namastekantipur

noreply@blogger.com (rajiv) — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 05:50:00 +0000

As a result of search engine changes, linkingwith other sites is becoming an increasingly iportant way to generate traffic to your website. Links done properly will repay the effort and not be subject to the whims of the search engines.No more need to be concerned unduly about algorithmnchanges and the "Google dance".

Why have a Links Page ? A links page should give your visitors a choiceof quality information and resources, not justa web page to improve your search engine rankings.Quality information on a links page is the bestlong-term strategy to improve search engineranking.Search engines are becoming very sophisticatedand realise that many sites are putting up linksmerely to improve their rankings. Always exchangelinks with web sites that are connected withyour site's theme. How Do you Find Link Exchange Partners?One way is to go to the search engines and lookfor sites that are compatible with your own.Send the webmaster an email requesting requesting a link or phone him or her personally.

An easier way is to register with the SiteSellfree link exchange program which will giveyou quality links and save you a lot of time. can I tell the web site I want to exchange withhas any traffic? Check the traffic ranking with Alexa (www.alexa.com).This will give you a good idea of its popularity.Another way is to check its page rank with Google.If a web site has a page rank of 4, it is morepopular than one with a page rank of 20. Try to exchange links with sites that have moretraffic but you must be realistic also.

How do I show my links on my web Site?You can put your links anywhere on your web site,provided you do not have a large page with linksto all kinds of sites. Remember, keep your linksrelevant to the content of your site.If you have only a few links, the best way is tohave a list with the title of the web site and ashort description of its content. Large numbers of links are not recommended as it looks a bit tacky.

Fed up With the Fed OF ECONOMIC

noreply@blogger.com (rajiv) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 09:32:00 +0000

Public opinion of the Fed is that of being a vigilant watchdog of inflation. Always seen as watching economic indicators and ready to adjust the interest rates in order to “fight” inflation. This is of great irony, because it is the very same Fed that is increasing the money supply thereby causing a reduction in value and subsequent higher prices of goods and services.The confusion stems from the definition of the word inflation. Properly defined, inflation relates to an increase in the money supply in the same way as a balloon is inflated with a volume of air. This has the effect of causing a rise in the prices of goods and services because the value of the unit of money has fallen.

The inflation of a money supply does not have a direct 1:1 effect on pricing of goods and services. For instance, a 10% increase in the money supply does not mean that prices across the board will uniformly increase by 10%. It has a much different effect.To use an example, let us assume that the U.S. government decides to spend money on a new computer system for jets. Let us also assume that this money is newly created money - it wasn’t collected through taxation or the issuing of government bonds (i.e. debt). This newly created money first goes to the people involved with the company that designs and manufactures these said computer systems.

Accordingly, these people become wealthier and have more to spend. Let us assume that they buy cars and wine. Now the new money has gone to those people involved with the making of cars and wine. They in turn buy books and shoes. Now those people become wealthier. And so on…Now what about the average person who doesn’t work in these industries. All he sees is an increase in cars, wine, books and shoes. He now has less to spend on beer and pretzels. So now the beer and pretzel industry experiences a downturn. New entrepreneurs, seek business opportunities within the car, wine, book and shoe industries and avoid the making of beer and pretzels.So what we have is an unequal increase in the pricing of certain goods and services. Some go up, while others actually go down. We also experience a transfer of capital investment from some industries to others.Additionally, the Fed distorts the market through the manipulation of interest rates. Left to it own devices, the market would determine its own rate of interest based upon a consensus of the market participants. If economic conditions were seen as favourable, than new businesses would stand a good chance of succeeding and money lenders would compete with one another to lend out their capital to entrepreneurs.

Conversely, if economic conditions were seen as unfavourable, money lenders would charge a higher rate of interest as they would see it as a greater risk to lend out capital. This theoretical, as it currently exists, interest rate is the market rate of interest.Under the governance of the Fed, the interest rates are dictated by a council of twelve men in expensive suits. The rate of interest is determined and set in accordance with their decision. As it is in the interests of the government to have a boisterous economy, this set rate of interest is often set at a rate below the natural market rate of interest. As such, the entrepreneurs may see profitable ventures

where in fact there are none.

For instance, let us assume that the market rate of interest is 10%. The Fed sets the rate so that banks will lend money to entrepreneurs at only 5%. An entrepreneur will conduct his calculations for the construction of a cheese factory. He needs to borrow one million dollars and forecasts a profit before interest payments on debt of $80,000 per year. Under a natural rate of interest, that being 10%, he would not go ahead with the business model, as it would be losing $20k per year. However, with the seemingly generous 5% rate of interests, his business model will provide a profit after paying the interest payments of $30k per year.

As such, he decides to go ahead with the business.At first blush this seems like a great idea since the cheese factory will produce a profit and provide employment. However, what is lost here is that given the current state of affairs within the marketplace there is insufficient demand for his product as revealed by the 10% market rate of interest that would reveal the business as unprofitable and thus it should never exist.

Things will seem to go along well enough as long as the Fed keeps the interest rate low. A multitude of business models such as this cheese factory comprise what is commonly known as a boom.However, as history shows, the Fed cannot do this indefinitely, because inflation (in the sense of rising prices for goods and services) will erode the consumer base. The Fed responds by raising interest rates. Seemingly overnight, the cheese factory and all other businesses that really shouldn’t exist become unprofitable and a bust occurs. Companies lay off employees (think Nortel, GM), there are an increased number of bankruptcies (think 360Networks, Worldcom) and corporate scandals are exposed (think Enron).Austrian economists refer to these processes as malinvestment. This is the description of capital moving towards unprofitable businesses as a direct result of manipulation of the money supply and interest rates. Economists and pundits refer to it as “overinvestment” or “the economy is overheating”.

Fed up With the Fed OF ECONOMIC

noreply@blogger.com (rajiv) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 09:32:00 +0000

where in fact there are none.

How to Promote Your Website and Generate Traffic Using Free Methods???

noreply@blogger.com (rajiv) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 09:29:00 +0000

You have created your website or have signed up as an affiliate and received a free website, now it is up to you to promote it and generate traffic to your business in order to make money.Now you may be thinking that, in order to make money you are going to need money. Not true, for many of us, we just do not have the resources or money to generate traffic to our websites like some do.

Well, you don’t have to spend a penny; really all you need to do is to have the proper mindset and a lot of eagerness. As well, the perseverance and drive to work hard and do your research to generate traffic to your site. How sweet it is to generate traffic to your website without having to spend a single penny.

Now, I am not about to beat around the bush here, and I will tell you honestly that it may take a bit more time. When you pay for your advertisements you are going to get results faster. But at least you will have a fighting chance with some of the free methods I am about to tell you.Write good content on your website Once your site is discovered and if the content is good quality content, people will return to read more or tell friends about it. Search engines will index it more frequently because humans are visiting often due to your great quality content.Search engine optimization is also extremely important, but I am no expert when it comes to this topic. About the best advice I can give you about search engine optimization is that you will need to have the right keywords in order to get higher rankings in the search engines.

But I can assure you that you can get plenty of free information about it if you type those keywords into your browser. Enlist your website into the hottest Internet directories that are free. It is an easy and effective website promotion tactic. Start with this and the rest of the good things will follow. Just don’t forget to spruce up your website so that you have a higher chance of getting accepted in your directory of choice.Write articles You will want your articles to pique the attention of your target audience. Provide tips and guides of interest to them. The article must be related to what your website is about. That way, when they read your resource box, there will be a higher chance that they will click on your link so that they can get more information or buy your product. Submit your article to article directories, many are free, and don’t stop at writing just a few articles because you are not getting any results. Keep it up, become known as the expert that you are in your field, and people will begin to trust you.

Exchanging links with other sites. All that is required of you is to reach an agreement with another webmaster to trade links. Ok, so it’s not all that simple, it takes time and persistence because some webmasters will not agree to link back to you, but it is possible and free. As long as you link to the right sites, ones that are related to yours. You can attain a good ranking with the search engines. Spend some time on online forums and online communities. You can locate forums that target your niche. You can answer and ask questions, wow them with your range of expertise about the subject. Build a good reputation for your company and build trust with the people in your expertise and knowledge.

Do not sell, but you can let them know about your site in your signature and attract instant visitors right away.Each of these methods will generate more traffic to your website for free. It only takes a bit of effort and some additional man-hours. Educate yourself about the methods depicted here and you will soon generate traffic to your site without the usual costs that come with it.Connie McKenzie is a full-time work at home mom who devotes herself to doing the things she loves to do most. One of those things being affiliate marketing. Once I discovered the power of affiliate marketing and promoting my website, I started making a lot of money online. Do you want to do the same? Register for a FREE high quality Link Exchange

What you don’t know about property tax could be costing you thousands of dollars each year?

noreply@blogger.com (rajiv) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 09:26:00 +0000

If you are over 55 and have owned your home for several years you may be eligible for property tax relief!There are currently three propositions that affect eligibility for tax relief; Proposition 13, Proposition 60 and Proposition 90. You’ll learn how each of these propositions are saving the over 55 home owners a significant amount of money.

Prop 13 – The Golden EggProposition 13 prohibits property tax increases until property ownership is changed. If you currently own your home you know how much money you are saving in light of the fact that housing values have sky rocketed over the last 5 years! However, what happens when you sell your home? Will you have to give up the advantage of the lower cost property tax you currently enjoy? Not necessarily…Prop 60 – Transferring Made EasyProposition 60 allows you to transfer your current property value to a new home within the same county you live in now.

You must be replacing your primary residence and the cost of the new home must be equal or lesser value than your current home.This allowance can be used once in your lifetime. For those of you who have a spouse that has taken advantage of this tax break previously, you will not be allowed as a couple to use this tax loophole again.What happens if you move out of your current county?Prop 90 – Distance No Longer an IssueProp. 90 allows a county to choose to accept or deny Prop. 13 and accept a grandfathered property value assessment when buying a new home. As of June 1, 2005, seven California counties honor Proposition 13; Alameda, Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Ventura. Prop. 60 and 90 apply if you are “trading down.” (i.e. The value of your new home is less than the value of your old home.) However, the government being who they are, has stipulations. If you buy your new home first, then sell the old home, you must go down in price. If you sell the old home first, then buy the new home:o In the first 365 days after the sale of your old home, you may go up 5% in the purchase price of your new home.o If you buy your new home more than one year from the sale of your old home, but less than two years, you may go up 10%.o You must file a claim with your county assessor’s office within three years of the acquisition or completion of construction of the replacement property.o

Claim forms are available at the Assessor’s public counter and in regional offices, or you may visit the State of California website, State Board of Equalization at: www.boe.ca.gov/proptaxes/assessors.htm.Some buyers may choose to pay the commissions outside of escrow to keep the cost of the purchase price down. Your lender will prove invaluable in helping you maximize your costs/mortgage package to take full advantage of this incredible tax break.

Rosemarie Mandel has been providing outstanding lending service to her hundreds of clients for over 5 years. Her clients span the United States from coast to coast. Rosemarie may be reached by calling 818-444-4788, by visiting her website at www.innovativemortgagesolutions-sandiego.com, or by email at rosemarie@ims-sandiego.com. All Rights Reserved. This article may be reproduced in its entirely including contact information.

