1.
Geographic coordinate system
–
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
Geographic coordinate system
–
Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.
2.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
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Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is one of the four provinces of Pakistan, located in the northwestern region of the country. It was formerly known as North-West Frontier Province and commonly called Sarhad and its provincial capital and largest city is Peshawar, followed by Mardan. It shares borders with the Federally Administered Tribal Areas to the west, Gilgit–Baltistan to the northeast, Azad Kashmir, Islamabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa does not share a border with Balochistan, which lies to its southwest. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa also shares a border with Afghanistan, connected through the Khyber Pass. It is also the site of the ancient kingdom Gandhara, the ruins of its capital, Pushkalavati, and the most prominent center of learning in the Peshawar Valley, Takht-i-Bahi. It has been under the suzerainty of the Persians, Greeks, Mauryans, Kushans, Shahis, Ghaznavids, Mughals, Afghanistan, Sikhs, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the third largest province of Pakistan by the size of both population and economy though it is geographically the smallest of four. It comprises 10. 5% of Pakistans economy, and is home to 11. 9% of Pakistans total population, with the majority of the inhabitants being Pashtuns, Hazarewal, Chitrali. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa means Khyber side of the land of Pakhtuns while only the word Pakhtunkhwa means Land of Pakhtuns and according to scholars it means Pakhtun culture. When the British established it as a province, they called it North West Frontier Province due to its location being in north west of their Indian Empire. After independence of Pakistan, Pakistan continued with this name but a Pakhtun nationalist party and their logic behind that demand was that Punjabi people, Sindhi people and Balochi people have their provinces named after their ethnicities but that is not the case for Pashtun people. Major political parties especially Pakistan Muslim League were against that name since it was too similar to Bacha Khans demand of separate nation Pashtunistan. The ancient Aryan Migration is believed to have taken place around 2000 BCE, darius Hystaspes sent Scylax, a Greek seaman from Karyanda, to explore the course of the Indus river. Darius Hystaspes subsequently subdued the races dwelling west of the Indus, Gandhara was incorporated into the Persian Empire as one of its far easternmost satrapy system of government. The satrapy of Gandhara is recorded to have sent troops for Xerxes invasion of Greece in 480 BCE, in the spring of 327 BCE Alexander the Great crossed the Indian Caucasus and advanced to Nicaea, where Omphis, king of Taxila and other chiefs joined him. Alexander then dispatched part of his force through the valley of the Kabul River, while he advanced into modern Khyber Pakhtunkhwas Bajaur. Alexander then made Embolima his base, after Alexanders death in 323 BCE Porus obtained possession of the region, but was murdered by Eudemus in 317 BCE. Eudemus then left the region, and with his departure Macedonian power collapsed, sandrocottus, the founder of the Mauryan dynasty, then declared himself master of the province. His grandson, Ashoka, made Buddhism the dominant religion in ancient Gandhara, after Ashokas death the Mauryan empire collapse, just as in the west the Seleucid power was rising
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
–
Standing Buddha, in the style of
Gandhara.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
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Flag
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
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Approximate boundaries of the Gandharan Empire, Alexander Army also passed through this area centered on the modern day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
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Relics of the
Buddha from the ruins of the
Kanishka stupa at
Peshawar -now in
Mandalay,
Myanmar.
3.
Khyber Agency
–
Khyber is a tribal area in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas region of Pakistan. It is one of the eight areas, better known as agencies in Pakistan. It ranges from the Tirah valley down to Peshawar and it borders Nangarhar Province to the west, Orakzai Agency to the south, Kurram Agency to south west and Peshawar to the east. Quite far ahead of the next highest Agency - Kurram at 26. 5% and it is also the only Agency where the majority of its men are literate, at 57. 2%, which is almost 20% ahead of the next highest agency, Kurram. However, its Female literacy rate of 10. 1% is 2nd after Kurrams 14. 4%, the majority of the tribes in Khyber Agency are Afridis. However, there are important pockets of Mullagoris, Shilmanis, Bangashs, tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Islam and Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi militants began entering Khyber Agency after the US-led NATO Invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. After 2007, the militants began attacking government and military establishments in KPK province killing many people, the Pakistan Army began an operation in 2008 to clear the agency of militants and restore normal life in the area. The Operation continued for years and resulted in killing of hundreds of TTP militants, the Local Aman Lashkars or Peace committees supported the army by fighting the foreign terrorists. By July 2012, a part of the agency was cleared. The Operation also Produced a large number of displaced people. In October 2014, Pakistan Armed Forces launched an offensive in Khyber Agency code-named Operation Khyber-1. People belonging to this area are filled with the cricket spirit, famous Pakistani Cricketer Shahid Afridi also belongs to this area. Homepage for the Political Agent Khyber Agency http, //www. khyber. org/places/2005/KhyberAgency. shtml - Khyber Agency information
Khyber Agency
–
Literacy Map, Khyber Highest, Source:
Khyber Agency
Khyber Agency
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Shahid Afridi in the field during a cricket match.
4.
Pashto language
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Pashto, known in Persian literature as Afghānistani and in Urdu and Hindi literature as Paṭhānī, is the South-Central Asian language of the Pashtuns. Its speakers are called Pashtuns or Pukhtuns and sometimes Afghans or Pathans and it is an Eastern Iranian language, belonging to the Indo-European family. Pashto is one of the two languages of Afghanistan, and it is the second-largest regional language of Pakistan, mainly spoken in the west and northwest of the country. Pakistans Federally Administered Tribal Areas are almost 100% Pashto-speaking, while it is the majority language of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pashto is the main language among the Pashtun diaspora around the world. The total number of Pashto-speakers is estimated to be 45–60 million people worldwide, Pashto belongs to the Northeastern Iranian group of the Indo-Iranian branch, but Ethnologue lists it as Southeastern Iranian. Pashto has two main groups, “soft” and “hard”, the latter known as Pakhto. As a national language of Afghanistan, Pashto is primarily spoken in the east, south, and southwest, the exact numbers of speakers are unavailable, but different estimates show that Pashto is the mother tongue of 45–60% of the total population of Afghanistan. In Pakistan Pashto is spoken as a first language by about 15. 42% of Pakistans 170 million people and it is the main language of the Pashtun-majority regions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Federally Administered Tribal Areas and northern Balochistan. It is also spoken in parts of Mianwali and Attock districts of the Punjab province and in Islamabad, modern Pashto-speaking communities are found in the cities of Karachi and Hyderabad in Sindh. Other communities of Pashto speakers are found in Tajikistan, and further in the Pashtun diaspora, there are also communities of Pashtun descent in the southwestern part of Jammu and Kashmir. Pashto is one of the two languages of Afghanistan, along with Dari. Since the early 18th century, all the kings of Afghanistan were ethnic Pashtuns except for Habibullah Kalakani, Persian as the literary language of the royal court was more widely used in government institutions while Pashto was spoken by the Pashtun tribes as their native tongue. Although officially strengthening the use of Pashto, the Afghan elite regarded Persian as a “sophisticated language, king Zahir Shah thus followed suit after his father Nadir Khan had decreed in 1933, that both Persian and Pashto were to be studied and utilized by officials. Thus Pashto became a language, a symbol for Afghan nationalism. The status of language was reaffirmed in 1964 by the constitutional assembly when Afghan Persian was officially renamed to Dari. The lyrics of the anthem of Afghanistan are in Pashto. In Pakistan, Urdu and English are the two official languages, Pashto has no official status at the federal level. On a provincial level, Pashto is the language of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa, Federally Administered Tribal Areas
Pashto language
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Pashto language on the map of Afghanistan.The brown areas speak Pashto.
