Saturday, April 20, 2013

Unique House


unique house:


Earth House
This unique house is located in Switzerland.
It is an earth house, an architectural style characterized by the use of natural terrain to help form the walls of a house.
An earth house is usually set partially into the ground and covered
with thin growth, and is often intended to have a small ecological footprint.


Rondavel
This pretty amazing house is called a rondavel, a traditional African-style house. They are usually round in shape and traditionally made with materials
that can be locally obtained in raw form.
The rondavel's walls are often constructed from stones.
The mortar may consist of sand, soil,
or some combinations of these mixed with dung.
The floor is finished with a processed dung mixture to make it smooth.
The roof braces of a rondavel are made out of tree limbs,
which have been harvested and cut to length.
The roof itself is made out of thatch that is sewn
to the wooden braces with rope made out of grass.




Shell House
One distinct house is the Shell house.It is the most original house
in Mexico or maybe in the world.It is one of the most beautiful houses
you will surely enjoy.It is located in Isla Mujeres northeast of Yucatan peninsula in the Caribbean Sea.


Rumah gadang
Rumah gadang which means "big house",are the traditional homes of the Minangkabau in Indonesia.
The architecture, construction, internal and external decoration,and the functions of the house reflect the culture and values of the Minangkabau.
 A rumah gadang serves as a residence, a hall for family meetings,and for ceremonial activities.
With the Minangkabau society being matrilineal,the rumah gadang is owned by the women of the family
who live there - ownership is passed from mother to daughter.

Toda Hut
The peculiar hut of a Toda Tribe of Nilgiris,India is noted for the decoration of the front wall,and the very small door.The Toda people are a small pastoral community who live on the isolated Nilgiri plateau of Southern India.
 Prior to the late eighteenth century,the Toda coexisted locally with other communities,including the Badaga, Kota, and Kurumba,in a loose caste-like community organization in  which the Toda were the top ranking.

Korowai Tree House
This bizarre house is home to the bizarre tribe called the Korowai or also called the Kolufo.
They are a people of southeastern Papua  (i.e., the southeastern part of the western part of New Guinea).
Until the 1970s, they were unaware of the existence of any people besides themselves
and some immediately neighboring villages.
 Only a few of them have become literate thus far.They are one of the few surviving peoples in the world
that are thought to possibly still engage in cannibalism.Others dispute this, saying that these practices ended decades ago and
that there have been no reported instances of cannibalism in over twenty years.

Trulli House
Trulli houses, distinguished by conical store roof,are traditional in the southeastern region Apulia, Italy.


Palloza
A palloza is a traditional thatched house as found in the in Galicia, Spain.
They are circular or oval, and about ten ortwenty meters in diameter.
These houses are built to withstand severe winter weather
 at a typical altitude of 1,200 meters.
The main structure is stone, and is divided internally into separate areas
for the family and their animals, with separate entrances.
The roof is conical, made from rye straw on a wooden frame.
There is no chimney, the smoke from the kitchen fire seeps out through the thatch.

Farmhouse
Earth sheltering is the architectural practice of using earth against building walls
 for external thermal mass, to reduce heat loss,
and to easily maintain a steady indoor air temperature.
Earth sheltering is popular in modern times among advocates of passive solar
and sustainable architecture, but has been around for nearly
as long as humans have been constructing their own shelter.
The picture above is Earth covered farm houses located in Keldur, Iceland.
CrannogA crannog 
is an artificial island, usually originally built in lakes, rivers and estuarine waters, 
and most often used as an island settlement
 or dwelling place in prehistoric or medieval times. 
The name itself may refer to a wooden platform erected on shallow floors, 
but few remains of this sort have been found.
Beehive Mud Houses: Harran, Turkey
These traditional mud houses are located in Harran. The interesting thing about them is
 that they were constructed entirely without the use of wood. 
The design of these mud houses is believed to have stayed the same 
for at least 3,000 years, until about the 1980s, 
when they officially stopped being used as living space.


Tongkonan 
Toraja People House: Sulawesi, Indonesia These distinctive wooden houses 
have curved roofs with tall gable ends that make them look likes boats. 
The houses are built on stilts and are entered by curved steps 
and beautifully decorated doorways.
They are the homes of the Toraja peoples, who live in central Sulawesi

House of Marsh Arabs: Iraq
The Houses of the Marsh Arabs are built from reeds.They are often constructed on floating platforms woven
 from tips of reeds still growing up out of the swamp.The people travel around by canoe. 
The Marsh Arabs' lifestyle is threatened by drainage projects that are taking water 
from swamps, causing them to dry up.
Log Cabin House: USA
The log cabin house is among the first house designs of early America.
 It is sturdy and easy to construct,and can be built by hand to provide shelter in a very short period of time.















Sunday, March 31, 2013

INDIA AND ITS LESS KNOWN FACTS

INDIA AND ITS LESS KNOWN FACTS

[1]
Navi Mumbai, a planned satellite township of Mumbai, was developed in 1972 and is the largest planned township on the planet.

[2]
War of 27 years fought between the Maratha Empire and the Mughal Empire from 1681 to 1707 was the longest recorded military engagement in the history of India.

[3]
In 1955, Jawaharlal Nehru rejected an offer to India for a permanent UN Security Council seat to avoid being embroiled in the cold war politics.

[4]
 Viswanathan Anand is first player in chess history to have won the World Championship in three different formats: knockout, tournament, and match.

[5]
India is one of only 3 remaining countries in the world to have a horsed cavalry regiment.

[6]
Agni III is the most accurate missile in the world in its range category and BrahMos is the fastest operational cruise missile in the world.

[7]
The process of crystallization of sugar from sugarcane juice was discovered in India in the Gupta period (350 AD).

