During the entire period of before Independence, India was either ruled by kings or else by the Britishers. There will definitely be some questions regarding the ruling of kings like, when? who? how? why?

In ancient India, one animal was treated as both god and weapon, for one king these beasts were the shock troops of an army and is organized as before or since. Riding a juggernaut these soldiers carved out one of the largest empires in history.

“THE MAURYANS”- The warriors of Elephant

In the war for India a great army of soldiers and Elephants has proven unstoppable. But in the year 260BC they faced their worst enemy. no matter what, Victory lies first in reaching the battlefield intact a battle all its own. The outcome will decide the fate of a kingdom.

The Mauryan Empire was a geographically extensive Iron age Historical power based in Magadha, Ancient India. It was founded in 322BCE by its king ChandraGupta Maurya. This empire was the largest to have ever existed in the Indian subcontinent expanding over 5million square kilometers at its zenith under Ashoka- The great

The capital of Mauryan Empire was Pataliputra which is recent times is called as Patna

History of Mauryan Empire

The foundation of Mauryan empire is ruled for 137years, and was a unique incident in Indian history, given the fact that it was founded shortly after the death of Alexander- The great who led many victorious campaigns in North-West India during 327BC- 325BC

The founding of the Dynasty

Was founded by ChandraGupta Maurya with the advice of his counsellor Chanakya by over throwing the Nanda Dynasty and built one of the largest empires ever on the aindian Subcontinent.

Conquest of Magadha: Historians believed that it was Chanakya or popularly known as Kautilya who provoked ChandraGupta to take over Magadha throne.

Apart from all the controversies that it was the Chanakyas doing out of grudge against nanda dynasty, it was Mauryan empire and ChandraGupta Maurya as the main person to create one of the worlds largest empires in the World and in Indian subcontinent.

ChandraGupta Maurya (321-297 BC)

• The classical greek writers described Chandragupta as a man of humble origin
• he was born orphaned and abandoned and is raised as a son by another Pastoral family was recognized and taught by Chanakya- The author of Arthashastra
• ChandraGupta left everything and became a Jain monk
• His reign was well recognized as “Economic prosperity”, reforms and expansion of Infrastructure like irrigation, roads and mines.
• Religions like Buddhism, Jainism and Ajivika gained prominence along with Brahmanism

Bindhusara(297-272BC)

• He was 22years old when his father ChandraGupta Maurya stepped out of the throne.
• He extended the empire which he inherited from his father to South India which is now known as Karnataka
• He maintained friendly relations with the Hellenic west and brought 16new states under Mauryan empire
• He, almost conquered the entire Indian peninsula and is populary known as the king who conquered the Land between 2 seas.
• His reign lasted for 28years and he died in 270BCE.

Ashoka- The great(268-232BC)

• The throne was succeeded by Bindusara son- Ashoka-The great.
• As a young prince Ashoka was a magnificent commander who crushed revolts in Ujjainand Thakshasila and was given charges of the viceroyship of Ujjain.
• He was aggressive and ambitious monarch who re-asserted the empires superiority in southern and western parts of India
• the pivotal event of his life came when he conquered Kalinga in 261BCE and this became a part of Mauryan empire.
• He died in 232BCE. His death divided the empire into western and eastern halves and 50years of succession of weaker kings

Ashoka’s first son- Mahendra went on to spread Buddhism across the world. His other son Kunal Maurya was blind and didn’t get a chance to ascend the throne.

slowly, the mauryans started loosing their territories and in 180BCE, the last kind Brihadratha was killed by his general Pushyamitra shunga in a military parade, which gave rise or birth to Shunga empire.

Psychology has become one of the most popular and important subjects nowadays. It is the study of the mind and behavior, according to the American Psychological Association. The discipline of psychology is broadly divisible into two parts: a large profession of practitioners and a smaller but growing science of mind, brain, and social behavior. The […]

PSYCHOLOGY — Site Title

Recently, when we look back and check once, we can see many countries delegates like Prime Minister, President, one or the other is visiting India. Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of United Kingdom also planned to visit, but due to pandemic the plan was cancelled. The point here is them not visiting us. The point is why they are visiting us? And why such Global powers are showing Interest on us.

Also, recently India and Us held a 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue, which shows the importance of India for US.

Every country, it maybe USA, Japan, Russia, France, Asia-European Union are trying to be or maintain relationship with India. It can be friendship or enmity, showing interest have any reason behind.

when we look back, India’s prestige is increasing world wide, It’s not that it is popular in ancient times, the growth and popularity of India started long back from Indus Valley Civilization itself. The IVC people used to have trade relationship with Mesopotamia and Egypt.