Show Your True Colours with Beads-fashion

noreply@blogger.com (rajiv) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 09:02:00 +0000

If you have heard the saying "you are what you wear" then beads would certainly tell how fantastical, romantic, fun loving, adaptable and versatile person you are. Beads are a great way to add zing and spice to your look and style. You can create your own style statement with various kinds of beads, or you can simply mix and match things to put forth a sizzling combination together with an easy going attitude. Beads are the best way to define and complement your style, your dress and all kinds of occasion.

You can wear beads almost everywhere. Apart from your ear pieces and necklace, you can wear beads around your wrists; in bracelets; in armlets; in anklets, and also in your belt – a loose loop around your waist defines your slender waist and also it looks quite nice. You can also add beads to your exquisite jewellery, like the tiaras.Not just as jewellery, you can also put beads in your clothes and in your accessories like bags and purses to make them look cool, trendy and friendly. Beads in your accessories always give you a young look and feel, despite your real age. It also shows that you are in tune with times and passionately follow trends. You can pep up any simple, ordinary looking bag or outfit by adding a few beads with the help of ex-beading accessories.Beads can be simple and non-expensive. And at the same time there are those beads which are precious and, therefore, cost a little more than others. You have to know which beads to wear in different kinds of occasions.

Beads are great when you want to catch up with friends; then there are beads that can be worn to the office; and also there are those gorgeous looking precious beads that are meant for parties and high social gatherings.Paul Shane cherishes a hobby of studying and collecting jewellery, to dig out the making and story behind them, especially the rare or exquisite ones, also the Beads being used for manufacturing the jewellery. He also loves studying consumer behaviour related to jewellery selecting and buying. At present he is associated with a leading group called E-Beads Limited.

BEADS

dZi (lucky) beads are traditional Tibetain beads made from semi-precious gemstones and bones. According to Tibetan customs, dZi beads bring luck, health and happiness. The beautifully crafted designs all have varying symbolic values and meanings. Browse through this unique collection to find exceptional beads to add to your jewellery designs.

Flash Drive Undelete.....

noreply@blogger.com (rajiv) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 08:58:00 +0000

Data Doctor USB Drive Data Undelete Utility restores deleted jpg, jpeg, gif, midi and wav files and audio video music files and folder. Pen drive data recovery tool recovers MS Office documents like word, excel, power point, access, text files and application program files even USB drive is accidentally formatted or drive not detected message is displayed on the screen.

Thumb drive data recovery utility supports various brands of USB drive like Jet flash, Super flash, Hitachi, Kingmax, Sandisk, Iomega, Logitech, crossfire, Kingston, SanDisk, LG, Sony, Avixe, Toshiba, Inov8, Cruzer, Ricoh, PQI on various USB card reader in different storage capacity such as 64mb, 128mb, 256mb, 512mb, 1gb, 2gb, 4gb, 8gb, and even higher capacity drives. Pen drive data retrieval utility retrieves, xls, ppt and mdb files even disk is virus affected.

Memory stick data recovery software supports windows operating system like windows 98, 2000, 2003 server, NT Workstation, NT Server, Windows XP Home edition, Me, Pro edition and Vista. Features: * Pen drive data recovery utility recovers deleted audio video music files and folders. * Thumb drive data undelete tool has read only permission so it does not affect other files in the disk.

* Memory stick data rescue utility is GUI (Graphical User Interface) based so it is easy to use. * USB drive data restoration software restores MS office documents and application programs even pen drive is formatted.

* For assistance of user tool provides help manual so it is easy to use for users. * Pen drive data undelete utility supports windows operating system like windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, 2003, XP, XP media center 2005 and windows vista.Download Now

The data recovery software for removable media recover deleted files or corrupted or formatted folders directories Mp3 MP4 midi music digital images video/pictures from all type of USB removable storage media such as thumb drive, mobile phone memory card, external flash drive, micro drive, smart drive and other USB storage devices.

Complete data recovery support on Microsoft windows operating system which proves to be perfect removable media data recovery solution. Restore files (stored on your USB removable media) easily and completely.

The award winning Data Doctor Software is the perfect utility to data restore and is fully integrated for your Flash Drives usb keys/pens, Smart Media, Zip drive, compact flash (CF), secure digital (SD), XD Picture Card and other removable media. Very easy to use and does not require any technical skills to operate the software. Just install it on your Microsoft Windows based machine and you can even recover data lost due to accidental formatting, corruption, virus worm error in different version of MS Windows, Apple Mac (Macintosh) operating system.

Singing bowl

noreply@blogger.com (rajiv) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 07:35:00 +0000

Singing bowl

Singing bowls (also known as 'Himalayan bowls' or 'rin gongs' in Japan) are a
type of bell, specifically classified as a standing bell. Rather than hanging
inverted or attached to a handle, standing bells sit with the bottom surface
resting. The sides and rim of singing bowls vibrate to produce sound. Singing
bowls were traditionally used throughout Asia as part of Buddhist meditation
practice. Today they are used worldwide for meditation, relaxation, healthcare,
personal well-being and religious practice.

Singing bowls were historically made in Tibet, Nepal, India, Bhutan, China,
Japan and Korea. Today they are made in Nepal, India, Japan and Korea. The best
known type are from the Himalayan region and are often called "Tibetan singing
bowls."

Origins, history and usage

In Buddhist practice, singing bowls are used as a
support for meditation, trance induction and prayer. For example, Chinese
Buddhists use the singing bowl to accompany the wooden fish during chanting,
striking it when a particular phrase in a sutra, mantra or hymn is sung. In
Japan and Vietnam, singing bowls are similarly used during chanting and may also
mark the passage of time or signal a change in activity.

The use of singing bowls in Tibet is the subject of much debate and many
stories. Some people say they were used for meditation while others say they
were magical tools for transformation of self and of matter.

As Perry (1996) and Jansen(1992) state, little is known in western scholarship
regarding Himalayan singing bowls. It is likely they were used in rituals,
having a specific function like other instruments (such as the ghanta, tingsha
and shang). The oral and written traditions from the Himalayan region are vast
and largely unknown in the west. To date, no specific texts have been found
discussing the use of singing bowls in depth, but according to Joseph Feinstein
of Himalayan Bowls (2006), paintings and statues dating from several centuries
ago depict singing bowls in detail. Singing bowls from at least the 10th-12th
century are found in private collections. The tradition may date significantly
earlier since bronze has been used to construct musical instruments since
ancient times. Bronze bells from Asia have been discovered since as early as the
8th-10th century BCE (Feinstein, 2006).

Singing bowls are played by the friction of rubbing a wooden, plastic, or
leather wrapped mallet around the rim of the bowl to produce overtones and a
continuous 'singing' sound. Genuine antique singing bowls produce a complex
chord of harmonic overtones. Singing bowls may also be played by striking with a
soft mallet to produce a warm bell tone.

Antique singing bowls are unique because they are multiphonic instruments,
producing multiple harmonic overtones at the same time. Antique singing bowls
are the fruit of sophisticated metallurgy, techniques currently deemed lost and
provide a unique study in the Timeline of materials technology and do high
quality bells and other instuments. The overtones are a result of their
metalworking and fabrication which consists of multiple metals and were produced
by a sophisticated hammered or beaten technique with . The majority of new bowls
are cast metal and not hammered and beaten with Metalworking hand tools.

Both Antique and New Bowls are widely used as an aid to meditation (see the
"Meditation and the brain" section in Meditation) and as a tool for trance
induction. They are also used in yoga, music therapy, sound healing, religious
services, performance and for personal enjoyment.

Antique singing bowls

Traditionally, antique singing bowls were made of Panchaloga: an alloy
of bronze, copper, tin, zinc and other metals. Antiques often include silver,
gold, iron and nickel.

Antique singing bowls produce multiphonic and polyharmonic overtones which are
unique to the antique instruments. The subtle yet complex multiple harmonic
frequencies are a special quality of the high quality bronze alloy. The art of
making singing bowls in the traditional way is considered a lost art.

Antique singing bowls may display abstract decorations like lines, rings and
circles engraved into the surface. Decoration may appear outside the rim, inside
the bottom, around the top of the rim and sometimes on the outside bottom.

Antique singing bowls are highly prized and collected worldwide. Their
popularity is due to their fine craftsmanship and remarkable sound.

New singing bowls

New bowls may be plain or decorated. They sometimes feature religious
iconography and spiritual motifs and symbols, like the Tibetan mantra om mani
padme hum, pictures of Buddhas, mandala, etc.

New singing bowls are made from industrial quality metal, mainly copper. They
are exported widely from Nepal and India.

High quality new singing bowls are made in Japan and Korea but are not widely
exported.

New singing bowls and crystal bowls do not produce the warm and complex tone of
fine antiques. They sound like clear and simple bells, without the warm
undertones and bright harmonic overtones for which antiques are famous.

Crystal singing bowls

Crystal bowls are often categorized together with metal singing bowls
but they are very different. The use of the word "crystal" is misleading because
crystal bowls are actually made from silicon glass. Their manufacture was an
offshoot of medical containers like test tubes. Crystal bowls produce what is
referred to as a pure sine tone (refer pure tone). This pure sine tone can be
very intense and piercing. The tone is qualitatively different from the warm
timbre and complex polyphonic experience of antique singing bowls. Crystal bowls
do not produce multiple harmonic overtones and lack the warm and mellow quality
of antique singing bowls.

Refugee

noreply@blogger.com (rajiv) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 09:47:00 +0000

According to the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, a refugee is a person who
“
owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of their nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail him/herself of the protection of that country.
”
The concept of a refugee was expanded by the Conventions’ 1967 Protocol and by regional conventions in Africa and Latin America to include persons who had fled war or other violence in their home country. A person who is seeking to be recognized as a refugee is an asylum seeker. In the United States a recognized asylum seeker is known as an asylee.
Refugee was defined as a legal group in response to the large numbers of people fleeing Eastern Europe following World War II. The lead international agency coordinating refugee protection is the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which counted 8.4 million refugees worldwide at the beginning of 2006. This was the lowest number since 1980.The major exception is the 4.3 million Palestinian refugees under the authority of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), who are the only group to be granted refugee status to the descendants of refugees according to the above definition.The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants gives the world total as 12,019,700 refugees and estimates there are over 34,000,000 displaced by war, including internally displaced persons, who remain within the same national borders. The majority of refugees who leave their country seek asylum in countries neighboring their country of nationality. The "durable solutions" to refugee populations, as defined by UNHCR and governments, are: voluntary repatriation to the country of origin; local integration into the country of asylum; and resettlement to a third country.

Refugees arrive in Travnik, central Bosnia, during the war, 1993. Photo by Mikhail Evstafiev
As of December 31, 2005, the largest source countries of refugees are the Palestinian Territories, Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar, and Sudan. The country with the largest number of IDPs is Sudan, with over 5 million. According to UNHCR estimates, over 4.2 million Iraqis have been displaced since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, with 2 million within the Iraq and 2.2 million in neighbouring countries. At least 60,000 Iraqis are losing their homes and becoming refugees every month. This has become the largest refugee crisis in Middle East since the upheaval that greeted the creation of Israel nearly 60 years ago.[7] A May 25, 2007 article notes that in the past seven months only 69 people from Iraq have been granted refugee status in the United States.

