The India Plate or Indian Plate is a tectonic plate that was originally a part of the ancient continent of Gondwanaland from which it split off, eventually becoming a major plate. About 50 to 55 million years ago (contested), it fused with the adjacent Australian Plate. It is today part of the major Indo-Australian Plate, and includes the Indian subcontinent and a portion of the basin under the Indian Ocean.

In the late Cretaceous Period about 90 million years ago, subsequent to the splitting off from Gondwanaland of conjoined Madagascar and India, the Indian Plate split from Madagascar. It began moving north, at about 20 cm/yr (8 in/yr), and is believed to have begun colliding with Asia between 50 and 55 million years ago, in the Eocene epoch of the Cenozoic Era, although this is contested, with some authors suggesting it was much later at around 35 million years ago. If the collision occurred between 50 and 55 Ma, the Indian Plate would have covered a distance of 2,000 to 3,000 km (1,200 to 1,900 mi), moving faster than any other known plate. In 2007, German geologists suggested that the reason the Indian Plate moved so quickly is that it is only half as thick as the other plates which formerly constituted Gondwanaland.

The collision with the Eurasian Plate along the boundary between India and Nepal formed the orogenic belt that created the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalaya Mountains, as sediment bunched up like earth before a plow.

The Indian Plate is currently moving northeast at 5 cm/yr (2 in/yr), while the Eurasian Plate is moving north at only 2 cm/yr (0.8 in/yr). This is causing the Eurasian Plate to deform, and the India Plate to compress at a rate of 4 mm/yr (0.15 in/yr).

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake

The 9.3 moment magnitude 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was caused by the release of stresses built up along the subduction zone where the Indian Plate is sliding under the Burma Plate in the eastern Indian Ocean, at a rate of 6 cm/yr (2.5 in/yr). The Sunda Trench is formed along this boundary where the Indo-Australian and Eurasian Plates meet. Earthquakes in the region are either caused by thrust faulting, where the fault slips at right angles to the trench; or strike-slip faulting, where material to the east of the fault slips along the direction of the trench.

Like all similarly large earthquakes, the December 26, 2004 event was caused by thrust-faulting. A 100 km (60 mi) rupture caused about 1,600 km (994 mi) of the interface to slip, which moved the fault 15 m (50 ft) and lifted the sea floor several meters (yards), creating the great tsunami.

2005 Kashmir earthquake

On October 8, 2005, an earthquake of magnitude 7.6 occurred near Muzaffarabad, Kashmir, Pakistan killing more than 80,000 people, and leaving more than 2.5 million homeless.

See also

Indian subcontinent

Convergent boundary

Geology of India

List of tectonic plates

List of tectonic plate interactions

Paleogeography

Plate tectonics

Notes

External links

The collision of India and Asia (90 mya — present), by Christopher R. Scotese, from the Paleomap Project. Retrieved December 28, 2004.

Magnitude 9.0 off W coast of northern Sumatra Sunday, December 26, 2004 at 00:58:49 UTC: Preliminary rupture model, from the U.S. Geological Survey. Retrieved December 22, 2009.

When and where did India and Asia collide?, by Jonathan C. Aitchison, Jason R. Ali and Aileen M. Davis. Retrieved March 12, 2011.

Category:Tectonic plates Category:Geology of India Category:Geology of Pakistan Category:Geology of the Indian Ocean

bn:ভারতীয় পাত ca:Placa índica cs:Indická deska da:Indiske Plade de:Indische Platte es:Placa Índica eo:Hindia plato fr:Plaque indienne ko:인도 판 hi:भारतीय तख़्ता it:Placca indiana he:הלוח ההודי sw:Bamba la Uhindi lv:Indijas plātne mr:भारतीय प्रस्तर nl:Indische Plaat ja:インドプレート pl:Płyta indyjska ru:Индостанская плита sk:Indická platňa fi:Intian laatta uk:Індостанська плита vi:Mảng Ấn Độ zh:印度板块

Coordinates	34°03′″N118°15′″N
name	Ashwin Batish
background	non_vocal_instrumentalist
born	Bombay, India
instruments	sitar, tabla, santoor, dilruba, singing
genre	Indian classical and Folk music
occupation	Musician
years active	1970 – present
label	Batish Records
associated acts	Keshav Batish, S D Batish, Meena Batish
website	Personal web pages for Ashwin Batish }}

Ashwin Kumar Batish Hindi: अशविन कुमार बातिश(born 1951 in Bombay, India) is a sitar and tabla player best known for rekindling interest in the sitar among young Indians.

