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Ramappa Temple.
Palampet is located at a distance of 77 km from Warangal, the ancient capital of the Kakatiyas. It is home to brilliant Kakatiya art as seen in the Ramappa temple. The Ramalingeswara Temple is popularly known as the Ramappa temple because the chief sculptor was Ramappa. It is probably the only temple in India to be known by the name of the sculptor who builds it. It was built under the patronage of the King Kakati Ganapathi Deva by his Chief Commander Rudra Samani at Ranakude in the province of Atukuru. The temple has been described as the "brightest star in the galaxy of medieval temples in the Deccan". The temple is approached thorough a royal garden, now just a lawn with tree lined path. The temple is situated in a valley and is built with bricks so light that they can float on water. Yet the temple is so strong that it is still intact after numerous wars, invasions and natural calamities.
The Ramappa temple stands on a 6 ft high platform on a cruciform plan. The sanctum is crowned with a shikhara and is surrounded by a pradakshinapatha. Rich and intricate carvings adorn the walls, pillars and ceilings of this wonderful building. The hall in front of the sanctum has numerous beautifully carved pillars that have been placed to create an effect that combines light and space wonderfully. There are many votive shrines within the temple. There are two subsidiary shrines on either side of the main temple, which are in a good condition.
The entire temple complex is enclosed with a compound wall. At the entrance to the temple is a ruined Nandi mandapam, with an imposing 9 ft high Nandi, which is still intact. The Shivalingam in the sanctum also rises to a height of 9 ft. The east-facing sanctum is surrounded with pilasters crowned with Dravidian and Nagara shikharas in an alternating fashion.
The temple signifies many facets of Shiva, his royal residence, the Himalaya Mountains and his inhabiting a sacred space beyond the mortal realm. The temple is built upon the classical pattern of being first raised upon a platform that separates its sacred functions from the taint of the everyday. This 'sacred mountain' mindset was characteristic of the temple builders in all the cultures. It represented a powerful symbolic representation of a perfect building, an intersection in midair of the spheres of heaven and earth. The platform lifts it above the normal, transcends the profane, declaring with uncompromising firmness that it is a place for un-common activities dedicated to a god.
Ranakpur is widely known for its marble Jain temple, said to the most spectacular of the Jain temples.
Chammukha temple is built in the 15 th century.
Village Maheshpur, Balrampur Block, Dist, Surguja, Chhattisgarh, INDIA. .Mothers helps their children to eat mid-day meal at Fulwari (Day care Centre for children and pregnant women). To address malnutrition among adivasi population in Sarguja district in Chhattisgarh, the district administration partnered with the gram panchayat (local self-government) and State Health Systems Resource Centre (an autonomous body of the Department of Health and Family Welfare) to start community-managed crèches in the district for children aged 6-36 months to provide two hot cooked meals daily to the children as well as pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers of infants aged 0-6 months. Locally called fulwaris, the formation and functioning of community crèches rest on community participation. The community also decides the place for setting up the fulwari, which is usually part of a house of a resident, voluntarily given for this purpose. Fulwaris are manned and managed by a group of mothers whose children attend the crèche, supported by the mitanin, who plays a crucial role in bringing the group of mothers together. UNICEF India/2014/Dhiraj Singh...
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Mani Shankar Aiyar, an MP of Indian Rajya Sabha and former Consul-General of India had delivered a lecture to Karachi Council of Foreign Relations on ‘India and Pakistan: Retrospect and prospect’ a few days ago.
Following is the text of his address in which he has described his personal experience while living in Pakistan as an Indian official and also highlighted relations between India and Pakistan:
“Mr Chairman, distinguished members of the Karachi Council of Foreign Relations, ladies and gentlemen, and dear friends of the last three decades: This is a very personal narrative of an Indian who lived three of his best years in Karachi, albeit 33 years ago, and has since seized every opportunity that has come his way to visit Pakistan, meet his old friends and make new ones. In this last year itself, this is my fifth visit to Pakistan. I hope I can maintain the momentum as Pakistan is my magnificent obsession.
I suppose I have read very much less about Pakistan than any scholar of Pakistan studies. And although I came here initially as an officer of the Indian Foreign Service and have visited Pakistan several times in an official capacity, as a member of our delegations, or accompanying Indian ministers, even thrice in the entourage of the Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and also as Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas to push forward the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline and later as Minister of Panchayati Raj to intensify interaction between our respective local self-government representatives, I have had strangely little to do with the political dialogue between our two countries. Almost all of my interaction with Pakistan and Pakistanis has been at the personal level. Hence I can do no more than bring a very personal perspective to bear on matters of great pith and moment.
Perhaps for that very reason the perspective has its value - although one of my closest Indian friends, former High Commissioner to Pakistan, later Foreign Secretary and later still National Security Adviser, JN (Mani) Dixit, said he could not abide my Pollyanna view of our neighbour. Perhaps not. But there are so many Indians who have their grave reservations about Pakistan and its intentions towards us that there might be some value in listening to a more sympathetic Indian view of Pakistan.
I came to Karachi as India’s first-ever Consul General on 14 December 1978, 13 years after Pakistan’s capital moved to Islamabad, around the time of the 1965 war, leading, first, to a downgrading of the High Commission followed by the Assistant High Commission being closed down at the start of the 1971 war. Thus Karachi, refuge of the Mohajir community, those who had left or fled India at the time of partition or soon after, leaving behind in India, however, vast numbers of memories, friends and relatives, was thirsting for the resumption of an Indian visa office to facilitate their all too human desire to go back to the land of their forefathers - and at that time, for many, the land too of their birth. I used to be astonished at their evocation of the filthy gullies of Bans Bareilly and Sambal as if they were talking of Paris in the Spring! But perhaps their sentiment was best summed up by Rais Amrohvi’s ‘O! Hind Jane Wale Mera Salaam Leja:
Jab se bichhad gaye hain us khuld-e-rangabu se
Mehroom ho gaye hain, dil shauk-o-aarzu se
Baaz aayenge musafir kya zauk-e-justaju se
Ab tak wahi hai rishte, Dilli se Lucknow se
Ajdaad ke watan tak itna payam le ja
O! Hind jane wale mera salaam le ja.’
My very first afternoon was a revelation. The phone rang. It was the Deputy Commissioner of Sukkur on the line. He said he had a major problem on his hands: a Hindu sant had been given permission to revisit Sukkur for the first time after the 1965 war and his Muslim mureeds wanted to pay their respects to him. ‘Would I grant them permission to do so?’ ‘Of course’, I replied, rather grandly giving my instant assent - but rose from my desk completely confused. Like all Indians I had been brought up to believe that Pakistanis were ardent, even fanatical, Muslims for, after all, had they not broken my country on the ground that Hindus and Muslims did not constitute two communities but two nations, incompatible and, therefore, incapable of living together under one democratic roof? That, in fact, it was democracy that was the problem because democracy rests on majority rule and would not that majority in an independent India be decided on communal rather than political grounds? Yet, here I was being asked - and by no less a dignitary than the head of one of Sindh’s most important districts - whether Muslim spiritual aspirants might seek the blessings of a Hindu holy man?”
Later, after Makhdoom Amin Fahim became a close personal friend, I asked him whether it was true, as I had heard, that the Hindu followers of his father, the Pir of Hala, who had fled to India at partition, still sought the Pir’s blessings when there was a birth in the family or a wedding or some such auspicious occasion? Makhdoom sahib confirmed that this was indeed so. But, said I, ‘was it not a fact that the Pir’s blessings could not be validated without a nazrana?’ ‘Of course’, came the reply. ‘But how do they send it,’ I asked? By the same route, he disingenuously replied, that they send their requests for a blessing - through the smugglers! God is clearly no respecter of political boundaries.
That introspective introduction to Pakistan on Day One was reinforced the following evening at my first social occasion when I found myself seated next to an unknown Pakistani with whom I began the conversation by asking, in an utterly banal manner, whether he had been to India. ‘Yes,’ he replied somewhat taciturnly. To encourage further conversation, I asked where he had been. ‘Meerut,’ came the curt reply. ‘Oh, really,’ I said, ‘and how long were you there?’ ‘Two and a half years,’ he slowly responded - and it dawned on me with growing horror that I was talking to one of our 1971 Prisoners of War! Seeing the highly embarrassed expression on my face, my interlocutor smiled - indeed, beamed - and enquired if my wife and I would care to dine with them at the Sindh Club the following evening? It turned out to be a most convivial evening and walking back to Hindustan Court after dinner my wife shook her bewildered head and asked whether we had come to an enemy country or what? I shared her bewilderment.
That initial hospitality flowered over the next three years of our stay in Karachi into a bouquet of friendships stretching across the entire political spectrum from the PPP at one end to the Islam-pasand parties on the other; on the geographical spectrum from Clifton to North Nazimabad; on the socio-cultural spectrum from affluent Defence Housing Society homes to the rehriwalas of Sadar; on the business front from petty shop-keepers to industrial and commercial barons; on the intellectual level from academics like Sharif-ul-Mujahid and Hafeez Pasha to the poets and poetasters of the Pak-Hind Prem Sabha; to journalists of every hue from sophisticates like MB Naqvi and Sultan Ahmed and Brig AR Siddiqui to the editor of Jasarat, the mouthpiece of the Jamaat-e-Islami, and even Nawai Waqt. My attitude was, I am a foreigner, why take sides in Pakistan’s internecine quarrels?
We - me, my wife, my children, my officers, my staff of over one hundred - to go by their present nostalgic remembrances, all had a ball. But on my very last night in Karachi - we were sailing to Bombay next afternoon - I suddenly had a very disturbing thought. What if my euphoric high was only the consequence of my being flattered out of my mind by heading a huge establishment at the age of under forty, the welcome I had received not being to an Indian but to a Consul General who could pull a visa out of his pocket like a magician pulling out a pigeon?
I sent for one of my assistants, a man who had reached Karachi the same day as I had and whose personal experience of the city was co-terminus with mine. I asked whether he had experienced any discrimination, any abuse, any invective, even any discourtesy, during his three years in the city. He thought for a while, then shook his head to say No, he hadn’t. But, I persisted, no one could tell merely by looking at him whether he was an Indian or a Pakistani, what about his wife and her give-away bindi? He said no one had ever been rude or nasty to her although she always sported a bindi, neither in the bus she took from the Indian Consulate ghetto of Panchsheel Court, a dead give-away of national origin, nor in the shopping marts of Sadar. That led me to ask him to confirm a rumour I had heard as Consul General - that shopkeepers in Sadar invariably offered discounts to Indian, and especially Indian Consulate customers. Reluctantly but unambiguously, he confirmed that this was indeed so. Thus, his three years had been remarkably like mine. I, therefore, enquired whether he thought we should improve relations with Pakistan. Astonished, he replied, ‘but how could we, were they not all Mussalmans?’
That is the central problem: the communalisation of the mind, looking at our neighbours not as one of us, but as the Other, indeed, the Enemy Other.
