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The Mongols.Let's rewind to the 13th century Europe. While the "dark ages" were not really dark, it was a period when Europe's global connections dropped quite low. Since the fall of the Roman empire and the rise of Arabs in the middle, the trade with India reduced and there was only a very faint understanding of East Asia. No known European have been recorded to visit China and vice versa.Then a random group of nomads sprang out of nowhere and suddenly connected the whole of Eurasia. Along with the discovery of Columbus, the Mongol empire was among the most monumental things in human history. It is stated that in Mongol rule, a trader could put a gold plate on top of his head and walk all the way from China to Europe without a threat of robbery [no robber messes with the Mongols].For all the stereotyping of the Mongols, they were among the greatest catalysts of globalization & dramatic exchange of ideas.Marco Polo & his adventures.A Venetian family utilized the trade routes opened up by the Mongols to travel to China and Central Asia. A famous guy from the family was Marco Polo whose travel diaries [The Travels of Marco Polo] fascinated everyone. It made centuries of Europeans very curious about the world & made them dying for exploration after centuries of very limited contacts.Not only did it pique everyone's curiosity, it also helped build the cartography foundations that were later used by others to build fairly descriptive maps of the world [Fra Mauro map].Asian innovations flooding EuropeAs a result of the Mongol invasions and explorations by travelers such as Marco Polo, major innovations from the China - Compass, Printing Press, Paper and Gunpowder entered Europe. It was also the time when Mathematical foundations of India and Arabia was entering Europe. Fibonacci's book of Indorum [the methods of Indians] as a part of Liber Abaci was especially a pioneering work for that field.Truly an explosive combination.Black Death ravages EuropeMongols & their free trade not just brought new ideas & innovations. They also made it easy for rats to travel easily between continents [hitching a ride on ships]. The plague was exported from China/India in the 1330s and hit the Europeans who were not very immune to this. Black DeathEurope was ravaged for a long time and a lot of countries lost a large chunk of their population. The poor was especially affected and in many countries the peasant class was wiped out.As their poor peasants were getting eradicated, the feudal lords were forced to be more egalitarian - either treating the existing peasants better or do some more work themselves. Black Death: The lasting impact This broke apart feudalism in a lot of places. In parallel, people began questioning the importance/power of religion and this brought centuries of religious reformation/renaissance in much of Europe. The Black Death and Religious ImpactBy 1400s, Europe was more egalitarian, more open to change, more curious and more desperate for greater trade with Asia. Thanks to the Mongols, they also had better technology to implement their ideas.The printing press & distant voyagesIn the 1400s, another monumental change occurred in Europe. The movable type. While the Asians invented printing [http://www.livescience.com/43639-who-invented-the-printing-press.html] , they didn't really take the movable type that seriously as their writing systems were fairly complex & unsuitable for a lot of automation at that time. However, the Latin script was fairly simple and small and it was ideal for the movable type pioneered by Guttenberg.The movable type made it very cheap to mass produce books, especially of the religious kind when Christianity was fast growing. It was also at this time Europeans were traveling far and bringing back new stories. The masses absorbed these with the mass produced books. This created a large thriving market for publishers that were later used to disseminate science. Idea sharing became faster than ever before, enabled by a common language [Latin] and a curious populace.Colonialism & its impactThrough a bunch of fortunate events, the Europeans got ahead of others. The most important of this was the accidental discovery of the Americas and the elimination of most of its populace through germs & genocide.Until the Americas was discovered, the Europeans didn't have a lot to give to the Asians to buy their silk, spices, tea, textiles and other stuff. However, the massive silver reserves of the Americas drastically changed the world. http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/neh/course7/activity4.htmlAsians adored silver and gold. The Europeans had seemingly endless supplies of it powered by new mines all over the Americas. They also had a variety of new agricultural products - potato, tobacco etc European traders got actively into Asia and came back very rich.Building universities & scientific foundationBy the 1700s, Europe's printing presses were very widespread and literacy was fast growing. There was far more prosperity powered by global trade. There were new things and ideas they found in all these far flung places that they fully internalized & built on. Especially those ideas that provided them a direct military advantage or commercial advantage [such as steam engines, rail lines and telegraph] was heavily funded and encouraged.It was at this time the Universities that were originally just built for religious teaching & training the royals began to be open for masses. European rulers needed a lot of locals to travel & manage their foreign colonies & needed to train a lot. This created an educated populace, some of whom went on to generate scientific discovery.Europeans by now had the momentum, sizable knowledge distribution channels, prosperity, curiosity and most importantly commercial incentive, to innovate. Due to the nature of their colonial explorations they also learned to work in teams better.Finally, the world wars provided an even bigger catalyst and sharing of ideas. UK handed over all its key technological secrets to the US providing a very powerful Anglo technological empire [How the Tizard Mission paved the way for research at MIT] that laid the foundation of modern technology sharing in the west. That is just one example of a variety of things that happened in that period.Here is my new Quora book to explore more: A Brief History of the World

