Indian to head US think-tank!Obama wishes happy Diwali!Mallya said being the first home race for Force India, the Silverstone-based team was determined to put up its best showing at the Buddh International Circuit in Delhi.One F1 team consumes about 2lakh litres of fuel in a season!India plans industrial corridor bigger than Japan!
India passed a flagship policy on Tuesday to encourage manufacturing by streamlining labour and environmental rules in industrial parks, a move it says is key to create jobs and keep Asia's third-largest economy on a fast-growth track.
For Peasantry, Rural World, Excluded communities, the Majority Non Brahamin Masses and Aborigine Indigenous humanscape, it is NOT an Opportunity to Celebrate rather it is time Mourning as the LPG Mafia Rule Gears up for Mass Destruction to Promote Free Market Sensex Economy and there is NO Occupy Wall Street! No Trade Union Movement! No KISAN ANDOLAN! No Students` uprising! No Evenue to ESCAPE! No Survival KIT at all!
Superhero film 'Ra.One' kicks off on an unusual note, as geeky tech-wiz dad Shekhar Subramaniam, played by Shah Rukh Khan, tries to become his young son's hero by creating the greatest video-game villain of all time.
Indian Holocaust My Father`s Life and
Time - SEVEN HUNDRED FIFTY
Palash Biswas
http://indianholocaustmyfatherslifeandtime.blogspot.com/
http://basantipurtimes.blogspot.com/
It is also Kali Puja in West Bengal. From beautifully decorated lights hanging around the houses to the colourful rangolis drawn outside the household!Mindyou, Bengal had been NON Aryan Non Brahaminical until Sen Dynasty. The Aborigine Indigenous People used to worship Shiva and Kali only! Kali Puja was meant for the Non Brahamin Masses but the Brahamins have Hijacked it and Brahaminsised Kali Puja! shiva is Marginalised in Bengal!Millions of Hindus Clebrate Diwali this Night. Kolkata and bengal Clebrating Kali Puja!Millions of Indians celebrated Diwali, the colourful festival of lights, with joy all over the country despite rising prices of sweets, dry fruits and firecrackers.Global stocks eased while the euro retreated on Wednesday ahead of a European Union summit that has investors both hopeful and uneasy about the prospects for resolving the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis.Global stocks eased while the euro retreated on Wednesday ahead of a European Union summit that has investors both hopeful and uneasy about the prospects for resolving the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis.
US President Barack Obama today wished Happy Diwali to millions of Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists celebrating the festival of lights across the globe, particularly in India and the US.
Neera Tanden, an Indian-American veteran of the Obama and Clinton administrations, will be taking over as president of the Centre for American Progress, a major Washington-based think-tank next week.
Mallya said being the first home race for Force India, the Silverstone-based team was determined to put up its best showing at the Buddh International Circuit in Delhi.
Superhero film 'Ra.One' kicks off on an unusual note, as geeky tech-wiz dad Shekhar Subramaniam, played by Shah Rukh Khan, tries to become his young son's hero by creating the greatest video-game villain of all time.
Meanwhile,India passed a flagship policy on Tuesday to encourage manufacturing by streamlining labour and environmental rules in industrial parks, a move it says is key to create jobs and keep Asia's third-largest economy on a fast-growth track.
For Peasantry, Rural World, Excluded communities, the Majority Non Brahamin Masses and Aborigine Indigenous humanscape, it is NOT an Opportunity to Celebrate rather it is time Mourning as the LPG Mafia Rule Gears up for Mass Destruction to Promote Free Market Sensex Economy and there is NO Occupy Wall Street! No Trade Union Movement! No KISAN ANDOLAN! No Students` uprising! No Evenue to ESCAPE! No Survival KIT at all!
Tanden, 41, a former senior Obama administration official who worked as a close aide of secretary of state Hillary Clinton when she was the First Lady, US senator and then during her presidential campaign, will be the first Indian American to take up the position.
Currently the chief operating officer of CAP, Tanden will succeed John Podesta, who ran President Barack Obama's transition team and served as White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton.
"A graduate of Yale Law School, Neera has proven expertise in areas like health care reform, economic growth, and justice, and crafting foreign policies that reflect our nation's values and strengths," a CAP release said.
"I want us to focus on the bigger and longer-term challenges that the country faces," she said adding her thinking on policy is also informed by difficult aspects of her childhood.
Born outside Boston to Indian immigrants who had met in an arranged marriage, she and her mother sunk into poverty after her father left them when she was 5, she said.
The family survived on welfare and Tanden only managed to remain in the public schools of prosperous Bedford, Massachussets, through a programme that offered faster permits to developers who included low-income housing units in their buildings.
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Manasamangal Kāvya - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Article: On Bastardization of Muslims of Bengal
by MO Farooq
Even Bankimchandra, who took pride in Bangali's Aryan connection, had to admit, "ThisBengal was not Aryan land some nine hundred years ago. ...
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The original inhabitants of Bengal were non-Aryan. Many linguists and anthropologists believe that the early tribes of Bengal were Dravidian, but belonged to a ...
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literature - Bengal Online - Sitemarvel WebStudio
bengalonline.sitemarvel.com/bengali-literature.aspBut the influence of other non-Aryan languages on Bengali cannot be ignored. It is now more or less accepted that Bengali and languages of neigbouring states ...
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www.sinhainstitute.com/HistoryOfBengal.php23 Feb 2005 – The reconstruction of the history of Bengal in the pre-Muslim period is... The original settlers were the non-Aryan ethnic groups Nisadas or ...
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THE BLACKS OF THE EAST BENGAL: A NATIVE'S PERSPECTIVE
www.cwo.com/~lucumi/bengal.html8 Aug 2002 – Hence, extermination of the non-Aryan native population was not possible here in Bengal, as it had been done in north India, but a progressive ...
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History of Bengali Language
Here we have tried to describe the history of bengali language, not the script. Bengaliis a language of the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European family of ...
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Islam in Bangladesh - Google Books Result
books.google.co.in/books?isbn=9004094970...U. A. B. Razia Akter Banu - 1992 - Architecture - 194 pages
Perhaps the most distinguishing feature of ancient Bengal was its non- Aryanpopulation and culture. Bengal was not a part of Aryavarta, the eastward march of ...
Kali Puja
 | |
| Observed by | Hindus (specially in Bengal,Orissa, Assam) |
| Type | Hindu |
| Date | Decided by the lunar calendar |
| 2010 date | 5 November |
| 2011 date | 26 October |
| 2012 date | 13 November |
| Celebrations | Fireworks |
| Observances | Prayers, Religious rituals (seepuja, prashad) |
Kali Puja (Bengali: কালীপূজা) or Shyama Puja (Bengali: শ্যামাপূজা) is a festival dedicated to the Hindu goddess Kali, celebrated on the new moon day of the Hindu month Ashwin in Bengal.[1] It coincides with the pan-Indian Lakshmi Puja day of Diwali. While the Bengalis, Oriyas and Assamese adore goddess Kali [1] on this day the rest of India worships goddess Lakshmi.
Contents[hide] |
[edit]History
The festival of Kali Puja is not an ancient one. Kali Puja was practically unknown before the 18th century, however a late 17th century devotional text Kalika mangalkavya –by Balram mentions an annual festival dedicated to Kali.[2] It was introduced in Bengal during the 18th century, by King (Raja) Krishnachandra of Navadvipa.[1] Kali Puja gained popularity in the 19th century, with Krishanachandra's grandson Ishvarchandra and the Bengali elite; wealthy landowners began patronizing the festival on a grand scale.[3] Along with Durga Puja, now - Kali Puja is the biggest goddess festival in Bengal.[4]
[edit]Worship
Kali puja (like Durga Puja) worshipers honor goddess Kali in their homes in the form of clay idols and in pandals (temporary shrines or open pavilions). She is worshipped at night with Tantric rites and mantras. She is prescribed offerings of red hibiscus flowers, animal blood in a skull, sweets, rice and lentils, fish and meat. It is prescribed that a worshipper should meditate throughout the night until dawn.[5] Homes may also practice rites in the Brahmanical (mainstream Hindu-style, non-Tantric) tradition with ritual dressing of Kali in her form as Adya Shakti Kali.[6] Animals are ritually sacrificed on Kali Puja day and offered to the goddess.[1] A celebration of Kali Puja in Kolkata is also held in a large cremation ground[7] where she is believed to dwell.
The pandals also house images of god Shiva - the consort of Kali, Ramakrishna and Bamakhepa- two famous Bengali Kali devotees along with scenes from mythology of Kali and her various forms along with Mahavidyas, sometimes considered as the "ten Kalis". The Mahavidyas is a group of ten Tantric goddesses headed by Kali.[8] People visit these pandals throughout the night. Kali Puja is also the time for magic shows and theatre, fireworks.[6] Recent custom involves drinking wine.[9]
In the Kalighat Temple in Kolkata, Kali is worshipped as Lakshmi on this day so as to reflect an essence of Vaishnava Haldars on Kali worship. The temple is visited by thousands of devotees who offer animal sacrifices to the goddess.[1][7] Another famous temple dedicated to Kali in Kolkata is Dakshineswar Kali Temple. The famous Kali devotee Ramakrishna was a priest at this temple. The celebrations have changed little from his time.[10]
[edit]Other celebrations
Although the widely popular annual Kali Puja celebration, also known as the Dipanwita Kali Puja, is celebrated on the new moon day of Aswin, Kali is also worshipped in other new moon days too. Two other major Kali Puja observations are Ratanti Kali Puja and Phalaharini Kali Puja, respectively celebrated on the new moon days of the Hindu months of Margashirsha and Jyeshta. In many Bengali households, Kali is worshipped daily.[11]
[edit]Notes
- ^ a b c d e McDermott and Kripal p.72
- ^ McDermott p. 373
- ^ McDermott p. 173
- ^ McDaniel p. 223
- ^ McDaniel p. 234
- ^ a b McDaniel pp. 249-50, 54
- ^ a b Fuller p. 86
- ^ Kinsley p.18
- ^ Harding p. 134
- ^ See Harding pp. 125-6 for a detailed account of the rituals in Dakshineshwar.
- ^ Banerjee, Suresh Chandra (1991) (in Bengali). Shaktiranga Bangabhumi [Bengal, The Abode of Shaktism] (1st ed.). Kolkata: Ananda Publishers Pvt Ltd. p. 114. ISBN 81-7215-022-9.
[edit]References
- McDermott, Rachel Fell; Kripal, Jeffrey John. Encountering Kālī: in the margins, at the center, in the West.
- McDaniel, June. Offering flowers, feeding skulls: popular goddess worship in West Bengal.
- Harding, Elizabeth U. Kali: the black goddess of Dakshineswar.
- McDermott, Rachel Fell. Mother of my heart, daughter of my dreams.
- Kinsley, David R. Tantric visions of the divine feminine: the ten mahāvidyās.
- Fuller, Christopher John. The camphor flame: popular Hinduism and society in India.
[edit]Further reading
- McDermott, Rachel Fell (2011). Revelry, Rivalry, and Longing for the Goddesses of Bengal: The Fortunes of Hindu Festivals.
[edit]External links
 | Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kali Puja |
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Business leaders welcomed the news, which will be a boost for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, whose second-term agenda of big-ticket economic reforms has been knocked off course by corruption scandals and a lack of clear leadership.
The union cabinet Tuesday gave its nod to the national manufacturing policy that aims to create 100 million additional jobs by 2025 and develop mega industrial zones with world-class infrastructure facilities and flexible labour and environment regulations.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh approved the policy that also aims to increase the share of manufacturing in the economy to 25 percent from the current around 16 percent.
According to the policy, the government would help establish National Manufacturing Investment Zones with world-class infrastructure and investment friendly regulations to boost manufacturing activities.
"China has done it, Germany has done it, Japan has done it and now India has decided to do it," Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma told reporters after the cabinet meeting here.
"No subsidy is proposed for individual units or areas. The basic thrust is to provide an enabling environment for tapping the potential of the private sector and the entrepreneurial skills of the younger population," Sharma said.
