History VIII NCERT part II chapter 5 key points

                           IAS Prelims preparation 2018

Day 38 (April 30, 2017)

Topics of the day: History VIII NCERT Part II Chapter 5 key points

 The Indian National Congress was established when 72 delegates from all over the country met at Bombay in December 1885.

 Dadabhai Naoroji, a businessman and publicist settled in London, and for a time member of the British Parliament, guided the younger nationalists.

 Publicist – Someone who publicises an idea by circulating information, writing reports, speaking at meetings.

 Naoroji’s book Poverty and Un-British Rule in India offered a scathing criticism of the economic impact of British rule.

 The Moderate leaders wanted to develop public awareness about the unjust nature of British rule. They published newspapers, wrote articles, and showed how British rule was leading to the economic ruin of the country. They criticised British rule in their speeches and sent representatives to different parts of the country to mobilise public opinion. They felt that the British had respect for the ideals of freedom and justice, and so they would accept the just demands of Indians.

 Tilak raised the slogan, “Freedom is my birthright and I shall have it!.

 In 1905 Viceroy Curzon partitioned Bengal. At that time Bengal was the biggest province of British India and included Bihar and parts of Orissa.

 A group of Muslim landlords and nawabs formed the All India Muslim League at Dacca in 1906. The League supported the partition of Bengal. It desired separate electorates for Muslims, a demand conceded by the government in 1909.

 Gandhiji, aged 46, arrived in India in 1915 from South Africa.

 In 1919 Gandhiji gave a call for a satyagraha against the Rowlatt Act that the British had just passed.

 The Rowlatt Act curbed fundamental rights such as the freedom of expression and strengthened police powers.

 In April 1919 there were a number of demonstrations and hartals in the country and the government used brutal measures to suppress them. The Jallianwala Bagh atrocities, inflicted by General Dyer in Amritsar on Baisakhi day (13 April), were a part of this repression.On learning about the massacre, Rabindranath Tagore expressed the pain and anger of the country by renouncing his knighthood.

 In 1920 the British imposed a harsh treaty on the Turkish Sultan or Khalifa. People were furious about this as they had been about the Jallianwala massacre. Also, Indian Muslims were keen that the Khalifa be allowed to retain control over Muslim sacred places in the erstwhile Ottoman Empire. The leaders of the Khilafat agitation, Mohammad Ali and Shaukat Ali, now wished to initiate a full fledged Non-Cooperation Movement. Gandhiji supported their call and urged the Congress to campaign against “Punjab wrongs” (Jallianwala massacre), the

Khilafat wrong and demand swaraj.

 Gandhiji abruptly called off the Non-Cooperation Movement when in February 1922 a crowd of peasants set fire to a police station in Chauri Chaura. Twenty two policemen were killed on that day.

 Two important developments of the mid-1920s were the formation of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu organisation, and the Communist Party of India.

 The decade closed with the Congress resolving to fight for Purna Swaraj (complete independence) in 1929 under the presidentship of Jawaharlal Nehru. Consequently, “Independence Day” was observed on 26 January 1930 all over the country.

 In 1930, Gandhiji declared that he would lead a march to break the salt law. According to this law, the state had a monopoly on the manufacture and sale of salt. Mahatma Gandhi along with other nationalists reasoned that it was sinful to

tax salt since it is such an essential item of our food.

 Gandhiji and his followers marched for over 240 miles from Sabarmati to the coastal town of Dandi where they broke the government law by gathering natural salt found on the seashore, and boiling sea water to produce salt.

 Ambabai, a widowed woman from Karnataka picketed foreign cloth and liquor shops in Udipi. She was arrested, served a sentence and was rearrested.

 During the Salt Satyagraha, for instance, even Mahatma Gandhi was initially opposed to women’s participation. Sarojini Naidu had to persuade him to allow women to join the movement. She was the first Indian woman to become President of the Indian National Congress (1925).

 The combined struggles of the Indian people bore fruit when the Government of India Act of 1935 prescribed provincial autonomy and the government announced elections to the provincial legislatures in 1937. The Congress formed governments in 7 out of 11 provinces.

