Cultural pluralism:-

It is a concept that says that individual ethnic groups have a right to exist on their own terms within the larger society while retaining their unique cultural heritages.

Significance:- 

As a concept cultural pluralism is an alternative to the “melting pot” view that immigrants should assimilate to dominant culture by abandoning their own cultures, languages, and other traditions. Cultural pluralism is often confused with Multiculturalism. Multiculturalism lacks the requirement of a dominant culture.

Critiques of Cultural Pluralism:-

Cultural pluralism has been attacked for justifying cultural separatism—that is, a transformation to a “nation of nations” similar to what is found in Switzerland or a segregated America of ethnically pure residential enclaves. 

A second critique is that cultural pluralists assume that because ethnic traditions are static they suppress individuality. 

Third, cultural pluralists are attacked for a belief that ethnic identity is primary and thus more powerful than other identities. 

Anti-Critic:-

Cultural pluralists respond that cultural pluralism thrives in an integrated, not a segregated, society. They accept cultures as internally dynamic, changing and adapting over time with plenty of room for diversity inside each culture. Cultural attachments are seen as important but not exclusive.

Sociology of Gender

The term gender role is used to signify all those things that a person says or does to disclose himself/herself as having the status of boy or man, girl or woman, respectively.

In sociology Gender is attached with multiple sociological concepts. Some of them are given below:-

• Gender and Socialization
• Gender and the Division of Labour 
• Gender and Violence
• Gender and Globalisation 

Gender and Socialization:-

By the time children reach the age of 2, many they acquire a firm sense of themselves as male or female, a gender identity that remains throughout life. In addition, at pre-school stage, children develop a firm awareness of gender stereotypes, insisting that certain activities or items of clothing are not for girls and others not for boys. Yet Gender Identity does not automatically follow from biological sex.

Gender and the Division of Labour:-

Before industrialization, economic activity, which centred around agricultural work, crafts and so on, was organized by households. Household members, whether male or female, young or old, contributed to the family's livelihood. Although women might do some types of work and men others, depending on region and class, the distinction between men as breadwinners and women as housewives didn't characterized pre-industrial divisions of labour.

Industrialization shifted much productive activity to factories, shops and offices. This separation of work from home signalled a profound change in gender relations and gender discourse. The home came to be understood not as the site of a family enterprise, but as a refuge from the world of work. Women were defined as the keepers of the home, as it was seen as their nature to create harmony and virtue rather than services and goods.

Gender and Violence:-

social arenas in which violence commonly takes place

(1) in the family—including domestic violence,infanticide, and traditional practices such as female genital mutilation, foot binding, and bride burning; 

(2) in the community—including rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment, and commercialized violence such as sexual slavery, labor exploitation, female migrant workers; and 

(3) by the State—including violence against women in detention, and in situations of armed conflict such as systematic war rape.

In order to address and end gendered violence, solutions must address both the root causes and interpersonal manifestations of gender roles and power relations in order to ensure a balance of power at all levels of society.

Gender and Globalisation:-

Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Globalization impacts female equality on a large and international scale, both negatively and positively. With continuous changes in international relations, the perception of feminism in Western and Non western societies is frequently revised.

Cunningham Circular

Cunningham Circular played a very important role in shaping the freedom struggle in Assam. While the entire country was getting ready for the start of the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1930, students in Assam played a key role in the freedom struggle. 

To stem the students' participation in the Civil Disobedience Movement, the 'Cunning Circular' was implemented in 1930 by the British. This ruling forbade students from participating in political activities and so, evoked strong response. 

Students quit schools in protest and many educational institutions like Kamrup Academy of Guwahati and Sibsagar Vidyapeeth were established.