The major objectives of the NMP are to increase the sectoral share of manufacturing in GDP to at least 25 per cent, create 100 million jobs by 2022 and enhance global competitiveness of the sector.
Besides, it focuses on domestic value addition, technological depth and environmental sustainability of growth.
The policy envisages specific interventions broadly in the areas of industrial infrastructure development and improvement of the business environment through rationalisation and simplification of business regulations.
Besides, development of appropriate technologies, especially green technologies for sustainable development, and skill development of the younger population are envisaged, Sharma said.
The NMP aims at creating large integrated industrial townships -- National Investment and Manufacturing Zones (NIMZs).
"The land for these zones will preferably be waste infertile land which is not suitable for cultivation; not in the vicinity of any ecologically fragile area and with reasonable access to basic resources," Sharma said.
The contribution of the manufacturing sector is just over 16 per cent of India's GDP, currently.
With a view to accelerating the growth of the manufacturing sector, Sharma said that the manufacturing policy proposes to create an enabling environment suitable for the sector to flourish in India.
With an eye to its emerging market rival China, India is desperate to ramp up goods exports and revamp a manufacturing sector that has struggled to be competitive since before economic liberalisation in 1991.
"China has done it, Germany has done it, now India has decided to do it," Trade Minister Anand Sharma told reporters after unveiling the policy to build at least seven new industrial parks.
India's economic boom has seen average economic growth of over 8 percent annually in recent years but job creation has been very low -- worrying for a country which needs to absorb about 20 million new workers each year.
Sharma said the new policy sought to create 100 million new jobs within a decade. In the same period, the government aims to lift manufacturing's share in gross domestic product to 25 from about 16 percent now, the level at which it has stagnated for more than 30 years.
The plan to slash regulation in at least seven special zones in the notoriously bureaucratic country has been in the works since last year but was held up by objections from the labour ministry, under fire from unions.
Dipanker Mukherjee, general secretary of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions, said the new policy was created without consulting workers and would be opposed "lock, stock and barrel" if it did not protect workers' rights.
But Confederation of Indian Industry said the new policy will "revolutionize" the manufacturing sector in the country and will help India head off a global economic slowdown.
"The announcement of the policy at this critical time would generate momentum, resulting in long term positive impact on growth aspirations," the industry lobby group's chief Chandrajit Banerjee said in a statement.
The zones will be developed by the federal and state governments along with the private sector to provide infrastructure such as ports and airports as well as freeing up labour rules -- including easing regulations on wage payouts if a company closes.
Sharma also said the use of green technology would be encouraged with incentives.
"Diwali is a time for gathering with family and friends and as we experienced in India, celebrating with good food and dancing," Obama said in a statement referring to his Diwali celebration in Mumbai last year when he made his maiden trip to India.
"It is also a time for contemplation and prayer that serves as a reminder of our obligations to our fellow human beings, especially the less fortunate," said Obama, who became the first US President to celebrate Diwali at the White House in 2009.
He was also the first American President to celebrate Diwali in India last year.
"Today, here in America and around the world, Hindus, Jains, Sikhs and some Buddhists will celebrate the holiday of Diwali ? the festival of lights," Obama said.
"Many who observe this holiday do so by lighting the diya, or lamp, which symbolises the victory of light over darkness and knowledge over ignorance," he said.
"I was proud to be the first President the mark Diwali and light the Diya at the White House, and last year Michelle and I were honoured to join in Diwali celebrations during our visit to India," Obama said.
"To all who are observing this sacred holiday here and around the world, Happy Diwali and Saal Mubarak," Obama said.
Their houses lit up in festive spirit, people in the national capital celebrated Diwali today with fervour and gaiety, exchanging sweets, bursting crackers and sharing the joy with near and dear ones.
Houses and shops were at their decorative best, with lights all around the walls, flowers donning the insides and colourful rangolis welcoming people at the entrances.
People had been flooding markets throughout this week in frenized shopping and early on in the day too, many people rushed to their nearby shops to make sure they have enough sweets and crackers for the day.
The day began with many people in new clothes performing puja at home while others visiting temples.
Chants of prayers and wafts of fragrance from incense sticks permeated the environment early in the day, following which people stepped out of their houses to exchange greetings with neighbours, friends and relatives.
Many also took to the Facebook to wish a 'HappyDiwali' to their friendsand some also used the social networking site to exhort their friends to follow safety norms while bursting crackers.
The festival marks the joy of Ayodhya when Lord Rama returned to his Kingdom after defeating Ravana and lighting 'diyas' is how the subjects welcomed their beloved king.
As evening descended, candles and oil lamps dotted around the houses as revellers took to open spaces to burst crackers.
While for many, the festival is all about celebrating, for some it is also about sharing of love and compassion.
Nandita, who celebrates Diwali with friends, made it sure she took out an hour to go to a school run by a charitable trust and distribute some books and stationary to underprivileged children.
"It is great if some children would feel happy by the effort," she said. Police and fire brigade made extensive arrangements to ensure an "incident-free" Diwali. While police strengthened its presence across the city, especially in markets, fire fighters too kept fire tenders ready to respond at any distress call.
"Between 12 pm and 6 pm, we have already received 63 calls but all of them were minor incidents", a fire official said. While children and other cracker lovers had a good time, dogs and cats were a petrified lot on Diwali with loud noise making it a harrowing time for them.
"My dogs are anyways a soft lot. They don't take even loud shouts well. But ever since the cracker season started, they cower under the bed, table or sofa every evening," said Ridhi, a resident of Safdarjung enclave.
It's festival season, and that means sweets — often garnished with edible silver leaf for that final gourmet touch.
Even this year's steep rise in silver prices hasn't deterred confectioners from presenting sweets rolled in fine sheets of silver called varq during the long festive season that climaxes with Diwali celebrations.
The price of silver has increased by about a third from a year ago. Still, manufacturers of silver leaf and confectioners say they see little impact. "The prices of silver leaves are at least 30 per cent higher compared to the last festival season ... but there is not much effect on the demand," said KA Patel of Amee Enterprise, silver leaf manufacturer in Gujarat.
Silver leaf is still made by hand in small workshops by men pounding on a piece of silver until it is flattened into extremely fine sheets. Interest surges during the festival season as people celebrate with sweets. "There is more demand during the festival season as people like to indulge and binge on food," said Patel.
Once used to garnish the food of royalty, silver and even gold is gaining popularity as a garnish for chocolates and cakes, in the form of dust or leaves. But silver really comes into its own to wrap festival sweets such as kaju katli, which is made of cashew nuts, sugar, milk and powdered cardamom.
Silver is technically flavourless but consumers say it does add a distinct taste to sweets.
"They make them look nice, plus kaju katlis without the leaf just aren't the same," said Satyam Pati, a content writer from Bangalore.
Used for centuries in food, tobacco, mouth fresheners and for garnishing dishes such as biryani fried rice, silver is also said to have therapeutic properties. Some traditional physicians still recommend it as beneficial for the heart, stomach and the mind. A preserve of Indian gooseberries coated in silver is a popular cure prescribed by ayurveda practitioners for digestive problems and a variety of other ills.
"Just yesterday, a girl came and bought varq from me for wrapping her herbal medicines in, a hakim (traditional medical practitioner) had recommended it to her for an eye problem," said Mohammed Wasim, a silver leaf maker from Lucknow.
But questions have been raised about the adverse effects of silver on health, with spurious, adulterated products found. Some confectioners even stopped using silver leaf.
"Unless you buy sweets from a good store, you can never be sure of the quality of varq, so I don't really like it," said Mayank Tyagi, a marketing professional from Gurgaon.
Not everyone agrees."I feel sweets are incomplete without it," said Wasim.
In the run-up to Diwali, the shopping mood in India's financial capital is upbeat despite the spiralling cost of living. Garments, furnishings and high value consumer electronics are flying off the shelves, but gold, silver and dry fruits are getting a cold shoulder thanks to a jump in their prices this year.
Contrary to popular perceptions, people are out shopping in droves at malls, shopping plazas, shopping centres and wayside stalls for clothes, gifts and sweetmeats, and hunting for bargains.
People are apparently buying certain categories of gifts and durables wholeheartedly in the true spirit of the festival season, said several shopkeepers and managers.
For instance, Bhavnagri Farsan & Sweets, a five-decade-old popular retailer in Mumbai's Borivali suburb, is overwhelmed by bulk orders from call centres, both for their staff and for people connected to the BPO business, said its owner Rakesh Shah.
"We have been working 24X7 since the first week of this month to fulfil the orders, besides catering to the hordes of retail buyers who queue up 9 a.m.-10 p.m. daily," Shah said.
The most popular items on demand include sweets or snacks with a long shelf life, he said.
Garments and furnishings retailer Ajay Vora said people's response this year "is unusual".
"Diwali is the biggest shopping opportunity of the year, but in the past inflation made people cut down drastically on their shopping budgets. Not so this year. Maybe 2011 is lucky," Vora said.
However, precious metals like gold and silver are not being picked up as well as other items, probably due to their high prices.
With gold prices hovering around Rs.26,000 per 10 gm, people appear reluctant to invest in this age-old precious and auspicious commodity, said retail jeweller V. Shrikrishna.
"Besides, many banks are also offering gold investment and buying options. The country's first gold, silver and jewellery ATM was opened by a leading retailer Saturday. This enables people to make discreet, auspicious purchases," said Shrikrishna who runs a Pramila Jewellers showroom in north Mumbai.
However, a traditional gifting item, dry fruits, is not so popular on the shopping agendas of the people, according to an official of American Dry Fruits at Churchgate in south Mumbai.
"The response to retail buyers for dry fruits has been even less than last year, mainly due to spiralling prices. Most popular dry fruits are in the range of Rs.1,000-2,000 a kg and some are even higher, discouraging the buyers," rued counter manager Pravin Shah.
While the overall response to the consumer electronics sector is down by 25 percent compared to last year, customers are surprisingly opting for high-value goods.
One F1 team consumes about 2lakh litres of fuel in a season
Ever wondered how different is the engine of a Formula One car from an ordinary car? On which fuel the F1 cars run? How long the tyre of an F1 car can last?
As the country is all set to make its grand entry into the high profile and glamorous world of Formula One, here is a guide to some interesting facts -- a combination of information and rules -- about the sport.
F1 Grand Prix: India's date with Hotwheels
Revving to a limited 18,000 RPM (Rotation per minute), a modern F1 engine consumes about 450 litres of air every second with race fuel consumption around 75 litre per 100 km.
Such massive speed means that accelerative force on the pistons is more than 8000 times of gravity.
As per rules, each car can use eight engines per season. And if the rule is broken, the driver gets a 10 place grid penalty. As far as gearboxes are concerned, each car can use one gearbox to a maximum of four races.
The Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) has also imposed a freeze on engine development, which means that teams are unable to alter the fundamentals of their engines' design.
Talking about the fuel, its composition is actually quite close to the composition of ordinary, commercially available petrol.
In old times, though, the cars ran on a mixture of powerful chemicals and additives, that contained large quantities of benzene, alcohol and aviation fuel. Some early fuels were so potent that the car's engine had to be disassembled and washed in ordinary petrol at the end of the race to prevent the mixture from corroding it.
The modern fuel is only allowed tiny quantities of 'non hydrocarbon' compounds, effectively banning the most volatile power-boosting additives.
The fuel -- available in 50 different blends -- could be different for different races as per the nature and demands of a track and weather conditions.
During one F1 season, a team approximately uses over 200,000 litres of fuel for testing and racing.
Talking about the tyre, an ordinary car tyre can last 16,000 kilometres or little more and a F1 tyre is designed to last for, at most, 200 kilometres.
The emphasis, like everything else in a F1 car, is to make it as light and strong as possible. An underlying nylon and polyester structure in a complicated weave pattern is designed to withstand far larger forces than road car tyres.
Each team travels about 160,000 kilometres in a season between races and test sessions.
