End of Cold War
(i) The US and the Soviet Union had created a bi-polar international structure. Initial the Soviet military capabilities were weak. But by 1969 USSR had equalled US in terms of nuclear capability. The threat of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) created fear in both powers Strong disarmament movements in Europe also put pressure on the ruling governments. This pushed the superpowers to the negotiating table.
(ii) The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT 1972 & 1979) and later the Strategic Arms Reduction (START, 1991) treaties heralded an era of coexistence and cooperation.
(iii) Glasnost was instituted as a part of an effort by Gorbachev to democratise the governing structure of Soviet Union.
(iv) Fundamental changes occurred in the political structure of the Soviet Union: reduction of the power of the Communist Party, and multi candidate elections for assembly membership.
(v) Glasnost also permitted criticism of government officials and allowed the media freer dissemination of news and people free expression of their opinions.
(vi) With glasnost, Soviet citizens no longer had to worry about arrest and exile for articulating negative opinions against the State.
(vii) These ideas created a revolutionary wave of liberalism in Soviet Union. At the same time, it eventually led to the disintegration of Soviet Union.

Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO)
(i) In February 1955, Iraq and Turkey signed a "pact of mutual cooperation" at Baghdad.
(ii) The membership was open to all countries in the region. In April, Great Britain joined the Pact, followed by Pakistan and Iran.
(iii) The aim was to check communist influence. A series of events took place in Middle East in 1958 which threatened regional stability: the Egypt-Syria union, revolution in Iraq and civil unrest in Lebanon.
(iv) In response to these developments, the United States intervened in Lebanon.
(v) The members of the Baghdad Pact except for Iraq endorsed the US intervention. Iraq left the pact. As a result, the other signatories of the Baghdad Pact formed the Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO), moving its headquarters to Ankara, Turkey.
(vi) United States continued to support the organisation as an associate, but not as a member. In 1979, the Iranian revolution led to the overthrow of the Shah and Iran withdrew from CENTO. 
(vii) Pakistan also withdrew that year after the organisation ceased to play an active role CENTO was formally disbanded in 1979.

Pearl Harbour Incident and its Fallout
1. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, instead of crushing the morale of the American people, galvanised them into action.
2. Until then kept out of the war due to American public opinion, the United States declared war on Japan, thus making it an absolute world war.
3. Britain and China joined the US. Under the Lend-Lease system, President Roosevelt had already committed the US government to aid the opponents of Fascism, in the context of Italy and Japan joining Germany.
4. The direct involvement of the US greatly expanded the resources of the Allies as America brought more vehicles, ships and aircrafts than all the other fighting countries put together.
5. In August 1942, US forces commanded by MacArthur began to play a prominent role in the Pacific.
6. The naval battle planned by Admiral Yamamoto resulted in a major Japanese defeat. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, instead of crushing the morale of the American people, galvanised them into action.
7. Until then kept out of the war due to American public opinion, the United States declared war on Japan, thus making it an absolute world war.
8. Britain and China joined the US. Under the Lend-Lease system, President Roosevelt had already committed the US government to aid the opponents of Fascism, in the context of Italy and Japan joining Germany.
9. The direct involvement of the USgreatly expanded the resources of the Allies as America brought more vehicles, ships and aircrafts than all the other fighting countries put together.
10. In August 1942, US forces commanded by MacArthur began to play a prominent role in the Pacific.
11. The naval battle planned by Admiral Yamamoto resulted in a major Japanese defeat.

Trench Warfare:
(i) The bullets and shells flying through the air in the battle conditions of First World War compelled soldiers to burrow into the soil to obtain shelter and survive.
(ii) Trenches or ditches dug by troops enabled them to protect themselves from the effects of shell-fire.
(iii) The Germans supplied their infantry with deep, well-constructed dug-outs, lit by electric light, and furnished with beds.
(iv) The typical trench system in World War consisted of two to four trench lines running parallel to each other.
(v) Each trench was dug in a zigzag manner so that no enemy, standing at one end, could fire for more than a few yards down its length.
(vi) The main lines of trenches were connected to each other and to the rear by a series of linking trenches through which food, ammunition, fresh troops, mail, and orders were delivered.

