Reverse Osmosis and the importance of Cooling Towers Water Treatment

Treating the water of the cooling towers is an important part of the operations process for several industries. Without it, there is a possibility of the quality of the product as well as productivity suffering immensely as it will be affected by scaling, corrosion, microbiological contamination and fouling. It will also result in the loss of transfer of heat in the cooling towers, leading to failure in equipment and bringing out health concerns. Water Treatment Solutions There are several water treatment solutions providers for cooling towers in India. To understand this process, people have to know about the techniques of osmosis and reverse osmosis. Osmosis is the process of the movement of a solvent like water that goes through a living cell or a semi-permeable membrane into some higher concentration of solute on both sides of the membrane. Reverse osmosis is the process of the movement of water through this semi-permeable membrane by the application of pressure when applied to the solution such as sea water on one side of the membrane. Reverse Osmosis and Chemical Manufacturers and Exporters in India There are many RO chemicals manufacturers in India. RO (reverse osmosis) is the technique where they use quality and purified water in biochemical applications and in semiconductor processing. RO chemical is used when treating the boiler feed water, process water and the industrial waste water. This process of water purification diminishes the quantity of the solids which are dissolved in the solution. The process of reverse osmosis was initially developed in the United States of America in the nineteen fifties when it needed to covert sea water into fresh drinking water for the members of its navy. When seawater purification was achieved, the industrial sector followed suit to convert waste water to purified water for several applications. Today, in India, you will come across many a cooling tower chemical exporter. Big steps have been taken to minimize the effect of scaling. Chemical and ion exchange techniques have been used in pre-treatment processes. The ion exchange techniques remove the species that form the scales from the RO feed water and the chemical techniques transform the characteristics of the feed water to prevent crystal formation. An example of this would be lime softening where the hardness in the waste water can be reduced and it prevents the material from precipitating outwards. The effect of using RO Chemical RO Chemical can improve the membrane performance by the reverse osmosis system. Polluted membranes can have a negative impact through the impurities which build up on their surface during operations. Microorganisms or suspended solids pollute the elements of the membrane. These kinds of deposits can cause a loss in the output and will also mar the system performance. The main function of the RO chemical is to reduce the deposits and the impurities in the membranes of the system. Exclusively designed chemicals like antiscalants and RO powder cleaners by various RO chemicals manufacturers in India become helpful in the prevention of contaminants from attaching to the surface of the membranes.

