tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449281492683756212024-02-20T10:01:53.303-08:00728*90(2)Chithra Manojhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01869025789052045851noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-444928149268375621.post-73113868905549510872009-12-13T06:52:00.000-08:002009-12-13T06:53:10.325-08:00Gold slides on weak global cuesGold prices fell by Rs 250 to Rs 17,110 per ten gram in the bullion market as investors resorted to heavy selling amid a weakening global trend. <br /><br /><br /><br />The precious metal slid to 1,108.30 dollar from 1,130 dollar an ounce in New York as firming US dollar reduced demand for the metal as an alternate investment. <br /><br /><br /><br />The dollar gained against a basket of major currencies from a report that showed US retail sales increased more than the market expectations. <br /><br /><br /><br />The falling trend in gold prices was mirrored by the other precious metal silver too. <br /><br /><br /><br />Silver plunged by Rs 450 to Rs 27,450 per kg. <br /><br /><br /><br />Marketmen said retail customers remained on the sidelines and postponed their decision to purchase jewellery at the current higher level, further dampening the market sentiment. <br /><br /><br /><br />Standard gold and ornaments registered a steep fall of Rs 250 each to Rs 17,110 and Rs 16,960 per ten gram respectively while sovereign remained steady at Rs 13,900 per piece of eight gram. <br /><br />A similar weakening trend was extended to silver, with silver ready plunging by Rs 450 to Rs 27,450 per kg and weekly-based delivery by Rs 335 to Rs 27,050 per kg. <br /><br /><br /><br />In line with a general trend, silver coins also lost Rs 100 at Rs 33,200 for buying and Rs 33,300 for selling of 100 pieces.Chithra Manojhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01869025789052045851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-444928149268375621.post-21552250887557998812009-11-29T02:01:00.000-08:002009-11-29T02:02:13.272-08:00HousewifeIndia<br />Being a diverse country, India has different approaches in different demographic groups.<br /><br />In a Hindu family, the head of the family is the Griha Swami and his wife is the Griha Swamini. The Sanskrit words Grihast and Grihasta perhaps comes closest to describing the entire gamut of activities and roles undertaken by the householder or housewife. Grih is the Sanskrit root for House or Home; Grihasta and Grihast are derivatives of this root, as is Grihastya. The couple lives in the state called Grihastashram or family system and together they nurture the family and help its members (both young and old) through the travails of life. They are a housewife team. The woman who increments the family tree and protects the procreated wealth of the family is described as the Grihalakshmi (the wealth of the house) and Grihashoba (the glory of the house). The elders of the family are known as Grihshreshta. The husband or wife may engage in countless other activities which may be social, religious, political or economic in nature for the ultimate welfare of the family and society. However, their unified status as a householder or housewife is the nucleus from within which they operate in society. This 'status', as housewives, anchors them in society and provides meaning to their activities within the social, religious, political and economic framework of their world.<br /><br />In Muslim families, use of the term housewife (or its equivalent) is uncommon, even though housewives are very common and stay-at-home husbands are extremely rare. Muslim society sets different expectations from the husband and wife, but respects their individuality. Families are generally viewed as sets and not units.<br />China<br />In imperial China (excluding periods of the Tang dynasty when women had higher status in society), women were bound to homemaking by the doctrines of Confucianism and cultural norms. In most cases, the husband was alive and able to work, so the wife was almost always forbidden to take a job and mainly spent her days at home or doing other domestic tasks. As Confucianism spread across East Asia, this social norm was also observed in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.<br /><br />After the founding of the Republic of China in the early 20th century, these norms were gradually loosened and many women were able to enter the workforce (a growing number of women, beginning at this time, also began to receive education). Starting with the rule of the People's Republic of China, all women were freed from compulsory family roles. During the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, some women were required by the government to do heavy work that they were not physically suited for. This policy was later abolished.<br /><br />In modern China, housewives are no longer as common (particularly in urban areas). Nearly all women work simply because one person's income is insufficient to support the family, a decision made easier by the fact that it is common for Chinese grandparents to watch after their grandchildren before they are old enough to go to school or are very young.<br /><br />Some contemporary women are leaving the paid workforce and concentrating full-time on parenting. Many of these women have left the paid workforce so that they can focus on raising their children, particularly through the children's early years before entering kindergarten. There is considerable variability within the stay-at-home mother population with regard to their intent to return to the paid workforce. Some plan to work from their homes, some will do part-time work, some intend to return to part or full-time work when their children have reached school age, some may increase their skill sets by returning to higher education, and others may find it economically feasible to not return to the paid workforce.<br /><br />Similarly, there is considerable variation in the stay-at-home mom's attitude towards domestic work not related to caring for children. Some may embrace a traditional role of housewife, cooking and cleaning in addition to caring for children. Others see their primary role as that of child-care providers, supporting their children's physical, intellectual, and emotional development while sharing or outsourcing other aspects of home care.