A new paper titled Ethnic India: A genomic view with special reference to peopling and structure (via India Archaeology) reports on some interesting facts. The results are based on statistical analysis of DNA data from a large Indian population.

• There is an underlying unity of female lineages in India indicating that the initial number of female settlers may have been small.
• The studies support the hypothesis that Austro-Asiatic tribals are the earliest inhabitants of India.
• In most cases we speak of immigration to India via the Afghanistan-Pakistan-Indus Valley route, the paper says that the Northeastern corridor also served as a passage to India. It suggests prot-Tibeto-Burman people leaving their homeland in the Yellow River basin and crossing the Himalayas to India.
• The paper also comes up with data supporting the thesis that Dravidian speakers were widespread throughout India and when Indo-European language speaking people entered India and created the caste system, the Dravidian speakers would have retreated southwards.
• Central Asia is supposed to have contributed in a major way to the Indian gene pool. Populations of North India are genetically closer to Central Asia. South Indians share less similarity and Northeast Indians share the least.

The most important immigration to India is that of the so called Aryans who came via the Pakistan-Afghanistan route. There was another wave of immigration via the northeast border though not much is mentioned about it. It has been proved that some people of Mizoram are related to Jews and belong to one of the Lost Tribes and they entered India via Burma. But that was only 300 years back.
Another point is that if South Indias share less similarity with Central Asians then the assertion that Thiyyas came from Kyrgistan may not be true.

Remember the Lake Palace in Udaipur, the place where James Bond met Octopussy. Now if you go there, you will be able to see the palace, but the lake is slowly disappearing.

The people of Udaipur are only now beginning to understand how the lake is more than just a beauty spot. In fact, it is part of a highly sophisticated rainwater catchment system planned in the 16th century. When the then Maharana of Mewar laid out the city as his new capital, he built dams to create Lake Pichola as part of a series of artificial lakes he constructed around the city. They are strategically placed so that if the monsoon fails over one lake, another will catch rainwater from the other side of the watershed that runs near Udaipur, and the lakes are interconnected.

But the state government is now, at last, taking steps in the right direction, say the people of Udaipur. They have started a major programme of reforestation for the denuded hills. Refilling Lake Pichola has been made the top priority, and the authorities have pledged to remove any villagers’ dams that are blocking the flow of water. They have also pledged to stop pumping drinking water out of the lake until it is restored to its former level.

Riding on horseback over the green lake-bed, Mr Joseph, the executive at the Lake Palace, says: “You know, some guests have told me Udaipur doesn’t need its lake. It still has so much to offer.” He points to the wild horses grazing. “You would never see them if the lake was full. They wouldn’t come down from the hills. The palace still has so much to offer.” And he is right. Even as he speaks, a traditional musical troupe is preparing to use the dry lake- bed as a performance area to entertain the guests. [Heat and dust consume India’s City of the Lakes via India Archaeology]

Udaipur was named so in 1572 in the name of Udai Singh who founded the place. From there the house of Mewar defied the might of the Mughal empire and was the base of the Rajputs. Udaipur is also the home of Bagheera, the panther in Jungle Book.

The mythologies are filled with people of superhuman powers. So in Ramayana we have Ravan with 10 heads and Hanuman who could fly from Lanka to the Himalayas. The fact is if such people existed, how come we don’t have 10 headed people now ? A Berkeley Professor has got interested in finding the truth behind all these symbols.

Ten-headed demon king Ravana of the Hindu epic Ramayana actually had one head and the other nine were its reflection on the nine large polished gems that he wore around his neck, an American scholar of Sanskrit has reasoned.

In a lecture in New Delhi titled, “How fast do monkeys fly? How long do demons sleep?” where he read commentaries on Sanskrit epic poetry, Goldman said ancient scholars like Nagoji Bhatta, Govindaraja, Maheshwara Teertha, Satyateertha and Madhava Yogendra tried to “track down the narrative” and explain through “scientific reasoning” the seeming exaggerations in the works. [Hanuman flew at 660 km per hour]

How will gems around the neck reflect the head ? And the “scientific” explanation is not on how monkeys could fly, but on how fast he could fly. I wonder what this professor teaches.