World War II and UNHCR

The conflict and political instability during World War II led to massive amounts of forced migration. In 1943, the Allies created the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) to provide aid to areas liberated from Axis powers, including parts of Europe and China. This included returning over seven million refugees, then commonly referred to as displaced persons or DPs, to their country of origin and setting up displaced persons camps for one million refugees who refused to be repatriated.
After the defeat of Germany in World War II, the Potsdam Conference authorized the expulsion of German minorities from a number of European countries (including Soviet- and Polish-annexed pre-war East Germany), meaning that 12,000,000 ethnic Germans were displaced to the reallocated and divided territory of Allied-occupied Germany. Between the end of World War II and the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961, more than 3,700,000 refugees from East Germany traveled to West Germany for asylum from the Soviet occupation.
Also, millions of former Russian citizens were forcefully repatriated (against their will) into the USSR.[10] On 11 February 1945, at the conclusion of the Yalta Conference, the United States and United Kingdom signed a Repatriation Agreement with the USSR. The interpretation of this Agreement resulted in the forcible repatriation of all Soviets regardless of their wishes. When the war ended in May 1945, British and U.S. civilian authorities ordered their military forces in Europe to deport to the Soviet Union several millions of former residents of the USSR, including numerous persons who had left Russia and established different citizenship many years before. The forced repatriation operations took place from 1945-1947.
At the end of the World War II, there were more than 5 million "displaced persons" from the Soviet Union in the Western Europe. Nearly two million had been forced laborers (Ostarbeiter) in Germany and occupied territories. Millions of Soviet POWs and forced laborers transported to Nazi Germany were on their return to the USSR treated as traitors, cowards, and deserters. Many of them were executed or deported to the Soviet prison camps. The Soviet POWs and the Vlasov men were put under the jurisdiction of SMERSH (Death to Spies). 60% of Soviet POWs died during the war. Over 1.5 million surviving Red Army soldiers imprisoned by the Germans were sent to the Gulag (10 to 20 years was the usual term).
Poland and Soviet Ukraine conducted population exchanges - Poles that resided east of the established Poland-Soviet border were deported to Poland (ca. 2,100,000 persons) and Ukrainians that resided west of the established Poland-Soviet Union border were deported to Soviet Ukraine. Population transfer to Soviet Ukraine occurred from September 1944 to April 1946 (ca. 450,000 persons). Some Ukrainians (ca. 200,000 persons) left southeast Poland more or less voluntarily (between 1944 and 1945).
At the time, UNRRA was shut down in 1949 and its refugee tasks given to the International Refugee Organization (IRO). The International Refugee Organization was a temporary organization of the United Nations (UN), which itself had been founded in 1945, with a mandate to largely finish the UNRRA's work of repatriating or resettling European refugees. It was dissolved in 1952 after resettling about one million refugees.The definition of a refugee at this time was an individual with either a Nansen passport or a "Certificate of Eligibility" issued by the International Refugee Organization.

Poverty

noreply@blogger.com (rajiv) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 09:17:00 +0000

Poverty

A boy from an East Cipinang trash dump slum in Jakarta, Indonesia shows what he found.

Look up poverty in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Poverty is understood in many senses. The main understandings of the term include:
Descriptions of material need, typically including the necessities of daily living (food, clothing, shelter, and health care). Poverty in this sense may be understood as a condition in which a person or community is deprived of, and or lacks the essentials for a minimum standard of well-being and life. These essentials may be material resources such as food, safe drinking water, and shelter, or they may be social resources such as access to information, education, health care, social status, political power, or the opportunity to develop meaningful connections with other people in society.
Descriptions of social relationships and need, including social exclusion dependency and the ability to participate in society. This would include education and information.
Describing a (persistent) lack of income and wealth. The World Bank, for example, uses a global indicator of incomes of $1 or $2 a day. In relative terms disparities in income or wealth income disparities are seen as an indicator of poverty and the condition of poverty is linked to questions of scarcity and distribution of resources and power.
The World Bank's "Voices of the Poor," based on research with over 20,000 poor people in 23 countries, identifies a range of factors which poor people identify as part of poverty. These include
precarious livelihoods
excluded locations
physical limitations
gender relationships
problems in social relationships
lack of security
abuse by those in power
disempowering institutions
limited capabilities, and
weak community organizations.
Most important are those necessary for material well-being, especially food. Others of these issues relate to social rather than material issues. However it should be noted that this text has come in for scathing criticism that argues that it recreates old, highly pejorative and sometimes racialized colonial stereotypes and projects them on to poor people.
Poverty may be defined by a government or organization for legal purposes, see Poverty threshold.
Poverty may be seen as the collective condition of poor people, or of poor groups, and in this sense entire nation-states are sometimes regarded as poor. A more neutral term is developing nations. Although the most severe poverty is in the developing world, there is evidence of poverty in every region. In developed countries examples include homeless people and ghettos.
Poverty is also a type of religious promise, a state that may be taken on voluntarily in keeping with practices of piety. In Christianity it is one of the evangelical counsels intended to aid the imitation of the example of Christ.

Causes of poverty

Many different factors have been cited to explain why poverty occurs. However, no single explanation has gained universal acceptance. Some possible factors include:
Natural factors such as the climate or environment
Geographic factors, for example access to fertile land, fresh water, minerals, energy, and other natural resources. Presence or absence of natural features helping or limiting communication, such mountains, deserts, sailable rivers, or coastline. Historically, geography has prevented or slowed the spread of new technology to areas such as the Americas and Sub-Saharan Africa. The climate also limits what crops and farm animals may be used on similarly fertile lands.[20]
On the other hand, research on the resource curse has found that countries with an abundance of natural resources creating quick wealth from exports tend to have less long-term prosperity than countries with less of these natural resources.
Inadequate nutrition in childhood in poor nations may lead to physical and mental stunting that may lead to economic problems. (Hence, it is both a cause and an effect). For example, lack of both iodine and iron has been implicated in impaired brain development, and this can affect enormous numbers of people: it is estimated that 2 billion people (one-third of the total global population) are affected by iodine deficiency, including 285 million 6- to 12-year-old children. In developing countries, it is estimated that 40% of children aged 4 and under suffer from anaemia because of insufficient iron in their diets. See also Health and intelligence.
Disease, specifically diseases of poverty: AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis and others overwhelmingly afflict developing nations, which perpetuate poverty by diverting individual, community, and national health and economic resources from investment and productivity. Further, many tropical nations are affected by parasites like malaria, schistosomiasis, and trypanosomiasis that are not present in temperate climates. The Tsetse fly makes it very difficult to use many animals in agriculture in afflicted regions.
Lacking rule of law.
Lacking democracy.
Lacking infrastructure.
Lacking health care
Lacking equitably available education.
Government corruption.
Overpopulation and lack of access to birth control methods. Note that population growth slows or even become negative as poverty is reduced due to the demographic transition.
Tax havens which tax their own citizens and companies but not those from other nations and refuse to disclose information necessary for foreign taxation. This enables large scale political corruption, tax evasion, and organized crime in the foreign nations.
Historical factors, for example imperialism and colonialis
Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, Monarchy, Fascism and Totalitarianism have all been named as causes by scholars writing from different perspectives. For example, poorly functioning property rights is seen by some as a cause of poverty, while socialists see the institution of property rights itself as a cause of poverty.
Lacking free trade. In particular, the very high subsidies to and protective tariffs for agriculture in the developed world. For example, almost half of the budget of the European Union goes to agricultural subsidies, mainly to large farmers and agribusinesses, which form a powerful lobby.[39] Japan gave 47 billion dollars in 2005 in subsidies to its agricultural sector, nearly four times the amount it gave in total foreign aid. The US gives 3.9 billion dollars each year in subsidies to its cotton sector, including 25,000 growers, three times more in subsidies than the entire USAID budget for Africa’s 500 million people. This drains the taxed money and increases the prices for the consumers in developed world; decreases competition and efficiency; prevents exports by more competitive agricultural and other sectors in the developed world due to retaliatory trade barriers; and undermines the very type of industry in which the developing countries do have comparative advantages.

A homeless woman with her dog in a street of Rome
Lack of trade barriers on incoming (often highly subsidized) goods from wealthier countries is also considered by some economists a cause of poverty. Almost all wealthy countries developed through some forms of import substitution and direct government protection of and investment in local industries.
Substance abuse, such as alcoholism and drug abuse.
Individual beliefs, actions and choices.
Discrimination of various kinds, such as age discrimination, stereotyping, gender discrimination, racial discrimination.

LEGAL LAW

noreply@blogger.com (rajiv) — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 10:14:00 +0000

LAW

Law is a system of rules usually enforced through a set of institutions.Law
affects everyday life and society in a variety of ways. Contract law regulates
everything from buying a bus ticket to trading swaptions on a derivatives
market. Property law defines rights and obligations related to buying, selling,
or renting real property such as homes and buildings. Trust law applies to
assets held for investment, such as pension funds. Tort law allows claims for
compensation when someone or their property is harmed. But if the harm is
criminalised in a penal code, criminal law offers means to prosecute and punish
the perpetrator. Constitutional law provides a framework for creating laws,
protecting people's human rights, and electing political representatives, while
administrative law allows ordinary citizens to challenge the way governments
exercise power. International law regulates affairs between sovereign
nation-states in everything from trade to the environment to military action.
"The rule of law", wrote the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle in 350 BCE, "is
better than the rule of any individual."

Legal systems around the world elaborate legal rights and responsibilities in
different ways. A basic distinction is made between civil law jurisdictions and
systems using common law. Some countries base their law on religious scripts.
Scholars investigate the nature of law through many perspectives, including
legal history and philosophy, or social sciences such as economics and
sociology. The study of law raises important questions about equality, fairness
and justice, which are not always simple. "In its majestic equality", said the
author Anatole France in 1894, "the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep
under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread."The most important
institutions for law are the judiciary, the legislature, the executive, its
bureaucracy, the military and police, the legal profession and civil society.

Legal subjects

Though all legal systems deal usually with the same or similar issues, different
countries often categorise and name legal subjects in different ways. Quite
common is the distinction between "public law" subjects, which relate closely to
the state (including constitutional, administrative and criminal law), and
"private law" subjects (including contract, tort, property). In civil law
systems, contract and tort fall under a general law of obligations and trusts
law is dealt with under statutory regimes or international conventions.
International, constitutional and administrative law, criminal law, contract,
tort, property law and trusts are regarded as the "traditional core
subjects",although there are many further disciplines which might be of greater
practical importance.

International law

Main articles: Public international law, Conflict of laws, and European Union
law

Providing a constitution for public international law, the United Nations was
conceived during World War II.In a global economy, law is globalising too.
International law can refer to three things: public international law, private
international law or conflict of laws and the law of supranational organisations.

Public international law concerns relationships between sovereign nations. It
has a special status as law because there is no international police force, and
courts lack the capacity to penalise disobedience.The sources for public
international law to develop are custom, practice and treaties between sovereign
nations. The United Nations, founded under the UN Charter, is the most important
international organisation, established after the Treaty of Versailles's failure
and World War II. Other international agreements, like the Geneva Conventions on
the conduct of war, and international bodies such as the International Court of
Justice, International Labour Organisation, the World Trade Organisation, or the
International Monetary Fund, also form a growing part of public international
law.

