The Bhakti Movement, which moved in waves from one region to another, i.e., regionwise, originating from South India in the 6th century, is known for playing a vital role in shaping the social, cultural and religious life.

Basically, the Bhakti Movement began in the 6th century in South India and spreaded through out the country, which lasted till the 16th-17th centuries. Major Bhakti saints includes of – Kabir, Surdas, Raidas, Dadu Dayal, Eknath, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Tulsidas, Rahim etc.

The Bhakti Movement in India was marked by few major practices, such as –

1. The rejection of the existing ritual hierarchy and Brahmanical superiority.
2. The use of the vernacular in preference to Sanskrit, the language of the elite.
3. The emergence of the lower caste and non-literate individuals as great spiritual leaders.
4. Emergence of the women Bhaktas.

As mentioned above, it’s also not a very denying fact that the women too played a pivotal role in contributing for Bhakti Movement. The Bhakti traditions provided a space for women in the world of religion as well as everyday social relations. It was the patriarchal society and male dominated houses that paved the way for the emergence of the women saints. The Brahmanical rituals imposed a hierarchical social differences between men and women. Later, these were reversed by the rebelling women and thus, one can trace the emergence of the women saints from this point of time, thus.

The life and work of the women saints lie somewhere hidden unlike the male saints. This is partly because none of them established any guru-shishya parampara and none of the disciples are said to have has preserved the compositions of the women Bhaktas. Even lesser number of women were known for their spiritual greatness during their lifetime.

Some predominant women Bhaktas were-

1. Meerabai in Rajasthan
2. Lalleshwari or Lalded in Kahsmir
3. Akkamahadevi in Karnataka
4. Sahajobai in Maharashtra

There were few exceptions like Meerabai, who constituted followers, but they were lesser in number. Unlike in the North India, women saints like Andal and Akkamahadevi were greatly recognized and admired in South India. As a matter of truth, Akkamahadevi was the leading member of a council of saints. In the context, the instance of Meerabai must be given. She was one of the major women Bhaktas of the 16th century. Although she didn’t attract a mass following but is recognized as a source of inspiration for centuries. According to some traditions, her preceptor was Raidas, a leather worker. This shows a complete defeat of the prevailing caste system and highly caste stratified society.

Now let us take a look on other major women Bhaktas of that period.

Lalleshwari or Lalded – she walked out of an oppositive marriage and opted for an ascetic oath. Also she composed several poems in praise of Lord Shiva.

Bahinabai- she was again one of the best examples of women Bhaktas who defied all the caste and gender hierarchy, and came under the spiritual guidance of the Shudra saint Tukaram. She was herself a Brahman woman.

Akkamahadevi- she was one of the most famed women saints of Virashaiva tradition, who could walk naked on the streets, defying the patriarchal order and depicting a huge sense of courage. She was the one who considered Mallikarjuna or the Shiba as her husband.

Vinabai-she was the chief disciple of the saint Ramdas, who headed the mutt at Mirajal. The Ramdasi panth occupies a significant place in the history of the women Bhaktas, as this was the first time when a monastic institution was governed by a woman. This satirically shows a defeat of patriarchal and caste based society.

On the other side of the coin, although the women Bhaktas came up as individual spiritual leaders, but they were always under guidance or have remained disciples of male saints only, showing the prevalence of patriarchy in some sense. Hence, it is more logical to say that the women Bhaktas split between social confrontism and deviant rebelliousness, thus.

What has happened?

At least 20 people have died in clashes between Indian and Chinese troops along the disputed Himalayan border running along the Ladakh area of Kashmir. It is the first fatal clash since 1975 and the most serious since 1967.

Fighting broke out on Monday evening when an Indian patrol came across Chinese forces on a narrow ridge. During the confrontation an Indian commanding officer was pushed and fell into the river gorge. Hundreds of troops from both sides were called in and fought with rocks and clubs. Several fell to their deaths.

The Indian Army said there were casualties on both sides, and confirmed three of its soldiers were killed during the clashes, with another 17 later succumbing to injuries.

Beijing has refused to confirm any deaths on its side, but accused India of crossing the border twice and “provoking and attacking Chinese personnel”. The editor in chief of state-run the Global Times, said he understood there had been Chinese casualties, but the People’s Liberation Army wanted to avoid “stoking public mood” by comparing numbers.

Why now?

Tensions have been escalating since late April, when China sent thousands of troops into the disputed territory along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), bringing artillery and vehicles.

Analysts say the Chinese government, which has been more assertive in building infrastructure in the area, is anxious to frustrate any effort by India to upgrade its own military installations.

