Trekking spot MURUD - JANJIRA | The Unconquered Fort Of Swaraj
Murud-Janjira is the local name for a fort situated at the coastal village of Murud, in the Raigad district of Maharashtra, India. It is famous for being the only fort along India's western coast that remained undefeated despite Maratha, Dutch and English East India Company attacks.
The word Janjira is not native to India, and may have originated after the Arabic word Jazeera, which means an island. Similarly, the Marathi word Habshi is thought to be a corruption of Abyssinian. Murud was once known in Marathi as Habsan, or Abyssinian's land.The term Siddi is an expression of respectful address commonly used in North Africa. The ruler of the Habshi state of Murud-Janjira was known as the Siddi. Others believe that Habshis that converted to Islam called themselves "Sayyadis" (descendants of Muhammad); from which came the term "Siddi".
At the time they seized the fort, the Siddis were employed by the Bahamani Sultan of Ahmednagar and a Habshi, Malik Ambar (1550-1626), held a prominent position in that government. Before the rise of the Maratha sardars, the courts of the Bahamani sultanates were rent by rivalry between the Indian Muslims and the foreign Muslims, as a result of which, the Sultans began to patronize the Marathas as a third force, leading to the rise of Shivaji and the Maratha Empire.
Malik Amber initially rose to great prominence as the Prime Minister of Ahmednagar. He is credited with having carried out a systematic revenue settlement of major portions of the Deccan, which formed the basis for many ubsequent settlements.
When the Ahmadnagar kingdom was conquered by Bijapur and the Mughals in alliance, the Siddis switched their allegiance to the Sultanate of Bijapur; when the Bijapur kingdom was conquered by the Mughal Empire, the Habshis switched their allegiance to the Mughal Empire.As clients of these Muslim states, the Siddis were nominally part of their navies, and fulfilled the role of defending Muslim interests in the sea, and particularly, access by sea for the Hajj and Umrah, for which reason, the interior Muslim states felt compelled to aid and rescue the Siddis from their enemies.
Despite being feudatories, first of Bijapur and then of the Mughals, the Siddis acted as if they were independent, and lived mainly by piracy on coastal shipping.
The piracy of the Siddis provoked the various local powers to attempt to suppress them, but despite eforts by the Portuguese, Dutch, English and the Marathas, the fort was never conquered. The fort thus earned a reputation for being impregnable.
The reputation may be false. Mass mobilizations by the English and Marathas were always forced off before they could complete the task by the intervention of another power, such as the Mughals, creating a diversion in order to prevent the fall of Murud-Janjira. It must be noted that the same happened with Goa, with the Mughals invading Maratha lands in order to divert Maratha attempts to conquer Goa.
The name of the fort is a concatenation of the Konkani and Arabic words for Island, "morod" and "jazeera". The word "morod" is peculiar to Konkani and is absent in Marathi. In Goa, the word is now more generally used for those parts of the village which were originally dry land as against the fields, which were swamps. Thus, during the rains, the fields get flooded, but the morods never flood.
The State of Murud-Janjira was known to the Maratha Empire as Habsan, the and of the Habshis.The founder of what later developed into the Maratha Empire, Shivaji Bhosale, sent his Prime Minister or Peshwa, Moropant Pingle to conquer the Siddis and end their piracy during August, 1676, albeit unsuccessfully. Shivaji's inability to capture this fort led him to build the Vijaydurg fort down the coast, and also a fort named Sindhudurg on the island of Padmagad, near the town of Malvan. The Siddis remained a formidable foe to him until his death.Several further attempts were made by the Marathas to conquer the Siddi principality, but in vain.
The English too strived in vain to suppress the Siddis, and the Siddis even succeeded in seizing Bombay for a day, overwhelming the English garrision, before being driven away by a militia organized by a Parsi from his fellow-immigrants from Surat.
As the Muslim powers of the interior waned in the face of rising English power, the Siddi state submitted to England under the system of Subsidiary Alliance, becoming a dependency under paramountcy of the Kings of England. HH Nawab Sidi Muhammed Khan II Sidi Ahmad Khan was the last Ruler of Murud-Janjira. The state continued in this condition until late 1947, when the last prince acceded his state to the Indian Union, and his state was merged into the Bombay Presidency which was later transformed into the State of Bombay and the State of
Maharashtra.
HOW TO REACH THERE
What to see:
(1) Janjira fort: where a stone carving at the main entrance shows six elephants trapped by a single tiger-a- symbol of the bravery of the Sidis.
