How To Prepare For IBPS Clerk Exam

How To Prepare For IBPS Clerk Recruitment Exam 

IBPS is all set to announce IBPS Recruitment . Under the IBPS Recruitment , IBPS will invite
applications for the IBPS Common entrance exam  for PO, Clerk and Specialist Officers. Students
preparing for these exams should make sure that the study material and the way of preparing for
this exam is right.

Many students are not getting the jobs in banking sector because of sectional cut-off. Some students
are good at aptitude but not in English which will result in the difficulty to get shortlisted. So for
clearing the exam students need to prepare for all sections. Then only it is possible to get your
dream job in one of the 19 banks.

Preparing for Numerical Ability for IBPS Clerk Recruitment exam

A few difficult topics included in numerical ability section are Time and Work, Time and
Distance, Problems on train, Profit and loss, Ages and Percentages.

To solve the problems in this section you need to work on skills like
1. Quick/speed maths
2. Basic concepts
3. Shortcuts in multiplications
4. Short tricks in each and every topic
5. Logical thinking
6. Finding the right answer from multiple options, without solving the problem

Preparing for Reasoning for IBPS Clerk Recruitment exam

A few topics included in reasoning section are Blood relations, Directions, Coding Decoding,
Analytical reasoning, Series, Critical reasoning, Cubes, Data interpretation, Data Sufficiency etc.

Tips to prepare for Reasoning:
1. Think different ways while solving the problem.
2. Don’t take more than 45 minutes to solve this section.
3. If you get stuck on one question , move on to the other
4. Think logically
5. Try to answer some (for qualifying) questions only in this section.

Preparing for English for IBPS Clerk Recruitment exam :

When you know the basic Grammar and can do speed reading, you will not find the section tough.
Most of the students will get qualify in this section, who know the language and where to use words

in sentence, and to rectify the wrong words in sentence.
Important topics for English section in IBPS clerk exam are: English grammar, Comprehension,
Vocabulary and Sentence correction.
To prepare for this section Learn 10-15 synonyms/ antonyms per day. Also read one English
newspaper every day, improve fast reading as it will help you in passages.

Preparing for Computers for IBPS Clerk Recruitment exam

80% of the students will qualify in this section. In this section questions are related to basic
knowledge, testing of computer, internet banking etc.
Read about invention of computer, history of computers. It can be important for IBPS clerk exam.
Topics that need to be concentrated on for preparing for this section are:
Basics, Automation, Computers, Memories, Booting, Desktop, MS-Office, MS-Excel, MS-Access, MS-
Power point, Networks, Network Topology etc.

Preparing for General Knowledge for IBPS Clerk Recruitment exam

1. Read English newspaper daily.
2. Go through yearbooks to get a concise picture of the happenings in all fields.
3. Keep it in mind that general awareness and current affairs section cannot be prepared
overnight, so keep a track of current events by reading newspapers, media, internet etc.
4. Make notes of the daily news headlines so that it’s easier to revise later on.
5. Keep a note of the personalities in news from both in India and world affairs.

Asaram Bapu sexual assault case (India)

