1.
Sweden
–
Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and Finland to the east, at 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of 10.0 million. Sweden consequently has a low density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre. Approximately 85% of the lives in urban areas. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats/Götar and Swedes/Svear, Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is heavily forested. Sweden is part of the area of Fennoscandia. The climate is in very mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence. Today, Sweden is a monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state. The capital city is Stockholm, which is also the most populous city in the country, legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister, Sweden is a unitary state, currently divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages, in the 17th century, it expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire, which became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were gradually lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, the last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, maintaining a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs. The union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905, leading to Swedens current borders, though Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars, Sweden engaged in humanitarian efforts, such as taking in refugees from German-occupied Europe. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995 and it is also a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides health care. The modern name Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod and this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige literally means Realm of the Swedes, excluding the Geats in Götaland, the etymology of Swedes, and thus Sweden, is generally not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning ones own, referring to ones own Germanic tribe
2.
Member states of the United Nations
–
The United Nations member states are the 193 sovereign states that are members of the United Nations and have equal representation in the UN General Assembly. The UN is the worlds largest intergovernmental organization, ahead of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the admission of any such state to membership in the United Nations will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. A recommendation for admission from the Security Council requires affirmative votes from at least nine of the fifteen members. The Security Councils recommendation must then be approved in the General Assembly by a majority vote. In principle, only states can become UN members. Although five members were not sovereign when they joined the UN and this is because the UN does not consider them to possess sovereignty, mainly due to the lack of international recognition or due to opposition from one of the permanent members. Observers are generally intergovernmental organizations and international organizations and entities whose statehood or sovereignty is not precisely defined, the other two original members, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, had been dissolved and their memberships in the UN not continued from 1992 by any one successor state. India was under British colonial rule, until gaining independence in 1947. The Philippines was a commonwealth with the United States, until gaining independence in 1946. New Zealand, while de facto sovereign at that time, only gained full capacity to enter into relations with states in 1947 when it passed the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act. This occurred 16 years after the British Parliament passed the Statute of Westminster Act in 1931 that recognised New Zealands autonomy, if judged by the Montevideo Convention criteria, New Zealand did not achieve full de jure statehood until 1947. The current members and their dates of admission are listed below with their official designations used by the United Nations, the member states can be sorted by their official designations and dates of admission by clicking on the buttons in the header of the columns. See related sections on former members by clicking on the links in the column See also, original members are listed with blue background. Both sides rejected compromise proposals to both states to participate in the UN, based on the One-China policy. By the 1970s, a shift had occurred in diplomatic circles. This effectively transferred the seat of China in the UN, including its permanent seat on the Security Council, from the ROC to the PRC, from the United Nations perspective the Republic of China is not a former member. No UN member was expelled in 1971, rather, the credentials of one Chinese delegation were rejected and the credentials of another Chinese delegation were accepted. In addition to losing its seat in the UN, the UN Secretary-General concluded from the resolution that the General Assembly considered Taiwan to be a province of China
3.
Mahatma Gandhi
–
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was the preeminent leader of the Indian independence movement in British-ruled India. Employing nonviolent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights, the honorific Mahatma —applied to him first in 1914 in South Africa—is now used worldwide. In India, he is also called Bapu and Gandhiji and he is unofficially called the Father of the Nation. After his return to India in 1915, he set about organising peasants, farmers, Gandhi famously led Indians in challenging the British-imposed salt tax with the 400 km Dandi Salt March in 1930, and later in calling for the British to Quit India in 1942. He was imprisoned for years, upon many occasions, in both South Africa and India. Gandhi attempted to practise nonviolence and truth in all situations, and he lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, woven with yarn hand-spun on a charkha. He ate simple food, and also undertook long fasts as a means of both self-purification and social protest. Eventually, in August 1947, Britain granted independence, but the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two dominions, a Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. As many displaced Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs made their way to their new lands, religious violence broke out, especially in the Punjab, eschewing the official celebration of independence in Delhi, Gandhi visited the affected areas, attempting to provide solace. In the months following, he undertook several fasts unto death to promote religious harmony, the last of these, undertaken on 12 January 1948 when he was 78, also had the indirect goal of pressuring India to pay out some cash assets owed to Pakistan. Some Indians thought Gandhi was too accommodating, among them was Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist, who assassinated Gandhi on 30 January 1948 by firing three bullets into his chest. Mahatma Gandhis birthday,2 October, is commemorated in India as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday and his father, Karamchand Uttamchand Gandhi, served as the diwan of Porbandar state. The Gandhi family originated from the village of Kutiana in what was then Junagadh State, in the late 17th or early 18th century, one Lalji Gandhi moved to Porbandar and entered the service of its ruler, the Rana. In 1831, Rana Khimojiraji died suddenly and was succeeded by his 12-year-old only son, as a result, Rana Khimojirajjis widow, Rani Rupaliba, became regent for her son. She soon fell out with Uttamchand and forced him to return to his village in Junagadh. While in Junagadh, Uttamchand appeared before its Nawab and saluted him with his hand instead of his right. In 1841, Vikmatji assumed the throne and reinstated Uttamchand as his diwan, in 1847, Rana Vikmatji appointed Uttamchands son, Karamchand, as diwan after disagreeing with Uttamchand over the states maintenance of a British garrison. Although he only had an education and had previously been a clerk in the state administration
4.