Six Schools of Indian Philosophy

Yoga	Started by Patanjali Practical methods for direct experience:  Yoga systematically deals with all of the levels of one's being, striving to experience the eternal center of consciousness.  Yoga is best described in the Yoga Sutras and involves systematic witnessing of your inner states, so as to experientially go beyond all of them to the center of consciousness.  Yoga is often called Sankhya-Yoga, as Yoga contains the practical methods to realize in direct experience the truths of Sankhya philosophy
Sankhya	Started by Kapil Muni Framework of manifestation:  Sankhya philosophy offers a framework for all the levels of manifestation, from the subtlest to the grossest.  Sankhya comes from samyag akhyate, which literally means that which explains the whole.  Sankhya deals with prakriti (matter), purusha(consciousness), buddhi or mahat (intelligence), ahamkara (I-am-ness), three gunas (elements of stability, activity, and lightness), mind (manas), cognitive and active senses (indriyas), and the five subtle and gross elements (earth, water, fire, air, and space). In light of its breadth, it contains all of the domains of Vaisheshika, Nyaya, and Mimasa, which are described below.
Vedanta	Based on Upnaishads (Shankaracharya is founder) Contemplative self-inquiry:  Vedanta philosophy and practice provides contemplative methods of self-inquiry leading to the realization of one's true nature, that which is not subject to death, decay, or decomposition.  A major key of these practices is contemplation on the Mahavakyas.  The teachings of Vedanta are best captured in the books of the Upanishads.  The text, Vivekachudamini (Crest Jewel of Discrimination) by Adi Shankaracharya is an excellent source.
Vaisheshika	Started by Prashastapada Physical sciences:  The Vaisheshika system emphasizes the physical sciences such as chemistry.  It includes exploring the elements of earth, water, fire, air and space, as well as time, mind and soul.  Focus is on salvation through recognition of atomic nature of universe.
Nyaya	Started by Gautam Rishi  Reasoning:  The Nyaya system deals with logic, the process of reasoning.  Doubt is considered a prerequisite for philosophical inquiry.  Other systems of Indian philosophy draw on this process.
Mimasa	Started by Jaimini Freedom through action:  The Mimasa system pursues freedom through action.  It has a detailed philosophy related to ritual, worship and ethical conduct, which developed into the philosophy of karma.

Ancient Art

Kingdom	Capital	Art
Pallavas	Kanchipuram	Shore Temple at Mahabalipuram
		Kailasanatha Temple at Kanchipuram
		Shiva as Natraja is specimen of Pallava Art
		Vaikunthperumala Temple noted for its Vimana
Cholas	Tanjavur	Brihdeshwara Temple at Tanjavur built by Rajaraja Chola, striking feature is vimana
		Bronze Sculptures of Natraja reached the heights of glory during Cholas reign
		Bharat's Natyashashtra are shown in this temple
Pandyas	Madurai	Meenakshi Temple at Madurai
		Nellaiappar Temple at Tirunelveli
		They excelled in making Gopurams and the focus was more on Gopurams rather than Vimanas and Shikhara
Hoyasalas	Mysore	Temples at Belur, Halebid etc.
		Temples with intricate carvings and pillars
Chandelas	Khajuraho	Temples at Khajuraho
		Kalinjar Fort
		Focus at making beautiful Shikharas
Solankis	Anhilwara(Patan)	Jain Temples at Mount Abu
Gurjar(Pratihar)	Kannauj	Mihir Bhoj was the most famous ruler
		Notable sculptures of this period, include Viswaroopa form of Vishnu and Marriage of Siva and Parvati from Kannauj.

Vegetation

Fig: 120 from CPHG book 

In physical geography, a tundra is a biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. Tundra means a treeless mountain tract.

There are three (3) types of tundra: 

1. Arctic tundra
2. Alpine tundra
3. Antarctic tundra

In a tundra, the vegetation is composed of dwarf shrubs, sedges and grasses,mosses, and lichens. Scattered trees grow in some tundras. 

• Arctic tundra occurs in the far Northern Hemisphere, north of the taiga belt. The word "tundra" usually refers only to the areas where the subsoil is permafrost, or permanently frozen soil.
• Antarctic tundra occurs on Antarctica and on several Antarctic and sub antarctic islands, including South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands and the Kerguelen Islands. 
• Alpine tundra does not contain trees because the climate and soils at high altitude block tree growth. Alpine tundra is distinguished from arctic tundra in that alpine tundra typically does not have permafrost, and alpine soils are generally better drained than arctic soils.

Deciduous Forests:- 

In a more general sense, deciduous means "the dropping of a part that is no longer needed" or "falling away after its purpose is finished". In plants it is the result of natural processes. In botany and horticulture, deciduous plants,including trees, shrubs and herbaceous  perennials, are those that lose all of their leaves for part of the year.

Two distinctive types of deciduous forest are found growing around the world.