Their refusal to leave disputed areas, including the Galwan Valley inside Indian territory, has triggered shouting matches, stone-throwing and fistfights in key border areas. Last month, there was a massive brawl between patrols, but no deaths.

Earlier this month senior military leaders from both sides met and made a commitment to disengagement.

What is the history of the dispute?

India and China fought a war in 1962 over their contested border in the Himalayas. The war ended with a truce and the formation of a de facto boundary, known as the Line of Actual Control.

There has been an uneasy and fragile peace since, punctuated by skirmishes on the border, including in 2013 and 2017.

No official border has ever been negotiated, the region where the clashes occurred is hostile terrain, at high altitude and sparsely populated, running through the Ladakh region bordering Tibet, home to a Buddhist-majority population. It is a popular tourist destination.

What is the Line of Actual Control?

The LAC is a rough demarcation line separating Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-controlled territory. The exact location of sections of the line, particularly in the western Ladakh region, have remained in dispute. Efforts between the two countries to clarify the LAC have stalled in the past two decades, according to Indian media.

What do the two sides want?

Both countries have sought to establish their claims to territory, by heavily militarising the region. Both have built roads, airstrips, outpost stations, and other infrastructure, such as telephone lines. Troops conduct regular patrols along the disputed border. China claims more than 90,000sq km in the eastern Himalayas and another 38,000sq km in the west, both of which are disputed by India.

Everywhere we turn in life, there are expectations placed upon us. From birth, there are ways we are expected to behave, milestones we should achieve, choices we should make.

Who makes these expectations? Other people – virtually everyone we interact with has expectations on what we should do or be.

For the most part, this is all well and good. We are expected to uphold the law and be civilized members of society. If we are invited to an event, it goes unsaid that we are expected to arrive on time.

But what about the more grey areas of life? What about when we don’t want to do something other people want us to do, but feel pressured to do it?

Here are some things we should bear in mind whenever we encounter such situations:

First off, we should recognize that sometimes, expectations are just a figment of our oversensitive and insecure imaginations. The other person may not expect you to do the thing you think he expects you to do (sorry, that was a mouthful). Instead, he may just be offering it as a suggestion or as a piece of advice. It is always good to keep an open mind so that we hear them out, but we should also remember that people don’t give advice based on what’s best for YOU. They give advice based on what THEY would do in your shoes. (At least, this goes for most people.) It may not sound like a big difference, but it is. If you follow their advice and come to regret it later, you’ll only have yourself to blame. Because you did not understand that you and him are different, and what works for him may not necessarily work for you.

Second, if you are sure that it is clearly an expectation, then you must ask yourself: Why do you not want to meet this expectation? To answer this question, it is necessary to do some self-reflection. I am not saying that this feeling of not wanting to meet this expectation is wrong – on the contrary, I think it is an important step to take towards improving one’s self-awareness. Doing so will prevent situations like the one in the preceding paragraph, where you blindly follow advice given by others.

Most probably, you will find that you do not want to meet someone else’s expectation because your interests clash with his. Maybe you feel expected to babysit your nephews on a precious weekend when all you wanted to do was have some me-time after an arduous workweek, simply because your brother’s out of town. To agree or disagree? Or maybe you’re invited to attend the wedding of someone you don’t know very well. To go or not to go?

So assuming you’ve done the first and second steps above, and you’ve concluded that your not wanting to meet this expectation is due to a valid reason on your part (what is valid is up to you. YOU decide. Not others). But you still lack the courage to say no.  The need to be liked is very strong in us humans, because we are social creatures. You see apes scratching each others’ backs and grooming each others’ fur? That’s what we are. If you don’t scratch my back and groom my fur, I’ll make you an outcast. That’s how our social fabric works.

To be able to say ‘No’ is not actually a question of having sufficient courage. It, like many other things, can come down to a simple logic test:

First, picture the expectation in your mind and the person who is making the expectation. If you gave in to this expectation, would that make you happy? I don’t think so, otherwise you wouldn’t be considering saying no.

So, if we assume you will be unhappy to give in to this expectation, then we should ask ourselves this question next: Will this person who is expecting us to do this thing still have this expectation, if he knew that we were unhappy to do it?

If the above scenario is true, then I’m sorry to say that this person has no understanding of who you really are, and does not care to know who you really are. All this person cares about is that he gets his way, and your happiness be damned. These are strong words, but the harsh truth is that human nature can be very ugly indeed. And if this is true about this person, we must consider and think real hard about why we are letting such a person determine what we should or should not do.

A person who truly cares about you will understand that you are not him. Therefore, his values are not your values. And it is not his right to impose his values over yours. Sure, he may be slightly disappointed that you may not feel or think the same way that he does, but he recognizes that that is precisely what makes you who you are – what makes you a unique and special person in your own right. And he respects that. If you can find such people in your life, hold onto them, for such empathetic people are truly rare.