 Gandhiji gave Do or Die call during Quit India movement.

 In 1940 the Muslim League had moved a resolution demanding “Independent States” for Muslims in the north-western and eastern areas of the country.

 In January 1941, Subash Chandra Bose secretly left his Calcutta home, went to Singapore, via Germany, and raised the Azad Hind Fauj or the Indian National Army (INA), to free India from British control.

 In 1944 the INA tried to invade India through Imphal and Kohima but the campaign failed.

 In March 1946 the British cabinet sent a three-member mission to Delhi to examine this demand and to suggest a suitable political framework for a free India. This mission suggested that India should remain united and constitute itself as a loose confederation with some autonomy for Muslim-majority areas.

 After the failure of the Cabinet Mission, the Muslim League decided on mass agitation for winning its Pakistan demand. It announced 16 August 1946 as “Direct Action Day”. On this day riots broke out in Calcutta, lasting several days and resulting in the death of thousands of people.

History VIII NCERT part II chapter 4 key points

                       IAS Prelims preparation 2018

Day 37 (April 29, 2017)

Topics of the day: History VIII NCERT Part II Chapter 4 key points

 Thomas Daniell and his nephew William Daniell were the most famous of the artists who came to India in 1785 and stayed for seven years, journeying from Calcutta to northern and southern India. They produced some of the most evocative picturesque landscapes of Britain’s newly conquered territories in

India.

 Portrait – A picture of a person in which the face and its expression is prominent.

 Johann Zoffany, a famous portrait painter who came to India.

 Nawab Muhammad Ali Khan of Arcot commissioned two visiting European artists, Tilly Kettle and George Willison, to paint his portraits, and gifted these paintings to the King of England and the Directors of the East India Company.

 Mural – A wall painting.

 Scroll painting Painting on a long roll of paper that could be rolled up.

 In Bengal, around the pilgrimage centre of the temple of Kalighat, local village scroll painters (called patuas) and potters (called kumors in eastern India and kumhars in north India) began developing a new style of art.

 Raja Ravi Varma was one of the first artists who tried to create a style that was both modern and national. Ravi Varma belonged to the family of the Maharajas of Travancore in Kerala, and was addressed as Raja. He mastered the Western art of oil painting and realistic life study, but painted themes from Indian

mythology.

 In Bengal, a new group of nationalist artists gathered around Abanindranath Tagore (1871-1951), the nephew of Rabindranath Tagore. They rejected the art of Ravi Varma as imitative and westernised, and declared that such a style was unsuitable for depicting the nation’s ancient myths and legends.

 Abanindranath and Nandalal Bose were famous painters who followed an earlier style in their paintings but with a modification.

History VIII NCERT Part II chapter 3 key points

                         IAS Prelims preparation 2018

Day 36 (April 28, 2017)

Topics of the day: History VIII NCERT Part II Chapter 3 key points

 Raja Rammohun Roy (1772-1833). He founded a reform association known as the Brahmo Sabha (later known as the Brahmo Samaj) in Calcutta.

 He began a campaign against the practice of sati. In 1829, sati was banned.

 Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, used the ancient texts to suggest that widows could remarry. His suggestion was adopted by British officials, and a law was passed in 1856 permitting widow remarriage.

 In the Telugu-speaking areas of the Madras Presidency, Veerasalingam Pantulu formed an association for widow remarriage.

 Swami Dayanand Saraswati founded the Arya Samaj in 1875, an organisation that attempted to reform Hinduism.

 Muslim women like the Begums of Bhopal played a notable role in promoting education among women. They founded a primary school for girls at Aligarh. Another remarkable woman, Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain started schools for Muslim girls in Patna and Calcutta.

 Tarabai Shinde, a woman educated at home at Poona, published a book, Stripurushtulna, (A Comparison between Women and Men), criticizing the social differences between men and women.

 Pandita Ramabai, a great scholar of Sanskrit, felt that Hinduism was oppressive towards women, and wrote a book about the miserable lives of upper-caste Hindu women. She founded a widows’ home at Poona to provide shelter to widows who had been treated badly by their husbands’ relatives.