1. Bismarck next turned his attention to create a rift between Prussia and France to unite the southern German states.
2. The opportunity came over the issue of succession to the Spanish throne.
3. After a revolution in Spain which drove Queen Isabella out of the country, the throne was offered to Prince Leopold, a relative of the King of Prussia.
5. France was agitated over the issue.
6. A threat of war was averted when Prince Leopold declined the offer. Bismarck was disappointed.
7. A new opportunity arose when Gramont, the French Foreign Minister met the King of Prussia in Ems.
8. He demanded that Prussia promise that it would not claim the throne of Spain in the future.
9. The Prussian King sent a telegram about the discussion to Bismarck.
10. He edited it in such a manner that the French thought their ambassador had been insulted while the Prussians thought that their king had been humiliated.
11. The Ems telegram triggered the Franco-Prussian War.

The six key points were:
1. Universal suffrage. 
2. Voting by ballot, to prevent intimidation.
3. No property qualification for candidates.
4. Payment of members elected to the House of Commons, as it would enable the poor people to contend for office and contest elections.
5. Equal electoral districts and equal representation.
6. Annual parliaments.

1. The French revolution created a deep impact, not only in France but also all over Europe, and even inspired anti-colonial intellectuals and movements across the world in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
2. The French revolution brought to an end the rule of Louis XVI in France.
3. It reduced social inequality. The privileges given to certain sections of the society based on birth were curtailed.
4. It introduced a republican form of government with electoral rights.
5. The feudal system was abolished
6. Slavery was abolished though it took some more years for the total abolition of slavery
7. The Church lost it supremacy and it became subordinate to the state. Freedom of faith and religious tolerance had come to stay.
8. The Declaration of right of 'Man and Citizens brought to light the importance of personal and collective rights.
9. The three organs of the government, namely, the legislative, executive and judiciary became prominent, and kept a check and balance on each other. It removed the concentration of power under a single authority.
10. All over Europe, the French Revolution gave the hope to the people to end the despotic rule and establish an egalitarian society.

1. Women played a significant role in the French revolution.
2. Women from the poorer areas of Paris marched on Versailles supported by 20,000 armed men.
3. They broke into the palace and forced the king to return with them to Paris, where he was kept under public surveillance. Many women were politically active.
4. Olympe de Gouges was dissatisfied with the Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen, as it excluded women.
5. The wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Citizen, arguing for equality for women.

Important Provisions of the Treaty:
1. Britain recognised the freedom of 13 colonies and the formation of a new country called the United States of America.
2. The area bordered by Mississippi River on the west and the 31st parallel in the south went to USA.
3. France gained certain British territories in-WestIndies, India and Africa.
4. Spain obtained Florida from Great Britain.
5. Holland and England maintained the status quo that prevailed before the war.

1. The reformation movement had a few pioneers. Erasmus was a protester of many Church practices and teachings.
2. His well known work, The Praise of Folly (1511), made fun of theologians and monks.
3. Others likehim who worked towards reform two centuries before him were John Wycliffe and John Hus.
4. They preached the gospel in the language of the people, and not in Latin. John Wycliffe, an English clergyman, was famous as the first translator of the Bible into English.
5. He managed to escape the anger of Rome during his life time, but in 1415, after thirty one years of his death, a Church Council ordered that his bones should be dug up and burnt. And this was faithfully carried out.
6. Though the bones ofWycliffe could be burnt, his views could not easily be suppressed.The event reached Bohemia, and influenced John Huss.
7. Huss, the head of the Prague University, was excommunicated by the Pope for his views. As he was popular in his town he escaped harm.
8. Promising a safe conduct by the Emperor, he was invited to Constance (Konstanz) in Switzerland, where a Church Council was in session. He was pressurised to confess his error.
9. When he refused, in spite of their promise for his safety, he was burnt alive.