There are some people who will read everything I’ve said above and conclude that I am simply trying to justify being selfish. These people completely miss the point because they fail to see that there is infinitely more value in something that is done spontaneously, freely and sincerely than something done out of resentful obligation. They may be proud to have done many things for the sake of others – to wear them as a badge of selflessness, perhaps. But the truth of it is that they valued their own face more than being true to themselves. In the end, they wanted to be liked not for who they were, but simply to be liked. And that is a real tragedy, that people are so willing to sell their own personalities and beliefs for the unattainable allure of universal adoration.

I must emphasize in my conclusion that all of this works both ways. Just as we must remember to stay true to ourselves whenever we are faced with external pressures, we must also remember not to become a source of pressure and expectations upon the people around us. When we are thinking only of ourselves, it is easy to fall into this line of thinking where you expect other people to simply conform to whatever you want them to be. So just as we must recognize this ugly trait in the people around us, we must also be vigilant to prevent any manifestation of it in ourselves. In other words, the Golden Rule applies.

If you skipped all the way to the end, or skimmed everything and forgot most of it, here’s the gist: Don’t become someone you’re not. Don’t blindly do what others want you to do. Recognize your self-worth and your rights and your freedom. Dare to be yourself.

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”
― Bernard M. Baruch

How our mind works, we can’t be too sure. But according to study mind is working just like heart. It means that how hurt is pumping up and down regularly like it Brain also controlling all the parts of our body. But interestingly Brain is also makes it separate from other parts, an unbelievable fact is that after a human death then also for few hours it is alive and try to communicate with other parts. But due to no communication it silently makes it close down completely.

It also makes us feel happy or sad. And brain is only that thing due to which we are superior to other creatures in this planet. Science is made just from the observation of our Brain. And for it doesn’t matter that if we know about it earlier or not. Through the high logical thinking analysis, we can understand the things easily. Not only this, we can also make super things through the brain. For example Space Ship,Rockets,and many more things.Those who control their mind and study on a topic,they are called Scientist. They are also one of among us. So the real thing is that if we can control over Brain and make it use to in a study, we can also find amazing things about that. And it’s really cool.

But we should also Know that if we can’t control our brain, then it can also harm us. So we should concentrate on our study also aware of good and bad outcomes of it. Thanks for reading my article ….

On 20 June 1969, a great human being, patriot also an artist, actor, painter, music composer, poet and writer of Assam left for heavenly abode, who is popularly known as Kalaguru Bishnu Prasad Rabha. He passed away at the age of 60 years at Tezpur, Assam, the Date (20 June) presently celebrated in Assam as ‘Bishnu Rabha Divash (meaning day)’.  Kalaguru (meaning master of the arts) was born on 31 January 1909 in ST family in Dhaka (now in Bangladesh), then Bengal Presidency of British India.

Bishnu Rabha’s schooling started at Tezpur Government High School, Assam and later on he went to Calcutta now Kolkata for perusing higher education. He was a great patriot and from young age, he was in freedom movement and was influenced by leftist ideology so ardent supporter of the Communist Party of India. However, when Germany attacked Soviet Union during Second World War, the leaders of Indian communists decided to support the British Government which antagonised a section of the communist leaders and subsequently they formed the Revolutionary Communist Party of India (RCPI) in 1945 where he joined.    

     Anyway Kalaguru was a genius in creative activities. His work Bano Kobang depicts the life of various indigenous Assamese communities. His other works inter alia are Missing Coneng, Sonpahi, Axomiya Kristir Hamuh Abhakh, and Atit Axom. Bishnu Rabha was a great poet also and composed many songs which are known as ‘Rabha Sangeet’. He had given music to most of his songs. He was a visionary, and through music, dance, acting, writing, etc., he endeavoured to realize his dream of a greater, prosperous Assamese society with every ethnic group as equal partners. He acted in a mobile theatre group of that time named ‘Ban Theatre’. He directed an Assamese film ‘Siraj’, where he also composed the music. Further, he acted in the movie ‘Era Baator Xur’. It is pertinent to mention that he was awarded the title ‘Kalaguru’ by Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan at Varanasi for his enthralling ‘dance of Lord Shiva’. Bishnu Rabha worked towards popularizing Vaishnavism initiated by Srimanata Sankardev (Saint and scholar) in Assam in 15^th century. He painted portraits of both Sankardev and Madhavdev with water colours, awesome creation. He was a great human being also and always had feelings for the underprivileged and poor echelons of the society.  He donated about 2500 bighas (1 bigha is approximately equal to 0.40 acres) of land received from the British Government to the peasants. His slogan was “Haal Jaar Maati Taar” means “those who cultivate, should own the land”.

