The Covid-19 pandemic has driven education for children of all ages from school to home, and often a hybrid of both. As remote learning stretches into the new school year in many areas, parents are worried, with parents of young children especially concerned about writing.More than half of parents of young children (54 percent) say that “writing is the area of greatest concern,” in terms of remote learning, according to a survey conducted by Learning Without Tears (LWT), a company that has been providing writing and other educational materials to parents and teachers for more than 40 years.Parents faced with remote learning want to know how to develop and improve their children’s handwriting without the guidance of a teacher in a classroom setting.”Whether you are employed outside the home, or a stay-at-home parent, remote learning is challenging. Some subjects, like handwriting, are particularly difficult without a teacher’s direct instruction, which creates a lot of angst at home,” says Lana Dugdale, from Southborough, MA, mother of three young kids, including a rising first-grader.LWT is meeting the home-based learning challenges with improved and innovative updates to its classic and proven products.”It’s clear now that too many students were left behind as the country moved to distance learning,” says Terry Nealon, CEO of Learning Without Tears.”During a child’s elementary years, any gap in learning can result in setbacks that impact that student for the rest of his/her life. Learning Without Tears has always focused on improving learning outcomes; we don’t have to accept those gaps.”To enhance remote learning, families can choose from a range both digital and print resources: activity books geared towards various elementary school grades, including books on letters and numbers, printing, and cursive, as well as keyboarding programs. In addition, with sharing materials out and hand sanitizer in, individual manipulative packs for hands-on learning are the ideal solution for single student use in the classroom, or for parents opting for homeschooling in small groups or pods.Need more handwriting resources? There’s an app for that. Designed to help young children learn the correct way to form letters and numbers and to show parents how to support that learning, LWT has launched “Wet, Dry, Try,” for use on an iPad. With over four hours of instruction and technology that identifies individual student needs, the app provides a multisensory approach, with customized audio instructions that give teachers a way to monitor student progress remotely, when they can’t be in school.Learning loss during school shutdown has parents, teachers, and kids worried, stressed, and looking for solutions, and LWT resources are improving this unsettled situation. So teachers can be as effective remotely as they are in the classroom, LWT’s +Live Insights – its platform that brings all of its solutions together for in-school, at-home, and hybrid teaching – facilitates crucial data-driven individualized student instruction, as well as “whole class” gallery approach that was typical of remote teaching in the spring.The only thing certain about back-to-school this year, is its uncertainty. Visit LWTears.com for more information about early education products and resources for families and teachers to weather the new world of remote learning and beyond.

The Vedas are a large body of religious text originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism. Vedas are considered as the earliest literary records of Sanskrit Literature, written by Rishi Vyasa. It is bealived to be the oldest book in hinduism. Vedas means knowledge.  It is a Sanskrit word from the root “Vid”, which means finding, knowing, acquiring, or understanding. The Vedas formed the earliest segment of Vedic literature. The Vedic literature had been evolved in the course of many centuries and was handed down from generation to generation by the word of mouth. The Vedas are the collection of hymns, prayers, charms, litanies, and sacrificial formulae. The ideas, teachings, and practices described in the Vedas formed the basis for the six major schools of Hindu philosophy – Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mimamsa, and Vedanta.

There are four Vedas: the Rigveda, the Yajurveda, the Samaveda and the Atharvaveda.and all of them together are attributed to as ‘Chaturveda’

Rig Veda − It is the oldest Veda. It is a collection of hymns.

Samveda − it is a collection of songs, which are mostly taken from Rig Veda.

Yajurveda − It is a collection of sacrificial formulae.

Atharvanaveda − it is a collection of spells and charms.

The Rig Veda serves as the principal one and all three but the Arthaveda agree with one another in form, language, and content. Each Veda has been subclassified into four major text types or four portions.

The Samhitas, the most ancient layer of text in the Vedas, consisting of mantras, hymns, prayers, and benedictions which has in literary terms put together or joined the other three texts;

The Aranyakas which constitute the philosophy behind the ritual sacrifice,

The Brahmanas which in turn has the commentary on hymns of four Vedas and

The Upanishads, which consist of conversations between teachers and students which clarify the philosophical message of the Vedas.