The Rajasthan High Court today deferred till September 18 the hearing on the bail petition of self-styled
godman Asaram Bapu, who is in jail for allegedly sexually assaulting a teenage girl.
The high court, which started the hearing of the case today, also directed the prosecution to produce the case diary at the next hearing.
In a jam-packed court room, senior advocate Ram Jethmalani, representing Asaram, argued that the first information report or FIR, the age of the girl as well as the entire case was fabricated.
Mr Jethmalani also mentioned that the girl was suffering from a chronic disease "which draws a woman to a man", and said this was subject to police investigation.
After the completion of arguments by the defence, Justice Nirmal Jeet Kaur deferred the proceedings till September 18 and directed the prosecution to put up the case diary in the court on the next date.
Pradhyumn Singh, one of the prosecution counsel, said that since the defence had completed its arguments today, the prosecution would carry out its arguments on the next hearing.
He said that there were two case diaries, one each of the investigations at Asaram's ashrams in Chhindwara and Ahmedabad, and that both would be produced before the court as per its directives.
Meanwhile, the spiritual guru and his aide Shiva appeared before the District and Sessions' Court today, which extended their judicial custody till September 30.
During their appearance, Asaram personally requested the judge to accept his request of allowing his personal doctor to treat his "chronic neurological disease", which he refers to as "trinadi shool".
When asked about the disease, he told the judge that it is a disorder which deprives him of a sound sleep.
Judge Manoj Kumar Vyas, however, refused to consider the plea in the absence of the defence counsel.
A fresh case of sexual assault has been registered against spiritual leader Asaram Bapu, who is in jail on similar charges. The complaint lodged by two sisters in Surat also names Asaram's son Narayan Sai.
The elder of the two sisters has alleged in her complaint that she was raped by Asaram at his Ahmedabad ashram; the younger sister has accused Narayan Sai of raping her in Surat. They say they are Asaram's followers and the incidents took place between 2002 and 2004.
 The complaint against Narayan Sai has been registered at Jhangirpura police station in Surat, while the one against his father Asaram has been transferred to Ahmedabad as the alleged incident happened there, Surat Police Commissioner Rakesh Asthana said.
The police will question Narayan Sai in connection with the complaint shortly, he said.
Asaram, 75, was arrested in August on charges of sexually assaulting a schoolgirl and has been in prison in Jodhpur in Rajasthan since then. Shilpi, one of his key aides and the warden of Asaram's 'ashram' in Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh where the alleged sexual assault took place, too has been arrested and sent to judicial custody.
In court, investigators alleged that the spiritual leader has paedophilia.
But Asaram's famous lawyer, Ram Jethmalani, alleged that the teen complainant is not under-age or younger than 18, and that she made up the charges because she likes to spend time online and watch movies and was restricted in both activities at the boarding school where she was enrolled at one of Asaram Bapu's ashrams in Madhya Pradesh.
In August, she travelled with her parents to meet him at his retreat in Jodhpur.  She has told the police that she then spent an hour with him in a room, while her parents waited outside.  He allegedly promised her family that he would exorcise her of evil spirits.
On August 31, a police posse from Jodhpur arrested Asaram Bapu on charges of raping the 16-year-old daughter of a Shahjahanpur (Uttar Pradesh) couple who had been his devotees for years. He now awaits his fate in a cell at the Central Jail at Jodhpur. Allegations of earlier sexual misdemeanours, macabre tantric rituals, murder, intimidation and land grabbing have also resurfaced, tightening the noose around India's most controversial godman.
Asaram's followers seem just as driven as al Qaeda's intent-on-suicide jihadists, equally unquestioning, even prepared to die for the man they see as their saviour. "I am not afraid of going to jail or dying for Bapu," says Yogesh, 32. The lean sadhak, who was barely 18 and wanted to join the Indian Army but instead enlisted with "Bapuji ki fauj (Bapu's army)", is convinced Asaram is his only salvation. "Sitaaron se aage bhi kuchh hai (There is something more beyond the stars)," he says, evidently unbelieving of the rape charge that landed his 'god' in jail.

Yogesh is among seven of Asaram's closest followers accused of a role in the July 2008 deaths of two 10-year-old cousins. Abhishek and Dipesh, students of the gurukul at the godman's central ashram in Motera village outside Ahmedabad, were sons of two poor stone masons, Shantibhai and Praful Vaghela. A report submitted by the D.K. Trivedi Commission, notified by the Narendra Modi government in August 2008 to probe allegations that the boys were killed in tantric rituals, is being withheld.

His capacity to draw large gatherings at satsangs and his constantly swelling flock had, in time, politicians of all hues falling over each other to associate with Asaram. "He's as clever as they come for a man who has hardly had any formal schooling," says Amrut Prajapati, 54, who served as Asaram's personal vaid (ayurvedic physician) for 16 years. He says Asaram "can summon 50,000 people by simply snapping his fingers".
Ahead of the Assembly elections that first delivered him to the Gujarat chief minister's office in October 2001, Narendra Modi kick-started his poll campaign by sharing Asaram's stage and crowd. In the years that followed, the godman's entourage of politicians became a veritable galaxy including men and women like former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L.K. Advani, Uma Bharti, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, former president K.R. Narayanan, Union ministers Kamal Nath and Kapil Sibal, H.D. Deve Gowda and Raghuvansh Prasad Singh. George Fernandes and Farooq Abdullah also took their turn to pay obeisance.
Even after Modi curtailed his association following public outrage over the killing of the Vaghela cousins in July 2008, many of his party colleagues continued to cultivate Asaram. In December 2012, when the godman survived a helicopter crash in Godhra, bjp President Rajnath Singh promptly attributed the 'miracle' to the godman's "divine powers".
D.G. Vanzara, the suspended Gujarat Police deputy inspector general (DIG) currently in jail facing trial for four allegedly fake encounters, is widely believed to have helped Asaram expand his influence amid politicians and bureaucrats. "Vanzara was invariably at the Motera ashram during Guru Purnima, always escorting someone big," says a senior Ahmedabad journalist, adding that the godman milked his proximity to the powerful police officer to pre-empt police action against his own people in the most brazen instances of land grabbing. Whispers in Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad following Asaram's recent arrest allege "the godman and the cop were in cahoots".