The F1 drivers can lose up to three kgs weight after a race due to extreme heat in his cockpit. Hence, the drivers take in large amounts of water before the race, even if they do not feel thirsty, to avoid dehydration through sweating.
India plans industrial corridor bigger than Japan
DHOLERA, INDIA: Chotubhai Raghani's fields in a dry, salty strip of Indian coastline on the Arabian Sea never yielded much wheat but he feels like a lucky man now he's started selling them at a juicy markup.
He expects his land may one day make way for a car factory or an air-conditioned shopping mall, all part of what may be India's most ambitious infrastructure project ever.
Excitement is rising almost as quickly as land prices in his village, one of the sites chosen for building 24 industrial cities from scratch along a 1,483 km (920 mile) railway line.
The government plans to build a corridor bigger in land size than Japan, stretching from New Delhi down to the financial hub Mumbai in the west, that could help transform India's economic landscape and give its choked, teeming cities room to breathe. "It's going to change our lives," said Raghani. "We've tilled this land for generations but we only get a small mouthful out of it."
Sceptics call the $90 billion project, known as the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC), over-ambitious. India, bogged down by corruption, staggering bureaucracy and land battles, has a long history of failed infrastructure plans.
"It's a very crucial project for supporting GDP growth," said Pratyush Kumar, President & CEO of GE Transportation in India, a company with interests from railway engines to wind turbines. So far it is not involved in the DMIC project.
"Nobody is saying that it's not moving, but the glacial pace will choke the GDP ambitions," he said. "The pace has to pick up and they need to get away from this whole decision-making paralysis of 'hey, we can't award large projects because of all the scams'."
If the DMIC fails, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government will have lost a golden opportunity to sell India to investors and will feed the perception that, unlike China, it lacks the will to act when it counts. If it succeeds, the project could be the jolt Indian industry needs to sustain the country's heady economic rise.
The timing couldn't be better amid global financial strife, rising interest rates and domestic policy stagnation caused by government corruption cases that have dampened confidence.
INFRASTRUCTURE LAGS BOOM
New Delhi has earmarked an initial fund of $4.5 billion to build the core infrastructure of each city, such as roads, power supplies and sewage treatment plants, and expects a similar contribution from the project's partner, Japan.
Once the basics are there, the thinking goes, investors will be convinced of the DMIC's value and will build factories, housing and more in a public-private partnership. The government can then sell them the land it has acquired from farmers, using the funds to start building the next city.
Despite years of economic boom, India's infrastructure is rickety and its manufacturing sector sluggish. Transporting goods is expensive and slow, it can take more than two weeks to move a container from Delhi to Mumbai. It is hoped the new freight line will slash that to under 24 hours.
26 Oct, 2011, 06.02AM IST, Writankar Mukherjee & Pramugdha MamgainWritankar Mukherjee & Pramugdha Mamgain,ET Bureau
Shoppers come out in droves on Dhanteras, dales jump 30%
KOLKATA | NEW DELHI: Shoppers across north India shrugged off concerns of rising inflation to flock to the high street on Dhanteras, lapping up durables, clothes and jewellery in higher volumes than last year and providing welcome succour to these sectors at a time of growing economic stress.
Consumer electronics goods makers, retailers and jewellers reported sales growth of up to 30% this Dhanteras, the first day of the five-day Diwali festivities and considered auspicious for shopping, especially jewellery, by Hindus. The excitement was less palpable at car showrooms, with most prospective buyers postponing their spending plans under pressure from rising fuel costs and interest rates.
"The economic triggers may suggest we are approaching slowdown, but at the consumption level it is still insulated," said Debashish Mukherjee, partner, AT Kearney. "As a result, retailers and consumer durable makers are seeing good Diwali sales. Also, since consumers are postponing large-ticket purchases like housing and cars due to hike in interest rates, there is some disposable income which is flowing into retail."
ET presents a snapshot of festive sales across sectors:
Retail
Most big retailers in metros kept their stores open until midnight to cater to the festive rush, with several electronics and mobile phone retailers offering free gifts such as silver coins and idols to attract consumers. Future Group, the country's largest retailer, posted more than 30% sales over the year ago across its chains - Pantaloon, Big Bazaar, Ezone and Home Town. At Big Bazaar, sales in the weekend before Dhanteras were close to its highest over the past year.
Videocon group's electronics retailing arm, Next Retail, reported a 25% jump in sales in the run-up to Dhanteras, driven by high demand for LCD, LED and plasma televisions, frost-free refrigerators, air conditioners, mobile phones and laptops.
"The average ticket size increased by 40% this Dhanteras to 14,000," said KS Raman, director, Next Retail.
A similar sentiment prevailed at Kolkata-based retailer Spencer's, which operates 220 stores across different formats in 45 cities. Spencer's saw sales doubling over the year ago for steel utensils, home decor, gift packs, consumer durables, mobile phones and digital cameras.
"Bill values have shot up by almost 60-70%, with more than 50% jump in footfalls on Monday," said Sanjay Gupta, executive director (marketing & business development), Spencer's. Sales were especially robust in the National Capital Region and east Uttar Pradesh, he said.
At HyperCity, which operates 10 hypermarts across the country, average bill size rose more than 13%, the growth recorded in the first half of the year.
Driven largely by interest-free finance offers on certain products, India's largest consumer durable maker LG reported 30% growth, chief operating officer YV Verma said. Home appliances and flat panel televisions were the highest selling products, he said. Rival Samsung, too, reported sales growth of between 30% and 35%.
Consumer durables maker Godrej also posted about 30% growth.
Reliance Digital CEO Brian Bade said festive season sales have been encouraging, but refused to disclose figures.
Jewellery
"Demand started to pick up late last week and advance bookings for gold coins and bars was on a high. The response was very good in the northern and western regions," said Mehul C Choksi, chairman and MD of Gitanjali Group, which owns popular brands like Nakshatra, D'Damas, Sangini, Gili and Asmi.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-company/corporate-trends/shoppers-come-out-in-droves-on-dhanteras-dales-jump-30/articleshow/10494652.cms
24 Oct, 2011, 09.44AM IST, Nandini Sen Gupta, Samidha Sharma & Namrata SinghNandini Sen Gupta, Samidha Sharma & Namrata Singh,TNN
Diwali festival: Heavy discounts, promotions drive up sales in retail market
CHENNAI/MUMBAI: After three months of sluggish growth, Diwali has lit up the retail market with consumer durables, goods and automobiles companies predicting a cracker of a season. Traditionally the best time for retail sentiment, marketers were apprehensive about whether macro-economic factors would dampen demand this year. The good news: Consumers are flocking back to showrooms albeit lured by big discounts and promotions. Durables marketers are already talking about a 30% growth while car makers, particularly those that have new models in their stable, are talking about 20-25% growth."The sense we get so far is that the larger macro economic issues have not really impacted consumer sentiment as far as purchase of electronics and durables go," says YV Verma, COO, LG Electronics. What has helped that there is no threat of job losses like it was in 2008-09 and the bonuses have been ok, Verma added. Rural consumption, heavily dependent on the rains, which has also been satisfactory, is driving up demand.
"The last few days leading up to Diwali is always the most significant period and we expect the sales to grow further," he says. LG expects to clock a 30% higher growth compared to last year. Arch rival Samsung dittoes that sentiment. "We are well on our way to achieving our 30% growth target this festival season over last year," says Mahesh Krishnan, V-P, home appliances, Samsung India. Sales of LED TVs and refrigerators are leading the growth with LED TVs up more than 100%, while refrigerators have grown at over 35% for Samsung.
Automobile majors aren't too far behind despite struggling with flat growth for the last three months. Coupled with it, the industry has been hit badly by the labour unrest at Maruti, which comprises 50% of the car market. That's also why industry experts feel the Diwali demand, overall, will be marginally higher than last year though individual companies, particularly those with new launches, are witnessing a strong upturn in the sentiment.
Says Neeraj Garg, member of board and director Volkswagen passenger cars, "The first ten days of October have already seen an increase of around 20-25% over September's pre-shradh period. The customers were waiting for the festival and marriage season to flock to the showrooms and the larger number of tactical promotions have also helped." The sentiment is strong enough, he says, for the industry to avoid negative growth despite Maruti. Hyundai, which has created a huge buzz with the launch of Eon, admits the footprint has been a windfall. "We are doing better, thanks to our launch which has attracted walk-ins of around 5,000-6,000 per day for the last four to five days," says Arvind Saxena, director-sales and marketing, Hyundai Motor India. The Eon buzz has also given the company "the opportunity to showcase other models".
Industry experts, like Ashok Khanna, senior EVP & business head, vehicle loans, HDFC Bank, say the difference this year is the promotion pitch. "Of course there's festival demand but customers need convincing particularly to buy petrol vehicles. The diesel vehicle demand is of course running into wait-lists," he says.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/services/retailing/Diwali-festival-Heavy-discounts-promotions-drive-up-sales-in-retail-market/articleshow/10471446.cms
26 Oct, 2011, 04.10AM IST, ET Bureau
National Manufacturing Policy, faster net link for villages cleared by Cabinet
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NEW DELHI: The Cabinet on Tuesday approved the National Manufacturing Policy that seeks to raise the sector's contribution to GDP and create 100 million jobs over a decade. It also cleared a Rs 20,000-crore plan to link all gram panchayats with a fibre optic broadband network and brought more people under the ambit of an interest subsidy scheme on low-cost housing.
"The NMP seeks to enhance the share of manufacturing in the GDP to 25% within a decade and create 100 million jobs as part of the inclusive growth agenda of the UPA," commerce minister Anand Sharma said after the cabinet meeting.
At present, manufacturing contributes 15% to 16% to the country's GDP.
Close to 20 million people are added to the country's work force every year, for which employment opportunities need to be created. The prime minister had approved the policy in June but the details took long to settle because of inter-ministerial differences.
The policy envisages large integrated industrial townships, national investment and manufacturing zones (NIMZs) with state-of-the-art infrastructure, lesser regulatory and compliance burden, faster clearances and fiscal incentives.
It is proposed that the zones, developed with private participation, will be positioned as self-governing and autonomous bodies.
Industry welcomed the new policy.
"The Policy is one of the most significant developments since the economic reforms of 1991, and is poised to transform the industrial landscape in the country," ITC chairman YC Deveshwar said, adding, "the move will power a new paradigm of competitive growth in the country".
FICCI secretary Rajiv Kumar said, "We are very pleased that the manufacturing policy has been passed and hope it will be implemented immediately. State governments should take up the opportunity to build NMIZs, which will provide a fillip to manufacturing."
But, some experts were skeptical.
"As far as land acquisition for NMIZs is concerned, it will not be easy in our country," Planning Commission member Arun Maira said, adding, "But overall, I don't expect it to be a repeat of the SEZ episode, we have learnt from our mistakes there."
The Cabinet also raised the housing loan ceiling for availing 1% interest subsidy from 10 lakh to 15 lakh. It also raised the cost of houses covered under the scheme to 25 lakh from 20 lakh. The decision is likely to benefit borrowers by up to 14,865 every year.
A budget provision of 500 crore has been made for 2011-12 for the implementation of the scheme, which was introduced in 2009.
The government also approved capital infusion of 3,000 crore over two years in state-run National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) to help it mobilise higher resources from the market.
The move will raise the bank's paid-up capital to 5,000 crore. At present, the authorised capital of Nabard is 5,000 crore, of which, the paid up capital is 2,000 crore.
The Cabinet also cleared a national optical fibre network for panchayats that will improve governance and service delivery systems at the village level. Under the scheme, the existing optical fibre network available at the district and block headquarter levels will be extended to gram panchayats.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/National-Manufacturing-Policy-faster-net-link-for-villages-cleared-by-Cabinet/articleshow/10493950.cms
26 Oct, 2011, 06.06AM IST, ET Bureau
Monetary policy review: Street cheers RBI outlook, bank stocks take a knock
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MUMBAI: Shares of most banks fell on Tuesday as the Reserve Bank of India's surprise step to free up savings account rates could squeeze profits. The deregulation would prompt banks to increase rates on savings account when lenders are facing a higher quantum of bad loans because of the higher interest rates, analysts said.