Pashto language
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The word Pax̌tō written in the
Pashto alphabet
5.
Urdu language
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Urdu is a persianized standard register of the Hindustani language. It is the language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also one of the 22 official languages recognized in the Constitution of India, hyderabad, Rampur, Bhopal and Lucknow are noted Urdu-speaking cities of India. Urdu is historically associated with the Muslims of the northern Indian subcontinent, apart from specialized vocabulary, Urdu is mutually intelligible with Standard Hindi, another recognized register of Hindustani. Urdu, like Hindi, is a form of Hindustani, Urdu developed under the influence of the Persian and Arabic languages, both of which have contributed a significant amount of vocabulary to formal speech. Around 99% of Urdu verbs have their roots in Sanskrit and Prakrit, Urdu words originating from Chagatai and Arabic were borrowed through Persian and hence are Persianized versions of the original words. For instance, the Arabic ta marbuta changes to he or te, nevertheless, contrary to popular belief, Urdu did not borrow from the Turkish language, but from Chagatai. Urdu and Turkish borrowed from Arabic and Persian, hence the similarity in pronunciation of many Urdu, Arabic influence in the region began with the late first-millennium Arab invasion of India in the 7th century. The Persian language was introduced into the subcontinent a few centuries later by various Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties including that of the Delhi Sultanate. With the advent of the British Raj, Persian was no longer the language of administration but Hindustani, still written in the Persian script, the name Urdu was first used by the poet Ghulam Hamadani Mushafi around 1780. From the 13th century until the end of the 18th century Urdu was commonly known as Hindi, the language was also known by various other names such as Hindavi and Dehlavi. The communal nature of the language lasted until it replaced Persian as the language in 1837 and was made co-official. Urdu was promoted in British India by British policies to counter the previous emphasis on Persian and this triggered a Brahman backlash in northwestern India, which argued that the language should be written in the native Devanagari script. At independence, Pakistan established a highly Persianized literary form of Urdu as its national language, English has exerted a heavy influence on both as a co-official language. Owing to interaction with other languages, Urdu has become localized wherever it is spoken, similarly, the Urdu spoken in India can also be distinguished into many dialects like Dakhni of South India, and Khariboli of the Punjab region since recent times. Because of Urdus similarity to Hindi, speakers of the two languages can understand one another if both sides refrain from using specialized vocabulary. The syntax, morphology, and the vocabulary are essentially identical. Thus linguists usually count them as one language and contend that they are considered as two different languages for socio-political reasons
Urdu language
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Autograph and a couplet of Last
Mughal Emperor,
Bahadur Shah II, dated 29 April 1844
Urdu language
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Urdu in
Perso-Arabic script (
Nastaliq style)
Urdu language
–
A trilingual
signboard in the
UAE
Urdu language
–
A multilingual
New Delhi railway station board
6.
Khyber pass
–
The Khyber Pass is a mountain pass connecting Afghanistan and Pakistan, cutting through the northeastern part of the Spin Ghar mountains. An integral part of the ancient Silk Road, it has long had significant cultural, economic, throughout history it has been an important trade route between Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent and a strategic military location. The summit of the pass is 5 kilometres inside Pakistan at Landi Kotal, the Khyber Pass is part of the Asian Highway 1. Khyber is the Hebrew word for fort, well known invasions of the area have been predominantly through the Khyber Pass, such as the invasions by Darius I, Genghis Khan and later Mongols such as Duwa, Qutlugh Khwaja and Kebek. Prior to the Kushan era, the Khyber Pass was not a widely used trade route, among the Muslim invasions of ancient India, the famous invaders coming through the Khyber Pass are Mahmud Ghaznavi, and the Afghan Muhammad Ghori and the Turkic-Mongols. Finally, Sikhs under Ranjit Singh captured the Khyber Pass in 1834 until they were defeated by the forces of Wazir Akbar Khan in 1837, hari Singh Nalwa, who manned the Khyber Pass for years, became a household name in Afghanistan. To the north of the Khyber Pass lies the country of the Mullagori tribe, to the south is Afridi Tirah, while the inhabitants of villages in the Pass itself are Afridi clansmen. Throughout the centuries the Pashtun clans, particularly the Afridis and the Afghan Shinwaris, have regarded the Pass as their own preserve and have levied a toll on travellers for safe conduct. Since this has long been their main source of income, resistance to challenges to the Shinwaris authority has often been fierce, for strategic reasons, after the First World War the British built a heavily engineered railway through the Pass. The Khyber Pass Railway from Jamrud, near Peshawar, to the Afghan border near Landi Kotal was opened in 1925, during World War II concrete dragon’s teeth were erected on the valley floor due to British fears of a German tank invasion of India. The Pass became widely known to thousands of Westerners and Japanese who traveled it in the days of the Hippie trail, at the Pakistani frontier post, travelers were advised not to wander away from the road, as the location was a barely controlled Federally Administered Tribal Area. Then, after customs formalities, a quick daylight drive through the Pass was made, monuments left by British Army units, as well as hillside forts, could be viewed from the highway. Almost 80 percent of the NATO and US supplies that are brought in by road were transported through this Khyber Pass, furthermore, it has also been used to transport civilians from the Afghan side to the Pakistani one. Until the end of 2007, this route had been relatively safe since the living there were paid by the Pakistani government to keep the area safe. However, since that year, the Taliban began to control the region, since the end of 2008, supply convoys and depots in this western part increasingly came under attack by elements from or supposedly sympathetic to the Pakistani Taliban. In January 2009, Pakistan sealed off the bridge as part of an offensive against Taliban guerrillas. This military operation was focused on Jamrud, a district on the Khyber road. The target was to “dynamite or bulldoze homes belonging to men suspected of harboring or supporting Taliban militants or carrying out other illegal activities”, the result meant that more than 70 people were arrested and 45 homes were destroyed
Khyber pass
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Looking back towards
Pakistan, on the Afghanistan side of the Khyber Pass
Khyber pass
–
Elephant battery of heavy artillery along the Khyber Pass at
Campbellpur, 1895
Khyber pass
–
Afghan chiefs and a
British political officer posed at
Jamrud fort at the mouth of the Khyber Pass in 1878.
Khyber pass
–
Bab-e-Kyber
7.