Conflict of laws (or "private international law" in civil law countries)
concerns which jurisdiction a legal dispute between private parties should be
heard in and which jurisdiction's law should be applied. Today, businesses are
increasingly capable of shifting capital and labour supply chains across
borders, as well as trading with overseas businesses. This increases the number
of disputes outside a unified legal framework and the enforceability of standard
practices. Increasing numbers of businesses opt for commercial arbitration under
the New York Convention 1958.

European Union law is the first and only example of a supranational legal
framework. However, given increasing global economic integration, many regional
agreements—especially the Union of South American Nations—are on track to follow
the same model. In the EU, sovereign nations have pooled their authority through
a system of courts and political institutions. They have the ability to enforce
legal norms against and for member states and citizens, in a way that public
international law does not. As the European Court of Justice said in 1962,
European Union law constitutes "a new legal order of international law" for the
mutual social and economic benefit of the member states.

Constitutional and administrative law

Main articles: Constitutional law and Administrative law

The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, whose principles
still have constitutional valueConstitutional and administrative law govern the
affairs of the state. Constitutional law concerns both the relationships between
the executive, legislature and judiciary and the human rights or civil liberties
of individuals against the state. Most jurisdictions, like the United States and
France, have a single codified constitution, with a Bill of Rights. A few, like
the United Kingdom, have no such document; in those jurisdictions the
constitution is composed of statute, case law and convention. A case named
Entick v. Carrington[10] illustrates a constitutional principle deriving from
the common law. Mr Entick's house was searched and ransacked by Sheriff
Carrington. When Mr Entick complained in court, Sheriff Carrington argued that a
warrant from a Government minister, the Earl of Halifax, was valid authority.
However, there was no written statutory provision or court authority. The
leading judge, Lord Camden, stated that,

"The great end, for which men entered into society, was to secure their
property. That right is preserved sacred and incommunicable in all instances,
where it has not been taken away or abridged by some public law for the good of
the whole… If no excuse can be found or produced, the silence of the books is an
authority against the defendant, and the plaintiff must have judgment."

The fundamental constitutional principle, inspired by John Locke,[11] is that
the individual can do anything but that which is forbidden by law, and the state
may do nothing but that which is authorised by law. Administrative law is the
chief method for people to hold state bodies to account. People can apply for
judicial review of actions or decisions by local councils, public services or
government ministries, to ensure that they comply with the law. The first
specialist administrative court was the Conseil d'État set up in 1799, as
Napoleon assumed power in France.

Criminal law

Main article: Criminal law

A depiction of a 1600s criminal trial, for witchcraft in SalemCriminal law is
the body of law that defines criminal offences and the penalties for convicted
offenders.[13] Apprehending, charging, and trying suspected offenders is
regulated by the law of criminal procedure. In every jurisdiction, a crime is
committed where three elements are fulfilled. First, the accused must commit the
criminal act, or actus reus (guilty act). Second, there must exist a victim, who
suffered a legally recongnised harm. In the case of victimless crimes, the legal
system regards the accused, or society at large, as the victim of the criminal
act. Third, there must exist causation, which is a logical connection, supported
by evidence, that establishes the link between the criminal act and the harm
suffered. If it cannot be proven that the act caused the harm, a conviction
cannot be sustained. For most, but not all crimes, the criminal must also have
the requisite malicious intent to do a criminal act, or mens rea (guilty mind).
A mens rea, however, is not a required element for strict liability crimes, such
as statutory rape, which require only that the accused engaged in a criminal
act; the legal system does not take into account the mental state of the accused
when determining culpability for the offense.

Examples of different kinds of crime include murder, assault, fraud or theft. In
exceptional circumstances, defences can exist to some crimes, such as killing in
self defence, or pleading insanity. Another example is in the 19th century
English case of R v. Dudley and Stephens,which tested a defence of "necessity".
The Mignotte, sailing from Southampton to Sydney, sank. Three crew members and a
cabin boy were stranded on a raft. They were starving and the cabin boy close to
death. Driven to extreme hunger, the crew killed and ate the cabin boy. The crew
survived and were rescued, but put on trial for murder. They argued it was
necessary to kill the cabin boy to preserve their own lives. Lord Coleridge,
expressing immense disapproval, ruled, "to preserve one's life is generally
speaking a duty, but it may be the plainest and the highest duty to sacrifice
it." The men were sentenced to hang, but public opinion, especially among
seafarers, was outraged and overwhelmingly supportive of the crew's right to
preserve their own lives. In the end, the Crown commuted their sentences to six
months.

Criminal law offences are viewed as offences against not just individual
victims, but the community as well.[13] The state, usually with the help of
police, takes the lead in prosecution, which is why in common law countries
cases are cited as "The People v. …" or "R. (for Rex or Regina) v. …" Also, lay
juries are often used to determine the guilt of defendants on points of fact:
juries cannot change legal rules. Some developed countries still have capital
punishment and corporal punishment for criminal activity, but the normal
punishment for a crime will be imprisonment, fines, state supervision (such as
probation), or community service. Modern criminal law has been affected
considerably by the social sciences, especially with respect to sentencing,
legal research, legislation, and rehabilitation.[13] On the international field,
104 countries have signed the enabling treaty for the International Criminal
Court, which was established to try people for crimes against humanity.

Contracts

Main article: Contract

The Carbolic Smoke Ball offer, which bankrupted the Co. because it could not
fulfill the terms it advertisedThe concept of a "contract" is based on the Latin
phrase pacta sunt servanda (agreements must be kept). Contracts can be simple
everyday buying and selling or complex multi-party agreements. They can be made
orally (e.g. buying a newspaper) or in writing (e.g. signing a contract of
employment). Sometimes formalities, such as writing the contract down or having
it witnessed, are required for the contract to take effect (e.g. when buying a
house).

In common law jurisdictions, there are three key elements to the creation of a
contract. These are offer and acceptance, consideration and an intention to
create legal relations. For example, in Carlill v. Carbolic Smoke Ball
Company[21] a medical firm advertised that its new wonder drug, the smokeball,
would cure people's flu, and if it did not, buyers would get £100.[22] Many
people sued for their £100 when the drug did not work. Fearing bankruptcy,
Carbolic argued the advert was not to be taken as a serious, legally binding
offer. It was an invitation to treat, mere puff, a gimmick. But the court of
appeal held that to a reasonable man Carbolic had made a serious offer. People
had given good consideration for it by going to the "distinct inconvenience" of
using a faulty product. "Read the advertisement how you will, and twist it about
as you will", said Lord Justice Lindley, "here is a distinct promise expressed
in language which is perfectly unmistakable".

"Consideration" means all parties to a contract must exchange something of value
to be able to enforce it. Some common law systems, like Australia, are moving
away from consideration as a requirement for a contract. The concept of estoppel
or culpa in contrahendo can be used to create obligations during pre-contractual
negotiations. In civil law jurisdictions, consideration is not a requirement for
a contract at all.[24] In France, an ordinary contract is said to form simply on
the basis of a "meeting of the minds" or a "concurrence of wills". Germany has a
special approach to contracts, which ties into property law. Their 'abstraction
principle' (Abstraktionsprinzip) means that the personal obligation of contract
forms separately from the title of property being conferred. When contracts are
invalidated for some reason (e.g. a car buyer is so drunk that he lacks legal
capacity to contract) the contractual obligation to pay can be invalidated
separately from the proprietary title of the car. Unjust enrichment law, rather
than contract law, is then used to restore title to the rightful owner.

Tort law

Main article: Tort

The "McLibel" two were involved in the longest running case in UK history for
publishing a pamphlet criticising McDonald's restaurantsTorts, sometimes called
delicts, are civil wrongs. To have acted tortiously, one must have breached a
duty to another person, or infringed some pre-existing legal right. A simple
example might be accidentally hitting someone with a cricket ball. Under
negligence law, the most common form of tort, the injured party can make a claim
against the party responsible for the injury. The principles of negligence are
illustrated by Donoghue v. Stevenson. Mrs Donoghue ordered an opaque bottle of
ginger beer in a café in Paisley. Having consumed half of it, she poured the
remainder into a tumbler. The decomposing remains of a dead snail floated out.
She fell ill and sued the manufacturer for carelessly allowing the drink to be
contaminated. The House of Lords decided that the manufacturer was liable for
Mrs Donoghue's illness. Lord Atkin took a distinctly moral approach, and said,

"The liability for negligence… is no doubt based upon a general public sentiment
of moral wrongdoing for which the offender must pay… The rule that you are to
love your neighbour becomes in law, you must not injure your neighbour; and the
lawyer's question, Who is my neighbour? receives a restricted reply. You must
take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee
would be likely to injure your neighbour."

This became the basis for the four principles of negligence; Mr Stevenson
owed Mrs Donoghue a duty of care to provide safe drinks he breached his
duty of care the harm would not have occurred but for his breach and
his act was the proximate cause, or not too remote a consequence, of her
harm.Another example of tort might be a neighbour making excessively loud noises
with machinery on his property. Under a nuisance claim the noise could be
stopped. Torts can also involve intentional acts, such as assault, battery or
trespass. A better known tort is defamation, which occurs, for example, when a
newspaper makes unsupportable allegations that damage a politician's
reputation.More infamous are economic torts, which form the basis of labour law
in some countries by making trade unions liable for strikes,when statute does
not provide immunity.

SILK

noreply@blogger.com (rajiv) — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 08:44:00 +0000

SILK SILK

Silk dressesSilk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven
into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from cocoons made by the
larvae of the silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity (sericulture). The
shimmering appearance for which silk is prized comes from the fibers' triangular
prism-like structure which allows silk cloth to refract incoming light at
different angles.

"Wild silks" or tussah silks (also spelled "tasar") are produced by caterpillars
other than the mulberry silkworm (Bombyx mori). They are called "wild" as the
silkworms cannot be artificially cultivated like Bombyx mori. A variety of wild
silks have been known and used in China, India, and Europe from early times,
although the scale of production has always been far smaller than that of
cultivated silks. Aside from differences in colors and textures, they all differ
in one major aspect from the domesticated varieties: the cocoons that are
gathered in the wild have usually already been damaged by the emerging moth
before the cocoons are gathered, and thus the single thread that makes up the
cocoon has been torn into shorter lengths. Commercially reared silkworm pupae
are killed before the adult moths emerge by dipping them in boiling water or
piercing them with a needle, thus allowing the whole cocoon to be unraveled as
one continuous thread. This allows a much stronger cloth to be woven from the
silk. Wild silks also tend to be more difficult to dye than silk from the
cultivated silkworm.

There is some evidence that small quantities of wild silk were already being
produced in the Mediterranean area and the Middle East by the time the superior,
and stronger, cultivated silk from China began to be imported (Hill 2003,
Appendix C).

Silks are produced by several other insects, but only the silk of moth
caterpillars has been used for textile manufacture. There has been some research
into other silks, which have differences at the molecular level. Silks are
mainly produced by the larvae of insects with complete metamorphosis, but also
by some adult insects such as webspinners. Silk production is especially common
in the Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, and ants), and is sometimes used in nest
construction. Other types of arthropod produce silk, most notably various
arachnids such as spiders (see spider silk).