Shantibhai and Praful Vaghela are convinced that Asaram and his men continued to influence the police long after the DIG was jailed in 2007 and prevented criminal action even after their sons' gouged-out corpses were recovered from the Sabarmati riverbed only a few hundred metres from the Motera ashram.

For a man who aspired to play god, Asaram seems given to base pursuits and creature comforts that most ordinary mortals would be embarrassed about. Prajapati, who gained access to the godman's innermost sanctums after he helped him recover from a severe bout of malaria in 1999, describes Asaram's 'shanti kutir' (peace hut) or 'dhyan ki kutiya' (meditation hut) from the first time he was summoned to attend to the ailing godman. "Asaram sprawled across an oversized bed, completely out of his wits," he recalls. But more than his patient, he remembers the opulence of his quarters "with uninterrupted air conditioning, an ultra-luxurious attached bathroom and even a dehumidifier" that kept air moisture levels bearable during the soggiest monsoons. Other than this, says the ayurvedic doctor, Asaram's rooms at most of his ashrams seemed almost spartan: Bare, cream coloured walls without picture frames, "not even his own portraits, the kind splashed across the rest of the ashram".
D.G. Vanzara, the suspended Gujarat Police deputy inspector general (DIG) currently in jail facing trial for four allegedly fake encounters, is widely believed to have helped Asaram expand his influence amid politicians and bureaucrats. "Vanzara was invariably at the Motera ashram during Guru Purnima, always escorting someone big," says a senior Ahmedabad journalist, adding that the godman milked his proximity to the powerful police officer to pre-empt police action against his own people in the most brazen instances of land grabbing. Whispers in Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad following Asaram's recent arrest allege "the godman and the cop were in cahoots".

Shantibhai and Praful Vaghela are convinced that Asaram and his men continued to influence the police long after the DIG was jailed in 2007 and prevented criminal action even after their sons' gouged-out corpses were recovered from the Sabarmati riverbed only a few hundred metres from the Motera ashram.

For a man who aspired to play god, Asaram seems given to base pursuits and creature comforts that most ordinary mortals would be embarrassed about. Prajapati, who gained access to the godman's innermost sanctums after he helped him recover from a severe bout of malaria in 1999, describes Asaram's 'shanti kutir' (peace hut) or 'dhyan ki kutiya' (meditation hut) from the first time he was summoned to attend to the ailing godman. "Asaram sprawled across an oversized bed, completely out of his wits," he recalls. But more than his patient, he remembers the opulence of his quarters "with uninterrupted air conditioning, an ultra-luxurious attached bathroom and even a dehumidifier" that kept air moisture levels bearable during the soggiest monsoons. Other than this, says the ayurvedic doctor, Asaram's rooms at most of his ashrams seemed almost spartan: Bare, cream coloured walls without picture frames, "not even his own portraits, the kind splashed across the rest of the ashram".
When he first began treatment in 1999, Prajapati says Asaram's essential afflictions included high cholesterol levels, an overactive thyroid gland and obesity. "Rakshas jaisa chehra tha (He had the face of a demon)," says the man who once worshipped Asaram as a god. On hindsight, he sees a "debauched person who could not do without three-hour massages and long baths in rose-scented water with saffron-infused soaps".

But what eventually drove men like Prajapati, Raju Chandak (a former ashram manager), his own son-in-law Hemant Bulani, former man Friday Dinesh Bhagchandani and scores of other once-committed followers away from Asaram's mesmerising gridlock was their discovery of his irrepressible weakness for young women. Something that has now landed the godman in jail on charges of forcing himself on a minor girl.