(2) Kalal Bangdi, Landakasam and Bhavani, the cherished weapons of the Sidis, built from five metals
(3)Beaches: which are filled with the serenity
(4) Carambi Dharan (Dam), a picnic spot providing clean water through pipes to Murud throughout the year channeled from its natural springs.
(5)Datta Mandir (temple) atop a hill, a picturesque spot giving an extraordinary view of the sea.
(6)Sidhi Vinayak Temple of the Hindu deity Lord Ganapati.
SOME
(7)Alkapuri, a picnic spot favored for its lush green vegetation.
Matheran is tiny hill station with exceptionally striking pastoral beauty. It is set in the mountainous region in between Mumbai and Pune. The term ‘Matheran’ suggests "forest on top". Amidst the green Jumbo forest, it is indeed the most impressive and notable hill station in Maharashtra.
Hugh Poyntz Malet, who was the collector of Thane district, discovered this pretty resort in 1850. During camping around the village, he came across a spring and it still bears his name.
ORIENTATION
It is located at an altitude of 803 meters. It is situated about 108 kms from Mumbai City, in the Karjat Tehsil of Maharashtra.
WEATHER
Temperature: 12.35 to 36.35 (Celcius)
Rainfall in Matheran varies from 0.0 to 828.0 mm/month.
Best time to visit: Though Matheran is a year round destination, the best time to visit is from October to May. Average temperatures range from 16° C in winter, to 32° C in summer.
Entry Fee: There is an entry fee of Rs.25 per head, which you need to buy to enter Matheran. These tickets are sold at the small ticket window at the entry of the main gate and have a map behind it.
GETTING THERE / ROUTE INFORMATION
Matheran is 100 km from Mumbai and 26 km from Neral, from where you can get the toy train to Matheran, a journey of 1½ hours. You can get to Neral on a local train on the Mumbai-Pune line, a journey of 2 hours from Mumbai Central. The drive via Karjat and Neral is 108 km.
By Air The nearest airport, Mumbai, 100 km, is well connected with national and international flights. From there, you’ll need to switch to train or road. By Rail The rail journey to Matheran is half the fun of your trip. Neral, the nearest railhead (21 km), is connected to Mumbai, Pune and other parts of Maharashtra. From here, a special, narrow gauge "toy train" gets you up, puffing and wheezing all the way. Except during the monsoon season (June-September), there are several trains a day on the mountain railway. These take 2 hours to cover the climb to their destination. Stations on the way have names like Water pipe and there is also the famous One Kiss Tunnel. During the monsoon, the service is restricted to one train a day and during heavy rains even this can be cancelled due to landslides.
By Road State Transport buses regularly ply from Mumbai and Pune. A taxi from Neral to Matheran takes about half-hour to reach. Taxis stop about 2.5 km from the center of the hill station. After parking the car at the base of the hill, You can go to the top on horse.
SHOPPING INFORMATION
Shop for Chikki, honey walking sticks, and custom-made leather footwear. Matheran is a foot freak delight and the more you bargain the more you will get!
MAJOR ATTRACTIONS
Its 8 sq. kms cover a hilltop in the Sahyadri Hills, and its proximity to Mumbai ensures its’ continued popularity for weekend getaways.
There seems to be an obsession with unusually named lookout points; Matheran has 33 such points from where you can feast your eyes on the Sahyadris and the valleys below, and admire rosy sunrises and sunsets.
Matheran does not have any internal motorized transport, making it all the more special. The only modes of transport are horses, donkeys, by foot or a ”Taxi” which basically is a cart pulled by a guy.
Charlotte Lake is the prime attraction of Matheran, owing to its greenery and picturesque surroundings. The hoary charm of British and Parsi homes still allures people from both far and near. Malet Spring draws everyone’s attention with its scenic setting and clear waters. Panthers’ Caves and Paymaster Park are big attractions for children. One can take a wonderful view of the Towers of Bhivpuri Power House, Karjat Palasdari Lake, Borgaon Village and Rambaug Point from the renowned Alexander Point.
Declared an Eco-sensitive region by the Union Environment Ministry, Matheran is an exceptionally beautiful place, in the company of sightseeing places like Mount Berry, Luisa Point, Echo Point, One tree Hill, Garbut Point, Olympia Racecourse and Hart point. A large number of medicinal plants and herbs thrive in the region. The red laterite earth here completes the vision of the bucolic and unscathed hill resort.
NightLife: Well, there is no nightlife in Matheran.
Nearby spots: Panvel, Karnala, Lonavla, Poona and Mumbai.
TOURIST INFORMATION
Carry light woollens for winter. Walking-sticks.