Hindu Kush
–
It forms the western section of the Hindu Kush Himalayan Region. It divides the valley of the Amu Darya to the north from the Indus River valley to the south, the eastern end of the Hindu Kush in the north merges with the Karakoram Range. Towards its southern end, it connects with the Spin Ghar Range near the Kabul River, the Hindu Kush range were a historically significant center of Buddhism with sites such as the Bamiyan Buddhas. The range and communities settled in it hosted ancient monasteries, important trade networks, Buddhism declined, then vanished, after Islam arrived in the region. The Hindu Kush range has also been the passageway during the invasions of the Indian subcontinent and this collision created the Himalayas, including the Hindu Kush. The Hindu Kush range remains geologically active and are still rising, the origins of the name Hindu Kush are uncertain, with multiple theories being propounded by different scholars and writers. The Persian-English dictionary indicates that the word koš is derived from the verb, the word and suffix -kush means kill, slay, death. In his travel memoirs about India, the 14th century Moroccan traveller Muhammad Ibn Battuta mentioned crossing into India via the passes of the Hindu Kush. In his Rihla, he mentions these mountains and the history of the range in slave trading, to Arab geographers, states Allan, Hindu Kush was the frontier boundary where Hindustan started. According to McColl, yet another possibility is that the name may be from the ancient Avestan language, the mountain range was also called Paropamisadae by Hellenic Greeks in the late first millennium BC. Some scholars remove the space, and refer to Hindu Kush as Hindukush, the mountains have historical significance in the Indian subcontinent and China. The Hindu Kush range was a center of Buddhism with sites such as the Bamiyan Buddhas. It has also been the passageway during the invasions of the Indian subcontinent, a region where the Taliban and Al Qaeda grew, Buddhism was widespread in the ancient Hindu Kush region. Ancient artwork of Buddhism include the giant rock carved statues called the Bamiyan Buddha and these statues were blown up by the Taliban Islamists. One of the early Buddhist schools, the Mahāsāṃghika-Lokottaravāda, was prominent in the area of Bamiyan, the Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang visited a Lokottaravāda monastery in the 7th century CE, at Bamiyan, Afghanistan. Some manuscripts are in the Gāndhārī language and Kharoṣṭhī script, while others are in Sanskrit, after the Islamic conquest of the region and Islam becoming the state religion, Buddhism vanished and locals became Muslims. The significance of the Hindu Kush mountain range has been recorded since the time of Darius I of Persia, alexander the Great entered the Indian subcontinent through the Hindu Kush as his army moved past Bactria into the Afghan valley in the spring of 329 BCE. He moved towards the Indus valley river region in 327 BCE, the region became a part of the Kushan Empire in centuries around the start of the common era
Hindu Kush
–
Hindu Kush range
Hindu Kush
–
Landscape of Afghanistan with a
T-62 in the foreground.
Hindu Kush
–
The Hindu Kush occupies the lower left centre of this satellite image.
Hindu Kush
8.
Peshawar
–
Peshawar is the capital of the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It also serves as the centre and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Situated in a valley near the eastern end of the historic Khyber Pass, close to the border with Afghanistan. Making it the oldest city in Pakistan and one of the oldest in South Asia, Peshawar is the largest city of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. According to the last census, it is also the ninth-largest city of Pakistan, the earliest settlement established in the area of Peshawar was called Puruṣapura, from which the current name Peshawar is derived. The Arab historian and geographer Al-Masudi noted that by the mid 10th century, after the Ghaznavid invasion, the citys name was again noted to be Parashāwar by Al-Biruni. The city became to be known as as Peshāwar by the era of Emperor Akbar, a name which is traditionally said to have been given by Akbar himself. The new name is said to have been based upon the Persian for frontier town, or more literally, forward city, though transcription errors and linguistic shifts may also account for the citys new name. Akbars bibliographer, Abul-Fazl ibn Mubarak, lists the name by both its former name Parashāwar, transcribed in Persian as پَرَشاوَر, and Peshāwar. Peshawar was founded as the ancient city of Puruṣapura, on the Gandhara Plains in the broad Valley of Peshawar, the city likely first existed as a small village in the 5th century BCE, within the cultural sphere of eastern ancient Persia. Puruṣapura was founded near the ancient Gandharan capital city of Pushkalavati, in the winter of 327-26 BCE, Alexander the Great subdued the Valley of Peshawar during his invasion of ancient India, as well as the nearby Swat and Buner valleys. Following Alexanders conquest, the Valley of Peshawar came under suzerainty of Seleucus I Nicator, a locally-made vase fragment that was found in Peshawar depicts a scene from Sophocles play Antigone. Following the Seleucid–Mauryan war, the region was ceded to the Mauryan Empire in 303 BCE, as Mauryan power declined, the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom based in modern Afghanistan declared its independence from the Seleucid Empire, and quickly seized Puruṣapura around 190 BCE. The city was ruled by several Iranic Parthian kingdoms. Puruṣapura was then captured by Gondophares, founder of the Indo-Parthian Kingdom, Gondophares established the nearby Takht-i-Bahi monastery in 46 CE. In the first century of the Common era, came under control of Kujula Kadphises, the city was made the empires winter capital. The Kushans summer capital at Kapisi was seen as the capital of the empire. Ancient Peshawars population was estimated to be 120,000, which would make it the seventh-most populous city in the world at the time, around 128 CE, Puruṣapura was made sole capital of the Kushan Empire under the rule of Kanishka
Peshawar
–
Peshawar City
Peshawar
Peshawar
–
Entrance to the
Khyber Pass
Peshawar
–
Bala Hisar Fort
9.
Landi Kotal
–
Landi Kotal is a small town of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Landi Kotal is at the edge of the Khyber Pass that traditionally marks the entrance to Afghanistan. It is the highest point along the pass and it is located at 34°64N 71°844E and lies on the Khyber Pass in the Khyber Agency. At 1,072 metres above sea level, it is the headquarters of the administration of Khyber and is on the route across the mountains to the city of Peshawar. Landi Kotal is a tourist destination due to historic Kyber Pass and it is accessible by road from elsewhere in Pakistan, or from the Afghanistan border just five kilometers to the west. Landi Kotal was the railway station of Khyber Pass Railway. A tourist train, The Khyber train safari was run on this railway and it was closed in 2006 due to washing away of railway track and bridges by flood. Landi Kotal is the shopping centre for both the Shinwari and Afridi tribes. Landi Kotal was the westernmost part of the Khyber held by the British during their rule of the subcontinent, in 1897 the Afridis attacked Landi Kotal and other posts in the Khyber Pass. Although the Khyber Rifles put up a defence, Landi Kotal was overrun. The British counter-attacked with a force of 34,500 men under Sir William Lockhart, defeating the Afridis, although the Afridis took the town again during the second Anglo-Afghan War. The fort during the period of British rule was of the type, consisting of a keep. From 1899, like the other posts in the Khyber, it had been garrisoned by the Khyber Rifles, in 1925 the heavily engineered Khyber Pass Railway was opened linking Jamrud to the Landi Kotal
Landi Kotal
–
Landi Kotal during the
Second Anglo-Afghan War when it served as an encampment of the 12,000-strong
Peshawar Valley Field Force under General
Sir Samuel Browne who was crossing the
Khyber Pass on the way towards Kabul at the start of the war. The small fort in the foreground guards the western end of the Khyber Pass. Photograph by
John Burke
10.
