Kulaks Kulaks were the well to do peasants of Russia. The members of the Bolshevik party raided the Kulaks and their goods were seized. It was believed that the Kulaks were exploiting the peasants and hoarding grain to earn higher profits and thus leading to grain shortages.  

Permanent or Prevailing or Planetary winds:

     These winds blow throughout the year from one latitude to another in the same direction due to the latitudinal difference in the air pressure. These are three major types of permanent winds. These are:

(a) Trade winds:These winds blow from sub-tropical High Pressure Belts towards the Equatorial Low Pressure Belts. These winds are extremely steady. In the Northern Hemisphere, due to rotation of the Earth, the wind moving towards the Equator is deflected South-Westward and hence, it is named as ‘North-East Trade’. In the Southern Hemisphere, it is deflected towards the left and is known as ‘South-East Trade’.

(b) Westerly winds: These winds blow from the Sub-Tropical High Pressure Belt towards Sub-Polar Low Pressure Belts between 35° and 60° North and South latitudes. In the Northern Hemisphere, these winds blow from the South-West to the North-East, and in the Southern Hemisphere from North-West to the South-East.

(c) Polar winds: The winds blowing from North and South polar regions towards Circum-polar Low Pressure Belts are known as polar winds. In the Northern Hemisphere, they blow from North-East and in the Southern Hemisphere, they blow from South-East. These winds get deflected towards west in both the Hemispheres and are thus known as Polar Easterlies.

Deltas are landforms naturally created at the mouth of rivers from wherein they flow in to sea, ocean, lake, or estuary. Since the river at the end of its course, loses the capacity to carry the complete load of sediments into the water body it is flowing into, some of the sediments are left at the mouth of the river. These sediments form layers to make a delta. Deltas are also formed where rivers flow into the sea since the waves are not able to wash away the sediments completely. 

Kolkhoz was collective farm in Russia.

The part of Peninsular plateau lying to the north of the Narmada river covering a major area of the Malwa plateau is known as Central highlands.The Central Highland is bounded in the west by the Aravalli Range, to the south by the Narmada River and the Deccan Plateau beyond, to the east by Eastern Highland and to the north by the Northern Plains of India. This region covers the highlands of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh etc.Characteristics of Central highlands are:

1).To the west of the Central Highland lies the Aravalli Range which is the oldest mountain range in India and one of the oldest ranges in the world. Being eroded over centuries this one-very-high mountain has two important peaks, Gurushikhar with a height of 1722 meters and Mount Abu with only 1158 meters of elevation.

2). The most important range of this highland is the Vindhyans. The Chambal River rises from these hills. 

3).To the south of this range lies Narmada River which flows over open valleys or at places through rift valleys on its way to the west into the Arabian Sea.

4).North of the Vindhyan range lies the Malwa Plateau.

• They stretch from the north-west with the Aravalis, further merging with the sandy and rocky desert of Rajasthan.
• They are wider in the West but narrower in the east.
• The eastward extension of this plateau is locally known as ‘Bundelkhand’ and ‘Baghelkhand’. The ‘Chotanagpur plateau’ is the easternmost part of this plateau, which is drained by the river Damodar.
• The part of the Peninsular Plateau lying to the north of the Narmada river covering major area of the Malwa Plateau is known as the Central Highland.

1.  Tsar Nicholas II ruled Russian Empire in 1914.
2. The Russian empire included area around Moscow.
3. It also included areas around presently Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, parts of Poland, Ukraine and Belarus.
4. The Russian Empire extended to the Pacific region and included territory of Central Asia, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
5. As far as social demographics of the empire is concerned, the Russian empire was predominated by the Russian orthodox Christians.
6.Though the Empire also had  Catholics., Protestants, Muslims and Buddhist.

The First World War left a deep imprint on European society and polity. It had a devastating impact on the entire continent.
(i) In society, soldiers were ranked higher than civilians. Trench life of the soldiers was glorified by the media.
(ii) Politicians and publicists laid great stress on the need for men to be aggressive and masculine.
(iii) Aggressive war propaganda and national honour occupied centre stage in the public sphere.
(iv) People's support grew for the recently established dictatorships.
(v) Democracy as a young and fragile idea could not survive the instabilities of interwar Europe.

It is Communist International, a union of pro—Bolshevik Socialist parties.