 In Bombay, the Paramhans Mandali was founded in 1840 to work for the abolition of caste.

 The Satnami movement in Central India was founded by Ghasidas who worked among the leatherworkers and organised a movement to improve their social status.

 In eastern Bengal, Haridas Thakur’s Matua sect worked among Chandala cultivators. Haridas questioned Brahmanical texts that supported the caste system.

 In what is present-day Kerala, a guru from Ezhava caste, Shri Narayana Guru, proclaimed the ideals of unity for his people. He argued against treating people unequally on the basis of caste differences. According to him, all humankind belonged to the same caste.

 Jyothi Phule founded The Satyashodhak Samaj, an association propagated caste equality.

 In 1873, Phule wrote a book named Gulamgiri, meaning slavery.

 In the early twentieth century, the non-Brahman movement started. The initiative came from those non-Brahman castes that had acquired access to education, wealth and influence. They argued that Brahmans were heirs of Aryan invaders from the

north who had conquered southern lands from the original inhabitants of the region – the indigenous Dravidian races. They also challenged Brahmanical claims to power.

 E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker, or Periyar founded the Self Respect Movement. He argued that untouchables were the true upholders of an original Tamil and Dravidian culture which had been subjugated by Brahmans.

 Keshub Chunder Sen – one of the main leaders of the Brahmo Samaj

 Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, a teacher at Hindu College, Calcutta, in the 1820s, promoted radical ideas and encouraged his pupils to question all authority. Referred to as the Young Bengal Movement, his students attacked tradition and

custom, demanded education for women and campaigned for the freedom of thought and expression.

 The Veda Samaj Established in Madras (Chennai) in 1864, the Veda Samaj was inspired by the Brahmo Samaj.

 The Aligarh Movement The Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College, founded by Sayyid Ahmed Khan in 1875 at Aligarh, later became the Aligarh Muslim University.

 Reform organisations of the Sikhs, the first Singh Sabhas were formed at Amritsar in 1873 and at Lahore in 1879. The Sabhas sought to rid Sikhism of superstitions, caste distinctions and practices seen by them as non-Sikh.

 Khalsa College, Amritsar, established in 1892 by the leaders of the Singh Sabha movement.

History VIII NCERT part II chapter 2 key points

IAS Prelims preparation 2018

Day 35 (April 27, 2017)

Topics of the day: History VIII NCERT Part II Chapter 2 key points

 Linguist – Someone who knows and studies several languages.

 Orientalists – Those with a scholarly knowledge of the language and culture of Asia.

Munshi – A person who can read, write and teach Persian.

 William Jones along with Henry Thomas Colebrooke and Nathaniel Halhed, set up the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and started a journal called Asiatick Researches.

 A madrasa was set up in Calcutta in 1781 to promote the study of Arabic, Persian and Islamic law; and the Hindu College was established in Benaras in 1791 to encourage the study of ancient Sanskrit texts.

 Thomas Babington Macaulay emphasized the need to teach the English

language. He felt that knowledge of English would allow Indians to read some of the finest literature the world had produced.

 Following Macaulay’s minute, the English Education Act of 1835 was introduced. The decision was to make English the medium of instruction for higher education, and to stop the promotion of Oriental institutions like the Calcutta Madrasa and Benaras Sanskrit College.

 In 1854, the Court of Directors of the East India Company in London sent an educational despatch to the Governor-General in India. Issued by Charles Wood, the President of the Board of Control of the Company, it has come to be known as Wood’s Despatch.

Outlining the educational policy that was to be followed in India, it emphasised once again the practical benefits of a system of European learning.

 In 1857, while the sepoys rose in revolt in Meerut and Delhi, universities were being established in Calcutta, Madras and Bombay.

 William Carey was a Scottish missionary who helped establish the Serampore Mission

 In the 1830s, William Adam, a Scottish missionary, toured the districts of Bengal and Bihar. He had been asked by the Company to report on the progress of education in vernacular schools.

 Rabindranath Tagore started santiniketan in 1901.

