During the middle of the nineteenth century, Italy was divided into seven states, of which only one, Sardinia-Piedmont, was ruled by an Italian princely house. The north was ruled by Austrian Habsburgs, the centre by the Pope and the southern regions by the Bourbon kings of Spain. Italian language had varieties of dialects; therefore, it was not stable in its form. During the 1830s, Giuseppe Mazzini had sought to put together a coherent programme for a unitary Italian Republic. He had also formed a secret society called 'Young Italy' for the dissemination of his goals. The failure of revolutionary uprisings both in 1831 and 1848 fell on Sardinia-Piedmont under its ruler King Victor Emmanuel II to unify the Italian states through war. A unified Italy offered them the possibility of economic development and political dominance. Chief Minister Cavour who led the movement to unify the regions of Italy was neither a revolutionary nor a democrat. With a tactful diplomatic alliance with France by Cavour, Sardinia-Piedmont succeeded in defeating the Austrian forces in 1859. In 1859, a large number of armed volunteers under the leadership of Giuseppe Garibaldi joined the fray. In 1860, Sardinia- Piedmont's forces marched into south Italy and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and drove out the Spanish rulers. In 1861, Victor Emmanuel was declared as the king of united Italy and Rome was declared the capital of Italy.

People prefer democracy because:
(i) People are their own masters. In a democracy, every individual has a right to vote and choose his representatives in the government. The government is of the people and the laws are made by the people in the government. Laws are made to protect the liberty and freedom of the people.
(ii) In a democracy, no particular religion, region, race or language is given special preference. All individuals are given equal rights and freedom, and there is no discrimination.
(iii) The government is not by force. The opposition parties are allowed to criticise the government.
(iv) Since every individual is given equal rights, there is less danger of conflicts in society. There are less conflict based on caste, religion or region and less social tensions in society. In politics, dignity of the individual is cared for.

Invention which improved the printing technology after 17^th century are listed below:
(i) Metal Press: In the 19^th century, there were a series of innovations in the printing technology. Now the press was made out of metal.
(ii) Rotary Printing Press: Richard March Hoe, an American inventor designed and improved the printing press. He invented the Rotary Printing Press, a design much faster than the old flat-bed printing press. The new press could print about 8,000 sheets per hour. The new press was very useful for printing newspapers.
(iii) Offset Press: In the late nineteenth century, the offset press was developed which could print up to six colours at the same time.
(iv) Electrically Operated Presses: From the turn of the twentieth century, electrically operated presses accelerated printing operations. A series of many other developments followed. Methods of feeding paper improved, the quality of plates became better, automatic paper reels and photoelectric control of the colour register were introduced.
The accumulation of several individual mechanical improvements transformed the appearance of the printed texts.

A multi-purpose river project is a large-scale hydro project for water retention canals and irrigation, water processing and pipelines.

Objectives of Multi-purpose River Valley Projects:
1. The main objectives are:
    (a) To produce electricity from water
    (b) To improve the quality of groundwater by reducing the ground water pollution.
    (c) To conserve water
    (d) To avoid flooding of rivers.
    (e) To meet the increasing demand of water.
    (f) To augment the ground water storage and raise the water table.

The workers in the unorganised sector need protection on the following issues
(i) Wages They are low and not regular. There is no provision for overtime, paid leave, etc. Minimum wages rules should be implemented strictly.
(ii) Safety Construction workers can get injured while working and they need to work under safe conditions. There should be a check on the working conditions along with the provision of insurance.
(iii) Health Long working hours and unhygienic working environment affect the health of the workers adversely. Health insurance along with a fixed number of working hours should be made mandatory.

(i) With the fall in prices and the prospect of a depression, the banks also called domestic lending and called back loans.
(ii) Farms were unable to sell their harvests.
(iii) Faced with falling income, many households in the US could not repay what they had borrowed and were forced to give up their homes. cars and other consumer durables.
(iv) Industrial production registered a fail of about 35 per cent.
(v) The number of the unemployed started rising, and in 1933 it touched 17 million. As unemployment soared, people trudged long distances looking for any work they could find. Ultimately, the US banking system itself collapsed.

The first cement plant was set up at Chennai in Tamil Nadu in 1904. There are 128 large and over 332 mini cement industries in India at present.