The communalisation of mindsets was the root cause of the division of the country as the price to be paid for independence. Now that there are two countries, independent since six decades, is there no way the communalisation of the mind can be eased in the direction of also recognising the complementarities in our respective national destinies?
For we live in the same South Asian geographical space. Although many Pakistanis would deny it, we also occupy much the same civilisational space, diversity of every kind - racial, linguistic, ethnic, cultural, religious and even sectarian - being woven into the warp and the woof of our nationhood. History may have divided us, but geography binds us, and a shared inheritance holds as much the potential to keep us apart as to bring us together. The choice is for us to make.
For most of the last six decades, the best and the brightest of our countries - sants and Ulema; ideologues and propagandists; terrorists and cerebral communalists; politicians and statesmen; scholars and the media; diplomats and the military - have done all they can to render us asunder. They have not entirely succeeded. For we remain hyphenated in the eyes of the world because we remain hyphenated in the minds of our people. And we remain hyphenated because we are hyphenated; we share too much to just turn our backs on each other and hope the other will go away. Siamese twins are not free to roam except with each other, even if they keep pulling away from each other.
There are four sets of factors that stand in the way of reconciliation. I would classify these as: generic; institutional; endemic; and episodic.
Generic: Some in India and many in Pakistan would argue that the very reason for partition having been the religious incompatibility between Hindus and Muslims, it is inevitable that the two nations would also find it incompatible to live together as good neighbours. The argument goes that the underlying hostility is generic, built into our genes as it were, and if it were not partition would not have happened.
That, perhaps, is a somewhat fundamentalist way of putting it and, therefore, the point is generally made with greater sophistication and nuancing as not so much a fundamental civilisational incompatibility but a lack of convergence in national interest or even a belief that hostility being the underlying reality, it is not so much a question of promoting friendship as protecting oneself from hostile intent.”
The News Pakistan (13/01/2011)
Mani Shankar Aiyar, an MP of Indian Rajya Sabha and former Consul-General of India had delivered a lecture to Karachi Council of Foreign Relations on ‘India and Pakistan: Retrospect and prospect’ a few days ago.
Following is second part of the text of his address - Part-I was published on Thursday - in which he has described his personal experience while living in Pakistan as an Indian official and also highlighted relations between India and Pakistan:
“Yet, there are several levels at which this argument breaks down. First, the Indian Muslim community: are they not living in harmony with their Hindu brethren? If there were no compatibility, how is it that almost every icon of India’s 85% Hindu youth is unabashedly Muslim: the four Khans - superstars Shah Rukh, Aamir, Salman, and Saif; leading ladies like Katrina Kaif following Madhubala, Meena Kumari and Nargis of yore and Waheeda Rahman and Shabana Azmi more recently; the golden voice of Mohd Rafi and Talat Mehmood; the lyrics of Sahir Ludhianvi and Javed Akhtar; music director AR Rahman (who was born Dilip Kumar and converted to Islam, where his renowned predecessor in the run-up to partition, Dilip Kumar, the actor, was born Yusuf Khan in Peshawar and converted to Bollywood under an assumed Hindu name); the makers of Peepli Live, Mehmood Farooqui and Anusha Rizvi, India’s sure-fire entry for this year’s Oscars; ustads such as Bismillah Khan, Vilayat Khan, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Amjad Ali Khan and tabla maestros, Allah Rakha and Zakir Hussain; cricketers like Tiger Pataudi and Azharuddin, and tennis star, Sania Mirza, whom we share, besides a whole galaxy of highly influential opinion-makers of whom I need mention only three - the Group Editor of the India Today stable, MJ Akbar; columnist Saeed Naqvi; and historian Mushirul Hassan, Director of the National Archives - and business barons, Aziz Premji and Anu Agha. The point needs no labouring.”
Except that the Justice Rajinder Sachar report will immediately be thrown at those who suggest that the lived experience of secular India shows no incompatibility between the two alleged ‘nations’ of Hindu and Muslim. Yes, indeed, in many, many respects the denizens of the Muslim community are worse off than their non-Muslim counterparts in northern India. Equally undeniable is that while the North Indian Muslim elite largely took off for Pakistan at partition, the vast majority of the ordinary Muslims voted with their feet to remain where they were. Deprived of a middle-class and a political leadership, the community has striven to raise itself by its boot-straps and while there are success stories there is much leeway to be made up. This points to the need for more affirmative action; it emphatically does not mean that Hindu and Muslim cannot live under one national roof.
Moreover, it needs to be recognised - in Pakistan, of course, but much more in India - that where population transfer did not take place, as in South India, the Muslim community is doing quite exceptionally well - and is not resented by the majority community for doing so.
I do not want to make a polemical point. I simply want to assert here on Pakistani soil that whatever might have been the argument for a Muslim-majority State on this South Asian sub-continent at the time of independence and partition, now that Pakistan has been in existence for sixty years and more, the generic argument for Hindu-Muslim incompatibility has lost its sheen and transmuted more into national hostility than communal animosity.”
“In this context, I’d like to share a story with you about what happened when I addressed a Jang Forum meeting in Karachi a few years ago. I was asked from the audience how I could claim to be a friend of Pakistan when I rejected the Two-Nation theory. I replied that whatever the merits of the theory in the period leading up to independence and partition, it was time now to recognise that the Two-Nation Theory had given way to the Three-State Reality, and that if we continued to advocate the Two Nation Theory, it would have to mean that the 15 crore Muslims in India are traitors to their country. At this, the questioner, delighted with my answer, bounded on to the stage, embraced me, and handing over a visiting card describing him as the Vice Chairman of the Karachi Marriage Hall Owners Association, whispered in my ear that when I got married again, he promised me a marriage hall for free! That, I regard, as the highest compliment I have ever received. My wife, however, disapproves - I wonder why?
Reciprocally, it is little known in India, and little bruited about in Pakistan, how many members of Pakistan’s non-Muslim minorities hold positions of distinction and responsibility in Pakistan, not only in the higher echelons but in the grassroots institutions of local government, in the civil services, in the judiciary, in agriculture, in business and the arts. Partition over, as the Quaid-i-Azam said before Pakistan was suddenly and unexpectedly emptied of its minorities in the fortnight after its creation: ‘You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion, caste or creed, that has nothing to do with the business of the State. Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.’
It could have been Nehru speaking!
Moreover, in numerous countries across the world, where Indian and Pakistani immigrants live and work together, while some do indeed carry their communal baggage with them overseas, by and large there is tolerance, even cordiality, between the two communities. Nothing in either Islam or Hinduism makes for incompatibility. Our syncretic history, our symbiotic past of over a thousand years, beginning with Muhammad bin Qasim arriving on our shores in 711 AD, points rather to a composite heritage than to one that is irretrievably divided.
I would, therefore, emphatically repeat that it is not communal animosity but national hostility that keeps India and Pakistan apart: a matter to be addressed by political and diplomatic action, not theology. Indeed, if religious differences were the root cause, how does one explain Pakistan’s excellent relations with the only avowedly Hindu nation in the world, Nepal, or India’s excellent relations with virtually every Muslim country - except Pakistan?
The generic argument does not hold, but are the scars of history impossible to raze? Those who became Pakistani on 14 August 1947 had been Indians till the previous day. Therefore, there were many in India who argued, Prof Sisir Gupta perhaps most persuasively, that since nothing in language or literature, culture or cuisine, history or even religion distinguished a Pakistani from an Indian, the only way a Pakistani could distinguish himself from an Indian was by asserting that he was emphatically not an Indian, by building the national identity of Pakistan not with positive building blocks but negatively by stressing that, above all, Pakistan was not India and Pakistanis were Pakistanis precisely because Pakistanis were not Indians.
I do not know whether this argument was always a parody, but today, more than sixty years after Pakistan became a reality, those who began life as Indians are a rapidly diminishing breed. I would imagine that some 90% of Pakistanis today have never known any nationality other than their Pakistani nationality, even as 90% of Indians have never known Pakistan as an integral part of India. Thus, history itself is taking care of history. There is no reason why the nationhood of contemporary Pakistan needs to be built with the cement of anti-Indian or anti-Hindu sentiment. And that, indeed, is the reason for the affection with which most Indians are received in Pakistan - and, to a large if not reciprocal extent, Pakistanis are received in India. The political reality of 21st century India and Pakistan has substantially replaced the grievances that separated sections of the Hindu and Muslim community in pre-partition India, especially after the outbreak of communal riots in the Turbulent ‘20s of the last century.
Therefore, I see no reason in principle why generic or historical factors need necessarily stand in the way of reconciliation between the two countries. If nevertheless progress in the direction of reconciliation has been slow, then does the problem lie in institutional hurdles on the road to reconciliation?
Institutional: From the Indian perspective - and perhaps also the perspective of a majority of Pakistanis - the overwhelming role of the military in Pakistan’s approach to India is often held to be the principal institutional block to reconciliation. The argument goes that so long as the army, abetted by a complaisant civil service, is the effective political power in Pakistan, and so long as the raison d’etre of the huge Pakistani military establishment and what Ayesha Siddique calls Pakistan’s Military Inc is founded on the assiduous propagation of the threat from India - so the argument goes - the Pakistani military will never permit hostility between the two countries to be undermined for that would be to cut off the branch on which the Pakistani defence forces are perched.
On the other hand, here in Pakistan it is often claimed that revanchist sentiment in the entire Indian establishment, including the Indian military, is so strong and persistent that the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971 was only the prelude to the destruction of the rest of Pakistan, whenever this might prove possible; hence the need for eternal vigilance as the price to be paid for Pakistan’s liberty. Both these views appear to me to be a case of the wish fathering the thought. I don’t believe that the actual course of India-Pakistan relations validates the view that India cannot deal with the Pakistani military; or that India is still hankering after a restoration of Akhand Bharat.
Let us take first the Indian view of the Pakistan military. It is rooted, I think, in Gen Ayub Khan’s coup of 1958. Please remember that in 1958, half a century ago, almost all top officers of the Indian military were either General Ayub Khan’s contemporaries or his seniors in the predecessor British Indian army. India, understandably, did not want Bonapartism to spread from the Pakistan army to their Indian counterparts. Gen Thimayya’s resignation at about the same time as the Ayub coup was considered - perhaps erroneously - as an ominous and dangerous straw in a wind that blew no one any good.
But it was the Ayub regime that in its earliest days suggested a ‘Trieste’ solution to Kashmir - that is, let the status quo lie and postpone resolution to a future generation - if I am to credit the story recounted to me here in Karachi by India’s high commissioner to the Ayub government, Rajeshwar Dayal. And it was indubitably during the Ayub regime that the Indus Waters Treaty was signed, a treaty that has weathered three wars and continues to offer a forum for the resolution of water disputes, as witness the recent spats over Baglihar and now Kishangana. Moreover, it was during that regime that Sheikh Abdullah, Jayaprakash Narayan and others were, by all accounts, on a successful or, at any rate, promising peace mission to Pakistan when Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru suddenly died. Yes, the battle in the Rann of Kutch in April 1965, and Operation Gibraltar in August that year, followed by the September war, took place in the Ayub dispensation, but much of that seems to have been stoked as much by civilian political forces as by the armed forces. In any case, it was President Ayub Khan who signed the Tashkent Agreement, disagreement having been registered principally by his civilian colleagues.
