Indian Fairs and Festivals

This list of Hindu festivals summarizes festivals observed in Hinduism.
Uthasava or Utasava or Utsav is derived from the Sanskrit word, Utsasva. Festivals in India are determined by Solar and Lunar positions and they may fall in the different month specified.

Month	Festival
January	Makar Sankranti, Lohri Pongal Thai Pusam Flot Festival National Kite Festival  Kerala Village Festival Bikaner Festival Pattadakal Dance Festival Id-ud-Fitr Vasant Panchami
February	Maha Shivratri Goa Carnival Desert Festival Nagpur Fair International Yoga Week Elephant Festival Deccan Festival Taj Mahostav Surajkund Crafts Mela Chapchar Kut Islands Tourism Festival
March	Holi Ganaur Jamshed-e-Navroz Ramnavami Id-ul-Zuha Mahavir Jayanti Khajuraho Dance Festival Elephant Festival Hoysla Mahotsava Ellora Festival
April	Good Friday Easter Baisakhi Gudi Padva or Ugadi Pooram Mhuarram Buddha Purnima Mewar
May	Urs Festival
June	Ganga Dussehra Hemis Festival
July	Rathyatra Guru Purnima
August	Janmashtami Onam Nag Panchami Raksha Bandhan Ganesh Chaturthi
September	Tranetar  Mela
October	Navaratri Durga Puja Dussehra Marwar Festival
November	Sharad Purnima Diwali Guru Purab Ka Pomlang Nongrem Sonepur Fair Pushkar Fair Hampi Festival
December	Christmas Konark Dance Festival

Did you know

A collection of awesome, interesting, weird and random stuff to tickle your brain. Here are some of the known facts:

• India has the most post offices that any other country (Over 100,000).
• India is home to over 200 million cows.
• The Taj Mahal in India is made entirely out of marble.
• The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with.
• In 1985 Microsoft Windows 1.0 is released.
• 11% of people are left handed.
• Taj Mahal appears pink in the morning, white in the day and changes its color to golden in the moon light.
• Canada is an Indian word meaning "Big Village".
• Honey is the only food that doesn't spoil. To make 1 pound of honey, bees would have to visit over 2 million flowers.
• An Ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
• A lobsters blood is colorless but when exposed to Oxygen it turns blue.
• The 3 most common languages in the world are Mandarin Chinese, Spanish and English.
• The smallest bone in the human body is found in our eye.
• When lighting strikes it can reach up to 30,000 degrees Celsius.
• A Giraffe can clean its ears with its 21 inch tongue.
• If you add up all the numbers from 1 to 100 consecutively it totals 5050 (1+2+3...).
• It's possible to lead a cow up stairs not down.
• Humming birds are the only bird that can fly backwards.
• In a deck of cards the king of hearts is the only king without mustache.
• Apples are more effective at waking you up in the morning than coffee.
• The thyroid bone in our body is the only bone in our body not attached to any other bone.
• The oldest word in the English language is 'Town'.
• 'Bookkeeper' and 'Bookkeeping' are the only 2 words in the English language with three consecutive double letters.
• The Amazon rain-forest produces half the world's Oxygen supply.
• China Manufactures 70% of the worlds toys.

Current Affairs

1. MACE Telescope being setup in Ladakh: A gigantic gamma ray telescope designed, developed and manufactured by the Electronics Corporation of India Limited, is all set to be moved to its home Hanle in Ladakh region of Jammu & Kashmir. The giant Major Atmospheric Cherenkov Experiment (MACE) Telescope which weighs approximately 180 tonne, when installed in the near future will be the second largest of its type in world.

2. PSLV-C23 launched with 5 satellites: PSLV C23 carrying French Earth Observation Satellite SPOT-7 and four co-passenger spacecrafts from Singapore, Canada and Germany was successfully launched from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh and Prime Minister, witnessed the historic moment.The vehicle carried five satellites of different countries and place them onto a sun-synchronous orbit. 

The five satellites are:

• 714 Kgs weighing French Earth Observation Satellite SPOT-7
• 14 Kgs AISAT of Germany
• NLS7.1 & NSL7.2 of Canada each weighing 15 Kgs
• 7 Kgs VELOX-1 of Singapore

3. Saina Nehwal wins Australian Super Series: Indian ace Shuttler Saina Nehwal won her second title of the season, winning US $ 750,000 Star Australian Super Series after beating Spain's Carolia Marin in the summit clash in Sydney. 

4. West Bengal Governor M K Narayanan Resigned: West Bengal governor M K Narayanan resigned, becoming the fourth person occupying the gubernatorial post to put in his papers since the NDA government prodded some of the governors appointed during UPA rule to quit. 80 years old Narayanan was recently questioned by the CBI as a "witness" in the Agusta Westland VVIP helicopter deal probe. Nagaland governor Ashwini Kumar, Uttar Pradesh governor B L Joshi and Chattisgarh governor Shekhar Dutt have put in their papers in the last few days.

Constitution of India

The Constitution of India is the supreme law of India. It lays down the framework defining fundamental political principles, establishes the structure, procedures, powers and duties of government institutions and set outs fundamental rights, directive principles and the duties of citizens. It is the longest written constitution of any sovereign country in world, containing 44 articles in 25 parts, 12 schedules, 5 appendices and 98 amendments (out of 120 Constitution Amendments Bills).

Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar is widely regarded as the father of the Indian Constitution. The constitution was adopted by the India Constituent Assembly on 26 November 1949, and came into effect on 26 January 1950. The date of 26 January was choosen to commemorate the Purna Swaraj ddeclaration of independence of 1930.

The constitution declares India to be a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic, assuring its citizens of of justice, equality and liberty and endeavors to promote fraternity among them. The words "Socialist" and "Secular" were added to the definition in 1976 by constitutional amendment. India celebrates the adoption of the constitution on 26 January each year as Republic Day. At the time of commencement, the constitution had 395 articles in 22 parts and 8 schedules. It consists of almost 80,000 words and took 2 years 11 months and 18 days to build.

The constitutional head of the Executive of the Union is the President. As per the Article 79 of the Constitution of India, the council of the Parliament consist of the President and two Houses known as the Council of States i.e. Rajyasabha and the House of the People i.e. Loksabha. Article 74(1) of the constitution provides that there shall be a Council of Ministers with the Prime Minister as its head to aid and advise the President, who shall exercise his/her functions in accordance to the advise. The real executive power is thus vested in the Council of Ministers with the Prime Minister as its head.

Adoptions from other constitutions: The architects of Indian constitution were most heavily influenced by the British model of parliamentary democracy. In addition, a number of principles were adopted from the Constitution of the United State of America, including the separation of powers among the major branches of government and the establishment of a supreme court. The principles adopted from Canada were federal government with strong center and also distribution of powers between center government and state governments along with placing residuary powers with central government. From Ireland, directive principle of state policy was adopted. From Germany, the principle of suspension of fundamental rights during emergency was adopted. From Australia, the idea of having a Concurrent list of shared powers was used as well and some the following was utilized for the preamble.