"This would be a negative for banks having large CASA franchise such as HDFC Bank (47%), SBI (48%), ICICI Bank (42%) and Axis Bank (42%) which may see their cost of funds marginally escalating," Amar Ambani, head of research of broking firm IIFL. CASA refers to current account, savings account. The percentages refer to the percentage of total deposits accounted for by current and savings accounts.
HDFC Bank shares fell 3.2%, Axis Bank dropped 4.3% and State Bank of India declined 3.5%. The banking index, Bankex, was down 1.2%. YES Bank, which has a CASA of around 14%, surged 8.8% on Tuesday.
If rates on savings account are increased by 1%, the total interest burden on the Indian banking industry will rise by around 14,469 crore, said Jagannadham Thunuguntla, research head, SMC Global Securities. Total savings bank balance of the entire banking system is around 14.46-lakh crore, he said in a report.
Analysts said the deregulation of savings rates will
"Small-, and medium-sized banks, which are trying to increase their retail deposits base, are likely to be the first movers in increasing the interest rates," said Pawan Agrawal, director of ratings agency Crisil.
The return on assets ratio of banks is expected to drop by an additional 5 basis points following this move, but they may partially offset the impact of higher interest cost by levying transaction and servicing charges, the ratings agency said.
"Given the current liquidity environment, the deregulation of savings account rates would likely move up the interest cost curve for the entire banking system and the end borrowers," said Sandeep Nanda, chief investment officer, Bharti AXA Life Insurance. "To that extent, the policy may lead to hikes in bank base rates, increase interest rate volatility and also deal a blow to margins of banks with high savings deposits," he said.
The Sensex gained 315.58 points, or 1.86%, to 17,254.86 as investors were relieved after the RBI hinted that it may not increase policy rates further.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/monetary-policy-review-street-cheers-rbi-outlook-bank-stocks-take-a-knock/articleshow/10493510.cms
History of Bengal
Recent exciting news on Bengal archaeology was sent in by our contributor Rangan DattaArchaeological Excavation at Deka - Bichkandi, MurshidabadThe West Bengal State Archaeology Department is presently carrying out an excavation in Deka - Bichkandi, in the Kandi sub-division of Murshidabad District, West Bengal. The first phase of the excavation started in mid-February 2009 and continued till mid-April 2009. The State Archaeology Department will return after the monsoon and continue with the dig. Here are some newspaper reports on the Deka - Bichkandi dig.Ananda Bazar Patrika, 28 February, 2009  Ananda Bazar Patrika, 25 March, 2009  Additional Newspaper reports: Pushing Bengal's history back by Prasanta Paul (Deccan Herald, June 6, 2009) 5th century artefacts discovered in West Bengal by Raktima Bose (The Hindu, June 6, 2009) Mound of ruins Bengal's oldest Buddhist site by Sebanti Sarkar (Telegraph, March 28, 2009) Dreams to dust and then vault of history - Large mound of relics found in Musrhidabad by Sebanti Sarkar (Telegraph, March 20, 2009) Hunt for ancient stupa under teacher's plot by Sebanti Sarkar (Telegraph, February 27, 2009) Excavation at Tilpi and DhosaThe West Bengal State Archaeology Department is excavating at the twin sites of Tilpi and Dhosa near Joynagar by the side of the river Piyalee. Please note that I had earlier incorrectly said that the excavation was being done by the Archaeological Survey of India, sincere apologies. This was brought to my attention by Dr. Gautam Sengupta and Rangan Datta. Here are some links on this excavation work:Dhosa and Tilpi by Saurab Basu Dhosa and Tilpi by Rangan Datta Treasure trove seals worth of site- Emerging, Holy Centre by Sebanti Sarkar Twin sites of mystery - Archaeology seminar by Sebanti Sarkar 2200-yr-old life in Bengal by A Staff Reporter Furnace find near stupa site by Sebanti Sarkar |
 Courtesy: W.B. State Archeo. Museum | Have you heard of: There is a fascinating place near Kolkata (West Bengal, India) where a bustling town from the days of Emperor Asoka is buried under the present day ricefields and village cottages. If you go there, you won't see much at first. But look down on the ground you're walking on, and you'll see something unusual. The ground appears strewn with a variety of potsherds. In fact, whenever the ground of Chandraketugarh is dug to build a house or to dig a pond, a variety of elegant and sophisticated artifacts is routinely unearthed. All available information points to a mature civilization centered around a busy port, which started flourishing in this area more than 2000 years ago. Indeed, it is thought to belong to the kingdom of a "mighty ruler" of whom Alexander the Great was familiar. Plutarch wrote about a powerful tribe called "Gangaridae" living near a prosperous port "Gange" in the Gangetic delta. From geographical description the Chandraketugarh area can be linked to this port. The inhabitants of Chandraketugarh achieved spectacular artistic refinement and created artifacts of exquisite beauty. Influence of foreign art raises intriguing questions. The numerous materials collected from this site point to a rich cultural and social life. Why did it vanish without a trace? We embark upon a journey to learn more, especially through the terracotta art of Chandraketugarh.
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Chandraketugarh
| Take a look at the photo below. We see a cyclist happily riding on a country road, through, which seems like two unassuming mounds of the kind we see everywhere in India. But these are no simple mounds! Buried under these mounds are the fortified ramparts of an ancient community -- the fort of King Chandraketu. The cyclist is unknowingly passing through what used to be one of its main entrances. The mound on the right is now called the "burz", and probably used to be a sentry tower. Archeologists have excavated numerous items dating back to the 3rd Century BC (the Pre-Mauryan Era in India) from the bottom of these ramparts and the surrounding area. |
| I took the above photo at a place called Berachampa (the site of Chandraketugarh) about 38 km northeast of Kolkata (India). The person seen in the photo probably lives close by, and almost certainly doesn't know anything about the history of the place. Unfortunately, we don't know a whole lot either. There is no written record of this civilization. More mysterious is the fact that it vanished leaving no social memory in the surrounding area other than some local mythologies. Yet, there is no doubt that the civilization reached a very high level of sophistication (not possible in a short span of time) evidenced by the enormous amount of artifacts it is still routinely generating. Sounds interesting? Follow me through these pages and I will present you the fascinating facts and several photo albums of my journey to this place, click here. |
Khana-Mihirer Dhipi (The Mound of Khana-Mihir)
| Only a few kilometers from where I took the above photo, there are the ruins of a massive temple structure. Locally called the Khana-Mihirer Dhipi or the mound of Khana-Mihir, it has survived for almost a millenium in the form of another deserted mound. An excavation in the 1950s uncovered the structure (see the photos below). No one knows for sure how or when the names of Khana (pronounced khauna) and Barahamihir came to be associated with it. Barahamihir was one of the nine jewels in the court the famous Indian emperor Vikramaditya (also known as Chandragupta-II). Khana was his wife (daughter-in-law, according to another opinion). The ruins are now conjectured to belong to a Vishnu temple from the Gupta period. Who built the temple? Did it simply decay because of neglect or was it destroyed? We don't know. However, the temple complex was likely inside the fortification that we see at Chandraketugarh. For more details and a journey to this place, please click here. |
 |  |
Links to: |  Courtesy: W.B. State Archeo. Museum |
Articles by Rangan Datta, one of our major contributors: Click HereRangan Datta's independent website: www.rangan-datta.info |
Ambarish Goswami
Last Revised March 26, 2010
History of Bengal
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Gangaridai Kingdom, Vanga Kingdom, Pundra Kingdom, Suhma Kingdom, Anga Kingdom, Harikela Kingdom |
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Pala Empire, Sena Empire |
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Sultanate of Bengal, Deva Kingdom Bakhtiyar Khilji, Raja Ganesha |
Pratap Aditya, Raja Sitaram Ray Nawab of Bengal, Baro-Bhuyans |
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Zamindari system, Bengal famine of 1770 |
Bengal Renaissance Brahmo Samaj Swami Vivekananda, Jagadish Chandra Bose, Rabindranath Tagore, Subhash Chandra Bose |
1947 Partition of Bengal, Bangladesh Liberation War Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Jyoti Basu |
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| History of South Asia and India |
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The history of Bengal includes modern day Bangladesh and West Bengal, dates back four millennia.[1] To some extent, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers separated it from the mainland of India, though at times, Bengal has played an important role in the history of India.
Contents[hide] |
Etymology
The exact origin of the word Bangla or Bengal is unknown, though it is believed to be derived from the Dravidian-speaking tribe Bang/Bangathat settled in the area around the year 1000 BCE.[2][3] Other accounts speculate that the name is derived from Vanga (Bôngo), which came from the Austric word "Bonga" meaning the Sun-god. According to the Mahabharata, a number of Puranas and the Harivamsha Vanga was one of the adopted sons of king Vali who founded the Vanga Kingdom. The Muslim accounts refer that "Bong", a son of Hind (son of Hām who was a son of Prophet Noah/Nooh) colonized the area for the first time.[4] The earliest reference to "Vangala" (Bôngal) has been traced in the Nesari plates (805 AD) of Rashtrakuta Govinda III which speak of Dharmapala as the king of Vangala. Shams-ud-din Ilyas Shah took the title "Shah-e-Bangla" and united the whole region under one government.
Ancient history
Pre-historic Bengal
Stone age tools dating back 20,000 years have been excavated in the state.[5] Remnants of Copper Age settlements in the Bengal region date back 4,000 years.[6] Stone tools provide the earliest evidence of human settlements. Prehistoric stone implements have been discovered in various parts of West Bengal in the districts of Midnapur, Bankura and Burdwan, and also atSagardighi. But it is difficult to determine, even approximately, the time when people using them first settled in Bengal. It might have taken place ten thousand years (or even more) ago. The original settlers spoke non-Aryan languages— they may have spoken Austric or Austro-Asiatic languages like the languages of the present-day Kola, Bhil, Santal, Shabara, and Pulinda peoples. At a subsequent age, peoples speaking languages from two other language families— Dravidian and Tibeto-Burman—seem to have settled in Bengal. Archaeological discoveries during the 1960s furnished evidence of a degree of civilisation in certain parts of Bengal as far back as the beginning of the first millennium BC, perhaps even earlier. The discoveries at Pandu Rajar Dhibi in the valley of the Ajay river (near Bolpur) in Birbhum district and in several other sites on the Ajay, Kunur and Kopai rivers have thrown fresh light on Bengal's prehistory. Pandu Rajar Dhibi represents the ruins of a trading township, which carried on trade not only with the interior regions of India, but also—possibly indirectly—with the countries of the Mediterranean.
Bengal in early literature
Some references indicate that the primitive people in Bengal were different in ethnicity and culture from the Vedic people beyond the boundary of Aryandom and who were classed as "Dasyus". The Bhagavata Purana classes them as sinful people while Dharmasutra of Baudhayana prescribes expiatory rites after a journey among the Pundras and Vangas.Mahabharata speaks of Paundraka Vasudeva who was lord of the Pundras and who allied himself with Jarasandha against Krishna. The Mahabharata also speaks of Bengali kings called Chitrasena and Sanudrasena who were defeated by Bhima and Kalidasa mentions Raghu defeating a coalition of Vanga kings.
Proto-History
Hindu scriptures such as the Mahabharata suggest that ancient Bengal was divided among various tribes or kingdoms, including the Nishadas and kingdoms known as the Janapadas: Vanga (southern Bengal), Pundra (northern Bengal), and Suhma (western Bengal) according to their respective totems. These Hindu sources, written by Indo-Aryans in what is now Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, suggest that the peoples of Bengal were not Indo-Aryans. However, Jain scriptures identify Vanga and Anga in Bengal as Indo-Aryan. While western Bengal, as part of Magadha, became part of the Indo-Aryan civilization by the 7th century BCE, the Nanda Dynasty was the first historical state to unify all of Bengal under Indo-Aryan rule.
