Relation between India and Southeast Asia: 

After Independence, India became a closed economy and discouraged imports and exports from other nations. In contrary, the countries of Southeast Asia such as Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia and so on adopted the policy of export led growth from 1950’s onwards. Hence till 1991, India’s relations with Southeast Asian countries are nothing more than proximity and neighbourhood.

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INDIA’S LOOK EAST POLICY:

When liberalisation of the economy began in India in 1991, it started looking for foreign investments and paid attention towards the fast growing East Asian countries. This is called LOOK EAST POLICY constituted by P V NARASIMHA RAO. The success of the organisation ASEAN (ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN COUNTRIES) formed by SouthEast Asian countries further enhanced the interests of India in that region.

At the same time, those countries were also interested in consolidated relations with a big nation such as India to checkmate China, which was rising as a superpower. They also viewed India as the manufacturing centre and market hub of their products.

Thus, since 1991 till now, India has been maintaining strong trade relations with the SouthEast Asian countries and also playing a key role in their regional cooperation issues as well.

INDIA AND THAILAND:

India and Thailand share a maritime boundary in the Andaman Sea. The biggest cultural influence of India on THAI culture is Buddhism. Buddhism originated in India is now the major religion in Thailand. Most of the people in Thailand follow the religion.

In the year 1986, Prime minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi opened up relation with Thailand by signing the joint statement on cooperation in the field of Science & Technology and promotion of bilateral economic trade.

After 1991, the relations became even more consolidated. Diplomatic talks were regularly held and culture based Tourism was promoted mainly. Till 2013, the relations are mainly of economic importance.

In 2013, both the countries signed an extradition treaty which provides a legal framework for cooperating in fighting against terrorism, money laundering, smuggling and arresting and exchanging the criminals.

Besides, many agreements on resource development, educational opportunities and so on are made between India and Thailand.

INDIA AND SOUTH KOREA:

In 1950’s and 1960’s, India and South Korea looked at each other with suspicion as South Korea was an ally to USA and India supported USSR in the matter of Defence treaty of 1953. Later on, South Korea started globalising in 1980’s and when India opened up in 1991, trade relations began between the two nations.

During 1990’s South Korea invested 2.5 million dollars in Indian markets which value about 3.8 billion dollars according to present rates.

In 2009, both the countries signed a free trade agreement named CEPA (Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement) which envisaged collaboration in the services sector. Information technology, Engineering, legal and financial services from the main part of this agreement.

The talks are going on for the defence cooperation and Naval building between the two countries.

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INDIA AND JAPAN:

The bilateral relations between India and Japan started from early 1950’s itself. After the Second World War, Japan was completely devastated. During its revival, India supplied Iron ore to Japan. In return, Japan started giving loans to India as ODA (Official development Assistance) from 1958.

The money got invested in Indian infrastructure and projects like DEDICATED FREIGHT CORRIDOR, DELHI METRO and so on. India is a great market hub for Japanese products. Till date, the bilateral trade between India and Japan amounts to 17 billion dollars.

In 2014, Prime minister of India, Narendra Modi visited Japan and made many key agreements including SPECIAL STRATEGIC GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP.

Besides, the relations between the two nations became strategically important as China is rising as a superpower from Asia. To balance it, both have to cooperate in many sectors exchanging resources and services.

CONCLUSION:

Other countries of SouthEast Asia like Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and so on share good relations with our country. The NRIs residing in the countries of SouthEast Asia also contribute to the foreign credits of India.

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Asia Continent

Asia Continent is the largest continent in the world in both, area and population, constituting nearly one-third of the landmass, lying entirely north of the equator except for some Southeast Asian islands. Asia Continent contains around 30% of the world’s land area and 60% of the world’s population.

The concept of Asia may actually have more to do with human geography than physical geography. Asia Continent varies greatly across and within its regions with regard to ethnic groups, cultures, environments, economics, historical ties and government systems.

The boundaries of Asia Continent are culturally determined, as there is no clear geographical separation between it and Europe, which together form one continuous landmass called Eurasia. The most commonly accepted boundaries place Asia to the east of the Suez Canal, the Ural River, and the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian and Black Seas. It is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean and on the north by the Arctic Ocean.

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East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, linked by the interior mass of the Central Asian steppes.