• Temperate deciduous forest biomes are plant communities distributed in North and South America, Asia, Southern slopes of the Himalayas, Europe and for cultivation purposes in Oceania. They have formed under climatic conditions which have great seasonable temperature variability with growth occurring during warm summers and leaf drop in autumn and dormancy during cold winters. These seasonally distinctive communities have diverse life forms that are impacted greatly by the seasonality of their climate, mainly temperature and precipitation rates. These varying and regionally different ecological conditions produce distinctive forest plant communities in different regions.
• Tropical and subtropical deciduous forest biomes have developed in response not to seasonal temperature variations but to seasonal rainfall patterns. During prolonged dry periods the foliage is dropped to conserve water and prevent death from drought. Leaf drop is not seasonally dependent as it is in temperate climates, and can occur any time of year and varies by region of the world. Even within a small local area there can be variations in the timing and duration of leaf drop; different sides of the same mountain and areas that have high water tables or areas along streams and rivers can produce a patchwork of leafy and leafless trees.

Temperate coniferous forest:- is a terrestrial biome found in temperate regions of the world with warm summers and cool winters and adequate rainfall to sustain a forest. In most temperate coniferous forests, evergreen conifers predominate, while some are a mix of conifers and broad leaf evergreen trees and/or broad leaf deciduous trees. Temperate evergreen forests are common in the coastal areas of regions that have mild winters and heavy rainfall, or inland in drier climates or mountain areas. Coniferous forests can be found in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia.

Plankton

Plankton (singular plankter) are a diverse group of organisms that live in the water column and cannot swim against a current. They provide a crucial source of food to many large aquatic organisms, such as fish and whales.

These organisms include drifting animals, protists, archaea, algae, or bacteria that inhabit the pelagic zone of oceans, seas, or bodies of fresh water; that is, plankton are defined by their ecological niche rather than phylogenetic or taxonomic classification.

(Pelagic Zone:- Any water in a sea or lake that is neither close to the bottom nor near the shore can be said to be in the pelagic zone.

Phylogenetics:- In biology, phylogenetics is the study of evolutionary relationships among groups of organisms (e.g.species, populations), which are discovered through molecular sequencing data and morphological data matrices.

Taxonomy:- is the science of defining groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics and giving names to those groups.The Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus is regarded as the father of taxonomy, as he developed a system known as Linnaean classification for categorization of organisms and binomial nomenclature for naming organisms.)

Though many planktic species are microscopic in size, plankton includes organisms covering a wide range of sizes, including large organisms such as jellyfish.

The study of plankton is termed planktology and a planktonic individual is referred to as a plankter.

Plankton are primarily divided into broad functional (or trophic level) groups:

• Phytoplankton (from Greek phyton, or plant), autotrophic, prokaryotic or eukaryotic algae that live near the water surface where there is sufficient light to support photosynthesis. Among the more important groups are the diatoms,cyanobacteria, dinoflagellates and coccolithophores.
• Zooplankton (from Greek zoon, or animal), small protozoans or metazoans (e.g. crustaceans and other animals) that feed on other plankton and telonemia. Some of the eggs and larvae of larger animals, such as fish, crustaceans, andannelids, are included here. Zooplankton are the initial prey item for almost all fish larvae as they switch from their yolk sacs to external feeding. Fish rely on the density and distribution of zooplankton to match that of new larvae, which can otherwise starve. Natural factors (e.g., current variations) and man-made factors (e.g. river dams) can strongly affect zooplankton, which can in turn strongly affect larval survival, and therefore breeding success.
• Bacterioplankton, bacteria and archaea, which play an important role in remineralising organic material down the water column (note that the prokaryotic phytoplankton are also bacterioplankton).

This scheme divides the plankton community into broad producer, consumer and recycler groups. However, determining the trophic level of some plankton is not straightforward. For example, although most dinoflagellates are either photosynthetic producers or heterotrophic consumers, many species are mixotrophic depending upon circumstances.

(Trophic Level:- The trophic level of an organism is the position it occupies in a food chain. The word trophic derives from the Greek (trophē) referring to food or feeding. A food chain represents a succession of organisms that eat another organism and are, in turn, eaten themselves. The number of steps an organism is from the start of the chain is a measure of its trophic level. 

Food chains start at trophic level 1 with primary producers such as plants, move to herbivores at level 2, predators at level 3 and typically finish with carnivores or apex predators at level 4 or 5. The path along the chain can form either a one-way flow or a food "web". Ecological communities with higher biodiversity form more complex trophic paths.)

Carbon Credit

A carbon credit is a generic term for any tradable certificate or permit representing the right to emit one tonne of carbon dioxide or the mass of another greenhouse gas with a carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO₂e) equivalent to one tonne of carbon dioxide.

One carbon credit is equal to one metric tonne of carbon dioxide, or in some markets, carbon dioxide equivalent gases. 

