• During winter, a high pressure area develops north of the Himalayas.
• Cold dry winds blow from this region to the low pressure areas over the oceans to the south.
• In summer, a low pressure area develops over interior Asia as well as over northwestern India.
 • This causes a complete reversal of the direction of winds during summer.
• Air moves from the high pressure area over the southern Indian ocean in a south-westerly direction, crosses the equator and turns right towards the low pressure area over the Indian sub-continent.
• These winds are known as south-west monsoon winds.
• These winds blow over the warm oceans, gather moisture and bring widespread rainfall over the mainland of India.

Burst of the monsson – Rainfall increases suddenly and continues constantly for several days.
OR
Burst of monsoons: the phenomena when the normal rainfall increases suddenly and continues constantly for several days are known as burst of the monsoons.

Malnutrition is a condition in which an individual has insufficient energy to maintain their body’s essential functions, including growth, maintenance and movement.

There are two major types of malnutrition:

• Protein-energy malnutrition - resulting from deficiencies in any or all nutrients
• Micronutrient deficiency diseases - resulting from a deficiency of specific micronutrients

Following are the major poverty alleviation programmes initiated or implemented by the Government of India
Pradhan Mantri Rozgar Yojana (PMRY)
(i) This programme was launched in 1993.
(ii) It is aimed at providing self-employment opportunity to educated unemployed youth in the rural and urban areas.
(iii) Under this programme, scheduled banks provide loans at a lower interest rate to start small business and set up industries.
Rural Employment Generation Programme (REGP)
(i) This programme was launched in 1995.
(ii) The aim of the programme is to create self-employment opportunity in rural areas and small towns.
(iii) A target for creating 25 lakh new jobs has been set for this programme under the Tenth Five Year Plan.
Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY)
(i) This scheme was launched in 1999.
(ii) This programme aims at bringing the rural poor families above the poverty line.
(iii) To achieve this goal, it organises them into Self Help Groups (SHGs) through a mix of bank credit and government subsidy.
Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya Yojana (PMGY)
(i) This programme was launched in 2000.
(ii) Under the programme, the Central Government provides additional assistance to the State Government for improving basic services in the village.
(iii) The major basic services covered under this
programme are primary health, primary education, rural shelter, rural drinking water and rural electrification.
National Food for Work Programme (NFWP)
(i) This programme was launched in 2004 in 150 most backward districts of the country.
(ii) This programme is open to all rural poor who are in need of wage employment and desire to do manual unskilled work.
(iii) It is implemented as a 100% centrally sponsored scheme.
(iv) Under this scheme, foodgrains are provided free of cost to the states.
(v) Later this scheme was merged with NREGA. National Rural Employment-Guarantee Act (NREGA)
(i) This Act was passed in September 2005.
(ii) This Act is now renamed as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA).
(iii) This act provides 100 days assured employment every year to every rural household in 200 districts. Later, the-scheme will be extended to 600 districts.
(iv) One-third of the proposed jobs would be reserved for women.
(v) The Central Government will establish National
Employment Guarantee Funds (NEGF). The State Governments will also establish State-Employment Guarantee Funds (SEGF) for implementation of scheme. _
(vi) Under this programme, if an applicant is not provided employment within 15 days, he/she will be entitled to a daily unemployment allowance.
Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY)
(i) This scheme was launched ih December 2000.
(ii) 1 crore of the poorest among the BPL families were covered under the targeted PDS.
(iii) 25 kg of foodgrains were made available to each eligible family at a highly subsidised rate—2 per kg for wheat and 3 per kg for rice.
(iv) This quantity has been enhanced from 25 kg to 35 kg with effect from April 2002.
(v) Now almost 2 crore families are covered under this scheme.

Factors responsible for the distribution of population of India can be enlisted as follows:
1.Geographical factor – Mountains deserts (both cold and hot) or swampy areas have low population density while low-lying plain areas have high population density.
Example: Almost half of India’s population lives in just five states. These are Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, WestBengal, and Andhra Pradesh while Ladakh and Rajasthan are sparsely populated areas.

