InfoNuggets

Perestroika

Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Its literal meaning is "restructuring", referring to the restructuring of the Soviet political and economic system. Perestroika is often argued to be a cause of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War.

Perestroika allowed more independent actions from the various ministries and introduced some market-like reforms. The intention of perestroika, however, was not to end the command economy but rather to make socialism work more efficiently to better meet the needs of Soviet consumers. Gorbachev initiated his new policy of perestroika in 1986. The new policy of "reconstruction" was introduced in an attempt to overcome the economic stagnation by creating a dependable and effective mechanism for accelerating economic and social progress.

Glasnost

Glasnost (Openness) was the policy of maximal publicity, openness and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information, introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1988. The word "glasnost" was frequently used by Gorbachev to specify the policies he believed might help reduce the corruption at the top of the Communist Party and the Soviet government, and moderate the abuse of administrative power in the Central Committee.

The glasnost gave new freedoms to the Soviet people, including greater freedom of speech. This was a radical change, as control of speech and suppression of government criticism had previously been a central part of the Soviet system. The press became far less controlled and thousands of political prisoners and many dissidents were released.

Long March

The Long March was a massive military retreat undertaken by the Red Army of the Communist Party of China, the forerunner of the People's Liberation Army, to evade the pursuit of the Kuomintang (KMT or Chinese Nationalist Party) army. There was not one Long March, but a series of marches, as various Communist armies in the south escaped to the north and west. The most well known is the march from Jiangxi province which began in October 1934.

The First Front Army of the Chinese Soviet Republic, led by an inexperienced military commission, was on the brink of complete annihilation by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's troops in their stronghold in Jiangxi province. The Communists, under the eventual command of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, escaped in a circling retreat to the west and north, which reportedly traversed some 12,500 km over 370 days (from October 16, 1934 to October 19, 1935). The route passed through some of the most difficult terrain of western China by travelling west, then north, to Shaanxi.

The Long March began the ascent to power of Mao Zedong, whose leadership during the retreat gained him the support of the members of the party. The bitter struggles of the Long March, which was completed by only one-tenth of the force that left Jiangxi, would come to represent a significant episode in the history of the Communist Party of China.

Eastern Question

The Eastern Question, in European history, encompasses the diplomatic and political problems posed by the decay of the Ottoman Empire. The expression does not apply to any one particular problem, but instead includes a variety of issues raised during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, including instability in the European territories ruled by the Ottoman Empire.

The Eastern Question is normally dated to 1774, when the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774) ended in defeat for the Ottomans. As the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire was believed to be imminent, the European powers engaged in a power struggle to safeguard their military, strategic and commercial interests in the Ottoman domains. Imperial Russia stood to benefit from the decline of the Ottoman Empire; on the other hand, Austria-Hungary and the United Kingdom deemed the preservation of the Empire to be in their best interests. The Eastern Question was put to rest after World War I, one of whose outcomes was the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

The Official Secrets Act 1923

It is India's anti-espionage act held over from British colonisation. It states clearly that any action which involves helping an enemy state against India. It also states that one cannot approach, inspect, or even pass over a prohibited government site or area. According to this Act, helping the enemy state can be in the form of communicating a sketch, plan, model of an official secret, or of official codes or passwords, to the enemy. The disclosure of any information that is likely to affect the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, or friendly relations with foreign States, is punishable by this act.

Microfinance

Microfinance is the provision of financial services to low-income clients or solidarity lending groups including consumers and the self-employed, who traditionally lack access to banking and related services. More broadly, it is a movement whose object is “a world in which as many poor and near-poor households as possible have permanent access to an appropriate range of high quality financial services, including not just credit but also savings, insurance, and fund transfers.” Those who promote microfinance generally believe that such access will help poor people out of poverty. Microfinance is a broad category of services, which includes microcredit.

The Ku band

It is a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum in the microwave range of frequencies. This symbol refers to (originally German: Kurz-unten)—in other words, the band directly below the K-band. In radar applications, it ranges from 12-18 GHz according to the formal definition of radar frequency band nomenclature in IEEE Standard 521-2002. Ku band is primarily used for satellite communications, most notably for fixed and broadcast services, and for specific applications such as NASA's Tracking Data Relay Satellite used for both space shuttle and ISS communications. Ku band satellites are also used for backhauls and particularly for satellite from remote locations back to a television network's studio for editing and broadcasting. The band is split into multiple segments that vary by geographical region by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). NBC was the first television network to uplink a majority of its affiliate feeds via Ku band in 1983.

Watergate scandal

The Watergate scandal was a political scandal in the United States in the 1970s, resulting from the break-in to the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. Effects of the scandal ultimately led to the resignation of the President of the United States Richard Nixon on August 9, 1974, the first—and so far, only—resignation of any U.S President. It also resulted in the indictment and conviction of several Nixon administration officials. The affair began with the arrest of five men for breaking and entering into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972. The FBI connected the payments to the burglars to a slush fund used by the 1972 Committee to Re-elect the President.

Bureau of Energy Efficiency

The Bureau of Energy Efficiency is an agency of the Government of India, under the Ministry of Power created in March 2002 under the provisions of the nation’s 2001 Energy Conservation Act. The agency’s function is to develop programs which will increase the conservation and efficient use of energy in India. The government has proposed to make it mandatory for all appliances in India to have ratings by the BEE starting in January 2010. The mission of Bureau of Energy Efficiency is to “institutionalize” energy efficiency services, enable delivery mechanisms in the country and provide leadership to energy efficiency in all sectors of the country. The primary objective would be to reduce energy intensity in the economy.