The central steppe region had long been inhabited by horse-mounted nomads who could reach all areas of Asia Continent from the steppes. The earliest postulated expansion out of the steppe is that of the Indo-Europeans, who spread their languages into the Middle East, South Asia, and the borders of China, where the Tocharian’s resided. The northernmost part of Asia Continent, including much of Siberia, was largely inaccessible to the steppe nomads, owing to the dense forests, climate and tundra. These areas remained very sparsely populated.

Asia Continent has the second largest nominal GDP of all continents, after Europe. The largest economies in Asia Continent are China, Japan, India, South Korea and Indonesia. Speaking of currency, there are different kinds of currencies used across Asia.

Asia Continent is rich in diverse races, cultures, and languages. Many of the world’s major religions came out of Asia including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism.

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The highest point on earth, Mt.Everest, is in Asia. The lowest point on land, the Dead Sea, is also in Asia.

Asia Continent is the only continent that shares borders with two other continents; Africa and Europe. It sometimes joins with a third continent, North America, in the winter by ice forming in the Bering Sea. The Indian Ocean fronts most of Asia’s southern borders, along with a series of bays, gulfs and seas, as well as extensive chains of both inhabited and uninhabited islands.

Asia Continent has a major influence on world culture and the world’s economy. Countries such as Russia, China, Japan and India produce products and services that are used by every nation in the world. Asia is also abundant in natural resources. Oil in the Middle East is a major supplier of much of the world’s energy.

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The Soil is the mixture of minerals, organic matter, gases, liquids and a myriad of organisms that can support plant life. It is a natural body that exists as part of the pedosphere and it performs four important functions: it is a medium for plant growth; it is a means of water storage, supply, and purification; it is a modifier of the atmosphere: and it is a habitat for organisms that take part in decomposition and creation of a habitat for other organisms.

The Soil is considered the “skin of the earth” with interfaces between the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere. The Soil consists of a solid phase (minerals and organic matter) as well as a porous phase that holds gases and water.

The Soil is the end product of the influence of the climate, relief (elevation, orientation, and slope of terrain), biotic activities (organisms), and parent materials (original minerals) interacting over time. Soil continually undergoes development by way of numerous physical, chemical and biological processes, which include weathering with associated erosion.

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Most soils have a density between 1 and 2 g/cm³. Little of the soil of planet Earth is older than the Pleistocene and none is older than the Cenozoic, although fossilized soils are preserved from as far back as the Archean.

Soil science has two main branches of study: Edaphology and Pedology. Pedology is focused on the formation, description (morphology), and classification of soils in their natural environment, whereas Edaphology is concerned with the influence of soils on organisms. In engineering terms, soil is referred to as regolith or loose rock material that lies above the ‘solid geology’. The Soil is commonly referred to as “earth” or “dirt”; technically, the term “dirt” should be restricted to displaced soil.

As soil resources serve as a basis for food security, the international community advocates for its sustainable and responsible use through different types of Soil Governance. Soils are important to our ecosystem for main reasons:

• Soils are a place for plants to grow;
• Soils control the speed and the purity of water that moves through them;
• Soils recycle nutrients from dead animals and plants;
• Soils change the air that surrounds the earth, called the atmosphere;
• Soils are a place to live for animals, insects and very small living things called microorganisms;
• Soils are the oldest and the most used building materials.

The climate is very important when soil is made. Soil from different climates can have very different qualities the types of soil varies from.

The Soil is a major component of the Earth’s ecosystem. From ozone depletion and global warming to rain forest destruction and water pollution, the world’s ecosystems are impacted in far-reaching ways by the processes carried out in the soil. The Soil is the largest surficial global carbon reservoir on Earth, and it is potentially one of the most reactive to human disturbance and climate change. As the planet warms, soils will add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere due to its increased biological activity at higher temperatures. Thus, soil carbon losses likely have a large positive feedback response to global warming.

Soil formation, or pedogenesis, is the combined effect of physical, chemical, biological and anthropogenic processes working on soil parent material. The Soil is said to be formed when organic matter has accumulated and colloids are washed downward, leaving deposits of clay, humus, iron oxide, carbonate, and gypsum, producing a distinct layer called the B horizon.

Soil types are classified according to many more factors. They are classified on the basis of colour, depth, pH, productivity, texture and process of formation.

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Red soils

Red loam with cloddy structure and allow the content of concretionary materials; and Red earth’s with loose, Permeable top soil and a high content of secondary concretions. Generally, these soils are light textured with porous and friable structure and there is the absence of lime Kankar and free carbonates. They have neutral to the acidic reaction and are deficient in nitrogen humus, phosphoric acid, and lime.