Carbon trading is an application of an emissions trading approach. Greenhouse gas emissions are capped and then markets are used to allocate the emissions among the group of regulated sources.

The mechanism was formalized in the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement between more than 170 countries, and the market mechanisms were agreed through the subsequent Marrakesh Accords. The mechanism adopted was similar to the successful US Acid Rain Program to reduce some industrial pollutants.

The Kyoto Protocol provides for three mechanisms that enable countries or operators in developed countries to acquire greenhouse gas reduction credits:-

• Under Joint Implementation (JI) a developed country with relatively high costs of domestic greenhouse reduction would set up a project in another developed country.
• Under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) a developed country can 'sponsor' a greenhouse gas reduction project in a developing country where the cost of greenhouse gas reduction project activities is usually much lower, but the atmospheric effect is globally equivalent. The developed country would be given credits for meeting its emission reduction targets, while the developing country would receive the capital investment and clean technology or beneficial change in land use.
• Under International Emissions Trading (IET) countries can trade in the international carbon credit market to cover their shortfall in Assigned amount units. Countries with surplus units can sell them to countries that are exceeding their emission targets under Annex B of the Kyoto Protocol.

Rocks

In geology, a rock is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of one or more minerals or mineraloids. 

For example, the common rock granite is a combination of the quartz, feldspar and biotite minerals. The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock. The scientific study of rocks is called petrology, which is an essential component of geology.

Three major groups of rocks are defined:

1. Igneous, 
2. Sedimentary, and
3. Metamorphic. 

1. Igneous rock: (derived from the Latin word igneus meaning of fire, from ignis meaning fire) forms through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava. This magma can be derived from partial melts of pre-existing rocks in either a planet's mantle or crust. Typically, the melting of rocks is caused by one or more of three processes: an increase in temperature, a decrease in pressure, or a change in composition.

Igneous rocks are divided into two main categories: 

• Plutonic rock and 
• Volcanic rock

Plutonic or intrusive rocks result when magma cools and crystallizes slowly within the Earth's crust. A common example of this type is granite. 

Volcanic or extrusive rocks result from magma reaching the surface either as lava or fragmental ejecta, forming minerals such as pumice or basalt.

About 64.7% of the Earth's crust by volume consists of igneous rocks; making it the most plentiful category. Of these, 66% are basalts and gabbros, 16% are granite, and 17% granodiorites and diorites. Only 0.6% are syenites and 0.3% peridotites and dunites. The oceanic crust is 99% basalt, which is an igneous rock of mafic composition. Granites and similar rocks, known as meta-granitoids, form much of the continental crust.

2. Sedimentary: rocks are formed at the earth's surface by the accumulation and cementation of fragments of earlier rocks, minerals, and organisms or as chemical precipitates and organic growths in water (sedimentation). 

Mud rocks comprise 65% (mudstone, shale and siltstone); sandstones 20 to 25% and carbonate rocks 10 to 15% (limestone anddolostone). About 7.9% of the crust by volume is composed of sedimentary rocks, with 82% of those being shales, while the remainder consist of limestone (6%), sandstone and arkoses (12%).

Sedimentary rocks often contain fossils. Sedimentary rocks form under the influence of gravity and typically are deposited in horizontal or near horizontal layers or strata and may be referred to as stratified rocks. 

3. Metamorphic: rocks are formed by subjecting any rock type—sedimentary rock, igneous rock or another older metamorphic rock—to different temperature and pressure conditions than those in which the original rock was formed. This process is called metamorphism; meaning to "change in form". The result is a profound change in physical properties and chemistry of the stone. The original rock, known as the protolith, transforms into other mineral types or else into other forms of the same minerals, such as by recrystallization.

The temperatures and pressures required for this process are always higher than those found at the Earth's surface: temperatures greater than 150 to 200 °C and pressures of 1500 bars. Metamorphic rocks compose 27.4% of the crust by volume.

Depending on the structure, metamorphic rocks are divided into two general categories. 

• Foliated
• Non-Foliated

Those that possess a texture are referred to as foliated; the remainder are termed non-foliated. 

The name of the rock is then determined based on the types of minerals present. Schists are foliated rocks that are primarily composed of lamellar minerals such as micas. A gneiss has visible bands of differing lightness, with a common example being the granite gneiss. Other varieties of foliated rock includes lates, phyllites, and mylonite. 

Familiar examples of non-foliated metamorphic rocks include marble, soapstone, and serpentine. This branch contains quartzite—a metamorphosed form of sandstone—and hornfels.