Ways to check the quality of the election process:
(i) To see whether people participate in it with enthusiasm.
(ii) Turn out of the voters indicate it.
(iii) Large proportions of the poor, illiterate, and under privileged vote in the process. It shows the success of the system.
(iv) Election-related activities are increasing over the years.

The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolution in Russia in 1917. The Emperor was forced to abdicate and the old regime was replaced by a provisional government during the first revolution of February 1917. In the second revolution, during October, the provisional Government was removed and replaced with a Bolshevik government.
The main circumstances which were responsible for the Russian Revolution ar
(i) Russia's own industries were few in numbers and the industrial workers were exploited extremely.
(ii) In Russia 85 per cent of people were agriculturists. The king nobles and church owned large landed properties. Like the industrial workers, peasants also lived in miserable conditions.
(iii) Russia had an autocracy. Tsar Nicholas II was a deeply conservative ruler and maintained a strict authoritarian system. He cared little for the general people. He dragged the Russian into the First World War.
(iv) Karl Marx's theory communism appealed to the people. He said that workers had to overthrow capitalism and the rule of capitalists by the revolution. (v) The popularity of Bolshevik party increased steadily under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin.   The   Bolsheviks   had   formed committees   and  Soviets  and  created conditions which eventually led to the Russian Revolution.

There is an initial political crisis which causes a disruption of the effectiveness of the state apparatus: the immediate cause of this crisis in the case of Russia was international war. One might argue that the political regime could have been transformed in a non-revolutionary way had it not been for this externally-induced crisis. Disorganisation of the state and political revolution unleashed a latent agrarian revolutionary movement, which could not be brought under control by the ‘bourgeois democratic' forces which replaced the Tzar. Here it's important to note that Russia's revolutionary agrarian movement was also associated with the existence of a coherent peasant community organisation — the obshchina (see below), concentrated on the Central Black Earth/Middle Volga heartlands of old Russia.
Pre-revolutionary Russian agrarian structure was, however, diverse, varying from region to region:
1. European Russia: Early emancipation of serfs in Baltic (1817) without land allotments led to wage-labour based big capitalist estates, exporting to Western Europe. Western Ukraine: Sugar-beet and other agro-industry renting peasant allotments.
2. Southeast and Siberia: Commercial small-holder farming, small capitalist farms. Because Siberia was a zone of colonisation, there were no obshchina.
3. North/Lakes/Central Industrial Province: Commercial agriculture only profitable near big cities. The nobles sold off their land. Peasants became seasonal migrants to cities .
 

1. Population becomes human capital when a country invests in human beings by way of education, health care and training.
2. People with more education, training and health care ensure higher yield.
3. This further progress is called human development formation.
4. This progress in turn leads to better incomes and thereby better standard of living.
5. It is only the human resource that utilizes other resources like land and investments which cannot become beneficial on their own.
6. In countries like India where huge population is a problem can be resolved by converting them into valuable resource by way of investing in human capital.

Salt was something consumed by the rich and the poor alike,and it was most essential items of food.The tax on salt and the the government monopoloy over its production,Mahatma Gandhi declared ,revealed the most opressive face of British rule.So ceremonial violation of the law and manufacturing salt by boiling sea water provoked people to:

*refuse cooperation with the British and break colonial laws.

*Peasants refused to pay revenue and chaukidari taxes,village officials resigned and in many places forest people violated forest laws.

The period from 1793 to 1794 is reffered to as the reign of terror.Robespierre followed a policy of severe control and punishment.All those whom he saw  as being enemies of the republic-ex-nobles and clergy,members of other political parties,even members of his own party who did not agree with his methods-were arrested ,imprisoned and then tried by a revolutionary tribunal.

The Election Commission of India is an autonomous constitutional authority responsible for administering election processes in India .The body administers elections to the Lok Sabha,Rajya Sabha state Legislative Assemblies in India, and the offices of the President  and Vice President in the country. The Election Commission operates under the authority of Constitution.The Commission has the powers under the Costitution, to act in an appropriate manner when the enacted laws make insufficient provisions to deal with a given situation in the conduct of an election. 

The drainage systems of India is mainly controlled by the broad relief features of the sub-continent.Accordingly, the Indian rivers are divided into two major groups:

*the Himalayan rivers

*the Peninsular rivers

Most of the Himalayan rivers are perennial i.e.they have water throughout the year.The two major Himalayan rivers ,the Indus and the Brahmaputra originate from the north of the mountain ranges.They have cut through the mountains making gorges.The Himalayan rivers have long courses from their source to the sea.They perform intensive erosinal activity in their upper courses and carry huge loads of silt and sand.In the middle and the lower courses,these rivers form meanders,oxbow lakes,and many other depositional features in their flood plains.They also have well-devloped deltas.