Overseas Colonization
The Vanga Kingdom was a powerful seafaring nation of Ancient India. They had overseas trade relations with Java, Sumatra and Siam (modern dayThailand). According to Mahavamsa, the Vanga prince Vijaya Simha conquered Lanka (modern day Sri Lanka) in 544 BC and gave the name "Sinhala" to the country. Bengali people migrated to the Malay Archipelago and Siam (in modern Thailand), establishing their own colonies there.[7]
Gangaridai Empire
Though north and west Bengal were part of the Magadhan empire southern Bengal thrived and became powerful with her overseas trades. In 326 BCE, with the invasion of Alexander the Great the region again came to prominence. The Greek and Latin historians suggested that Alexander the Great withdrew from India anticipating the valiant counter attack of the mighty Gangaridaiempire that was located in the Bengal region. Alexander, after the meeting with his officer, Coenus, was convinced that it was better to return. Diodorus Siculus mentions Gangaridai to be the most powerful empire in India whose king possessed an army of 20,000 horses, 200,000 infantry, 2,000 chariots and 4,000 elephants trained and equipped for war. The allied forces of Gangaridai Empire and Nanda Empire (Prasii) were preparing a massive counter attack against the forces of Alexander on the banks of Ganges. Gangaridai, according to the Greek accounts, kept on flourishing at least up to the 1st century AD.
Early Middle Ages
The pre-Gupta period of Bengal is shrouded with obscurity. Before the conquest of Samudragupta Bengal was divided into two kingdoms: Pushkarana and Samatata. An inscription of Pushkaranadhipa (the ruler of Pushkarana) Chandravarman has been found in a cave in the Shushunia hills. Chandragupta II had defeated a confederacy of Vanga kings resulting in Bengal becoming part of the Gupta Empire.
Gauda Kingdom
By the 6th century, the Gupta Empire, which ruled over the northern Indian subcontinent had largely broken up. Eastern Bengal splintered into the kingdoms of Vanga, Samatata andHarikela while the Gauda kings rose in the west with their capital at Karnasuvarna (near modern Murshidabad). Shashanka, a vassal of the last Gupta Empire proclaimed independent and unified the smaller principalities of Bengal (Gaur, Vanga, Samatata) and vied for regional power with Harshavardhana in northern India. But this burst of Bengali power did not last very long beyond his death, as with the overthrow of Manava (his son), Bengal descended into a period marked by disunity and foreign invasion once more.
Pala Empire
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Pala Empire was the first independent Buddhist dynasty of Bengal. The name Pala (Modern Bengali: পাল pal) meansprotector and was used as an ending to the names of all Pala monarchs. The Palas were followers of the Mahayana andTantric schools of Buddhism. Gopala was the first ruler from the dynasty. He came to power in 750 in Gaur by a democraticelection. This event is recognized as one of the first democratic elections in South Asia since the time of the Mahā Janapadas. He reigned from 750–770 and consolidated his position by extending his control over all of Bengal. The Buddhistdynasty lasted for four centuries (750–1120 AD) and ushered in a period of stability and prosperity in Bengal. They created many temples and works of art as well as supported the Universities of Nalanda and Vikramashila. Somapura Mahaviharabuilt by Dharmapala is the greatest Buddhist Vihara in the Indian Subcontinent.
The empire reached its peak under Dharmapala and Devapala. Dharmapala extended the empire into the northern parts of the Indian Subcontinent. This triggered once again the power struggle for the control of the subcontinent. Devapala, successor of Dharmapala, expanded the empire to cover much of South Asia and beyond. His empire stretched from Assam and Utkala in the east, Kamboja (modern dayAfghanistan) in the north-west and Deccan in the south. According to Pala copperplate inscription Devapala exterminated the Utkalas, conquered the Pragjyotisha (Assam), shattered the pride of the Huna, and humbled the lords of Pratiharas, Gurjara and the Dravidas.
The death of Devapala ended the period of ascendancy of the Pala Empire and several independent dynasties and kingdoms emerged during this time. However, Mahipala I rejuvenated the reign of the Palas. He recovered control over all of Bengal and expanded the empire. He survived the invasions ofRajendra Chola and the Chalukyas. After Mahipala I the Pala dynasty again saw its decline untilRamapala, the last great ruler of the dynasty, managed to retrieve the position of the dynasty to some extent. He crushed the Varendrarebellion and extended his empire farther to Kamarupa, Orissa and Northern India.
The Pala Empire can be considered as the golden era of Bengal. Never had the Bengali people reached such height of power and glory to that extent. Palas were responsible for the introduction of Mahayana Buddhism in Tibet, Bhutan and Myanmar. It was during the Pala period Bengal became the main center of Buddhist as well as secular learning. Universities like Nalanda, Vikramshila and Paharpur flourished and prospered under the patronage of the Pala rulers. Dharmapal and Devapal were two great patrons of Buddhism, secular education and culture.[8] The Palas had extensive trade as well as influence in south-east Asia. This can be seen in the sculptures and architectural style of the Sailendra Empire (present-day Malaya, Java, Sumatra).
Sena Empire
The Palas were followed by the Sena dynasty who brought Bengal under one ruler during the 12th century. Vijay Sen the second ruler of this dynasty defeated the last Pala emperor Madanapala and established his reign. Ballal Sena introduced caste system in Bengal and madeNabadwip the capital. The fourth king of this dynasty Lakshman Sen expanded the empire beyond Bengal to Bihar, Assam, Orissa and probably to Varanasi. Lakshman was later defeated by the Muslims and fled to eastern Bengal were he ruled few more years. The Sena dynasty brought a revival of Hinduism and cultivated Sanskrit literature in India. It is believed by some Bengali authors that Jayadeva, the famous Sanskrit poet and author of Gita Govinda, was one of the Pancharatnas (meaning 5 gems) in the court of Lakshman Sen.
Medieval Bengal
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Islam made its first appearance in Bengal during the 12th century when Sufi missionaries arrived. Later, occasional Muslim raiders reinforced the process of conversion by building mosques, madrassas and Sufi Khanqah. Beginning in 1202 a military commander from the Delhi Sultanate, Bakhtiar Khilji, overran Bihar and Bengal as far east as Rangpur, Bogra and the Brahmaputra River. Although he failed to bring Bengal under his control, the expedition managed to defeat Lakshman Sen and his two sons moved to a place then called Vikramapur (present-day Munshiganj District), where their diminished dominion lasted until the late 13th century.
During the 14th century, the former kingdom became known as the Sultanate of Bengal, ruled intermittently with theSultanate of Delhi as well as powerful Hindu states and land-lords-Baro-Bhuyans.
Deva Kingdom
The Deva Kingdom was a Hindu dynasty of medieval Bengal that ruled over eastern Bengal after the collapse Sena Empire. The capital of this dynasty was Bikrampur in present-day Munshiganj District of Bangladesh. The inscriptional evidences show that his kingdom was extended up to the present-day Comilla-Noakhali-Chittagong region. A later ruler of the dynasty Ariraja-Danuja-Madhava Dasharatha-Deva extended his kingdom to cover much of East Bengal.[15] The end of this dynasty is not yet known.
Ilyas Shahi dynasty
Shamsuddin Iliyas Shah founded the dynasty. It lasted from 1342-1487. The dynasty successfully repulsed attempts by Delhi to conquer them. They continued to reel in the territory of modern-day Bengal, reaching to Khulna in the south andSylhet in the east. The sultans advanced civic institutions and became more responsive and "native" in their outlook and cut loose from Delhi. Considerable architectural projects were completed including the massive Adina Mosque and the Darasbari Mosque which still stands in Bangladesh. The Sultans of Bengal were patrons of Bengali literature and began a process in which Bengali culture and identity would flourish. The Ilyas Shahi Dynasty was interrupted by an uprising by the Hindus under Raja Ganesha. However the Ilyas Shahi dynasty was restored by Nasiruddin Mahmud Shah.
Ganesha dynasty
The Ganesha dynasty began with Raja Ganesha in 1414. After Raja Ganesha seized control over Bengal he faced an imminent threat of invasion. Ganesha appealed to a powerful Muslim holy man named Qutb al Alam, to stop the threat. The saint agreed on the condition that Raja Ganesha's son Jadu would convert to Islam and rule in his place. Raja Ganeshaagreed and Jadu started ruling Bengal as Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah in 1415 AD. Qutb al Alam died in 1416 AD and Raja Ganesha was emboldened to depose his son and accede to the throne himself as Danujamarddana Deva. Jalaluddin was reconverted to Hinduism by the Golden Cow ritual. After the death of his father he once again converted to Islam and started ruling his second phase.[16] Jalaluddin's son, Shamsuddin Ahmad Shah ruled for only 3 years due to chaos and anarchy. The dynasty is known for their liberal policy as well as justice and charity.
Hussain Shahi dynasty
The Hussain Shahi dynasty ruled in the period 1494–1538. Alauddin Hussain Shah, considered as the greatest of all the sultans of Bengal for bringing cultural renaissance during his reign. He extended the sultanate all the way to the port ofChittagong, which witnessed the arrival of the first Portuguese merchants. Nasiruddin Nasrat Shah gave refuge to the Afghan lords during the invasion of Babur though he remained neutral. However Nusrat Shah made a treaty with Babur and saved Bengal from a Mughal invasion. The last Sultan of the dynasty, who continued to rule from Gaur, had to contend with rising Afghan activity on his northwestern border. Eventually, the Afghans broke through and sacked the capital in 1538 where they remained for several decades until the arrival of the Mughals.
Mughal Period
In 1534, the Pashtun Sher Shah Suri, or Farid Khan — a man of incredible military and political skill — succeeded in defeating the superior forces of the Mughals under Humayun at Chausa (1539) and Kannauj (1540). Sher Shah fought back and captured both Delhi and Agra and established a kingdom stretching far into Punjab. Sher Shah's administrative skill showed in his public works, including the Grand Trunk Road connecting Sonargaon in Bengal with Peshawar in the Hindu Kush. Sher Shah's rule ended with his death in 1545, although even in those five years his reign would have a powerful influence on Indian society, politics, and economics. Shah Suri's successors lacked his administrative skill, and quarreled over the domains of his empire. Humayun, who then ruled a rump Mughal state, saw an opportunity and in 1554 seized Lahore and Delhi.
Humayun died in January 1556, Hemu, also called Hem Chandra Vikramaditya, the then Hindu Prime Minister-cum-Chief of Army, of the Sur dynasty had already won Bengal in the battle at Chapperghatta, killing Muhammad Shah the then ruler of Bengal. This was Hemu's 20th continuous win in North India. Knowing of Humanyun's death, Hemu rushed to Delhi to win Agra and later on Delhi and established 'Hindu Raj' in North India on 6th Oct. 1556, after 300 years of Muslim rule, leaving Bengal to his Governor Shahbaz Khan.
Akbar, the greatest of the Mughal emperors, defeated the Karani rulers of Bengal in 1576. Afterwards, Bengal came once more under the control of Delhi. It became a Mughal subah and ruled through subahdars (governors). Akbar exercised progressive rule and oversaw a period of prosperity (through trade and development) in Bengal and northern India.
Bengal's trade and wealth impressed the Mughals that they called the region the "Paradise of the Nations". Administration by governors appointed by the court of the Mughal Empirecourt (1575–1717) gave way to four decades of semi-independence under the Nawabs of Murshidabad, who respected the nominal sovereignty of the Mughals in Delhi. The Nawabs granted permission to the French East India Company to establish a trading post at Chandernagore in 1673, and the British East India Company at Calcutta in 1690.
Hindu Raj
There were several independent Hindu states established in Bengal during the Mughal period like those of Maharaja Pratap Aditya of Jessore and Raja Sitaram Ray of Burdwan. These kingdoms contributed a lot to the economic and cultural landscape of Bengal. Extensive land reclamations in forested and marshy areas were carried out and intrastate trade as well as commerce were highly encouraged. These kingdoms also helped introduce new music, painting, dancing and sculpture into Bengali art-forms as well as many temples were constructed during this period. Militarily, they served as bulwarks against Portuguese and Burmese attacks.