Fifty-two-year-old Sudha Patel, who became a part of Asaram's flock at the Motera ashram in 1986, says she was forced to flee a decade later. "It was no longer an ashram, a place where one could seek god," she says recounting sordid details of how two young women codenamed 'dehl' (peahen in Gujarati) and 'bungalow' would act as spotters, constantly scoping out congregations for young women. Their cue, she says, was when the godman threw a fruit or piece of candy, at a girl he fancied amid his devotees.

"It was a simple and practiced routine," says Sudha. "The spotters and older sadhikas convinced the girl's parents that their daughter had been blessed. They cajoled them to take her to Asaram's kutir where he would perform anusthaan (special puja) especially for her."

Sudha and Prajapati, however, admit that there was seldom any coercion. "Most girls and families believed they were blessed. After all, their 'god' had chosen them. He was 'Krishna' and they would be his 'gopis'," says Prajapati, recalling instances where he was witness to arguments over who would go into Asaram's kutir on a particular day.

Sudha, who earns a meagre living selling ayurvedic medicines in Ahmedabad, says she is among a handful of women of the Motera ashram who survived despite spurning the godman. She claims Asaram had openly offered to reward anyone who could bring her around. "He would often announce during the satsangs-'jo Sudha ko sudhaar ke dikhawe, use ek lakh rupaye inaam doonga' (whoever reforms Sudha will be rewarded with Rs.1 lakh)," she says.
Despondency is plainly evident at the Motera ashram. Attendance has visibly thinned. "Wahan par koi nahi hai. Bapu ko to police pakad kar le gayi (There is nobody there the police have taken Asaram away)," an autorickshaw driver at the end of the road leading to the ashram informs you. He is trying to be helpful but gives you the distinct impression that he knew this would happen.

Behind zealously guarded perimeter walls is a profusely green oasis of peepul, neem and banyan trees growing around the ashram buildings with walls peppered with larger-than-life images of Asaram and excerpts from his 'teachings'. Not far below the spot where followers say Asaram first sat down to meditate 42 years ago, the Sabarmati quietly flows towards another not-so-controversial and humble-in-comparison ashram-the Mahatama Gandhi memorial.
The decidedly sparse sprinkling of followers still battling to keep their faith belies his claim. Two youngsters, dressed in the signature white kafnis (short kurtas) and dhotis chant monotonously. Close by, a couple sits before a smoking havan with folded hands. They are all praying for only one thing-Asaram's release from jail.

"Moorkh (Fools)," Prajapati says of people who continue to blindly pursue their faith in Asaram despite repeated exposure of his true face.

On January 7, amid the raging storm over the brutal gang rape of a physiotherapy student in south Delhi on December 16, Asaram declared the victim was as guilty as her attackers. "The girl should have called the culprits her brothers and begged them to stop this could have saved her life," he stated, adding to the outrage.

Would Asaram have relented if the 16-year-old he is accused of raping had addressed him as brother? "Not a chance," says Prajapati, "he would not have backed off even if she had called him 'father'. He insists he is god and everything he does is an 'act of god'."

Thanks..

American Culture with India...

most of the people in America tend to work only 8 hours a day. Typically, they work from 8 AM to 4:30 PM or early. It is common to take 30 min lunch break. Some eat at desk and some just grab a quick lunch.  When it comes to importance of work, people consider work as just work and not LIFE.  With few exceptions, they do not worry about work after they go home or even work on weekends doing work. It is just way the culture is…Work is just part of life and NOT life…As per ethics, most people tend to have good work ethic, they work when supposed to work and get their job done on time. Deadlines are critical part, you should never miss any deadlines…being on time is important.

