Saving money is an important practise to ensure a financially well off future. The simple habit of regularly keeping aside a small amount of money from our income becomes useful in future whenever we have some credit need such as for bussiness, health, educations, social ceremonies etc to name a few. Saving regularly might mean that one has to cut down the unnecessary expenditure. It will also require one to be be very disciplined.
Saving can be done either at home, banks or some other financial institutions. However, one tends to be lenient when we save individually as we know that it is our personal money and can skip saving if one doesn't feel like. We can also use up the entire savings before it turns into a significant amount. But if the saving is done in groups, one tends to be more disciplined and regular in savings because of the pressure from others. So, many people do tend to save in groups because of these reasons.
In Manipur, particularly in the Imphal district, people practise saving and taking credit in groups which is known as 'Marups'. 'Marup' means friends in the local language. It is an informal saving system in which a group of people would contribute money regularly for a limited time period. It is almost similar to the ROSCA (Rotating Saving and Credit Associations) which is practised in many parts of the world- Cambodia, Indonesia, Carribean etc.
How the system works;
In every marup, there would be an agent who would be responsible for the collections of the money and delivering of the goods. Depending on the interest of the potential members, the agent would decide upon the amount of the contribution and the period of the cycle. Most of the members are her acquaintances- family members,relatives ,friends etc. Some members may have more than a share in each marup. The contribution from each share are equal. Each month one of the members would take the total contribution. The turns of the members are decided either by consent at the beginning of the cycle or by lottery each day the contributions are collected.
Type of 'marup';
In most of the marup, the contribution is done either weekly or monthly. There are also 'marup' where the contributions is done on a daily basis; but it is mostly restricted to the bussiness people-shopkeepers, vendors, hotelliers etc who earns income on daily basis.
'Marup' is done either for cash or for goods ranging from the costly traditional dress, utensils, furniture, gold, crockery items and even 'basic dowry collections' etc. In this case, the goods are usually distributed to every members at the beginning of the cycle and the credit collected in installments. The total amount that would be collected would usually be a little more amount than the market price of that thing.
If it is a cash 'marup', one of the members would take the whole contributions, but from the next month onwards till the end of the cycle, she would pay an interest along with her contributions. That interest would be paid to the next members receiving the contributions.
For instance, if 25 members make a monthly contribution of Rs 1000/- each and the one of the members'A' take the total contribution of Rs 25000/- on the first month then from the next month onwards she pays an additional amount agreed upon, which let us say is Rs 100/- in addition to her regular contributions. So, when the next member 'B' receives the amount, it is Rs 25,100/-. She too would start paying an additional Rs 100/- from the next month onwards so that the third member, 'C' receives Rs 25,200/- in her turn and so on. So that the last member would receive a total contribution of Rs 27400/-. The interest amount serves as an incentives for those members who take the contributions later on.
There is another type of 'marup' which is popularly known as 'tender marup'. This is more similar to the chit fund practised in south indian states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu. Bidding is done for the total contributions and the member who bids the lowest takes away the quoted amount. The remaining amount is shared by the other members.
'Singlen Marup' is a special kind of marup. Every household in the locality is a member. Those living in rent are excluded from the membership. A contribution of Rs 5/- or Rs 10/- is collected every month. And when there is a death in the family, the localities would provide some financial assistance from this fund.
Advantages and Disadvantages:
Apart from being a hassle free and door step delivery service, what attracts people to such type of services is that the agent, who is responsible for the service delivery , is their acquaintance and hence tends to be more reliable. Everything is tranparent and except in the lottery type 'marup' ,each members knows her turn to get the contributions so can plan accordingly.
However, there is a drawback too. Since, it is based on mutual trust it involves a lot of risk for both the agent and the members if one is careless not to check the credibility of the person. Being an agent, even if some members do not contribute in time she has to ensure that the member whose turn it is to receive the contribution receive the due amount in the stipulated time. She has to give the amount from her personal money. It is also likely that the agent might turn out to be a fraud.
Significance in the society:
It is not only the poor who practise saving through ' marup', it is equally popular among the rich people, enterpreneurs, salaried people, bussinessmen etc. The difference lies in the amount of contributions which range from Rs 10/- Rs 30,000/- in a month. It would not be wrong to say that most of the household practise this system. In fact, a person may be a member in two three different 'marup'. Its significance lies in the fact that it is the main source of credit for the social ceremonies such as marriage, birth of a child, death in the locality etc.
Newspapers play a consistant role in our country.The press is the common man's university.The newspapers play a vital role in this society.Public grievances and public opinion are expressed through newspaper.Thanks to the industrial revolution,printing technology was introduced and many people can read news throughout the world.In India,as most of the people are illiterates,only 25% of them read newspapers.But in India,newspapers enjoy absolute freedom.Newspapers contain newsitems,highlight on current issues,sport news,advertistments,literary articles and so on.Those advertistments that they have are superb and attractive.Newspapers are playing a vital role in our Indian society.They are the basic thing for certain people to gather the news occuring all over the world.
'Television is the major preferable thing for the people to know certain things in this society.It has been a very good mass media.Presently,television is used by vast amount of people.Televisions also provide many precious news on education facts.UGC programmes are playing their efficient role in providing lot of students to be clear with their subjects.Advertistments that are shown in the television reaches the people very fast and certain good products and technical news reaches the minds of common people in fast voyage.So that,one could know more things in the world as well as things happening in our country.There are certain Health Programmes are also now mostly telecasting in the television.It is highly useful to the common people.It also creates certain awareness on certain issues.Even there are certain disadvantages in the use of television.It also causes many students to loss their concentration in their studies.