Its like the International relation that India have with other countries started long back but increased during the 16th century when European countries started to reach India.

In post Independent India, the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru linked Indian foreign policy with principles of Panchsheel and Non-alignment.

In late 1940’s India supported Indonesian colonial war to end the Dutch rule. This is why India manages to make a different place on world stage.

one of the major positive that’s attracting the other countries is

• India’s demographic advantage
• India’s strategic location
• Economic factor
• close cultural and religious ties.
• Indian Philosophies

India’s demographic advantage. we have higher number of youth population. Around 62.5%of Indian population belong to the working age group of 15- 59years.

India’s strategic location. As India is covered with water on 3 sides. one side is Pacific ocean, Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean- can have a route from Mediterranean sea. there is a logic behind this. More than 80% of total maritime oil trade takes place through the 3 narrow passages located in Indian Ocean.

As it’s role as a peace provider. India’s increased defense capabilities helped India in launching the SAGAR i.e., Security and Growth For All.

Economic factor. In an estimate by world economic league, India with 6.8trillion USD will become the 3rd largest economy by 2031.

Also, India is providing development assistance to countries like Nepal, Bhutan, SriLanka, Latin America and Africa. apart from this, India was there when the countries need a help during the time of pandemic, natural disasters etc.

This is the reason why every country is having that respect towards India, as its maintaining friendly cordial relationships with the fellow countries.

COMPREHENSION OF GIVEN PASSAGES

Word ‘comprehension’ means the ability to understand what you listen to or what you read.
The most essential requirement for understanding the passage is to know the meaning of the words used in it.

Types of comprehensive passage

• Factual passage: A factual passage contains 300 to 350 words. It is a detailed description in which some information is added along with a detailed description of physical attributes. A good factual passage describes the reader to compare or contrast the relevant information regarding facts, data, etc.

• Discursive passage: A discursive passage contains a text which is either argumentative or interpretative or persuasive in nature. They may also include opinions or feedback.

Requisite skills of Comprehensive passage

To develop a better level of comprehension one requires certain skills:

• Logical ability
• The ability to infer
• Analytical ability
• Reasoning ability
• Ability to understand the main motive or the idea of the author.
• Reading speed
• Vocabulary power
• Remembering some important information from the paragraph otherwise, we need to refer the paragraph again and again which will consume more time.

PRECISE WRITING

Precis Writing is a summary. It is an exercise of compression. A precis writing is a gist of any passage in as few words as possible.

Guidelines for precise writing

• Closely read the passage, and identify the central idea of the passage. It is vital to identify the general idea of the passage and incorporate it in one’s précis.
• Look-out for the total number of words. If the number is not provided, quickly calculate the number using approximations.
• In order to understand the passage clearly, make sure that you read the passage closely, and give it a couple of reads before you start writing the précis.
• Highlight the most important points in the passage, and make notes. Leave out all non-essential information from the précis.
• Provide an apt heading to your précis.
• Note making is an essential task for writing précis. You should try to arrange the points in most logical order, and ensure the order of thought is the same as the original.
• The three grammatical rules you need to follow while writing a précis are: write it in third person, indirect form and appropriate past tense.
• It is advisable to provide designations of officials rather than names and titles. In case the official designation is not provided, you can use the personal name. Kindly be consistent with the pattern you adopt.
• Make sure you review your rough draft, remove the chinks and ensure that you have made no language related errors.
• Before writing your précis, make sure you have a glance over the original to make sure you have not missed anything.
• Finally, a wise policy would be to count the words of your precis and put them down in a bracket at the end.

QUALITIES OF GOOD PRECIS

• Objectivity:
   Objectivity means how you are presenting your facts and views without it being biasing your feelings or personal opinions. In stricter terms, precis writing should be a summary of the passage or text given to you. It should not include your personal idea or opinions.
• Clarity:
  A precis is the crisp formation of the passage and it should be as crisp and clear as possible. Clarity is essentially getting your ideas loud and clear without writing it in depth. It should convey what the writer is trying to say. 
• Coherence:
  It clearly means that ideas and views that you have presented should be logical and the interconnection of the ideas should be proper. 
• Correctness:
  There are many mistakes that you should avoid while writing a precis. Many such mistakes include mistakes in figures and dates, the spelling of words, punctuation mistakes, structure and grammar mistakes, and many more. 
• Conciseness:
  Conciseness means that the precis should contain all the information required while not mentioning it in depth. It should not be too long either too short and both of these should not have any impact while writing a precis.
• Completeness:
   It should include as many things as possible and more importantly the facts. In fact, a good one should be able to produce all the facts while being short. A short precis does not mean avoiding important facts. Also, the important thing that you should remember is it should be a summary and not a short description of the passage.
  