Afghanistan
–
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located within South Asia and Central Asia. It has a population of approximately 32 million, making it the 42nd most populous country in the world. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the north and its territory covers 652,000 km2, making it the 41st largest country in the world. The land also served as the source from which the Kushans, Hephthalites, Samanids, Saffarids, Ghaznavids, Ghorids, Khiljis, Mughals, Hotaks, Durranis, the political history of the modern state of Afghanistan began with the Hotak and Durrani dynasties in the 18th century. In the late 19th century, Afghanistan became a state in the Great Game between British India and the Russian Empire. Following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, King Amanullah unsuccessfully attempted to modernize the country and it remained peaceful during Zahir Shahs forty years of monarchy. A series of coups in the 1970s was followed by a series of wars that devastated much of Afghanistan. The name Afghānistān is believed to be as old as the ethnonym Afghan, the root name Afghan was used historically in reference to a member of the ethnic Pashtuns, and the suffix -stan means place of in Persian. Therefore, Afghanistan translates to land of the Afghans or, more specifically in a historical sense, however, the modern Constitution of Afghanistan states that he word Afghan shall apply to every citizen of Afghanistan. An important site of historical activities, many believe that Afghanistan compares to Egypt in terms of the historical value of its archaeological sites. The country sits at a unique nexus point where numerous civilizations have interacted and it has been home to various peoples through the ages, among them the ancient Iranian peoples who established the dominant role of Indo-Iranian languages in the region. At multiple points, the land has been incorporated within large regional empires, among them the Achaemenid Empire, the Macedonian Empire, the Indian Maurya Empire, and the Islamic Empire. Archaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with its neighbors to the east, west. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, urban civilization is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BCE, and the early city of Mundigak may have been a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization. More recent findings established that the Indus Valley Civilisation stretched up towards modern-day Afghanistan, making the ancient civilisation today part of Pakistan, Afghanistan, in more detail, it extended from what today is northwest Pakistan to northwest India and northeast Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. There are several smaller IVC colonies to be found in Afghanistan as well, after 2000 BCE, successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan, among them were many Indo-European-speaking Indo-Iranians. These tribes later migrated further into South Asia, Western Asia, the region at the time was referred to as Ariana
Afghanistan
–
History of Afghanistan
Afghanistan
–
Flag
Afghanistan
–
Bilingual (
Greek and
Aramaic)
edict by Emperor
Ashoka from the 3rd century BCE discovered in the southern city of
Kandahar
Afghanistan
–
One of the
Buddhas of Bamiyan.
Buddhism was widespread in the region before the
Islamic conquest of Afghanistan.
11.
Central Asia
–
Central Asia stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to China in the east and from Afghanistan in the south to Russia in the north. It is also referred to as the -stans as the five countries generally considered to be within the region all have names ending with the Persian suffix -stan. Central Asias five former Soviet republics are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Central Asia has historically been closely tied to its nomadic peoples and the Silk Road. It has acted as a crossroads for the movement of people, goods, the Silk Road connected Muslim lands with the people of Europe, India, and China. This crossroads position has intensified the conflict between tribalism and traditionalism and modernization, in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times, Central Asia was predominantly Iranian, peopled by Eastern Iranian-speaking Bactrians, Sogdians and Chorasmians and the semi-nomadic Scythians and Parthians. Central Asia is sometimes referred to as Turkestan, the idea of Central Asia as a distinct region of the world was introduced in 1843 by the geographer Alexander von Humboldt. The borders of Central Asia are subject to multiple definitions, historically built political geography and geoculture are two significant parameters widely used in the scholarly literature about the definitions of the Central Asia. The most limited definition was the one of the Soviet Union. This definition was also used outside the USSR during this period. However, the Russian culture has two terms, Средняя Азия and Центральная Азия. Since then, this has become the most common definition of Central Asia, the UNESCO general history of Central Asia, written just before the collapse of the USSR, defines the region based on climate and uses far larger borders. An alternative method is to define the region based on ethnicity and these areas include Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the Turkic regions of southern Siberia, the five republics, and Afghan Turkestan. Afghanistan as a whole, the northern and western areas of Pakistan, the Tibetans and Ladakhi are also included. Insofar, most of the peoples are considered the indigenous peoples of the vast region. Central Asia is a large region of varied geography, including high passes and mountains, vast deserts. The vast steppe areas of Central Asia are considered together with the steppes of Eastern Europe as a geographical zone known as the Eurasian Steppe. Much of the land of Central Asia is too dry or too rugged for farming, the Gobi desert extends from the foot of the Pamirs, 77° E, to the Great Khingan Mountains, 116°–118° E. Central Asia has the following geographic extremes, The worlds northernmost desert, at Buurug Deliin Els, Mongolia, the Northern Hemispheres southernmost permafrost, at Erdenetsogt sum, Mongolia, 46°17′ N
Central Asia
–
On the southern shore of Issyk Kul lake,
Issyk Kul Region.
Central Asia
–
Central Asia
Central Asia
–
Uzbek men from
Khiva, ca. 1861–1880
Central Asia
–
Kazakh man on a horse with golden eagle
12.
South Asia
–
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
South Asia
–
While South Asia had never been a coherent
geopolitical region, it has a distinct geographical identity
South Asia
–
South Asia
South Asia
–
Ethno-linguistic families of South Asia.
13.
Military strategy
–
Military strategy is a set of ideas implemented by military organizations to pursue desired strategic goals. Derived from the Greek word strategos, the strategy, when it appeared in use during the 18th century, was seen in its narrow sense as the art of the general. Military strategy deals with the planning and conduct of campaigns, the movement and disposition of forces, the father of Western modern strategic studies, Carl von Clausewitz, defined military strategy as the employment of battles to gain the end of war. B. H. Liddell Harts definition put less emphasis on battles, hence, both gave the pre-eminence to political aims over military goals. Sun Tzu is often considered as the father of Eastern military strategy and greatly influenced Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese historical, the Art of War by Sun Tzu grew in popularity and saw practical use in Western society as well. It continues to influence many competitive endeavors in Asia, Europe, and America including culture, politics, the Eastern military strategy differs from the Western by focusing more on asymmetric warfare and deception. Military strategy is the planning and execution of the contest between groups of armed adversaries, Strategy, which is a subdiscipline of warfare and of foreign policy, is a principal tool to secure national interests. NATOs definition of strategy is presenting the manner in which military power should be developed and applied to achieve national objectives or those of a group of nations. Strategy may be divided into Grand Strategy, geopolitical in scope and military strategy that converts the geopolitical policy objectives into militarily achievable goals and campaigns. Field-Marshal Montgomery summed it up thus Strategy is the art of distributing and applying military means, such as armed forces and supplies, tactics means the dispositions for, and control of, military forces and techniques in actual fighting. Put more shortly, strategy is the art of the conduct of war, carnot, during the French Revolutionary Wars thought it simply involved concentration of troops. Strategy and tactics are closely related and exist on the same continuum, originally strategy was understood to govern the prelude to a battle while tactics controlled its execution. However, in the wars of the 20th century, the distinction between maneuver and battle, strategy and tactics, expanded with the capacity of technology and transit. Tactics that were once the province of a company of cavalry would be applied to a panzer army and it is often said that the art of strategies defines the goals to achieve in a military campaign, while tactics defines the methods to achieve these goals. Strategic goals could be We want to conquer area X, or We want to stop country Ys expansion in trade in commodity Z. Were going to do this by an invasion of the North of country X, Were going to blockade the ports of country Y. In its purest form, strategy dealt solely with military issues, in earlier societies, a king or political leader was often the same person as the military leader. If not, the distance of communication between the political and the leader was small
Military strategy
–
Fortifications have been of great importance to military strategy. Shown here is the
Chittorgarh Fort in
Rajasthan,
India.
Military strategy
–
Military stratagem in the Maneuver against the Romans by
Cimbri and Teutons circa 100 B.C.