Childhood and Training

A child prodigy, Ashwin would often sing with his sister Meena Batish at performances organized by his father, the composer, author, Bollywood playback singer and music director, Pandit Shiv Dayal Batish (Hindi: पन्डित षिव दयाल बातिश). His mother, Shrimati Shanta Devi Batish (Hindi: श्रिमति शान्ता देवी बातिश), was an All India Radio artist and is credited for starting young Ashwin on the dholak drum around the age of seven and on the sitar around the age of 12.

When Ashwin's father took him to see his friend Ashok, the son of the great music director and harmonium wizard Pandit Bhagatram (Hindi: पन्डित भगतराम), Ashwin fell in love with the sitar. Ashok was only 2 years older than Ashwin and seeing his friend perform made Ashwin think that he could too.

In 1964, Ashwin's father left India to visit one of his daughters in England. Ashwin turned to his mother and shared with her his secret wish to play the sitar. She bought him a student model sitar and started teaching him herself, as she had played the sitar when young. His mother had also presented him with some sitar albums by Ravi Shankar (Hindi: पन्डित रवि शन्कर). Ashwin would listen and copy all the songs to the best of his abilities. At the same time, he was also a great fan of the Beatles, Cliff Richards, Pat Boone and other pop singers of the 50's era. Ashwin wasted no time in whipping out the songs he heard from these Western artists.

It was when Ashwin joined his father in England at around age 14 that he started receiving training from him on the intricacies of North Indian classical music. Ashwin also started learning compositions in various ragas. His father would often sing and have Ashwin copy the musical phrases. He also taught Ashwin many songs based in various ragas he had studied with his Guruji Shri Chandan Ram Charan (Hindi: श्रि चन्दन राम चरन). By age 16, Ashwin had started to accompany his father on various programs. He also started getting calls to play for college nights for which a local tabla player would accompany him. One such memorable event was when he performed for an OXFAM benefit in England.

Soloing in front of a live audience, without his father by his side, made Ashwin realize how much more he needed to learn, and he became an earnest disciple of his father. Ashwin was put on a rigorous practice schedule. The cold English weather meant that there was only one warm room in the house where all his family would gather. To Ashwin's advantage and delight, his father would always give his playing the preference to the dismay of Ashwin's brothers and sisters. While his siblings strained to enjoy the British movies and serials on the TV, Ashwin started to show improvement in his playing. On one such day, Ashwin was practicing. When he stopped playing, there was silence in the room. All his family members were looking at him and he saw his siblings nodding and showing appreciation at what he had just played. Ashwin learnt from this experience and started to tune in to this new sense of expressive musical attraction. He fine-tuned this ability in his live performances.

Career

At 20, Ashwin found himself working full-time for a group of Chartered Accountants as an apprentice popularly known as an "articled clerk". When he turned up at the job in long hair and jeans, he was promptly pulled aside by his employers and given a lecture on attire. While Ashwin ignored these admonishments from his bosses and fellow clerks, despite threats of being given menial tasks if he did not comply, Ashwin was finding that being part of the workforce was in complete contrast to his lifestyle as a performer.

Ashwin is presently teaching Indian music at his music school in Santa Cruz, California. His website is sitarpower.com. Ashwin was one of the pioneers on the World Wide Web credited with some of the very first Indian music-related websites which he ran on the Gopher platform via the early University of California, Santa Cruz system . He also publishes an online magazine that is mostly educational in nature called RagaNet. It provides regular lessons on sitar, tabla, Dilruba, History of India music, etc. Articles on musical instruments of India are also a regular feature.