Laterites and Lateritic soils

These soils are red to reddish yellow in colour and low in N, P, K, lime and magnesia. These soils are formed in-situ under conditions of high rainfall with alternation dry and wet periods. On account of heavy rainfall, there is an excessive leaching of soil colloids and silica hence the soils are porous.

Black soils

These are mostly clay soils and form deep cracks during the dry season. An accumulation of lime is generally noticed of varying depths. They are popularly known as “Black cotton soils” because of their dark brown colour and suitability for growing cotton. These are also known as Indian regulars.These soils are deficient in nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and organic matter but rich in calcium, potash and magnesium.

Alluvial soils

These soils occur along rivers and represent the soil materials that have been deposited by the rivers during the flood. Usually, they are very productive soils but many are deficient in nitrogen, humus, and phosphorus.

Forest and hill soils

These soils occur at high elevations as well as at low elevations, where the rainfall is sufficient to support trees. These soils are very shallow, steep, stony, and infertile for the production of field crops. However, they serve a very useful purpose by supplying forest product such as timber and fuel.

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Desert soils

These are mostly sandy soils that occur in the low rainfall track. They are well supplied with soluble salts but are low in nitrogen and organic matter and have a high pH value. These are quite productive. These are often subjected to wind erosion.

Saline & Alkaline soils

These soils occur in areas having a little more rainfall than the areas of desert soils. They show white incrustation of salts of calcium & Magnesium and sodium on the surface. These are poor in drainage and are infertile.

Peaty and Marshy soils

These types of soils are found in Kerala, coastal track of Orissa, Sunderban area of W.B. When the vegetation growing in such wet places dies, it decomposes very slowly dues to excessive wetness of soils and after several hundreds of year a layer of partly decayed organic matter accumulates on the surface, giving rise to such peaty and marshy soils. These are black coloured, heavy and highly acidic soils. When properly drained and fertilized, these soils produce good crops of rice.

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A plateau also called a high plain or tableland, is an area of highland, usually consisting of relatively flat terrain. Plateaus can be formed by a number of processes, including upwelling of volcanic magma, extrusion of lava, and erosion by water and glaciers. Magma rises from the mantle causing the ground to swell upward, in this way large, flat areas of rock are uplifted. Plateaus can also be built up by lava spreading outward from cracks and weak areas in the crust.

Plateaus can also be formed by the erosional processes of glaciers on mountain ranges, leaving them sitting between the mountain ranges. Water can also erode mountains and other landforms down into plateaus. High plateaus may also be partially a result of the feedback between tectonic deformation and dry climatic conditions created at the lee side of growing orogens.

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Plateaus are classified according to their surrounding environment.

• Intermontane plateaus are the highest in the world, bordered by mountains. The Tibetan Plateau is one plateau.
• Piedmont plateaus are bordered on one side by mountains and on the other by a plain or sea.
• Continental plateaus are bordered on all sides by the plains or seas, forming away from mountains.
• Volcanic plateaus are produced by volcanic activity. The Columbia Plateau in the northwestern United States of America is one such plateau.
• Dissected plateaus are highly eroded plateaus cut by rivers and broken by deep narrow valleys.

The largest and highest plateau in the world is the Tibetan Plateau, called the “roof of the world”, which is still being formed by the collisions of the Indo-Australian and Eurasian tectonic plates. The plateau is sufficiently high enough to reverse the Hadley cell convection cycles and to drive the monsoons of India towards the south.

The second-highest plateau is Deosai National Park and is located in the Skardu District of Gilgit-Baltistan, in northern Pakistan.

The third-largest plateau is the Antarctic Plateau, which covers most of the central Antarctica, where there are no known mountains, which very slowly spreads toward the coastline via enormous glaciers. This ice cap is so massive that echolocation sound measurements of the thickness of the ice have shown that large parts of the “dry land” surface of Antarctica have been pressed below sea level.

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Plateaus dissected by rivers have remarkably uniform maximum elevations, but their surfaces can be interrupted by deep canyons. In the case of some regions described as plateaus, the surface is so dissected that one does not see any flat terrain. Instead, such a plateau is defined by a uniform elevation of the highest ridges and mountains. The eastern part of the Tibetan Plateau, which constitutes the headwaters of many of the great rivers of Asia, is dissected into deep canyons separated by narrow, steep ridges; the high uniform elevation that characterizes plateaus is only barely discernible in this area.

Plateau, the extensive area of flat upland usually bounded by an escarpment on all sides but sometimes enclosed by mountains. The essential criteria for plateaus are low relative relief and some altitude. Plateaus are extensive, and together with enclosed basins, they cover about 45 percent of the Earth’s land surface.

The formation of a plateau requires one of the same three types of tectonic processes that create mountain ranges—volcanism, crustal shortening, and thermal expansion. The simplest of these is thermal expansion of the lithosphere.

Plateaus of one type or another can be found on most continents. Those caused by thermal expansion of the lithosphere are usually associated with hot spots. The Yellowstone Plateau in the United States, the Massif Central in France, and the Ethiopian Plateau in Africa are prominent examples. Most hot spots are associated with the upwelling of hot material in the asthenosphere, and this hot upwelling not only heats the overlying lithosphere and melts holes through it to produce volcanoes but also uplifts the lithosphere. The relationship of such plateaus to hot spots ensures both a wide distribution of plateaus and an absence of belts of plateaus or of interrelated plateaus.

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Why is it more difficult to breathe on mountains than on plains ?

The Great Rann of Kutch, is a seasonal salt marsh located in the Thar Desert in the Kutch District of Gujarat, India and the Sindh province of Pakistan. It is about 7,505.22 square kilometres (2,897.78 sq mi) in size and is reputed to be the largest salt desert in the world.

The Rann of Kutch is a geographically unique landscape that was once an arm of the Arabian Sea. As the land separated from the sea by geological forces, it became a vast, featureless plain encrusted with salt that is inundated with water during the rains. The Rann of Kutch is a unique and largest seasonal wetland of its type in India without any counterparts elsewhere in the world.

The Rann of Kutch is divided into the Greater Rann of Kutch and the Little Rann of Kutch. The Greater Rann of Kutch spans an area of 7505.22 Sq. km and is comparatively larger than the Little Rann of Kutch. The greater Rann Of Kutch is home to a wide array of flora and fauna. The Little Rann Of Kutch occupies 4,953 sq. km and is spread out in the districts of Surendranagar, Banasakantha, Patan, Kutch and Rajkot in Gujarat.

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This is one of the hottest areas of India – with summer temperatures averaging 44 °C (111 °F) and peaking at 50 °C (122 °F). Winter temperatures reduce dramatically and can go below 0 °C (32 °F). Winter temperatures reduce dramatically and can go below 0 °C (32 °F).  

 It’s best to head out into the Rann of Kutch only in the early morning or evening, otherwise, the salt can be blinding. The full moon is the best time of the month to see it. A moon light Rann camel safari is magical. The Government of Gujarat hosts an annual 3-day festival called the Rann Utsav (festival of the Rann).

The Great Rann of Kutch, along with the Little Rann of Kutch and the Banni grasslands on its southern edge, is situated in the district of Kutch and comprises some 30,000 square kilometres (10,000 sq mi) between the Gulf of Kutch and the mouth of the Indus River in southern Pakistan. The marsh can be accessed from the village of Kharaghoda in Surendranagar District.

There are several wildlife sanctuaries and protected reserves on the Indian side in the Rann of Kutch region. From the city of Bhuj, various ecologically rich and wildlife conservation areas of the Kutch/Kachchh district can be visited such as Indian Wild Ass Sanctuary, Kutch Desert Wildlife Sanctuary, Narayan Sarovar Sanctuary, Kutch Bustard Sanctuary, Banni Grasslands Reserve and Chari-Dhand Wetland Conservation Reserve.

When winter settles in the water bodies of Great Rann of Kutch turns pink with the reflection of the drifting Flamingos. It is the only place in India where these feathered beauties lay eggs and bring up their chicks. About 13 species of larks have been reported from Great Rann of Kutch.

Kutch is also known for its intricate and appealing handicrafts. Rann Utsav is the ideal time to purchase the handicrafts since artisans from many parts of Kutch will flock the region with their best piece of work. Each of these brilliant crafts stands testimony to the creative ingenuity of the artisans of Kutch. The region has a great history of foreign trade in handicrafts with various countries. Even today the artifacts of Kutch have great demand in the national and international markets. Ethnic style embroidery, hand block painting, wood carving, silver work, pen-knives and nut crackers and sea shell toys and it goes on.

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