6 m or more to sea level rise. Various factors affect the volume or mass of the ocean, leading to changes in eustatic sea level. The two primary influences are temperature, and the mass of water locked up on land and sea as water in rivers, lakes, glaciers. Over much longer timescales, changes in the shape of oceanic basins. Since the Last Glacial Maximum about 20,000 years ago, sea level has risen by more than 125 m, with rates varying from tenths of a mm/yr to 10+mm/year, as a result of melting of major ice sheets. During the rest of the early Holocene, the rate of sea level rise varied from a low of about 6.0 -9.9 mm/yr to as high as 30 -60 mm/yr during brief periods of accelerated sea level rise. In sharp contrast, the period between 14,300 and 11,100 calendar years ago, which includes the Younger Dryas interval, was an interval of reduced sea level rise at about 6.0 -9.9 mm/yr. Meltwater pulse 1C was centered at 8,000 calendar years, such rapid rates of sea level rising during meltwater events clearly implicate major ice-loss events related to ice sheet collapse. The primary source may have been meltwater from the Antarctic ice sheet, other studies suggest a Northern Hemisphere source for the meltwater in the Laurentide ice sheet. For example, this research included studies of Roman wells in Caesarea and these methods in combination suggest a mean eustatic component of 0.07 mm/yr for the last 2000 years. Since 1880, as the Industrial Revolution took center stage, the ocean began to rise briskly, climbing a total of 210 mm through 2009 causing extensive erosion worldwide, Sea level rose by 6 cm during the 19th century and 19 cm in the 20th century. Evidence for this includes geological observations, the longest instrumental records, for example, geological observations indicate that during the last 2,000 years, sea level change was small, with an average rate of only 0. 0–0.2 mm per year
33.
Mohamed Nasheed
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Mohamed Nasheed, GCSK is a Maldivian politician, human rights and environmental activist, who served as the fourth President of the Maldives from 2008 to 2012. He was the first democratically elected president of the Maldives and one of the founders of the Maldivian Democratic Party, Nasheed assumed office on 11 November 2008. On 7 February 2012, Nasheed resigned as president under disputed circumstances, following weeks of protests by the opposition, the Maldives Commission of National Inquiry reported that it had found no evidence to support Nasheeds version of events. On 30 August 2014, Nasheed was elected as the President of the Maldivian Democratic Party, in March 2015, Nasheed was convicted under the Anti-Terrorism Act of Maldives for arresting Criminal Court Judge Abdulla Mohamed while president and sentenced to 13 years at Maafushi Prison. In 2016, Nasheed was given asylum in the United Kingdom, Nasheed was born in Malé, Maldives, to a middle-class family. He attended Majeediyya School in Maldives between 1971 and 1981 and he continued his secondary school education at Colombo International School in Sri Lanka from 1981 to 1982 until he completed his GCE O Levels. In August 1982 he moved to England, where he completed his secondary education at Dauntseys School in Wiltshire. Straight after his GCE A Levels, Nasheed moved north to Liverpool, Nasheed was held in prison for an article in the political magazine Sangu, published in 1991, alleging the government had rigged the 1989 General election. He was named an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience in 1991 and he has stated that he was tortured while in detention, including being chained to a chair outside for 12 days and forced to eat food containing crushed glass. He was later alleged by the government, to have information about a bombing plot. On 8 April 1992, he was sentenced to three years in prison on that charge and he was released in June 1993, then re-arrested in 1994 and 1995. In 1996 he was sentenced to two years imprisonment for an article he had written about the 1993 and 1994 Maldivian elections, in all, he was arrested more than twenty times during Gayooms rule, missing the births of both of his daughters. During his time in jail, he spent significant amounts of time studying, producing three books on Maldivian history, in 1999, he was elected as a Member of Parliament representing Malé. However, he was forced to leave office on a charge that the BBC. In September 2003 Nasheed requested that a view the body of Hassan Evan Naseem. The subsequent investigation revealed that Naseem had been tortured to death, in November 2003 Nasheed left the Maldives and joined Mohamed Latheef to help establish the Maldivian Democratic Party, in self-exile, in Sri Lanka and the UK. He was recognised as a refugee by the British government in 2004. After about 18 months, Nasheed returned to Malé on 30 April 2005, after returning to the Maldives, he began promoting the MDP before it was officially recognised by the Government
34.
