States and union territories of India
India is a federal union comprising 29 states and 7 union territories, for a total of 36 entities. The states and union territories are further subdivided into districts and smaller administrative divisions; the Constitution of India distributes the sovereign executive and legislative powers exercisable with respect to the territory of any State between the Union and that State. The Indian subcontinent has been ruled by many different ethnic groups throughout its history, each instituting their own policies of administrative division in the region. During the British Raj, the original administrative structure was kept, India was divided into provinces that were directly governed by the British and princely states which were nominally controlled by a local prince or raja loyal to the British Empire, which held de facto sovereignty over the princely states. Between 1947 and 1950 the territories of the princely states were politically integrated into the Indian Union. Most were merged into existing provinces.
The new Constitution of India, which came into force on 26 January 1950, made India a sovereign democratic republic. The new republic was declared to be a "Union of States"; the constitution of 1950 distinguished between three main types of states: Part A states, which were the former governors' provinces of British India, were ruled by an elected governor and state legislature. The nine Part A states were Assam, Bombay, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal; the eight Part B states were former princely states or groups of princely states, governed by a rajpramukh, the ruler of a constituent state, an elected legislature. The rajpramukh was appointed by the President of India; the Part B states were Hyderabad and Kashmir, Madhya Bharat, Mysore and East Punjab States Union, Rajasthan and Travancore-Cochin. The ten Part C states included both the former chief commissioners' provinces and some princely states, each was governed by a chief commissioner appointed by the President of India.
The Part C states were Ajmer, Bilaspur, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur and Vindhya Pradesh. The only Part D state was the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which were administered by a lieutenant governor appointed by the central government; the Union Territory of Puducherry was created in 1954 comprising the previous French enclaves of Pondichéry, Karaikal and Mahé. Andhra State was created on 1 October 1953 from the Telugu-speaking northern districts of Madras State; the States Reorganisation Act of 1956 reorganised the states based on linguistic lines resulting in the creation of the new states. As a result of this act, Madras State retained its name with Kanyakumari district added to form Travancore-Cochin. Andhra Pradesh was created with the merger of Andhra State with the Telugu-speaking districts of Hyderabad State in 1956. Kerala was created with the merger of Malabar district and the Kasaragod taluk of South Canara districts of Madras State with Travancore-Cochin. Mysore State was re-organized with the addition of districts of Bellary and South Canara and the Kollegal taluk of Coimbatore district from the Madras State, the districts of Belgaum, North Canara and Dharwad from Bombay State, the Kannada-majority districts of Bidar and Gulbarga from Hyderabad State and the province of Coorg.
The Laccadive Islands which were divided between South Canara and Malabar districts of Madras State were united and organised into the union territory of Lakshadweep. Bombay State was enlarged by the addition of Saurashtra State and Kutch State, the Marathi-speaking districts of Nagpur Division of Madhya Pradesh and Marathwada region of Hyderabad State. Rajasthan and Punjab gained territories from Ajmer and Patiala and East Punjab States Union and certain territories of Bihar was transferred to West Bengal. Bombay State was split into the linguistic states of Gujarat and Maharashtra on 1 May 1960 by the Bombay Reorganisation Act. Nagaland was formed on 1 December 1963; the Punjab Reorganisation Act of 1966 resulted in the creation of Haryana on 1 November and the transfer of the northern districts of Punjab to Himachal Pradesh. The act designated Chandigarh as a union territory and the shared capital of Punjab and Haryana. Madras state was renamed Tamil Nadu in 1968. North-eastern states of Manipur and Tripura were formed on 21 January 1972.
