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Answer : Not so long ago a book on human origins would have devoted a substantial number of pages to descriptions of the fossil evidence for primate evolution. This was in part because it was assumed that at each stage of primate evolution one of the fossil primates would have been recognizable as the direct ancestor of modern humans. However, we now know that for various reasons many of these taxa are highly unlikely to be ancestral ....

Answer : Life on planet earth has been possible for millions of years largely because of certain basic services associated with the biosphere. Important among these are: Climate and radiation regulation; Microbial transformations and decomposition; Biological diversity; and Opportunities for sustainable advances in biological productivity.

We now find ourselves in a state where these essential services are in jeopardy, largely as a result of human induced damage to the basic life support systems of land, water, flora, fauna ....

Answer : When Tolstoy led a party composed of his family and visitors to harvest a field for a widow, he was doing two things. In part, he was saying that everyone ought to do his share of what he called “bread labour”, and earn his keep by the sweat of his brow.

At the same time, he was affirming that each of us should help our less fortunate neighbours. Mahatma Gandhi agreed whole-heartedly with both these ....

Answer : History has a great variety of definitions and applications. In the broadest sense, it considers every thought that man has had since his first appearance and records every significant advance or recession. It attempts to evaluate all the developments in science, in art, in literature, in law. It sketches as complete a picture as possible of everything that has influenced man directly or indirectly.

History, more than any other subject, has been enslaved and distorted for ....

Answer : It is often said that the Ghaznavid and Ghurid soldiers regarded death in a war against infidels as martyrdom in the cause of Islam. But it is more likely that the real draw was the attraction of plunder, the likes of which they had not seen in campaigns in more arid lands. For Indian Commanders, apart from plunder, battles incorporated the niceties of a sport with its own rules of play. Immortalizing the heroism of ....

Answer : Man, since antiquity, has been an inveterate traveller. Only the motivations for travel have changed. In ancient times, the main motivations for travel were trade, pilgrimage and conquest. It is not often realised how extensive were the contacts among the people several thousand years ago. For instance, there was considerable interchange of ideas and knowledge between India and West Asia and the Graeco-Roman civilization.

Travel became the means of acquiring culture in Europe. The tradition of ....

Answer : The thought of Yong Bengal (Pearychand Mitra, one of the circle, called it in 1877 “Young Calcutta’) flowed through the fourth decade of the 19th century, arising in the late twenties and ebbing away after the mid-forties. Its inspire was Derozio (1809-31). competent scholar, gifted writer, radical thinker, and the most famous of our teachers in the new education. It will be unusual to link with Young Bengal as second name, that of David Hare ....

Answer : A desert is a barren area of land where little precipitation occurs and living conditions are threatening for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the vulnerable surface of the ground to the processes of denudation. About one-third of the land surface of the world is arid or semi-arid Deserts are usually hot and barren places; yet they are also beautiful.

A few plants, rocks and dusty red-brown soil make up the ingredients ....

Answer : A complete reading program, therefore, should include four factors: at least one good book each week, a newspaper or news magazine, magazines of comment and interpretation, and book reviews. If you keep feeding your intelligence with these four foods, you can be sure that your brain cells will be properly nourished. To this must be added the digestive process that comes from your own thinking and from discussion with individuals or groups.

It is often desirable ....

Answer : In barely one generation, we’ve moved from exulting in the time-saving devices that have so expanded our lives, to trying to get away from them - often, in order to make more time. The more ways we have to connect, the more of us seem desperate to unplug. Like a teenager, we appear to have gone from knowing nothing about the world to knowing too much, all but overnight.

The average person spends at least eight ....

Answer : Oratory demands enthusiasm, which can spring only in an earnest soul; and neither beauty of composition not graceful delivery can compensate for want of passion.

To be able to interest people without tiring them in a prime test of oratory. It is a gift that we draw valuable aid from such natural advantages as a noble figure, handsome countenance, and pleasant voice, but there has been no lack of eminent orators of ungainly mien at ....

