An Analysis of Communal Conflict in India

Dear Readers, I found a good paper/Article on Communal conflict in India and thought of  sharing it.You can read it by clicking at following link.

https://www.academia.edu/36148494/Communal_Conflict_In_India

 

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Agricultural Revolution : An Overview-A Timeline of Innovations

Technological Innovations play a significant role in peopling and demography of a region.Between the eighth century and the eighteenth, the tools of farming basically stayed the same and few advancements in technology were made. This meant that the farmers had no better . In fact, early Roman plows were superior to those in general use in America eighteen centuries later.

All that changed in the 18th century with the agricultural revolution, a period of agricultural development that saw a massive and rapid increase in agricultural productivity and vast improvements in farm technology. Listed below are many of the inventions that were created or greatly improved during the agricultural revolution.

Plow and Moldboard

By definition, a plow (also spelled plough) is a farm tool with one or more heavy blades that breaks the soil and cut a furrow or small ditch for sowing seeds. A moldboard is a wedge formed by the curved part of a steel plow blade that turns the furrow.

Seed Drills

It was a significant improvement.Before drills were invented, seeding was done by hand. The basic idea of drills for seeding small grains was successfully developed in Great Britain, and many British drills were sold in the United States before one was manufactured in the States. American manufacture of these drills began about 1840. Seed planters for corn came somewhat later, as machines to plant wheat successfully were unsuited for corn planting. In 1701, Jethro Tull invented his seed drill and is perhaps the best-known inventor of a mechanical planter.

Machines That Harvest

By definition, a sickle is a curved, hand-held agricultural tool used for harvesting grain crops. Horse-drawn mechanical reapers later replaced sickles for harvesting grains. Reapers were then replaced by the reaper-binder (cuts the grain and binds it in sheaves) and in turn, was replaced by the swather before being replaced by the combine harvester. A combine harvester is a machine that heads, threshes and cleans grain while moving across the field.Combine harvester in a sense revolutionise the farming.

The Rise of the Textile Industry

The cotton gin had turned the whole South toward the cultivation of cotton. While the South was not manufacturing any considerable proportion of the cotton it grew, the textile industry was flourishing in the North. A whole series of machines similar to those used in Great Britain had been invented in America and mills paid higher wages than in Britain. Production was also far ahead of the British mills in proportion to hands employed, which meant the U.S. was ahead of the rest of the world.

Wages in America

Take-home pay, measured by the world standard, was high. Additionally, there was a good supply of free land or land that was practically free. Wages were high enough that many could save enough to buy their own land. Workers in textile mills often worked only a few years to save money, buy a farm or to enter some business or profession.

Advances in Transportation Lines

The steamboat and the railroad enabled transportation to the West. While steamboats traveled all the larger rivers and the lakes, the railroad was growing rapidly. Its lines had extended to more than 30 thousand miles. Construction also went on during the war, and the transcontinental railway was in sight. The locomotive had approached standardization and the American railway was now comfortable for passengers with the invention of Pullman sleeping cars, the dining cars, and the automatic air brake developed by George Westinghouse.

Was it A Wheat Revolution?

Was it an agricultural revolution or wheat revolution. Wheat was domesticated or Man was domesticated. Its a question to ponder.

 

Agriculture in India

Indian agriculture has an extensive background which goes back to at least 10 thousand years. Currently the country holds the second position in agricultural production in the world. In 2007, agriculture and other industries such as lumbering and forestry made up more than 16% of India’s GDP. Despite the steady decline in agriculture’s contribution to the country’s GDP, India agriculture is the biggest industry in the country and plays a key role in the socioeconomic growth of the country. India is the second biggest producer of wheat, rice, cotton, sugarcane, silk, groundnuts, and dozens more. It is also the second biggest harvester of vegetables and fruit, representing 8.6% and 10.9% of overall production, respectively. The major fruits produced by India are mangoes, papayas, sapota, and bananas. India also has the biggest number of livestock in the world, holding 281 million. In 2008, the country housed the second largest number of cattle in the world with 175 million.

Source(s):

Bellis, Mary. “History of the Agricultural Revolution.” ThoughtCo, Apr. 23, 2019, thoughtco.com/agricultural-revolution-1991931.

Origin of Agriculture

Farming Started At many Places

Agriculture Started in West Asia?