Mysore State was renamed as Karnataka in 1973. On 16 May 1975, Sikkim became the 22nd state of the Indian Union and the state's monarchy was abolished. In 1987, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram became states on 20 February, followed by Goa on 30 May, while Goa's northern exclaves of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli became separate union territories. In November 2000, three new states were created. Orissa was renamed as Odisha in 2011. Telangana was created on 2 June 2014 as ten former districts of north-western Andhra Pradesh. ^Note 1 Andhra Pradesh was divided into two states, Telangana and a residual Andhra Pradesh on 2 June 2014. Hyderabad, located within the borders of Telangana, is to serve as the capital for both states for a period of time not exceeding ten years; the Go
A middle school is an educational stage which exists in some countries, providing education between primary school and secondary school. The concept and classification of middle schools, as well as the ages covered, vary between, sometimes within, countries. In Afghanistan, middle school consists of the primary school grades 5,6, 7 and the secondary school grade 8. In Albania, middle school is included in the primary education which lasts 9 years and attendance is mandatory. In Algeria, a middle school includes 4 grades; the ciclo básico of secondary education is equivalent to middle school. Most regions of Australia do not have middle schools, as students go directly from primary school to secondary school; as an alternative to the middle school model, some secondary schools divided their grades into "junior high school" and "senior high school". Some have three levels, "junior", "intermediate", "senior". In 1996 and 1997, a national conference met to develop what became known as the National Middle Schooling Project, which aimed to develop a common Australian view of early adolescent needs guiding principles for educators appropriate strategies to foster positive adolescent learning.
The first middle school established in Australia was The Armidale School, in Armidale. Other schools have since followed this trend; the Northern Territory has introduced a three tier system featuring Middle Schools for years 7–9 and high school year 10–12. Many schools across Queensland have introduced a Middle School tier within their schools; the middle schools cover years 5 to 8. In Bangladesh, middle school is not separated like other countries. Schools are from class 1 to class 10, it means upper primary. From class 6–8 is thought as middle school. Grades 1,2,3,4 and 5 are said to be primary school while all the classes from 6 to 9 are considered high school while 10–12 is called college. There aren't middle schools in Bolivia since 1994. Students aged 11–15 attend the last years of elementary education or the first years of secondary education. In Bosnia and Herzegovina "middle school" refers to educational institutions for ages between 14 and 18, lasts 3–4 years, following elementary school.
Gymnasiums are the most prestigious type of "middle" school. In Brazil, middle school is a mandatory stage that precedes High School called "Ensino Fundamental II" consisting of grades 6 to 9, ages 11 to 14. In Canada, the terms "Middle School" and "Junior High School" are both used, depending on which grades the school caters to. Junior high schools tend to include only grades 7, 8, sometimes 9, whereas middle schools are grades 6–8 or only grades 7–8 or 6–7, varying from area to area and according to population vs. building capacity. Another common model is grades 5–8. Alberta, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island junior high schools include only grades 7–9, with the first year of high school traditionally being grade 10. In some places students go from elementary school to secondary school, meaning the elementary school covers to the end of Grade 8. In Ontario, the term "Middle School" and "Senior Public School" are used, with the latter being used in the Old Toronto and Scarborough sections of Toronto plus in Mississauga and Kitchener-Waterloo.
In many smaller Ontario cities and in some parts of larger cities, most elementary schools serve junior kindergarten to grade 8 meaning there are no separate Middle Schools buildings, while in some cities specific schools do serve the intermediate grades but are still called "Elementary" or "Public" schools with no recognition of the grades they serve in their name. Quebec uses a grade system, different from those of the other provinces. In Quebec there is no Middle school section; the Secondary level has five grades starting after Elementary Grade 6. These are called Secondary I to Secondary V. There aren't middle schools in Chile. Students aged 11 to 16 attend the last years of educación básica or the first years of educación media. In the People's Republic of China, middle school has junior stage and senior stage; the junior stage education is the last 3 years of 9-year-compulsory education for all young citizens. Some middle schools have both stages; the admissions for most students to enroll in senior middle schools from junior stage are on the basis of the scores that they get in "Senior Middle School Entrance Exam", which are held by local governments.
Other students may bypass the exam, based on their distinctive talents, like athletics, or excellent daily performance in junior stage. Secondary education is divided into basic secondary and
Chota Nagpur Plateau
The Chhota Nagpur Plateau is a plateau in eastern India, which covers much of Jharkhand state as well as adjacent parts of Odisha, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh. The Indo-Gangetic plain lies to the north and east of the plateau, the basin of the Mahanadi River lies to the south; the total area of the Chota Nagpur Plateau is 65,000 square kilometres. The name Nagpur is taken from Nagavanshis, who ruled in this part of the country. Chhota is the name of a village in the outskirts of Ranchi, which has the remains of an old fort belonging to the Nagavanshis; the Chhota Nagpur Plateau is a continental plateau—an extensive area of land thrust above the general land. The plateau has been formed by continental uplift from forces acting deep inside the earth; the Gondwana substrates attest to the plateau's ancient origin. It is part of the Deccan Plate, which broke free from the southern continent during the Cretaceous to embark on a 50-million-year journey, interrupted by the collision with the Eurasian continent.