Agricultural Policy:
1. At the time of Independence, agriculture in India was beset with many problems.
2. In general, productivity was low.
3. The total production of food grains was not enough to feed the country,so that a large quantity of food grains had to be imported.
4. Nearly 80 percent of the population depended on agriculture for their livelihood.
5. This automatically reduced the income of each person to very low levels.
6. This is a situation described as 'disguised unemployment'.
7. That is, even if many people shifted to other occupations, total production levels would remain the same,because this surplus population was not really required to sustain the activity, and was, in effect, unemployed.
8. Given the high level of poverty among the rural population, most of them were heavily indebted to moneylenders.
9. The backwardness of agriculture could be attributed to two factors: institutional and technological. Institutional factors refer to the social and economic relations that prevailed,particularly between the land- owning classes and the cultivating classes.
10. Technological factors relate to use of better seeds,improved methods of cultivation, use of chemical fertilizers, use of machinery like tractors and harvester combines,and provision of irrigation.
11.The government decided to tackle the institutional drawbacks first and began a programme of land reforms to improve the conditions in agriculture.
12. The basic assumption was that such measures would improve the efficiency of land use or productivity, apart from empowering the peasants by creating a socially just system. 

Industrial policy Statement 1991:
1. Finally in 1991 the Indian government announced a shift in its industrial policy to remove controls and licences, moving to a liberalised economy permitting a larger role to the private sector.
2. The share of the public sector was to be reduced through a policy of disinvestment and closure of sick units.
3. This created a sea change in the economic outlook of the country, particularly from the point of view of the consumers.
4. It is not merely that the aspirations of the growning middle class for a better standard of living in terms of availability of goods and services have been met.
5. Even the lower income families could now buy such goods.
On the positive side:
1. Liberalisation has certainly made India a more attractive destination for foreign investment.
2. State governments are keen to advertise that they are relaxing restrictions to improve the ease of doing business in their state.
3. All this has created a general air of prosperity which is reflected in the growth statistics of the economy as a whole.
On the negative side:
1. Liberalisation and globalisation have resulted in a significant increase in income disparities between the top income groups and the lower income groups.
2. The removal of ceilings on corporate salaries has widened the disparities between the salaried class of corporate executives and wage earners.
3. The formal sector has very limited potential for additional employment and most of the new employment is generated in the informal sector, and disparities have also increased across these two sectors.

(a) Japan Storm South-East Asia:
1) The allied forces lost France, Poland, Belgium, Norway, Holland and some parts of Britain's to Germany.
2) Japan's march into South-east Asia and the attack on Pearl Harbour, gives more significance to India.
3) US & China were concerned with halting Japan on its march thus India came on their (allied forces) radar.
4) By the end of 1941, the Japanese forces captured
5)  Philippines, Indo- China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Burma and were waiting to knock at India's doors in the North-East. 
6) The way the South East Asian region fell raised concerns to Britain and the Indian National Congress. The British forces ran without offering any resistance.
7) The Indian soldiers of the British Indian Army were left to the mercy of the Japanese forces.
8) It was from among them that what would later on to become the Indian National Army (INA).
9) Churchill and leaders of the Congress too was worried that Calcutta and Madras might fall in Japanese hands.
10) It was in this situation that the Congress Working Committee, in December 1941, passed a resolution offering cooperation with the war effort on condition that Britain promised independence to India after the war and transfer power to Indians in a substantial sense immediately.
(b) Arrival of Cripps
1) A delegation headed by Sir Stafford Cripps reached India in March 1942
2) Churchill choose Cripps, to head the delegation lent credibility to the mission.
3) Before setting out to India, he announced that British policy in India aimed at 'the earliest possible realisation of self-government in India'.
4) But the draft declaration he presented before he began negotiations fell far short of independence.
(c) Cripps Proposals
1) Cripps promised Dominion Status and a constitution-making body after the war.
2) The constitution-making body was to be partly elected by the provincial assemblies and nominated members from the Princely states.
3) The draft also spelt out the prospect of Pakistan.
4)  It said that any province that was not prepared to accept the new constitution would have the right to enter into a separate agreement with Britain regarding its future status.
5) The draft did not contain anything new.
Rejection of Cripps' Proposals
1) The offer of Dominion Status was too little.
2) The Congress also rejected the idea of nominated members to the constitution-making body and sought elections in the Princely States as in the Provinces.
3) Above all these was the possibility of partition.
4) The negotiations were bound to breakdown and it did.