Points to Avoid for Precis Writing

• Do not elaborate a lot on a single point.
• Do not use your own interpretation, criticism,  or assumption about the text.
• Do not copy sentences from the original text or use abbreviations.
• Do not break the flow of events and keep the text well connected.

USAGE AND VOCABULARY

Usage is the act of using something. Vocabulary is all about words — the words in a language or a special set of words you are trying to learn.

SHORT ESSAYS

An essay is typically a short, non-fiction piece of writing.

Guidelines for short essays

• Each short essay should be a short essay of approximately 500 words, about 2 typewritten double-spaced pages in length. 
• You must write in full sentences and use proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling. 
• Your essay should answer the assigned question, drawing on the relevant reading assignment. 
• It is very important to deal with what the author says about the question, not simply with what you think.  (However, you may contrast your own opinion with the author’s, offer a critique of her argument, etc.  But this requires that you start by setting out the author’s position.)
• Even though you are dealing with the author’s view about the question, you need to express it in your own words. 
• Extended quotations of the text are inappropriate in an assignment of this length, and even short quotations require your analysis (e.g., you will need to explain what the sentence you have quoted means, how it bears on the question, etc.).
• Misrepresenting the words or ideas of others as your own is plagiarism. 
• You will not receive credit for any essays that contain plagiarism,.
• Moreover, it is course policy that plagiarism will result in a failing grade for the course and the possibility of further administrative sanctions. 
• If you are completely unsure of what the author is claiming or how it bears on the question you have been asked to answer, you should write a brief essay on what the author seems to be claiming, why it does not make sense to you, and what two questions you might ask the author to help you understand his view.
• Short essays are due at the beginning of lecture. 
•  No late reading responses will be accepted.  Of the 4 reading responses assigned, your lowest grade will be dropped from the average. 

Ok……. let’s talk about climate change. What it is? how it is happening? Is it because of humans? Does with have anything to do in this????. let’s know………

First of all…what is climate change???

Climate change is nothing but the change in climate. Ummmm…….sounds a bit odd and confusing but let’s see. “The change in climate means whatever we are seeing daily or sensing or experiencing is changing gradually”.

There maybe many reasons for this change in climatic conditions.

We started breaking CO2 records in 1950, and we haven’t stopped since. So, what maybe the reason????????

Well Scientists say there is a 95% chance that human activity is the cause. We have been burning more and more fossil fuels like oil and coal which release CO2, to power our homes, factories, airplanes and cars. Not only this, there is a lot more of us i.e., the global population has tripled in the past 70years and we are consuming more products from animals that release another pollutant called Methane.

All these gases are released into the air, and when sunlight get’s into the Earth’s atmosphere, some of the heat gets trapped and the planet gets warmer. This is called as “Greenhouse Effect“.

The concern is not about the Earth getting warmer. It’s actually the warmest temperature on Earth since the last ice age, since 10,000years ago.

The UN says that right now our World is about 1 degree hotter than the Pre-Industrial times i.e., around 1800’s. It’s ok if the heat increases by 1.5 to 2 within a century or so. But, the problem is the “SPEED”. The change is heat is happening so fast that the temperature is increasing rapidly within 10-15 years which is not ok. And if we don’t slow down the heat/warming-this would mean CATASTROPHE within our life time and we are already experiencing it.

Some of the effects we can see because of global warming are

• Global rise in temperature
• Ocean warming
• Melting of Glaciers and ice sheets.
• Decrease on snow cover
• Sea level rise.

So, to overcome or reduce all this, back in 2016, world leaders signed “PARIS AGREEMENT”. The big pledge they took is to cap temperatures rising by 1.5 degrees or maximum 2, before the year 2100.So, countries set their own targets on how much CO2 they should emit. But the problem is, even after the agreement, the level of CO2 is increasing rapidly.

But, one thing to be proud of is some countries like, India, Morocco, Gambia have massive renewable energy projects.

The advice is….. It’s our turn to change all the things that’s happening because of us, to change our ways and shake things up…..or else, climate change is going to do it for us

Vikram Batra belongs to a Hindu
family in Palampur, Himachal Pradesh. He was a son of a government school
principal. He joined the Air Wing of the National Cadet Corps in his college.
From his college life, he was interested in serving the nation. He cleared the
exam of NCC, get the C certificate. After participating in the Republic day
parade, he shared his thought with their parents that he wants to join the
Indian Army.

1n 1995, he pursuing MA at
Punjab University and start the preparation for Combined Defense Service Exam.
In 1996, he joined Indian Military Academy(IMA). In 1997, after concluding
training in IMA, he was commissioned as a lieutenant into the 13 JAK RIF. 