The northeastern part of the Deccan Plateau, where this ecoregion sits, was the first area of contact with Eurasia. The Chhota Nagpur Plateau consists of three steps; the highest step is in the western part of the plateau, where pats, as a plateau is locally called, are 910 to 1,070 metres above sea level. The highest point is 1,164 metres; the next part contains larger portions of the old Ranchi and Hazaribagh districts and some parts of old Palamu district, before these were broken up into smaller administrative units. The general height is 610 metres; the topography in undulating with prominent gneissic hills dome-like in outline. The lowest step of the plateau is at an average level of around 300 metres, it covers the old Singhbhum districts. High hills are a striking part of this section - Parasnath Hills rise to a height of 1,370 metres and Dalma Hills to 1,038 metres; the large plateau is subdivided into several small sub plateaux. The western plateau with an average elevation of 1,000 metres above mean sea level merges into the plateau of the Surguja district of Chhattisgarh.
The flat topped plateaux, locally known as pats are characterized by level surface and accordance of their summit levels shows they are part of one large plateau. Examples include Jamira Pat, Khamar Pat, Rudni Pat and others; the area is referred to as Western Ranchi Plateau. It is believed to be composed of Deccan basalt lava; the Ranchi Plateau is the largest part of the Chhota Nagpur Plateau. The elevation of the plateau surface in this part is about 700 m and slopes down towards south-east into the hilly and undulating region of Singhbhum; the plateau is dissected. The Damodar River flows through a rift valley. To the north it is separated from the Hazaribagh plateau by the Damodar trough. To the west is a group of plateaux called pat. There are many waterfalls at the edges of the Ranchi plateau where rivers coming from over the plateau surface form waterfalls when they descend through the precipitous escarpments of the plateau and enter the area of lower elevation; the North Karo River has formed the 17 m high Pheruaghaugh Falls at the southern margin of the Ranchi plateau.
Such falls are called. Hundru Falls on the Subarnarekha River near Ranchi, Dassam Falls on the Kanchi River, east of Ranchi, Sadni Falls on the Sankh River are examples of scarp falls. Sometimes waterfalls of various dimensions are formed when tributary streams join the master stream from great heights forming hanging valleys. At Rajrappa, the Bhera River coming over from the Ranchi Plateau hangs above the Damodar River at its point of confluence with the latter; the Jonha Falls is another example of this category of falls. The Gunga River hangs over its master stream, the Raru River and forms the said; the Hazaribagh plateau is subdivided into two parts – the higher plateau and the lower plateau. Here the higher plateau is referred to as Hazaribagh plateau and the lower plateau as Koderma plateau; the Hazaribagh plateau on which Hazaribagh town is built is about 64 km east by west and 24 km north by south with an average elevation of 610 m. The north-eastern and southern faces are abrupt, it is separated from the Ranchi plateau by the Damodar trough.