Later, it was during the period of Ziaul Haq that, whatever might be one’s reservations about his domestic policies, there was a new impetus given to people-to-people relations, the most important having been the opening of the Indian Consulate General in Karachi. And when in the winter of 1986-87 the temperature started building up over Operation Brasstacks, it was in Ziaul Haq that Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi found a most effective partner in defusing the threat of war.
And although Gen Pervez Musharraf’s coup was almost universally looked at with deep disapproval and suspicion in India, coming as it did in the wake of Kargil 1999, eventually it was under his aegis that the Composite Dialogue made more progress on the Tariq-Lambah back-channel than at perhaps any other stage of India-Pakistan relations.
Equally, of course, the Nehru-Liaquat Pact of 1950, the Simla Agreement of 1972 and the Lahore Declaration were the handiwork of civilian governments.
Hence, I do not think the objective record makes for any insuperable difficulty in India dealing directly with the Pakistan military or in dealing with a civilian government that has the military breathing down its neck. In any case, if Pakistan cannot get itself out of the military shadow, what can India do about it? We have to deal with whoever is in power in this country and while we certainly sympathise with the widespread Pakistani desire to become a full-fledged democracy, we have to make do with whatever is on offer - and I do not think we in India should postpone any amelioration in our relations with Pakistan till that nebulous day when we will have in Pakistan a democratically elected political authority that keeps its military in check. Peace is an imperative now, not a consummation to be postponed indefinitely.
Part III
Mani Shankar Aiyar, an MP of Indian Rajya Sabha and former Consul-General of India had delivered a lecture to Karachi Council of Foreign Relations on “India and Pakistan: Retrospect and prospect” a few days ago.
Following is third part of the text of his address - Part-II was published on Friday - in which he has described his personal experience while living in Pakistan as an Indian official and also highlighted relations between India and Pakistan:
“On the other hand, the regrettably widespread view in Indian circles that Pakistan is a ‘failed’ State or a ‘failing’ one also needs to be countered. I do not think any nation, let alone Pakistan, which is so firmly anchored in history, civilization, ideology and spiritual belief as is Pakistan, with one of the largest populations in the world (even if relative to India somewhat small), with the high degree of political and philosophical sophistication, which one encounters in this country at every turn, a resilient economy and a burgeoning globalised elite, a strong bureaucracy and a stronger military, and an extremely lively and informed media, can ever be a pushover. When the Taliban was said to have arrived at Buner, a hundred kilometres from Islamabad, there were those in India who feared (or even wished) for the collapse. The fear was always unrealistic, the wish beggared. And was shown to be so when the security forces moved into action and pushed back the insurgents, as they had when in July 2007 firm action was taken at the Lal Masjid in the heart of Islamabad. Pakistan, six decades after its foundation, is no war-time Afghanistan swirling in chaos at the time of the Soviet and American withdrawal and the political vacuum that followed the end of its socialist phase, and, thus, sucked inexorably into the vortex of religious extremism assiduously egged-on from outside. Yes, you have your difficulties. But so do we. So any strategy built on the assumption that Pakistan cannot hold is misconceived, misplaced and dangerously misleading. And, therefore, bound to be disproved. Equally unrealistic are doomsday prophecies of Pakistan falling into the maw of fanatical terrorists or disintegrating irretrievably into a congeries of nations. Pakistan is here to stay and it would best to deal with it on those terms. While it is the duty of the intelligence community to conjure up far-fetched scenarios and prepare for them, statesmen are required to handle the here and now. And that calls for an engagement with a Pakistan that will last, not a Pakistan on its last legs.
That accounts too, in my view, for no one in India harbouring any illusions any more about a return to Akhand Bharat. That was a slogan in the immediate post-partition period, a cry from the heart of those who had been deprived of their hearths and their homes. That generation has gone, the refugee in India is well integrated into Indian society, and there is no homesickness for return except perhaps in the fading memories of some eighty-to-ninety year olds. Moreover, what on earth are we going to do with 15 crore seriously angered malcontents if ever anything so stupid happened as the end of Pakistan? No, there is nothing, nothing at all, to be gained by promoting any disintegration of neighbouring Pakistan, and I would advise any Pakistani who doubts us on this score to consider how steadfast a series of Indian governments, of every hue and colour, were in standing up for the unity and integrity of Sri Lanka through thirty years of a vicious civil war caused by gross discrimination against the Tamil minority despite the strong ethnic links that bind the Sri Lankan Tamil to the Indian Tamil.
There being no insuperable institutional obstacle to a sustained Indo-Pak effort to resolve simmering differences, let us now turn our attention to those differences, which, for convenience, I have divided into the ‘endemic’ and the ‘episodic’.
Endemic: The endemic issues between Pakistan and India are, from a Pakistani perspective, Kashmir and water; from an Indian perspective, doubtless it is cross-border terrorism based on Pakistani soil.
I have no readymade answers. I doubt that anyone has. But is that cause enough to despair of any solution ever being found?
The historical record would appear to disprove any military solution to the argument over Jammu and Kashmir. The attempt to annex the Maharajah’s state when he and Sheikh Abdullah were readying to through their lot in with India failed; so did Operation Gibraltar; so did the attack on Akhnur that followed; as did the hostilities on the Western Front in 1971; as did the Kargil misadventure; as did the proxy war of the nineties. And while there are those in India who maintain that the war of 1948 should have been pressed forward to a conclusion, I think Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was sensible in listening to wiser counsel. There is no military solution, and subversion will not work.
On the other hand, is jaw-jaw impossible? The United Nations, once the forum for grand forensic battles between Krishna Menon and Feroze Khan Noon and, later, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Swaran Singh, has in effect washed its hands of the issue; the question of Jammu and Kashmir remains on the UN agenda but lies dormant ever since India and Pakistan agreed at Shimla in July 1972 to discuss bilaterally all issues related to J&K. Notwithstanding the Naysayers, and there is no dearth of them in either country, progress has indeed been made. These issues are an integral part of the Composite Dialogue initiated in 1997. And, to go by available records, a framework for resolution had reached an advanced stage under the aegis of President Musharraf and Dr Manmohan Singh through the Lambah-Tariq back channel. Even if that progress is not being acknowledged now, it does seem feasible to hope that the resumption of back channel contacts (made public by the Pakistan minister of Kashmir Affairs, according to reports appearing in the Indian media) might yet move matters further forward. But whether or not the back channel has, indeed, been reactivated, the two countries have demonstrated that, when the waters are not muddied, they can talk to each other even on Jammu and Kashmir and inch towards an agreed settlement. Neither military action nor encouragement to cross-border terrorism can do that.
As for waters, when I was in Pakistan in March last year, the drying rivers of the Indus basin were on everyone’s lips; when I was last here in October, devastating floods were on everyone’s mind. Water is a most serious issue and upper and lower riparian, whether within our respective countries, such as Punjab and Sindh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, for example, or between our respective countries, will have to find answers in 21st century technology, not in the polemics of the 20th century. The total availability of water has run so low that where India and Pakistan started in the 1950s with a per capita availability per annum of about 5,000 cubic metres, water availability in both countries has since declined to under 2,000, in Pakistan rather more sharply than in India, down to about 1,200 as against India’s 1,800.
The problem of water shortage is, however, common to both of us and is, indeed, a global problem common to virtually every country in the world. Some would call it the most important universal challenge of our times. Israel has shown the way to the conservation of water through drip and sprinkler irrigation and I imagine that it is in such technology rather than in the 19th century technology of large dams and command area channels that the answer lies.
But while technology may hold the secret, there is no denying the fact of water deprivation or the politics that flow from it. That is where the Indus Waters Treaty has proved its immense worth. The numerous mechanisms it has for finding acceptable ways of resolving agonized issues, as was demonstrated over Baglihar recently and as is being demonstrated over Kishangana now, are solid examples of India and Pakistan being able to discover forums of settlement in preference to the vapid aggravation of real problems and real issues.
I now turn, with some trepidation, to the Indian priority issue - terrorism. Till 9/11, cross-border terrorism was one of several subjects under discussion in our bilateral composite dialogue notwithstanding the proxy war in Kashmir nor the jihadi strategy of bleeding India with a thousand cuts. The attack on our Parliament on December 13, 2001 led to the armed confrontation of Operation Parikrama but did not stall either the Agra summit or the Islamabad Declaration of January 2004 or the dramatic progress made between May 2004 and March 2007 when the going was never better.
Meanwhile, the al-Qaeda attack on the Twin Towers brought the American retaliation to the borders of Pakistan. Ever since, terrorism has become a global issue, perhaps the most important issue before the international community. In that war against terrorism, Pakistan, willy-nilly, has become a front-line state, with horrific consequences for itself. No state has suffered as much from terrorism as Pakistan itself. I think there needs to be much wider appreciation in India than there is at present of how terrible is the daily threat of terrorism striking any day and anywhere in Pakistan and, therefore, how steely is the will of the Pakistani people to not let their country be taken over by suicide bombers and pathological killers. I do believe that while the Pakistan establishment might at one time have been complaisant regarding terrorism directed at the West or terrorism directed against India, while being extremely vigilant against terrorism directed at Pakistan, there is now an increasing realization that all the networks are inter-connected and, therefore, the counter attack on terrorism has to be holistic, taking on all three components without distinction.
Indeed, that is the message that came through in President Zardari’s initial reaction to 26/11. That brief flicker of hope of a joint India-Pakistan front against those undertaking, sponsoring or abetting terrorism was snuffed out over the offer, first made and then withdrawn, to send the ISI chief to India to initiate a cooperative approach to the joint threat of terror. However, subsequent developments over the next two years have been far from encouraging. Bluntly speaking, the Indian establishment and almost all Indians remain unconvinced that India-directed terrorism is, indeed, seen in Pakistan as an unmitigated evil that must be stamped out. But while that hurdle looms large on the road to the resumption of normalcy in our mutual dialogue, I do believe only a joint strategy to counter terrorism will enable both India and Pakistan to overcome what is, in effect, a joint threat to both our peoples. We either hang together or hang separately. The challenge is to set the stage to being together on this issue instead of languishing in confrontation, thus giving the edge to the terrorist. There is little sign of this happening, but I remain persuaded that the threat to both of us is so great from what is in practice a single undifferentiated source of extreme danger to both countries that sooner than later a joint process will have to be set in motion.
Episodic: In a relationship as turbulent and accident-prone as that between India and Pakistan, it is only to be expected that there would be diurnal disturbances to any equilibrium we might establish or strive to establish. There are any number of issues on which troubles arise. If not tackled, they persist, and when they are resolved leave one wondering what all the fuss was about.
