Portal:Society

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The Society Portal

A society is a group of people who form a distinct, evolving system, sharing cultures and institutions. A society, then, is a network of relationships between people. The English word society is derived from the French société, which, in turn, had its origin in the Latin societas, a "friendly association with others," from socius meaning "companion, associate, comrade or business partner." Thus, the meaning of society is closely related to what is considered to be social. Implicit in the meaning of society is that its members may share some mutual concern or interest, a common objective or common characteristics. The social sciences generally use the term society to mean a group of people who form a semi-closed social system, in which most interactions are with other individuals belonging to the group. More abstractly, a society is defined as a network of relationships between social entities. A society is also sometimes defined as an interdependent community, but the sociologist Tönnies saw a contradiction between “society” and “community.” An important feature of society is social structure, aspects of which include roles and social ranking.

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The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), are a group of seven autonomous engineering and technology-oriented institutes of higher education established and declared as Institutes of National Importance by the Parliament of India. The IITs were created to train scientists and engineers, with the aim of developing a skilled workforce to support the economic and social development of India after independence in 1947. The students and alumni of IITs are colloquially referred to as IITians.

In order of establishment the eight are located at Kharagpur, Mumbai, Chennai, Kanpur, Delhi, Guwahati, Roorkee and Patna. The Government of India has announced plans to add nine more IITs, to be established in states that don't yet have an IIT. Some IITs were established with financial assistance and technical expertise from UNESCO, Germany, the United States, and Soviet Union. Each IIT is an autonomous university, linked to the others through a common IIT Council, which oversees their administration. They have a common admission process for undergraduate admissions, using the Joint Entrance Examination (popularly known as IIT-JEE) to select around 4,000 undergraduate candidates a year. Postgraduate Admissions are done on the basis of the GATE, JMET, JAM and CEED. About 15,500 undergraduate and 12,000 graduate students study in the seven IITs, in addition to research scholars.

IIT alumni have achieved success in a variety of professions. The autonomy of the IITs has helped them to create specialised degrees in technology at the undergraduate level, and consequently to award the Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech.) degree, as opposed to the Bachelor of Engineering (BE) degree awarded by most other Indian universities. The success of the IITs has led to the creation of similar institutes in other fields, such as the National Institutes of Technology, the Indian Institutes of Management and the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIIT). (more...)

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Credit: by Jonathan McIntosh US Customs and Border Protection officers a specialized police unit.

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Featured articles

Selected Featured articles about Society:

Gender role · Greco-Buddhism · David Helvarg · Kashrut · Sociocultural evolution · Tiananmen Square protests of 1989

· Weber, Max

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Did you know...

• ... that the type of degree offered by a veterinary school can vary widely, ranging from the Bachelor of Science to the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine?
• ... that the native copper products of the Northern Canadian aboriginal Copper Inuit were highly regarded in the Bering Strait trade network?
• ... that Froduald Karamira, sentenced to death for his role in the Rwandan Genocide in 1994, was one of the last individuals executed before capital punishment was abolished in the country?
• ... that the 19th-century fad of Pedestrianism started with gambling over the speed of footmen by the British aristocracy?
• ... that in 1937, Oscar Garcia Rivera, Sr. became the first Puerto Rican to hold public office in the United States?

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