Although his training has been in North Indian classical music, Ashwin Batish has been equally at home with Western music often performing with jazz and rock musicians. His 80s fling with fusion music he self-titled Sitar Power was instrumental in garnering him serious airplay including a recording contract with Shanachie Records of New Jersey. He did not last long at Shanachie due to disappointing sales reports and lack of support. Ashwin soon formed his own record label, Batish Records to publish all his family's works.

Ashwin continues to be active in the field of Indian music and is currently teaching at the Batish Institute of Indian Music and Fine Arts in Santa Cruz. His father passing in the year 2006 dealt a severe blow to Ashwin's energies and after a long period of inactivity Ashwin has found a new direction. In remembrance and as a dedication to his father's memory and contribution to the music world, Ashwin has embarked upon a very special venture into broadcasting. This has given a voice to over 50 years of archived audio and video content. The web site www.ragmala.com - Ragmala Radio and Television Streams media, audio and video 24/7 providing a glimpse into the rich musical heritage of the Batish family. It is also intended to be highly educational in nature thus fulfilling the intent of Ashwin's father to help spread this wealth of musical knowledge to the rest of the world.

Ashwin has been actively spreading his brand of classical and fusion music by creating portals on social networks such as Myspace and Facebook. His music can be heard on the music portal called Reverbnation where his music is charting in the top 20 in the in the World Music category (as of date: 10/21/2010).

References

Category:1951 births Category:Living people Category:Sitar players Category:People from Santa Cruz, California Category:Tabla players

Coordinates	34°03′″N118°15′″N
Name	Yushu
Official name	Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture
Other name	ཡུལ་ཤུལ།
Native name	玉树
Settlement type	Autonomous prefectures
Total type
Translit lang1	Chinese
Translit lang1 type	Simplified
Translit lang1 info	玉树藏族自治州
Translit lang1 type1	Traditional
Translit lang1 info1	玉樹藏族自治州
Translit lang1 type2	Hanyu Pinyin
Translit lang1 info2	Yùshù Zàngzú Zìzhìzhōu
Translit lang2	Tibetan
Translit lang2 type	Tibetan script
Translit lang2 info	ཡུས་ཧྲུའུ་བོད་རིགས་རང་སྐྱོང་ཁུལ་
Translit lang2 type1	Wylie
Translit lang2 info1	yus hru'u bod-rigs rang-skyong-khul
Translit lang2 type2	Tibetan pinyin
Translit lang2 info2	Yüshu Poirig Ranggyong Kü
Map caption	Yushu Prefecture (yellow) within Qinghai province and the PRC
Dot x	|dot_y
Subdivision type	Country
Subdivision name	People's Republic of China
Subdivision type1	Province
Subdivision name1	Qinghai
Seat type	City seat
Parts style
Parts
P2
Leader title
Leader title1
Established title
Established title1
Established title2
Named for
Area magnitude
Unit pref
Area total km2
Area land km2
Area blank1 km2
Elevation footnotes
Elevation m	3689
Elevation min m
Population density km2	auto
Population density urban km2	auto
Population density blank1 km2
Timezone	China Standard
Utc offset	+8
Coordinates display	inline,title
Coordinates region	CN-63
Postal code type
Blank name
Blank1 name
Blank2 name	Licence Plate Prefix
Blank2 info	青G
Blank4 name
Blank5 name
Footnotes	}}

Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (; }}) is an autonomous prefecture of southwestern Qinghai province, Western China. Largely inhabited by Tibetans, the prefecture has an area of and its seat is located in the town of Gyêgu in Yushu County, which is the place of the old Tibetan trade mart of Jyekundo. The official source of the Yellow River lies within the prefecture. Historically, the area belongs to the cultural realm of Kham in eastern Tibet.

On 14 April 2010, an earthquake struck the prefecture, registering a magnitude of 6.9 (USGS, EMSC) or 7.1 (Xinhua). It originated in the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai, at local time.

