WORLD'S HIGHEST ANCIENT PALACE

Potala Palace 

The Potala Palace, located in Lhasa, Tibet (Xizang Autonomous Region), is the world's highest ancient palace. This architectural marvel stands at an altitude of about 3,700 meters (12,100 feet) above sea level. It serves as a treasure trove of Tibetan history, culture, and art, housing nearly 40,000 ancient books and documents in various languages.

Originally constructed in the 7th century by King Songtsen Gampo, the palace as we see it today was expanded in the 17th century by the Fifth Dalai Lama. It served as the winter residence of the Dalai Lamas and the center of Tibetan governance. The structure comprises the White Palace, which served as the living quarters, and the Red Palace, dedicated to religious study and prayer.

The Potala Palace is renowned for its intricate architecture, with its massive walls, beautiful murals, and numerous chapels and shrines. It reflects a blend of Tibetan, Han, and Indian architectural styles, showcasing the cultural richness of the region.

In 1994, the Potala Palace was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, recognizing its historical, cultural, and architectural significance. This designation helps ensure the preservation and protection of the palace for future generations, allowing it to continue to stand as a symbol of Tibetan heritage and spirituality.

THE FOREST MAN OF INDIA

Jadav Molai Payeng

     HERO…Well defining the word HERO is difficult. Superman and Batman are heroes to us, our teacher who always believes in us is a hero to us, our mom, dad, sister and brother who works tirelessly to provide for the family are heroes to us. The definition of a hero is left to interpretation. 

     Who do you think of when you hear the word hero? Well, heroes come from all walks of life. Everyone who we admire and idolize, is a hero to us. One thing is certain: we want to believe in heroes, but we’ve been going about it the wrong way. 

     Heroes are the ones who act nobly. Their lives inspire us. Therefore it is important for us to know the unsung heroes of our country who are impacting thousands of lives, changing the way we think, and making India truly a better place.

     Here's a story of one such hero who has achieved extraordinary feats and moved our country forward.

     This man, Jadav Payeng, rightly called "forest man of India", single-handedly converted a washed-out land into a 1,360-acre forest. 

     Almost three decades ago, a teenager, after noticing the deaths of a large number of reptiles due to lack of tree cover, started planting Bamboo in an area that had been washed away by floods. Today, that same land hosts 1,360 acres of Jungle called Molai Forest, named after Jadav “Molai” Payeng, the man who made this possible single-handedly!

     He was 16 when the catastrophic flood hit Assam destroying crops, vegetation, and wildlife. Payeng observed that the flow of migratory birds eventually started to decline to the forest areas and wetlands near his home and snakes and other reptiles were disappearing in large numbers. When he asked his village elders, they told him that with a decline in forest cover and deforestation, animals lost their habitats. In order to restore wildlife, the only solution was to build new homes or forests for the animals. He informed the forest department but they asked him to plant trees himself. So that's what he did. He located a riverine island, on the banks of River Brahmaputra, and began to plant the saplings. Payeng visited the island and planted a few saplings every day for three decades.

     Transforming the area into a forest was not a piece of cake. He experienced tough and difficult challenges. The odds were against him but he didn't give up. One of those obstacles was watering the growing area. Watering the area proved to be vast for one man. He could not draw water from the river and water all the growing plants. But that never stopped him.

     He came up with a brilliant idea. He built a bamboo platform on the top of each sapling and placed earthen pots with small holes in them. The water would gradually drip on the plants below and water them through the week. With his "never quit" attitude he conquered all those challenges and obstacles.

     In 1980, he started working with the social forestry division of Golaghat district when they launched a scheme of tree plantation on 200 hectares. Payeng was one of the labourers who worked on that 5-year-long project. When the project was completed other workers left but he chose to stay to look after the plants and he continued to plant more trees on his own, in an effort to remodel the area into a forest.

     Payeng was honoured at a public function arranged by the School of Environmental Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University on 22nd April 2012 for his noteworthy achievement. The vice-chancellor of JNU Sudhir Kumar Sopory named him as "Forest Man of India". In October 2013, he was honoured at the Indian Institute of Forest Management during their annual event ‘Coalescence’.

     In 2015, he was honoured with the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award in India. He received honorary doctorate degrees from Assam Agricultural University and Kaziranga University for his contributions.

     He started as a 16 year old boy, Today he is 57 and lives in his own forest, which is now also home to Bengal tigers, Indian rhinoceros, over 100 deer, and rabbits, besides apes and several varieties of birds, including a large number of vultures. The forest department wanted to employ him but he refused because he believed he wouldn’t be able to pay attention to the cause if he was bound by responsibilities.