Private medical colleges management quota fee: Rs 7 lakh to Rs 71 lakh a yearFor the first time in 25 years, colleges have revealed the fees charged under institutional and NRI quotas for 2017-18 after the state government made it mandatory.The Maharashtra Institute of Medical Science and Research, Latur, charges the highest fee (Representational Image)A postgraduate degree from a private medical college in the state under management quota costs anywhere between Rs 7 lakh and Rs 71 lakh a year, according to data disclosed by private colleges this year. The Maharashtra Institute of Medical Science and Research, Latur, charges the highest fee — between Rs 27 lakh and Rs 71 lakh — under its institutional as well as NRI quotas. It is over 11 times the fee charged from a merit student, which is Rs 6.3 lakh.For the first time in 25 years, colleges have revealed the fees charged under institutional and NRI quotas for 2017-18 after the state government made it mandatory. This year after the Medical Council of India brought all medical admissions under the aegis of the state government, the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) had asked deemed and private medical colleges to reveal their fee structure. “After much persuasion, the colleges have now disclosed their fees, which will now be available for aspirants to see,” said Pravin Shinghare, director, DMER. Shinghare said some colleges were found charging different fees for various courses and, hence, they had declared a range of fees.Vithalrao Vikhe Patil Foundation Medical College in Ahmednagar charges between Rs 6.54 lakh and Rs 12 lakh from merit students. For institutional quota, the rate could go up to Rs 37 lakh, depending on the specifications chosen. NRI quota students have to shell out up to Rs 62 lakh a year for a postgraduate degree. In Mumbai, K J Somaiya charges Rs 55 lakh from management quota students, which is five times the merit quota fees approved by the Fee Regulating Authority.Earlier, Smt Kashibai Navale College, Pune, had disclosed a management quota fee of up to Rs 97 lakh. However, it has now revised the amount to Rs 45 lakh — five times that of its approved amount of Rs 9 lakh for merit students — after the DMER pointed out that colleges were allowed to charge not more than five times the approved fees from management quota students as per a Supreme Court verdict.Of the 2,800 post-graduate seats in the state, 300 are in private colleges. Even as fee of some of the private colleges is not final, the DMER will allot seats to aspirants in its second round of allotment. “The FRA is yet to approve the state quota fees of some of these colleges but we will continue with our admission process. We have instructed these colleges to adjust the fee difference with the students’ fees next year,” said Shinghare.

I largely agree with what Karan says on this, with a few alterations. CFA books are pretty much out of the question as you don't have the time. Focus on Schweser Notes and depending on available time, practice questions from CFA books and Schweser Notes.Start with FRA (20% exam weight) - Based on your background, you may either need to spend more time on this subject (if you have no finance or accounting background) or you can breeze past it. Time Needed - 2-3 weeksQuantitative Methods (12% exam weight) - This forms a basis to other topics and things that come up in later levels as well, so spend some time to ensure you are well prepared in this section. Time Needed - 1 weekI would follow QM with Equity, Fixed Income and Portfolio Management (Equity 10%, Fixed Income 10%, PM 7%; Total 27%) - One reason for this is the calculations are highly related to QM and the topics are largely calculation intensive. Another is that the flow of information can be managed since there is a lot of overlap in concepts. Time Needed - 2 weeksCorporate Finance (7% exam weight) - A little bit of theory to balance the overload of calculations from above, plus some minor calculations that still relate to QM. Time Needed - 0.5 to 1 weekDerivatives and Alternative Investments (Derivatives 5%, AI 4%; Total 9%) - This is where you may have differing opinions from different people. Some may choose to skip either or both of these topics - Derivatives mainly because it is challenging to comprehend, and AI because you get 8 questions out of 240 from AI so it's not worth the time. I would suggest to get through these topics since they form a basis for what you study in subsequent levels, and their exam weights increase as you move up, so it's important to have a strong foundation. Time Needed - 1 weekEconomics (10% exam weight) - The reason I have Economics so far down is that amount of reading you have to do compared to its weight in the exam is colossal! You may find the material boring as well. If you have some previous education in Economics, you may find the questions easy to answer without even reading the books. If you are really pressed for time, I suggest you choose between bullet points 5 and 6 based on your background and affinity to calculations. Time Needed - 1 weekEthics (15% exam weight) - Do not be mistaken by the placement of Ethics on this list. 15% weight on the exam is a LOT! The only reason it is here, is that you should focus on practice questions rather than reading the books. If you must, just take a look at the names of the standards, and the GIPS section. I would suggest just going through the examples in the CFA book. This is one topic where I would strongly suggest CFA books over Schweser.Once you are done reading, you're left with anywhere between 7-9 weeks until the exam. Use this time to keep practicing questions. Day in, day out - questions and read the answer explanations. Make sure you understand the reason you got the question wrong or right (Yes, even the ones you got right). Schweser Pro Question Bank is a very good tool you can use in this phase - the QBank has roughly 4000 questions and you need to go through at least half of them.You will mostly start scoring low in the beginning, but as you practice more your score will improve.Formula sheets or Schweser's Quicksheet are a good idea to revise concepts and formulas.Good luck!