In the forests of South India harvesters climb tress as tall as 50feet to hand pick these clove buds. When exported half of the pound of these dried cloves cost $30. That’s 10times as much as cumin. But as they focus on keeping their balance, harvesters must also be careful not to break the buds. If they do, the value of the clove drops significantly and that’s just where the risk begins.

To harvest the cloves correctly, workers put their lives on the line. So, what makes cloves worth the risks? Why are they so expensive?

Cloves and flower buds of cloves trees that haven’t blossomed yet, When dried, they are commonly used as a spice. A clove’s flavor is complex with a pinch of sweetness, bitterness and heat. The oil found in cloves has medicinal properties, that makes the spice valuable outside of just cooking. Cloves with the round head/crown still intact have the most oil. But to get cloves with the highest possible oil content, highly skilled labors are needed at every stage.

To get to the top of the trees, harvesters rely on ladder and some rope which is tied to the tree on three sides to secure it from falling and covers the bottom of the ladder with mud, so that it doesn’t move when the people navigates/hops on the tall trees. While climbing the person who climbs must make sure that they doesn’t break the branches and at the same time while picking on the clove buds, there should be a clear idea on picking the right bud(well grown) and also avoid plucking the new growing bud.

The workers nearly makes around $30 a day(on an average).

Once the cloves are picked from tree, harvesters carefully remove the individual buds from the stalks and leaves. they shift and sort each bud according to its size, age and whether it has top or not. It’s best if the circular crown of the clove where it would otherwise flower is still intact. This improves the spices taste and aroma. There is a machinery available for segregating the cloves/ sorting them. But for being on safe side many farmers prefer to handpick them to avoid the damage of buds which are most important.

The highest quality cloves were picked at the right time, just before they turned into pink flowers. They are large and plump and still have the crown. Second quality cloves also still have their tops, but they are small in size compared to the high quality one’s and these are small because, either they are picked too early or too late. The third quality are the one with the top having either flowered or broken off.

After the sorting process, the cloves are allowed to dry under the sun. High quality cloves take 3 days to dry under good sunlight. if the sunlight is too less then the quality of the clove drops. Instead of the golden brown, it becomes black and loses its most valuable properties i.e., its oil content.

First quality cloves are the most valuable and have the highest oil content. Clove oil is mostly made up of the compound “Eugenol” which is not only responsible for the cloves familiar aroma, but also for its medicinal benefits. Researchers have noted “Eugenol has antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties“. So, the demand for the cloves go beyond their culinary uses.

“Kanyakumari cloves are known for their high oil content and strong aroma. In fact these cloves were awarded a Geographical Indication tag(GI) in 2021“.

A teej festival is celebrated by rajasthani people but mostly in parts like bundi and jaipur with much excitement in people.The women are adorned in fancy traditional attire,the sky is lotted with kites of variegated colors and aroma of delicious teej fingers in air.This year teej is celebrated on 30 August 2022.

This festival is celebrated because it is primarily dedicated to Parvati and her union with Shiva.Woman often fast in celebration of teej .It is traditionally observed by woman to celebrate monsoons during months of shravan and bhadrapada of hindu calendar.They often pray to Parvati & Shiva during teej.

Teej festival of rajasthan is grand view and you ought not to miss if you are in pink City.A royal procession of teej mata on an antique palanquin called teej swari,winds through lanes of the city.There is whole fanfare of dancers and brand players who accompany the processions.

It is three day celebration and each day has its own significance.On first day,”Dan Khana Di”, married woman enjoy meal prepared by their husband’s.All the ladies gather at the place and take part in following fan-filled activities. Swinging and singing– The first picture that comes to everyone’s mind is of the ladies swaying on a tree swing. Beautiful swings adorned with flowers are hung on the tree in their garden where women take their turn and sing songs about the eternal love of Lord Shiva and Goddess . Hands on Heena- Customized Jaipur One night before Teej, women put intricate designs of henna on their hands and feet. It is a part of Teej Shringar, the whole makeup thing which girls and married women do on the occasion. The married women hide their husband’s name in the design and ask them to reveal it in a playful game. ka -po-che

The festival is not all about women. Guys sure have their share of fun too. On the occasion of Teej festival in Jaipur, boys gather on their roofs and participate in a kite-flying competition. The whole sky can be seen dotted with colorful kites. You can hear them screaming Kai-po-che when someone manages to dock their rival’s kite. It is so much fun watching. Royal Rajasthan flava.