India and Nepal

Silk, known as Pattu or Reshmi in southern parts of India and Resham in Hindi,
has a long history in India and is widely produced today. Historically silk was
used by the upper classes, while cotton was used by the poorer classes. Today
silk is mainly used in Bhoodhan Pochampally (also known as Silk City),
Kanchipuram, Dharmavaram, Mysore, etc. in South India and Banaras in the North
for manufacturing garments and Sarees. "Murshidabad silk", famous from
historical times, is mainly produced in Malda and Murshidabad district of West
Bengal and woven with hand looms in Birbhum and Murshidabad district. Another
place famous for production of silk is Bhagalpur. The silk from Kanchi is
particularly well-known for its classic designs and enduring quality. The silk
is traditionally hand-woven and hand-dyed and usually also has silver threads
woven into the cloth. Most of this silk is used to make saris. The saris usually
are very expensive and vibrant in color. Garments made from silk form an
integral part of Indian weddings and other celebrations. In the northeastern
state of Assam, three different types of silk are produced, collectively called
Assam silk: Muga, Eri and Pat silk. Muga, the golden silk, and Eri are produced
by silkworms that are native only to Assam. The heritage of silk rearing and
weaving is very old and continues today especially with the production of Muga
and Pat riha and mekhela chador, the three-piece silk saris woven with
traditional motifs. Mysore Silk Sarees, which are known for their soft texture
and expensive class last easily as long as 25 to 30 years, if maintained well.

Cocoon

The tough brown cocoon of an Emperor Gum MothA cocoon is a casing spun of silk
by many moth caterpillars and numerous other holometabolous insect larvae as a
protective covering for the pupa.

Cocoons may be tough or soft, opaque or translucent, solid or meshlike, of
various colors, or composed of multiple layers, depending on the type of insect
larva producing it. Many moth caterpillars shed the larval hairs (setae) and
incorporate them into the cocoon; if these are urticating hairs then the cocoon
is also irritating to the touch. Some larvae attach small twigs, fecal pellets
or pieces of vegetation to the outside of their cocoon in an attempt to disguise
it from predators. Others spin their cocoon in a concealed location - on the
underside of a leaf, in a crevice, down near the base of a tree trunk, suspended
from a twig or concealed in the leaf litter.[3]

Insects that pupate in a cocoon must escape from it, and they do this either by
the pupa cutting its way out, or by secreting fluids that soften the cocoon.
Some cocoons are constructed with built-in lines of weakness along which they
will tear easily from inside, or with exit holes that only allow a one-way
passage out; such features facilitate the escape of the adult insect after it
emerges from the pupal skin.

Silkworm cocoons are processed and used to produce natural silk for clothing.

An Emperor Gum Moth caterpillar spinning its cocoon.	Luna moth cocoon and pupa.	Assortment of Luna moth cocoons.	Luna moth emerging from silk cocoon.
Luna moth pupa removed from cocoon.	Chrysalis of Gulf Fritillary in Georgetown, South Carolina	Pupation of Inachis io	Monarch Butterfly chrysalis

SILK SILK SILK SILK

PASHMINA

noreply@blogger.com (rajiv) — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 09:16:00 +0000

Pashmina shawl Pashmina shawl Pashmina shawl Pashmina shawl

Pashmina refers to a type of

cashmere wool and
textiles
made from it. The name comes from Pashmineh, made from

Persian pashm (= "wool"). This wool comes from a special breed of
goat indigenous to
high altitudes of the
Himalayan
mountains. The special goat's fleece has been used for thousands of years to
make high-quality shawls that also bear the same name. The Himalayan Mountain
goat, Capra hircus, sheds its winter coat every spring and the fleece is
caught on thorn bushes. One goat sheds approximately 3-8 ounces of the
fiber. Villages
would scour the mountainside for the finest fleece to be used.
Cashmere
shawls have been manufactured in
Kashmir and
Nepal for
thousands of years, but the Indians never called them "pashmina". They were
popularly called Kashmiri wool shawls. The test for a quality pashmina has been
warmth, feel and the passing of the shawl through a wedding ring.

Pashmina is an indigenous Nepali word which only became popular after the
so-named shawls, woven in Nepal, started being popular in the west. What are
commonly thought of as pashminas have their origin in Nepal, where the people
have a cultural heritage of hand-weaving pashmina shawls with the well-known
fringing and hand dyeing.

A pashmina shawl
can range in cost from as little as about $35US for a pure pashmina
scarf or up to
hundreds of $US for a super high-quality pure pashmina shawl. They are known for
their softness and warmth. A craze for pashminas in the mid-1990's resulted in
high demand for pashminas, so demand exceeded supply.

A stack of pashmina fabric

To meet the demands of cashmere lovers, the goats are now commercially reared
in the Gobi Desert
area in Inner and Outer
Mongolia.
The region has identical harsh weather conditions to those of the Himalayan
region, and is thereby apt for the goats to grow this inner wool, but also has
acres of grazing ground to produce cashmere economically and commercially.
During spring (Molting Season), the goats shed this inner wool, which they
develop all over again during the course of the winter. The inner wool is
collected, sheared and spun to produce cashmere. The quality is just as high,
while the costs have become more reasonable as a result.

Pashmina accessories are available in a range of sizes, from "scarf" (12" x
60") to "wrap" or "stole"
(28" x 80") to fullsize shawl (36" x 80"). Pure pashmina is a rather gauzy, open
weave, as the wool cannot tolerate high tension. The most popular pashmina
fabric is a 70% pashmina/30%
silk blend, but
50/50 is also common. The 70/30 is tightly woven, has an elegant sheen and
drapes nicely, but is still quite soft and light-weight.

When pashmina shawls rose into fashion prominence during the mid 90’s, they
were marketed dubiously. Cashmere used for pashmina shawls was claimed to be of
a superior quality attributable to the enhanced sheen and softness that the
fabric (cashmere blended with silk) encompassed. In the consuming markets,
pashmina shawls were again defined as a shawl/wrap with cashmere and silk,
notwithstanding the actual meaning of pashmina - which is technically an
accessory of pure pashmina and not the blend. Following up, some unscrupulous
companies marketed the man-made fabric
viscose as "pashmina"
with deceptive marketing statements as "authentic viscose pashmina". These are
often sold for a very low price, leaving the buyer to decide whether it is
authenticity, quality, or price that motivates their purchase.

[hide] v • d • e Fabric
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Figured woven:	Brocade · Camlet · Damask · Songket
Pile woven:	Baize · Chenille · Corduroy · Fustian · Plush · Polar fleece · Terrycloth · Velours du Kasaï · Velvet · Velveteen · Zibeline
Nonwoven:	Felt · Nonwovens
Knitted:	Coolmax · Machine knitting · Velour
Netted:	Net · Bobbinet · Carbon fiber · Fishnet · Lace · Mesh · Needlerun Net · Ninon · Tulle
Technical:	Goretex · Smartwool · Silnylon · Spandex · SympaTex
Patterns:	Herringbone · Houndstooth · Paisley · Plaid · Tartan · Toile
Textile fibers:	Acrylic · Alpaca · Angora · Asbestos · Carbon Fiber · Cashmere · Catgut · Chamois · Coir · Cotton · Hemp · Jute · Kevlar · Linen · Mohair · Nylon · Microfibre · Olefin · Pashmina · Polyester · Piña · Ramie · Rayon · Silk · Sinew · Sisal · Spandex · Spider silk · Wool
Finishing and printing:	Batik · Bògòlanfini · Fulling · Mercerization · Watered silk
Related:	Dyeing · Fiber · History · History of silk · Knitting · Terminology · Manufacturing · Preservation · Weaving · Yarn

CHANGRASHI SHAKTI STATUE

noreply@blogger.com (rajiv) — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 09:06:00 +0000

CHANGRASHI SHAKTI STATUE

CHANGRASHI SHAKTI

HEIGHT

6
INCHES

WEIGHT

MATERIAL

BRONZE

FINISHING

DESCRIPTION

CHANGRAZI

KHARCHHERI is
also a form of
Bodhisatwa Avalokiteswara. He is also
known as Six Syllable Lokeshwara. The six Syllables are " OM MANI PADME
HUM" which is considered so efficacious that it has been carved on rock
faces and constantly chanted by devotees. He is always decked with all
sorts of ornaments. He is white in color, four armed carrying rosary in
the right hand and full blown lotus in left. The other two principal
hands are raised to the chest with the palms enjoined in "Namaskar"
mudra with a round object known as Jewel which is regarded as a symbol
of knowledge.

SAMANTABHADRA

noreply@blogger.com (rajiv) — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 08:50:00 +0000

SAMANTABHADRA

HEIGHT

10
INCHES

WEIGHT

MATERIAL

COPPER

FINISHING

FULL GOLD PLATED

ABOUT

DESCRIPTION

Samantabhadra

There are three
groups with sixteen
Bodhisatwa, Among these three groups
one group is headed by Samantabhadra (Universal Goodness). So he is
imported as the leader sixteen
Bodhisatwa. He is
not less important than the Future Buddha Maitreya who is head of the
two other lists of Bodhisatwa. He embraced by the consort
" Dharmavajra"

CARPET

noreply@blogger.com (rajiv) — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 08:47:00 +0000

A carpet is any loom-woven, felted textile or grass floor covering.
The term was also used for table and wall coverings, as carpets were not
commonly used on the floor in European interiors until the 18th century. The
hand-knotted pile carpet probably originated in
Central
Asia between the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC. Carpet-making was introduced to
Spain in 10th century by the Moors. The Crusades brought

Turkish carpets to all of Europe, where they were primarily hung on walls or
used on tables. Only with the opening of trade routes in the 17th century were
significant numbers of
Persian
rugs introduced to Western Europe.

Some use the words carpet and rug interchangeably. Historically,
however, some have distinguished between carpet and rug based on size (the
former being larger) or use (carpets on floors, rugs on beds or on the hearth).
For the sake of clarity, some textile scholars also differentiate between
carpets and carpeting. In this usage, the latter are wall-to-wall and are
often woven or tufted as "roll goods", most often in 12 foot widths but
sometimes in up to 15 foot widths. In the real estate and home improvement
industries a distinction is made between carpet (or carpeting) and rug. The
former indicates a covering that is affixed to a floor and the latter a floor
covering that is loose-laid, most often for decorative purposes.

Typical machine used to cut and re-roll carpet lengths for installation
delive

Carpet types

Swatches of machine-made carpet

The global carpet market for domestic and industrial end use is dominated by
three manufacturing processes:

Woven: The carpet is produced on a loom similar to woven cloth and is
a cut pile. Normally many coloured yarns are used and this process is capable of
producing intricate patterns from pre-determined designs. These carpets are
normally the most expensive.

Tufted: The carpet is produced on a tufting machine using a
single-colored or sometimes non-colored yarn. If non-colored yarn is used the
carpet will later be dyed or printed with a design. Tufted carpets can be either
cut pile, loop pile or a combination of both. Tufting machines produce many more
metres of carpet per hour than weaving does, and tufted carpets are usually low-
to medium-priced.

Modern tufting technology allows basic geometric patterns to be produced in
addition to solid color. The fibers used to create the patterns are twisted into
yarns and then "tufted" into carpet. Because tufting machines work like enormous
sewing machines with multiple needles, tufted carpet can be produced quickly.
For this reason, most of the carpet manufactured today is tufted rather than
woven.

A ColorTEC carpet is manufactured on a tufting machine but is capable
of producing a design that is close to that of a woven carpet. ColorTec
carpet can have a design up to 20 yards (18m) in length and allows the whole
floorscape to be produced rather than small patterns being repeated.