Kingdom of Bhurshut
The Kingdom of Bhurshut was a medieval Hindu kingdom spread across what is now Howrah and Hooghly in the Indian state of West Bengal. MaharajaRudranarayan consolidated the dynasty and expanded the kingdom and converted it into one of the most powerful Hindu kingdom of the time. His wifeMaharani Bhavashankari defeated the Pathan resurgence in Bengal[17] and her reign brought power, prosperity and grandeur to Bhurishrestha Kingdom. Their son, Maharaja Pratapnarayan, patronized literature and art, trade & commerce, as well as welfare of his subjects. Afterwards, Maharaja Naranarayanmaintained the integrity and sovereignty of the kingdom by diplomatically averting the occupation of the kingdom by the Mughal forces. His son, MaharajaLakshminarayan, failed to maintain the sovereignty of the kingdom due to sabotage from within.
Koch Bihar Kingdom
The Koch Bihar Kingdom in the northern Bengal, flourished during the period of 16th and the 17th centuries as well as weathered the Mughals and survived till the advent of the British.
Burdwan Raj
The Burdwan Raj was a zamindari estate that flourished from about 1657 to 1955, first under the Mughals and then under the British in the province of Bengal in India. At the peak of its prosperity in the eighteenth century, the estate extended to around 5,000 square miles (13,000 km2) of territory[18] and even up to the early twentieth century paid an annual revenue to the government in excess of 3,300,000 rupees.
Maratha Expeditions
Around the early 1700s, the Maratha Empire led expeditions in Bengal. The leader of the expedition was Maratha Maharaja Raghuji of Nagpur. Raghoji was able to annex Orissa and parts of Bengal permanently as he successfully exploited the chaotic conditions prevailing in the region after the death of their Governor Murshid Quli Khan in 1727.[19] The expeditions resulted in Bengal becoming a tributary region of the Marathas for a period of time.
British East India Company
When the British East India Company began strengthening the defenses at Fort William (Calcutta), the Nawab, Siraj Ud Daulah, at the encouragement of the French, attacked. Under the leadership of Robert Clive, British troops and their local allies captured Chandernagore in March 1757 and seriously defeated the Nawab on June 23, 1757 at the Battle of Plassey, when the Nawab's soldiers betrayed him. The Nawab was assassinated in Murshidabad, and the British installed their own Nawab for Bengal and extended their direct control in the south. Chandernagore was restored to the French in 1763. The Bengalis attempted to regain their territories in 1765 in alliance with the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II, but were defeated again at the Battle of Buxar (1765). The centre of Indian culture and trade shifted from Delhi to Calcutta when the Mughal Empire fell.
British rule
During British rule, two devastating famines were instigated costing millions of lives in 1770 and 1943. Scarcely five years into the British East India Company's rule, the catastrophic Bengal famine of 1770, one of the greatest famines of history occurred. Up to a third of the population died in 1770 and subsequent years. The Indian Mutiny of 1857 replaced rule by the Company with the direct control of Bengal by the Britishcrown.
A centre of rice cultivation as well as fine cotton called muslin and the world's main source of jute fibre, Bengal, from the 1850s became one of India's principal centres of industry, concentrated in the capital Kolkata (known as Calcutta under the British, always called 'Kolkata' in the native tongue of Bengali) and its emerging cluster of suburbs. Most of the population nevertheless remained dependent on agriculture, and despite its leading role in Indian political and intellectual activity, the province included some very undeveloped districts, especially in the east. In 1877, when Victoria took the title of "Empress of India", the British declared Calcutta the capital of the British Raj.
India's most popular province (and one of the most active provinces in freedom fighting), in 1905 Bengal was divided by the British rulers for administrative purposes into an overwhelmingly Hindu west (including present-day Bihar and Orissa) and a predominantly Muslim east (including Assam) (1905 Partition of Bengal). Hindu - Muslim conflict became stronger through this partition. While Hindu Indians disagreed with the partition saying it was a way of dividing a Bengal which is united by language and history, Muslims supported it by saying it was a big step forward for Muslim society where Muslims will be majority and they can freely practice their religion as well as their culture. But owing to strong Hindu agitation, the British reunited East and West Bengal in 1912, and made Bihar and Orissa a separate province. Another major famine occurred during the second world war, the Bengal famine of 1943, in which an estimated 3 million people died.
Bengal Renaissance
The Bengal Renaissance refers to a social reform movement during the nineteenth and early 20th centuries in the region of Bengal in undivided India during the period of British rule. The Bengal renaissance can be said to have started with Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1775–1833) and ended with Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941), although there have been many stalwarts thereafter embodying particular aspects of the unique intellectual and creative output.[25] 19th century Bengal was a unique blend of religious and social reformers, scholars, literary giants, journalists, patriotic orators and scientists, all merging to form the image of a renaissance, and marked the transition from the 'medieval' to the 'modern'.[26]
Independence movement
- See also: Freedom fighters from Bengal
Bengal played a major role in the Indian independence movement, in which revolutionary groups such as Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar were dominant. Bengalis also played a notable role in the Indian independence movement. Many of the early proponents of the freedom struggle, and subsequent leaders in movement were Bengalis such as Chittaranjan Das, Surendranath Banerjea, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, Prafulla Chaki,Bagha Jatin, Khudiram Bose, Surya Sen, Binoy-Badal-Dinesh, Sarojini Naidu, Aurobindo Ghosh, Rashbehari Bose and many more. Some of these leaders, such as Netaji, did not subscribe to the view that non-violent civil disobedience was the only way to achieve Indian Independence, and were instrumental in armed resistance against the British force. During the Second World War Netaji escaped to Germany from house arrest in India and there he founded the Indian Legion an army to fight against the British Government, but the turning of the war compelled him to come to South-East Asia and there he became the co-founder and leader of the Indian National Army (distinct from the army of British India) that challenged British forces in several parts of India. He was also the head of state of a parallel regime named 'The Provisional Governmeent of Free India' or Arzi Hukumat-e-Azad Hind, that was recognized and supported by the Axis powers. Bengal was also the fostering ground for several prominent revolutionary organisations, the most notable of which was Anushilan Samiti. A large number of Bengalis were martyred in the freedom struggle and many were exiled in Cellular Jail, the much dreaded prison located in Andaman.
Partitions of Bengal
In the 20th century, the partitions of Bengal, occurring twice, has left great marks on the history and psyche of the people of Bengal. The first partition occurred in 1905 and the second partitionwas in 1947. As partition of British India into Hindu and Muslim dominions approached in 1947, Bengal again split into the state of West Bengal of secular India and a Muslim region of East Bengal under Pakistan, renamed East Pakistan in 1958.
The partition of Bengal entailed the greatest exodus of people in human history. Millions of Hindus migrated from East Pakistan to India and thousands of Muslims too went across the borders to East Pakistan. Because of the coming of the refugees, there occurred the crisis of land and food in West Bengal; and such condition remained in long duration for more than three decades. The politics of West Bengal since the partition in 1947 developed round the nucleus of refugee problem. Both the Rightists and the Leftists in politics of West Bengal have not yet become free from the socio-economic conditions created by the partition of Bengal. These conditions as have remained unresolved in some twisted forms have given birth to local socio-economic, political and ethnic movements.[27]
Modern Bengal
East Pakistan (East Bengal) rebelled against Pakistani military rule to become independent republic of Bangladesh, literally "Land of Bengal", after a war of independence against the Pakistani army in 1971. West Bengal remains a part of the Republic of India.
See also
- List of rulers of Bengal
- History of India
- History of Bihar
- History of Tamil Nadu
- Political history of medieval Karnataka
References
- ^ "History of Bangladesh". Bangladesh Student Association. Archived from the original on 2006-12-19. Retrieved 2006-10-26.
- ^ James Heitzman and Robert L. Worden, ed (1989). "Early History, 1000 B. C.-A. D. 1202". Bangladesh: A country study. Library of Congress.
- ^ History, Banglapedia
- ^ RIYAZU-S-SALĀTĪN: A History of Bengal, Ghulam Husain Salim, The Asiatic Society, Calcutta, 1902.
- ^ Sarkar, Sebanti (March 28, 2008). "History of Bengal just got a lot older" (jsp). The Daily Telegraph (Kolkata: The Telegraph). Retrieved September 13, 2010. "Humans walked on Bengal's soil 20,000 years ago, archaeologists have found out, pushing the state's pre-history back by some 8,000 years."
- ^ Bharadwaj, G (2003). "The Ancient Period". In Majumdar, RC. History of Bengal. B.R. Publishing Corp.
- ^ http://www.paxgaea.com/HRBangladesh.html
- ^ [Dr. Sailen Debnath, Essays on Cultural History of North Bengal, ISBN 978-81-86860-42-7].
- ^ "Historic Mosque City of Bagerhat". unesco.org. Retrieved 15 May 2011.
- ^ Leung, Mikey; Meggitt, Belinda (1 November 2009). Bangladesh. Bradt Travel Guides. p. 261. ISBN 9781841622934. Retrieved 15 May 2011.
- ^ Brennan, Morgan; Cerone, Michelle. "In Pictures: 15 Lost Cities of the World". Forbes.com. Retrieved 14 May 2011.
- ^ Travel:Dinajpur, from Bangladesh Online (ISP).
- ^ Banglapedia - "Kantanagar Temple"
- ^ Journey plus - Dinajpur.
- ^ Roy, Niharranjan (1993). Bangalir Itihas: Adiparba Calcutta: Dey's Publishing, ISBN 81-7079-270-3, pp.408-9
- ^ Biographical encyclopedia of Sufis By N. Hanif, pg.320
- ^ Ghosh, Paschimbanger Sanskriti, Volume II, pp. 224
- ^ Imperial Gazeteer of India, New Edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908-1931), Vol. 9, p. 102
- ^ SNHM. Vol. II, pp. 209, 224.
- ^ Georg, Feuerstein (2002). The Yoga Tradition. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 600.
- ^ Clarke, Peter Bernard (2006). New Religions in Global Perspective. Routledge. p. 209.
- ^ A versatile genius, Frontline 21 (24), 2004.
- ^ Chatterjee, Santimay and Chatterjee, Enakshi, Satyendranath Bose, 2002 reprint, p. 5, National Book Trust, ISBN 8123704925
- ^ A. K. Sen (1997). "Sir J.C. Bose and radio science", Microwave Symposium Digest 2 (8-13), p. 557-560.
- ^ History of the Bengali-speaking People by Nitish Sengupta, p 211, UBS Publishers' Distributors Pvt. Ltd. ISBN 81-7476-355-4.
- ^ Calcutta and the Bengal Renaissance by Sumit Sarkar in Calcutta, the Living City edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri, Vol I, p 95.
- ^ Dr.Sailen Debnath, 'West Bengal in Doldrums' ISBN 978-81-86860-34-2; & Dr.Sailen Debnath, ed. Social and Political Tensions In North Bengal since 1947, ISBN 81-86860-23-1
Further reading
- Salim, Gulam Hussain; tr. from Persian, Abdus Salam (1902). Riyazu-s-Salatin: History of Bengal. Asiatic Society, Baptist Mission Press.
- Majumdar, R. C. The History of Bengal ISBN 81-7646-237-3
- Dr. Sailen Debnath, West Bengal in Doldrums, ISBN 978-81-86860-34-2
- Dr. Sailen Debnath, Social and Political Tensions in North Bengal, ISBN 81-86860-23-1
- Dr. Sailen Debnath, Essays on Cultural History of North Bengal, ISBN 978-81-86860-42-7
- Amiya Sen (1993). Hindu Revivalism in Bengal 1872-1905: Some Essays in Interpretation. Oxford University Press.