Kyoto Protocol
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The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005. There are currently 192 parties to the Protocol, the Protocols first commitment period started in 2008 and ended in 2012. Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine have stated that they may withdraw from the Protocol or not put into force the Amendment with second round targets. Japan, New Zealand and Russia have participated in Kyotos first-round but have not taken on new targets in the commitment period. Other developed countries without second-round targets are Canada and the United States, as of July 2016,66 states have accepted the Doha Amendment, while entry into force requires the acceptances of 144 states. Of the 37 countries with binding commitments,7 have ratified, negotiations were held in the framework of the yearly UNFCCC Climate Change Conferences on measures to be taken after the second commitment period ends in 2020. This resulted in the 2015 adoption of the Paris Agreement, which is an instrument under the UNFCCC rather than an amendment of the Kyoto protocol. The view that human activities are responsible for most of the observed increase in global mean temperature since the mid-20th century is an accurate reflection of current scientific thinking. Human-induced warming of the climate is expected to continue throughout the 21st century, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have produced a range of projections of what the future increase in global mean temperature might be. The IPCCs projections are baseline projections, meaning that they assume no future efforts are made to reduce gas emissions. The IPCC projections cover the period from the beginning of the 21st century to the end of the 21st century. The likely range is a increase in global mean temperature over the 21st century of between 1.1 and 6.4 °C. The range in temperature projections partly reflects different projections of greenhouse gas emissions. Different projections contain different assumptions of social and economic development. The range also reflects uncertainty in the response of the system to past. 1992 The UN Conference on the Environment and Development is held in Rio de Janeiro and it results in the Framework Convention on Climate Change among other agreements. 1995 Parties to the UNFCCC meet in Berlin to outline specific targets on emissions,1997 In December the parties conclude the Kyoto Protocol in Kyoto, Japan, in which they agree to the broad outlines of emissions targets. 2002 Russia and Canada ratify the Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC bringing the treaty into effect on 16 February 2005,2011 Canada became the first signatory to announce its withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol
35.
Latitude
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In geography, latitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the north–south position of a point on the Earths surface. Latitude is an angle which ranges from 0° at the Equator to 90° at the poles, lines of constant latitude, or parallels, run east–west as circles parallel to the equator. Latitude is used together with longitude to specify the location of features on the surface of the Earth. Without qualification the term latitude should be taken to be the latitude as defined in the following sections. Also defined are six auxiliary latitudes which are used in special applications, there is a separate article on the History of latitude measurements. Two levels of abstraction are employed in the definition of latitude and longitude, in the first step the physical surface is modelled by the geoid, a surface which approximates the mean sea level over the oceans and its continuation under the land masses. The second step is to approximate the geoid by a mathematically simpler reference surface, the simplest choice for the reference surface is a sphere, but the geoid is more accurately modelled by an ellipsoid. The definitions of latitude and longitude on such surfaces are detailed in the following sections. Lines of constant latitude and longitude together constitute a graticule on the reference surface, latitude and longitude together with some specification of height constitute a geographic coordinate system as defined in the specification of the ISO19111 standard. This is of importance in accurate applications, such as a Global Positioning System, but in common usage, where high accuracy is not required. In English texts the latitude angle, defined below, is denoted by the Greek lower-case letter phi. It is measured in degrees, minutes and seconds or decimal degrees, the precise measurement of latitude requires an understanding of the gravitational field of the Earth, either to set up theodolites or to determine GPS satellite orbits. The study of the figure of the Earth together with its field is the science of geodesy. These topics are not discussed in this article and this article relates to coordinate systems for the Earth, it may be extended to cover the Moon, planets and other celestial objects by a simple change of nomenclature. The primary reference points are the poles where the axis of rotation of the Earth intersects the reference surface, the plane through the centre of the Earth and perpendicular to the rotation axis intersects the surface at a great circle called the Equator. Planes parallel to the plane intersect the surface in circles of constant latitude. The Equator has a latitude of 0°, the North Pole has a latitude of 90° North, the latitude of an arbitrary point is the angle between the equatorial plane and the radius to that point. The latitude, as defined in this way for the sphere, is termed the spherical latitude
36.