In 1998, after undergoing many
training and postings, he finally posted to Sopore, Baramulla District, J&K
.He had many encounters with militants over there. In one operation, Batra was
leading the platoon and had killed all the militants before the morning. In
1999, Batra completed his commando course at Belgaum, Karnataka.

In 1999, it was Holi time.
Vikram Batra enjoying his vacation with his fiancée Dimple Cheema. In a
conversation, Dimple said to Vikram Batra that he has to be careful about war.
Then Batra smiled and replied-“I’ll either come back after raising the
Indian flag in victory or return wrapped in it. But I’ll come back for
sure.”

He returned to his troop from
his hometown. After few days,13 JAK RIF reached Dras on  6 June 1999. The 18 Grenadiers failed to
capture the peak of Tololing. But 2 RAJ RIF 
captured the peak on June 13, 1999. After the success of that mission, Vikaram
Batra and his platoon were ordered to march from Dras to Tooling. Another
mission was planned to capture point 5140, which was assigned to the 13 JAK
RIF. Under the command of Lt. Col. Yogesh Kumar Joshi,13 JAK RIF found that the
enemy covered some major areas from top to bottom of point 5140. Joshi decided
to attack from the east and south sides by two teams, lead by Lt. Sanjeev Singh
Jamwal, and Lt. Vikram Batra. Both choose their winning signal, Jamwal chooses
“Oh! Yeah, yeah, yeah!” and Batra chooses “Ye Dil Mange
More!”.

Artillery fire was used for
covering support of these two assault companies while climbing point 5140. Both
the companies reached their destination on 20 June. Jamwals company had first
captured their objective. It was difficult for Batra to covered the enemy from
the rear side of the hill, but Batra did that impossible task with his 5 team
members and killed 3 enemies single-handedly in close combat. He was injured
but never stopped there, rather lead his troops and captured their objective by
sharing his slogan”Ye Dil Mange More!”.

He was promoted as Captain
after capturing point 5140. After the great success of 13 JAK RIF, the troop
moved to Mushkoh Valley under the command of 79 Mountain Bridge. The next task
was to captured point 4875 in the Mushkoh Valley. It was the dangerous mission
ever for 13 JAK RIF till now. They had to protect around 30-40km of the
National Highway from Dras to Malayan. The Pakistani soldiers easily observed
the moment and position of our soldiers, saw the gun positions, army camps from
that peak.  

On 4 July, the war began. The A
and C Coys started their operation of capturing point 4875. But in the
meanwhile, Batra was suffered from fatigue and fever.  Although its day time, these two troops were
consolidated their hold on point 4875 after heavy bombarding and machine-gun
attacks, and artillery fire. On 5 July, Pakistani enemies attacked with heavy
fire and accuracy from their position in north point 4875. Area Flat was
captured by 13 JAK RIF on 5 July, that was the key objective of that mission,
without that point Indian Army never succeed in their mission. Unfortunately
within a few hours Pakistani enemies counter-attacked our soldiers and climbed
faster to capture the peak. Captain N.A.Nagappa was lead a troop to fight
against those enemies to acquire the peak. But suddenly he was badly injured.
Pakistani soldiers were climbing faster as Nagappa was injured.

Batra observing all those
things lying on the bed went to Mr.Joshi and insisted to let him go. As the
team of Nagappa needed reinforcement, Vikram Batra and his team were ready to
capture the peak 4875 and determined for this in any situation and
circumstances. All the members of 13 JAK RIF wanted to join Batra for the honor
of their battalion despite the orders of their seniors.

Batra began to climb with 25
members of D Coy at night. When the troop neared the top, they had to climb
vertically, where the visibility was almost zero due to heavy fog. Batra found
a machine gun of Pakistani soldiers and destroyed it with a grenade. Batra
finally located the machine gun post of enemies, but unfortunately, no option
was left without a direct frontal assault in daylight. Under heavy fire from
enemies’ machine guns and grenade launchers, Batra killed 5 Pakistani soldiers
with his AK-47. Batra saw one of his men was shot in this process. With heavy
firing, Batra said his teammate Sub. Raghunath Singh evacuates that injured
soldier. He also said to Singh, “You have a family and children to go back
to, I am not even married”.Batra had continuously given his maximum effort
to drag the soldier to a safe place, suddenly a bullet hit his chest from a
very close distance, and after few seconds another on his head from an RPG.
Batra lies down on that battleground.

He was aware of the great
danger of his mission, but instead of all those things, he was never afraid of
death. Vikram Batra was awarded Indian’s highest military honor, the Param Vir
Chakra. His supreme sacrifices for his country will always be memorable.