History VIII NCERT part II chapter 1 key points

                              IAS Prelims preparation 2018

Day 34 (April 26, 2017)

Topics of the day: History VIII NCERT Part II Chapter 1 key points

 When the Portuguese first came to India in search of spices they landed in Calicut on the Kerala coast in south-west India. The cotton textiles which they took back to Europe, along with the spices, came to be called “calico” (derived from Calicut), and subsequently calico became the general name for all cotton

textiles.

 European traders first encountered fine cotton cloth from India carried by Arab merchants in Mosul in present-day Iraq. So they began referring to all finely woven textiles as “muslin”.

 Jamdani is a fine muslin on which decorative motifs are woven on the loom, typically in grey and white. Often a mixture of cotton and gold thread was used, as in the cloth in this picture. The most important centres of jamdani weaving were Dacca in Bengal and Lucknow in the United Provinces.

 In 1720, the British government enacted a legislation banning the use of printed cotton textiles– chintz – in England. Interestingly, this Act was known as the Calico Act.

 In 1764, the spinning jenny was invented by John Kaye which increased the productivity of the traditional spindles. The invention of the steam engine by Richard Arkwright in 1786 revolutionised cotton textile weaving.

 Spinning Jenny – A machine by which a single worker could operate several spindles on to which thread was spun. When the wheel was turned all the spindles rotated.

 The tanti weavers of Bengal, the julahas or momin weavers of north India, sale and kaikollar and devangs of south India are some of the communities famous for weaving.

 The charkha and the takli were household spinning instruments. The thread was spun on the charkha and rolled on the takli.

 For coloured textiles, the thread was dyed by the dyer, known as rangrez. For printed cloth the weavers needed the help of specialist block printers known as chhipigars.

 Aurang - A Persian term for a warehouse – a place where goods are collected before being sold.

 Mahatma Gandhi urged people to boycott imported textiles and use hand-spun and handwoven cloth. Khadi gradually became a symbol of nationalism. The charkha came to represent India, and it was put at the centre of the tricolour flag of the Indian National Congress adopted in 1931.

 The first cotton mill in India was set up as a spinning mill in Bombay in 1854.

 Tipu Sultan who ruled Mysore till 1799, fought four wars with the British and died fighting with his sword in his hand.

 The sword had an incredibly hard and sharp edge that could easily rip through the opponent’s armour. This quality of the sword came from a special type of high carbon steel called Wootz which was produced all over south India. Wootz steel when made into swords produced a very sharp edge with a flowing water

pattern. This pattern came from very small carbon crystals embedded in the iron.

 Wootz is an anglicized version of the Kannada word ukku, Telugu hukku and Tamil and Malayalam urukku – meaning steel.

 Charles Weld, an American geologist and Dorabji Tata, the eldest son of Jamsetji Tata with the help of Agarias found iron ore deposits in Rajhara Hills.

 The Tata Iron and steel company was set up at the banks of river Subarnarekha.

Geography X NCERT chapter 7 key points

        IAS Prelims Preparation 2018

Day # 33 (April 25, 2017)

Topics of the day: Geography X NCERT chapter 7 key points

CHAPTER – 7 LIFE LINES OF NATIONAL ECONOMY

Roadways

 India has one of the largest road networks in the world, aggregating to about 2.3 million km at present.

 In India, roadways have preceded railways.

 They still have an edge over railways in view of the ease with which they can be built and maintained.

 The growing importance of road transport vis-à-vis rail transport is rooted in the following reasons;

(a) construction cost of roads is much lower than that of railway lines, (b) roads can traverse comparatively more dissected and undulating topography,

(c) roads can negotiate higher gradients of slopes and as such can traverse mountains such as the Himalayas,

(d) road transport is economical in transportation of few persons and relatively smaller amount of goods over short distances,

(e) it also provides door-to-door service, thus the cost of loading and unloading is much lower,

(f) road transport is also used as a feeder to other modes of transport such as they provide a link between railway stations, air and sea ports.

In India, roads are classified in the following six classes according to their capacity

• Golden Quadrilateral Super Highways:

 The government has launched a major road development project linking Delhi-KolkataChennai-Mumbai and Delhi by six-lane Super Highways.