Unlike in India as I talk to my cousins,  friends, juniors working in IT, they go to work at 9 AM or so and come home at 9 PM. Most of them stay at work for 12 hrs. It is not necessarily working for 12hrs…there is a difference…people take long lunches, tea breaks, other breaks….The reality is, because most of the software engineers are single, they tend to stay at work….but as life progresses and you become senior and become manager, you may come home a little early… People work late hours, they sometime work on weekends…Unfortunately, Work is viewed as the thing in Life trying to succeed and get promotion or anything like that…There is nothing wrong with it…it is just the culture that shapes the environment….work ethic is more relaxed, you just work long hours and spread it over….deadlines are important, but people tend to negotiate with boss, being on time is important, but not strictly followed….These are just some differences and constantly changing as east is adopting west.
Lets do math here, 1/3rd ( 8 hrs) of your life is tied to work and if you are young and living in India and working in IT, then your life is tied more than that it is almost 50% more  ( 8 + 4 hrs)  than what you would spend in US.  Although, east is embracing west and we are trying to adapt many things, still the differences remain.  Unless you are in a big managerial role and be able to work flexible hours, India is a questionable choice in this aspect…think about it logically, so much of your productive time in productive years of your life (22 – 32 or so) is just spent at work or doing work….I personally think you can do so may creative things and have fun in life if you live in US during these years. Unless you get flexible hours and have an option to work only 8 hrs a day, it is not a great choice to move to India from work perspective …. I hope that things will change in India as time progresses …but for now, this is how it looks.

Many thousands of years before Christopher Columbus’ ships landed in the Bahamas, a different group of people discovered America: the nomadic ancestors of modern Native Americans who hiked over a “land bridge” from Asia to what is now Alaska more than 12,000 years ago. In fact, by the time European adventurers arrived in the 15th century A.D., scholars estimate that more than 50 million people were already living in the Americas. Of these, some 10 million lived in the area that would become the United States. As time passed, these migrants and their descendants pushed south and east, adapting as they went. In order to keep track of these diverse groups, anthropologists and geographers have divided them into “culture areas,” or rough groupings of contiguous peoples who shared similar habitats and characteristics. Most scholars break North America—excluding present-day Mexico—into 10 separate culture areas: the Arctic, the Subarctic, the Northeast, the Southeast, the Plains, the Southwest, the Great Basin, California, the Northwest Coast and the Plateau.
Writing in 1782, J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur tried to define "the American, this new man." He was, Crèvecoeur argued, "neither a European nor a descendant of a European" but an "American, who, leaving behind all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds." Crèvecoeur presumed that America was a melting pot, that the environment created a homogeneous American culture, with similar values, beliefs, and social practices. Such cultural uniformity is inherently plausible. After all, most white colonial Americans worked the soil, enjoying the fruits of their labor, and practiced similar Protestant faiths. Moreover, they believed in private ownership of the means of production by individual cultivators. Generations of scholars, following the lead of Frederick Jackson Turner in the early twentieth century, argued that free and open land on the frontier created an American people whose identity was shaped by the independence land ownership provided and whose ideology was characterized by individualism, democracy, and equality of opportunity.

Colonial cultures, however, were far less uniform than Crèvecoeur imagined. The women and men who peopled early America--Native Americans, Africans, East Anglians, Welsh, Germans, Dutch, among many others--invented conflicting popular cultures, meshing the beliefs and practices of their birthplaces with the demands of the American environment and the cultures of their neighbors. Indians and Africans, a substantial part of the colonial population, have been ignored in models of cultural uniformity. Even white Protestant immigrants created diverse cultures. While sharing a common religious vision, Puritans and Anglicans, Baptists and Quakers, differed vehemently in the particulars of their faiths. In America, without the pressure of a strong Anglican established church, the particularities of each group were accentuated. By the end of the seventeenth century, the main lines of most of American popular cultures could be clearly seen.

Notwithstanding continuing cultural differences among ethnic groups, there was some cultural convergence in the eighteenth century, a tendency for division among white colonists between a popular culture of the vast majority and a high culture of the ruling few who emulated their peers in England. Such cultural convergence within social classes had several sources. Waves of evangelical revivalism touched every colony at different times between the 1730s and 1780s, democratizing and personalizing religion, Christianizing the unchurched everywhere. Newly rich merchants, great planters, and lawyers received similar educations, built mansions in the English manner, and indulged in conspicuous consumption far beyond the reach of middling farmers.

