QUES: Independence with Partition: The British began to see India's independence as inevitable; however, only a few seemed to understand the vital role of the religious groups. Britain prepared a parliamentary democracy with majority rule, but the majority were Hindusand Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs had been killing each other in war for many centuries. Nehru's Congress Party, largely Hindu with a socialist leadership, wanted a parliamentary democracy. As counterweight, British legislation reserved parliamentary seats for religious minorities, but the Punjab and Bengal had such a complicated mixture of Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs that it was not possible to avoid fights over how separate constituencies were to be formed. The seeds of future trouble were sown. The legislation on reserving seats gave the Muslims the basis for an alternative to an India in which they were only a quarter of the population: Partition. In 1930, the poet Muhammad Iqbal proposed a separate Muslim homeland in the northwest of India. A small group of Indian Muslims at Cambridge came up with the name Pakistan, using the initials of the Punjab, Afghania (N.W. Frontier Province), Kashmir, and Sind (at the same time producing the word pak, meaning "pure"), and adding "stan," the Persian suffix for the word "country. " The Muslim campaign for Partition was led by London-trained Bombay lawyer, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Meanwhile, Gandhi vehemently opposed any dismemberment of the country, and tried to keep people united by fasting to uphold the spirit of love, and by focussing on the common adversary: the British. Advocating civil disobedience, he led his famous Salt March to the sea, to scoop up salt and circumvent the hated British salt tax. This put more than 60,000 in jail. Against this militancy, World War II did not elicit the solidarity of the first. Indians courageously fought alongside the British troops, in Burma, the Middle East, and Europe, but Gandhi saw the British as a provocation for Japanese invasion and was jailed yet again, for launching a "Quit India" campaign in the year 1942. Some anti-British extremists saw the Japanese as an Asian liberator. Winston Churchill didn't want any Indian independence and so it was probably as well for India that he was defeated by Attlee's Labor Party in 1945. With riots growing ever more bloody in Bengal, Bihar, and the Punjab, India's last viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, kept a mandate to make the British departure as quick and as smooth as possible. Quick it wassix months after his arrivalbut not smooth.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION: Who led his famous Salt March to the sea, to scoop up salt and circumvent the hated British salt tax?

QUES: California lags far behind comparable states in funding legal services for the poor, a situation so dire that only 28 percent of the civil legal needs of the state's poor and lowerincome residents are being addressed. That figures translates into 2 million people without the ability to access the justice system, according to a new study by the California Commission on Access to Justice, which also found that despite increased spending, the gap between need and services remains substantial. "As a practical matter, in most cases there can be no access to justice without access to legal assistance," said Jack Londen, past commission chair and a partner with Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco. "Whether we like it or not, sometimes landlords illegally evict tenants, children with disabilities are denied proper care, veterans don't get services guaranteed to them, and elderly people need legal assistance to escape the abuse of a caregiver." California has the highest number of people in poverty in the nation - 6.4 million, including nearly one in five children. Half the nation's increase in poverty in the 1990s, when the number of poor jumped 30 percent, occurred in California, and nearly 25 percent of the nation's poverty increase occurred in Los Angeles County alone. Even those with jobs are suffering: 26 percent of California workers earn poverty level wages. The commission's report, "The Path to Equal Justice: A Five-Year Status Report on Access to Justice in California," examined how the legal needs of the state's poor have changed in the last five years as well as both the shortcomings of the justice system and the improvements during that period. Despite increases in state funding to meet the legal needs of the poor, low interest rates (which have reduced the IOLTA fund), high unemployment and the present economic downturn have threatened any gains.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION: Who made the following remark: "Whether we like it or not, sometimes landlords illegally evict tenants, children with disabilities are denied proper care, veterans don't get services guaranteed to them, and elderly people need legal assistance to escape the abuse of a caregiver."

QUES: Tropical climates are found around the equator. These climates have warm temperatures year round. Tropical climates may be very wet or wet and dry. Tropical wet climates occur at or very near the equator. They have high rainfall year round. Tropical rainforests grow in this type of climate. Tropical wet and dry climates also occur near the equator. They receive less rainfall. Most of the rain falls in a single season. The rest of the year is dry. Few trees can withstand the long dry season. The main plants are grasses. Dry climates receive very little rainfall. They also have high rates of evaporation. This makes them even drier. Deserts can get less than 25 centimeters of rain per year. Thats less than 10 inches per year. How much rain do you get at your house?
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION: In a tropical wet and dry climate, in how much of the year does it rain?

QUES: Captured Moments by Will Shetterly I remember Papa's stopbox, a teal blue Tiempo Capturado that Mama brought home for his birthday. It was huge and inefficient, and she should never have spent so many pesos on a toy, but Papa would not let her return it. He used it to preserve baby tomatoes, cucumbers, and strawberries in translucent cubes that he stored in the pantry for spring-time meals in the middle of winter. Mama kept her mink jacket, a family hand-me-down, safe from time in a stopbox, and lent the capturador to my uncle for his stamp collection. Sometimes they would let us little ones to seal a treasured toy or a last piece of birthday cake until we begged them for its release, usually a few hours after enclosing it. When my father died, a year after my mother, my sisters and I cleaned out their apartment. We found our baby shoes protected in stopboxes. I took mine home, where they sat above my computer while I worked on my first play. One night when I did not believe love had ever existed for anyone, I used my own capturador, a sleek titanium Sanyo Tardar Ahora, to undo the stopbox. Bringing my face close to the shoes, I breathed deeply of air that my parents had trapped while closing up that symbol of their love for me. The instant would have been improved had my baby shoes been cleaned before they were encased. But as soon as I coughed, I laughed, and I did not try to kill myself that night.
Do you have any questions?
MY QUESTION:
What made the speaker cough?