 The North-South corridors linking Srinagar (Jammu & Kashmir) and Kanyakumari (Tamil Nadu), and East-West Corridor connecting Silcher (Assam) and Porbander (Gujarat) are part of this project.

 The major objective of these Super Highways is to reduce the time and distance between the mega cities of India.

 These highway projects are being implemented by the National

Highway Authority of India (NHAI).

• National Highways:

 National Highways link extreme parts of the country.

 These are the primary road systems and are laid and maintained by the Central Public Works Department (CPWD).

 A number of major National Highways run in North-South and East- West directions.

 The historical Sher-Shah Suri Marg is called National Highway No.1, between Delhi and Amritsar.

State Highways:

 Roads linking a state capital with different district headquarters are known as State Highways.

 These roads are constructed and maintained by the State Public Works Department (PWD) in State and Union Territories.

• District Roads:

 These roads connect the district headquarters with other places of the district.

 These roads are maintained by the Zila Parishad.

• Other Roads:

Rural roads, which link rural areas and villages with towns, are classified under this category. These roads received special impetus under the Pradhan Mantri Grameen Sadak Yojana. Under this scheme special provisions are made so that every village in the country is linked to a major town in the country by an all season motorable road.

Border Roads:

 Border Roads Organisation a Government of India undertaking

constructs and maintains roads in the bordering areas of the country.

 This organisation was established in 1960 for the development of the roads of strategic importance in the northern and northeastern border areas. These roads have improved accessibility in areas of difficult terrain and have helped in the economic development of these area.

 Roads can also be classified on the basis of the type of material used for their construction such as metalled and unmetalled roads.

 Metalled roads may be made of cement, concrete or even bitumen of coal, therefore, these are all weather roads.

 Unmetalled roads go out of use in the rainy season.

 Road Density The length of road per 100 sq. km of area is known as density of roads.

 Distribution of road is not uniform in the country.

 Density of all roads varies from only 12.14 km in Jammu and

Kashmir to 517.77 km in Kerala (as on 31 March 2011) with the

national average of 142.68 km (31 March 2011).

 Road transportation in India faces a number of problems.

 Keeping in view the volume of traffic and passengers, the road

network is inadequate.

 About half of the roads are unmetalled and this limits their usage during the rainy season.

 The National Highways are inadequate too.

 Moreover, the roadways are highly congested in cities and most of the bridges and culverts are old and narrow.

 However, in recent years fast development of road network has taken place in different parts of the country.

Railways

 Railways are the principal mode of transportation for freight and passengers in India.

 Railways also make it possible to conduct multifarious activities like business, sightseeing, pilgrimage along with transportation of goods over longer distances.

 Apart from an important means of transport the Indian Railways have been a great integrating force for more than 150 years.

 Railways in India bind the economic life of the country as well as accelerate the development of the industry and agriculture.

 The distribution pattern of the Railway network in the country has been largely influenced by physiographic, economic and

administrative factors. The northern plains with their vast level land, high population density and rich agricultural resources provided the most favourable condition for their growth.

 However, a large number of rivers requiring construction of bridges across their wide beds posed some obstacles.

 In the hilly terrains of the peninsular region, railway tracts are laid through low hills, gaps or tunnels.

 The Himalayan mountainous regions too are unfavourable for the

construction of railway lines due to high relief, sparse population and lack of economic opportunities.

 Likewise, it was difficult to lay railway lines on the sandy plain of western Rajasthan, swamps of Gujarat, forested tracks of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand.

 The contiguous stretch of Sahyadri could be crossed only through gaps or passes (Ghats).

 In recent times, the development of the Konkan railway along the west coast has facilitated the movement of passengers and goods in this most important economic region of India.

 It has also faced a number of problem such as sinking of track in some stretches and land slides.

Pipelines

Pipeline transport network is a new arrival on the transportation

map of India.

In the past, these were used to transport water to cities and

industries. Now, these are used for transporting crude oil, petroleum products and natural gas from oil and natural gas fields to refineries, fertilizer factories and big thermal power plants. Solids can also be transported through a pipeline when converted into slurry.