Sindhi Language

Sindhi is an Indo-Aryan language that is spoken by about forty four million people in the province of Sindh, Pakistan and is a recognised official language of India. In India, it is spoken by over twelve million people who migrated from Pakistan. The language can be written using the Devanagari or the Arabic scripts. It has to be acknowledged that Sindh is probably the most effected part of the sub-continent and Pakistan that has suffered because of the migration during partition when over a million Hindu Sindhis migrated to India. It is sad that the detachment and disruption in their lives have remained hidden from most of the world. Sindhi is one of the ancient languages of the world and it is spoken in India, Pakistan, USA, Canada and Europe. The Sindhi language and culture play an important role in uniting the Sindhis all over the world. In India, Sindhi is one of the scheduled languages that are officially recognised by the federal government. Sindhi is one of the languages that were recognised in the eighth schedule of the Indian Constitution on 10th April 1967. Sindhi is influenced from a local version of the oral form of Sanskrit and from Balochi which is spoken in the province of Baluchistan. Most Sindhi speakers are concentrated in the Sindh province and in Kutch. Ulhasnagar near Mumbai is the largest Sindhi enclave in India. History Historically, Sindh was the seat of one of the most advanced urban civilisations of the world at Mohenjo-Daro. During the Indus Valley Civilisation at Mohenjo-Daro, the Sindhis used to grow grains and live in well built houses. In the beginning of the eighth century, Sindh was ruled by a Brahmin King, Raja D’Ahir, who was defeated by the Arab General Mohammad Bin Qasim in 712. The influence of Islam and Arabic language started in Sindh around this time. When we look at history, we realise that it is not new for the Sindhi language to have been threatened. When the Arabs invaded Sindh, the language faced many Arabic challenges. The threats came later from the Parsis and the English but the Sindhi language survived. For almost a thousand and two hundred years, Sindh was ruled by many native or foreign rulers. Most of this period was covered by Muslims. Sindhi has a large vocabulary and an old literary tradition. It is a favorite language of many writers and therefore a huge volume of literature, especially poetry has been written in Sindhi. The Sindhi language has descended from the Apabhramsha Prakrit named Vrachada. Arab travellers like Abu Rehan Biruni in his book, `Tahqiq Ma Lil Hind’, has mentioned that Sindhi language was used in the region with three different scripts that were Ardhanagari, Saindhu and Malwari. Over the course of next few centuries, Sindhi culture absorbed Arabic and Persian words which enhanced its heritage. Script The oldest record of the language and script of Sindhi is represented in Mohenjo-Daro seals. The seals show some pictographic script that goes back nearly five thousand years. When the British came to Sindh, they found the script to be in Devanagari. Some British scholars found the language Sanskritic and thought that the Devanagari script would be right for it. In 1850, they translated the Bible in Sindhi in the Devanagari script. In 1868, the Bombay Presidency assigned the Narayan Jagannath Vaidya to replace the abugida used in Sindhi with the Khudabadi script. The script was responsible for creating anarchy in the Muslim majority region. There were other British scholars who opined that the Arabic script suited the language as most of the writers were Muslims and their Muslim names could not be written so well in the Devanagari script. Sir Richard Burton, an Orientalist, with the help of some local scholars evolved a fifty two letter Sindhi alphabet. As the Arabic script could not express many Sindhi sounds, a scheme of dots was worked out for that purpose. As a result of this, the Sindhi script today not only has all its own sounds but it also contains the four Z’s of Arabic. The government of India recognised both the Devanagari and the Arabic scripts. Grammar and Phonology Sindhi has a large collection of both consonants and vowels when compared with the other languages. Sindhi has forty six consonant phonemes and sixteen vowels. The consonant to vowel ratio is three to one. All nasals, retroflex flaps and the lateral approximants have aspired counterparts. The language features four implosives. Implosive consonants are actually stops that can be modified by phonation. The vowels are short and of modal length. In Sindhi, consonants have different shapes according to their position in a word. Vowel signs are added to consonants to make the words. Captain George Stack, an eminent British linguist, wrote that he always considered English as a beautiful and copious language in the world until he learnt Sindhi and realised that causal verbs in Sindhi gave the language a beauty that was unique. Dialects The main dialect in Sindhi is Vicholi and it is spoken in Central Sindh. Saraiki is spoken mainly in Upper Sindh. Lari is spoken in Lower Sindh. Lasi is spoken in Western Sindh and Baluchistan. Thari is spoken in the desert region on the southeast border of Sindh and in parts of the Jaisalmer district of Rajasthan. Kacchi is spoken in the Kutch region and in some parts of Kathiawar in Gujarat. Vicholi dialect is the basis for standardised Sindhi. The largest Sindhi speaking place is Hyderabad in Pakistan. Literature Sindhi became a popular literary language between the fourteenth and the eighteenth centuries. Sufis such as Shah Abdul Latif and Lal Shahbaz Qalandar narrated their theosophical poetry describing the relationship between God and His creation. Sindhi literature is rich and is regarded to be among the oldest in the world. Its writers have contributed in