The western portion of Hazaribagh plateau constitutes a broad watershed between the Damodar drainage on the south and the Lilajan and Mohana rivers on the north. The highest hills in this area are called after the villages of Kasiatu and Hudu, rise fronting the south 180 m above the general level of the plateau. Further east along the southern face a long spur projects right up to the Damodar river where it ends in Aswa Pahar, elevation 751 metres. At the south-eastern corner of the plateau is Jilinga Hill at 932 metres. Mahabar Jarimo at 666 m and Barsot at 660 m stand in isolation to the east, on the north-west edge of the plateau Sendraili at 670 m and Mahuda at 734 m are the most prominent features. Isolated on the plateau, in the neighbourhood of Hazaribagh town are four hills of which the highest Chendwar rises to 860 m. On all sides it has an exceedingly abrupt scarp, modified only on the south-east
Ramayana is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the Mahābhārata. Along with the Mahābhārata, it forms the Hindu Itihasa; the epic, traditionally ascribed to the Hindu Valmiki, narrates the life of Rama, the legendary prince of the Kosala Kingdom. It follows his fourteen-year exile to the forest from the kingdom, by his father King Dasharatha, on request of his second wife Kaikeyi, his travels across forests in India with his wife Sita and brother Lakshmana, the kidnapping of his wife by Ravana, the great king of Lanka, resulting in a war with him, Rama's eventual return to Ayodhya to be crowned king. There have been many attempts to unravel the epic's historical growth and compositional layers; the Ramayana is one of the largest ancient epics in world literature. It consists of nearly 24,000 verses, divided into about 500 sargas. In Hindu tradition, it is considered to be the adi-kavya, it depicts the duties of relationships, portraying ideal characters like the ideal father, the ideal servant, the ideal brother, the ideal husband and the ideal king.
Ramayana was an important influence on Sanskrit poetry and Hindu life and culture. Like Mahabharata, Ramayana is not just a story: it presents the teachings of ancient Hindu sages in narrative allegory, interspersing philosophical and ethical elements; the characters Rama, Lakshmana, Hanuman and Ravana are all fundamental to the cultural consciousness of India, Sri Lanka, south-east Asian countries such as Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia. There are many versions of Ramayana in Indian languages, besides Buddhist and Jain adaptations. There are Cambodian, Filipino, Lao and Malaysian versions of the tale; the name Ramayana is a tatpuruṣa compound of the name Rāma. According to Hindu tradition, the Ramayana itself, the epic belongs to the genre of itihasa like Mahabharata; the definition of itihāsa is a narrative of past events which includes teachings on the goals of human life. According to Hindu tradition, Ramayana takes place during a period of time known as Treta Yuga. In its extant form, Valmiki's Ramayana is an epic poem of some 24,000 verses.
The text survives in several thousand partial and complete manuscripts, the oldest of, a palm-leaf manuscript found in Nepal and dated to the 11th century CE. A Times of India report dated 18 December 2015 informs about the discovery of a 6th-century manuscript of the Ramayana at the Asiatic Society library, Kolkata; the Ramayana text has several regional renderings and sub recensions. Textual scholar Robert P. Goldman differentiates two major regional revisions: the southern. Scholar Romesh Chunder Dutt writes that "the Ramayana, like the Mahabharata, is a growth of centuries, but the main story is more distinctly the creation of one mind." There has been discussion as to whether the first and the last volumes of Valmiki's Ramayana were composed by the original author. Most Hindus still believe they are integral parts of the book, in spite of some style differences and narrative contradictions between these two volumes and the rest of the book. Retellings include Kamban's Ramavataram in Tamil, Gona Budda Reddy's Ramayanam in Telugu, Madhava Kandali's Saptakanda Ramayana in Assamese, Krittibas Ojha's Krittivasi Ramayan in Bengali, Sarala Das' Vilanka Ramayana and Balaram Das' Dandi Ramayana both in Odia, sant Eknath's Bhavarth Ramayan in Marathi, Tulsidas' Ramcharitamanas in Awadhi and Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan's Adhyathmaramayanam in Malayalam.
Ramayana predates Mahabharata. However, the general cultural background of Ramayana is one of the post-urbanization periods of the eastern part of north India and Nepal, while Mahabharata reflects the Kuru areas west of this, from the Rigvedic to the late Vedic period. By tradition, the text belongs to second of the four eons of Hindu chronology. Rama is said to have been born in the Treta Yuga to king Dasharatha in the Ikshvaku dynasty; the names of the characters are all known in late Vedic literature. However, nowhere in the surviving Vedic poetry is there a story similar to the Ramayana of Valmiki. According to the modern academic view, who, according to Bala Kanda, was incarnated as Rama, first came into prominence with the epics themselves and further, during the puranic period of the 1st millennium CE. In the epic Mahabharata, there is a version of Ramayana known as Ramopakhyana; this version is depicted as a narration to Yudhishthira. Books two to six form the oldest portion of the epic, while the first and last books are additions, as some style differences and narrative contradictions between these two volumes and the rest of the book.