The development of vernacular cultures in the colonial era depended upon two contrasting geographic facts: widely dispersed settlement and concentrated ethnic enclaves. Even on the eve of independence, most Americans--Indians and settlers alike--lived in isolated farm neighborhoods or villages, separated from neighbors a few miles away by almost impenetrable forests. Most were surrounded by people like themselves: Iroquois lived with Iroquois, Germans settled in Pennsylvania villages, East Anglians dominated many New England towns. Under such circumstances, contrasting popular cultures could flourish. An examination of three cultural indicators--forms of agriculture, patterns of social order, and family and gender mores--before colonization and after American settlement among Indians, New Englanders, white Virginians, and backcountry residents will suggest the ways that the interplay of received culture and environment made new popular cultures. Such an analysis, however, hardly exhausts the diversity of cultures in early America, ignoring, for example, African-Americans in the Chesapeake colonies and coastal South Carolina; Quakers, Dutch, and Scots in the Middle Colonies, and various Germanic ethnic groups. Moreover, there were class conflicts in all the seventeenth-century colonies that common regional cultures did little to hide.
Despite extraordinary differences among groups of Native Americans, they shared some general cultural similarities. Indians insisted upon communal ownership and sovereignty over land; temporary "ownership" came with use. Eastern Woodland Indians, with the exception of those living in the far Northeast, practiced subsistence agriculture, growing corn and vegetables to feed themselves, using extensive slash-and-burn techniques. Each year, men burned stubble and underbrush; then women did the planting, hoeing, and harvesting of crops. The work of women provided the vast majority of the food the tribes ate. Although they sometimes paid corn as tribute to chiefs, there was minimal exchange of agricultural goods beyond the community. While women farmed and cared for children, men hunted or went to war. Men killed animals for meat and skins (for clothing) for the community as well as pelts to trade with whites. Indians maintained social order through governance by tribal elders; although men made most decisions about war and peace, women participated in some tribes, such as the Iroquois. But white settlement profoundly affected Indian cultures. Indians traded with the first colonists, exchanging furs and corn for iron goods and cloth. As settlers farmed land, chasing animals away, and as they conquered the Indians' lands, Native Americans either had to move west to preserve their cultures or accommodate to the market economies and male agriculture of the whites.

English colonists left East Anglia in the 1630s for New England to escape depression in the cloth trade and to create a covenanted society free from Anglican persecution. Mostly middling textile workers and farmers, they traveled in family groups. Once in New England, communal leaders readily formed communities and distributed land confiscated from Indians among the inhabitants by social rank, holding some land in common for future generations. Communal land thereby became private property, a pattern very different from that of Indians. After all the land had been distributed, those without left to found new communities. Using family labor, New England farmers grew crops for subsistence, trading small surpluses at local markets to pay for taxes and consumer goods. They devised a complex system of local exchange of labor and goods between area families. These exchanges were predicated upon a division of labor in which men farmed and governed while wom- en--considered subservient--gardened, cared for children, and acted as deputy husbands when their spouses were away. A strong sense of order pervaded the society: mutual obligations were expected to tie parents and children together, and when they overstepped communal norms, they faced discipline from church or town; disreputable outsiders were forced to leave the community.

English immigrants to the Chesapeake region in the mid-seventeenth century left highly stratified societies in London and the south of England to find greater economic opportunities. The migrants, mostly poor agricultural and urban wage laborers, had worked in London or Bristol or on large rural estates, producing grain for the market. Three-quarters of them, almost all men, came as indentured servants; once they arrived they cultivated tobacco for English markets and corn for subsistence. Everyone, free and servant, male and female, performed agricultural labor. After initial distribution of land by grant, sale, and headrights (acreage given for every adult brought to the colony), a capitalist land market developed. Despite the original widespread ownership of land, Chesapeake gentlemen soon built vast estates, which they populated with servants and (later) slaves. Given the high death rate and the relatively late age of marriage in the region (servants could not marry until they were free), widows, orphans, and complex families with step- and half-siblings became common, breaking down patriarchal authority in the family, and allowing orphans' courts to replace the father.

When slaves began to replace servants as laborers in the tobacco fields after 1680, Chesapeake culture was transformed. With more laborers, white women no longer had to cultivate tobacco; and with increasing life expectancy and lower ages of marriage among whites, male patriarchal authority increased. Africans, and especially their descendants, created their own culture with African and European elements, forming complex cross-plantation communities and intense extended families in the slave quarters. Within this bicultural society, with its strict class and racial boundaries, gentlemen gained political hegemony, insisting upon the liberty to rule others--their slaves, servants, families, and white social inferiors. Acquiescing in gentry rule, poorer planters expected occasional credit from gentlemen and legal support for their dominance over their own families.

