Modern History (Part-I)

The Cabinet of the Interim Government of India was composed of the following members:

1. President of the Executive Council (Viceroy and Governor-General of India): Viscount Wavell (till February 1947); Lord Mountbatten (from February 1947)
2. Commander-in-Chief: Sir Claude Auchinleck
3. Vice President, Also in charge of External Affairs and Commonwealth Relations: Jawaharlal Nehru (INC)
4. Home Affairs, Information and Broadcasting: Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (INC)
5. Agriculture and Food: Rajendra Prasad (INC)
6. Commerce: Ibrahim Ismail Chundrigar (ML)
7. Defence: Baldev Singh (INC)
8. Finance: Liaquat Ali Khan (ML)
9. Education and Arts: C Rajagopalachari (INC)
10. Health: Ghazanfar Ali Khan (ML)
11. Labour: Jagjivan Ram (INC)
12. Law: Jogendra Nath Mandal (ML)
13. Railways and Communications, Post and Air: Abdur Rab Nishtar (ML)
14. Works, Mines and Power: C H Bhabha (INC

Source- Spectrum

About Portuguese in India

• Vasco da Gama reached Calicut in 1498. Zamorin, the then-king of Calicut, welcomed him.
• He returned with a cargo sold for sixty times the cost of his entire expedition.
• After this, direct trade between India and Portugal grew, albeit slowly. Francisco De Almeida came to India in 1505 as the first Portuguese viceroy. Francisco De Almeida is credited with the ‘Blue Water’ policy, which states that the Portuguese should be the sole trade power in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean.
• In 1510, Albuquerque captured Goa from Bijapur. The Portuguese then established trading settlements at Cochin, Daman, and Diu.
• The Portuguese in India established their domination over the entire Asian coast from Hormuz in the Persian Gulf to Malacca in Malaya.
• They Portuguese in India almost monopolised the highly profitable Eastern trade for nearly a century.
• The Portuguese used Hooghly as a base for piracy in the Bay of Bengal.

Types of Scripts
Indus Script

• The Indus script is a symbol corpus created by the Indus Valley Civilization.
• The majority of inscriptions are extremely brief(short).
• It is unclear whether these symbols are part of a script used to record a language.

Brahmi Script

• Brahmi is one of the oldest writing systems, having been used in the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia during the final centuries BCE and the early centuries CE.
• Some believe that Brahmi was derived from the modern Semitic script, while others believe it was Indus script.
• The Brahmi is the ancestor of all surviving Indic scripts in South East Asia.
• It is mostly written from left to right. It’s each unit is based on a consonant.

Gupta Script

• It was used to write Sanskrit and belonged to the Gupta Empire.
• The Nagari, Sharada, and Siddham scripts all descended from the Gupta script, which descended from Brahmi.
• These scripts gave rise to many of India’s most important scripts, including Devanagari, Gurmukhi script for Punjabi, Assamese script, Bengali script, and Tibetan script.
• All of these descendants of the Brahmi script are referred to as Brahmic scripts.

Kharosthi Script

• The Kharosthi script (3rd Century BC – 3rd Century AD) is an ancient script used to write Gandhari Prakrit and Sanskrit in ancient Gandhara (present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan).
• It is a sister script to Brahmi and was deciphered by James Princep.
• It includes numbers similar to Roman numerals.
• It is mostly written from right to left. Kharosthi is also an abugida like Brahmi.

Modi Script

• Modi is a script that is used to write Marathi language.
• Modi was the official Marathi script until the twentieth century, when the Balbodh style of the Devanagari script was promoted as the standard Marathi writing system.
• Although Modi was primarily used to write Marathi, it is also known to have been used to write Urdu, Kannada, Gujarati, Hindi, and Tamil.
• Modi script is also an abugida.
  Source- Lotus Arise

• Scindias of Gwalior: A dominant Maratha family that established its rule over the Gwalior state.
• Holkars of Indore: Another significant Maratha dynasty, founded by Malhar Rao Holkar, with its center of power in Indore.
• Gaekwads of Baroda: This family's capital was initially Songadh and later shifted to Baroda.
• Bhonsles of Nagpur: The Bhonsle dynasty was central to the founding of the Maratha Empire under Shivaji, and later established kingdoms with seats of power in Nagpur and Kolhapur.

Facts about the Third Carnatic War or Battle of Wandiwash

• Fought between: The French and the British
• People involved: Count de Lally (French General), British Lieutenant-General Sir Eyre Coote
• When: 1757 – 1763
• Where: Carnatic, South India
• Result: British victory

• Thakkar Bapa (1869 - 1951) was an Indian social worker and freedom fighter who worked to improve the lives of tribal people in Gujarat.
• Thakkar Bapa was a strong believer in universal education and the abolition of untouchability.
• He was the Chairman of the Excluded and Partially Excluded Areas Sub-Committee of the Constituent Assembly.
  In 1922, he established the Bhil Seva Mandal and in 1949, he established the "Adim Jati Sevak Sangh".

The Earl Cornwallis took office on 12 September 1786 and left office on 28 October 1793. The Marquess Cornwallis took office on 30 July 1805 and left office on 5 October 1805.

James Andrew Broun-Ramsay, Ist Marquess of Dalhousie served as Governor-General of India from 1848 to 1856.

Lord Mountbatten was the last Viceroy of India (1947) and the first Governor-General of the independent Dominion of India (1947-48). The Viscount Wavell tenure is 1 October 1943-21 February 1947.

Mahadev Govind Ranade, born in 1842 in Nashik, Maharashtra, was a renowned nationalist, jurist, scholar, and one of the leading social reformers of 19th-century India. Often remembered as the “Socrates of Maharashtra,” Ranade dedicated his life to promoting progressive ideas such as education, social justice, and economic reform. Deeply influenced by the reformist ideals of the Prarthana Samaj, Arya Samaj, and Brahmo Samaj, he worked tirelessly to challenge regressive practices and uplift Indian society.

He co-founded the Deccan Educational Society, advocated the establishment of the Indian National Congress, and served with distinction as a judge of the Bombay High Court. His contributions to education, social reform, and nation-building make him an important figure for understanding India’s socio-political awakening under colonial rule.

Dupleix succeeded Dumas as the French governor of Pondicherry. His ambition now was to acquire for France vast territories in India, and for this purpose he entered into relations with the native princes, and adopted a style of oriental splendour in his dress and surroundings.

Dupleix built an army of native troops, called sepoys, who were trained as infantrymen men in his service also included the famous Hyder Ali of Mysore. Colonial administrator and governor-general of the French territories in India, who nearly realized his dream of establishing a French empire in India.