     Isn’t it fascinating to see the willpower of this man who fought alone and won the battle single-handedly? Where we don’t hesitate to cut trees for our luxuries, he sacrificed all the worldly pleasures to save the environment and the ecosystem. Our country needs more such heroes who are trying to make Earth a better place.

NATIONAL PARK OF KERALA

The Silent Valley National Park 

The Silent Valley, a national park in Kerala, is one of the last undisturbed tracts of South Western Ghats montane rainforests in India. Located in the Nilgiri Hills in Kerala’s Palakkad district, it is part of the Western Ghats, a chain of mountains traversing six states and covering an area of 1,40,000 sq km, that is internationally recognized as a region of immense global importance for the conservation of biological diversity and designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

The Silent Valley national park has a core area of 89.52 sq km. A surrounding area of 148 sq km has been designated a buffer zone to protect the park’s rare flora and fauna. The park is home to 41 mammal, 211 bird, 49 reptile, 47 amphibian, 12 fish, 164 butterfly, and 400 moth species. Its most famous resident is the lion-tailed macaque (Macaca Silenus), a monkey endemic to the Western Ghats, that ranks among the rarest and most threatened primates in the world.

Other animals found here include the tiger, leopard cat, brown palm civet, small flying squirrel, Indian pangolin, and mouse deer. Rare birds spotted include the Nilgiri wood-pigeon, the great Indian hornbill, the Nilgiri flycatcher and the white-bellied shortwing.

The park is a roughly rectangular tableland closed on all sides, with high and continuous ridges along its entire east, north, and northeast borders and a somewhat lower ridge along the entire western and southern border. A perennial river named Kuntipuzha originates from the south-western edge of the Nilgiri mountain mass and flows through the western side of the park. Along its entire length, the plateau slopes toward the bed of the Kuntipuzha, which divides itinto two sectors. The valley is drained by five main tributaries of the Kuntipuzha that originate near the eastern border and flow westwards.

There are many legends about how the Silent Valley got its name. The most popular one is that this is a distorted or Anglicised version of its original name, Sairandhrivanam, literally ‘forest of Sairandhri’. Sairandhri or Draupadi was the wife of the Pandavas in the Mahabharata, and she and her husbands are believed to have hidden in this forest while escaping their cruel cousins, the Kauravas. Another version attributes the name to the unearthly silence of the valley due to the absence of cicadas, whose noisy, constant buzzing is a typical feature of normal rainforests.

The Silent Valley shot into the limelight in 1973 when the Kerala State Electricity Board initiated a hydroelectric project here that involved building a dam across the Kuntipuzha river, which in turn would flood 8.3 sq km of virgin rainforest and threaten the habitat of the lion-tailed macaque. The decision engendered a storm of protest as environmentalists and intellectuals joined the fray, bringing the matter to public attention at the international level.

Thus was born the Save Silent Valley movement, a high-profile campaign against the project that went on to become India’s fiercest environmental movement over the next two decades. Eventually the project was cancelled and the SilentValley was formally notified as a national park in 1984. The Silent Valley National Park was formally inaugurated on September 7, 1985.

FATHERS OF MODERN AVIATION

The Wright Brothers

 

Orville and Wilbur were two American brothers, inventors and aviation pioneers. They were recognised for inventing and building the world’s first successful airplane. 

The Wright brothers gained the mechanical skills essential for their success by working for years in printing presses, and by working with machinery related to bicycles, motors etc. Their work with bicycles in particular influenced their belief that an unstable vehicle like a flying machine could be controlled and balanced with practice. 

Early life: Wilbur was born on April 16, 1867 and Orville was born on August 19, 1871 in Indiana. Wilbur and Orville Wright grew up in a close, caring family. Their mother Susan was warm, loving, protective, and encouraged the intellectual interest of her children. The Wright brothers had their share of squabbles, like siblings everywhere. But they were much closer than most of the children. 

Education and career: Both brothers attended high school, but did not receive diplomas. The family's unexpected move from Richmond, Indiana to Dayton in 1884 prevented Wilbur from receiving his diploma after finishing four years of high school. Orville dropped out of high school after his junior year to start a printing business in 1889, having designed and built his own printing press with Wilbur's help. They launched a weekly newspaper, the West Side News. Capitalizing on the national bicycle craze, the brothers opened a repair and sales shop, the Wright Cycle Exchange in 1892, and later changed the name to Wright Cycle Company and began manufacturing their own brand in 1896. 