Answer : Water is the basis of all life. Every animal and every plant contains a substantial proportion of free or combined water in its body, and no kind of physiological activity is possible in which the fluid does not play an essential part.

Water is, of course, necessary for animal life. While moisture in the soil is equally imperative for the life and growth of plants and trees though the quantity necessary varies enormously with the ....

Answer : According to the findings of recent government survey there are 3.3 million registered NGOs working in the country - one for every 400 Indians. Not only has the number of NGOs in India risen dramatically but so has their influence. In some of India’s flagship development efforts - the national rural employment guarantee act, the national rural health mission, the right to education or even the draft right to food act - NGOs has been ....

Answer : The altogether new thing in the world then was the scientific method of research, which in that period of Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Harvey and Francis Bacon was advancing with enormous strides. All walls, all the limitations, all the certainties of the ages were in dissolution, tottering. In fact this epoch, in which we are participating still, with continually opening vistas, can be compared in magnitude and promise only to that of the 8th to the ....

Answer : Winning the war against France had been a Herculean effort. The conventional wisdom, then and later, attributed final victory to sea-power because, above all, it ensured that Britain stayed in the ring.

The ships of the Royal Navy had prevented invasion; they had confined French power to Europe and allowed Britain to occupy nearly all the overseas possessions of her adversaries; they had guarded the convoys which sustained Wellington’s army in the peninsula; and they ....

Answer : An educated man should know what is first-rate in those activities which spring from the creative and intellectual faculties of human nature, such as literature, art, architecture and music.

I should like to add science and philosophy, but in these two subjects it is difficult for any but the expert to estimate quality, and many educated people have not the close knowledge necessary to judge their real worth. On the other hand everyone has close and ....

Answer : There is no reason to believe that there are fundamental differences between the East and the West. Human beings are everywhere human and hold the same deepest values. The differences which are, no doubt, significant, are related to external, temporary social conditions and are alterable with them. East and West are relative terms. They are geographical expressions and not cultural types. The differences among countries like China, Japan and India are quite as significant as ....

Answer : It is wrong to believe that science has totally eclipsed literature with its inspiring zeal. That literature plays a subordinate role to science is equally untrue. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that science has comparatively a wider range for its impact on the physical world than literature. But that does not mean that literature has been incorporated in the realm of science to the extent that it loses its distinct individuality.

The reality is that both ....

Answer : The flowering of Indian civilization constitutes one of the most glorious chapters in the history of mankind. A culture, remarkable for its moral no less than for its material creativity, which has endured for three millennia and more, is necessarily a subject of great fascination. Yet over and above its longevity, Indian civilization is also characterized by some other features which deserve to be highlighted in any review of its past.

The ability of this ....

Answer : This rule of trying always to do things as well as one can do them has an important bearing upon the problem of ambition. No man or woman should be without ambition, which is the inspiration of activity. But if one allows ambition to drive one to attempt things which are beyond one’s own personal capacity, then unhappiness will result: If one imagines that one can do everything better than other people, then envy and ....

Answer : The scientific and technological revolution has brought about fundamental changes in the socio - economic sphere. The use of diesel engine and electricity and the beginning of the application of atomic energy have changed the modes of production. These things have led to the concentration of capital in a few hands. Great enterprises are replacing cottage industries and small firms. The working classes have certainly benefited economically. The miracle of production has necessitated the miracle ....

Answer : The world we live in presents an endless variety of fascinating problems which excite our wonder and curiosity. The scientific worker attempts to formulate these problems in accurate terms and to solve them in the light of all the relevant facts that can be collected by observation and experiment. Such questions as ‘What, ‘How’, ‘Where’ and ‘When’ challenge him to find the clues that may suggest possible replies. Confronted by the many problems presented by, ....

Answer : Two important stages came not so long before the dawn of written history. The first was the domestication of animals; the second was agriculture. Agriculture, which began in the river valleys of Egypt and Mesopotamia, was a step in human progress to which subsequently there was nothing comparable until our own machine age. Agriculture made possible an immense increase in the numbers of the human species in the regions where it could be successfully practised ....