Geography

Yushu Prefecture occupies most of the southwestern third of Qinghai, with the exception of the province's extreme southwestern corner (Tanggulashan Town), which is an exclave of the Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. Almost all of the prefecture is located in the uppermost part of the basins of three of Asia's great rivers - the Yellow River, the Yangtze, and the Mekong, although in the remote areas of the far west of the prefecture, and along its northern borders, there are some endorheic basins as well. A significant portion of the prefecture's territory is incorporated into the Sanjiangyuan National Nature Reserve, intended to protect the headwaters of the three great rivers.

Most of the prefecture's population lives in its southeastern part: primarily in the valley of the upper Yangtze (whose section within the prefecture is known in Chinese as the Tongtian River), and some also in the valley of the Mekong (the Zaqu (扎曲) River). The highlands away from these two rivers, as well as the western part of the prefecture, have very little population.

Climate

With elevations above , the prefecture has a harsh climate, with long, cold winters, and short, rainy, and cool to warm summers. Specifically, in the Köppen system, the prefecture ranges from the alpine variation of the subarctic climate (Köppen Dwc), to a full alpine climate (Köppen EH), to a semi-arid climate (Köppen BSk). Most of the annual precipitation occurs from June to September, when on average, a majority of the days each month has some rainfall. The annual mean temperature in Yushu County, at an elevation of , is and in Qumarlêb, in the northeast of the prefecture at elevation, . Sunshine is generous, ranging from around 2500 hours in the prefecture seat to 2780 hours in Qumarlêb.

Economy

Agricultural, trees, wheat, millet.

Population

Ethnic groups in Yushu, 2005 Yushu Statistical Yearbook:

Nationalities of China>Nationality	! Population	! Percentage
	288,829	97.25%
	7,594	2.56%
	295	0.1%
Monguor	138	<0.1%
	64	<0.1%
Mongol	50	<0.1%
Manchu	22	<0.01%
Others	12	<0.01%

This statistics only includes the registered population, not the floating population which is estimated at about 50-60,000 for the entire prefecture.

Subdivisions

The prefecture is subdivided into 6 county-level divisions: 6 counties:

Map
! #	! Name	! Hanzi	! Hanyu Pinyin	Tibet>Tibetan	Wylie transliteration>Wylie	! Population(2003 est.)	! Area (km²)	! Density(/km²)
1	Yushu County	玉树县	Yùshù Xiàn	ཡུལ་ཤུལ་རྫོང་།	yul shul rdzong	80,000	13,462	6
2	Zadoi County	杂多县	Záduō Xiàn	རྫ་སྟོད་རྫོང་།	rdza stod rdzong	40,000	33,333	1
3	Chindu County	称多县	Chēngduō Xiàn	ཁྲི་འདུ་རྫོང་།	khri 'du rdzong	40,000	13,793	3
4	Zhidoi County	治多县	Zhìduō Xiàn	འབྲི་སྟོད་རྫོང་།	'bri stod rdzong	20,000	66,667	<1
5	Nangqên County	囊谦县	Nángqiān Xiàn	ནང་ཆེན་རྫོང་།	nang chen rdzong	70,000	11,539	6
6	Qumarleb County	曲麻莱县	Qūmálái Xiàn	ཆུ་དམར་ལེབ་རྫོང་།	chu dmar leb rdzong	20,000	50,000	<1

Transportation

The eastern part of the prefecture, where most of its population lives, is served by the China National Highway 214 and the recently constructed (opened 2009) Yushu Batang Airport.

The far western part part of the prefecture, which is hundreds of kilometers away from the prefecture's eastern "core", and has very little population, is crossed by China National Highway 109 and the Qinghai-Tibet Railway.

History and traditional culture

Monasticism

Yushu prefecture is rich in Buddhist monasteries. Being a constituent of the former Nangchen kingdom, the area was, for most of the time, not under domination by the Dalai Lama’s Gelugpa order in Lhasa. The different balance of power in this part of Kham enabled the older Tibetan Buddhist orders to prevail in Yushu. Of the 195 pre-1958 lamaseries only 23 belonged to the Gelugpa.

An overwhelming majority of more than 100 monasteries followed and still follow the teachings of the various Kagyüpa schools, with some of their sub-sects only found in this part of Tibet. The Sakyapa were and are also strong in Yushu, with many of their 32 monasteries being among the most significant in Kham. The Nyingmapa’s monastic institutions amount to about the same number, while the Bönpo are only met with in one lamasery they share with the Nyingmapa.