Developing the airplane: The Wright brothers closely followed the research of the German aviator, Otto Lilienthal. When Lilienthal died in a glider crash, the brothers decided to start their own experiments with flight. Determined to develop their own successful design, Wilbur and Orville headed to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina known for its strong winds. Wilbur and Orville set to work trying to figure out how to design wings for flight. They observed that birds angled their wings for balance and control, and tried to emulate this, developing a concept called "wing warping".

The Wright brothers found the magic formula when they added a movable rudder, and on December 17, 1903, they succeeded in flying the first free, controlled flight of a power-driven airplane. Wilbur flew the plane for 59 seconds at 852 feet. It was accepted by the government.

Awards and graduations: The Wright brothers received awards on three separate occasions: Cogressional Medal of Honour awarded on June 17, 1909, Legion of Honour, awarded on June 20, 1909, Collier Trophy awarded on February 3, 1914. All totalled, there were 15 honorary degrees awarded to one or both of the brothers. 

Later years: Wilbur passed away on May 30, 1912. After his brother's loss Orville gave up his interest in manufacturing. His chief public activity was in service on the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the government agency that came before NASA, until his death in Dayton on January 30, 1948.

AN AMAZING HOUSE

Fujian Tulou 

This incredible house - architecture is called as Fujian Tulou. It is located in the mountainous regions and is the best preserved example of the earthen houses in China. Fujian Tulou is a property of 46 buildings constructed between the 15th and 20th centuries. 

Fujian architecture is the symbol of harmonious relationships with the environment; Tulou becomes an outstanding Illustration of human settlement. Several storeys high, they are built along an internal-looking, circular or square square floor plan. Each storey houses 100 families which count up to 800 people. 

They use wooden floor boards, ridgepoles and girders and are covered with a tiled roof. They were built for defense purposes around a central open courtyard with only one entrance and windows to the outside. Housing a whole clan, the houses function as village units and were known as "a little kingdom for the family" or "bustling small city".

A common characteristic of these houses is the long construction period which usually lasted two or three years. The resulting structures are proof against wind, water and earthquakes. Another characteristic feature is their ordinary arrangement of the rooms. 

WORLD FAMOUS FESTIVALS OF INDIA

Ratha Yatra 

     Ratha Yatra is a major Hindu festival associated with Lord Jagannath (another name of Lord Krishna) held at Puri, in Odisha, India, during the months of June or July. This year, it will be celebrated on Sunday, 7th July 2024. 

     The Puri Ratha Yatra is world famous and attracts more than one million pilgrims every year, not only from India but also from the different parts of the world. Ratha Yatra in other words the Chariot procession is a festival that symbolises equality and integration. 

     The three deities, Lord Jagannath, his elder brother, Lord Balabhadra and their sister Subhadra are worshipped within the temple. But on this festival, they are taken to the streets of Puri so that everyone can have their glimpse. The three deities make an annual journey to their aunt's temple (Gundicha Temple), 2km away from Lord Jagannath temple. The Jagannath Temple in Puri is one among the many sacred temples in India. 

    The festival begins with the invoking ceremony in the morning and the chariot pulling on the roads of Puri in the afternoon is the most exciting part of the festival. The three deities have three different chariots. 

     The chariot of Lord Jagannath, Nandighosha, has 18 wheels and is 45.6 feet high, the chariot of Lord Balabhadra, Taladhwaja has 16 wheels and is 45 feet high and the chariot of Subhadra, Devadalana has 14 wheels and is 44.6 feet high. Every year, wooden temples like chariots are constructed newly. The idols of these three deities are also made of wood and they are religiously replaced by new ones in every 12 years. 

UFO

Unidentified Flying Object 🛸

You must have seen movies and books featuring saucer shaped discs that hover the ground and are filled with weird looking creatures. In books and movies, the weird looking creatures are aliens from outer space, and the discs are space ships from another planet - or UFOs. The term UFO means an Unidentified Flying Object, and UFOs are one of the great mysteries that have fascinated man for centuries. 

Even in ancient times, people looked up to the skies and saw objects that were not stars or celestial bodies. Today UFO sightings are more common than ever. Practically every country in the world has sent in reports of UFO sightings. In many cases, they can be explained as weather balloons, lightning, rockets, birds, atmospheric disturbances - and some have been proved to be hoaxes too. But in 5% of the cases, there is no scientific explanation.