Take, for example, for it is the example closest to home, the opening of the Indian Consulate-General when I arrived here 33 years ago. It was expected that a Pakistani Consul General would soon land in Bombay. That was delayed. A year later, elections in India led to a change of government. Jinnah House was no longer on offer. Three decades on, there is still no Pakistan CG in Mumbai. And the Indian CG in Karachi was closed down 17 years ago. I sneaked into 63, Clifton some years ago with my daughter born in Karachi. It was heartbreaking. Who has gained? I do not know. But I do know who have lost. Ordinary, very ordinary Pakistanis and Indians.
If an Indian Consulate could run in Karachi for 15 years without a counterpart Pakistan facility in Mumbai, why not now? And as for a Pakistani visa office in Mumbai, I am told by successive Pakistan high commissioners that they have searched and searched but are unable to find a single Mumbai landlord willing to lease his premises to the Pakistan government; while the Indian side tells me that all efforts they have made to make space available to Pakistan have been rebuffed. You and I will never know the full story till WikiLeaks makes it available to us. But amazing is it not that neither of us seems to have the wit to find a mutually satisfactory answer? Or is it just that our authorities do not want to?”
India - Endless Smiles
I had a friend over this morning installing my photography studio air conditioning (the guy is a freaking legend, it is 42 degrees today) and we were having a chat about traveling in asia. We both agreed that the work ethic and reward for effort levels in these countries are so different to our own.
I was once again reminded of the spice market in Delhi. This guy here is pulling a trolley with maybe 200 kilograms of stuff on it. Look at him. Look at the happiness and joy in his eyes. I was constantly confronted with this, it was humbling. He took the time to look at me and give me the gorgeous smile.
I must admit, he returned pretty quickly to the grimace of pulling along his cart, be we connected, for a moment. This is what photography is all about for me, just that moment.
Peace, Denis
Few pictures from my recent trip to India. You can find more (witch captions!) at www.expedice.org/luke/silkroad
Few pictures from my recent trip to India. You can find more (witch captions!) at www.expedice.org/luke/silkroad
Kota (/ˈkoʊtə/ (listen)), previously known as Kotah, is a city located in the southeast of northern Indian state of Rajasthan. It is located about 240 kilometres south of the state capital, Jaipur, situated on the banks of Chambal River. With a population of over 1.2 million, it is the third most populous city of Rajasthan after Jaipur and Jodhpur, 46th most populous city of India and 53rd most populous urban agglomeration of India. It serves as the administrative headquarters for Kota district and Kota division. Kota is a major coaching hub of the country for competitive examination preparations and has a number of engineering and medical coaching institutes.
The city of Kota was once the part of the erstwhile Rajput kingdom of Bundi. It became a separate princely state in the 16th century. Apart from the several monuments that reflect the glory of the town, Kota is also known for its palaces and gardens. Mahesh Vijay of Bhartiya Janta Party was the last mayor of Kota. The city was also included among 98 Indian cities for Smart Cities Mission initiated by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015 and was listed at 67th place after results of first round were released following which top 20 cities were further selected for funding in the immediate financial year. It is popular among the youth of India for its coaching institutes for engineering and medical entrance examinations. Many students come to Kota to prepare for the IIT JEE, NEET and many other competitive exams.
HISTORY
The history of the city dates back to the 12th century CE when Rao Deva, a Chauhan Rajput chieftain belonging to the Hada clan conquered the territory and founded Bundi and Hadoti. Later, in the early 17th century, during the reign of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir, the ruler of Bundi – Rao Ratan Singh, gave the smaller principality of Kota to his son, Madho Singh. Since then Kota became a hallmark of the Rajput gallantry and culture.
Kota became an independent state in 1631 when Rao Madho Singh, the second son of Rao Ratan of [Bundi] was made the ruler, by the Mughal Emperor Jahangir. Soon Kota outgrew its parent state to become bigger in area, richer in revenue and more powerful. Maharao Bhim Singh played a pivotal role in Kota's history, having held a 'Mansab' of five thousand and being the first in his dynasty to have the title of Maharao. Zalim Singh, a diplomat, and statesman, emerged as another prominent figure of the state in the 18th century. Although initially being a general of Kota's army, he rose to the regent of the kingdom after the king died leaving a minor on the throne. He remained a direct administrator of the state. In 1817, a treaty of friendship was signed between him and the British on his condition of carving out part from the existing state for his descendants resulting in Jhalawar coming into existence in 1838. Kota was not involved in the earlier events of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. However, when in October 1857 rebels murdered the local British resident and his two sons, British forces responded by storming the city and, after some resistance, capturing it in March 1858.
In the 1940s, social activist Guru Radha Kishan organised trade union activities and campaigned against the colonial government. He left Kota after the local administration learned of the arrest warrant issued against him for his participation in Indian Independence activities.
PRINCELY CITY OF KOTA
Kota became independent in 1579, after Bundi state in Hadoti region had become weak. Then, Kota ruled the territory which now is Kota district and Baran district.
GEOGRAPHY
Kota is located along the banks of the Chambal River in the southern part of Rajasthan. It is the 3rd largest city of Rajasthan after Jaipur and Jodhpur. The cartographic coordinates are 25.18°N 75.83°E. It covers an area of 221.36 km2). It has an average elevation of 271 metres. The district is bound on the north and north west by Sawai Madhopur, Tonk and Bundi districts. The Chambal River separates these districts from Kota district, forming the natural boundary.
The city of Kota is situated at the centre of the southeastern region of Rajasthan a region very widely known as Hadoti, the land of the Hadas. Kota lies along the banks of the Chambal river on a high sloping tableland forming a part of the Malwa Plateau. The general slope of the city is towards the north. The comparatively rocky, barren, and elevated land in the southern part of the city descends towards a plain agricultural land in the north. The Mukundara hills run from southeast to northwest axis of the town.
Kota has fertile land and greenery with irrigation facilities through canals. The two main canals; called as left main canal (towards Bundi) and right main canal (towards Baran) originate from the reservoir created by Kota Barrage. The tributaries of these canals make up a network in the city and surrounding areas of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh and supplements the irrigation of these areas.
CLIMATE
Kota has a semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification BSh) with high temperatures throughout the year. Summers are long, hot, and dry, starting in late March and lasting till the end of June. The temperatures average above 40 °C in May and June, frequently exceed 45 °C with temperatures as high as 48.4 °C also been recorded. The monsoon season follows with comparatively lower temperatures, but higher humidity and frequent, torrential downpours. The monsoons subside in October and temperatures rise again. The brief, mild winter starts in late November and lasts until the last week of February. Temperatures hover between 26.7 °C (max) to 12.0 °C (min). This can be considered the best time to visit Kota because of intense heat in the summer.The average annual rainfall in the Kota district is 660.6 mm. Most of the rainfall can be attributed to the southwest monsoon which has its beginning around the last week of June and may last till mid-September. Pre-monsoon showers begin towards the middle of June with post-monsoon rains occasionally occurring in October. The winter is largely dry, although some rainfall does occur as a result of the Western Disturbance passing over the region.
DEMOGRAPHICS
According to 2011 Census of India, Kota City had a population of 1,001,694 of which male and female are 528,601 and 473,093 respectively. The provisional results of census 2011 reported city's population as 1,001,365. The urban agglomeration of Kota consists of city only. The sex ratio was 895 and 12.14% were under six years of age. The effective literacy rate was 82.80%, with male literacy at 89.49% and female literacy at 75.33%.
Harauti, a dialect of Rajasthani is widely spoken in Kota with Hindi, Marwari and English being the other languages spoken.
According to 2011 census, Hinduism is the majority religion in the city practised by about 80.5% of the population. Muslims form large minorities (15.9%) followed by Jains (2.2%), Sikhs (0.9%) and Christians (0.4%).
Government institutions and courts
Governmental institutions in Kota include:
Municipal Corporation
Collectorate
Office of the Divisional Commissioner
Rajasthan Housing Board
Command Area Development (CAD)
Urban Improvement Trust (UIT)
Office of the Superintendent of Police, Inspector General of Police, and the Income Tax commissioner of Kota range.
Office of the Divisional Railway Manager, Kota Division, West Central Railway
Office of Deputy Commissioner of central excise and service tax
Instrumentation Ltd is a Public Sector company based in Kota. Its clientele includes public sector entities such as the Indian Railways, BSNL and VSNL. Presently, it has been shut down.
The District court provides court and notary services.
ECONOMY
The city is the trade centre for an area in which cotton, millet, wheat, coriander and oilseeds are grown; industries include cotton and oilseed milling, textile weaving, distilling, dairying, and the manufacture of metal handcrafts. Kota also has an extensive industry of stone-polishing (tiles) of a stone called Kota Stone, used for the floor and walls of residential and business buildings. Since last 15 years Kota has emerged as an Education hub of the country as producing excellent results in IIT-JEE and medical entrance exams.
KOTA EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRY
A major part of Kota's economy depends on its student population. Every year more than 150,000 students visit and study in Kota to study and prepare for JEE and NEET.
The entrance coaching industry in Kota generates business of about ₹40,000 million from them which further contributes towards the economy of the region. Over time, the economical growth and money generated through education in Kota seems to have overtaken other popular economical activities of the region by contributing more and more with time.
KOTA DORIA OR DORIYA AND SAREES
Weaving in Kota was started by Maharana Bhimdev in the 18th century.
The Kota saris like most traditional piece of work had started becoming lost before designer Vidhi Singhania moved to Kota and started working with the workers to revive its market.[38] Many textile shops in the city sell different varieties of Kota doriya. These saris have become one of the trademarks of the city.
KOTA STONE
The fine-grained variety of limestone quarried from Kota district is known as Kota stone, with rich greenish-blue and brown colours. Kota stone is tough, non-water-absorbent, non-slip, and non-porous. The varieties include Kota Blue Natural, Kota Blue Honed, Kota Blue Polished, Kota Blue Cobbles, Kota Brown Natural and Kota Brown Polished.
INDUSTRIES
Kota is one of the industrial hubs in northern India, with chemical, cement, engineering and power plants based there. The total number of industrial units in the district in 2010–11 stood at 12908 with 705 registered units. The district power plants show annual growth of 15–20% due to their strategic locations.
POWER PLANTS
Kota is surrounded by five power stations within its 50 km radius.
Kota Super Thermal Power Plant – thermal
Rajasthan Atomic Power Station in Rawatbhata Chittorgarh district (65 kilometres from Kota) – nuclear
NTPC Anta Gas Power Plant in Antah Baran district (50 kilometers from Kota) – gas
Jawahar Sagar Power Plant – hydro
Kalisindh Thermal Power Station (in Jhalrapatan, Jhalawar) – thermal
Surya Chambal Power Plant in Rangpur Kota district - biomass
EDUCATION
The city is specially known in India as a center for the preparation of various national level competitive examinations through which the students seek admissions in various engineering and medical colleges of the country. Often termed as the "Kota Factory", the town contains more than 40 large coaching institutes for aspiring students trying to pass entrance exams for Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), through the IIT JEE, other engineering colleges and prominent medical colleges of India.