Prior to collectivization in 1958, the entire monastic population of present-day Yushu TAP amounted to more than 25,000 Buddhist monks and nuns, with approximately 300 incarnate lamas among them. On the average about three to five per cent of the population were monastic, with a strikingly higher share in Nangqên county, where monks and nuns made up between 12 and 20 % of the community.

Notes

References

^[1] Yushu Zangzu Zizhizhou Tongjiju [Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture Statistics Bureau]: Yushu Tongjiju Nianjian 2005 [Yushu Statistical Yearbook 2005], Yushu 2006

A. Gruschke: The Cultural Monuments of Tibet’s Outer Provinces: Kham. Vol. 2 - The Yushu Part of Kham, Bangkok 2005 ISBN 974-480-049-6

External links

The East Tibet Website

Nangchen historic area

Yushu Tibet Autonomous Prefecture

Official Website of the Yushu Tibet Autonomous Prefecture (in Chinese)

Category:Prefectures of Tibet Category:Qinghai Category:Autonomous prefectures of the People's Republic of China Category:Amdo

ar:ولاية يوشو التبتية ذاتية الحكم bo:ཡུས་ཧྲུའུ་བོད་རིགས་རང་སྐྱོང་ཁུལ་ cs:Jü-šu da:Yushu (Qinghai) de:Yushu es:Prefectura autónoma tibetana de Yushu eu:Yushu Tibetar Prefektura autonomoa fr:Préfecture autonome tibétaine de Yushu ko:위수 티베트족 자치주 ms:Wilayah Autonomi Tibet Yushu nl:Yushu (autonome Tibetaanse prefectuur) ja:玉樹チベット族自治州 no:Yushu (Qinghai) pl:Yushu (prefektura autonomiczna) ru:Юйшу-Тибетский автономный округ sv:Yushu vi:Ngọc Thụ zh:玉树藏族自治州

In a similar fashion to the former Soviet Union's titular nations, a number of areas associated with one or more ethnic minorities are designated as autonomous within the People's Republic of China (PRC). These areas are recognized in the PRC's constitution and are nominally given a number of rights not accorded to other administrative divisions. The actual degree of autonomy of such regions is questioned. This is because their authority rests with the Constitution and the Law on Regional Autonomy, requiring leaders to seek prior approval from the National People's Congress (NPC) to pass legislation. This is not true for other provinces, which can pass legislation without such prior approval. For this reason, it has been contended that Autonomous regions are in fact "less autonomous."

The PRC's autonomous regions may be found in the first (or top) to third levels of its national administrative divisions thus:

自治州 自治县 >自治旗

Level		province (1)	[[Autonomous regions of China">Chinese language
align="right"	province (1)	[[Autonomous regions of China	自治区	zìzhìqū
align="right"	prefecture (2)	Autonomous prefectures of China	|	zìzhìzhōu	30
rowspan="2" align="right"	county (3)	Autonomous counties of China	|	zìzhìxiàn	117
	|	zìzhìqí	3

Although not named as autonomous areas, some third-level settlements and areas that are identified as county-level cities and county-level districts enjoy the same autonomy as autonomous areas. At the fourth ("township") level, 1 ethnic sumu (the Evenk Ethnic Sumu) and over 270 ethnic townships also exist, but are not considered to be autonomous and do not enjoy the laws pertaining to the larger ethnic autonomous areas.

As these autonomous areas were created by the PRC, they are not recognised by the Republic of China on Taiwan which ruled Mainland China before the PRC's creation.

Nomenclature

The names of most of the PRC's autonomous areas are made from linking together:

the name of a geographical area;

the name or names of the predominant ethnic minority or minorities;

the word "Autonomous";

a type of administrative division.