External links
Free market
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A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts. Free markets differs from situations encountered in controlled markets or a monopoly, which can introduce price deviations without any changes to supply and demand. Advocates of a free market traditionally consider the term to imply that the means of production is under private, and not state controlor co-operative ownership. This is the contemporary use of the term "free market" by economists and in popular culture; the term has had other useshistorically.
A free-market economy is one within which all markets are unregulated by any parties other than market participants. In its purest form, the government plays a neutral role in its administration and legislation of economic activity, neither limiting it (by regulating industries or protecting them from internal/external market pressures) nor actively promoting it (by owning economic interests or offering subsidies to businesses or R&D).
The theory holds that within an ideal free market, property rights are voluntarily exchanged at a price arranged solely by the mutual consent of sellersand buyers. By definition, buyers and sellers do not coerce each other, in the sense that they obtain each other's property rights without the use of physical force, threat of physical force, or fraud, nor are they coerced by a third party (such as by government via transfer payments)[1] and they engage in trade simply because they both consent and believe that what they are getting is worth more than or as much as what they give up. Price is the result of buying and selling decisions en masse as described by the theory of supply and demand.
Free markets contrast sharply with controlled markets or regulated markets, in which governments more actively regulate prices and/or supplies, directly or indirectly, which according to free-market theory causes markets to be less efficient.[2] Where substantial state intervention exists, the market is a mixed economy. Where the state or co-operative association of producers directly manages the economy to achieve stated goals,economic planning is said to be in effect; when economic planning entirely substitutes market activity, the economy is a Command economy.
In the marketplace, the price of a good or service helps communicate consumer demand to producers and thus directs the allocation of resources toward satisfaction of consumers as well as investors. In a free market, the system of prices is the emergent result of a vast number of voluntary transactions, rather than of political decrees as in a controlled market. The freer the market, the more truly the prices will reflect consumer habits and demands, and the more valuable the information in these prices are to all players in the economy. Through free competition between vendors for the provision of products and services, prices tend to decrease, and quality tends to increase. A free market is not to be confused with a perfect market where individuals have perfect information and there is perfect competition.
Free-market economics is closely associated with laissez-faire economic philosophy, which advocates approximating this condition in the real world by mostly confining government intervention in economic matters to regulating against force and fraud among market participants. Some free-market advocates oppose taxation as well, claiming that the market is more efficient at providing all valuable services of which defense and law are no exception, that such services can be provided without direct taxation and that consent would be the basis of political legitimacy making it a morally consistent system. Anarcho-capitalists, for example, would substitute arbitration agencies and private defense agencies.
In social philosophy, a free-market economy is a system for allocating goods within a society: purchasing power mediated by supply and demand within the market determines who gets what and what is produced, rather than the state. A free market may refer narrowly to national economies, or internationally; specific reference to international markets is referred to asfree trade (for goods) or lack of capital controls (for money). Early proponents of a free-market economy in 18th century Europe contrasted it with the medieval, early modern, andmercantilist economies which preceded it.
Contents[hide] |
[edit]Supply and demand
Supply and demand are always equal as they are the two sides of the same set of transactions, and discussions of "imbalances" are a muddled and indirect way of referring to price.[3]However, in an unmeasurable qualitative sense, demand for an item (such as goods or services) refers to the market pressure from people trying to buy it. They will "bid" money for the item, while in return sellers offer the item for money. When the bid matches the offer, a transaction can easily occur (even automatically, as in a typical stock market). In Western society, most shops and markets do not resemble the stock market, and there are significant costs and barriers to "shopping around" (comparison shopping).
The model is commonly applied to wages, in the market for labor. The typical roles of supplier and consumer are reversed. The suppliers are individuals, who try to sell (supply) their labor for the highest price. The consumers of labors are businesses, which try to buy (demand) the type of labor they need at the lowest price. As populations increase wages fall for any given unskilled or skilled labor supply. Conversely, wages tend to go up with a decrease in population.
When demand exceeds supply, suppliers can raise the price, but when supply exceeds demand, suppliers will have to decrease the price in order to make sales. Consumers who can afford the higher prices may still buy, but others may forgo the purchase altogether, demand a better price, buy a similar item, or shop elsewhere. As the price rises, suppliers may also choose to increase production, or more suppliers may enter the business.
[edit]Spontaneous order or "invisible hand"
Friedrich Hayek argues for the classical liberal view that market economies allow spontaneous order; that is, "a more efficient allocation of societal resources than any design could achieve."[4] According to this view, in market economies sophisticated business networks are formed which produce and distribute goods and services throughout the economy. This network was not designed, but emerged as a result of decentralized individual economic decisions. Supporters of the idea of spontaneous order trace their views to the concept of theinvisible hand proposed by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations who said that the individual who:
"By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest [an individual] frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the [common] good." (Wealth of Nations)
Smith pointed out that one does not get one's dinner by appealing to the brother-love of the butcher, the farmer or the baker. Rather one appeals to their self interest, and pays them for their labor.
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages."[5]
Supporters of this view claim that spontaneous order is superior to any order that does not allow individuals to make their own choices of what to produce, what to buy, what to sell, and at what prices, due to the number and complexity of the factors involved. They further believe that any attempt to implement central planning will result in more disorder, or a less efficient production and distribution of goods and services.
[edit]Economic equilibrium
General equilibrium theory has demonstrated, with varying degrees of mathematical rigor over time, that under certain conditions of competition, the law of supply and demandpredominates in this ideal free and competitive market, influencing prices toward an equilibrium that balances the demands for the products against the supplies.[6][7] At these equilibrium prices, the market distributes the products to the purchasers according to each purchaser's preference (or utility) for each product and within the relative limits of each buyer's purchasing power. This result is described as market efficiency, or more specifically a Pareto optimum.
This equilibrating behavior of free markets requires certain assumptions about their agents, collectively known as Perfect Competition, which therefore cannot be results of the market that they create. Among these assumptions are complete information, interchangeable goods and services, and lack of market power, that obviously cannot be fully achieved. The question then is what approximations of these conditions guarantee approximations of market efficiency, and which failures in competition generate overall market failures. Several Nobel Prizes in Economics have been awarded for analyses of market failures due to asymmetric information.
Some models in econophysics[8] have shown that when agents are allowed to interact locally in a free market (i.e. their decisions depend not only on utility and purchasing power, but also on their peers' decisions), prices can become unstable and diverge from the equilibrium, often in an abrupt manner. The behavior of the free market is thus said to be non-linear (a pair of agents bargaining for a purchase will agree on a different price than 100 identical pairs of agents doing the identical purchase). Speculation bubbles and the type of herd behavior often observed in stock markets are quoted as real life examples of non-equilibrium price trends. Some laissez-faire free-market advocates, like Chicago school economists, often dismiss this endogenous theory, and blame external influences, such as weather, commodity prices, technological developments, and government meddling for non-equilibrium prices.
[edit]Distribution of wealth
The distribution of purchasing power in an economy depends to a large extent on the nature of government intervention, social class, labor and financial markets, but also on other, lesser factors such as family relationships, inheritance, gifts and so on. Many theories describing the operation of a free market focus primarily on the markets for consumer products, and their description of the labor market or financial markets tends to be more complicated and controversial.
Joshua Epstein and Robert Axtell have attempted to predict the properties of free markets empirically in the agent-based computer simulation "Sugarscape". They came to the conclusion that, under idealized conditions, free markets lead to a Pareto distribution of wealth.[8]
[edit]Laissez-faire economics
The necessary components for the functioning of an idealized free market include the complete absence of artificial price pressures from taxes, subsidies, tariffs, or government regulation (other than protection from coercion and theft), and no government-granted monopolies (usually classified as coercive monopoly by free-market advocates) like the United States Post Office, Amtrak, patents, etc.
[edit]Deregulation
In an absolutely free-market economy, all capital, goods, services, and money flow transfers are unregulated by the government except to stop collusion or fraud that may take place among market participants.[citation needed] As this protection must be funded, such a government taxes only to the extent necessary to perform this function, if at all. This state of affairs is also known as laissez-faire.
Internationally, free markets are advocated by proponents of economic liberalism; in Europe this is usually simply called liberalism. In the United States, support for free market is associated most with libertarianism. Since the 1970s, promotion of a global free-market economy, deregulation and privatization, is often described as neoliberalism.
The term free-market economy is sometimes used to describe some economies that exist today (such as Hong Kong), but pro-market groups would only accept that description if the government practices laissez-faire policies, rather than state intervention in the economy.[specify] An economy that contains significant economic interventionism by government, while still retaining some characteristics found in a free market is often called a mixed economy.
[edit]Low barriers to entry
A free market does not require the existence of competition, however it does require that there are no barriers to new market entrants. Hence, in the lack of coercive barriers it is generally understood that competition flourishes in a free-market environment. It often suggests the presence of the profit motive, although neither a profit motive or profit itself are necessary for a free market. All modern free markets are understood to include entrepreneurs, both individuals and businesses. Typically, a modern free market economy would include other features, such as a stock exchange and a financial services sector, but they do not define it.
[edit]Legal tender and taxes
In a free-market economy, money would not be monopolized by legal tender laws or by a central bank, in order to receive taxes from the transactions or to be able to issueloans.[citation needed] Minarchists (advocates of minimal government) contend that the coercion of taxes is essential for the market's survival, and a market free from taxes may lead to no market at all. By definition, there is no market without private property, and private property can only exist while there is an entity that defines and defends it. Traditionally, the State defends private property and defines it by issuing ownership titles, and also nominates the central authority to print or mint currency. "Free-market anarchists" disagree with the above assessment – they maintain that private property and free markets can be protected by voluntarily-funded services under the concept of individualist anarchism and anarcho-capitalism.[9][10] A free market could be defined alternatively as a tax-free market, independent of any central authority, which uses a medium of exchange such as money, even in the absence of the State. It is disputed, however, whether this hypothetical stateless market could function.
[edit]Index of economic freedom
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, tried to identify the key factors necessary to measure the degree of freedom of economy of a particular country. In 1986 they introduced the Index of Economic Freedom, which is based on some fifty variables. This and other similar indices do not define a free market, but measure the degree to which a modern economy is free, meaning in most cases free of state intervention. The variables are divided into the following major groups:
- Trade policy,
- Fiscal burden of government,
- Government intervention in the economy,
- Monetary policy,
- Capital flows and foreign investment,
- Banking and finance,
- Wages and prices,
- Property rights,
- Regulation, and
- Informal market activity.
Each group is assigned a numerical value between 1 and 5; IEF is the arithmetical mean of the values, rounded to the hundredth. Initially, countries which were traditionally considered capitalistic received high ratings, but the method improved over time. Some economists, like Milton Friedman and other Laissez-faire economists have argued that there is a direct relationship between economic growth and economic freedom, and studies suggest this is true.[11] Continuous debates among scholars on methodological issues in empirical studies of the connection between economic freedom and economic growth still try to find out what is the relationship, if any.[12][13][14]
[edit]History and ideology
The meaning of "free" market has varied over time and between economists, the ambiguous term "free" facilitating reuse. To illustrate the ambiguity: classical economists such as Adam Smith believed that an economy should be free of monopoly rents, while proponents of laissez faire believe that people should be free to form monopolies. In this article "free market" is largely identified with laissez faire, though alternative senses are discussed in this section and in criticism. The identification of the "free market" with "laissez faire" was notably used in the 1962 Capitalism and Freedom, by economist Milton Friedman, which is credited with popularizing this usage.[15]
Some theorists might argue that a free market is a natural form of social organization, and that a free market will arise in any society where it is not obstructed (i.e. Ludwig von Mises,Hayek). The consensus among economic historians is that the free market economy is a specific historic phenomenon, and that it emerged in late medieval and early-modern Europe.[citation needed] Other economic historians see elements of the free market in the economic systems of Classical Antiquity,[citation needed] and in some non-western societies.[citation needed] By the 19th century the market certainly had organized political support, in the form of laissez-faire liberalism. However, it is not clear if the support preceded the emergence of the market or followed it. Some historians see it as the result of the success of early liberal ideology, combined with the specific interests of the entrepreneur.