Since 2000, the city has emerged as a popular coaching destination for competitive exams preparation and for profit educational services. The education sector of Kota has become one of the major contributors to the city's economy. Kota is popularly referred to as "the coaching capital of India". Over 150,000 students from all over the country flock every year towards the city for preparation of various exams such as IIT-JEE and NEET-UG etc. Many hostels and PGs are located in Kota near the vicinity of coaching centres for students. Students live here for 2–3 years and prepare for the exams. The annual turnover of the Kota coaching industry is about ₹1500 crore. The majority of the students here are enrolled in schools, providing the facility of "dummy schooling", which gives students admissions without the need to attend it regularly. However, it is an illegal practice. In 2019, The Viral Fever launched a Web Series called Kota Factory to shed light on the life of students who study at Kota.
Kota's emergence as a coaching hub began in 1985 when Vinod Kumar Bansal, an engineer set up Bansal Classes that eventually became Bansal Classes Private Limited.
STUDENT SUICIDES
In the past few years, reports of students dying by suicide in the city have increased. As per reports, students feel stressed and get pressurized in order to crack their target competitive exam. As per National Crime Records Bureau report of 2014, 45 suicide cases of students were reported in the city. In year 2015, 17 such cases were found. For the same cause, many coaching centers have also appointed counsellors and are organising recreational activities to help students.
MEDICAL AND ENGINERING COLLEGES
Government Medical College, Kota
University Engineering College, Kota
UNIVERSITIES
Agriculture University, Kota
Rajasthan Technical University
Vardhaman Mahaveer Open University
University of Kota
Indian Institute of Information Technology, Kota
Jai Minesh National University, Kota
PLACES OF INTEREST
Some of the popular visitor attractions in and nearby the city include Chambal Garden, Chambal River Front, Seven Wonders Park, Kishore Sagar Lake, Jag Mandir, Kota Garh Palace, Chatra Vilas Garden, Ganesh Udyan, Traffic Garden, Godavari Dham Temple, Geparnath Temple, Garadia Mahadev Temple, Chattaneshwar Mandir, Kota Zoological Park, Abheda Biological Park, City Park(IL Oxizone), Chatrapati Shivaji Park, Maharao Madho Singh Museum, Kota Government Museum, Brijraj Bhawan Palace, Abheda Mahal, Royal Cenotaphs at Kshar Bagh, Kota Barrage, Khade Ganesh Ji Mandir, Shiv Puri Dham, Maa Trikuta Mandir, Kansua Shiv Mandir, Darrah National Park and Jawahar Sagar Dam.
TRANSPORT
Kota is well connected with road and rail to all major cities within Rajasthan as well as those located outside the state.
ROADWAYS
Kota have two major interstate bus terminals, namely, Nayapura Bus Stand at Nayapura and Roadways New Bus Stand at Ramchandrapura.[citation needed] National Highway No.27 (via Udaipur, Kanpur, Gorakhpur, Guwahati) and National highway No.52 (via Hisar, Churu, Sikar, Jaipur, Indore, Aurangabad, Solapur and Hubli) pass through the Kota City. National Highway No.27 is a part of East-West Corridor(Porbandar - Silchar) and National Highway No.52 connects Punjab to Karnataka (Sangrur, Punjab—Ankola, Karnataka). The total road length in Kota district is 2,052 km as of March 2011. There are also three upcoming expressway projects in the form of Delhi–Mumbai Expressway (Via Kota, Rajasthan and Vadodara), Kota–Hyderabad Expressway (Via Indore) and Chambal Expressway.
RAILWAYS
Kota is well connected to all the major cities of India with rail. Kota Junction is one of the divisions in West Central Railway. It is a station on the New Delhi–Mumbai main line. There are four railway stations within Kota and in its vicinity. One Substation of East Kota City is Sogariya(Kota Bypass) Railway Station and Another suburban station of South Kota city is Dakaniya Talav railway station which has a stoppage of Avadh Express, Dehradun Express and Ranthambore Express.
The city is a halt for over 182 trains, including Mumbai Rajdhani Express, August Kranti Rajdhani Express, Thiruvananthapuram Rajdhani Express, Madgaon Rajdhani Express, Mumbai New Delhi Duronto Express, Golden Temple Mail, Paschim Express, Bandra Terminus-Hazrat Nizamuddin Garib Rath Express, Kevadiya–Hazrat Nizamuddin Gujarat Sampark Kranti Express, Gujarat Sampark Kranti Express, Maharashtra Sampark Kranti Express, Goa Sampark Kranti Express, Kerala Sampark Kranti Express, Indore–Jaipur Express, Gangaur SuperFast Express, Mewar Express, Dayodaya Express, Jodhpur – Indore Intercity, Hazrat Nizamuddin - Indore Express, Garbha Express, Marusagar Express (Ajmer – Ernakulam Express / Ernakulam Express), Jaipur–Mysore Superfast Express, Swaraj Express, Chennai Central–Jaipur Superfast Express, Coimbatore–Jaipur Superfast Express, Jodhpur – Puri Express, Bandra Terminus–Gorakhpur Avadh Express, Bandra Terminus–Muzaffarpur Avadh Express, Jodhpur – Bhopal Express.
The Delhi—Mumbai railway line passes through the Kota Junction. The district has 148.83 km of railway line in the Kota – Ruthia section, 98.72 km on Nagda—Mathura (Mumbai-Delhi) section and 24.26 km on Kota —Chittorgarh section.
A broad-gauge railway facility between Kota and Jodhpur via Jaipur exists.
AIRWAYS
Kota Airport, (IATA: KTU, ICAO: VIKO) is a civil airport serving Kota, Rajasthan, India. Spread over 447 acres, Kota Airport was originally built by the Royal family of the princely state of Kota and was taken over by the government in 1951. This Airport Also Known As Rajputana Airport. Originally serviced by Indian Airlines Dakota aircraft and later by Vayudoot and Jagson Airlines, shutdown of major industries and Kota becoming a major railway junction effected decreased demand for air transport and the withdrawal of the airlines. Kota Airport has had no scheduled services operating since 1999. The nearest international airport is Jaipur International Airport situated around 240 km away from Kota. Development of Greenfield airport at Kota: The representative of Rajasthan Government intimated that runway length of Existing Kota Airport is only 4000 ft., which restricts flight operations under RCS. A new Greenfield Airport is to be constructed in Kota. State Government has earmarked required land for this purpose. State Government has provided Meteorological Information of past 10 years and AAI has carried out pre- feasibility survey & provided its report to the State Government. Further, AAI has been requested twice to carry out Site and OLS Survey and to provide further course of action to be taken by the State Government, which is approved. Directions need to be issued to AAI for early completion of the same. For development of Greenfield airport at Kota, 1250 Acres of land acquired by the State Government and handed over to AAI for development of New Greenfield Airport.
SPORTS
The city is home to Jay Kaylon Cricket Stadium located in Nayapura area. Among several matches, six Ranji Trophy matches have been played in the stadium. The stadium also hosted RCL T20 2016, an inter state cricket league with six participating teams.
MEDIA
TELEVISION
There are five major regional TV Channels in Kota.
DD Rajasthan
Media House Rajasthan(MHR News)
ETV Rajasthan
India news Rajasthan
Jan TV
A wide range of other Hindi, English, and other language channels are accessible via cable subscription and direct-broadcast satellite services. Dish TV, Tata Sky, Radiant Digitek, Airtel digital TV are entertainment services in Kota.
NEWSPAPERS
Major daily newspapers in Kota include:
Rajasthan Patrika (Hindi)
Dainik Bhaskar (Hindi)
Dainik Navajyoti (Hindi)
Chambal Sandesh (Hindi)
RADIO
There are five radio stations in Kota, with four broadcasting on the FM band, and one All India Radio station broadcasting on the AM band.
All India Radio (102.0 MHz)
Big FM (92.7 MHz)
My FM (94.3 MHz)
FM Tadka (95.0 MHz)
Radio City (91.1 MHz)
NOTABLE PEOPLE
Umed Singh II
Om Birla
Ijyaraj Singh
Onkarlal Berwa
Shanti Kumar Dhariwal
Vinod Kumar Bansal
Bhim Singh II
Lalit Kishore Chaturvedi
Bhuvnesh Chaturvedi
Krishana Kumar Goyal
Shail Hada
Taj Haider
Hari Kumar Audichya
Raghuveer Singh Koshal
Shiv Kumari of Kotah
Bhuvaneshwari Kumari
Nikita Lalwani
Pramod Maheshwari
Aniruddh Singh
WIKIPEDIA
Rabari temple (Dubhrej village).
Rabaris are devout Hindus. According to their myth of existence they were created by Parvati, the consort of Lord Shiva, who wiped the dust and sweat from Shiva as he was meditating and fashioned the very first camel from the dust balls she collected from his body. Once Shiva had breathed life into this camel, it kept running away, so Parvati fashioned a man, and the first Rabari was given life so he could mind the camel. Keeping animals has thus always been a pious occupation and Rabaris see themselves primarily as custodians of animals during their moral existence, rather than their owners. It is also their beliefs that the mother goddess presides over them. Her advice is taken about when to start out migration, and animals are commended to her care.
Zanskari woman in traditional dress.
Zanskar is a subdistrict of the Kargil district, which lies in the eastern half of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. The administrative centre is Padum. Zanskar, together with the neighbouring region of Ladakh, was briefly a part of the kingdom of Guge in Western Tibet.
Zanskar's population is small, the April 2006 medical census records a population of 13,849 people. The medical census is the most accurate indicator of population as it collects birth, death, and census information from Zangskar's 22 medical aid centers. Roughly 95% of the inhabitants practice Tibetan Buddhism, while the remainder are Sunni Muslims, whose ancestors settled in Padum and its environs in the 19th century. The majority of Zanskaris are of mixed Tibetan and Indo-European origins; notably Dard and Mon. The latter are in fact ethnically Dard, but "Mon" is used in order to distinguish them from later Dard settlers. The population lives mainly in scattered small villages, the largest being the capital Padum, with nearly 700 inhabitants. Most of the villages are located in the valleys of the Zanskar river and its two main tributaries. Given the isolation of this region, the inhabitants tend towards self-sufficiency, and until recently lived in almost complete autarky. External trade has, however, always been necessary for the acquisition of goods such as tools, jewellery, or religious artefacts. The Zanskaris' main occupations are cattle-rearing and farming of land that they almost always own. Cultivable land is scarce, and restricted to alluvial fans and terraces, cultivated fields being rarely found above an altitude of 4,000 metres. The Zanskaris have developed a system of intensive arable agriculture and complex irrigation to produce enough food in these conditions. The scarcity of cultivable land has also resulted in a tendency towards a stable, zero-growth population. An efficient birth-control system in Zanskar has historically been achieved by the common practice of polyandrous marriage, in which several brothers are married to the same wife, and the widespread adoption of a celibate religious life. A high infant mortality rate also contributes to population stability. In the summer, the women and children stay far away from the villages to tend to the livestock. This system, known as transhumance, is similar to the one found in the Alps where the animals are sent during the summer higher up in the mountains (the alpages) and were kept by the children and women.