Rigveda

The Rigveda Samhita is the oldest extant Indic text. It is a collection of 1,028 Vedic Sanskrithymns and 10,600 verses in all, organized into ten books. The hymns are dedicated to Rigvedic deities.  Two Sanskrit words Rig and Veda constituting it translates to ‘praise or shine’ and ‘knowledge’ respectively

Like the other three Vedas, the believers of the Hindu dharma regard the Rig Veda too as Apauruṣeya; meaning, not of a man or impersonal and also not belonging to a particular author. The hymns and the verses were written by the Rishis (Sages) and as the ardent believers of the Sanatana dharma claim the revered Lord himself taught the Vedic hymns to the sages, who then handed them down through generations by word of mouth.

The Mandalas of the Rig Veda which are ten in number and were composed by poets from different priestly groups over a period of several centuries is structured based on clear principles The Rigveda is structured based on clear principles. The Veda begins with a small book addressed to Agni, Indra, Soma and other gods, all arranged according to decreasing total number of hymns in each deity collection; for each deity series, the hymns progress from longer to shorter ones, but the number of hymns per book increases. Finally, the meter too is systematically arranged from jagati and tristubh to anustubh and gayatri as the text progresses.

Rigveda, in contemporary Hinduism, has been a reminder of the ancient cultural heritage and point of pride for Hindus, with some hymns still in use in major rites of passage ceremonies.  Musicians and dance groups celebrate the text as a mark of Hindu heritage, and these have remained popular among the Hindus for a long time. However, the contemporary Hindu beliefs are distant from the precepts in the ancient layer of Rigveda Samhitas.

Sama Veda

The Samaveda Samhita consists of 1549 stanzas, taken almost entirely (except for 75 mantras) from the Rigveda. While its earliest parts are believed to date from as early as the Rigvedic period, the existing compilation dates from the post-Rigvedic Mantra period of Vedic Sanskrit, between c. 1200 and 1000 BCE or “slightly later,” roughly contemporary with the Atharvaveda and the Yajurveda.

The Samaveda samhita has two major parts. The first part includes four melody collections and the second part three verse “books”. A melody in the song books corresponds to a verse in the arcika books. Just as in the Rigveda, the early sections of Samaveda typically begin with hymns to Agni and Indra but shift to the abstract. Their meters shift also in a descending order. The songs in the later sections of the Samaveda have the least deviation from the hymns derived from the Rigveda.

In the Samaveda, some of the Rigvedic verses are repeated. Including repetitions, there are a total of 1875 verses numbered in the Samaveda recension translated by Griffith. Two major recensions have survived, the Kauthuma/Ranayaniya and the Jaiminiya. Its purpose was liturgical, and they were the repertoire of the “singer” priests.

Yajurveda

Yajur Veda, of Sanskrit origin, is composed of Yajus and Veda; the two words translate to ‘prose mantras dedicated to religious reverence or veneration’ and knowledge respectively. Third of the fourth canonical texts of the Hindu dharma, this liturgical collection is famous as the ‘book of rituals’. Of the ancient Vedic text, it is a compilation of ritual offering formulas or the prose mantras to be chanted or muttered repeatedly by a priest while an individual performs the ascertained ritual actions before the sacrificial fire or the Yajna.

The earliest and most ancient layer of Yajurveda samhita includes about 1,875 verses, that are distinct yet borrow and build upon the foundation of verses in Rigveda. Unlike the Samaveda which is almost entirely based on Rigveda mantras and structured as songs, the Yajurveda samhitas are in prose and linguistically, they are different from earlier Vedic texts. The Yajur Veda has been the primary source of information about sacrifices during Vedic times and associated rituals.

The Yajurveda is broadly grouped into Krishna Yajurveda and Shukla Yajurveda, also referred to as the Black Yajurveda and the latter as the White. In reference to the verses of the Krishna Yajurveda being un-arranged, unclear, and disparate or dissimilar, the collection is too often referred to as Black Yajurveda. In contrast, the well-arranged and imparting a particular meaning, the Shukla Yajurveda is known as the White Yajurveda.