Military strategy
–
19th century musketeers from Wellington at Waterloo by Robert Alexander Hillingford, 18 June 1815
14.
Sea level
–
Mean sea level is an average level of the surface of one or more of Earths oceans from which heights such as elevations may be measured. A common and relatively straightforward mean sea-level standard is the midpoint between a low and mean high tide at a particular location. Sea levels can be affected by factors and are known to have varied greatly over geological time scales. The careful measurement of variations in MSL can offer insights into ongoing climate change, the term above sea level generally refers to above mean sea level. Precise determination of a sea level is a difficult problem because of the many factors that affect sea level. Sea level varies quite a lot on several scales of time and this is because the sea is in constant motion, affected by the tides, wind, atmospheric pressure, local gravitational differences, temperature, salinity and so forth. The easiest way this may be calculated is by selecting a location and calculating the mean sea level at that point, for example, a period of 19 years of hourly level observations may be averaged and used to determine the mean sea level at some measurement point. One measures the values of MSL in respect to the land, hence a change in MSL can result from a real change in sea level, or from a change in the height of the land on which the tide gauge operates. In the UK, the Ordnance Datum is the sea level measured at Newlyn in Cornwall between 1915 and 1921. Prior to 1921, the datum was MSL at the Victoria Dock, in Hong Kong, mPD is a surveying term meaning metres above Principal Datum and refers to height of 1. 230m below the average sea level. In France, the Marégraphe in Marseilles measures continuously the sea level since 1883 and it is used for a part of continental Europe and main part of Africa as official sea level. Elsewhere in Europe vertical elevation references are made to the Amsterdam Peil elevation, satellite altimeters have been making precise measurements of sea level since the launch of TOPEX/Poseidon in 1992. A joint mission of NASA and CNES, TOPEX/Poseidon was followed by Jason-1 in 2001, height above mean sea level is the elevation or altitude of an object, relative to the average sea level datum. It is also used in aviation, where some heights are recorded and reported with respect to sea level, and in the atmospheric sciences. An alternative is to base height measurements on an ellipsoid of the entire Earth, in aviation, the ellipsoid known as World Geodetic System 84 is increasingly used to define heights, however, differences up to 100 metres exist between this ellipsoid height and mean tidal height. The alternative is to use a vertical datum such as NAVD88. When referring to geographic features such as mountains on a topographic map, the elevation of a mountain denotes the highest point or summit and is typically illustrated as a small circle on a topographic map with the AMSL height shown in metres, feet or both. In the rare case that a location is below sea level, for one such case, see Amsterdam Airport Schiphol
Sea level
–
This marker indicating sea level is situated between
Jerusalem and the
Dead Sea.
Sea level
–
Sea Level sign seen on cliff (circled in red) at
Badwater Basin,
Death Valley National Park
15.
Jamrud Fort
–
The Jamrud Fort is located beside Bab-e-Khyber at the entrance to the Khyber Pass in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. In October 1836, Jamrud was conquered from the Khyberis by the Sikhs, sardar Hari Singh Nalwa, the well-known Sikh general, proposed to build a big fort at Jamrud. Early in 1837, Maharaja Ranjit Singhs grandson Prince Nau Nihal Singh was to be married, Hari Singh Nalwa sent his forces to Lahore for this historic celebration. At this time, Mr Fast, an Englishman, previously in the service of the British India Government, en route he encountered Mohammad Akbar Khan, son of Dost Mohammad Khan. When Akbar Khan learnt that the fort at Jamrud was unprotected, the battle between the Afghans and the Sikhs was fought on 30 April 1837. The loss suffered in battle by the Sikhs was indeed heavy. Hari Singh Nalwa had sent out an appeal for help to the Maharaja to dispatch reinforcements from Lahore post haste, reinforcements could not reach in time and Nalwa laid down his life in the battlefield. List of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Pakistan List of forts in Pakistan List of museums in Pakistan
Jamrud Fort
–
Jamrud Fort
Jamrud Fort
–
Jamrud Fort in 1906
16.
Battle of Jamrud
–
The Battle of Jamrud was fought between the Emirate of Afghanistan and the Sikh Empire on 30 April 1837. The Sikhs were building up towards crossing the Khyber pass in order to invade Jalalabad and this led Afghan forces to confront the Sikh forces at Jamrud. The death of Sikh General Hari Singh Nalwa limited the Khyber pass as the extent of the Sikh Empire. By the time Sikh reinforcements had arrived, The garrison army was able to hold the Afghans. After the battle, the Battle of Jamrud was fought between the Sikhs under Maharajah Ranjit Singh and the Afghans under Emir Dost Muhammad Khan. Since the consolidation of the Sikh Empire in Punjab, Maharajah Ranjit Singh had turned the wave of invasions on Afghanistan, with the conquest of Jamrud, the frontier of the Sikh Empire now bordered the frontier of Afghanistan. The Sikh general Sardar Hari Singh Nalwa was killed in the battle, many eyewitnesses claimed Nalwa ordered his under garments to be hung outside the fort before he died, discouraging the Afghans from attacking, believing Nalwa was still alive. The result of the battle is disputed amongst historians, some contend the failure of the Afghans to take the fort as a victory for the Sikhs. Whereas, some simply state an Afghan victory, james Norris, Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M International University, states neither side could claim victory. Battle of Panipat Battle of Attock Battle of Multan Battle of Shopian Battle of Nowshera Battle of Peshawar Baba Deep Singh Battle of Jamrud
Battle of Jamrud
–
A portrait of the
Jamrud Fort
17.
Sikh Empire
–
The Sikh Empire, was a major power that originated on the Indian Subcontinent, which arose under the leadership of Maharaja Ranjit Singh who established a secular empire basing it around the Punjab. The empire existed from 1799, when Ranjit Singh captured Lahore, at its peak in the 19th century, the Empire extended from the Khyber Pass in the west to western Tibet in the east, and from Mithankot in the south to Kashmir in the north. It was the last major region of the subcontinent to be conquered by the British, the foundations of the Sikh Empire can be traced to as early as 1707, the year of Aurangzebs death and the start of the downfall of the Mughal Empire. This led to a growth of the army split into different confederacies or semi-independent misls. Each of these component armies controlled different areas and cities, however, in the period from 1762 to 1799, Sikh commanders of the misls appeared to be coming into their own as independent warlords. Ranjit Singh was proclaimed as Maharaja of the Punjab on 12 April 1801, sahib Singh Bedi, a descendant of Guru Nanak, conducted the coronation. Ranjit Singh rose to power in a short period, from a leader of a single misl to finally becoming the Maharaja of Punjab. He began to modernise his army, using the latest training as well as weapons, after the death of Ranjit Singh, the empire was weakened by internal divisions and political mismanagement. Finally, by 1849 the state was dissolved after the defeat in the Anglo-Sikh wars, the Sikh Empire was divided into four provinces, Lahore, in Punjab, which became the Sikh capital, Multan, also in Punjab, Peshawar and Kashmir from 1799 to 1849. The Sikh religion began around the time of the conquest of Northern India by Babur and his conquering grandson, Akbar the Great, supported religious freedom and after visiting the langar of Guru Amar Das got a favourable impression of Sikhism. As a result of his visit he donated land to the langar and his successor Jahangir, however, saw the Sikhs as a political threat. He ordered Guru Arjun Dev, who had arrested for supporting the rebellious Khusrau Mirza. When the Guru refused, Jahangir ordered him to be put to death by torture, Guru Arjan Devs martyrdom led to the sixth Guru, Guru Hargobind, declaring Sikh sovereignty in the creation of the Akal Takht and the establishment of a fort to defend Amritsar. Jahangir attempted to assert authority over the Sikhs by jailing Guru Hargobind at Gwalior, the Sikh community did not have any further issues with the Mughal empire until the death of Jahangir in 1627. The succeeding son of Jahangir, Shah Jahan, took offence at Guru Hargobinds sovereignty, the ninth Guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur, moved the Sikh community to Anandpur and travelled extensively to visit and preach in defiance of Aurangzeb, who attempted to install Ram Rai as new guru. Guru Tegh Bahadur aided Kashmiri Pandits in avoiding conversion to Islam and was arrested by Aurangzeb, when offered a choice between conversion to Islam and death, he chose to die rather than compromise his principles and was executed. Guru Gobind Singh assumed the guruship in 1675 and to battles with Sivalik Hill rajas moved the guruship to Paunta. There he built a fort to protect the city and garrisoned an army to protect it
Sikh Empire
–
Ranjit Singh's Sikh Empire at its peak
Sikh Empire
–
Flag
Sikh Empire
–
The
Harmandir Sahib, known as the Golden Temple at Amritsar
Sikh Empire
–
The
Battle of Muktsar December 1705
18.