[8]
Many tribes in India worship Asura and Ravan and consider Vijaya Dashami and Dussehra to be black days.

[9]
In 1928, when the Indian Hockey team was on its way to Amsterdam, they played a series of exhibition matches in England. Seeing its calibre, England decided not to field a team for the Olympics as “they did not want to lose to a slave country.”

[10]
Lonar Lake, a saltwater lake in Maharashtra, was created by a meteor hitting the Earth and is one of its kind in India.

[11]
Raj Kapoor’s 1951 film Awaara was massively popular in Soviet Russia and China. The film and its title song were Mao Zedong’s (Founder of People’s Republic of China) favorite.

[12]
There were two US navy warships called USS Krishna and USS Indra that served during World War II.

[13]
Unlike in Border movie, only 2 Indians died in battle of  Longewala.

[14]
English Actor Sir Ben Kingsley’s birth name is Krishna Pandit Bhanji and he is ofIndian (Gujarati) descent.

[15]
Freddie Mercury, British musician was actually of Gujarati descent.

[16]
“John Doe” orders (restraint orders against unknown persons for breach of plaintiff’s rights) are called “Ashok Kumar” orders in India. Likewise, “unclaimed” or “unidentified” dead body found in a public place is called is Ashok Kumar.

[17]
The oldest building in Asia is in India, the Sanchi Stupa.

[18]
Bal Thackeray’s father changed his family name from Thakre to Thackeray after the British writer William Makepeace Thackeray.

[19]
There is a species of Shark known as the Ganges Shark that inhabits River Ganga and it is critically endangered

[20]
The first railroad was constructed by two Indians (Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy and Jaganath Shunkerseth) and not the British.

[21]
Mount Kailash has never been climbed , in spite of Chinese government’s support to the climbers.

[22]
Security at Tihar jail is managed by Tamil Nadu special police force.

[23]
When going to battle Indian kings would make their horses wear trunks. The other side’s elephants would refuse to attack the horses thinking that the horses were baby elephants.

[24]
If Uttar Pradesh were to be a separate country, it would be world’s fifth most populous country.

[25]
There are more poor people in 8 Indian states alone than in the 26 poorest African countries

[26]
Bodhidharma, a prince of the Pallava dynasty went to China and began the physical training of the Shaolin monks that led to the creation of Kung Fu.

[27]
A sugar company in Andhra provides rocket fuel to ISRO.

[28]
Tipu Sultan used Rockets with Swords fixed in the front against the British in the Anglo-Mysore Wars.

[29]
There is a French electronic band named “Masala Dosa.”

[30]
Did you know India has a National Ice Hockey Team?

[31]
Govt hiked the payment for the hangman from RS 10 to 5,000 just days before for Kasab hanging.

[32]
 Ajmal Amir Kasab had a case booked for entering CST station without a ticket.

[33]
Australia’s Cricketer Stuart Clark is of Indian origin. Both his parents, Bruce Clark and Mary Clark are Anglo-Indians.

[34]
A city name Jhumri Telaiya actually exists in Jharkhand.

[35]
There was a Great Hedge built by the British across India primarily to collect the salt tax. It was 4000 km long and 12 feet in height spanning from Punjab to Orissa. None of it remains today.

[36]
 Kunal Nayyar (Rajesh Koothrappalli from Big Bang Theory) is married to a former Miss India, Neha Kapur.

[37]
There is a village called Delhi in New york , USA. There is a city called Madras in Oregon, USA.

[38]
India has three antarctic stations, Dakshin Gangotri, Maitri  and Bharathi.

[39]
After United States, India has the largest number of English speakers.

[40]
During the battle of Rezang La in the 1962 Sino-Indian war a battalion called 13 Kumaon Regiment consisting of mere 120 soldiers held off 6000 Chinese with heavy artillery killing 1300 of their soldiers.

[41]
Bangalored‘ is a word in Oxford dictionary, which came up after heavy outsourcing to India took the world by storm.

[42]
One of the oldest College of Engineering in the world is in Chennai, College of Engineering (Guindy).

[43]
There is a village in Assam called  Jatinga where over the last 100 years, thousands of birds have flown to their death on a small strip of land.

[44]
India has the world’s smallest prison population.

[45]
The average cost of census taking in India is $0.5 per person (US: $39, World Average: $4.6).

[46]
Frozen bank accounts of  Ottavio Quattrocchi were unexpectedly released by India’s law ministry in 2006 apparently without the consent of the CBI which had asked for them to be frozen.

[47]
India Post allows you to order personalized stamps with your picture on them.

5TH. A.D. RAT TAMPLE


5TH. A.D. RAT TAMPLE

The Karni Mata Temple at Deshnoke, 30 km from Bikaner, India, is one of the strangest temples in the world. The temple is home to over 20,000 rats, that not only live and dine within the temple premises . These holy animals are called “kabbas”, .

The rats are absolutely everywhere, from the door handles to the grills to the ledges around the side of the marble constructs. They can be seen in dozens crowded around pots of milk, coconut shells and various other foodstuffs that are scattered across the the temple. One must tread with utmost caution not to squish one under the feet.

That would be the unholiest of accidents and for which the person responsible for the death of the rat must pay dearly – by replacing the rat with one made of solid gold. To keep the rats safe from birds of prey and other animals, wires and grills are sited over the courtyard. There are priests and caretakers that live with families in the temple permanently, feeding the rats and sweeping away their excrement.

Surprisingly, there has been no incidence of plague in the past which is deemed a miracle of Karni Mata. Strange enough, the rats themselves suffer from various ailments such as stomach disorder and diabetes, thanks to the unhealthy diet of sweets and milk, and every few years a rat epidemic decimates the population, but it soon grows back to its original hefty size.