<br /><br />Many feminists, such as Betty Friedan, have criticized the marginalization of women as 'housewives '. Feminists generally suggest that 'housework' should be an appropriate role for a parent of either sex, believing that gender roles do not have any basis other than social conditioning. Also, they maintain that women can become socially isolated by being tied to their home. Some feminists would argue that the goal of feminism is not to close off any options for women, but to create opportunities for women to pursue careers in traditionally male occupations, as well as providing males an option to pursue roles that so far have been perceived as "strictly female". Indeed, the role of the stay-at-home dad or househusband has become more socially recognized as an available option.<br /><br />Some feminists[1][2] as well as certain non-feminist economists (particularly historical materialists) also point out that the monetary contribution of housewives' work to society is ignored in standard formulations of economic output, such as GDP or employment figures. Housewives work many unrecorded hours a week, while depending on their partner's employment to provide health insurance and household income. Proponents of collective economics argue that housewives' work does not contribute to the general economy, and should not be rewarded with tax breaks. However many feminists have refuted this idea, citing the staggering costs (e.g. childcare) that the state or individuals would be forced to assume in the absence of unpaid homemakers.Chithra Manojhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01869025789052045851noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-444928149268375621.post-19345518226970801962009-11-21T23:36:00.000-08:002009-11-21T23:38:49.687-08:00KitchenA kitchen is a room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation.<br /><br />In the West, a modern residential kitchen is typically equipped with a stove, a sink with hot and cold running water, a refrigerator and kitchen cabinets. Many households have a microwave oven, a dishwasher and other electric appliances. The main function of a kitchen is cooking or preparing food but it may also be used for dining and entertaining.<br /><br />The evolution of the kitchen is linked to the invention of the cooking range or stove and the development of water infrastructure capable of supplying water to private homes. Until the 18th century, food was cooked over an open fire. Technical advances in heating food in the 18th and 19th centuries, changed the architecture of the kitchen. Before the advent of modern pipes, water was brought from an outdoor source such as wells, pumps or springs.<br /><br />The houses in Ancient Greece were commonly of the atrium-type: the rooms were arranged around a central courtyard. In many such homes, a covered but otherwise open patio served as the kitchen. Homes of the wealthy had the kitchen as a separate room, usually next to a bathroom (so that both rooms could be heated by the kitchen fire), both rooms being accessible from the court. In such houses, there was often a separate small storage room in the back of the kitchen used for storing food and kitchen utensils.<br /><br />In the Roman Empire, common folk in cities often had no kitchen of their own; they did their cooking in large public kitchens. Some had small mobile bronze stoves, on which a fire could be lit for cooking. Wealthy Romans had relatively well-equipped kitchens. In a Roman villa, the kitchen was typically integrated into the main building as a separate room, set apart for practical reasons of smoke and sociological reasons of the kitchen being operated by slaves. The fireplace was typically on the floor, placed at a wall—sometimes raised a little bit—such that one had to kneel to cook. There were no chimneys.<br />Technological advances during industrialization brought major changes to the kitchen. Iron stoves, which enclosed the fire completely and were more efficient, appeared. Early models included the Franklin stove around 1740, which was a furnace stove intended for heating, not for cooking. Benjamin Thompson in England designed his "Rumford stove" around 1800. This stove was much more energy efficient than earlier stoves; it used one fire to heat several pots, which were hung into holes on top of the stove and were thus heated from all sides instead of just from the bottom. However, his stove was designed for large kitchens; it was too big for domestic use. The "Oberlin stove" was a refinement of the technique that resulted in a size reduction; it was patented in the U.S. in 1834 and became a commercial success with some 90,000 units sold over the next 30 years. These stoves were still fired with wood or coal. Although the first gas street lamps were installed in Paris, London, and Berlin at the beginning of the 1820s and the first U.S. patent on a gas stove was granted in 1825, it was not until the late 19th century that using gas for lighting and cooking became commonplace in urban areas.<br /><br />The urbanization in the second half of the 19th century induced other significant changes that would ultimately change the kitchen. Out of sheer necessity, cities began planning and building water distribution pipes into homes, and built sewers to deal with the waste water. Gas pipes were laid; gas was used first for lighting purposes, but once the network had grown sufficiently, it also became available for heating and cooking on gas stoves. At the turn of the 20th century, electricity had been mastered well enough to become a commercially viable alternative to gas and slowly started replacing the latter. But like the gas stove, the electrical stove had a slow start. The first electrical stove had been presented in 1893 at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, but it was not until the 1930s that the technology was stable enough and began to take off.<br /><br />Industrialization also caused social changes. The new factory working class in the cities was housed under generally poor conditions. Whole families lived in small one or two-room apartments in tenement buildings up to six stories high, badly aired and with insufficient lighting. Sometimes, they shared apartments with "night sleepers", unmarried men who paid for a bed at night. The kitchen in such an apartment was often used as a living and sleeping room, and even as a bathroom. Water had to be fetched from wells and heated on the stove. Water pipes were laid only towards the end of the 19th century, and then often only with one tap per building or per story. Brick-and-mortar stoves fired with coal remained the norm until well into the second half of the century. Pots and kitchenware were typically stored on open shelves, and parts of the room could be separated from the rest using simple curtains.