Yajurveda, in contemporary Hinduism, has been a reminder of the ancient cultural heritage and point of pride for Hindus. The text is a useful source of information about agriculture, economic, and social life during the Vedic era. The verse, translated from the Shukla Yajurveda, for example, lists the types of crops considered important in ancient India.

Atharvaveda

The Artharvaveda Samhita is the text ‘belonging to the Atharvan and Angirasa poets. It has about 760 hymns, and about 160 of the hymns are in common with the Rigveda. Most of the verses are metrical, but some sections are in prose. Two different versions of the text – the Paippalāda and the Śaunakīya – have survived into the modern times. The Atharvaveda was not considered as a Veda in the Vedic era, and was accepted as a Veda in late 1st millennium BCE. It was compiled last, probably around 900 BCE, although some of its material may go back to the time of the Rigveda, or earlier.

The Atharvaveda is sometimes called the “Veda of magical formulas”, an epithet declared to be incorrect by other scholars. The Samhita layer of the text likely represents a developing 2nd millennium BCE tradition of magico-religious rites to address superstitious anxiety, spells to remove maladies believed to be caused by demons, and herbs- and nature-derived potions as medicine. The text, states Kenneth Zysk, is one of oldest surviving record of the evolutionary practices in religious medicine and reveals the “earliest forms of folk healing of Indo-European antiquity”. Many books of the Atharvaveda Samhita are dedicated to rituals without magic, such as to philosophical speculations and to theosophy.

The Atharva veda has been a primary source for information about Vedic culture, the customs and beliefs, the aspirations and frustrations of everyday Vedic life, as well as those associated with kings and governance. The text also includes hymns dealing with the two major rituals of passage – marriage and cremation. The Atharva Veda also dedicates significant portion of the text asking the meaning of a ritual.

Ever since we were children we have heard that if we want to save the environment we should follow the 3R’s Reuse, Reduce and Recycle. But have you wondered if recycling is actually good for the environment. You may not know but recycling has many disadvantages. Recycling is really expensive. In order to repurpose certain recycled materials, separate manufacturing plants need to be built and used. This would counteract the advantage recycling has of creating less pollution, since more may actually be generated as a result of the additional factory. It makes us wonder whether it is really worth it to eat the high costs to impact the planet in such a small way over a long period of time? For recycling to work more people need to participate, as the world is getting more advanced more recycling technologies are being introduced but it will take a long time before a significant amount of people start participating. Recycled products are often of lesser quality. Products made from used, repurposed materials simply don’t stand up quality-wise to new material. They’re often fragile and overused. The more a piece of material gets recycled, the worse it gets. Recycling Sites Are Commonly Unsafe, Items thrown into the recycling bin is a form of trash. As with any waste, it has to be transported and processed somewhere. This means there are many locations having potentially hazardous waste. These heaps of trash are grounds for bacteria, disease, and many other diseases. Also recycling sites are also industrial plants. This means they are not without their own forms of pollution. waste produced is frequently mixed with large bodies of water, leading to broader scale pollution. Quite the opposite effect of what recycling advocates are going for. What we can do instead of recycling is we can Reuse. Reusing items is extremely beneficial to the environment because it prevents pollution caused by reducing the need to harvest new raw materials, saves energy also it saves a lot of money.

Transport is a system in which passengers and goods are carried from one place to another. Transport system is considered as the lifeline of a country. Earlier man travelled on foot or used animals for transport. With the discovery of wheel, transport was made easier and gradually different means of transport were developed. There are three major means of transport in the world.

Roadways

Roads play an important role in carrying goods and passengers for short, medium and long distances. It is highly suitable for short distance services. It is comparatively easy and cheap to construct and maintain roads. Road transport system can establish easy contact between farms, fields, factories and markets and can provide door to door transport services. Roads are the most universal mode of transport. Indian roads are cost efficient. It is used by all sections of people in the society.

For the purpose of construction and maintenance, roads are classified into National Highways (NH), State Highways (SH), District Roads, Rural Roads (Village roads), Border Roads and International Highways.