Accommodation
Regarding places to stay, this serene place has a few ancient bungalows that have been turned into Hotels and guesthouses. Here, you can avail all basic facilities. Since this place falls under environment friendly region, construction is not allowed here. Probably that’s why Matheran has maintained its lovely charisma. Thus, come to Matheran and see yourself, the beauty and splendor that have been bestowed upon it by Mother Nature.
From simple lodges to luxury resorts, an MTDC bungalow to pure vegetarian guesthouses, Matheran has accommodation options to cater to all budgets.
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µTorrent is a freeware closed source BitTorrent client by BitTorrent, Inc. Its a most popular Bittorrent client but very few peoples know how to set up μTorrent for maximum performance and be able to download faster. To facilitate this there are several tools that with just 1 click can accelerate μTorrent to download and upload faster.
I am listing here four tools which will help you to imrove the download speed of uTorrent.
1) µTorrent Acceleration Tool :
uTorrent Acceleration Tool is a tool that is basically makes changes in the configuration of µTorrent to download torrents faster, this is done through an algorithm that, depending on the configuration of your Internet connection, the connection type and looking for some parameters optimizes the configuration.
μTorrent SpeedUp PRO is the same as all these tools, their method of operation is the same but has the characteristic that is lighter and does not display the graphical statistics connection.
μTorrent Ultra Accelerator is another clone of these programs to accelerate the download speed of μTorrent, but you can see in the screenshot does not include graphical statistics.
Yesterday i install Windows Seven beta version. I like the visual appearance too much. I noticed one thing that Windows 7 team places a Send Feedback link in the top right corner of every opened windows titlebar. I am writing here a simple tutorial which will guide you to remove the ’send feedback’ link in very few easy steps.
Screenshot (Before):
Follow the simple steps to remove the link :
Step 1 : Go to Start > Run > Enter Regedit
Step 2 : Navigate to the key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop.
Step 3 : Right-click on the right pane and select New -> DWORD (32-bit) value. Name the new value FeedbackToolEnabled and set it’s value to 0.
Step 4 : Restart your machine.
Once you do this all of the “Send Feedback” links will be removed from the Windows 7 title bars.
Screenshot After :
Give it a try if you are using windows 7 beta. And don’t forget to drop your comments if you like my post
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Blackberries may have been overshadowed lately by the success of the iPhone, but they still offer and incredibly powerful platform.Plus, since the Blackberry operating system is build on Java and has always been open, there are a slew of useful and mature applications, many of which are free. Since I’m a cheapskate when it comes to software, I’ve loaded up my Blackberry Curve with a boatload of free programs. Here are the ones I use the most:
1. Google Mobile
Google Mobile is an all-in-one package combining Google’s excellent mobile apps (Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Sync) with links to Google’s mobile-optimized web services (search, Picasa, Reader, Docs, Google Notebook, etc.). Although Blackberry’s already handle email fairly well, I find the Gmail application a much more comfortable way to access email. The Maps application does everything you can do with Google Maps on your PC (search, get directions, switch to satellite view, and so on), plus it will use either the nearest cell tower or, if you have a GPS-enabled phone, GPS to pinpoint your location. The Sync app lets you do a two-way synchronization between the calendar on your Blackberry and Google Calendar. The rest of the links open services in Blackberry’s integrated web browser, although in some cases with limited functions compared to their PC-based equivalents (Google Docs, for example, are read-only). All in all, this is an incredible piece of productivity software, one I use probably a dozen times a day.
2. iSkoot
iSkoot puts the power of Skype on your mobile phone. You can send and receive voice calls to and from other Skype users or using SkypeIn and SkypeOut services, and believe it or not the sound quality is pretty good, even on AT&T’s slow 2G network. iSkoot gets all your contacts from Skype, making it a breeze to use. Of course, you can also IM with text. Calls received are handled by the Blackberry exactly like traditional cell calls, using the same controls and the same ringtone, so it’s really indistinguishable from using your mobile phone normally. I have a SkypeIn phone number for my professional life; iSkoot lets me stay connected even when I’m away from my computer.
3. Viigo
Although I generally use Google Reader for my RSS feeds, Viigo is a nice alternative – and adds several nice options Google Reader (and most other RSS readers) don’t. The new beta lets you set up weather, sports, finance, and travel alerts, get updates from local Kijiji classifieds (if it serves your area), even get free book feeds from DailyLit. And there’s even a space – inactive for now – for podcast feeds, which developers promise will be enabled soon, letting you download your favorite audio podcasts over the air. All this in a beautiful and very easy-to-use interface – what more could you ask for?