<br /><br />In contrast, there were no dramatic changes for the upper classes. The kitchen, located in the basement or the ground floor, continued to be operated by servants. In some houses, water pumps were installed, and some even had kitchen sinks and drains (but no water on tap yet, except for some feudal kitchens in castles). The kitchen became a much cleaner space with the advent of "cooking machines", closed stoves made of iron plates and fired by wood and increasingly charcoal or coal, and that had flue pipes connected to the chimney. For the servants the kitchen continued to also serve as a sleeping room; they slept either on the floor, or later in narrow spaces above a lowered ceiling, for the new stoves with their smoke outlet no longer required a high ceiling in the kitchen. The kitchen floors were tiled; kitchenware was neatly stored in cupboards to protect them from dust and steam. A large table served as a workbench; there were at least as many chairs as there were servants, for the table in the kitchen also doubled as the eating place for the servants.<br /><br />The middle class tried to imitate the luxurious dining styles of the upper class as best as it could. Living in smaller apartments, the kitchen was the main room—here, the family lived. The study or living room was saved for special occasions such as an occasional dinner invitation. Because of this, these middle-class kitchens were often more homely than those of the upper class, where the kitchen was a work-only room occupied only by the servants. Besides a cupboard to store the kitchenware, there were a table and chairs, where the family would dine, and sometimes—if space allowed—even a fauteuil or a couch.<br /><br />Gas pipes were first laid in the late 19th century, and gas stoves started to replace the older coal-fired stoves. Gas was more expensive than coal, though, and thus the new technology was first installed in the wealthier homes. Where workers' apartments were equipped with a gas stove, gas distribution would go through a coin meter.<br /><br />In rural areas, the older technology using coal or wood stoves or even brick-and-mortar open fireplaces remained common throughout. Gas and water pipes were first installed in the big cities; small villages were connected only much later.<br /><br />Restaurant and canteen kitchens found in hotels, hospitals, educational & work place facilities, army barracks, and similar establishments are generally (in developed countries) subject to public health laws. They are inspected periodically by public-health officials, and forced to close if they do not meet hygienic requirements mandated by law.<br /><br />Canteen kitchens (and castle kitchens) were often the places where new technology was used first. For instance, Benjamin Thompson's "energy saving stove", an early-19th century fully-closed iron stove using one fire to heat several pots, was designed for large kitchens; another thirty years passed before they were adapted for domestic use.<br /><br />Today's western restaurant kitchens typically have tiled walls and floors and use stainless steel for other surfaces (workbench, but also door and drawer fronts) because these materials are durable and easy to clean. Professional kitchens are often equipped with gas stoves, as these allow cooks to regulate the heat quicker and more finely than electrical stoves. Some special appliances are typical for professional kitchens, such as large installed deep fryers, steamers, or a Bain Marie. (As of 2004[update], steamers—not to be confused with a pressure cooker—are beginning to find their way into domestic households, sometimes as a combined appliance of oven and steamer.)<br /><br /> <br />The Food Technology room at Marling School in Stroud, Gloucestershire.The fast food and convenience food trends have also changed the way restaurant kitchens operate. There is a trend for restaurants to only "finish" delivered convenience food or even just re-heat completely prepared meals, maybe at the utmost grilling a hamburger or a steak.<br /><br />The kitchens in railway dining cars present special challenges: space is constrained, and nevertheless the personnel must be able to serve a great number of meals quickly. Especially in the early history of the railway this required flawless organization of processes; in modern times, the microwave oven and prepared meals have made this task a lot easier. Galleys are kitchens aboard ships or aircraft (although the term galley is also often used to refer to a railroad dining car's kitchen). On yachts, galleys are often cramped, with one or two gas burners fuelled by a gas bottle, but kitchens on cruise ships or large warships are comparable in every respect with restaurants or canteen kitchens. On passenger airplanes, the kitchen is reduced to a mere pantry, the only function reminiscent of a kitchen is the heating of in-flight meals delivered by a catering company. An extreme form of the kitchen occurs in space, e.g. aboard a Space Shuttle (where it is also called the "galley") or the International Space Station. The astronauts' food is generally completely prepared, dehydrated, and sealed in plastic pouches, and the kitchen is reduced to a rehydration and heating module.<br /><br />Outdoor areas in which food is prepared are generally not considered to be kitchens, although an outdoor area set up for regular food preparation, for instance when camping, might be called an "outdoor kitchen". Military camps and similar temporary settlements of nomads may have dedicated kitchen tents.<br /><br />In Schools where Home Economics (HE) or Food technology (previously known as Domestic science) is taught, there will be a series of kitchens with multiple equipment (similar in some respects to laboratories) solely for the purpose of teaching. These will consist of between 6 and 12 workstations, each with their own oven, sink and kitchen utensils.Chithra Manojhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01869025789052045851noreply@blogger.com0