VIII SOCIAL STUDIES NOTES

  Public facilities:   They are associated with our basic needs such as water, electricity, public transport, etc. Universal access:  Universal access is achieved when everyone has physical access to a good condition or can also afford it. Sanitation:  Provision of facilities for the safe disposal of human urine and feces. Company:  A company is a form of business set up by people or by the government.

  Women write about Women: (i) Muslim women like  Begums of Bhopal  promoted education among women and founded a primary school for girls at Aligarh. (ii)  Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain   started schools for Muslim girls in Patna and Calcutta. (iii) Indian women began to enter universities by 1880s. Some of them trained to be doctors and teachers. (iv)  Tarabai Shinde  got education at home at Poona, published a book,  Stripurushtulna  (A Comparison between Women & Men), criticising the social differences between men & women. (v)  Pandita Ramabai  was a great scholar of Sanskrit, wrote a book about the miserable lives of upper-class Hindu women. She founded a widows’ home at Poona to provide shelter to widows who had been treated badly by their husbands’ relatives. (vi) Later, women were trained to support themselves economically. (vii) Orthodox Hindu & Muslim Nationalists were worried as women started adopting western c...

The 1989 SCs and the STs Act  This law was enacted in response to Adivasi and Dalit demands that the government investigate major problems of exploitation and maltreatment faced by them in day-to-day life. The Dalit communities demanded specific laws against the violence they had been facing for decades. A similar movement for equal rights and the restitution of their resources, including their land, was made by organised Adivasi communities between 1970 and 1980. They had to put up with the rage and retaliation of other strong social groups in demanding these rights. The new act included the following: This act lists a number of different horrific crimes that the marginalised communities have been subjected to. These include coercing a member of the ST or SC community to consume harmful substances, forcing them to take off their clothing, or engaging in other activities that render them physically or morally humiliated. Additionally, the act includes sanctions or penalties for tho...