The last major group of European migrants during the colonial era came from Scotland, Ulster, and the north of England during the middle half of the eighteenth century and moved to the back parts of the American colonies, from Pennsylvania to Georgia. Mostly herdsmen, cottagers, and traditional tenants, they moved to avoid proletarianization in regions of rapid capitalist transformation. They took with them a culture constrained by generations of conflicts along the borders of England that instilled a distrust of authority and an insistence upon honor and personal integrity. Since they moved to a frontier similar to their homeland, they could invent new societies reflecting their culture. Access to or ownership of land and the open range together provided them with the means of subsistence that was quickly disappearing in their homelands. Men and women shared all agricultural labor in the mountains and valleys they settled, yet each man maintained control over his wife and family through tradition, intimidation, and violence. Fathers instilled in sons pride and independence; mothers trained daughters to be industrious and subservient to men. Insisting upon limited government, they personally attacked anyone who challenged enjoyment of their property, sometimes banding together in vigilante groups.

Waves of evangelicalism that swept over the colonies from the late 1730s to the 1780s dissolved some of these cultural differences. Starting in New England in the 1730s, they spread to the Middle Colonies in the 1740s and to the South in the 1760s and 1770s. Evangelical preachers insisted upon the spiritual equality of all people, whatever their origin, class, race, or gender. All could participate in the direct, experiential religion they mandated. Ordinary people--small farmers in the Chesapeake, urban craftsmen (masters and journeymen), blacks--interpreted spiritual equality in secular terms, allowing the free people among them to contest the hegemony of the wealthy ruling class of merchants and great planters. Widespread participation in evangelical religion provided ordinary rural Americans with a common language, thereby mitigating differences between ethnic groups.

Once whites had expropriated millions of acres of Indian land, vast areas were open to whites for settlement. By the early eighteenth century, farm families, the majority of colonists, came to expect land ownership. Out of this expectation, a yeoman ideology developed throughout the colonies. Land provided farmers with a social and political identity. Small landowners insisted upon the right to secure land tenure, arguing that they had earned ownership through their own labor. This homestead ethic was sustained in a series of conflicts that covered nearly every colony from New York to South Carolina between the 1730s and the 1770s. Whenever landlords, creditors, or venal colonial officeholders challenged the farmer's title, insisted upon early collection of debts, raised taxes, or failed to protect them from Indians or bandits, one of these conflicts resulted.

Notwithstanding continuing differences and the persistence of colonial loyalties, a high culture that transcended local peculiarities began to develop in the early eighteenth century. This high culture was predicated upon the rise of hereditary fortunes in every colony and the sustained dominance of these families in high political office. Men of wealth educated their sons at colonial colleges or in England, where students not only met their peers from other colonies but gained a taste for the writings, theater, and consumption patterns of wealthy English families. They made sure their daughters knew all the genteel female skills, from music to sewing. Thus the rich became "cultivated," building large houses, adorning their homes with the most fashionable furnishings, holding genteel assemblies, and patronizing the arts. Wherever a gentleman traveled in the colonies, he was sure to find similarly cultivated men.

The cultures of early America were complex. By the mid-eighteenth century class similarities among farmers and gentlemen pointed toward consolidated class cultures. But ethnic differences, transformed by varying economic uses colonists made of the American environment, persisted. American farmers continued to grow different crops with different forms of labor; women gained some rights in the North, but none in the South. Regional differences, within class cultures, would have a profound effect on American politics, leading ultimately to civil war.
 

Miss America crowns first winner of Indian descent..

Miss New York spends her first press conference defending herself from angry viewers calling her un-American, Arab and Indonesian. 'I have to rise above that,' she said after winning the coveted crown.

"I have to rise above that," she said after her crowning in Atlantic City, the Associated Press reports. "I always viewed myself as first and foremost American."
"I'm so happy this organization has embraced diversity," she continued. "I'm thankful there are children watching at home who can finally relate to a new Miss America."
 Her parents, who are both from Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, immigrated to Missouri in 1981, Bihar Prabha reports.

She credits her father, a gynecologist affiliated with St. Joseph's Hospital, as inspiring her desire to go into the field of medicine.
But regardless of her accomplishments both on an off the stage, many, including Fox News commentator Todd Starnes, disagreed with the judges' decision.