There are three important networks of pipeline transportation in the country.

1. From oil field in upper Assam to Kanpur (Uttar Pradesh), via

Guwahati, Barauni and Allahabad. It has branches from Barauni to Haldia, via Rajbandh, Rajbandh to Maurigram and Guwahati to Siligur.

2. From Salaya in Gujarat to Jalandhar in Punjab, via Viramgam,

Mathura, Delhi and Sonipat. It has branches to connect Koyali

(near Vadodara, Gujarat) Chakshu and other places.

3. Gas pipeline from Hazira in Gujarat connects Jagdishpur in Uttar Pradesh, via Vijaipur in Madhya Pradesh. It has branches to Kota in Rajasthan, Shahajahanpur, Babrala and other places in Uttar Pradesh.

Waterways

 Waterways are the cheapest means of transport.

 They are most suitable for carrying heavy and bulky goods.

 It is a fuel-efficient and environment friendly mode of transport.

 India has inland navigation waterways of 14,500 km in length. Out of these only 5685 km are navigable by mechanised vessels.

 The following waterways have been declared as the National

Waterways by the Government.

 The Ganga river between Allahabad and Haldia (1620 km)-N.W.

No.1

 The Brahmaputra river between Sadiya and Dhubri (891 km)-N.W. No.2 The West-Coast Canal in Kerala (Kottapurma-Kollam,

Udyogamandal and Champakkara canals-205 km) – N.W. No.3

 Specified stretches of Godavari and Krishna rivers along with

Kakinada Puducherry stretch of canals (1078 km) – N.W. No.4

 Specified stretches of river Brahmani along with Matai river, delta channels of Mahanadi and Brahmani rivers and East Coast Canal (588 km) – N.W. No.5

 Major Sea Ports With a long coastline of 7,516.6 km, India is dotted with 12 major and 187, notified nonmajors (minor/intermediate) ports. These major ports handle 95 per cent of India‘s foreign trade.

 Kandla in Kuchchh was the first port developed soon after

Independence to ease the volume of trade on the Mumbai port, in the wake of loss of Karachi port to Pakistan after the Partition.

 Kandla is a tidal port. It caters to the convenient handling of exports and imports of highly productive granary and industrial belt stretching across the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat.

 Mumbai is the biggest port with a spacious natural and well sheltered harbour. The Jawaharlal Nehru port was planned with a view to decongest the Mumbai port and serve as a hub port for this region.

 Marmagao port (Goa) is the premier iron ore exporting port of the country. This port accounts for about fifty per cent of India‘s iron ore export.

 New Mangalore port, located in Karnataka caters to the export of iron ore concentrates from Kudremukh mines.

 Kochchi is the extreme south-western port, located at the entrance of a lagoon with a natural harbour. Moving along the east coast, you would see the extreme south-eastern port of Tuticorin, in Tamil Nadu. This port has a natural harbour and rich hinterland. Thus, it has a flourishing trade handling of a large variety of cargoes to even our neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka, Maldives, etc. and the coastal regions of India.

 Chennai is one of the oldest artificial ports of the country. It is ranked next to Mumbai in terms of the volume of trade and cargo.

 Vishakhapatnam is the deepest landlocked and well-protected port.

This port was, originally, conceived as an outlet for iron ore exports.

 Paradwip port located in Odisha, specialises in the export of iron ore.

Kolkata is an inland riverine port. This port serves a very large and rich hinterland of Ganga- Brahmaputra basin. Being a tidal port, it requires constant dredging of Hoogly. Haldia port was developed as a subsidiary port, in order to relieve growing pressure on the Kolkata port.

Airways

 The air transport was nationalised in 1953. On the operational side, Indian Airlines, Alliance Air (subsidiary of Indian Airlines), private scheduled airlines and non- scheduled operators provide domestic air services.

 Air India provides international air services.

 Pawanhans Helicopters Ltd. provides helicopter services to Oil and Natural Gas Corporation in its off-shore operations, to inaccessible areas and difficult terrains like the north-eastern states and the interior parts of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.