Needlefelt: These carpets are more technologically advanced.
Needlefelts are produced by electrostatic attraction of individual synthetic
fibers forming an extremely durable carpet. These carpets are normally found in
the contract market such as hotels etc. where there is a lot of traffic.

A flatweave carpet is created by interlocking

warp (vertical) and
weft (horizontal) threads. Types of oriental flatwoven carpet include
kilim,

soumak,
plain
weave, and

tapestry weave. Types of European flatwoven carpets include Venetian, Dutch,
damask, list,
haircloth,
and

ingrain (aka double cloth, two-ply, triple cloth, or three-ply).

A hooked rug is a simple type of rug handmade by pulling strips of
cloth such as wool or cotton through the meshes of a sturdy fabric such as
burlap. This type of rug is now generally made as a
handicraft.

On a knotted pile carpet (formally, a supplementary weft cut-loop
pile carpet), the structural weft threads alternate with a supplementary
weft that rises at right angles to the surface of the weave. This supplementary
weft is attached to the warp by one of three knot types (see below) to form the
pile or nap of the carpet.

In the late 19th century moquette came to mean

wall-to-wall carpeting. However, historically it meant a supplementary
warp-cut or uncut loop pile made on a

draw loom (aka Velour d'Utrecht, Brussels, Wilton,
bouclé, and Frisé). These textiles have a low pile and are thinner
than hand knotted pile carpets. This form of carpeting, made as early as the
16th century, is constructed on a mechanized loom like
velvet: the
supplementary warps loop under the weft and are attached without forming a knot.
Because of the loom structure only five colors can be used to create the design.
Moquette is woven in relatively narrow panels (usually 27" or 36"). Larger works
are composed of several stripes sewn together. Moquette carpets have been used
on floors and tables, and as furniture upholstery and wall coverings. Production
was improved with the application of the Jacquard mechanism (see

Jacquard loom) in 1812 in France and c. 1825 in England, and by the
introduction of steam power in the mid-19th century.

Swatches of Berber carpet

Unlike woven carpets,
embroidery
carpets are not formed on a loom. Their pattern is established by the
application of
stitches to a
cloth (often
linen) base. The tent stitch and the cross stitch are two of the most
common. Embroidered carpets were traditionally made by royal and aristocratic
women in the home, but there has been some commercial manufacture since steel
needles were introduced (earlier needles were made of bone) and linen weaving
improved in the 16th century.
Mary
Stewart Queen of Scots is known to have been an avid embroiderer. 16th
century designs usually involve scrolling vines and regional flowers (for
example, the

Bradford carpet). They often incorporate animal heraldry and the
coat of
arms of the maker. Production continued through the 19th century.

Victorian embroidered carpet compositions include highly illusionistic,
3-dimensional flowers. Patterns for tiled carpets made of a number of squares,
called

Berlin wool work, were introduced in Germany in 1804, and became extremely
popular in England in the 1830s.

Production of knotted pile carpet

Both flat and pile carpets are woven on a
loom. Both vertical
and horizontal looms have been used in the production of European and Oriental
carpets.

The warp threads
are set up on the frame of the loom before weaving begins. A number of weavers
may work together on the same carpet. A row of knots is completed and cut. The
knots are secured with (usually 1 to 4) rows of
weft.

There are several styles of knotting, but the two main types of knot are the
symmetrical (also called Turkish or Ghiordes) and asymmetrical
(also called Persian or Senna).

Flag of Turkmenistan

Contemporary centers of oriental carpet production are:
Iran,
Pakistan,
India,
Turkey,

Northern Africa, the
Caucasus,
Nepal,
Spain,

Turkmenistan, and
Tibet.

The importance of carpets in the culture of Turkmenistan is such that

the national flag features a vertical red stripe near the hoist side,
containing five carpet guls (designs used in producing rugs).

Child labour has often been used in Asia. The
Rugmark
labelling scheme used throughout
Europe and
North
America assures that child labour has not been used: importers pay for the
labels, and the revenue collected is used to monitor centres of production and
educate previously exploited children.

Garden Angelica

noreply@blogger.com (rajiv) — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 09:31:00 +0000

Garden Angelica

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Plantae
Division:	Magnoliophyta
Class:	Magnoliopsida
Order:	Apiales
Family:	Apiaceae
Genus:	Angelica
Species:	A. archangelica

Binomial
name

Angelica archangelica
L.

Garden Angelica (Angelica archangelica; syn. Archangelica officinalis Hoffm.,
Archangelica officinalis var. himalaica C.B.Clarke) is a biennial plant from the umbelliferous
family Apiaceae. Alternative English
names are Holy Ghost, Wild Celery, and Norwegian angelica

During its first year it only grows leaves, but during its second year its
fluted stem can reach a height of two metres. Its leaves are composed of
numerous small leaflets, divided into three principal groups, each of which is
again subdivided into three lesser groups. The edges of the leaflets are finely
toothed or serrated. The flowers, which blossom in July, are small and numerous,
yellowish or greenish in colour, are grouped into large, globular umbels, which
bear pale yellow, oblong fruits. Angelica only grows in damp soil, preferably
near rivers or deposits of water. Not to be confused with the toxic Pastinaca
sativa, or Wild Parsnip.

Angelica archangelica grows wild in Finland, Sweden, Norway,
Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Iceland, mostly in the northern parts of
the countries. It is cultivated in France, mainly in the Marais Poitevin, a marsh region close to Niort in the départment Deux-Sèvres.

Usage/History

From the 10th century
on, angelica was cultivated as a vegetable and medicinal plant, and achieved great popularity
in Scandinavia in the 12th century and is still
used today, especially in Sami
culture. A flute-like instrument with a clarinet-like sound can be made of
its hollow stem, probably as a toy for children. Linnaeus reported that Sami peoples used it in
reindeer milk. Other usages include
spices.

In 1602, angelica was introduced in Niort, which had just been ravaged by the plague, and it
has been popular there ever since. It is used to flavour liqueurs or aquavits (e.g. Chartreuse, Bénédictine, Vermouth and Dubonnet), omelettes and trout, and as jam. The
long bright green stems are also candied and used as decoration.

Angelica contains a variety of chemicals which have been shown to have
medicinal properties. Chewing on angelica or drinking tea brewed from it will
cause local
anesthesia, but it will heighten the consumer's immune system. It has been shown to be effective
against various bacteria, fungal infections and even viral infections.^{[citation needed]}

The essential oil of
the roots of 'Angelica archangelica contains β-terebangelene,
C₁₀H₁₆, and other terpenes; the oil of the seeds also contains
β-terebangelene, together with methylethylacetic acid and hydroxymyristic
acid.

Angelica seeds and angelica roots are sometimes used in making absinthe.

Pashupatinath Temple

noreply@blogger.com (rajiv) — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 09:25:00 +0000

Pashupatinath Temple

Pashupatinath Temple

Name:	Pashupatinath Temple

Date built:	At least 1500 years back
Primary deity:	Pashupatinath
Architecture:	pagoda
Location:	Kathmandu, Nepal

Pashupatinath temple (पशुपतिनाथ मन्दिर) is a Hindu temple located on the shore of the Bagmati river on the eastern part of Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal.

It is regarded as the most sacred temple of Shiva (Pashupati) in the world. Thousands of pilgrims from
all over the world, particularly from Nepal and India pay
homage to this temple everyday. "Shivaratri" or night of lord Shiva is an especially
important day in this temple when tens of thousands of people throng here for
the annual celebration.

Locals have long regarded Pashupatinath temple as a very important part of
the city, both religiously and culturally. Thousands of locals begin their day
by visiting the temple and receiving blessings from lord Shiva early in the
morning. Along the shores of the Bagmati river near the temple lies "Arya Ghat",
the most widely used place of cremation for the deceased in Nepal, especially in
and around the Kathmandu valley. There is also a large market in the streets
surrounding the temple. Vendors sell souvenirs to tourists, but also cloth,
dyes, and religious supplies.

Believers of the faith Hinduism
are allowed to enter the temple. Non-Hindu visitors are allowed to have a look
at the temple from the other bank of Bagmati river

The unique feature of this temple is that only four priests can touch the
idol. The priests are always from south India. This tradition is supposed to
have started by Sage Shankaracharya in 6th century, ostensibly to stop human sacrifice which
was prevalent in that temple.

The more official view of Indian priests being stationed at Pashupatinath is
because when the King passes away, the entire Nepali people are supposed to stop
religious services and enter a year long period of mourning. As the
Pashupatinath needs to be eternally worshipped, Indians were brought to make
sure that the Pashupatinath is worshipped even at the time of official
mourning.

The temple is of pagoda architecture.
The two level roofs are of copper with gold covering. It has four main doors,
all covered with silver sheets. The western door has a statue of large bull or
Nandi, again covered in gold. The idol is of black stone, about 6 ft in height
and about 6ft circumference.

The priests are called Bhattas and
the chief priest is known as Mool Bhatt or Raval. The chief priest
is answerable only to the King of Nepal and reports to him on the matters
of temple on periodic basis.

East of the temple is the Vasukinath.

One of the most known Chief Priest was Raval Padmanabha Shastri Adiga
(1927-2005). He started as a priest in 1955 and was promoted as Chief priest in
1967. In his time, he started a movement to use the temple funds for local
development. He retired in 1993 and moved back to his home town Udupi. Nepal is said to be run by Pashupatinath.Everytime
in history when Nepal has bad rulers bad government the country is still run and
still exists.Recent times with all corrupt leaders and mad king , strikes,
bandas, nepal is still governed by Pashupatinath.jay sumbho.

Gallery

Pashupatinath Temple	Pilgrim in Pashupatinath	Dye seller outside Pashupatinath	Shiva temple in Pashupatinath
Entrance to main temple, forbidden for Non-hindu's. Shiva's Nandi bull can be seen from the rear	Cremations on Bagmati riverbank	Sadhu at Pashupatinath	A holyman crosses Bagmati river with a plank of wood

YETI

noreply@blogger.com (rajiv) — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 08:25:00 +0000

The Yeti or Abominable Snowman is an apelike cryptid said to inhabit the Himalaya region of Nepal and Tibet.
The names Yeti and Meh-Teh are commonly used by the people
indigenous to the region,^[1] and are part of their history and mythology. Nepalese have various
names for Yeti like "Bonmanche" which means "wild man" or "Kanchanjunga rachyyas" which means "Kanchanjunga's
demon."

Most mainstream scientists,
explorers and writers consider current evidence of the Yeti's existence to be
weak and better explained as hoax, legend or misidentification of known
species.^[2] Even today, the Yeti remains one of the most
famous creatures of cryptozoology. As such, the Yeti can be
considered a Himalayan version of the Sasquatch.




Purported Yeti scalp at Khumjung monastery
Creature

Name:	Yeti
AKA:	Abominable Snowman Migoi, Meh-teh et al.
Classification
Grouping:	Cryptid
Sub grouping:	Hominid
Data
Country:	Nepal, Tibet
Region:	Himalayas
Habitat:	Mountains

Events and Studies

19th century

In 1832, the

Journal of the Asiatic society of Bengal published trekker

B. H. Hodgson's account of the Yeti in northern
Nepal. His native
guides spotted a tall, bipedal creature covered with long dark hair, which
seemed to flee in fear. Hodgson did not see the creature, but concluded it was
an orangutan.