Support for the free market as an ordering principle of society is above all associated with liberalism, especially during the 19th century. (In Europe, the term 'liberalism' retains itsconnotation as the ideology of the free market, but in American and Canadian usage it came to be associated with government intervention, and acquired a pejorative meaning for supporters of the free market.) Later ideological developments, such as minarchism, libertarianism and Objectivism also support the free market, and insist on its pure form. Although theWestern world shares a generally similar form of economy, usage in the United States and Canada is to refer to this as capitalism, while in Europe 'free market' is the preferred neutral term. Modern liberalism (American and Canadian usage), and in Europe social democracy, seek only to mitigate the problems of an unrestrained free market, and accept its existence as such.
[edit]Classical economics
In the classical economics of such figures as Adam Smith and David Ricardo, "free markets" meant "free of unnecessary charges"[16] and a "market free from monopoly power, business fraud, political insider dealing and special privileges for vested interests".[17] A "free market" particularly meant one free of foreign debt;[18] as discussed in The Wealth of Nations.[19]Alternatively, stated, it was a market freed from Feudalism and serfdom, or more formally, one free of economic rent, in the formulation by David Ricardo of the Law of Rent.
[edit]Marxism
In Marxist theory, the idea of the free market simply expresses the underlying long-term transition from feudalism to capitalism. Note that the views on this issue – emergence or implementation – do not necessarily correspond to pro-market and anti-market positions. Libertarians would dispute that the market was enforced through government policy, since they believe it is a spontaneous order and Marxists agree with them because they as well believe it is evolutionary, although with a different end.
[edit]Liberalism
Support for the free market as an ordering principle of society is above all associated with liberalism, especially during the 19th century. (In Europe, the term 'liberalism' retains itsconnotation as the ideology of the free market, but in American and Canadian usage it came to be associated with government intervention, and acquired a pejorative meaning for supporters of the free market.) Later ideological developments, such as minarchism, libertarianism and Objectivism also support the free market, and insist on its pure form. Although theWestern world shares a generally similar form of economy, usage in the United States and Canada is to refer to this as capitalism, while in Europe 'free market' is the preferred neutral term. The advocates of modern liberalism (American and Canadian usage), and in Europe those of social democracy, seek ostensibly only to mitigate what they see as the problems of an unrestrained free market, and accept the existence of markets as such.
To most libertarians, there is simply no free market yet, given the degree of state intervention in even the most 'capitalist' of countries. From their perspective, those who say they favor a "free market" are speaking in a relative, rather than an absolute, sense — meaning (in libertarian terms) they wish that coercion be kept to the minimum that is necessary to maximize economic freedom (such necessary coercion would be taxation, for example) and to maximize market efficiency by lowering trade barriers, making the tax system neutral in its influence on important decisions such as how to raise capital, e.g., eliminating the double tax on dividends so that equity financing is not at a disadvantage vis-a-vis debt financing. However, there are some such as anarcho-capitalists who would not even allow for taxation and governments, instead preferring protectors of economic freedom in the form of private contractors.
[edit]Criticisms
 | This article's Criticism or Controversy section may compromise the article's neutral point of view of the subject. Pleaseintegrate the section's contents into the article as a whole, or rewrite the material; see the discussion on the talk page. (September 2010) |
Critics dispute the claim that in practice free markets create perfect competition, or even increase market competition over the long run. Whether the marketplace should be or is free is disputed; many assert that government intervention is necessary to remedy market failure that is held to be an inevitable result of absolute adherence to free market principles. These failures range from military services to roads, and some would argue, to health care. This is the central argument of those who argue for a mixed market, free at the base, but with government oversight to control social problems.
Another criticism is definitional, in that far-ranging governmental actions such as the creation of corporate personhood or more broadly, the governmental actions behind the very creation of artificial legal entities called corporations, are not considered "intervention" within mainstream economic schools. This inherent definitional bias allows many to advocate strong governmental actions that promote corporate power, while advocating against government actions limiting it, while putting these dual positions under the umbrella of "pro free markets" or "anti-intervention."
Two prominent Canadian authors (both very hostile to the "Chicago School" philosophy) argue that government at times has to intervene to ensure competition in large and important industries. Naomi Klein illustrates this roughly in her work The Shock Doctrine and John Ralston Saul more humorously illustrates this through various examples in The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World.[20] While its supporters argue that only a free market can create healthy competition and therefore more business and reasonable prices, opponents say that a free market in its purest form may result in the opposite. According to Klein and Ralston, the merging of companies into giant corporations or the privatization of government-run industry and national assets often result in monopolies (or oligopolies) requiring government intervention to force competition and reasonable prices.[20]
Critics of laissez-faire since Adam Smith[21] variously see the unregulated market as an impractical ideal or as a rhetorical device that puts the concepts of freedom and anti-protectionism at the service of vested wealthy interests, allowing them to attack labor laws and other protections of the working classes.[22]
Because no national economy in existence fully manifests the ideal of a free market as theorized by economists, some critics of the concept consider it to be a fantasy – outside of the bounds of reality in a complex system with opposing interests and different distributions of wealth.
These critics range from those who reject markets entirely, in favour of a planned economy or a communal economy, such as that advocated by Marxism, to those who merely wish to see market failures regulated to various degrees or supplemented by certain government interventions. For example, Keynesians recognize a role for government in providing corrective measures, such as use of fiscal policy for economy stimulus, when decisions in the private sector lead to suboptimal economic outcomes, such as depression or recession, which manifest in widespread hardship. Business cycle theory is used by Keynes to explain 'liquidity traps' by which underconsumption occurs, in order to argue for government intervention with central banking. Free market economists consider this credit-expansion as the cause of the business cycle in refutation of this Keynesian criticism.
[edit]Externalities
One practical objection is the claim that markets do not take into account externalities (effects of transactions that affect third parties), such as the negative effects of pollution or the positive effects of education. What exactly constitutes an externality may be up for debate, including the extent to which it changes based upon the political climate.
Some proponents of market economies believe that governments should not diminish market freedom because they disagree on what is a market externality and what are government-created externalities, and disagree over what the appropriate level of intervention is necessary to solve market-created externalities. Others believe that government should intervene to prevent market failure while preserving the general character of a market economy. In the model of a social market economy the state intervenes where the market does not meet political demands. John Rawls was a prominent proponent of this idea.
[edit]Differing ideas
Some advocates of free market ideologies have criticized mainstream conceptions of the free market, arguing that a truly free market would not resemble the modern-day capitalist economy. For example, contemporary mutualist Kevin Carson argues in favor of "free market anti-capitalism." Carson has stated that "From Smith to Ricardo and Mill, classical liberalism was a revolutionary doctrine that attacked the privileges of the great landlords and the mercantile interests. Today, we see vulgar libertarians perverting "free market" rhetoric to defend the contemporary institution that most closely resembles, in terms of power and privilege, the landed oligarchies and mercantilists of the Old Regime: the giant corporation."[23]
Carson believes that a true free market society would be "[a] world in which... land and property [is] widely distributed, capital [is] freely available to laborers through mutual banks, productive technology [is] freely available in every country without patents, and every people [is] free to develop locally without colonial robbery..."[24]
[edit]Simulation of biological laws
The free market is believed to self-regulate in the most efficient and just way. Adam Smith described this behavior with the metaphor of an invisible hand urging society towards prosperity.
Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was very appealing to economists, sociologists and political scientists (most notably Walter Bagehot and William Graham Sumner) who adapted and rationalized the invisible hand by incorporating the popular idea of thesurvival of the fittest.[25] They proposed – among others – that in a fully competitive economic environment (as they thought was the case of ecosystems) the most potent individuals would thrive and in turn society would prosper (in analogy to the observedbiodiversity and abundance of life on earth). Such arguments lead to the consolidation of neoliberalism and laissez-faire. A notable difference, however, is that selection in biotic systems is "actual" whereas in cultural systems it is "virtual": it can be avoided/invisible due to changing or limiting human perception. This permits economic non-responsiveness to selective pressure through externalities and control of mass-media, for example, introducing significant potential for maladaption. See discussions on evolution and Sociocultural evolution for more information.
[edit]See also
- Agorism
- Austrian School
- Economic freedom
- Economic liberalism
- Foundation for Economic Education
- Free-market roads
- Free price system
- Free trade
- History of theory of capitalism
- Libertarian socialism
- Ludwig von Mises Institute
- Market economy
- Market Socialism
- Mutualism (economic theory)
- Participatory economy
- Quasi-market
- Socialism
- Transparency (market)
- Underground economy
- Voluntaryism
[edit]Notes
- ^ "Free Market." Rothbard, Murray. The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics
- ^ Dictionary of Finance and Investment Terms. Barrons, 1995
- ^ http://www.donsheelen.org/page14.aspx
- ^ Hayek cited. Petsoulas, Christian. Hayek's Liberalism and Its Origins: His Idea of Spontaneous Order and the Scottish Enlightenment. Routledge. 2001. p. 2
- ^ Smith, Adam, "2", Wealth of Nations, 1, London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell
- ^ , by Eugene Walras
- ^ Theory of Value, by Gerard Debreu
- ^ a b Critical Mass – Ball, Philip, ISBN 0-09-945786-5
- ^ Biography of Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995)
- ^ The Machinery of Freedom
- ^ AYAL, Eliezer B. and KARRAS, Georgios. Components of Economic Freedom and Growth. Journal of Developing Areas, Vol.32, No.3, Spring 1998, 327–338. Publisher: Western Illinois University.
- ^ COLE, Julio H. and LAWSON, Robert A. Handling Economic Freedom in Growth Regressions: Suggestions for Clarification. Econ Journal Watch, Volume 4, Number 1, January 2007, pp 71–78.
- ^ DE HAAN, Jacob and STURM, Jan-Egbert. How to Handle Economic Freedom: Reply to Lawson. Econ Journal Watch, Volume 3, Number 3, September 2006, pp 407–411.
- ^ DE HAAN, Jacob and STURM, Jan-Egbert. Handling Economic Freedom in Growth Regressions: A Reply to Cole and Lawson. Econ Journal Watch, Volume 4, Number 1, January 2007, pp 79–82.
- ^ Who Broke America's Jobs Machine? by Barry C. Lynn and Phillip Longman, theWashington Monthly
- ^ The Fictitious Economy, Part 1, An Interview With Dr. Michael Hudson, by Bonnie Faulkner with Michael Hudson, 15 July 2008
- ^ This interpretation is advanced in The Language of Looting, Michael Hudson
- ^ The Financial War Against Iceland, Michael Hudson
- ^ The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith, Book V, Chapter 3: of Public Debts
- ^ a b The End of Globalism. Saul, John.
- ^ "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."—Wealth of Nations, I.x.c.27 (Part II)
- ^ "Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate… [When workers combine,] masters… never cease to call aloud for the assistance of the civil magistrate, and the rigorous execution of those laws which have been enacted with so much severity against the combinations of servants, labourers, and journeymen."—Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, I.viii.13
- ^ Kevin Carson, Naomi Klein: The Shock Doctrine November 7, 2007
- ^ Kevin Carson, The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand: Corporate Capitalism as a State-Guaranteed System of Privilege
- ^ social Darwinism. (2009). Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica 2009 Student and Home Edition. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica.
[edit]References
- AYAL, Eliezer B. and KARRAS, Georgios. Components of Economic Freedom and Growth. Journal of Developing Areas, Vol.32, No.3, Spring 1998, 327–338. Publisher: Western Illinois University.
- BOETTKE, Peter J. What Went Wrong with Economics?, Critical Review Vol. 11, No. 1, P. 35. p. 58
- Stiglitz, Joseph. 1994. Whither Socialism? Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
[edit]External links
- Free Enterprise: The Economics of Cooperation Looks at how communication, coordination and cooperation interact to make free markets work
- Fair versus Free by Milton Friedman
- Freedom to Work, to Earn, & to Buy by Harry Browne
- The Tradition of Spontaneous Order,
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