Hence, the teej festival is regarded as festival of women that brings joys and strengthen the bond between women, husband as well as her family.

The earth is a fascinating place with all kinds of variation and geographical interest. All over the world, wild and wondrous things have happened. These occurrences have created a series of landforms throughout Earth’s lifespan that make each many areas unique.

As defined by National Geographic, a landform is a “feature on the Earth’s surface that is part of the terrain.” The terrain of the land includes all of its topographic features. Whether a formation sticks out of the ground or sinks into it, it has topographic significance. 

Endogenic forces and exogenic forces can create a lot of landforms. Mountains, hills, plateaus, and plains are the four major types of landforms. Minor landforms include buttes, canyons, valleys, and basins.

There are four major types of landforms. There are four that are accepted throughout the scientific community. These include mountains, plateaus, hills, and plains. Everything else can fall into these broad and general categories.

There are hundreds of minor landform typologies. Some of them are well known, like valleys. Others you have probably never heard of since they only belong to particular geographic regions.

Mountains

More common examples of plains include:

1. Great Plains (US) – 1,100,000 square miles
2. Canterbury Plains (New Zealand) – 195 square miles
3. Australian Plains – 2,966,200 square miles
4. Serengeti Plains – 11,583 square miles
5. European Plain – 2,000,000 square miles
6. West Siberian Plain (Russia) – 1,200,000 square miles
7. Indus Valley Plain (Pakistan) – 200,000 square miles

Hills

• Hills are like tiny mountains. They share many of their characteristics with mountains.
• For example, hills have to have a higher elevation than the land around them.
• Hills are smaller than mountains and are also not as steep. Although the heights of some hills might be close to some small mountains, their gently sloping nature prevents them from being a mountain.

Some of the more famous hills in the world include:

1. Chocolate Hills (Philippines)
2. Ananthagiri Hills (India)
3. Tuscany Hills (Italy)
4. Glastonbury Tor (England)

This year ganga dussehra will be celebrated on 9 June Thursday till 10 june Friday 2022.On this day devotees of godness ganga worship her holy incarnation and presence on earth. It is believed that a holy dip in ganga is equal to hundred Mahayagnas. Traditionally, this festival is also known as Gangavataran or Ganga Dashara. According to the books of Hindu mythology, it is believed that on this day Goddess Ganga descended on the planet earth. As per ancient beliefs, King Bhagirath from the Sagara Dynasty once worshiped Lord Brahma for purifying the souls of his ancestors and relive them of the curse, so that they can attain salvation. Lord Brahma asked the king to worship Lord Shiva as it was difficult for Lord Brahma to bring Goddess Ganga to earth for her rage and only Lord Shiva had the power to control it.Pleased by his prayers and dedication, Lord Shiva gave him a vardan (blessing) and he asked Lord Shiva to control the rage of Goddes Open App olding her in his Jata (hair) to save the earth from destruction. This festival is usually celebrated during Summers and it is believed that after worshiping and taking a holy dip in Ganga, donating food, fruits, vegetables, rice, flour, ghee, money, water containers etc can bring prosperity and happiness in life. It is believed that a person who stands in the holy Ganga, worships her and recites Ganga Strotam on this day finds a place in Baikunth after death. If you are unable to reach the river ghat, mixing a few drops of holy Gangajal gives the same virtue of Like any other occasion in Hindu mythology, the Ganga Dussehra festival has its own significance, values, and importance. The following blog will lead you through the journey of this auspicious event. Why ganga dussehra is celebrated? The legend has it that the king named Sagara had 60,000 sons searching for a lost horse for the Ashwamedha Yagya tied near the Ashram of Sage Kapil by God Indra. The 60,000 sons said to possess created tons of commotion that disturbed the meditating Sage Kapila and anger when the sage opened his eyes. So he burned them to ashes. He told them the touch of the water Ganga would only give them the Moksha. As per the legend, one among the descendants of King Sagara named Bhagiratha performed austerity to gratify Brahma and send Ganga on earth.Goddess Ganga then descended to earth in seven streams and washed down all the ashes of Bhagiratha ancestors, and thus, Ganga Dusshera is widely known because of the day when the river . King Sagara of the Suryavansha dynasty had decided to perform the Ashwamedha Yajna (horse sacrifice) to prove his supremacy. However, Lord Indra, considering the sacrifice results, stole the horse enlisted to perform the yajna and delivered it to the ashram of Kapila, a sage immersed in meditation.King Sagara’s 60,000 sons began to seek out the horse. Kapila snapped out of his meditation before they might do him any harm. As a consequence of their disrespect towards a venerated sage, the sons were burnt to ashes.While returning the horse to King Sagara’s grandson, Kapila revealed that the sons might be redeemed if the Ganga descended on earth and purified their souls with its water.King Sagara’s great-grandson, Bhagiratha, wished to free his ancestors from the curse. So, after much penance, he pleased the Ganges to descend from heaven, but not without a caveat: her currents would destroy the world.Anxious to deliver his ancestors, Bhagiratha prayed to Lord Shiva, who, impressed by his determination, agreed to interrupt the Ganga’s fall .