Durrani Empire
–
The Durrani Empire at its maximum extent encompassed present-day Afghanistan, northeastern Iran, eastern Turkmenistan, most of Pakistan, and northwestern India, including the Kashmir region. The Afghan army began their conquests by capturing Ghazni and Kabul from the local rulers, in 1749 the Mughal ruler had ceded sovereignty over what is now Pakistan and northwestern Punjab to the Afghans. Ahmad Shah then set out westward to take possession of Herat and he next sent an army to subdue the areas north of the Hindu Kush and in short order all the different tribes began joining his cause. Ahmad Shah and his forces invaded India four times, taking control of the Kashmir, early in 1757, he sacked Delhi, but permitted the Mughal dynasty to remain in nominal control as long as the ruler acknowledged Ahmad Shahs suzerainty over the Punjab, Sindh, and Kashmir. Additionally, among the Durranis other military conquests, the Pashtun also instigated the Vaḍḍā Ghallūghārā when they killed thousands of Sikhs in the Punjab, the Durrani Empire is considered the foundation of the modern state of Afghanistan, with Ahmad Shah Durrani being credited as Father of the Nation. In 1709 Mir Wais Hotak, chief of the Ghilji tribe of Kandahar Province, from 1722 to 1725, his son Mahmud Hotak briefly ruled large parts of Iran and declared himself as Shah of Persia. However, the Hotak dynasty came to a end in 1738 after being toppled and banished by the Afsharids who were led by Nader Shah Afshar of Persia. The year 1747 marks the appearance of an Afghan political entity independent of both the Persian and Mughal empires. In October 1747 a loya jirga concluded near the city of Kandahar with Ahmad Shah Durrani being selected as the new leader of the Afghans, despite being younger than the other contenders, Ahmad Shah had several overriding factors in his favor. He belonged to a family of political background, especially since his father served as Governor of Herat who died in a battle defending the Afghans. He also had a larger army and possessed a substantial part of Nadir Shahs treasury, including the Koh-i-Noor diamond. One of Ahmad Shahs first military action was the capture Ghazni from the Ghiljis, in 1749, the Mughal ruler was induced to cede Sindh, the Punjab region and the important trans Indus River to Ahmad Shah in order to save his capital from Afghan attack. Having thus gained substantial territories to the east without a fight, Ahmad Shah turned westward to take possession of Herat, Ahmad Shah next sent an army to subdue the areas north of the Hindu Kush mountains. In short order, the army brought under its control the Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Turkmen. Ahmad Shah invaded the remnants of the Mughal Empire a third time and he sacked Delhi in 1757, but permitted the Mughal dynasty to remain in nominal control of the city as long as the ruler acknowledged Ahmad Shahs suzerainty over Punjab, Sindh, and Kashmir. Leaving his second son Timur Shah to safeguard his interests, Ahmad Shah left India to return to Afghanistan, Ahmad Shah halted trade with Qing China and dispatched troops to Kokand. Through this treaty, the Marathas controlled virtually the whole of India from their capital at Pune, Marathas were now straining to expand their area of control towards the Northwest of India. Ahmad Shah sacked the Mughal capital and withdrew with the booty he coveted, to counter the Afghans, Peshwa Balaji Bajirao sent Raghunathrao
Durrani Empire
–
Flag
Durrani Empire
–
The Durrani Empire
Durrani Empire
–
Ahmad Shah Durrani and his coalition decisively defeat the
Maratha Confederacy, during the
Third Battle of Panipat and restored the
Mughal Empire to
Shah Alam II.
Durrani Empire
–
History of Afghanistan
19.
Hari Singh Nalwa
–
Hari Singh Nalwa was Commander-in-chief of the Sikh Khalsa Army, the army of the Sikh Empire. He is known for his role in the conquests of Kasur, Sialkot, Attock, Multan, Kashmir, Peshawar and he is also the founder of Haripur city in Pakistan, which is named after him. Hari Singh Nalwa was responsible for expanding the frontier of Sikh Empire to beyond the Indus River right up to the mouth of the Khyber Pass, in 1831, he opposed moves by Ranjit Singh to appoint Kharak Singh as his successor as Maharaja of the Sikh Empire. At the time of his death, the boundary of the empire was Jamrud. He served as governor of Kashmir, Peshawar and Hazara and he established a mint on behalf of the Sikh Empire to facilitate revenue collection in Kashmir and Peshawar. Hari Singh Nalwa was born in Gujranwala, in the Majha region of Punjab to Gurdas Singh Uppal, after his father died in 1798, he was raised by his mother. In 1801, at the age of ten, he took Amrit Sanchar and was baptised as a Sikh, at the age of twelve, he began to manage his fathers estate and took up horse riding. In 1804, at the age of fourteen, his mother sent him to the court of Ranjit Singh to resolve a property dispute, Ranjit Singh decided the arbitration in his favour because of his background and aptitude. Hari Singh had explained that his father and grandfather had served under Maha Singh and Charat Singh, the Maharajas ancestors, Ranjit Singh gave him a position at the court as a personal attendant. During a hunt in 1804, a tiger attacked him and also killed his horse and his fellow hunters attempted to protect him but he refused their offers and killed the tiger by himself bare handedly by tearing the tiger apart from its mouth, thus earning the cognomen Baagh Maar. Whether he was by that time serving in the military is unknown but he was commissioned as Sardar, commanding 800 horses and footmen. This place had long been a thorn in the side of Ranjit Singhs power because of its proximity to his city of Lahore. It was captured in the fourth attempt and this attack was led by Maharaja Ranjit Singh and Jodh Singh Ramgarhia. During the campaign the Sardar showed remarkable bravery and dexterity, the Sardar was granted a Jagir in recognition of his services. Battle of Sialkot Ranjit Singh nominated Hari Singh Nalwa to take Sialkot from its ruler Jiwan Singh and this was his first battle under an independent command. The two armies were engaged for a couple of days, eventually seventeen year old Hari Singh carried the day, Battle of Attock The fort of Attock was a major replenishment point for all armies crossing the Indus. In the early 19th century, Afghan appointees of the Kingdom of Kabul held this fort, besides Hari Singh Nalwa, Hukam Singh Attariwala, Shyamu Singh, Khalsa Fateh Singh Ahluwalia and Behmam Singh Malliawala actively participated in this battle. This was the first victory of the Sikhs over the Durranis, with the conquest of Attock, the adjoining regions of Hazara-i-Karlugh and Gandhgarh became tributary to the Sikhs
Hari Singh Nalwa
–
"General Hari Singh Nalwa seated in full armour adopting a militant stance" by Sir John McQueen
Hari Singh Nalwa
–
'The Rock Aornos from Huzara. From Nature by General James Abbott 1850'
Hari Singh Nalwa
–
A tribute to the Champion of the Khalsaji. Hari Singh Nalwa's leadership qualities continued to inspire the Sikhs 81 years after his death (front page of a book published in 1918)
20.
