Current Affairs Question - 12 May 2020

Explanation :

• Gopal Krishna Gokhale was born on 9 May 1866 in Kotluk village of Guhagar taluka in Ratnagiri district, in present-day Maharashtra (then part of the Bombay Presidency) in a Brahmin family.
• He became a member of the Indian National Congress in 1889, as a protege of social reformer Mahadev Govind Ranade.
• In 1893, Gokhale became the Secretary of the Bombay Provincial Conference and in 1895, he served as the Joint Secretary of the INC along with Tilak.
• He was voted to the Legislative Council of Bombay in 1899, and also to the Governor-General’s Imperial Council in 1901.
• In 1905, Gokhale established the Servants of India Society for expanding education to Indians. He wanted Indians to receive an education that would instill in them a civic and patriotic sense of duty.
• He played a major role in the Morley-Minto reforms.
• In 1908, Gokhale founded the ‘Ranade Institute of Economics’. He discouraged the untouchability and caste-system, pleaded for the liberation of women and supported the cause of female education.
• Gokhale visited Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa in 1912 on the latter’s request. He famously mentored to the father of the nation, who returned to India at Gokhale’s request.
• He launched the English weekly newspaper named The Hitavad (The people's paper) in 1911.

Explanation :

• Toda people are a Dravidian ethnic group who live in the Nilgiri Mountains of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
• The Toda are most closely related to the Kota both ethnically and linguistically.
• The Toda language is a member of the Dravidian family. Linguists have classified Toda (along with its neighbour Kota) as a member of the southern subgroup of the historical family proto-South-Dravidian.
• Their sole occupation is cattle-herding and dairy-work. Holy dairies are built to store the buffalo milk.
• They live in small hamlets called munds. The Toda huts, called dogles, are of an oval, pent-shaped construction.
• Toda Embroidery: In the Toda language it is called pohor. Registrar of Geographical Indication gave GI status for this unique embroidery, a practice which has been passed on to generations.