He has passed away although on 20 June 1969 but he will be in the heart of millions for his genius activities.

The Following websites have been consulted while writing the paper:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishnu_Prasad_Rabha
2. http://onlinesivasagar.com/music/bishnu-rabha.html
3. http://www.researchgate.net/publication/315476566_Bishnuprasad_Rabha_as_Cultural_Icon_of_Assam_The_Process_of_Meaning_Making
4. https://web.archive.org/web/20070928043723/http://www.assamtribune.com

Land is perfectly finite and scarce in relation to the ever-increasing human wants and needs. Judicious and rational utilization of land, hence land use management, faces the challenge to adjust its use by increasing the proportion of particular use over other uses or certain area can be put to multiple uses. There is variability in the land use pattern in different areas. Both physical factors such as topography, climate, soil types, as well as human factors such as population, density, technological capability and cultural and traditions play an important role in deciding the land use pattern of the areas. And as humans are evolving, progressing and our needs are increasing, and economic activities change with time, land use changes over time and space. Studying the changing land use pattern also helps to know the social, cultural and economic development of the area as well as the people. We can also know about the past condition of land and what the future condition will be. 

Irrigation is an important aspect of agriculture. Water is essential for agriculture, and food is essential for humans. Hence, in this study we also tried to see the association between irrigation and different types of crops and number of crops. It is done to see whether irrigation supports only some specific types of crop or all the crops. Also, the association between number of crops and irrigation tells us whether there is the practice of monocropping (where one or a few crops are grown in greater proportion) or practice of growing different types of crops in the area. 

Food is essential for survival; hence we are taking the state of Haryana for the trend analysis as it is one of the important states in terms of producing food. Haryana State came into existence simultaneously with green revolution i.e. 1966-67. After the formation Haryana emerge as leading State in field of agriculture production. The agricultural economy of Haryana is dominated by food grains. Haryana has emerged as one of the major food grains producing States in the country. Consisting only 2.3 per cent of country’s total area, Haryana has been contributing significantly to the food basket of the country. In 2012-13 country’s 120.78 million hectares area was under food grains production from it, 4.40 million hectares area under food grain production in Haryana; it is 3.64 percent of total country area under production of food grains. Haryana which covers only three percent of food grain area produced 16.23 million tons of food grain in 2012-13and this constitutes 6.31 percent of total food grain production; almost double share compares to area and greater than many large states. It is a matter of interest to know at what extent the land use pattern has been changing, what kind of changes in pattern the land has undergone over a span of 15 years.

Transport sector is one of the major polluters of the pollution caused by fossil fuel. Petroleum is the most consumed fossil fuel by the transport sector. IC engines which burn this fuel have ruled the automobile sector for decades. But a welcoming decision is being taken by many nations around the world as they are planning to phase out petrol,diesel and hybrid cars in coming decades.

But, Who can replace them?

They are planning to replace them with electric vehicles which run on battery and motor. Unlike IC engine based vehicles, EVs don’t emit any greenhouse gases as they run on electricity. But they will continue to contribute to pollution until power stations that provide electricity get rid of fossil fuel. It should be noted that fossil fuel contributes to more than 70% of total energy supply that is met by power stations. So technically EVs are burning fossil fuel indirectly. But the good thing about  EV is, it stops the urban pollution caused by transportation thus giving more breathable air to the people in urban locations.  

Green source of energy

Switching the power stations to greener energy is capital intensive. Because, the availability of green energies such as sun and wind are intermittent in nature. So an energy storage system is required to meet the demand for a 24*7 operation. The energy system which usually uses expensive battery technology is  making renewable energy less preferable for operations. Luckily, with current advancements in battery storage technology, the price is expected to fall in the coming years.

Change in lifestyle

Unlike IC engine based vehicles, EVs are suffering from range anxiety and charging time issues. In the EV industry the fuel capacity is calculated in terms of distance covered per charge which is  usually 1/3 of the total fuel capacity of IC engine based vehicles. In addition, the time taken to fill the fuel tank of an Internal Combustion engine vehicle is negligible when compared to time taken to charge the battery of an Electric Vehicle. Hence, people have to learn to adapt to the new type of transport system the EVs would create. 

Co-operation of the three

The cooperation between government, corporate and people is necessary for adoption of a pollution free transport system. The government has to frame a policy that would enhance the adoption of a pollution free transport system while it should also provide financial assistance by giving subsidies to support people and producers. The existing automobile giants should switch to the manufacturing of EVs soon. The people may be subjected to adoption of restrictions caused by electric vehicles.