The author or authors of Bala Kanda and Ayodhya Kanda appear to be familiar with the eastern Gangetic basin region of northern India and with the Kosala and Magadha regions during the period of the sixteen Mahajanapadas, based on the fact that the geographical and geopolitical data accords with what is known about the region. Dasharatha is father of Rama, he has three queens, Kausalya, Ka
India known as the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh largest country by area and with more than 1.3 billion people, it is the second most populous country as well as the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives, while its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia; the Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE. In the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, Buddhism and Jainism arose. Early political consolidations took place under the Gupta empires. In the medieval era, Zoroastrianism and Islam arrived, Sikhism emerged, all adding to the region's diverse culture.
Much of the north fell to the Delhi Sultanate. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal Empire. In the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, in the mid-19th under British Crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance and led to India's independence in 1947. In 2017, the Indian economy was the world's sixth largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the fastest-growing major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption and inadequate public healthcare. A nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the second largest standing army in the world and ranks fifth in military expenditure among nations. India is a federal republic governed under a parliamentary system and consists of 29 states and 7 union territories.
A pluralistic and multi-ethnic society, it is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindush, equivalent to the Sanskrit word Sindhu, the historical local appellation for the Indus River; the ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as "The people of the Indus". The geographical term Bharat, recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations, it is a modernisation of the historical name Bharatavarsha, which traditionally referred to the Indian subcontinent and gained increasing currency from the mid-19th century as a native name for India. Hindustan is a Middle Persian name for India, it was introduced into India by the Mughals and used since then. Its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety; the name may refer to either the northern part of India or the entire country.
The earliest known human remains in South Asia date to about 30,000 years ago. Nearly contemporaneous human rock art sites have been found in many parts of the Indian subcontinent, including at the Bhimbetka rock shelters in Madhya Pradesh. After 6500 BCE, evidence for domestication of food crops and animals, construction of permanent structures, storage of agricultural surplus, appeared in Mehrgarh and other sites in what is now Balochistan; these developed into the Indus Valley Civilisation, the first urban culture in South Asia, which flourished during 2500–1900 BCE in what is now Pakistan and western India. Centred around cities such as Mohenjo-daro, Harappa and Kalibangan, relying on varied forms of subsistence, the civilization engaged robustly in crafts production and wide-ranging trade. During the period 2000–500 BCE, many regions of the subcontinent transitioned from the Chalcolithic cultures to the Iron Age ones; the Vedas, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism, were composed during this period, historians have analysed these to posit a Vedic culture in the Punjab region and the upper Gangetic Plain.
Most historians consider this period to have encompassed several waves of Indo-Aryan migration into the subcontinent from the north-west. The caste system, which created a hierarchy of priests and free peasants, but which excluded indigenous peoples by labeling their occupations impure, arose during this period. On the Deccan Plateau, archaeological evidence from this period suggests the existence of a chiefdom stage of political organisation. In South India, a progression to sedentary life is indicated by the large number of megalithic monuments dating from this period, as well as by nearby traces of agriculture, irrigation tanks, craft traditions. In the late Vedic period, around the 6th century BCE, the small states and chiefdoms of the Ganges Plain and the north-western regions had consolidated into 16 major oligarchies and monarchies that were known as the mahajanapadas; the emerging urbanisation gave rise to non-Vedic religious movements, two of which became independent religions. Jainism came into prominence during the life of Mahavira.
Buddhism, based on the teachings of Gautama Buddha, attracted followers from all social classes excepting the middle
The Nagavanshi were rulers from the Indian subcontinent, in the area of present-day Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha. Nagavanshi is a house of warriors claiming descendancy from Nagas; the Nagas were mentioned as an snake-worshipping tribe of ancient India. Nagavanshi are warrior -- ruling caste. Chandravanshi claim descent from the moon, while the other principal houses, the Solar Dynasty claims descent from the sun and Rishivanshi from Brahmin Rishs, Agnivansha claim descent from Agni, the Vedic god of fire, Nagvanshi claim descent from Nagas. Nairs and Ezhavas of Kerala and some Jats of north India are claimed to be the Nagavanshis. Mannarasala Temple