For instance: {| style=text-align:center |- style="font-size:90%; text-align=left;" !width=50px| Level !! Geographical area !! + !! Ethnic name/s !! + !! "Autonomous" !! + !! Admin. division !! = !style=text-align:left| Result |- | 1 || Guangxi || || Zhuang || || Autonomous || || Region || |align=left| Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region |- | 2 || Dehong || || Dai & Jingpo || || Autonomous || || Prefecture || |align=left| Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture |- | 3 || Shizhu || || Tujia || || Autonomous || || County || |align=left| Shizhu Tujia Autonomous County |- | 3 || Evenk || || Evenks || || Autonomous || || Banner || |align=left| Evenk Autonomous Banner |} In the Chinese name of the administrative area, the nationality name is always suffixed with -族 ("nationality"), unless both of the following conditions apply: the division is found in Xinjiang (or is Xinjiang); the nationality name consists of more than one syllable. This distinction is not reflected in translation into English.

Some autonomous areas have more than one specified minority, which tend to be listed in the name of the prefecture, creating rather long names. Two autonomous counties simply use "Various Nationalities" in their names as placeholders, rather than listing out all of their designated ethnicities:

{|class="wikitable" style="margin:auto;" width="90%" |- ! Full name !! Geographical !! Nationality !! Administrative |- | Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture || Enshi || Tujia and Miao || Autonomous Prefecture |- | Shuangjiang Lahu, Va, Blang and Dai Autonomous County || Shuangjiang || Lahu, Va, Blang and Dai || Autonomous County |- | Longlin Various Nationalities Autonomous County || Longlin || Various Nationalities (Miao, Yi and Gelao) || Autonomous County |- | Longsheng Various Nationalities Autonomous County || Longsheng || Various Nationalities (Dong, Yao, Miao) || Autonomous County |}

A few autonomous areas break the regular nomenclature pattern, because the name of the nationality is already contained within the geographical name, or because there is no geographical name:

Inner Mongolia — — —

Full name !! Geographical !! Nationality !! Administrative
Tibet Autonomous Region	Tibet	Tibetan people>Tibetan)
Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region	|	Ethnic Mongols in China>Mongol)	Autonomous Region
Dongxiang Autonomous County	|	Dongxiang people>Dongxiang	Autonomous County
Evenki Autonomous Banner	|	Evenks	Autonomous Banner
Oroqin Autonomous Banner	|	Oroqin	Autonomous Banner

Legal basis

Autonomous regions, prefectures, counties, and banners are covered under Section 6 of Chapter 3 (Articles 111-122) of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, and with more detail under the Law of the People's Republic of China on Regional National Autonomy (《中华人民共和国民族区域自治法》). The constitution states that the head of government of each autonomous areas must be of the ethnic group as specified by the autonomous area (Tibetan, Uyghur, etc). The constitution also guarantees a range of rights including: independence of finance, independence of economic planning, independence of arts, science and culture, organization of local police, and use of local language. In addition, the head of government of each autonomous region is known as a "chairman", unlike provinces, where they are known as "governors".

Demographics

Of the five autonomous regions, only Tibet has an absolute majority (>50%) of the designated ethnic group, namely, the Tibetans. Xinjiang has a plurality (<50%) of the designated ethnic group, the Uyghurs, though this is disputed by Uyghur independence advocates, who claim that the Han Chinese population in Xinjiang has been severely understated. The remaining 3 autonomous regions have absolute majorities of Han Chinese, the majority ethnicity of China.

History

Autonomous regions, prefectures, counties, and banners were established after communist takeover, following Soviet practice. At first, the nomenclature of these autonomous areas were somewhat confused, with autonomous regions appearing at the province, prefecture, county, and township levels. Eventually the nomenclature was standardized to the conventions used today.

The first autonomous region to be established was Inner Mongolia, created within communist-held territory in 1947, two years before the establishment of the People's Republic. Xinjiang was converted from a province to an autonomous region in 1955. Guangxi and Ningxia followed in 1957, and Tibet Autonomous Region was formally established in 1965.

References

Category:Administrative divisions of the People's Republic of China Category:Autonomous country subdivisions

bg:Автономни региони в КНР de:Autonome Verwaltungseinheiten Chinas et:Hiina autonoomsed haldusüksused nl:Autonome gebieden van China pt:Áreas autónomas da China ru:Автономные районы КНР zh:民族自治地方