The infamous Mariana Trench sits like a crescent shaped dent in the floor of the Pacific. A 2,550kms long, 69km wide fracture that plummets down into a pure black/ dark void.

At the bottom it hosts the deepest known location on the Earth, the Challenger Deep- 11,033meters or 36,200feet beneath the waves. The trench itself is, but one part of the global network of deep scars that cut across the ocean floor. Features that formed from a process called “subduction”.

In the case of the Mariana Trench, the western edge of the Pacific plate was thrust beneath the smaller Mariana plate to the west, creating the deep fracture. Molten material then rose through volcanoes near the trench, building the nearby Mariana islands.

At its deepest point, The Mariana trench dips down into a little explored zone of the ocean. the Hadal zone, named after the realm of Hades, the underworld of Greek Mythology. A suitable title for a place, where the conditions of the pure darkness, acidic freezing water, scarce food and the immense pressure create a challenging environment for the creatures to survive in. For much of history, it was believed to be a dead zone, void of any life at all. An impossible frontier and an empty void of perils that could never be reached by any human. But in the 19th century this was all about to change.

The Mariana’s depths were first plumbed in 1875 when the crew abroad the H.M.S challenger cast a weighted sounding rope over the side of the vessel and found they need more rope. They did not expected there to be a location so deep. Knowing it’s existence, few dared to venture to the bottom.

In 1960, 85years after the Challenger deep was discovered, 2 men set out to reach the bottom, Jacques Piccard and Navy Lt. Don Walsh, sheltered only by a cramped bathyscaphe submersible called THE TRIESTE. Their 5 hour descent was fraught with challenges. The water pressure near the bottom was 1000’s of times greater than atmospheric pressure at sea level. this caused crack, limiting their time spent on the sea floor to only 20minutes.

Later other experts lead their way and saw microorganisms living of chemicals from altered rocks. It is a sunless world.

Why is the ocean so deep here?

The Mariana Trench is located at a convergent plate boundary. Here two converging plates of oceanic lithosphere collide with one another. At this collision point, one of the plates descends into the mantle. At the line of contact between the two plates, the downward flexure forms a trough known as an ocean trench. An example of an ocean trench is shown in the diagram. Ocean trenches form some of the deepest locations in Earth’s oceans.

We love climbing mountains, hiking through the mountains, and even just looking at them. But never have you thought how are they formed????

well, lets start by knowing what mountains are actually made of.

Mountains are made of the same stuff that we are all standing on right now, the hard rocky layer of the Earths surface, called the Crust. To be simple, The crust is a crispy, crunchy part/layer of the Earth.

