Dard people

The Dard people are an ethnic group found predominantly in northern Pakistan, north west India, and eastern Afghanistan. They speak the Indo-Aryan Dardic languages. The largest populations are in Gilgit–Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan and in Kashmir, India. There are smaller populations in Ladakh, India and eastern Afghanistan. The Kashmiri people are the largest group, with over 5.5 million members.

History

Parpola (1999, p. 189) identifies "Proto-Dardic" with "Proto-Rigvedic", suggesting that the Dards are the linguistic descendants of the bearers of proto Rigvedic culture ca. 1700 BC, pointing to features in certain Dardic dialects that continue peculiarities of Rigvedic Sanskrit, such as the gerund in -tvī.

Herodotus (III. 102–105) was the first author to refer to Dards (calling them "Dadikai"), placing their location between Kashmir and Afghanistan.

During Swati rule, the Dard people predominantly followed the Kalash religion and frequent small-scale jihad against Dards may have been a routine.

Mantra

Om Śhānti (IAST).

"Mantra" (/ˈmæntrə, ˈmɑːn-, ˈmʌn-/ (Sanskrit: मंत्र);) means a sacred utterance, numinous sound, or a syllable, word, phonemes, or group of words believed by practioners to have psychological and spiritual power in Sanskrit. A mantra may or may not have syntactic structure or literal meaning; the spiritual value of a mantra comes when it is audible, visible, or present in thought.

The earliest mantras were composed in Vedic times by Hindus in India, and those are at least 3000 years old. Mantras are now found in various schools of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Similar hymns, chants, compositions and concepts are found in Zoroastrianism,Taoism, Christianity, and elsewhere.

The use, structure, function, importance, and types of mantras vary according to the school and philosophy of Hinduism and of Buddhism. Mantras serve a central role in tantra. In this school, mantras are considered equivalent to deities, a sacred formula and deeply personal ritual, and considered to be effective only after initiation. However, in other schools of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism or Sikhism, initiation is not a requirement.

Dard

The River Dard is a short (2.1 km) tributary of the River Seille in the department of Jura in France. The Dard rises in the steephead valley known as the Reculée de Baume, and flows through the valley to the village of Baume-les-Messieurs, where it joins the Seille. At its source there is a notable series of caves, which can be visited.

References

Subscription business model

The subscription business model is a business model where a customer must pay a subscription price to have access to the product/service. The model was pioneered by magazines and newspapers, but is now used by many businesses and websites.

Rather than selling products individually, a subscription sells periodic (monthly or yearly or seasonal) use or access to a product or service, or, in the case of such non-profit organizations as opera companies or symphony orchestras, it sells tickets to the entire run of five to fifteen scheduled performances for an entire season. Thus, a one-time sale of a product can become a recurring sale and can build brand loyalty. It is used for anything where a user is tracked in both a subscribed and unsubscribed status.

Membership fees to some types of organizations, such as trade unions, are also known as subscriptions.

Industries that use this model include mail order book sales clubs and music sales clubs, cable television, satellite television providers with pay-TV channels, satellite radio, telephone companies, cell phone companies, internet providers, software providers, websites (e.g., blogging websites), business solutions providers, financial services firms, fitness clubs, lawn mowing and snowplowing services and pharmaceuticals, as well as the traditional newspapers, magazines and academic journals.

Om Shanti Om

Om Shanti Om is a 2007 Indian fantasy romantic thriller comedy film co written, choreographed and directed by Farah Khan. It stars Shah Rukh Khan and debutant Deepika Padukone in the lead roles while Arjun Rampal, Shreyas Talpade, and Kirron Kher feature in supporting roles. More than forty-two well-known Hindi movie stars appear in the course of the film, including thirty of them (not including the stars of the film) in one song alone. The film is set in the 1970s and 2000s; it pays tribute to, and pokes fun at, the Indian film industry of both these eras.

The film was released in 2,000 prints worldwide making it the largest Indian cinematic release at the time.Om Shanti Om was released on 9 November 2007 to mostly positive reviews from critics and record-breaking box office collections. It grossed ₹1.50 billion worldwide and thus became the highest-grossing Hindi film at the time of its release.

Plot