An early record of reported
footprints
appeared in 1889 in
L.A.
Waddell's

Among the Himalayas. Waddell reported his guide's description of a large
apelike creature that left the prints, which Waddell concluded were actually
made by a bear.
Waddell heard stories of bipedal, apelike creatures, but wrote that of the many
witnesses he questioned, none "could ever give ... an authentic case. On the
most superficial investigation it always resolved into something that somebody
had heard of."

Early 20th century

The frequency of reports increased during the early
20th
century, when Westerners began making determined attempts to scale the many
mountains
in the area and occasionally reported seeing odd creatures or strange tracks.

In 1925,
N.A.
Tombazi, a

photographer and member of the

Royal Geographical Society, allegedly saw a creature at about 15,000 ft
(4572 meter) near Zemu
Glacier.
Tombazi later wrote that he observed the creature from about 200 or 300
yards, for about a
minute. "Unquestionably, the figure in outline was exactly like a human being,
walking upright and stopping occasionally to pull at some
dwarf

rhododendron
bushes. It showed up dark against the snow, and as far as I could make out,
wore no clothes." About two hours later, Tombazi and his companions descended
the mountain, and saw what they assumed to be the creature's prints, described
as "similar in shape to those of a man, but only six to seven inches long by
four inches wide... The prints were undoubtedly those of a biped."

The Pangboche Scalp

The

Pangboche Hand and Yeti "Scalp",
1954

Dr. Biswamoy Biswas examining the Pangboche Yeti scalp during the
Daily
Mail Snowman Expedition of
1954

The
Daily Mail "Snowman Expedition" of
1954, on
March 19
printed an article which described expedition teams obtaining hair specimens
from a scalp found in Pangboche monastery. The hair was analysed by Professor

Frederic Wood Jones, F.R.S, D.Sc., (who died on

September 29 1954^[25]^[26])
and an expert in human and comparative anatomy.

The research consisted of taking microphotographs of the hairs and comparing
them with hairs from known animals such as bears and orangutans. Professor
Woods-Jones concluded that the hairs of the Pangboche scalp were not actually
from a scalp. He contended that some animals do have a ridge of hair extending
from the pate to the back, but no animals have a ridge (as in the Pangboche
relic) running from the base of the forehead across the pate and ending at the
nape of the neck.

The hairs were black to dark brown in colour in dim light, and fox red in
sunlight. None of the hairs had been dyed and were probably exceedingly old.
During the study, the hairs were bleached, cut into sections and analysed
microscopically. Wood-Jones was unable to pinpoint the animal from which the
Pangboche hairs were taken. He was, however, convinced that the hairs were not
of a bear or anthropoid ape. He suggested that the hairs were not from the head
of a coarse-haired hoofed animal, but from its shoulder.

[edit]
Late 20th century

Western interest in the Yeti peaked dramatically in the 1950s. While
attempting to scale Mount Everest in 1951,
Eric
Shipton took
photographs
of a number of large prints in the snow, at about 6,000 m (19,685 ft) above
sea level.
These photos have been subject to intense scrutiny and debate. Some argue they
are the best evidence of Yeti's existence, while others contend the prints to be
from a mundane creature, and have been distorted by the melting
snow.

In 1953,
Sir
Edmund Hillary and

Tenzing Norgay reported seeing large footprints while scaling
Mount
Everest. But Hillary would later discount Yeti reports as unreliable.^[28]

During the
Daily Mail
Snowman Expedition of 1954,^[29]
the largest search of its kind, the mountaineering leader

John Angelo Jackson, made the first trek from

Everest to

Kangchenjunga during which he photographed symbolic paintings of the Yeti at

Thyangboche Gompa.^[30]
Jackson tracked and photographed many footprints in the snow, most of which were
identifiable. However, there were many large footprints which could not be
identified. The flattened footprint-like indentations were attributed to erosion
and subsequent widening of the original footprint by wind and particles.

Beginning in 1957, wealthy

American
oilman
Tom Slick funded a few missions to investigate Yeti reports. In 1959,
supposed Yeti feces
were collected by Slick's expedition; fecal analysis found a
parasite
which could not be classified.

Bernard Heuvelmans wrote, "Since each animal has its own parasites, this
indicated that the host animal is equally an unknown animal."

In 1959, actor

Jimmy Stewart, while visiting
India, reportedly
smuggled remains of a supposed Yeti, the so-called

Pangboche Hand, by concealing it in his luggage when he flew from India to
London

In 1960, Sir Edmund Hillary mounted an expedition to collect and analyse
physical evidence of the Yeti. He sent a Yeti "scalp"
from the
Khumjung
monastery to the West for testing, whose results indicated the scalp to be
manufactured from the skin of the
serow,
a goat-like Himalayan antelope. But some disagreed with this analysis.
Myra
Shackley said that the "hairs from the scalp look distinctly monkey-like,
and that it contains parasitic mites of a species different from that recovered
from the serow."^{[citation
needed]}

In 1970, British mountaineer
Don
Whillans claims to have witnessed a creature when scaling
Annapurna.
While scouting for a campsite, Whillans heard some odd cries which his Sherpa
guide attributed to a Yeti's call. That very night, Whillans saw a dark shape
moving near his camp. The next day, he observed a few human-like footprints in
the snow, and that evening, viewed with
binoculars
a bipedal, apelike creature for 20 minutes as it apparently searched for food
not far from his camp. ^{[citation
needed]} Nothing was seen again.

ARTS AND CRAFTS

noreply@blogger.com (rajiv) — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 08:17:00 +0000

Art & Craft

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:KaliNepal1920.jpg" width="200" height="269">

Nepalese art andcraft reflect the religiousthemes of Hinduism, Buddhism, and certain location specific depictions. The cultural history of Nepalese art are traditionally divided into five major periods:
Pre-Licchavi, Licchavi, transitional, early Malla (Newar), and late Malla (Newar) periods.

Most of the existing craftsmen areNewars.>

Folklores & folktales

Folklores and folktales have remained an integral part of Nepalese society, and they reveal different dimensions of social and cultural life of the people. Sometales tell of love and affection, others recounthatred andbattles, including some which describedemons,ghosts andcannibalism. Nepalese folklores and folktales have various regional and ethnic colors, and some of them are variations of such tales of other areas which have traveled to Nepal, and being retold with changednames andplaces. There are other tales which are purely of Nepalese origin. Thus, tales in the area ofBhaktapur, complete with princes and richmerchants, can be traced to historical events and sometimes may also be dated.

Like folklores and folktales across theworld, such tales from Nepal are also rooted in the ground reality of day-to-day life, these folklores and folktales reflect local lifestyles, activities, beliefs,emotions,feelings,customs,superstitions, andinhibitions. They also celebrate the basic goodness of human nature, and sometimes reveal a deep faith in the supernatural.

Languages & literatures

As per 2001 census, at least 92 different living languages are spoken in Nepal, though other studies list 123 living languageshttp://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=NP" href="http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=NP" rel="nofollow">[1]. Nepal’s linguistic heritage has evolved from three major language groups, namely,Indo-Aryan,Tibeto-Burman, andindigenous. The major languages of Nepal (percent spoken as mother tongue) areNepali (49%),Maithili (12%), Bhojpuri (8%), Tharu (6%),Tamang (5%),http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepal_Bhasa_(language)">Nepal Bhasa (4%), Magar (3%), Awadhi (2%),Bantawa (2%), Limbu (1%), andBajjika (1%). The remaining languages are each spoken as mother tongue by less than one percent of the population.Nepali, written inDevanagari script, is the official, national language and serves as lingua franca among Nepalese of different ethno linguistic groups. In the southernTerai Region (5 to 10 mile wide stretch of flat plains in the south which is a northern continuation of Gangetic plains of India),Hindi is also spoken.

Extinct languages of Nepal include Dura, Kusunda and Waling.

Among Nepalese writers isParijat.

Religions & philosophy

A Buddhist Monastery

The 2001 census identified 80.6% of the population asHindu andBuddhism was practiced by about 11% of the population (although many people labelled Hindu or Buddhist often practice a syncretic blend of Hinduism, Buddhism and/or animist traditions). About 4.2% of the population isMuslim and 3.6% of the population follows the indigenousKirant religion.Christianity is practiced officially by less than 0.5% of the population.

Main article:Religion in Nepal

Hindu and Buddhist traditions in Nepal go back to more than two millennia. InLumbini, Buddha was born, andPashupatinath temple, Kathamandu, is an old and famousShiva temple. Nepal has several othertemples and Buddhist monasteries, and also places of worship of other religious groups.Tantric traditions are also deep rooted in Nepal, including the practice of animal sacrifices. Five type of animals, always male, are acceptable for sacrifice:buffaloes, goats,sheep,chickens, andducks.>

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JANAKPUR

noreply@blogger.com (rajiv) — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 10:48:00 +0000

Janakpur, 110000 inhabitants, is a city in the Dhanusa, southern Terai, Nepal, approximately 400 km south-east of Kathmandu, 22 km from the Indian border.
The city is centre of the ancient Maithili culture with its own language and script. Janakpur also is the birthplace of Sita Devi, a Hindu goddess (also called Janaki), the heroin of the Ramayana epos and it is the site of her wedding with Rama, a Hindu god. King Janak is supposed to have found baby Sita in a furrow of a field; he took the child home and raised it. When she was a young lady the king announced that she should be wed by whoever is able to string the devine bow of Shiva. That was no other than Rama, a prince from Ayodhya. Thus, Janakpur is an important pilgrimage site for Hindus. The centre of Janakpur is dominated by the impressive Janaki Mandir to the north and west of the bazaar. This temple was built in 1911 and is in many aspects reminiscent of islamic architecture.It is also called "Nau Lakha Mandir", it is a biggest temple in nepal.. Another landmark of Janakpur are the numerous sacred ponds for ritual baths (sagar) all over the city. The 2 most important ones are close to the centre: Dhanush Sagar and Ganga Sagar.
The Maithili language is still widely spoken in the area as well as in the neighbouring Indian state of Bihar. Maithili women are renown for their traditional art, most of all their paintings on pottery, walls and court yards. Typically, Maithili dwellings are made of clay and straw with an inner court yard.There are more than 200 ponds...Festivals The Bibhaha (Viveh) Panchami festival re-enacts the wedding of Rama and Sita. Over 100,000 pilgrims come for this festival. There is a procession with elephants, horses, and decorated chariots with beating drums. It is on the fifth day of the waxing moon in November or early December. Rama Navami, the birthday of Lord Rama, in March-April, is an important festival that draws over 100,000 people. Dipawali in Oct/Nov is a festive time to visit.
There is an annual one-day Parikrama (circumambulation) of the city on the full moon day of February/March. Many people offer prostrated obeisances along the entire 8km route. It is at the same time as the Holi festival.