The dirt, the rocks and all of the land on the planet are parts of the Crust. And it covers the whole Earth, even the Land that’s under water.

To be brief and clear, Earth’s crust is kind of like bread crust i.e., it covers everything in the same way that bread crust covers the whole loaf. But, unlike the bread crust, the Earth’s crust isn’t all in one piece. It’s broken up into pieces called plates, which covers the Earth like a giant Jigsaw puzzle.

These plates are huge and heavy but they don’t just sit there. In fact they are always moving. They move very slowly, just a tiny bit at a time, about few centimeters a year. But over a long periods of time, all of that moving around can add up to some big changes. Some times two of the plates in the Earth’s crust will move towards each other, and when they do they start to press against one another. But they have nowhere to go. So, they will just push against each other until they start to crumple. Then the rocks that make up the plates are pushed up over and over each other. The more they push together, the more the land rises and after a while, you will see a big thing, which we call a mountain.

Since, the plates are so huge, when they push up against each other, they don’t just make one mountain, they can makeup a whole mountain range, like The Alps in the Europe, The Andes in South America, The Appalachians in The United States were all made this way- by two plates of Earth’s crust slowly crashing into each other. Because of the slow movement of plates, it takes really long time for this mountains to form. long time in the sense millions and millions of years. That’s the reason why we can still see and even hear in news that the length of the mountains increased by some inches and are still growing.

Mount Everest, the highest mountain on Earth, grows about 4 millimeters every year. Do you know the reason? It’s because, the 2 plates that make up the land in the part of the world are still slowly smashing each other(Eurasian plate and Indian plate).

So, the plates of Earth’s crust are always in motion, which means that a long time ago, the mountains we see today weren’t there at all! and the Earth will definitely will look different in the future too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But takes a bit more time than we expect.

On Tuesday,The board of secondary education Assam announced the results of class 10 board examinations in which 56.49% of 4,05,582 candidates were declared successful as per the officials said.

The board states that the pass percentage of boys was 58.80 while it was 54.49 percent among the girls.

Total 2,29,131 candidates cleared the examination of class 10.Dhamaji recorded the highest pass percentage at 85.46 while chirag recorded the lowest percentage at 34.27.

In 2021,the pass percentage was 93.10 the examination could not be held last year just because of COVID pandemic and evaluation scheme was done on basis of special formula taking into the account of past performances of candidates.

In the Assam high Madrassa examination also conducted by the SEBA, the pass percentage was 54.73 with 10,454 who had appeared in it.

So, the percentage was dipped upto 56% as compared to past one.

There has been regular contact between India and Turkey since medieval times. The Ottoman Empire even sent expeditions to allied kingdoms such as the Zamorin and the Gujarat Sultanate to help them fight against the Portuguese colonization.

The first visit of India’s First Prime Minister *Jawaharlal Nehru * to Turkey was in the year 1960. Bilateral relations have been strengthened by the exchange of visits of leaders of both countries in recent times. These include visits by the then Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan to India in 2008 and the then Turkish President Abdullah Gul to India in 2010. Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi attended the G20 Summit held in Antalya on 15-16 November 2015 on the margins of the Summit, Prime Minister had bilateral talks with President Erdogan. PM Modi and President Erdogan held talks in Hangzhou on 5 September 2016 on the sidelines of the G20 Summit. The two leaders interacted with each other on the sidelines of BRICs Plus meeting in Johannesburg on 25-27 July 2018 and met on the sidelines of G-20 in Osaka on 29 July 2019. EAM Sushma Swaraj made a transit halt at Erzurum on 19 February 2019.