2.Climate – Places having extreme climates are low populated areas while places having moderate climates are high populated areas.
3.Job opportunities - Metro cities and capital cities are densely populated regions due to employment and infrastructure.
4.Population from rural areas is migrating towards urban areas. Thus there is population increase in urban areas and decrease in rural areas.
5.Transportation – Transportation and communication provides better chances of economic growth and therefore places having good transportation and communication facilities are more populated than other areas.

There are mainly two types of tropical forests that are found in Himalayas and they are :

1- The Tropical rainforests which are dense,evergreen, gloomy and similar to the forests of the Amazon basin and other equatorial areas.They occur mainly in the eastern Himalayas which receives very heavy rainfall.

2- The Tropical deciduous forests are found in regions of slightly lower rainfall. They are common in the lower slopes of the Himalayas.These forests shed their leaves in certain seasons. Also the forests tend to be less dense than the rainforests. Forests of teak and sal are common in areas of deciduous vegetation.

The Simon Commission was sent to India for the functioning of the Indian constitution by the Government of India Act of 1919.

The first and the foremost reason for the boycott of this commission:

Lack of Indian members in the commission.

Secondly, the Indians felt that they would again dominate India.

They also felt that the commission was arrogant.

Factors that were responsible for the rise of Hitler were:

• Germany faced defeat in the First World War. The war severely affected its economy and prestige. Further, the Great Economic depression of 1929 hit the German economy hard.
• As industries closed down, number of unemployed people increased. Many young people took to criminal activities in wake of unemployment.
•  As the German currency lost its value, the savings of the working class and the pensioners reduced.
• These hostile conditions existing in Germany created an ideal platform for the emergence of Hitler. Hitler gave firy speeches and organised mass rallies with red banners, swastika and the Nazi salute. People were enchanted with these massive rallies. He was projected as a messiah by the Nazi party, who could only save Germany from the effects of economic depression.
• He promised to make Germany a powerful nation and restore the prestige of Germans.

(i)According to this theory, the crust,upper part of the earth has been formed out of seven major and some minor plates.
(ii)The movement of the plates results in the building up of stresses within the plates and the continental rocks above, leading to folding, faulting and volcanic activity.
(iii)Broadly, these plate movements are classified into three types. While some plates come towards each other and form convergent boundary.
(iv)Some plates move away from each other and form divergent boundary. In the event of two plates coming together they may either collide and crumble, or one may slide under the other.
(v)At times, they may also move horizontally past each other and form transform boundary.

 Fraud and malpractices indulged by a party or candidate to increase his votes. It includes stuffing ballot boxes by a few persons using the votes of others; recording multiple votes by the same person; and bribing polling officers to favour a candidate

If the pressure in a particular area in india is low, the winds will get attracted to that place, and that place receives rainfall. This is the reason why the arabian sea branch gets deflected to the north western regions of india where rainfall is received.

In all democracies, an assembly of elected representatives exercises supreme political authority on behalf of the people in the following ways:

• Parliament is the final authority for making new laws in the country and changing and abolishing existing laws.
• Parliament is the highest forum of discussion and debate on public issues and national policy in any country. Parliament can seek information about any matter
• Parliaments control all the money that governments have.Public money can be spent only with parliamentary sanction.
• All the bills have to be presented and passed in Lok Sabha before they become laws.
• The Prime Minister and the cabinet ministers are responsible to the Parliament for all the work done by them.
• Since Lok Sabha consists of elected representatives of the people, it exercises authority over the government.

• How did the American war of independence add more debt to France
• In addition to this, France assisted the thirteen American colonies to get independence from Britain.
• This increased the debt to another one billion livres. Hence the moneylenders started charging a higher rate of interest of upto 10 per cent.
• This made the French government to spend further on interest payments alone.
• Thus in order to meet the recurring expenses, the state was obliged to increase taxes.
• The French society was divided into three estates and only the third estate members were required to pay taxes.

Guarantee*

Nrega is Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarranty Act.
It was launched in 2005 to provide employment to th poor people.
One third of the employment is reserved for women.
Any person who does not gets employment will be given unemployment allowance.
It promises 100 days of employment in a year.
It was launched in more tha 200 backward districts of India.