Alarge number of the Peninsular rivers are seasonal,as their flow is dependent on rainfall.During the dry season ,even the large rivers have reduced flow of water in their channels.The peninsular rivers have shorter and shallower courses as compared to their Himalayan counterparts.Some of them originate in the central highlands and flow towards the west.The rivers of peninsular India originate in the Western Ghats and flow towards the Bay of Bengal.

The model code of conduct  is a set of guidelines laid down by the Election Commission to govern the conduct of political parties and candidates in the run-up to an election. The code is intended to curb the abuse of money and muscle power in elections so that the process of election campaign can be free and fair and give every candidate a fair chance of winning. The various components of the code of conduct are
1. Ministers cannot combine their official visits with election campaigns.
2. They cannot use official machinery of personnel for election related work.
3. Ministers cannot announce any scheme that promise financial gains to people or disburse discretionary grants once elections are announced.
4. All candidates from all political parties need to be given equal access to public places and government controlled media outlets (for example, Doordarshan) for campaigning.  

With too much of printed money in circulation, the value of German mark fell. As the value of German mark collapsed, prices of goods soared. The image of Germarts carrying cartloads of currency notes to buy a loaf of bread was widely publicised evoking worldwide sympathy. This crisis came to be known as ‘hyperinflation’ a situation when prices rise phenomenally high.

The conditions of Russia before 1905:
(i)Social Condition:  At the beginning of the twentieth century, the vast majority of Russia’s people were agriculturists. About 85% of Russia's population was agriculturist. Industry was existent, but rarely in which most of was privately owned. Workers were divided on the basis of their occupation. They mainly migrated to cities for employment in factories. The peasant community was deeply religious, but did not care much about the nobility. They believed that land must be divided amongst themselves.
(ii)Economic Condition: There was no middle class in Russia and as such industrialization in Russia began very late and it developed at a fairly fast rate. The foreign capitalists invested large sums in different industries to amass huge profits. The foreign investors were more interested in early profits than in improving the conditions of the workers.
(iii)Political Conditions:  Political parties were illegal before 1914. The Russian Social Democratic Workers Party was founded in 1898 by socialists who respected Marx’s ideas. In 1903, this party was divided into two groups - Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks, who were in majority, were led by Lenin who is regarded as the greatest thinker on socialism after Marx.

1. Democracy is a form of government in which the rulers are elected by the people.

• Myanmar where the army rules, Dictator Pinochet’s rule in Chile, or President N.krumah’s rule in Ghana was not democratic. They were not chosen by the people.
• Hereditary kings, like the king of Nepal or Saudi Arabia, are also not democratic rulers.They rule because they were born into noble families.

2. In a democracy final decision making power must rest with those elected by the people.

• In Pakistan, President Musharraf has the power to dismiss national and state assemblies;so the final powers rest with the army and the General himself. We cannot call it a democracy.

Main causes were:

Autocratic rule of Tsars: In 1914, the Russian emperor was Tsar Nicholas II. He fought a number of wars to expand his empire in the north and west in Europe. He had borne the expenditure of war by taxing the common people of Russia.
Conditions of peasants: Majority of the Russians were agriculturalists. Major part of the land was owned by nobles and clergy and these peasants worked as farmers on daily wages. They were paid less and worked more and sometimes under debt, they were not even paid wages.
Status of industries: Industry was found in pockets. Prominent industrial areas were St. Petersburg and Moscow. Craftsmen undertook much of the production, but large factories existed alongside crafts workshops. Foreign investment in industries increased with the extension of Russia’s railway network.
Conditions of workers in the industries: Most industries were owned by private industrialists. Though the government supervised factories’ working hours and wages of the workers, but still rules were broken. Women workers were also paid less than men. Some workers formed associations to help members in times of unemployment and financial hardships. ,
Formation of socialist parties: All political parties were illegal in Russia before 1914. The Russian Social Democratic Workers Party was founded in 1898 by socialists, who respected Marxist ideas. But because of government policies, it had to operate secretly as an illegal organisation. It set up a newspaper, mobilised workers and organised strikes.