Classification of Roads in India

National Highways (NH)

National Highways form the most important system of road Transportation in India. These highways are running through length and breadth of the country connecting capitals of states, major Ports, rail junctions, industrial and tourist centres. Ministry of Road Transport and Highways of India, is responsible for the development and maintenance of National Highways in India. The longest National highway is NH-44 which runs from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh to Kanniyakumari in Tamil Nadu covering a distance of 2369 km. The shortest national highway is NH-47A, which runs from Ernakulum to Kochi port (Willington Island) covering a distance of 6km.

State Highways

The state highways are usually roads that link important cities, towns and district headquarters within the state and connect them with national highways or highways of neighbouring states. These roads are administered and financed by state governments.

District Roads

District Roads provide connectivity between the district and taluk headquarters with the state highways and national highways. District Roads are constructed and maintained by the Public Works Department of the states.

Rural Roads (Village Roads)

These roads are vital for providing links in the rural areas. It links the different villages with their neighbouring towns. They are maintained by Village Panchayats.

Border Roads

These are the roads of strategic importance in border areas. They are constructed and maintained by Border Roads Organization. It was established in 1960 for the development of the roads of strategic importance in the northern and northeastern border areas. Border Roads Organization has constructed world’s highest road joining Chandigarh and Leh in Ladakh. This road runs at an average altitude of 4,270 meters.

Golden Quadrilateral

Golden Quadrilateral 5,846 km long road of 4/6 lanes connects, India’s four metropolitan cities: Delhi-Kolkata-Chennai-Mumbai-Delhi. This project was launched in 1999.

North-South and East-West Corridors

North – South corridor aims at connecting Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir with Kaniyakumari in Tamil Nadu (including Kochi – Salem Spur) with 4,076km long road. The East – West corridor has been planned to connect Silchar in Assam with the port town of Porbandar in Gujarat with 3,640km of road length. The two corridors intersect at Jhansi.

Expressways

These are multi – lane good quality highways for high speed traffic. Some of the important expressways are;

☆ Mumbai – Pune Road

☆ Kolkata – Dumdum Airport road

☆ Durgapur – Kolkata road

☆ Yamuna expressway between Delhi and Agra.

International Highways

These are the roads that link India with neighbouring countries for promoting harmonious relationship with them. These highways have been constructed with an aid from world bank under an agreement with the Economic and Social Commission for Asia-Pacific (ESCAP). These roads connect important highways of India with those of the neighbouring countries such as Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Railways

Indian railway system is the main artery of the country’s inland transport. Railways cater to the needs of large scale movement of traffic, both for freight and passenger, thereby contributing to economic growth. Railways are considered as the backbone of the surface transport system of India. It promotes national integration by bringing people together. It also promotes trade, tourism, education etc. Railways help in the commercialization of the agriculture sector by facilitating the bulky movement of perishable goods. Its role in transporting raw materials to industries and finished goods to markets is invaluable. Indian railways network is the largest in Asia and second largest in the world.

On the basis of width of the track, the Indian railways fall under four categories.
✓Broad gauge (1.676 meter width)
✓Meter gauge (1 meter width)
✓Narrow gauge (0.762 meter width)
✓Light gauge (0.610 meter width)

Metro Railways in India

There are 8 cities with metro rail connectivity in India. They are Kolkata (West Bengal), Chennai (Tamil Nadu), Delhi, Bengaluru (Karnataka), Gurgaon (Haryana), Mumbai (Maharashtra), Jaipur (Rajasthan) and Kochi ( Kerala). The metro in Kolkata is the first one in India. It is also called as Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS). As of September 2018, India has 507 km of operational metro lines and 381 stations.

Waterways

A waterway is an important mode of transport for both passenger and cargo traffic in India. It is the oldest and also the cheapest means of transport and most suitable for carrying heavy and bulky materials from one country to another. It is a fuel-efficient and eco-friendly mode of transport. The water transport is of two types-

Inland Waterways

Ocean Water ways (sea routes)

Air Transport

Airways are the quickest, costliest, most modern and comfortable means of transport, Air transport facilitates connectivity on a national, regional and international scale. It has made accessibility easier by connecting difficult terrains like high mountains and sandy deserts. It carries passengers, freight and mail. Air transport plays a key in times of emergency as well as in the event of natural and man-made calamities like floods, epidemics and wars.