Maithili (मैथिली Maithilī) is a language of the family of Indo-Aryan languages, which are part of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken in the Indian state of Bihar and in the eastern Terai region of Nepal. Linguists consider Maithili to be an Eastern Indic language, and thus a different language from Hindi, which is Central Indic. Maithili has been considered a dialect of both Hindi and Bengali, and in fact was classified as a mother tongue of Hindi in the Census of India. In 2003 Maithili gained the status of an independent language in India. A movement to give the language official status through inclusion in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution so that it may be used in education, government, and other official contexts, resulted in Maithili being given official status in 2003.
Maithili was traditionally written in the Maithili script (also known by the names Tirhuta and Mithilakshar, which has some resemblance with the Bengali script. It was also written in the Kaithi script, but the Devanagari script is the script most commonly used today for Maithili. An effort is underway to preserve the Maithili script and to develop it for use in digital media by encoding the script in the Unicode standard, for which a proposal, submitted by Anshuman Pandey, to allocate the script in the Unicode Roadmap has been submitted as the first step.
The term Maithili comes from Mithila, which was an independent state in ancient times. Maithili is a separate language, having a large Maithili-speaking community (4.5 crore, or 45 million, people) with a rich literature. The most famous literary figure in Maithili is the poet Vidyapati. He is credited for raising the importance of 'people's language', i.e. Maithili, in the official work of the state by influencing the Maharaja of Darbhanga with the quality of his poetry. The state's official language used to be Sanskrit, which distanced common people from the state and its functions. The name Maithili is also one of the names of Sita, the consort of Rama.

Maithili (मैथिली Maithilī) is a language of the family of Indo-Aryan languages, which are part of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken in the Indian state of Bihar and in the eastern Terai region of Nepal. Linguists consider Maithili to be an Eastern Indic language, and thus a different language from Hindi, which is Central Indic. Maithili has been considered a dialect of both Hindi and Bengali, and in fact was classified as a mother tongue of Hindi in the Census of India. In 2003 Maithili gained the status of an independent language in India. A movement to give the language official status through inclusion in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution so that it may be used in education, government, and other official contexts, resulted in Maithili being given official status in 2003.

Maithili was traditionally written in the Maithili script (also known by the names Tirhuta and Mithilakshar, which has some resemblance with the Bengali script. It was also written in the Kaithi script, but the Devanagari script is the script most commonly used today for Maithili. An effort is underway to preserve the Maithili script and to develop it for use in digital media by encoding the script in the Unicode standard, for which a proposal, submitted by Anshuman Pandey, to allocate the script in the Unicode Roadmap has been submitted as the first step.
The term Maithili comes from Mithila, which was an independent state in ancient times. Maithili is a separate language, having a large Maithili-speaking community (4.5 crore, or 45 million, people) with a rich literature. The most famous literary figure in Maithili is the poet Vidyapati. He is credited for raising the importance of 'people's language', i.e. Maithili, in the official work of the state by influencing the Maharaja of Darbhanga with the quality of his poetry. The state's official language used to be Sanskrit, which distanced common people from the state and its functions. The name Maithili is also one of the names of Sita, the consort of Rama.

kathmandu is the capital of NEPAL

noreply@blogger.com (rajiv) — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 09:40:00 +0000

Smoggy morning in Kathmandu.

Kathmandu (Nepali: काठमाडौं, काठमान्डु, Nepal Bhasa: यें) is the capital city of Nepal and it is also the largest city in Nepal. The original inhabitants of Kathmandu are called Newars, who speak Nepal Bhasa, which is the language of communication between Newars, and is spoken by other ethnic communities residing in Kathmandu. It stands at an elevation of approximately 1,300m (4,265 ft). It is an urban and suburban area of about 1.5 million inhabitants in the tri-city area in the Kathmandu Valley in central Nepal, along the Bagmati River. The two other cities are Lalitpur (Patan) and Bhaktapur. Kathmandu is located at 27°43′N, 85°22′E (27.71667, 85.36667).

History
The Kathmandu Valley may have been inhabited as early as 900 BC, but the oldest known objects in the valley date to a few hundred years BC. The earliest known inscription is dated 185 AD. The oldest firmly dated building in the earthquake-prone valley is almost 1,000 years old. It is said that the Buddha and his disciples spent some time in the area of present-day Patan in the 6th century BC, although there is no evidence for this. Four stupas around the city of Patan said to have been erected by Charumati, daughter of Ashoka the Great, a Mauryan king, in the 3rd century BC attest to the ancient history present within the valley. As with the tales of the Buddha's visit, there is no evidence supporting Ashoka's visit, but the stupas probably do date to that century. The Kirats are the first documented rulers of the Kathmandu Valley, the remains of their palace are said to be in Patan near Hiranyavarna Mahavihara (called "Patukodon"). The Licchavi Dynasty whose earliest inscriptions date back to 464 AD were the next rulers of the valley and had close ties with the Gupta Dynasty of India. The Malla Dynasty consisted of Newar rulers, who ruled Kathmandu Valley and the surrounding area from the 12th century till the 17th century when the Shah Dynasty under Prithvi Narayan Shah conquered the valley as he created present-day Nepal. Most of ancient Nepalese architecture present in Nepal today is from the Malla/Newar era.

The temple of Pashupatinath.
The city of Kathmandu is named after a structure in Durbar Square called Kaasthamandap. In Sanskrit, Kaasth (काष्ठ) = "wood" and Mandap (मंडप/मण्डप) = "covered shelter." This unique temple, also known as Maru Satal, was built in 1596 A.D. by King Laxmi Narsingh Malla. The entire structure contains no iron nails or supports and is made entirely from wood. Legend has it that the timber used for this two story pagoda was obtained from a single tree.
Kathmandu is also sometimes called "Kantipur". Newars, the native people of the Kathmandu valey use the original term from Nepal Bhasa, Yne.

The Kathmandu Valley consists of three primary cities: Kathmandu itself, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur. Lalitpur and Kathmandu run up right against each other (again, separated only by the Bagmati river), while Bhaktapur is set off much closer to the eastern foothills.
Kathmandu itself is home to most of the government offices, embassies, corporate houses, and the palace. The King's Palace stands right next to Thamel - the tourist hub of the country. Thamel consists of two parallel streets just to the west of the palace. It is home to different hotels, ranging from different stars. The palace is at the head of Durbar Marg, a street lined with various shops.
Most of the streets in Kathmandu are named from Nepal Bhasa, owing its origin to the rich Newari Culture and heritage.
The "old" city is noted for its many Buddhist and Hindu temples and palaces, most dating to the 17th century. Many of these landmarks have been damaged by earthquakes and pollution. This valley hosts an UNESCO World Heritage Sites composed by seven different Monument Zones: The centers of the three primary cities, Kathmandu Hanuman Dhoka, Patan and Bhaktapur, the two most important Buddhist stupas, Swayambhunath and Boudhanath and two famous Hindu shrines, Pashupatinath temple and Changu Narayan. Since 2003 the site has been inscribed in the World Heritage List as being "in danger" out of concern for the ongoing loss of authenticity and the outstanding universal value of the cultural property.
Kathmandu has been popular with western tourists since the 1960s when it became a key stop on the hippie trail, when Jho: Chhee (Nepal Bhasa, continuous house)(Freak Street) was the one of the main location. It is also the subject of a popular Bob Seger song for the same reason.
Tribhuvan International Airport is located about 6 km from the city center, offering domestic and international flights.

Gallery

The palace in the Kathmandu Durbar Square.

Bhairava sculpture, Durbar Square market place 1972.

A view of Kathmandu Durbar Square from 1920. Bhairava in the background.

Small stupa in Kathmandu

Stone carving in Kathmandu street

View over Kathmandu

A seller warming himself up in Durbar Square, Kathmandu, Nepal (pre-prohibition)

Other aspects of Nepali culture

Houses in rural parts of Nepal are made up of stones and clay.

Popular musical styles are a variety of pop, religious and folk music, among other styles. Since the sixties, Nepali rock or rock music, sung to Nepali lyrics, has slowly gained some popularity among a subset of youth, particularly in the Kathmandu Valley. Nepalese hip hop and Nepali reggae have developed in urban areas with the advent of the music video industry. Heavy metal bands also have some following in areas such as Kathmandu. However, these are minority genres; the predominant contemporary musical form is Hindi pop and Nepali pop based on Hindi models, which is popular throughout the country, including the rural areas where the majority of the population lives. Musical genres from Tibet and India have had a strong influence on traditional Nepali music. Women, even of the musician castes, are less likely than men to play music, except in specific situations such as traditional all-female wedding parties.

Houses in rural parts of Nepal are made up of stones and clay.
Football is the most popular sport, followed by cricket and kabaddi. The Martyrs Memorial Football League is the national football championship.
Television was only introduced to Nepal in the 1980s. Currently there are six television broadcasting channels: Nepal Television - the national television channel; NTV 2 Metro - a city channel owned by the government; and four private channels - Kantipur Television, Image Channel, Channel Nepal and Nepal 1. Also many other networks, particularly those that originate in India, are available via satellite dishes, although lack of electricity makes this difficult. Radio is listened to throughout the kingdom; as of 2000, there were twelve radio stations, and in 2006–07 number grew to 56+ Radio stations. Among them most are local FM radio stations, heard in limited range of this hilly nation. However few FMs like Kantipur FM, Image FM are heard over wide range by the help of repeater stations.
The Nepali year Bikram Samwat begins in mid-April and is divided into twelve months. Saturday is the official weekly day of rest. Main holidays include the National Day (birthday of the late king Tribhuvan) December 28, Prithvi Jayanti, (January 11), and Martyr's Day (February 18) and a mix of Hindu and Buddhist festivals[16] such as Teej, Dashai in autumn, and Tihar late autumn.

Mankhim temple in Aritar, Sikkim.
Most marriages are arranged, and divorce is rare. Polygamy is banned by law; relatively isolated tribes in the north, such as the Dolpo, practise polyandry. The various groups of Nepal have a rich tradition of ceremonies, such as nwaran (the christening of a child), Pasni, the day a child is first fed rice, and bratabandha (the penance ceremony) and gupha for prepubescent boys and girls, respectively. In Newari culture,bel bibaha, preadolescent girls are "married" to the bel fruit tree, ensuring that the girl becomes and remains fertile.
Most houses in rural Nepal are made up of a tight bamboo framework with mud and cow-dung walls. These dwellings remain cool in summers and retain warmth in the winter. Dwellings at higher altitudes are mostly timber-based.
Chhaupadi is a custom, widely practiced in some areas, in which women don't enter the kitchen or engage in particular chores during menstruation because they are considered impure.

Newar Culture

The Newar culture is the historic culture of Kathmandu. Newar culture is the most distinct and most preserved culture of Nepal, and definitely the richest culture of Nepal. Most of UNESCO World Heritage site in Nepal are were made by Newars and are existing example of rich Newar cultural heritage. Examples include Kathmandu Durbar Square, Lalitpur Durbar Square, Bhaktapur Durbar Square, Swoyembhunath, Changunarayan and Bhaudanath.
The Newar community enjoys its own special cuisine (Newar cuisine), apparels, architecture (Newar Architecture), language (Nepal Bhasa), traditions and festivals (Newa Festival). Newar people are well known for masked dance that tell stories of the gods and heroes. Lakhey is the most popular traditional dance in the entire country. The associated music is percussion-based, sometimes with flutes or shawm accompanying the intense, nasal vocal lines. In other culture, the sarangi, a four-stringed, hand-carved instrument is usually played by wandering minstrels.

namastekantipur

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[edit]Late 20th century

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kathmandu is the capital of NEPAL

[edit]
Late 20th century