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War & Conflict:- The three ancient kingdoms of Tamil Nadu

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The ancient history of Tamil Nadu is centered around three indigenous Tamil kingdoms, the Pallavas, the Cholas, and the Pandyas. The Pallava dynasty was one of the longest ruling dynasties in South India. They ruled for over a thousand years from the 3rd century to the 9th century CE. The word Pallava means to shine or to glitter. At their peak, the Pallava dynasty extended all the way up to the Vindhya Mountains in modern day Central India. The Pallavas were great patrons of the arts and they excelled in poetry, music and dance. They took these arts very seriously. They established the first known music academy in the world. The Pallavas constructed seven of the eight ancient temples in Mahabalipuram, and they were also the founders of the Zen faith, and this might somewhat explain the singlemindedness of their successors, the Cholas. The Pallava temples are now UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The Pallavas didn’t just build temples, they also fought wars. They were brave warriors and th...
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War & Conflict :- Cholas the final battle

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In 1279 a beleaguered Rajendra III took to the battlefield, leading the Chola army south towards Madurai to meet the Pandya army that had rebelled against Chola rule. United under Raja Raja Chola, the Pandyas following Raja Raja’s death proved to be a thorn in the Chola side, and in the years that followed Raja Raja’s death, the Pandyas constantly challenged Chola authority. Chola territory extended mid Tamil Nadu northwards, while the south of Tamil Nadu belonged to the Pandyas. In 1251, five years after, Rajendra III had ascended to the Chola throne, Jatavarman Sundara Pandya I would acquire the Pandya throne, and he would prove to be a capable leader, and months after he’d acquired the throne, it became clear that war with the Cholas was imminent. The Chola empire had started to decline at about 1215 AD, and that decline culminated in a weakened empire that was a mere shadow of its former self. By the time Rajendra III had acquired the Chola throne, in 1246, the Chola Empire wa...
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War & Conflict:- Battle of Plassey 1757

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The battle of Plassey took place on the 23rd of June 1757, between three thousand well-armed British East India Company soldiers, under the command of Robert Clive, and approximately forty thousand Mughal soldiers belonging to the Nawab of Bengal. The Nawab of Bengal represented the biggest subah or subdivision of the Mughal Empire, and the battle would decide the fates of Bengal, Orissa, and Bihar. At the time, there were numerous European powers competing for a share of the trade in India, and the British East India Company’s biggest rivals were the French who’d established a fort close to the Hugli River in Chandranagar, and both the British and the French, or any of their European rivals for the matter, were more than willing to extend their support to local rulers, the Mughal Empire was declining at the  time and many of the local rulers were paying homage to the Mughal Emperor in Delhi only in name, in exchange for a share of the lucrative trade that existed at the time. In ...
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War & Conflict: - The Vellore Mutiny

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One hundred and ninety-eight years after the first British ships arrive in Surat in the western Indian state of Gujarat, and some two hundred and six years after the formation of the British East India Company, and post the Battle of Plassey in 1757, the British East India Company would gain control of India. The British East India Company after it had gained control of the country would tighten its grip on the nation. In order to maintain its grip, the East India Company employed young men to serve in its army, and these men were known as sepoys. The sepoy battalions that served the British East India Company were never officially formed but were recruited when the need arose to serve in the army that the British East India Company maintained in India, to not only counter threats from other European nations that were seeking to gain access to the lucrative Indian market but to also counter any threats that may arise from local principalities, and to put down any revolts. The se...
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War & Conflict:- The Sepoy Mutiny

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In 1600 the British East India Company was established to secure the lucrative South Asian spice market. Eight years later, in 1608, the first British ships arrived in Surat in the Western Indian state of Gujarat. What followed next was a series of battles to establish trading outposts in the subcontinent that would culminate in the Battle of Plassey, in 1757, in which the Nawab of Bengal would be defeated, and the British East India Company would gain control of the states of Bengal, Orissa, and Bihar. Following its victory, the British East India Company would continue to expand and soon the whole of India would come under its control. In the years that followed, the British East India Company would strengthen its hold on India, and in order to further its ambitions it would appoint agents that would be authorized to collect taxes on behalf of the British East India Company and the implementation of this system, which was known as the zamindari system, would put a strain on laborers...
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Dowry

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The issue of dowry has long cast a shadow on the Indian wedding scene and despite the passage of time there appears to be no respite for girls born in lower income families. Parents who want to marry their daughters off are sometimes forced into making payments that are beyond their means and a failure to do so can lead to abuse and other forms of mistreatment in the hands of husbands or in-laws. Approximately 8,000 deaths are recorded each year as being dowry related, some are suicides and others are the result of abuse. The figure however does not accurately reflect the number of women that are impacted by this rather unwholesome practice and it would be fair to say that the figure in reality is much higher because many of these cases go unreported sometimes due to fear of reprisals. Some of these women are educated, professional women, who are more than capable of bringing home a decent wage but in many instances that doesn’t seem to make all that much of a difference because despi...
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War & Conflict:- The Battle of Kohima

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The battle of Kohima is dubbed one of the bloodiest battles of the second world war, and it would be fair to say that it was the bloodiest battle fought by British soldiers in the war. In March 1944 in order to stop the allies from refurbishing the Chinese Nationalists Army that was fighting the Japanese in China, and in order to replenish their own dwindling supplies and boost the morale among Japanese troops stationed in Burma, the 15th Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) under the command of Lieutenant-General Renya Mutaguchi, crossed the Indo-Burmese border, to take Imphal, secure Manipur, and from there push on to the rest of India. The plan was twofold, the bulk of the troops were to push on to Imphal, and encircle the British and Indian soldiers that’d formed a defensive perimeter around the town, while the 31st division of the 15th IJA was to push on to Kohima, and cut the supply route to Imphal. Supplies to Imphal at that stage were being transported by road to Imphal from Dimapur. ...
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