various forms, both in poetry and prose. The earliest reference we get to Sindhi literature is found in the writings of the Arab historians. Sindhi was the earliest language of the East in which the Quran was translated in the ninth century. There is evidence of Sindhi poets reciting their verses before the Omayyad Muslim Caliphs in Baghdad, Iraq. Around the same period, treatises were written in Sindhi on astronomy and history. The verses of Pir Nooruddin were known as `ginans’. He was an Ismaili missionary and his ginans are the earliest specimens of Sindhi poetry. His verses are full of mysticism and religious doctrines. Poets like Pir Sadruddin followed him. We also find verses composed by Baba Farid Ganj Shakar in Sindhi and Punjabi languages. Pir Sadruddin modified the old script of Sindhi language that was used by the Lohana caste of Hindus living in Sindh who had converted to Islam under his teachings and were called as `Khojas’. In the fifteenth century, Madrasahs flourished where scholars of Sindh used to teach religion and rhetoric. Shah Abdul Latif gave new life and content to the language and literature of Sindh. He studied the culture of the people and their attachment to the land through music and fine arts. Sadhu Vaswani’s voluminous writings and mystical verses are witness to the beauty of the Sindhi language. Modern Sindhi literature began with the conquest of Sindh by the British in 1843. The printing press was introduced. Magazines and newspapers brought about a revolution in Sindhi literature. Books were translated from English. Progressive thoughts opened up new trends in Sindhi literature. In 1952, Nooruddin Sarki and Abdul Ghafoor Ansari restructured the literary forum of Sindhi language and called it `Sindhi Adabi Sangat’. Initially, its activities were restricted to the city of Karachi in Pakistan. Then, the interest spread throughout the Sindh and in India. Preservation of Sindhi Indian Institute of Sindhology at Adipur-Gandhidham is the main institute in India for the preservation of the Sindhi language and culture. It has developed into a culture university. Many symposiums were held with the active participation of well known scholars and educationists of the Sindhi language. Sindhi community does not have its own exclusive territory for the overall development for its language and education and therefore the need for such a university has come about. The university also promotes the study of Sindhi literature, art and culture. The university will have academic activities like advanced learning and research and will also serve as a centre for the Sindhi community. A sum of about fifty Crore Rupees has been set aside as a corpus fund to earn an interest to be utilised for the running expenses and towards fixtures, furniture and equipment. Use of Sindhi Language After the partition of India and Pakistan, the Sindhi immigrants stayed in many small refugee camps that were located near the urban areas in different parts of the country. Most of them had done their schooling in Sindhi medium of language. These settlements were mostly homogeneous linguistic groups. These Sindhis were able to maintain the cultural and linguistic identity enthusiastically due to the cultural and literary background and social contacts. The functional use of Sindhi was reduced in different formal and informal disciplines in India due to the absence of a unified geographical region and a change in the earlier settlement patterns for their economic survival. However, the Sindhis were able to establish many cultural organisations and educational institutions. The Sindhi settlements have reduced in size and number in these last sixty four years because many Sindhis have left the camps for better job opportunities and spread in the non-Sindhi urban areas. Some of them became non residential Indians and settled all over the world. This drastically influenced the functional use of the Sindhi language. Sindhis have also become bilingual in India and this has limited the use of Sindhi as their mother tongue. As far as education is concerned, many Sindhi medium schools were started and there was at least one Sindhi primary school in almost every Sindhi colony and there are even secondary schools in bigger settlements in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Delhi. There are Sindhi teacher training institutions in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan. Now, the governmental and non-governmental agencies are encouraging these states to introduce Sindhi language as a subject and teach through evening classes. Sindhi and Mass Media Sindhi is used in different disciplines of mass media. There are one hundred and ten newspapers and periodicals at present that are published in Sindhi in India. This plays a very important part for the Sindhi speaking community. Yet, lack of planning and resourceful infrastructure has prevented the publishers from using modern technology and giving employment to trained persons in the field of communications. Sindhi is also used by the electronic media apart from the print media. Many different stations of All India Radio relay Sindhi programs. A limited time is apportioned for Sindhi on some regional television channels of Doordarshan. Some Sindhi programs are also telecast by private agencies. Since India gained independence, several Sindhi films have been made in the country. Sindhi Language Word Processor The Institute of Information Technology of the University of Sindh has developed a Sindhi language Unicode system to help write eMails. Under the developed Unicode, the institute has also developed Microsoft Office in the Sindhi language while the system helps in composing and is of great use to researchers. The system will also help in vocal compositions as well as doing correction in Sindhi words.