DSC Prize for South Asian Literature

DSC Prize for South Asian Literature is a literary prize awarded annually to writers of any ethnicity or nationality writing about South Asia themes such as culture, politics, history, or people. It is for an original full-length novel written in English, or translated into English. The first award is for novels published between April 1, 2009, and March 31, 2010. The winner receives US$50,000 The prize is sponsored by DSC Limited (formerly known as DS Constructions Ltd.), an Indian infrastructure and construction company.

Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize is a US award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by Hungarian-American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is presented by Columbia University in New York City. It was first awarded in 1917.

The prize was established by Joseph Pulitzer, journalist and newspaper publisher, who founded the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and bought the New York World. Pulitzer left money to Columbia University upon his death in 1911. A portion of his bequest was used to found the university’s journalism school in 1912. The first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded June 4, 1917; they are now announced each April. Recipients are chosen by an independent board.

Prizes are awarded yearly in twenty-one categories. In twenty of these, each winner receives a certificate and a US$10,000 cash award. The winner in the public service category of the journalism competition is awarded a gold medal, which always goes to a newspaper, although an individual may be named in the citation.

El Niño

El Niño/La Niña-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, is a quasi-periodic climate pattern that occurs across the tropical Pacific Ocean on average every five years, but over a period which varies from three to seven years. It is characterised by variations in the temperature of the surface of the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean - warming or cooling known as El Niño and La Niña respectively - and air surface pressure in the tropical western Pacific - the Southern Oscillation. The two variations are coupled: the warm oceanic phase, El Niño, accompanies high air surface pressure in the west Pacific, while the cold phase, La Niña, accompanies low air surface pressure in the west Pacific. Mechanisms that cause the oscillation remain under study.

ENSO causes extreme weather such as floods, droughts and other weather disturbances in many regions of the world. Developing countries dependent upon agriculture and fishing, particularly those bordering the Pacific Ocean, are the most affected. In popular usage, the El Niño-Southern Oscillation is often called just “El Niño”. El Niño is Spanish for “the boy” and refers to the Christ child, because periodic warming in the Pacific near South America is usually noticed around Christmas.

Definition: El Niño is defined by prolonged differences in Pacific-Ocean surface temperatures when compared with the average value. The accepted definition is a warming or cooling of at least 0.5 °C (0.9 °F) averaged over the east-central tropical Pacific Ocean. Typically, this anomaly happens at irregular intervals of 2-7 years and lasts nine months to two years. When this warming or cooling occurs for only seven to nine months, it is classified as El Niño/La Niña “conditions”; when it occurs for only five to seven months, it is classified as El Niño/La Niña “episodes”.

The first signs of an El Niño are:

1. Rise in surface pressure over the Indian Ocean, Indonesia, and Australia
2. Trade winds in the south Pacific weaken or head east
3. Warm air rises near Peru, causing rain in the northern Peruvian deserts
4. Warm water spreads from the west Pacific and the Indian Ocean to the east Pacific. It takes the rain with it, causing extensive drought in the western Pacific and rainfall in the normally dry eastern Pacific.

When El Niño conditions last for many months, extensive ocean warming occurs and its economic impact to local fishing for an international market can be serious.

La Niña

La Niña is a coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon that is the counterpart of El Niño as part of the broader El Niño-Southern Oscillation climate pattern. During a period of La Niña, the sea surface temperature across the equatorial Eastern Central Pacific Ocean will be lower than normal by 3-5 degrees Celsius. In the United States, an episode of La Niña is defined as a period of at least 5 months of La Niña conditions. The name La Niña originates from Spanish, meaning “the girl”, analogous to El Niño meaning “the boy”.

La Niña, sometimes called “anti-El Niño”, is the opposite of El Niño, where the latter corresponds instead to a higher sea surface temperature by a deviation of at least 0.5 °C, and its effects are often the reverse of those of El Niño. El Niño is famous due to its potentially catastrophic impact on the weather along both the Chilean and Australian coasts. Furthermore, La Niña is often preceded by a strong El Niño. La Niña causes mostly the opposite effects of El Niño, for example, El Niño would cause a dry period in the Midwestern US, while La Niña would typically cause a wet period in this area.

Ranji Trophy

The Ranji Trophy is a domestic first-class cricket championship played in India between different city and state sides, equivalent to the County Championship in England and the Sheffield Shield in Australia. The competition is named after Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji (Jam Sahib of Nawanagar). The competition was launched as “The Cricket Championship of India” following a meeting of the BCCI in July 1934, with the first fixtures taking place in 1934-35. The trophy was donated by Maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala. The first Ranji Championship was won by Bombay after they defeated North India in the final. Mumbai have been the dominant team in the Championship so far, with 39 wins, including 15 back-to-back wins from 1958-59 to 1972-73.

Capital Gains Tax

A capital gains tax is a tax on capital gains, the profit realised on the sale of a non-inventory asset that was purchased at a lower price. The most common capital gains are realized from the sale of stocks, bonds, precious metals and property. Not all countries implement a capital gains tax and most have different rates of taxation for individuals and corporations. Taxes are charged by the state over the transactions, dividends and capital gains on the stock market. However, these fiscal obligations may vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction because, among other reasons, it could be assumed that taxation is already incorporated into the stock price through the different taxes companies pay to the state, or that tax-free stock market operations are useful to boost economic growth.