Banjara tribal people on the way to a manifestation at Warangal.
Amongst innumerable tribes who have thronged various places of eastern India, Banjara is significant. They are the typical nomads who wonder from one place to another thus leading a life in its own terms and condition. Thus their way of living is quite thrilling and full of adventures. What are equally colorful are their costumes. In fact, a Banjara women`s mode of dressing is regarded to be the most colorful as well as elaborate amongst all other tribal communities that are present at the moment in India.
Everyone going to India needs a shot of the Taj Mahal for their own. But pictures do not do it justice. It is simply an incredible and beautiful structure from start to finish.
Thankfully (for you) our camera batteries died and we were lost for only these few shots.
Also, one third of prostitutes in India are (usually enslaved) children, [17] many of whom come from Nepal [18].
(Full gallery: www.m1key.me/photography/slums/)
after our lunch at stone barns farm, wiley went over to a friend's house to play -- so jean and india and i put on our warm socks and loafed around all afternoon -- here jean is reading us "the lump of coal" by lemony snickets...
two people i love so enormously
In India, Walmart’s Direct Farm Program aims to increase farmer income by 20 percent and reduce food waste by 5 percent.
ISS028-E-029679 (21 Aug. 2011) --- A night time view of India-Pakistan borderlands is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 28 crew member on the International Space Station. Clusters of yellow lights on the Indo-Gangetic Plain of northern India and northern Pakistan reveal numerous cities both large and small in this photograph. Of the hundreds of clusters, the largest are the metropolitan areas associated with the capital cities of Islamabad, Pakistan in the foreground and New Delhi, India at the top - for scale these metropolitan areas are approximately 700 kilometers apart. The lines of major highways connecting the larger cities also stand out. More subtle but still visible at night are the general outlines of the towering and partly cloud-covered Himalayan ranges immediately to the north (left). A striking feature of this photograph is the line of lights, with a distinctly more orange hue, snaking across the central part of the image. It appears to be more continuous and brighter than most highways in the view. This is the fenced and floodlit border zone between the countries of India and Pakistan. The fence is designed to discourage smuggling and arms trafficking between the two countries. A similar fenced zone separates India's eastern border from Bangladesh (not visible). This image was taken with a 16-mm lens, which provides the wide field of view, as the space station was tracking towards the southeast across the subcontinent of India. The station crew took the image as part of a continuous series of frames, each frame taken with a one-second exposure time to maximize light collection -- unfortunately, this also causes blurring of some ground features. The distinct, bright zone above the horizon (visible at top) is produced by airglow, a phenomena caused by excitation of atoms and molecules high in the atmosphere (above 80 kilometers, or 50 miles altitude) by ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Part of the ISS Permanent Multipurpose Module, or PMM, and a solar panel array are visible at right.
Mumbai,India,28th November 2013.
International cricket sensation Sachin Tendulkar has become UNICEF Ambassador for South Asia during a signing ceremony in Mumbai, India. In this capacity Mr. Tendulkar will support UNICEFÕs work in promoting hygiene and sanitation in South Asia.
Sanitation has a strong connection not only with personal hygiene but also with human dignity, well-being, public health, nutrition, education. Children under five are the most vulnerable to the effects of poor sanitation. Every year, more than half a million South Asian children under the age of five die of diarrhoea, caused by unsafe drinking water, lack of sanitation and poor hygiene behaviours.
ÒWhen playing cricket, Sachin Tendulkar had the unique power to reach everybody in all corners of South Asia and the world. Now Sachin will do the same and lend his voice to reach everybody in all villages and communities in South Asia with hygiene and sanitation messages. Using a toilet and hand washing with soap means healthy lives with dignity and helps all children to thrive.Ó said Karin Hulshof, UNICEF Regional Director for South Asia.
UNICEF Ambassadors are celebrities with a demonstrated commitment to improving the lives of children. Highly talented in their individual right, they all share an ability to bring childrenÕs issues to attention, to galvanize support from the public and lead decision makers and to raise urgently needed funds for vital UNICEF programmes..
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Adalaj step-well.
Adalaj is a village 18 kms to the north of Ahmedabad . The 'Vav' (step-well) at Adalaj derives its name from the lady patron, Ruda, wife of the Vaghela chief, Virsinh; who built it in the 15th or 16th century AD.
The 'Vav', laid out in the north-south direction, the step well with the well in the north and the entrance in the south, has a total length of 75.3 metres. It is the only major monument of its kind, having three entrance stairs leading to the stepped corridor. These three entrances meet in the first storey, underground, in a huge square platform. The platform has an octagonal opening on the top.
The platform rests on 16 pillars, eight on the corners, and two in front of each main side. Four built-in shrines, with doors, windows and balconies, mark the four corners of the platform. The stepped corridor begins from this square platform.
The corridor is entirely surrounded by a one-metre high parapet wall with a rounded topping. It descends with four pavilion towers for five storeys. The walls of the 'Vav' are veritable showcases of sculptures and ornamentation. The sculptures range from a king sitting on a stool under a parasol, to erotic scenes; and from ladies churning buttermilk to dancing girls.
The frames of the doors around the entrances of the spiral staircases to the octagonal shaft are surrounded by a 'parikrama', which is an enlarged version of the frames around the niches. Stringcourses running along the sidewalls embellish all parts of the structure, sometimes dividing the wall into horizontal sections. They also appear on the walls of the octagonal shaft, depicting floral or leaf patterns, or rows of animals..
Udaipur - Jag Mandir Island.
Jag Mandir is a palace built on a Island in the Lake Pichola. It is also called the "Lake Garden Palace".
Sugarcane, or sugar cane, is one of the several species of tall perennial true grasses of the genus Saccharum, tribe Andropogoneae, native to the warm temperate to tropical regions of South Asia, Melanesia, and used for sugar production. It has stout jointed fibrous stalks that are rich in the sugar sucrose, which accumulates in the stalk internodes. The plant is two to six metres tall. All sugar cane species interbreed and the major commercial cultivars are complex hybrids. Sugarcane belongs to the grass family Poaceae, an economically important seed plant family that includes maize, wheat, rice, and sorghum and many forage crops.
Sucrose, extracted and purified in specialized mill factories, is used as raw material in human food industries or is fermented to produce ethanol. Ethanol is produced on a large scale by the Brazilian sugarcane industry. Sugarcane is the world's largest crop by production quantity. In 2012, The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates it was cultivated on about 26.0 million hectares, in more than 90 countries, with a worldwide harvest of 1.83 billion tons. Brazil was the largest producer of sugar cane in the world. The next five major producers, in decreasing amounts of production, were India, China, Thailand, Pakistan and Mexico.
The world demand for sugar is the primary driver of sugarcane agriculture. Cane accounts for 80% of sugar produced; most of the rest is made from sugar beets. Sugarcane predominantly grows in the tropical and subtropical regions (sugar beets grow in colder temperate regions.) Other than sugar, products derived from sugarcane include falernum, molasses, rum, cachaça (a traditional spirit from Brazil), bagasse and ethanol. In some regions, people use sugarcane reeds to make pens, mats, screens, and thatch. The young unexpanded inflorescence of tebu telor is eaten raw, steamed or toasted, and prepared in various ways in certain island communities of Indonesia.
The Persians, followed by the Greeks, discovered the famous "reeds that produce honey without bees" in India between the 6th and 4th centuries BC. They adopted and then spread sugarcane agriculture. Merchants began to trade in sugar from India, which was considered a luxury and an expensive spice. In the 18th century AD, sugarcane plantations began in Caribbean, South American, Indian Ocean and Pacific island nations and the need for laborers became a major driver of large human migrations, including slave labor and indentured servants.
DESCRIPTION
Sugarcane is a tropical, perennial grass that forms lateral shoots at the base to produce multiple stems, typically three to four metres high and about five cm in diameter. The stems grow into cane stalk, which when mature constitutes approximately 75% of the entire plant. A mature stalk is typically composed of 11–16% fiber, 12–16% soluble sugars, 2–3% non-sugars, and 63–73% water. A sugarcane crop is sensitive to the climate, soil type, irrigation, fertilizers, insects, disease control, varieties, and the harvest period. The average yield of cane stalk is 60–70 tonnes per hectare per year. However, this figure can vary between 30 and 180 tonnes per hectare depending on knowledge and crop management approach used in sugarcane cultivation. Sugarcane is a cash crop, but it is also used as livestock fodder.
HISTORY
Sugarcane is indigenous to tropical South and Southeast Asia. Different species likely originated in different locations, with Saccharum barberi originating in India and S. edule and S. officinarum in New Guinea. It is theorized that sugarcane was first domesticated as a crop in New Guinea around 6000 BC. New Guinean farmers and other early cultivators of sugarcane chewed the plant for its sweet juice. Early farmers in Southeast Asia, and elsewhere, may have also boiled the cane juice down to a viscous mass to facilitate transportation, but the earliest known production of crystalline sugar began in northern India. The exact date of the first cane sugar production is unclear. The earliest evidence of sugar production comes from ancient Sanskrit and Pali texts.
Around the 8th century, Arab traders introduced sugar from South Asia to the other parts of the Abbasid Caliphate in the Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, Egypt, North Africa, and Andalusia. By the 10th century, sources state that there was no village in Mesopotamia that did not grow sugarcane. It was among the early crops brought to the Americas by the Spanish, mainly Andalusians, from their fields in the Canary Islands, and the Portuguese from their fields in the Madeira Islands.
Christopher Columbus first brought sugarcane to the Caribbean during his second voyage to the Americas; initially to the island of Hispaniola (modern day Haiti and the Dominican Republic).In colonial times, sugar formed one side of the triangle trade of New World raw materials, along with European manufactured goods, and African slaves. Sugar (often in the form of molasses) was shipped from the Caribbean to Europe or New England, where it was used to make rum. The profits from the sale of sugar were then used to purchase manufactured goods, which were then shipped to West Africa, where they were bartered for slaves. The slaves were then brought back to the Caribbean to be sold to sugar planters. The profits from the sale of the slaves were then used to buy more sugar, which was shipped to Europe.
France found its sugarcane islands so valuable that it effectively traded its portion of Canada, famously dubbed "a few acres of snow", to Britain for their return of Guadeloupe, Martinique and St. Lucia at the end of the Seven Years' War. The Dutch similarly kept Suriname, a sugar colony in South America, instead of seeking the return of the New Netherlands (New York).
