An 18th-century painting depicting sati

Sati or suttee[note 1] is an obsolete funeral custom where a widow immolates herself on her
husband's pyre or takes her own life in another fashion shortly after her husband's death.[2][3][4][5]
Mention of the practice can be dated back to the 3rd century BC,[6] while evidence of practice by
widows of kings only appears beginning between the 5th and 9th centuries CE. The practice is
considered to have originated within the warrior aristocracy in India, gradually gaining in popularity
from the 10th century AD and spreading to other groups from the 12th through 18th century CE. The
practice was particularly prevalent among some Hindu communities,[7] observed in
aristocratic Sikh families,[8] and has been attested to outside South Asia in a number of localities in
Southeast Asia, such as in Indonesia[9] and Vietnam.
Under British rule, the practice was initially tolerated. In the province of Bengal, sati was attended by
a colonial government official, which states historian A.F. Salahuddin Ahmed, "not only seemed to
accord an official sanction, but also increased its prestige value".[10] Between 1815 and 1818, the
number of sati in Bengal province doubled from 378 to 839. Under sustained campaigning against
sati by Christian missionaries such as William Carey and Brahmin Hindu reformers such as Ram
Mohan Roy, the provincial government banned sati in 1829.[11][12][13] This was followed up by similar
laws by the authorities in the princely states of India in the ensuing decades, with a general ban for
the whole of India issued by Queen Victoria in 1861. In Nepal, sati was banned in 1920. The
Indian Sati Prevention Act from 1988 further criminalised any type of aiding, abetting, and glorifying
of sati.

Fractional distillation of crude oil

Fractional distillation separates a mixture into a number of different parts, called fractions.
A tall fractionating column is fitted above the mixture, with several condensers coming off at
different heights. The column is hot at the bottom and cool at the top. Substances with
high boiling pointscondense at the bottom and substances with lower boiling points condense
on the way to the top.
Crude oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons. The crude oil is evaporatedand its vapours condense
at different temperatures in the fractionating column. Each fraction contains
hydrocarbon molecules with a similar number of carbon atoms and a similar range of boiling
points.