Sample Notes

ETYMOLOGY The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu. The latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as “the people of the Indus”.

The geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in various subtle guises. The eponym of Bharat is Bharata, a mythological figure that Hindu scriptures describe as a legendary emperor of ancient India. Hindustan was originally a Persian word that meant “Land of the Hindus”; prior to 1947, it referred to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan. It is occasionally used to solely denote India in its entirety.

LOCATION OF INDIA The Union of India is the seventh largest country in the world covering an area of 32,87,590 square kilometres and it is an important country of South Asia.

The term ‘international relations’ is exclusive of course, it does represent a widening of our concern from simply the political relations between nation-states, but it still restricts our focus to inter-national relations, whereas we think that relations between, say, cities and other governments or international organizations can be equally important to what states do. So, we prefer to characterize the relations we are interested in as those of world politics, with the important provision. One obvious example concerns the relationship between politics and economics; there is clearly an overlap, and a lot of bargaining power goes to the person who can persuade others that the existing distribution of resources is ‘simply’ economic rather than a political issue. Our focus is with the patterns of political relations, defined broadly, that characterize the contemporary world. Many will be between states, but many, perhaps most, will not. World politics in this globalized world. There is considerable dispute over just what it means to talk of this being an era of globalization, and whether that means that the main features of world politics are any different from those of previous eras. In this Introduction we want to explain how we propose to deal with the concept of globalization and offer some arguments in favour of seeing it as an important new development in world politics and also some arguments against such a view. Before turning to look at globalization in order to set the scene for that follow, we want to do two things.

Eratosthenes, a 3rd century B.C. chief librarian at the famous Library of Alexandria, is credited as the first person to use the word “geography”. He is commonly called “the father of geography”. Alexander von Humboldt is commonly called the “father of modern geography” and William Morris Davis is commonly called the “father of American geography”. Most likely, Eratosthenes was not the first person to use the basic perspective of geography, the spatial perspective. In Eratosthenes day people already were undertaking the exploration of land and water areas of the Middle East and were carrying on trade across the Mediterranean Sea as well as across vast expanses of desert. Knowledge of how to get to some place and ultimately to return home was crucial to the sailors involved in loftier goals of measurement of earth’s size, calculation of distances, and creation of a geometric system for accurately defining location. Eratosthenes is given credit for making the first accurate determination of the size of earth.

Ethical teachings have been an integral part of Indian education system since ages. Our ancient literature is full of lessons on ethics and morality. The process of imparting ethical learning used to commence in the lap of mother because she served the role of first teacher. Parents, kith and kin, peers and neighbours used to play an important role in the process of socialisation of an individual in the past but the life has undergone rapid transformations during the last half a century. Ethics are a requirement for human life. It is our means of deciding a right course of action.

In the past for most people and even for many people today, an objective moral standard that is binding on all people for all times exists. While there might be disagreement on what the standard was, most acknowledged that there was a “right” choice. But in the last half-century, there has been considerable erosion in the idea that a standard exists or is even needed. For many, decisions about what is right and wrong are complete personal and completely subjective: what is right for me may not be right for you. Such thinking asserts that whatever an individual deems morally acceptable is acceptable for that person. To judge that is often considered unacceptably intolerant and such randomness is often justified in the name of liberalism. Read More.

Categories of Waves: Waves come in many shapes and forms. While all waves share some basic characteristic properties and behaviours, some waves can be distinguished from others based on some observable (and some non-observable) characteristics. It is common to categorize waves based on these distinguishing characteristics.

There are also schools of economic thought. Two of the most common are Classical and Keynesian. The Classical view believes that free markets are the best way to allocate resources and the government’s role should be limited to that of a fair and strict referee. In contrast, the Keynesian approach believes that markets don’t work well at allocating resources on their own and that governments must step in from time to time and actively reallocates resources efficiently.