4. BeeTag
This is a new addition to my Blackberry and, I admit, one that I haven’t found much use for yet – but it’s only a matter of time. The app is called BeeTag, and it is a 2-D barcode reader that uses your Blackberry’s camera to scan those square-shaped codes (like the one next to this paragraph) that are popping up on more and more products, as well as in ads and other places. Already huge in Japan, these 2-D codes can contain a URL, product information, or other material; BeeTag reads the code and sends you to the website indicated or displays the text. Even though you have to get quite close to fill the frame enough for BeeTag to read it – which means a blurry image – BeeTag could read everything I threw at it, including codes captured from my laptop’s screen.
5. Vlingo
Voice-enable your Blackberry with Vlingo, which goes beyond voice-dialing to voice-texting and even voice-emailing. Vlingo takes over one of your Blackberry’s application keys (my Curve has two, one on each side; I’ve assigned it to the one on the right, the one that controls the camera by default). Hold the key down, say a command, and Vlingo goes to work. For example, I say “Send email to Bob Smith subject You’re an idiot Message You forgot to take the coffee off your car’s roof as you drove away” and Vlingo creates an email reading “You forgot to take the coffee off your car’s roof as you drove away” with the subject line “You’re an idiot” and the email address from Bob Smith from my Blackberry’s address book. You can search the web, update your Facebook status, create tasks and memos, even open built-in applications and a handful of third-party Vlingo-enabled apps, all using your voice.
6. WebMessenger
You can IM through Skype using iSkoot, but if your contacts aren’t mainly on Skype, WebMessenger allows you to chat on just about any major IM network: AOL, Google, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, Skype, and Yahoo. Contact lists are imported from the appropriate service, and just like a full chat client, you can see who’s online, set your status, and of course chat all you want. You’ll need to set up a master login account with WebMessenger; after that, it will stay logged in and run in the background.
7. Mobipocket Reader
Blackberry screens aren’t the best for e-book reading – that’s one thing I miss about my old Palm Zire 72, with its great big color screen – but Mobipocket Reader makes the best of what it has to work with, providing a decent if not brilliant reading experience. The .mobi file format is becoming the de facto e-book standard for mobile devices, so there are lots of titles available for purchase, as well as the normal range of classic texts available for free. Or you can convert PDFs or Word files on your PC and transfer them over. The program is easy to use and fairly easy to read, though not many lines fit on the Blackberry’s screen at once. You can also add annotations, although strangely you can’t add bookmarks to return easily to important passages. Still, Mobipocket lets me keep a couple of e-books available for those times when I get caught with time to kill and nothing to do, and for that I’m grateful.
8. Twitterberry
Blackberry’s are great for sending text messages, so of course they’re great for sending tweets on Twitter. Twitterberry makes it easy, letting you access your friend’s timelines – collectively or individually – as well as all your replies and direct messages. Of course, sending messages is a piece of cake, too. My only complaint is that messages are previewed, with only the first 40 characters or so visible in each timeline screen, so you have to click them individually to read them in their entirety. Even with that, though, Twitterberry is still a far better experience than using the Twitter site through the Blackberry’s slow browser.
9. Poynt
Poynt is a slick local search app now in beta for the Blackberry. Poynt does local yellow page searches so you can find businesses near you, and has an excellent movie listings feature that lets you find movies near you, theaters near you, or browse by genre or review the current top 10. You can enter your location manually or, if your phone has GPS, let Poynt pinpoint your location automatically. Poynt also integrates with Blackberry Maps to provide directions – alas, AT&T, in its infinite wisdom, has determined that I (and the rest of its customers) should not use Blackberry Maps. I’m sure it’s very cool…
Fortunately, Google Mobile includes Google Maps so I can get all the directions I need!
10. Facebook
You like Facebook, right? C’mon, admit it – you want to Facebook all the time. And well you should – you have a Blackberry, after all! The Facebook app makes it easy to send messages, see your updates, and poke poke poke all day long, and that’s pretty darn important, isn’t it?
Your favorites?
Those are the apps I’m getting a lot of use out of – what about you? What are your favorite Blackberry apps, free or paid? Let us know all about it in the comments!
µTorrent is a freeware closed source BitTorrent client by BitTorrent, Inc. Its a most popular Bittorrent client but very few peoples know how to set up μTorrent for maximum performance and be able to download faster. To facilitate this there are several tools that with just 1 click can accelerate μTorrent to download and upload faster.
This is a new addition to my Blackberry and, I admit, one that I haven’t found much use for yet – but it’s only a matter of time. The app is called 