Economic relations:

India-Turkey economic and commercial cooperation constitutes an important dimension of the bilateral relationship. The Bilateral Trade Agreement between India and Turkey was signed in 1973. Institutional arrangements in terms of Joint Committee for Economic and Technical Cooperation (JCETC) signed in 1983 and a Joint Business Council (JBC) between Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkey (DEIK) was set up in 1996. On 6 April 2015, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) signed an MoU with the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) to promote bilateral trade and economic cooperation. CII also signed a MOU with DEIK in March 2018. A cooperating agreement between FICCI and TOBB was also signed for establishing India-Turkey Working Committee and Investment Forums. On 6 August 2015, State Bank of India and Turkey’s Akbank entered into a cooperation agreement to support bilateral trade and investments. An India Business Forum (IBF) was launched in Istanbul by the Ambassador in December 2018 which holds quarterly meetings.

Cultural Relations:

India and Turkey share a historical cultural overlap. Cultural exchanges have grown in recent years, especially after the revival of CEP in 2017. Cultural performances, film shows, exhibitions, seminars, outreach to universities are being organized regularly. A Festival of India in Turkey, India by the Bosporus, was held in March-April 2019 showcasing Indian dance, music, food and fashion in major cities in Turkey.

(1917-1921).

In the final years of the First World War the Russian Empire was coming to its end. it had been devastated by revolution and finally transformed into the first communist country in the world in the years following revolution. Non Russian nations that lived under the house of Romanov sought to secure their long lost independence. One of these was Ukraine.

From 1917 until 1921, the Ukrainians struggled to build and secure an independent country fighting against the new regime, against the neighbors in the west and amongst themselves. When in February 1917, the revolution had overthrown the monarchy in Russia and the event had echoed throughout the entire empire. In Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, the central radar or the central council had takeover the control of the country which on June 23, 1917 proclaimed the free Ukrainian national Republic without serving its connections with the Russian state.

The nation began to awake, however the vast territory of ukraine under control was a difficult task and the country rapidly slid into Anarchy- the collapse of the Russian forces and Galatia made the matters even worse.

1918 The Battle of Kruty’ by Aleksey Shaparev

Is top and tailed by a contemporary Ukrainian soldier visiting the memorial to those killed at Kruty in January 1918 the tale tells the story of a group of students, their loves and families, as plucky efforts are made to stave off the conquest of Ukraine by the burgeoning and enormous forces of the Bolshevik army

After Math

Eleven of the students were re-buried at Askold’s Grave in the centre of Kiev after the return of the Tsentralna Rada to the capital in March 1918. At the funeral the then President of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, Mykhailo Hrushevsky, called every one of the 400 students who fought in the battle, heroes. In addition, poet Pavlo Tychyna wrote about the heroic death of the students.

After the fall of the Ukrainian People’s Republic the bodies of the students were moved to the Lukyanivske Cemetery in Kiev.

Forbidden memory

For the students of Kruty, their story would not end here. Some of the bodies of those killed in the battle were later buried at Askold’s Grave in Kyiv in March 1918 — with the ceremony attended by Mykhailo Hrushevsky, President of the Ukrainian Republic, who addressed a large crowd that had gathered for the occasion. With Bolshevik rule eventually coming to Ukraine, the Soviet authorities worked to Supress the memory of Kruty, fearing it would undermine their authority and inspire future Ukrainian independence movements.

Thankfully, the Battle of Kruty would not be forgotten. In modern day Ukraine, the bravery of the troops at Kruty has in recent times been commemorated, and in Kyiv a monument was erected in 2006 to remember the event. The battle has become a symbol of Ukranian Independence and National Identity, which has in turn generated its fair share of myths.

These myths have often blurred the historical reality of the battle, with details ranging from the number of troops present or even the exact date it occurred becoming obfuscated in the historiography of the event. However, what we can ascertain with certainty is the courage of those students involved: faced with limited supplies, heavily outnumbered and fearing brutal reprisals, the soldiers at Kruty made a valiant last stand against a vastly superior army and fought gallantly in defence of Kyiv.

As the horrific Russian invasion of Ukraine unfolds before our eyes today, the harrowing scenes of everyday Ukrainians bravely resisting occupation and protecting their homeland draws parallels with the heroes of Kruty. With the people of Ukraine facing an unjustified war waged by President Putin, the spirit of Kruty is still visible today — and it seems that the present will once again mirror the past.