 

 

 

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Rural-Urban Interaction and Social Change

Rural-urban interaction is an important aspect of urbanisation. It is very probable that urbanisation and urban growth would have their impact on rural areas and activities in rural areas would have their effect on the nearby towns and cities.

 Urbanisation has impact on the economy and society of the surrounding villages. There is increase in farm pro­ductivity (due to the availability of fertilizers, better seeds, tractors, etc., in nearby cities), increase in commercialization of crops and decline in the density of farm population.Villagers  imbibe several urban characteristics in day to day life . Rural society also undergoes a certain change.

The dichotomous like rural urban dochotomy perspective neglects the existence of continuous interdependent, complimentary and overlapping relationships of rural and urban sectors which are reflected through mutual exchange system of goods and services. The rural people are dependent on the urban dwellers for their banking and credit needs, for the purchase of agricultural equipment and other supplies, for marketing of farm products, and even for commercial recreation.

The urban sector is dependent on the rural sector for food supply, for cheap labour, and for vast market of its manufactured goods. The urban professionals like doctors, lawyers, etc., draw a large number of their patients/clients from rural areas because hospitals and courts are mostly con­centrated in the urban areas.

One phenomenon which affects rural-urban relationships is migration. Most rural migrants who move to urban areas are young males who take up unskilled and semi-skilled occupations.This migration from rural to urban areas exerts pressures on urban public services and creates problems of social disorganisation.

Migration from rural to urban areas is of different types. One is to settle down permanently in the urban area of one’s choice. This is called translocatory migration. Other is one in which migrants hang on to their rural base and migrate repeatedly and for varying duration, either to the same urban area or to different ones. This is termed circulatory migration.

Yet others migrate in graded steps from a smaller to a latter settlement. This is known as step-migration. Mary Chatterjee (1971) has shown that the stability of migration is a function of distance from the native place, as well as of occupational status.

The longer the distance from the native place, the greater the number of migrants who regard their stay in city as temporary. Relatively, more migrants from lower-prestige occupations than those from higher occupations regard their stay in city as temporary.

Migration from rural to urban areas also follows certain patterns. One, it depends upon the ‘pull’ factors at the urban and ‘push’ factors at the rural end. Thus, migration of agricultural labourers from Bihar to Punjab during the harvest season is of this type. Then there is migration which is caused by rural poverty and urban opportunity of getting work. Migration of young children as well as of adults from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to other states for the lure of a job is of this ‘pull’ type.

However, rural-urban conflicts are not clear- cut and do not erupt in open violence. It is difficult to fix their beginning or ending. The three factors identified by which promote/foster cleavages and conflicts among the rural people for the ur­ban people are: contrasting environmental subcultures, modernisation, and urban bias.

Urban Sphere of Influence

The urban sphere of influence can be defined as the geographical region which surrounds an urban system  and maintains inflow-outflow relationship with the system .

Every urban centre, irrespective of the size and the nature of function, has a region of influence. Generally speaking, as the size of the population increases, the multiplicity of functions increases. As a result, the influence zone is larger and vice versa.

Rural Urban Continuum

Rural- urban continuum is  the merging of town and village.The concept is a term used in recognition of the fact that there is rarely, either physically or socially, a sharp division, a clearly marked boundary between the two, with one part of the population wholly urban, the other wholly rural.

Rural Urban Fringe

The Rural-Urban fringe is the name given to the land at the edge of an urban area, where there is often a huge mixture of land uses.

 

Link(s) and Source(s):

Wikipedia

YourArticleLibrary

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Poverty in India – an analysis

sambhu10's avatarsamartyagi

Poverty is one of the most hotly debated issue. It has become a headache in the minds of govt. belonging to developing countries. Billions of dollars are spent on poors to move them out of poverty but do these efforts really bear fruit..what are the stimulus that gives the best result can only be known after doing several types of doses like education, healthcare facilities, micro finance, cash benefits, free food grain or at subsidised prices and much more benefits that accrue to poors . as we see around us. even we ourselves too gives alms to poor beggars sometime.
as a matter of fact first one needs to know what a poor is.. for determining poverty we have to draw a poverty line that demarcates poor from non- poors. over the years there has been several modifications in the poverty line . world bank has a poverty line …

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