British Indian Army
–
The Indian Army was the principal army of India before independence from the United Kingdom in 1947. It was responsible for the defence of both British India and the Princely states, which could also have their own armies. The Indian Army was an important part of the British Empires forces, the term Indian Army appears to have been first used informally, as a collective description of the Presidency armies of the Presidencies of British India, particularly after the Indian Rebellion. The first army officially called the Indian Army was raised by the government of India in 1895, however, in 1903 the Indian Army absorbed these three armies. The Indian Army should not be confused with the Army of India which was the Indian Army itself plus the British Army in India, before 1858, the precursor units of the Indian Army were units controlled by the Company and were paid for by their profits. These operated alongside units of the British Army, funded by the British government in London. Many of these took part in the Indian Mutiny, with the aim of reinstating the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah II at Delhi. The meaning of the term Indian Army has changed over time, The officer commanding the Army of India was the Commander-in-Chief, the title was used before the creation of a unified British Indian Army, the first holder was Major General Stringer Lawrence in 1748. By the early 1900s the Commander-in-Chief and his staff were based at GHQ India, Indian Army postings were less prestigious than British Army positions, but the pay was significantly greater so that officers could live on their salaries instead of having to have a private income. Accordingly, vacancies in the Indian Army were much sought after and generally reserved for the higher placed officer-cadets graduating from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. British officers in the Indian Army were expected to learn to speak the Indian languages of their men, prominent British Indian Army officers included Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts, William Birdwood, 1st Baron Birdwood, Claude Auchinleck and William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim. Commissioned officers, British and Indian, held identical ranks to commissioned officers of the British Army, Kings Commissioned Indian Officers, created from the 1920s, held equal powers to British officers. Viceroys Commissioned Officers were Indians holding officer ranks and they were treated in almost all respects as commissioned officers, but had authority over Indian troops only, and were subordinate to all British Kings Commissioned Officers and KCIOs. They included Subedar Major or Risaldar-Major, equivalents to a British Major, Subedar or Risaldar equivalents to Captain, recruitment was entirely voluntary, about 1.75 million men served in the First World War, many on the Western Front and 2.5 million in the Second. Soldier ranks included Sepoys or Sowars, equivalent to a British private, British Army ranks such as gunner and sapper were used by other corps. In the aftermath of the Indian Mutiny of 1857, also known as the Sepoy Mutiny. The three Presidency armies remained separate forces, each with its own Commander-in-Chief, overall operational control was exercised by the Commander-in-Chief of the Bengal Army, who was formally the Commander-in-Chief of the East Indies. From 1861, most of the manpower was pooled in the three Presidential Staff Corps
British Indian Army
–
A group of Indian soldiers posing for
volley firing orders. ~1895.
British Indian Army
–
Star of India Red Ensign
British Indian Army
–
A painting showing a
sowar of the
6th Madras Light Cavalry, circa 1845.
British Indian Army
–
The
Queen's Own Madras Sappers and Miners, 1896.
21.
British Raj
–
The British Raj was the rule by the British Crown in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947. The rule is also called Crown rule in India, or direct rule in India, the resulting political union was also called the Indian Empire and after 1876 issued passports under that name. It lasted until 1947, when the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two sovereign states, the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. The British Raj extended over almost all present-day India, Pakistan and this area is very diverse, containing the Himalayan mountains, fertile floodplains, the Indo-Gangetic Plain, a long coastline, tropical dry forests, arid uplands, and the Thar desert. In addition, at times, it included Aden, Lower Burma, Upper Burma, British Somaliland. Burma was separated from India and directly administered by the British Crown from 1937 until its independence in 1948, among other countries in the region, Ceylon was ceded to Britain in 1802 under the Treaty of Amiens. Ceylon was part of Madras Presidency between 1793 and 1798, the kingdoms of Nepal and Bhutan, having fought wars with the British, subsequently signed treaties with them and were recognised by the British as independent states. The Kingdom of Sikkim was established as a state after the Anglo-Sikkimese Treaty of 1861, however. The Maldive Islands were a British protectorate from 1887 to 1965, India during the British Raj was made up of two types of territory, British India and the Native States. In general, the term British India had been used to also to the regions under the rule of the British East India Company in India from 1600 to 1858. The term has also used to refer to the British in India. The terms Indian Empire and Empire of India were not used in legislation, the monarch was known as Empress or Emperor of India and the term was often used in Queen Victorias Queens Speeches and Prorogation Speeches. The passports issued by the British Indian government had the words Indian Empire on the cover, in addition, an order of knighthood, the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire, was set up in 1878. At the turn of the 20th century, British India consisted of eight provinces that were administered either by a Governor or a Lieutenant-Governor, during the partition of Bengal the new provinces of Assam and East Bengal were created as a Lieutenant-Governorship. In 1911, East Bengal was reunited with Bengal, and the new provinces in the east became, Assam, Bengal, Bihar, there were 565 princely states when India and Pakistan became independent from Britain in August 1947. The princely states did not form a part of British India, the larger ones had treaties with Britain that specified which rights the princes had, in the smaller ones the princes had few rights. Within the princely states external affairs, defence and most communications were under British control, the British also exercised a general influence over the states internal politics, in part through the granting or withholding of recognition of individual rulers. Although there were nearly 600 princely states, the majority were very small
British Raj
–
An 1909 map of the British Indian Empire
British Raj
–
Flag
British Raj
–
British Raj coins during
Edward VII and
George V,
Indian Museum
British Raj
–
Imperial entities of India
22.