Atrophic Rhinitis

What is atrophic rhinitis? Atrophic rhinitis is a chronic nasal condition that is characterised by the formation of thick dry crusts in the nasal cavity. It results from progressive wasting away or decreasing in size (atrophy) of the mucous nasal lining (mucosa) and its underlying bone. It also affects the glands and turbinate bones. Special forms of chronic atrophic rhinitis are rhinitis sicca anterior and ozaena. Etiology • Hereditary factors • Endocrinal imbalance - the disease tends to start at puberty and mostly involves females • Racial factors - whites are more susceptible than natives of equatorial Africa • Nutritional deficiency in vitamins A , D or iron • Autoimmune factors - viral infection may trigger antigenicity of the nasal mucosa Symptoms • Most commonly seen in females • Reported among patients from lower socioeconomic groups • The nasal cavities become roomy and are filled with foul smelling crusts which are black or dark green and dry, making expiration painful and difficult. • Microorganisms are known to multiply and produce a foul smell from the nose, though the patients may not be aware of this, because their elements (responsible for the perception of smell) have become atrophied. This is called merciful anosmia. • Patients usually complain of nasal obstruction despite the roomy nasal cavity, which can be caused either by the obstruction produced by the discharge in the nose, or as a result of sensory loss due to atrophy of nerves in the nose, so the patient is unaware of the air flow. • Bleeding from the nose, also called epistaxis, may occur when the dried discharge (crusts) are removed. • Septal perforation and dermatitis of nasal vestibule can occur. The nose may show a saddle-nose deformity. Management Treatment of atrophic rhinitis can be either medical or surgical. Medical measures include: • Nasal irrigation using normal saline • Removal of crusts using alkaline nasal solutions prepared by dissolving a spoonful of powder containing one part sodium bicarbonate, one part sodium biborate and two part sodium chloride. • 25% glucose in glycerine can be applied to the nasal mucosa to inhibit the growth of proteolytic organisms which produce foul smell • Local antibiotics, such as chloromycetine • Vitamin D(Kemicetine) • Systemic streptomycin (1g/day) against Klebsiella organisms. Surgical interventions include: • Modified Young's operation • Narrowing of nasal cavities, sub-mucosal injection of Teflon paste, section and medial displacement of the lateral wall of the nose • Transposition of parotid duct to maxillary sinus or nasal mucosa

Content Writing Still Rules the Web

There is no denying the fact that content writing still rules the web. The search engines will just not recognize your website and attach any value to it if it does not have any content of worth. If you take a close look at what kind of websites are sitting perched at the top of the search engine rankings, you will find all of them with strong unique content and keyword density that has an impact on the presentation. So, how do you go about with your content strategy? Your strategy has to be backed up with good research and planning. It has to contain enthusiastic and creative objectives. If you want to promote your business as unique in today’s competitive world, you have to provide content writing that is engaging enough to take a position of authority. Content strategy is all about where, when and how you will project your content and what type of content you will present for the kinds of audience you have kept in your mind. You are very well aware that Google comes out with an update to its algorithm every now and then and that it is rather severe on sites that have thin or duplicate kind of content. The consumer behavior patterns are changing and social media is hogging most of the new search engine optimization strategies. It is your content that makes you an expert in the field and also generates links at the same time. You can keep these five things in your mind when planning your content strategy: • What is the message going to be? What do you want out of your web page? Are you simply going to sell your products or make the people subscribe to your blogs and consider you as an industry expert? • Be clear about your audience. Then, you can work out strategies on where you can find most of your audience. You have to do a little research on your audience before you take steps on your content writing plan. • You have to locate your audience. You can create one of the best informational graphic presentations in the world, but if you are not sure of where and when to present it, you will not be getting anywhere. • Information can help in the creation of a good and imaginative content strategy. Social Mention and Icerocket.com could be useful tools as they can locate networks and blogs for accessing your brand and key phrases. Google’s Insight Tools and Keyword Selection will also help. • A good content strategy that throws pointers back to your website is crucial in search engine marketing. The stronger the content quality of your web pages, the higher authority Google will extend to your website. You cannot do everything by yourself. Get services of a good article writer who can cover different niches with an expertise in doing press releases. Writing blog should come naturally to that writer. The article writer has to write keyword focused articles that are factual and full of valuable information.