On viewing both the newspaper and television,the television causes the better impact in our country among the people.
The clash between the ideologies of teenagers and parents is a daily sight in most homes. There are many books and articles out there trying to tell what is wrong between their relationship and how to set it right. The main problem occurs in the way in which they think. The segment of life which causes a clash most number of times is the segment of career. Children have a completely different approach to career compared to adults. Teenagers aspire to settle in a job which makes them feel happy and satisfied. They want to work in an environment and in a profession in which they have interest and talent. They try to tell this to their parents but they usually don't succeed. Parents on the other hand want children to practice a profession which is tried and tested. They want them to take the same path that is being taken by all others. The interests of the teenager seem to be immaterial to them and the only thing they think about is about the pay packets that their children would get. It is not a bad thing to want their children to become rich and prosper, but they should also understand their child's interests and try to work out a suitable solution. Parent soften consider the ideology of their kids to be pretty premature and don't even want to listen to what they want to say properly. They only want them to listen to what they say and just join in the said course. They don't want to consider what a burden such a course might be for the student. This has to be one of the chief causes for the high suicide rate in our country. More teenagers in our country are dying of suicide than from diseases. It is high time that parents start thinking of not only the prosperity of the students but also of their interests and capabilities. This might result in a better country where there would be high quality engineers and doctors and artists. It gives rise to a more useful and dependable human resource as the people would be doing what they like best. This would be the real answer to unemployment and job layoffs. Continuing in the same fashion would do no good to the society and would actually degrade it and push us backward in development. Let’s hope parents would start understanding their kids and let them prosper in their own fields.
The village people are constantly moving to the cities, 75% -80% of the Indian population still live in village. If a larger number of people eared living by growing crops there would be more food grown in the country. Our cities would not be so crowded either. Unfortunately the life of a farmer in India is very uncertain. They produce so little food that one bad harvest or a drought can lead to starvation. On average the monsoons fail once every five years, causing drought. At such times the peasants have to borrow money from the local money-lender in order to stay alive until the next harvest. Between 1860 and 1901 there were ten major famines in India which led to the death of about 15 millions people. In 1943 one and half million people died of famine in Bengal.
Besides, the poor farmers cannot afford to buy the necessary seeds, fertilizers and pesticides or arrange for irrigation water. Thus the life of farmers in villagers is very hard. So, people move into towns in the hope of finding work. However, India still remains largely a land of villages.
There are many villages in India which are very small with just a few hundreds of people living in them. Life is very hard in these remote villages. There is no electricity and the water supply is erratic as the surrounding lakes, tanks and rivers often dry up when the monsoons fail, or during summer. Communication is difficult-even buses do not go right up to these villages. Schools and hospital are so far away that they be reached easily. Thus it is easy see why progress is so slow in these a small villages. Can you think of other reasons too?
The larger villages however have more facilities. These have electricity and cement houses for the well-to- do. Pumps are used to tap after. But the poor have a hard life. They live in thatched huts with mud walls which often get washed away in flash floods or heavy rains. The largest villages have shops where some `Luxury’ items such as soap and powder may be sold along with the daily necessities. Shop selling cloth and hardware may be found too.
Houses in Indian villages vary in size, shape and building materials, from one part of the country to another. People also dress differently as you can see in the pictures below.
Children living in villages and cities appear completely different from each other. A rural child may know a great deal a bout the land and animals. An urban child may have more `General knowledge’ about the world.
The main aim of the government’s five years plan is to bring some of the villages’ advantages of town life- schools, hospitals, electrification, sanitation, water- to villages, in order to make rural life better for people and to prevent them moving from the villages to the towns on a large scale.
Eskimos
During winters, the Eskimos sometimes live in igloos made of blocks of snow, but this is not very common these days.
The traditional lifestyle of the Eskimos is slowly changing. Harpoons have been replaced by rifles for hunting and therefore food is becoming scarce. Motorized sledges called snowmobiles have replaced the teams of husky dogs.
Today most Eskimos live in especially constructed, oil –heated houses provided by the government. Eskimos villages now have piped water supply, sewage disposal facilities, schools and medical services. Projects such as tourists’ lodges, cod fisheries and breeding musk-oxen give employment to Eskimos.
The tundra has valuable deposits of oil, natural gas, uranium, nickel, iron, gold and coal. The harsh climate of the tundra makes it difficult to obtain and transport these minerals, but modern technology is helping to solve these problems. Find out about the pipeline being built to carry oil and natural gas from Siberia in Russia to different parts of Europe.
Lapps
The Lapp population is about 35,000 and can be divided into three groups according to the place where they live.
The mountain Lapps
The mountain Lapps keep huge herds of reindeer. They had a nomadic life because they follow the animals who wander about in search of moss and lichen. Whole families move with the reindeer. They look after the reindeer with great care as it as their chief source of money. The reindeer drag the sledges, thus providing a means of transport. They also provide nourishing milk. When a reindeer is killed, the meat is used for food and the skin is used for tents, clothing and blankets. The horns are sharpened and used as weapons hunting.
The sea Lapps
The sea Lapps, as the name implies, live by the coast and make their living by fishing. They live in the tents or huts made of wood and covered with earth. Sometimes the tents re grouped together to form villages.
The river Lapps
The river Lapps, as you can guess, live along the banks of the rivers of Lapland. They lead a more settled life. The fish from the rivers and lakes, and the rye and vegetables grown in places where the soil is good, provide them with food.
A recent development is the discovery of iron ore at Kiruna and Gallivare in Northern Sweden. Thus more and more Lapps are leaving their traditional work and finding employment in modern industrial areas.
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