Khyber Rifles
–
The Khyber Rifles is a para-military force forming part of the modern Pakistan Armys Frontier Corps. Dating from the nineteenth century the regiment provided the title and setting for a widely read novel. Raised in the early 1880s as the Khyber Jezailchis, the Khyber Rifles was recruited from Afridi tribesmen, the first commandant was Sir Robert Warburton, son of an Anglo-Irish soldier Robert Warburton of the Bengal Artillery and his wife Shah Jehan Begum, an Afghan princess. Sir Robert remained the commandant until his retirement in 1899 and his deputy, Colonel Sir Aslam Khan Sadozai, the first Muslim commandant, succeeded him. The headquarters of the Khyber Rifles was at Landi Kotal and its prime role was to guard the Khyber Pass. The three main garrisons of the regiment were Landi Kotal, at the end of the Pass, Fort Maude to the east. The badge of the Corps comprised two crossed Afghan daggers with the words KHYBER above and RIFLES below. While the Indian Army as a whole was noted for its colourful and elaborate dress uniforms prior to 1914, the regiment saw active service in the Black Mountain expeditions of 1888 and 1891, during a period when the Khyber Pass itself remained peaceful. In August 1897 however, the Khyber Afridi tribes rose and the three forts garrisoned by the Khyber Rifles were overrun, the falling back to Jamrud. It took four months and forty-four thousand troops for the British to retake the Khyber Pass, the Khyber Rifles were reconstituted and resumed their garrisons at Landi Kotal, Fort Maude and Ali Masjid. During the Third Anglo-Afghan War, the loyalty of the Khyber Rifles was put under heavy strain, the regiment was therefore disbanded as unreliable. Of the serving personnel 1,180 opted to be discharged, the Khyber Rifles was however reconstituted from Afridi veterans of World War II in 1946, with its headquarters at Landi Kotal. The commander of the regiment was himself an Afridi, Sharif Khan. In August 1947, upon partition, the Khyber Rifles and the other Frontier Corps regiments were transferred to Pakistan, in addition to its traditional policing duties in the tribal areas of the Khyber region, the Khyber Rifles provided detachments to serve in Kashmir and East Pakistan. The force is involved in tracking down Afghan fugitives and terrorists
Khyber Rifles
–
A member of the Khyber Rifles 1948
Khyber Rifles
–
An officer of the Khyber Rifles giving orders to his
sepoys in 1895.
23.
Khyber Pass
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The Khyber Pass is a mountain pass connecting Afghanistan and Pakistan, cutting through the northeastern part of the Spin Ghar mountains. An integral part of the ancient Silk Road, it has long had significant cultural, economic, throughout history it has been an important trade route between Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent and a strategic military location. The summit of the pass is 5 kilometres inside Pakistan at Landi Kotal, the Khyber Pass is part of the Asian Highway 1. Khyber is the Hebrew word for fort, well known invasions of the area have been predominantly through the Khyber Pass, such as the invasions by Darius I, Genghis Khan and later Mongols such as Duwa, Qutlugh Khwaja and Kebek. Prior to the Kushan era, the Khyber Pass was not a widely used trade route, among the Muslim invasions of ancient India, the famous invaders coming through the Khyber Pass are Mahmud Ghaznavi, and the Afghan Muhammad Ghori and the Turkic-Mongols. Finally, Sikhs under Ranjit Singh captured the Khyber Pass in 1834 until they were defeated by the forces of Wazir Akbar Khan in 1837, hari Singh Nalwa, who manned the Khyber Pass for years, became a household name in Afghanistan. To the north of the Khyber Pass lies the country of the Mullagori tribe, to the south is Afridi Tirah, while the inhabitants of villages in the Pass itself are Afridi clansmen. Throughout the centuries the Pashtun clans, particularly the Afridis and the Afghan Shinwaris, have regarded the Pass as their own preserve and have levied a toll on travellers for safe conduct. Since this has long been their main source of income, resistance to challenges to the Shinwaris authority has often been fierce, for strategic reasons, after the First World War the British built a heavily engineered railway through the Pass. The Khyber Pass Railway from Jamrud, near Peshawar, to the Afghan border near Landi Kotal was opened in 1925, during World War II concrete dragon’s teeth were erected on the valley floor due to British fears of a German tank invasion of India. The Pass became widely known to thousands of Westerners and Japanese who traveled it in the days of the Hippie trail, at the Pakistani frontier post, travelers were advised not to wander away from the road, as the location was a barely controlled Federally Administered Tribal Area. Then, after customs formalities, a quick daylight drive through the Pass was made, monuments left by British Army units, as well as hillside forts, could be viewed from the highway. Almost 80 percent of the NATO and US supplies that are brought in by road were transported through this Khyber Pass, furthermore, it has also been used to transport civilians from the Afghan side to the Pakistani one. Until the end of 2007, this route had been relatively safe since the living there were paid by the Pakistani government to keep the area safe. However, since that year, the Taliban began to control the region, since the end of 2008, supply convoys and depots in this western part increasingly came under attack by elements from or supposedly sympathetic to the Pakistani Taliban. In January 2009, Pakistan sealed off the bridge as part of an offensive against Taliban guerrillas. This military operation was focused on Jamrud, a district on the Khyber road. The target was to “dynamite or bulldoze homes belonging to men suspected of harboring or supporting Taliban militants or carrying out other illegal activities”, the result meant that more than 70 people were arrested and 45 homes were destroyed
Khyber Pass
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Looking back towards
Pakistan, on the Afghanistan side of the Khyber Pass
Khyber Pass
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Elephant battery of heavy artillery along the Khyber Pass at
Campbellpur, 1895
Khyber Pass
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Afghan chiefs and a
British political officer posed at
Jamrud fort at the mouth of the Khyber Pass in 1878.
Khyber Pass
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Bab-e-Kyber
24.
Public domain
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The term public domain has two senses of meaning. Anything published is out in the domain in the sense that it is available to the public. Once published, news and information in books is in the public domain, in the sense of intellectual property, works in the public domain are those whose exclusive intellectual property rights have expired, have been forfeited, or are inapplicable. Examples for works not covered by copyright which are therefore in the domain, are the formulae of Newtonian physics, cooking recipes. Examples for works actively dedicated into public domain by their authors are reference implementations of algorithms, NIHs ImageJ. The term is not normally applied to situations where the creator of a work retains residual rights, as rights are country-based and vary, a work may be subject to rights in one country and be in the public domain in another. Some rights depend on registrations on a basis, and the absence of registration in a particular country, if required. Although the term public domain did not come into use until the mid-18th century, the Romans had a large proprietary rights system where they defined many things that cannot be privately owned as res nullius, res communes, res publicae and res universitatis. The term res nullius was defined as not yet appropriated. The term res communes was defined as things that could be enjoyed by mankind, such as air, sunlight. The term res publicae referred to things that were shared by all citizens, when the first early copyright law was first established in Britain with the Statute of Anne in 1710, public domain did not appear. However, similar concepts were developed by British and French jurists in the eighteenth century, instead of public domain they used terms such as publici juris or propriété publique to describe works that were not covered by copyright law. The phrase fall in the domain can be traced to mid-nineteenth century France to describe the end of copyright term. In this historical context Paul Torremans describes copyright as a coral reef of private right jutting up from the ocean of the public domain. Because copyright law is different from country to country, Pamela Samuelson has described the public domain as being different sizes at different times in different countries. According to James Boyle this definition underlines common usage of the public domain and equates the public domain to public property. However, the usage of the public domain can be more granular. Such a definition regards work in copyright as private property subject to fair use rights, the materials that compose our cultural heritage must be free for all living to use no less than matter necessary for biological survival
Public domain
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Newton's own copy of his
Principia, with hand-written corrections for the second edition
Public domain
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L.H.O.O.Q. (1919). Derivative work by the
Dadaist Marcel Duchamp based on the
Mona Lisa.
Pakistan
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Jamrud". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