Honey: The Elixir of Life

Honey is recognized as a delicious food supplement that is used on the dining table for eating with porridge or cereals and as an ingredient to make the tea taste nice. Not many people are aware of the benefits of honey; not only as a food ingredient but as a healthcare product. Eyebrows are raised when there are suggestions to use honey on our hair or skin. People are ignorant and detached on the benefits provided by honey through the ages towards maintenance of healthy skin and hair. Amazing Ingredients of Honey Honey has never been dependent on additives to prevent it from getting spoilt. This must have been a real blessing during the ages where there was no refrigerator. Modern scientists have discovered at a later stage that honey had powerful antioxidant properties, giving us a strong source of enzymes, minerals, amino acids and vitamins. These ingredients help us in reducing the inflammation in cells and in promoting cellular regeneration. This is the secret behind keeping the skin fresh and youthful. Today, honey has become a frequent ingredient in several cosmetic products and thousands of commercial beauty products are being made with honey and its ingredients. Properties of Honey It contains high quantities of monosaccharide, fructose and glucose. Its sweet taste comes from its sugar content of almost seventy per cent. Minerals and water build up the remaining part of its composition. Honey also has antibacterial and antiseptic properties, as we learn from http://honeyfanatic.com. Modern science has taught us the benefits of honey in its useful applications in wound management. It may come as a surprise to the modern scientists that honey was used to treat wounds as far back as pre-ancient Egyptian days. Honey and its usefulness through the Ages Historical records point out to Cleopatra, hailed as one of the most beautiful women in the world, applying a honey mask to her face each morning. She is also known to have taken honey and milk baths to keep her skin smooth and healthy. Honey is also the secret behind a youthful look even in middle age. In the Ming Dynasty too in China, women at the court of the emperor applied honey with ground orange to keep their hair and skin beautiful and renewed. More than four thousand years ago, honey was used as a conventional Ayurvedic medicine in India and it was thought to be useful to treat imbalances in our body. Ancient Greeks thought that eating honey would help them live longer. There is not a civilization that has not praised the qualities of honey. In the Arabian world, it was considered as a great healing food. The benefits of honey have even been lauded in the Holy Quran which mentions in one of its chapters on how the Almighty Creator taught the bee to build its cells in hills, in trees and in the habitations of men. It talks about how men have been guided to drink the product from within the bodies of the bees to be healed. This is a food for thought.

Santali Language

Santali is a language in the sub family of Austro-Asiatic languages. It is spoken by about ten million people in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. Most of its speakers are Indian. It is spoken in the States of Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Tripura, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal. It belongs to the language family of Munda, Kherwari and Santhali. Santali was included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution through the Ninety Second Constitutional Amendment in 2003. This language has been there in India since ages. It has its rich traditional literature and cultural value. Santali language is distantly related to Khmer and Vietnamese languages. Santali is mostly spoken by the Santhal tribe. The Santali speakers are spread over three thousand miles from the river Ganges in the north to the river Baitami in the south. Santali is the only Mundu offshoot language that has been recognised by the Indian government as an official language. As a result of the tribal migration during the nineteenth century, Santali is also found across the entire country as far as Assam in the northeast and even the Andaman and the Nicobar Islands. Origin It is estimated that the Santali language is older than the Aryan languages. The history of Santali and the Santhals tribe can be found in folklore and songs of the tribe itself. Fa-Hien, the Chinese traveller, was the first to describe about the Santhal tribe. After him, historians have come from different regions and wrote different things about them. One thing that is established is that the Santhals were there since the pre-Aryan period. The Santhals fought with Aryans, both Vedic and non Vedic and later made peace with them. Many of them remained uninfluenced by the Aryan culture and languages for some time. The Santali language can be classified as part Dravidian, part Austric and part Munda. The Kissam Koya and the Oraon tribes that come from the Dravidian language speaking clans along with the Santhals were the main tribes. The Santali language has existed for over thousands of years mainly through oral communication. Santali is quite diverse in terms of language, economic status and caste. Grammar, Dialect and Script The major Santali dialect is Mahali. Santali is spoken by Santhals and other tribes such as Mahali and the Pahadis. The script is Ol Chiki. It means the `writing symbol’. It used to be Latin during the British rule. Sadhu Ramchand Murmu used the modern Kherwal script known as `Muj Bandhi’ for the development of Santali language, literature and socio-religious cultural identity in the early part of the twentieth century. Then, the modern Ol Chiki script was developed later in 1925 by Pandit Raghunath Murmu. Ol Chiki has its own alphabet. It is a unique modern developed Indic script which uses both capital and small letters together. The short hand concept was composed by Pruthunath Murmu to solidify the Ol Chiki script. The formative style of the script proves its natural shape. The modern Ol Chiki script has six basic vowels a, aa, i, u, e and o and three additional vowels. Santali uses a number of affixes, tense and moods. It has got its own pronouns, numerical and syntactical structure as a fully fledged language. The Santali alphabet is an indigenous alphabet which is based on traditional symbols as well as pictographs. It is also known as Ol Cemet or `language of writing’. In the earlier days, Santali was written with the Bengali alphabet and sometimes with the Latin alphabet. Santali is not an Indo-European language like most other languages of northern India. The Indic script did not have letters for all the phonemes of Santali, particularly its stop consonants and vowels. This made it difficult for writing the language accurately in an unmodified Indic script. The Christian missionaries brought the Latin alphabet into India. Latin was helpful at representing some of Santali’s stops but the vowels still created problems. Unlike most Indic scripts that are derived from Brahmi, Santali’s Ol Chiki is not an abugida but a true alphabet as the vowels are given equal representation with the consonants. One letter was also assigned to each phoneme as the letters were designed specifically for the language. Santali has thirty letters. The forms of these letters represent natural shapes. The shapes of these letters reflect the names for the letters and the words are normally the names of objects or actions that represent traditional form in the pictorial shape of the characters. Santali is written from left to right. Speech perception in Santali is of simple phonetic contrast of syllables. The Santali Latin alphabet was invented in the eighteen nineties by the Norwegian missionary, Reverend Paul Olaf Bodding. He was one of the most influential missionaries to have come to India. Santali uses thirty letters and five basic diacritics. It does not share any of the syllabic properties of the other scripts like Devanagari. Santali did not have a written language until the twentieth century and used the Latin script until then. Literature Santali is a language with its own distinct characteristics and has a literature that goes back to the beginning of the fifteenth century. The development of traditional Santali language and literature commenced during the British rule around 1870 by literary loving British people. They built a printing press at Benares for popularising the Santali works over the north eastern region. Many dictionaries, dramas and folk tales were written during this period. Santali literature is now widespread in West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar and Assam. Pandit Raghunath Murmu of the Rairangpur District is the father of Ol Chiki script. He brought about somewhat of a renaissance in 1925 by inventing this script. Pandit Murmu enriched the Santali literature by writing dramas, poems and children’s stories. He did a lot for Santali grammar and wrote many books on mathematics too. The book, `Bakhera’, written by him reflects the Santhal tribal religion. The book contains tribal verses and hymns. Pandit Murmu is popularly known as Guru Gomke among the Santhals. This title was conferred on him by the Mayurbhanj Adibasi Mahasabha. Pandit Murmu’s philosophy was that modern Santali language and literature should point towards the principle of the identity of self rather than imitation. He felt that the Santhali society can be developed only when education was imposed in its mother tongue and that the cultural identity can only be established when its literature became developed with its own script. This historical path breaking philosophy not only gave the Santhals confidence for the development of modern Santali language and literature but also enabled proper expression of their language. Santali and the Santhal Culture The major economic occupation of the Santhals was agriculture, collection of forest produce and cultivation. Their life revolved around the forests. They made mats, baskets and musical equipment from the plants they collected. Literacy rate is very low among people speaking Santali. It is between ten and thirty per cent. The initial attempt to study the Santali culture was done by the Moghals followed by the Christian missionaries. Many scholars and anthropologists have been attracted for decades to the Santali culture. In 1933, Dr. Byomkas Chakrabarti, a Bengali research worker on ethnic languages, found out the basic relationship between the Santali and the Bengali languages. He was a poet and a renowned educationist. He showed how the Bengali language has got some distinct characteristics under the influence of Santali language. The reason for doing so was because of the similarities in the use of phonetics. His contribution was vital in the development of Bengali and Santali languages and it offered scope for further research in the field of linguistics. The Santhals are known for preserving their native language unlike many other tribal groups of India. They were able to preserve the language despite invasions and migrations from the Moghals and the Europeans. Santali culture is shown in the art works on the walls of the houses of the Santhals. The Santhals love music and dance. The first Santali feature film was `Pilchu Haram Pilchu Buddhi’. Though Santali has been recognised as an official language in India, it is not much in use these days. Some Santhals who are educated still use it to write books and other literary works. During the British rule, the language was written in the Latin script. Development of Santali When the Jharkhand State was created, the Santhal tribes of eastern India demanded the recognition of Ol Chiki as the Santali script. This movement was spearheaded by the Kolkata based All India Santhal Council and the Santali Bhasha Morcha. These cultural associations were responsible for getting Santali included in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution. Many literary and cultural societies have been established to promote art, literature and culture through Santali all over the country. This language has now got a private academy and many printing presses and publishers. The Paschim Bangla Santali Academy was created to promote, advance and develop the study of Santali language and literature. The academy also encourages the translation and publication of scholarly, historical and literary works into the Santali language. A library has been set up and archives have been built for the purpose of carrying on research work and to gather manuscripts and other articles of reputed scholars in Santali literature and language. Santali has found a place in the mass communications media. The All India Radio has recognised this language. The transmission of Santali programs has been there from various centres. Santali is now being taught from the school to the university levels in Jharkhand and Bihar. The University Grants Commission is also providing fellowship for higher studies in Santali language and literature. There are currently more than five hundred writers who are promoting this language. The installation of the Doordarshan Santali Television satellite channel has also given the chance for the language to grow. Now, the Santali speaking people can be in touch with both local and international news and other information regarding politics and economy of the world from all over the globe in their own language.

Tashkent

Tashkent was built around 190 B.C. It has grown from a small ancient settlement to become one of the largest metropolitan areas in Central Asia. The freedom loving population of Uzbekistan has fought for its independence continuously against all foreign invasions throughout the centuries. It emerged as an important trading center after the campaigns of Alexander the Great as it was located on the crossroads of the Great Silk Route. The earliest known people who settled down in Tashkent were the Indo-Iranians. Buddhism had also reached and made its mark in the middle ages but after the Arab campaigns of the eighth century, Islam replaced Buddhism as the dominant religion. By the tenth century, Tashkent had become an important center in the Muslim world. In the fourteenth century, Timur Lang created a vast empire around Tashkent. After his death, Shahbani Khan took over and the rule of the Uzbeks started until the Russians dominated in the middle of the nineteenth century. It has now gone back to the Uzbeks after a long struggle. The Indian Prime Minister, Mr. Lal Bahadur Shastri, died here while visiting for a conference in January 1966.