Boiling houses in the 17th through 19th centuries converted sugarcane juice into raw sugar. These houses were attached to sugar plantations in the Western colonies. Slaves often ran the boiling process under very poor conditions. Rectangular boxes of brick or stone served as furnaces, with an opening at the bottom to stoke the fire and remove ashes. At the top of each furnace were up to seven copper kettles or boilers, each one smaller and hotter than the previous one. The cane juice began in the largest kettle. The juice was then heated and lime added to remove impurities. The juice was skimmed and then channeled to successively smaller kettles. The last kettle, the "teache", was where the cane juice became syrup. The next step was a cooling trough, where the sugar crystals hardened around a sticky core of molasses. This raw sugar was then shoveled from the cooling trough into hogsheads (wooden barrels), and from there into the curing house.In the British Empire, slaves were liberated after 1833 and many would no longer work on sugar cane plantations when they had a choice. British owners of sugar cane plantations therefore needed new workers, and they found cheap labour in China, Portugal and India. The people were subject to indenture, a long-established form of contract which bound them to forced labour for a fixed term; apart from the fixed term of servitude, this resembled slavery. The first ships carrying indentured labourers from India left in 1836. The migrations to serve sugarcane plantations led to a significant number of ethnic Indians, southeast Asians and Chinese settling in various parts of the world. In some islands and countries, the South Asian migrants now constitute between 10 to 50 percent of the population. Sugarcane plantations and Asian ethnic groups continue to thrive in countries such as Fiji, Natal, Burma, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, British Guiana, Jamaica, Trinidad, Martinique, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, St. Kitts, St. Croix, Suriname, Nevis, Mauritius.
The then British colony of Queensland, now a state of Australia, imported between 55,000 and 62,500 (estimates vary) people from the South Pacific Islands to work on sugarcane plantations between 1863 and 1900.
Cuban sugar derived from sugarcane was exported to the USSR where it received price supports and was ensured a guaranteed market. The 1991 dissolution of the Soviet state forced the closure of most of Cuba's sugar industry.
Sugarcane remains an important part of the economy of Guyana, Belize, Barbados and Haiti, along with the Dominican Republic, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, and other islands.
Approximately 70% of the sugar produced globally comes from S. officinarum and hybrids using this species.
CULTIVATION
Sugarcane cultivation requires a tropical or temperate climate, with a minimum of 60 centimetres of annual moisture. It is one of the most efficient photosynthesizers in the plant kingdom. It is a C4 plant, able to convert up to one percent of incident solar energy into biomass. In prime growing regions, such as Mauritius, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, India, Guyana, Indonesia, Pakistan, Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Australia, Ecuador, Cuba, the Philippines, El Salvador and Hawaii, sugarcane crops can produce over 15 kilograms of cane per square meter of sunshine. Once a major crop of the southeastern region of the United States, sugarcane cultivation has declined there in recent decades, and is now primarily confined to Florida and Louisiana.
Sugarcane is cultivated in the tropics and subtropics in areas with a plentiful supply of water, for a continuous period of more than six to seven months each year, either from natural rainfall or through irrigation. The crop does not tolerate severe frosts. Therefore, most of the world's sugarcane is grown between 22°N and 22°S, and some up to 33°N and 33°S. When sugarcane crop is found outside this range, such as the Natal region of South Africa, it is normally due to anomalous climatic conditions in the region, such as warm ocean currents that sweep down the coast. In terms of altitude, sugarcane crop is found up to 1,600 m close to the equator in countries such as Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
Sugarcane can be grown on many soils ranging from highly fertile well drained mollisols, through heavy cracking vertisols, infertile acid oxisols, peaty histosols to rocky andisols. Both plentiful sunshine and water supplies increase cane production. This has made desert countries with good irrigation facilities such as Egypt as some of the highest yielding sugarcane cultivating regions.
Although sugarcanes produce seeds, modern stem cutting has become the most common reproduction method. Each cutting must contain at least one bud, and the cuttings are sometimes hand-planted. In more technologically advanced countries like the United States and Australia, billet planting is common. Billets harvested from a mechanical harvester are planted by a machine that opens and recloses the ground. Once planted, a stand can be harvested several times; after each harvest, the cane sends up new stalks, called ratoons. Successive harvests give decreasing yields, eventually justifying replanting. Two to 10 harvests are usually made depending on the type of culture. In a country with a mechanical agriculture looking for a high production of large fields, like in North America, sugar canes are replanted after two or three harvests to avoid a lowering in yields. In countries with a more traditional type of agriculture with smaller fields and hand harvesting, like in the French island la Réunion, sugar canes are often harvested up to 10 years before replanting.Sugarcane is harvested by hand and mechanically. Hand harvesting accounts for more than half of production, and is dominant in the developing world. In hand harvesting, the field is first set on fire. The fire burns dry leaves, and chases away or kills any lurking venomous snakes, without harming the stalks and roots. Harvesters then cut the cane just above ground-level using cane knives or machetes. A skilled harvester can cut 500 kilograms of sugarcane per hour. Mechanical harvesting uses a combine, or sugarcane harvester. The Austoft 7000 series, the original modern harvester design, has now been copied by other companies, including Cameco / John Deere. The machine cuts the cane at the base of the stalk, strips the leaves, chops the cane into consistent lengths and deposits it into a transporter following alongside. The harvester then blows the trash back onto the field. Such machines can harvest 100 t each hour; however, harvested cane must be rapidly processed. Once cut, sugarcane begins to lose its sugar content, and damage to the cane during mechanical harvesting accelerates this decline. This decline is offset because a modern chopper harvester can complete the harvest faster and more efficiently than hand cutting and loading. Austoft also developed a series of hydraulic high-lift infield transporters to work alongside their harvesters to allow even more rapid transfer of cane to, for example, the nearest railway siding. This mechanical harvesting doesn't require the field to be set on fire; the remains left in the field by the machine consist of the top of the sugar cane and the dead leaves, which act as mulch for the next round of planting.
PESTS
The cane beetle (also known as cane grub) can substantially reduce crop yield by eating roots; it can be controlled with imidacloprid (Confidor) or chlorpyrifos (Lorsban). Other important pests are the larvae of some butterfly/moth species, including the turnip moth, the sugarcane borer (Diatraea saccharalis), the Mexican rice borer (Eoreuma loftini); leaf-cutting ants, termites, spittlebugs (especially Mahanarva fimbriolata and Deois flavopicta), and the beetle Migdolus fryanus. The planthopper insect Eumetopina flavipes acts as a virus vector, which causes the sugarcane disease ramu stunt.
PATHOGENS
Numerous pathogens infect sugarcane, such as sugarcane grassy shoot disease caused by Phytoplasma, whiptail disease or sugarcane smut, pokkah boeng caused by Fusarium moniliforme, Xanthomonas axonopodis bacteria causes Gumming Disease, and red rot disease caused by Colletotrichum falcatum. Viral diseases affecting sugarcane include sugarcane mosaic virus, maize streak virus, and sugarcane yellow leaf virus.
NITROGEN FIXATION
Some sugarcane varieties are capable of fixing atmospheric nitrogen in association with the bacterium Glucoacetobacter diazotrophicus. Unlike legumes and other nitrogen-fixing plants that form root nodules in the soil in association with bacteria, G. diazotrophicus lives within the intercellular spaces of the sugarcane's stem. Coating seeds with the bacteria is a newly developed technology that can enable every crop species to fix nitrogen for its own use.
CONDITIONS FOR SUGARCANE WORKERS
At least 20,000 people are estimated to have died of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in Central America in the past two decades – most of them sugar cane workers along the Pacific coast. This may be due to working long hours in the heat without adequate fluid intake.
PROCESSING
Traditionally, sugarcane processing requires two stages. Mills extract raw sugar from freshly harvested cane and "mill-white” sugar is sometimes produced immediately after the first stage at sugar-extraction mills, intended for local consumption. Sugar crystals appear naturally in white color during the crystallization process. Sulfur dioxide is added to inhibit the formation of color-inducing molecules as well as to stabilize the sugar juices during evaporation. Refineries, often located nearer to consumers in North America, Europe, and Japan, then produce refined white sugar, which is 99 percent sucrose. These two stages are slowly merging. Increasing affluence in the sugar-producing tropics increased demand for refined sugar products, driving a trend toward combined milling and refining.
MILLING
Sugarcane processing produces cane sugar (sucrose) from sugarcane. Other products of the processing include bagasse, molasses, and filtercake.
Bagasse, the residual dry fiber of the cane after cane juice has been extracted, is used for several purposes:
- fuel for the boilers and kilns,
- production of paper, paperboard products, and reconstituted panelboard,
- agricultural mulch, and
- as a raw material for production of chemicals.
The primary use of bagasse and bagasse residue is as a fuel source for the boilers in the generation of process steam in sugar plants. Dried filtercake is used as an animal feed supplement, fertilizer, and source of sugarcane wax.
Molasses is produced in two forms: Blackstrap, which has a characteristic strong flavor, and a purer molasses syrup. Blackstrap molasses is sold as a food and dietary supplement. It is also a common ingredient in animal feed, is used to produce ethanol and rum, and in the manufacturing of citric acid. Purer molasses syrups are sold as molasses, and may also be blended with maple syrup, invert sugars, or corn syrup. Both forms of molasses are used in baking.
REFINING
Sugar refining further purifies the raw sugar. It is first mixed with heavy syrup and then centrifuged in a process called "affination". Its purpose is to wash away the sugar crystals' outer coating, which is less pure than the crystal interior. The remaining sugar is then dissolved to make a syrup, about 60 percent solids by weight.
The sugar solution is clarified by the addition of phosphoric acid and calcium hydroxide, which combine to precipitate calcium phosphate. The calcium phosphate particles entrap some impurities and absorb others, and then float to the top of the tank, where they can be skimmed off. An alternative to this "phosphatation" technique is "carbonatation",
which is similar, but uses carbon dioxide and calcium hydroxide to produce a calcium carbonate precipitate.
After filtering any remaining solids, the clarified syrup is decolorized by filtration through activated carbon. Bone char or coal-based activated carbon is traditionally used in this role. Some remaining color-forming impurities adsorb to the carbon. The purified syrup is then concentrated to supersaturation and repeatedly crystallized in a vacuum, to produce white refined sugar. As in a sugar mill, the sugar crystals are separated from the molasses by centrifuging. Additional sugar is recovered by blending the remaining syrup with the washings from affination and again crystallizing to produce brown sugar. When no more sugar can be economically recovered, the final molasses still contains 20–30 percent sucrose and 15–25 percent glucose and fructose.
To produce granulated sugar, in which individual grains do not clump, sugar must be dried, first by heating in a rotary dryer, and then by blowing cool air through it for several days.
RIBBON CANE SYRUP
Ribbon cane is a subtropical type that was once widely grown in the southern United States, as far north as coastal North Carolina. The juice was extracted with horse or mule-powered crushers; the juice was boiled, like maple syrup, in a flat pan, and then used in the syrup form as a food sweetener. It is not currently a commercial crop, but a few growers find ready sales for their product.