Lakshadweep
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Lakshadweep, formerly known as the Laccadive, Minicoy, and Aminidivi Islands, is a group of islands in the Laccadive Sea,200 to 440 km off the south western coast of India. The archipelago is a Union Territory and is governed by the Union Government of India and they were also known as Laccadive Islands, although geographically this is only the name of the central subgroup of the group. Lakshadweep comes from Lakshadweepa, which one hundred thousand islands in Sanskrit. The islands form the smallest Union Territory of India, their surface area is just 32 km2. The lagoon area covers about 4,200 km2, the territorial waters area 20,000 km2, the region forms a single Indian district with 10 subdivisions. Kavaratti serves as the capital of the Union Territory and the region comes under the jurisdiction of Kerala High Court, the islands are the northernmost of the Lakshadweep-Maldives-Chagos group of islands, which are the tops of a vast undersea mountain range, the Chagos-Laccadive Ridge. As the islands do not have any aboriginal groups, different views have been postulated by the scholars about the history of habitation on these islands, archaeological evidence supports the existence of human settlement in the region around 1500 BC. The islands have long known to sailors, as indicated by an anonymous reference from the first century AD to the region in Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. The islands were referenced also in the Buddhist Jataka stories of the sixth century BC, the arrival of Muslim missionaries around the seventh century led to the advent of Islam in the region. During the medieval period, the region was ruled by the Chola dynasty, the Portuguese arrived around 1498 and were upstaged by 1545. The region was ruled by the Muslim house of Arakkal. On his death in 1799, most of the region passed on to the British and with their departure, Ten of the islands are inhabited. At the 2011 Indian census, the population of the Union Territory was 64,473, the majority of the indigenous population is Muslim and most of them belong to the Shafi school of the Sunni sect. The islanders are ethnically similar to the Malayali people of the nearest Indian state of Kerala, most of the population speaks Malayalam with Mahi being the most spoken language in Minicoy island. The islands are served by an airport on the Agatti island, the main occupation of the people is fishing and coconut cultivation, with tuna being the main item of export. A mention of the region in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, There are references to the control of the islands by the Cheras in the Sangam Patiṟṟuppattu. Local traditions and legends attribute the first settlement on these islands to the period of Cheraman Perumal, the oldest inhabited islands in the group are Amini, Kalpeni Andrott, Kavaratti, and Agatti. Archaeological evidence suggests that Buddhism prevailed in the region during the fifth and sixth centuries CE, according to popular tradition, Islam was brought to Lakshadweep by an Arab named Ubaidulla in 661 CE
37.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
38.
Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
39.
History of the Maldives
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The Maldives is a nation consisting of 26 natural atolls, comprising 1192 islands. Since ancient times, the Maldives were ruled by kings and occasionally queens, historically, the Maldives had a strategic importance because of its location on the major marine routes of the Indian Ocean. The Maldives nearest neighbours are Sri Lanka and India, both of which have had cultural and economic ties with Maldives for centuries, the Maldives provided the main source of cowrie shells, then used as a currency throughout Asia and parts of the East African coast. Most probably Maldives were influenced by Kalingas of ancient India who were earliest sea traders to Sri Lanka, hence ancient Hindu culture has indelible impact on Maldives local culture. After the 16th century, when colonial powers took much of the trade in the Indian Ocean, first the Portuguese, then the Dutch. However, this ended when the Maldives became a British Protectorate in the 19th century. The Maldives gained total independence from the British on 26 July 1965, however, the British continued to maintain an air base on the island of Gan in the southernmost atoll until 1976. The British departure in 1976 at the height of the Cold War almost immediately triggered foreign speculation about the future of the air base, apparently the Soviet Union made a move to request the use of the base, but the Maldives refused. Concern was also evident over a projected sea level rise. Comparative studies of Maldivian oral, linguistic and cultural traditions and customs confirm that the first settlers were people from the shores of the neighbouring Indian subcontinent. These first Maldivians didnt leave any archaeological remains and their buildings were probably built of wood, palm fronds and other perishable materials, which would have quickly decayed in the salt and wind of the tropical climate. Moreover, chiefs or headmen didnt reside in elaborate stone palaces, despite being just mentioned briefly in most history books, the 1, 400-year-long Buddhist period has a foundational importance in the history of the Maldives. It was during this period that the culture of the Maldives as we now know it developed and flourished. Serious studies of the remains of the Maldives began with the work of H. C. P. Bell. Bell was shipwrecked on the islands in 1879 AD, and returned several times to investigate the ancient Buddhist ruins, Bell, who resided in Sri Lanka most of his life, claim that Buddhism came to the Maldives from Sri Lanka. Since then, new archaeological discoveries point to Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhist influences, an urn discovered in Maalhos in the 1980s has a Vishvavajra inscribed with Protobengali script. This text was in the script used in the ancient Buddhist centres of learning in Nalanda. There is also a small Porites stupa in the Museum where the directional Dhyani Buddhas are etched in its four points as in the Mahayana tradition
40.
National Museum (Maldives)
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Established on the National Day of the Maldives, the first national museum of the country was opened on November 11,1952, by the Prime Minister at the time, Mohamed Amin Didi. The museum was administered by the Maldivian Centre for Linguistic. The three-storied museum is located in the Sultan Park in Malé, the two-storey Us-gēkolhu is the only remaining structure of the palace demolished by fire in 1968. The new building of the museum is located in Sultan Park. The building was designed, built and financed by the Chinese government, the interior of the museum has been retained from the days of the Sultanate, including the handwritten Quran engraved on the walls of the building. Others examples include textiles such as dresses, turbans, fancy slippers and belts used on special occasions, mats. The Buddhist statues were destroyed during an attack in February 2012 and he said the museum had nothing to show of the countrys pre-Islamic history
41.
Folklore of the Maldives
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Maldivian mythology or Maldivian folklore is the body of myths, tales and anecdotes belonging to the oral tradition of Maldivians. The Maldives lie in the warm equatorial area of the Indian Ocean surrounded by deep waters. This nation is made up exclusively of coral atolls, there are about 1,200 small flat and sandy islands, but only about 200 of them are inhabited. The Maldives have been populated for millennia, therefore the folklore of these islands is very ancient. The main myths of origin are reflecting the dependence of the Maldivians on the coconut tree, therefore, the coconut tree is said to have an anthropomorphic origin according to Maldive lore. The coconut tree occupies a place in the present-day Maldive national emblem. The tuna fish is said to have brought to the Maldivian waters by a mythical seafarer called Bodu Niyami Kalēfanu who went close to the Dagas to bring this valuable fish. These myths tell that the end of the Maldives will be a great catastrophe where the islands will be submerged by the surrounding ocean, similar myths are found in the Andaman Islands as well as in the Nicobar Islands. The first settlers in the Maldive Islands were Dravidian people from the nearest coasts, the people of Giraavaru, an island located in Malé Atoll considered the first settlers, claim ancestry from the ancient Tamil people. It is said that Giraavaru fishermen used to go regularly to a large sandbank at the southern end of their atoll to clean tuna fish after a good catch. Owing to the amount of tuna fish offal and blood. Maa, meaning big, and Lē meaning blood, traditionally the first inhabitants of the Maldives, which include the Giraavaru people, didnt have kings. They lived in a society and were ruled by local headmen. One day a prince from the Subcontinent called Koimala arrived to Malé Atoll sailing from the north on a big ship, the people of Giraavaru spotted his vessel from afar and welcomed him. They allowed Prince Koimala to settle on that large sandbank in the midst of the waters tainted with fishblood, trees were planted on the sandbank and it is said that the first tree that grew on it was the papaya tree. As time went by the local islanders accepted the rule of this Northern Prince, a palace was built and the island was formally named Maa-le Malé, while the nearest island was named Hulhu-le. Most of the tales in Maldives are about evil spirits. These stories contain always a lesson in some form or the other, certain actions became necessary in order to avoid trouble with the spirit world
42.
Buddhism in the Maldives
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Buddhism in the Maldives was the predominant religion at least until the 12th century CE. It is not clear how Buddhism was introduced into the islands, western interest in the archaeological remains of early cultures on the Maldives began with the work of H. C. P. Bell, a British commissioner of the Ceylon Civil Service. Bell was shipwrecked on the islands in 1879, and returned several times to investigate ancient Buddhist ruins and he studied the ancient mounds, called havitta or ustubu by the Maldivians, which are found on many of the atolls. According to a legend of the Maldivian Folklore, a prince named Koimala from India or Sri Lanka entered the Maldives from the North and became the first king from the House of Theemuge. Prior to that the Maldives had been settled by people of Dravidian origin from the nearest coasts and it is unlikely that the Giraavaru islanders were the only early settlers in the Maldives. The importance they have been given is because they are mentioned in the legend about the establishment of the capital, the ancient Maldivian Kings promoted Buddhism and the first Maldive writings and artistic achievements in the form of highly developed sculpture and architecture are from that period. The conversion to Islam is mentioned in the ancient edicts written in copper plates from the end of the 12th century AD, there is also a locally well-known legend about a foreign saint who subdued a demon known as Rannamaari. Over the centuries, the islands have been visited and their development influenced by sailors and traders from countries on the Arabian Sea, until relatively recent times, Mappila pirates from the Malabar Coast harassed the islands. Fua Mulaku Havitta Kuruhinna Tharaagandu Windows on Asia - Religion in Maldives Conversion of the Maldives to Islam
This article incorporates public domain material from the Library of Congress Country Studies website http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/.
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