Mahasabha.
1) In the wake of the formation of the Muslim League and introduction of the Government of India Act of 1909, a move to start a Hindu organisation was in the air.
2) In pursuance of the resolution passed at the fifth Punjab Hindu Conference at Arnbala and the sixth conference at Ferozepur, the first all Indian Conference of Hindus was convened at Haridwar in 1915.
3) The All India Hindu Mahasabha was started there with headquarters at Dehra Dun. Provincial Hindu Sabhas were started subsequently in UP, with headquarters at Allahabad and in Bombay and Bihar. While the sabhas in Bombay and Bihar were not active, there was little response in Madras and Bengal.
4) Predominantly urban in character, the Mahasabha was concentrated in the larger trading cities of north India, particularly in Allahabad, Kanpur, Benares, Lucknow and Lahore. In UP, the Mahasabha, to a large extent was the creation of the educated middle class leaders who were also activists in the Congress.
5) The Khilafat movement gave some respite to the separatist politics of the communalists. As a result, between 1920 and 1922, the Mahasabha ceased to function.
6) The entry of ulema into politics led Hindus to fear a revived and aggressive Islam. Even important Muslim leaders like Ali brothers had always been Khilafatists first and Congressmen second.
7) The power of mobilisation on religious grounds demonstrated by the Muslims during the Khilafat movement motivated the Hindu communalists to imitate them in mobilising the Hindu masses.
8) Suddhi movement was not a new phenomenon but in the post-Khilafat period it assumed new importance.
9) In an effort to draw Hindus into the boycott of the visit of Prince of Wales in 1921, Swami Shradhananda tried to revive the Mahasabha by organizing cow-protection propaganda.

1) The growth of newspapers, both in English and Tamil language, aided the swadeshi movement in Tamil Nadu.
2) G. Subramaniam was one of the first among the leaders to use newspapers to spread the nationalist message across a larger audience. Subramaniam, along with five others, founded The Hindu (in English) and Swadesamitran (which was the first ever Tamil daily).
3) In 1906 a book was published by Subramaniam to condemn the British actions during the Congress Conference in Barsal. Swadesamitran extensively reported nationalist activities, particularly the news regarding V.O.C and his speeches in Tuticorin.
4) Subramania Bharati became the sub-editor of Swadesamitran around the time (1904) when Indian nationalism was looking for a fresh direction. Bharati was also editing Chakravartini, a Tamil monthly devoted to the cause of Indian women.
5) Two events had a significant impact on Subramania Bharati. A meeting in 1905 with Sister Nivedita, an Irish woman and a disciple of Vivekananda, whom he referred to as Gurumani (teacher), greatly inspired his nationalist ideals.
6) The churning within the Congress on the nature of engagement with the British rule was also a contributory factor.
7) Bharati had little doubt, in his mind, that the British rule had to be challenged with a fresh approach and methods applied by the militant nationalists appealed to him more.
8) For instance, his fascination with Tilak grew after the Surat session of the Congress in 1907.
9) He translated into Tamil Tilak's Tenets of the New Party and a booklet on the Madras militants' trip to the Surat Congress in 1907.
10) Bharati edited a Tamil weekly India, which became the voice of the radicals.