POLLUTION FROM SUGARCANE PROCESSING
Particulate matter, combustion products, and volatile organic compounds are the primary pollutants emitted during the sugarcane processing. Combustion products include nitrogen oxides (NOX), carbon monoxide (CO), CO2, and sulfur oxides (SOX). Potential emission sources include the sugar granulators, sugar conveying and packaging equipment, bulk loadout operations, boilers, granular carbon and char regeneration kilns, regenerated adsorbent transport systems, kilns and handling equipment (at some facilities), carbonation tanks, multi-effect evaporator stations, and vacuum boiling pans. Modern pollution prevention technologies are capable of addressing all of these potential pollutants.
PRODUCTION
Brazil led the world in sugarcane production in 2013 with a 739 267 TMT harvest. India was the second largest producer with 341 200 TMT tons, and China the third largest producer with 125 536 TMT tons harvest.
The average worldwide yield of sugarcane crops in 2013 was 70.77 tons per hectare. The most productive farms in the world were in Peru with a nationwide average sugarcane crop yield of 133.71 tons per hectare.
The theoretical possible yield for sugar cane, according to 1983 study of Duke, is about 280 metric tons per hectare per year, and small experimental plots in Brazil have demonstrated yields of 236–280 metric tons of fresh cane per hectare. The most promising region for high yield sugarcane production were in sun drenched, irrigated farms of northern Africa, and other deserts with plentiful water from river or irrigation canals.
In the United States, sugarcane is grown commercially in Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, and Texas.
Brazil uses sugarcane to produce sugar and ethanol for gasoline-ethanol blends (gasohol), a locally popular transportation fuel. In India, sugarcane is used to produce sugar, jaggery and alcoholic beverages.
CANE ETHANOL
Ethanol is generally available as a byproduct of sugar production. It can be used as a biofuel alternative to gasoline, and is widely used in cars in Brazil. It is an alternative to gasoline, and may become the primary product of sugarcane processing, rather than sugar.
In Brazil, gasoline is required to contain at least 22 percent bioethanol. This bioethanol is sourced from Brazil's large sugarcane crop.
The production of ethanol from sugar cane is more energy efficient than from corn or sugar beets or palm/vegetable oils, particularly if cane bagasse is used to produce heat and power for the process. Furthermore, if biofuels are used for crop production and transport, the fossil energy input needed for each ethanol energy unit can be very low. EIA estimates that with an integrated sugar cane to ethanol technology, the well-to-wheels CO2 emissions can be 90 percent lower than conventional gasoline.
A textbook on renewable energy describes the energy transformation:
- Presently, 75 tons of raw sugar cane are produced annually per hectare in Brazil. The cane delivered to the processing plant is called burned and cropped (b&c), and represents 77% of the mass of the raw cane. The reason for this reduction is that the stalks are separated from the leaves (which are burned and whose ashes are left in the field as fertilizer), and from the roots that remain in the ground to sprout for the next crop. Average cane production is, therefore, 58 tons of b&c per hectare per year.
- Each ton of b&c yields 740 kg of juice (135 kg of sucrose and 605 kg of water) and 260 kg of moist bagasse (130 kg of dry bagasse). Since the lower heating value of sucrose is 16.5 MJ/kg, and that of the bagasse is 19.2 MJ/kg, the total heating value of a ton of b&c is 4.7 GJ of which 2.2 GJ come from the sucrose and 2.5 from the bagasse.
- Per hectare per year, the biomass produced corresponds to 0.27 TJ. This is equivalent to 0.86 W per square meter. Assuming an average insolation of 225 W per square meter, the photosynthetic efficiency of sugar cane is 0.38%.
- The 135 kg of sucrose found in 1 ton of b&c are transformed into 70 litres of ethanol with a combustion energy of 1.7 GJ. The practical sucrose-ethanol conversion efficiency is, therefore, 76% (compare with the theoretical 97%).
- One hectare of sugar cane yields 4,000 litres of ethanol per year (without any additional energy input, because the bagasse produced exceeds the amount needed to distill the final product). This, however, does not include the energy used in tilling, transportation, and so on. Thus, the solar energy-to-ethanol conversion efficiency is 0.13%.
BAGASSE APPLICATIONS
Sugarcane is a major crop in many countries. It is one of the plants with the highest bioconversion efficiency. Sugarcane crop is able to efficiently fix solar energy, yielding some 55 tonnes of dry matter per hectare of land annually. After harvest, the crop produces sugar juice and bagasse, the fibrous dry matter. This dry matter is biomass with potential as fuel for energy production. Bagasse can also be used as an alternative source of pulp for paper production.
Sugarcane bagasse is a potentially abundant source of energy for large producers of sugarcane, such as Brazil, India and China. According to one report, with use of latest technologies, bagasse produced annually in Brazil has the potential of meeting 20 percent of Brazil’s energy consumption by 2020.
ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION
A number of countries, in particular those devoid of any fossil fuel, have implemented energy conservation and efficiency measures to minimize energy used in cane processing and furthermore export any excess electricity to the grid. Bagasse is usually burned to produce steam, which in turn creates electricity. Current technologies, such as those in use in Mauritius, produce over 100 KWh of electricity per tonne of bagasse. With a total world harvest of over 1 billion tonnes of sugar cane per year, the global energy potential from bagasse is over 100,000 GWh. Using Mauritius as a reference, an annual potential of 10,000 GWh of additional electricity could be produced throughout Africa. Electrical generation from bagasse could become quite important, particularly to the rural populations of sugarcane producing nations.
Recent cogeneration technology plants are being designed to produce from 200 to over 300 KWh of electricity per tonne of bagasse. As sugarcane is a seasonal crop, shortly after harvest the supply of bagasse would peak, requiring power generation plants to strategically manage the storage of bagasse.
BIOGAS PRODUCTION
A greener alternative to burning bagasse for the production of electricity is to convert bagasse into biogas. Technologies are being developed to use enzymes to transform bagasse into advanced biofuel and biogas.
SUGARCANE AS FOOD
In most countries where sugarcane is cultivated, there are several foods and popular dishes derived directly from it, such as:
- Raw sugarcane: chewed to extract the juice
- Sayur nganten: an Indonesian soup made with the stem of trubuk (Saccharum edule), a type of sugarcane.
- Sugarcane juice: a combination of fresh juice, extracted by hand or small mills, with a touch of lemon and ice to make a popular drink, known variously as air tebu, usacha rass, guarab, guarapa, guarapo, papelón, aseer asab, ganna sharbat, mosto, caldo de cana, nước miá.
- Syrup: a traditional sweetener in soft drinks, now largely supplanted in the US by high fructose corn syrup, which is less expensive because of corn subsidies and sugar tariffs.
- Molasses: used as a sweetener and a syrup accompanying other foods, such as cheese or cookies
- Jaggery: a solidified molasses, known as gur or gud or gul in India, is traditionally produced by evaporating juice to make a thick sludge, and then cooling and molding it in buckets. Modern production partially freeze dries the juice to reduce caramelization and lighten its color. It is used as sweetener in cooking traditional entrees, sweets and desserts.
- Falernum: a sweet, and lightly alcoholic drink made from sugarcane juice
- Cachaça: the most popular distilled alcoholic beverage in Brazil; a liquor made of the distillation of sugarcane juice.
- Rum: is a liquor made from sugarcane products, typically molasses but sometimes also cane juice. It is most commonly produced in the Caribbean and environs.
- Basi: is a fermented alcoholic beverage made from sugarcane juice produced in the Philippines and Guyana.
- Panela: solid pieces of sucrose and fructose obtained from the boiling and evaporation of sugarcane juice; a food staple in Colombia and other countries in South and Central America
Rapadura: a sweet flour that is one of the simplest refinings of sugarcane juice, common in Latin American countries such as Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela (where it is known as papelón) and the Caribbean.
- Rock candy: crystallized cane juice
- Gâteau de Sirop
WIKIPEDIA
Zanskari woman in traditional dress.
Zanskar is a subdistrict of the Kargil district, which lies in the eastern half of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. The administrative centre is Padum. Zanskar, together with the neighbouring region of Ladakh, was briefly a part of the kingdom of Guge in Western Tibet.
Zanskar's population is small, the April 2006 medical census records a population of 13,849 people. The medical census is the most accurate indicator of population as it collects birth, death, and census information from Zangskar's 22 medical aid centers. Roughly 95% of the inhabitants practice Tibetan Buddhism, while the remainder are Sunni Muslims, whose ancestors settled in Padum and its environs in the 19th century. The majority of Zanskaris are of mixed Tibetan and Indo-European origins; notably Dard and Mon. The latter are in fact ethnically Dard, but "Mon" is used in order to distinguish them from later Dard settlers. The population lives mainly in scattered small villages, the largest being the capital Padum, with nearly 700 inhabitants. Most of the villages are located in the valleys of the Zanskar river and its two main tributaries. Given the isolation of this region, the inhabitants tend towards self-sufficiency, and until recently lived in almost complete autarky. External trade has, however, always been necessary for the acquisition of goods such as tools, jewellery, or religious artefacts. The Zanskaris' main occupations are cattle-rearing and farming of land that they almost always own. Cultivable land is scarce, and restricted to alluvial fans and terraces, cultivated fields being rarely found above an altitude of 4,000 metres. The Zanskaris have developed a system of intensive arable agriculture and complex irrigation to produce enough food in these conditions. The scarcity of cultivable land has also resulted in a tendency towards a stable, zero-growth population. An efficient birth-control system in Zanskar has historically been achieved by the common practice of polyandrous marriage, in which several brothers are married to the same wife, and the widespread adoption of a celibate religious life. A high infant mortality rate also contributes to population stability. In the summer, the women and children stay far away from the villages to tend to the livestock. This system, known as transhumance, is similar to the one found in the Alps where the animals are sent during the summer higher up in the mountains (the alpages) and were kept by the children and women.
Ahir tribals (May village).
The Ahir are descendants of Lord Krishna. They lived as shepherds at Gokul Mathura about a thousand years ago. After leaving Gokul Mathura they spread throughout northern and northwestern India. There are four types of Ahir tribals namely Prantharia, Machhoya, Boureecha and Sorathia.
These communities are mainly of farmers who once sold milk and ghee but who now have changed their business to transport or salt because of the irregularity of rain. Their mother tongue is Gujarati. They worship Ramdevpir.
The engagement of an Ahir girl is formalized when the groom`s parents present a gift to the bride`s family. The Prantharia Ahirs give money. Machhoya and Boureecha give sets of clothes decorated with mirror work embroidery. The bride`s relatives also contribute at least one silver necklace, one or two gold necklaces, earrings, nose pins, anklets and bracelets.
The costume of an Ahir woman indicates her Jati and her age. Young women have the most elaborate costumes. Their gathered skirts of red, green, blue, orange or brown tied and dyed cotton are richly embroidered. Older married women must be content with plain black cotton tube shirts and simple decorated cotton or plain mashru blouses in subdued colours. Young and middle aged women wear Odhanis of red and block striped mashru with embroidered border.
Southern India is almost monotonously lush and green with vegetation. Villagers counter this greenness by painting their homes in brilliant colors. Photo taken from car window while traveling on the beautiful new East Coast Highway running along the coast of Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean.