Questions

The busiest and most important sea route of the world is _____

To make the number pad act as a directional arrow, we press

Select the synonym of

carnal

Bone deformities occur due to the excess intake of

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The instructor's rules were simple. Breathe through your mouth, not your nose; else the mask will fog up. Easier said than done; I got it wrong many a time. But once you fought habit and got the hang of it, the panoramic underwater world revealed itself to you with high-definition clarity.

Led by him, I slowly peered through the mask into what till then was crystal-clear water, shimmering in the sunlight. I saw pebbles, sand and my fluid shadow. I was in Nemo's universe. Sea cucumbers, sea anemone, clown fish, star fish, sea horses, parrot fish, butterfly fish and a bevy of colourful salt water fish swam past. A shoal of canary-yellow fish did a merry dance and another with vibrant blue fish followed it. They were oblivious to the snorkelers who struggled to take in the sight of a world so beautiful, so colourful, and resist opening their mouth wide in amazement; the tube would fall off!

The writer saw all of the following except:

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It is a labour of love and the result of painstaking research. Chikankari - A Lucknawi Tradition by Paola Manfredi, an Italian, is a book that shows her close and long association with the craft. Lucknow’s chikankari is known across the world yet very little research or documentation has been done. Articles or features have appeared off and on but this book is amongst the first of its kind, which aims to document the vast treasure called Chikan. What makes the book extremely interesting is that unlike other books that tend to rely on second hand material, with exhaustive references and quotes, Paola Manfredi has filled her tome with passionate grass-roots level research. The narrative more in the nature of a personal journey, with all the quirks and street-smart practicality, makes the book refreshing. As Paola says in the book, it is not a scholarly or academic research but more of a documentation of the world of chikankari.

Paola questions the use of chikan as a word for embroidery, highlighting that it has a broader connotation encompassing haute couture, the fine art of making a garment, embroidering it and finishing it with finesse. She is no stranger to chikankari having worked with SEWA and several craftsmen. Her love for white on white embroidery also found a calling in chikan. Paola came to India to work in textile exports and as she says, “If you like textiles ... India is a heaven, an inexhaustible treasure trove.”

What makes the book, ‘Chikankari - A Lucknawi Tradition’ interesting?

Where was the concept of written constitution, first born

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Doing an internship at the University of Lille in France, I almost always found myself stuck whenever I had to speak to non-Indians about India or on anything 'Indian'. This was more because of the subtle differences in the way the French understood India in comparison to what I thought was 'Indian'. For instance, when I, or any Indian for that matter, say 'Hindi' is an Indian language, what it means is that it is one of the languages widely spoken in India. This need not be similar to the understanding that the French would have when they hear of 'Hindi' as an Indian language. Because for them Hindi then becomes the only language spoken in India. This is a natural inference that the French, Germans, Italians and many other European nationals would tend to make, because that is generally how it is in their own respective countries. The risk of such inappropriate generalisations made about 'Indian' is not restricted to language alone but also for India's landscape, cuisine, movies, music, climate, economic development and even political ideologies. The magnitude of diversity of one European country can be easily compared to that of one of the Indian State, isn't it? Can they imagine that India is one country whose diversity can be equated to that of the entire European continent? The onus is upon us to go ahead and clarify the nuances in 'Indianness' while we converse. But why should one do so? How does it even matter to clarify?

What wrong with respect to India are the Europeans responsible for?