India
–
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, 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
5.
Shirin Ebadi
–
Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer, a former judge and human rights activist and founder of Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran. On 10 October 2003, Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially womens, childrens, and refugee rights. She was the first ever Iranian to receive the prize, in 2009, Ebadis award was allegedly confiscated by Iranian authorities, though this was later denied by the Iranian government. If true, she would be the first person in the history of the Nobel Prize whose award has been seized by state authorities. Ebadi lived in Tehran, but she has been in exile in the UK since June 2009 due to the increase in persecution of Iranian citizens who are critical of the current regime. In 2004, she was listed by Forbes magazine as one of the 100 most powerful women in the world and she is also included in a published list of the 100 most influential women of all time. Ebadi was born in Hamadan, Iran and her father, Mohammad Ali Ebadi, was the citys chief notary public and a professor of commercial law. Her family moved to Tehran in 1948 and she was admitted to the law department of the University of Tehran in 1965 and in 1969, upon graduation, passed the qualification exams to become a judge. After a six-month internship period, she became a judge in March 1969. She continued her studies in University of Tehran in the meantime to pursue a degree in law in 1971. In 1975, she became the first woman president of the Tehran city court and she and other female judges protested and were assigned to the slightly higher position of law expert. She eventually requested early retirement as the situation remained unchanged, as her applications were repeatedly rejected, Ebadi was not able to practice as a lawyer until 1993, while she already had a law office permit. She used this time to write books and many articles in Iranian periodicals. Ebadi lectured law at the University of Tehran and she is a campaigner for strengthening the legal status of children and women, the latter of which played a key role in the May 1997 landslide presidential election of the reformist Mohammad Khatami. As a lawyer, she is known for taking up pro bono cases of dissident figures who have fallen foul of the judiciary and she has represented the family of Dariush Forouhar, a dissident intellectual and politician who was found stabbed to death at his home. His wife, Parvaneh Eskandari, was killed at the same time. The couple were among several dissidents who died in a spate of murders that terrorized Irans intellectual community. Suspicion fell on extremist hard-liners determined to put a stop to the liberal climate fostered by President Khatami
6.
Nonviolence
–
Nonviolence is the personal practice of being harmless to self and others under every condition. Mahavira, the twenty-fourth tirthankara of the Jain religion, was the torch-bearer of ahimsa and introduced the word to the world and he taught that to attain nirvana, one must abstain from violence. Nonviolence also has active or activist elements, in that believers accept the need for nonviolence as a means to political and social change. In modern times, nonviolent methods of action have been a tool for social protest. There are many examples of their use, fuller surveys may be found in the entries on civil resistance, nonviolent resistance and nonviolent revolution. The 1989 Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia that saw the overthrow of the Communist government is considered one of the most important of the largely nonviolent Revolutions of 1989. Most recently the nonviolent campaigns of Leymah Gbowee and the women of Liberia were able to achieve peace after a 14-year civil war and this story is captured in a 2008 documentary film Pray the Devil Back to Hell. In an essay, To Abolish War, evolutionary biologist Judith Hand advocated the use of nonviolent direct action to dismantle the global war machine. The term nonviolence is often linked with or used as a synonym for peace, and despite being frequently equated with passivity and pacifism, this is rejected by nonviolent advocates and activists. Nonviolence refers specifically to the absence of violence and is always the choice to do no harm or the least harm, sometimes nonviolence is passive, and other times it isnt. For example, if a house is burning down with mice or insects in it, there is at times confusion and contradiction written about nonviolence, harmlessness and passivity. A confused person may advocate nonviolence in a specific context while advocating violence in other contexts, for example, someone who passionately opposes abortion or meat eating may concurrently advocate violence to kill an abortionist or attack a slaughterhouse, which makes that person a violent person. On a national level, the strategy of nonviolent action seeks to undermine the power of rulers by encouraging people to withdraw their consent, the forms of nonviolence draw inspiration from both religious or ethical beliefs and political analysis. Commonly, both of these dimensions may be present within the thinking of particular movements or individuals, nicolas Walter noted the idea that nonviolence might work runs under the surface of Western political thought without ever quite disappearing. Walter noted Étienne de La Boéties Discourse on Voluntary Servitude and P. B, shelleys The Masque of Anarchy contain arguments for resisting tyranny without using violence. In 1838, William Lloyd Garrison helped found the New England Non-Resistance Society, in modern industrial democracies, nonviolent action has been used extensively by political sectors without mainstream political power such as labor, peace, environment and womens movements. Lesser known is the role that nonviolent action has played and continues to play in undermining the power of political regimes in the developing world. Also of primary significance is the notion that just means are the most likely to lead to just ends