It was established on April 14th 1984.

In a democratic government, a citizen has the right and the means to examine the decisions taken by the govt. It is known as transparency.

(i) Compulsory Elementary Education Act in 1870.
(ii) Various Factories Acts

Rice

the introduction of fly shuttle

South America

The average density of roads in India is 75 km.

Right to safety.

They are Self-Help Groups formed by the poor rural women.

There were similarities in the mass struggles of Nepal and Bolivia. They were both struggles for establishing or restoring democracy. There was mass mobilisation in both countries, and the resolution to struggle had come from the people.
(i) Both the struggles were against the people who exercised power. In Nepal, it was the monarchy, in Bolivia, it was against the elected government.
(ii) In both cases, public demonstrations of mass support clinched the dispute.
(iii) In both cases, it involved a critical role of political organisations.
(iv) In Bolivia, the power of the mass uprising and the people forced the government to concede all their demands. (v) Nepal became a republic.
(vi) In Nepal, the call was given by the SPA or the Seven-Party Alliance. It had members of big parties and some members of the Parliament.
(vii) The Nepalese Communist Party (Maoist) also joined, though they did not believe in parliamentary democracy. (viii) Non-political groups like all the major labour unions, their federations, teachers, lawyers and human rights movements also supported the movement.
(ix) The protest against water privatisation in Bolivia was not led by any political party. It was led by an organisation called FEDECOR. It comprised professionals, engineers, environmentalists, federations of farmers, factory worker unions, students from, the university of Cochabamba and city's growing population of homeless children.
(x) The movement was supported by the Socialist Party, which came into power in Bolivia in 2006.

(i) Carefully devised changes in law can help to discourage wrong political practices and encourage good ones. At the same time, legal-constitutional changes by themselves cannot overcome challenges to democracy. They are to be carried out mainly by political activities, parties movements and politically conscious citizens.
(ii) Legal changes can sometimes be counter-productive. Generally, laws that seek to ban something are not very successful. Rather laws that give political actors incentives to do good things have more chances of working. For, example, the `Right to Information Act' empowers people to act as watchdogs of democracy.
(iii) The main focus of political reforms should be on ways to strengthen democratic practice. The most important concern should be to increase and improve the quality of political participation by ordinary citizens.
(iv) Any proposal for political reforms should think not only about what is a good solution but also about who will implement it and how measures that rely or democratic movements, citizens' organisations and the media are likely to succeed. 

(I) Black soil (ii) Arid soil
(iii) Laterite soil (iv) Forest and Mountainous soil
(v) Alluvial soil (vi) Red and Yellow soil

(i) The wirter  has written about the marriage practices of upper caste Hindus in Kerala.
(ii) The writer has raised the issue of wedge between landlords and tenants.
(iii) The writer has raised the issue of marriage and property.
(iv) Chandu Menon clearly wants his readers to appreciate the new values of his hero and heroine and criticise the ignorance and immorality of Suri Nambuthire .

(i) Borders were illuminated by hand with foliage and other patterns.
(ii) Illustrations were painted in the painting school of the buyer's choice.
(iii) In the books printed for the rich blank spares were left for decoration.
(iv) Each buyer could choose the design, verses were highlighted by hand with colours.
(v) The overall outlook of the book was properly taken care of.

the upper class people preferred to use hand products in the Victorian period because:
(i) They symbolized refinement and class.
(ii) They were better finish.
(iii) They were individually produced and carefully designed.

Governmental power is divided between different levels of government

Vulnerable Species: The population of species which has decreased to the level into endangered category in the near future are known as vulnerable species. E.g. Asiatic elephant, blue sheep, Gangetic dolphin etc.

A three-tier quasi-judicial machinery at the district, state and national level, was set up under COPRA, for redressal of consumer disputes in India.
(a) At the district level, consumer courts deal with cases involving claims up to Rs 20 lakh.
(b) At the state level, consumer courts deal with cases involving claims between Rs 20 lakh and Rs 1 crore.
(c) At the national level, consumer courts deal with cases involving claims exceeding Rs 1 crore. If the case is dismissed at the district level, then the consumer can appeal at the state and then at the national level, if required