Friday 21 April 2017

The North Korean menace.

Pyongyang shocked the world for the first time in January 2016 when North Korea announced that it had successfully conducted requisite scrutiny on “Hydrogen Bomb”. The announcement came anon after an earthquake was registered close to Punggye-re nuclear site of the infamous nation. Since then, there has been no looking back. With its incessant invective on the POTUS and threats of “super mighty strikes” on South Korea, King Jong-un, the North Korean despot, has left no stone unturned in devastating any ray of hope for peace in the land. Though the world, initially took him as an abysmal laughing stock but after having tested its most powerful nuclear bomb in September, 2016 which even led to a “5.3 Richter earthquake”, the conditions have become grave.
The whole Pentagon as well as the political lobbies of the world are in a state of in- toto pandemonium following the verbal clashes between the world’s most powerful leader and the world’s most erratic person: The US president Donald Trump and North Korean dictator King Jong-un. Though, the political analysts are quick to repudiate any possibility of a direct nuclear war, but still the recent courses of actions are a major threat to world harmony since the Korean peninsula is in itself a geopolitically empowered area with stakeholders like The Russian Federation, Japan and People’s Republic of China (PRC) along with the United States of America.
Albeit the debate over the future of the Korean peninsula never fades into oblivion but lately North Korea’s firing of ballistic missiles in the Sea of Japan to just 190 miles off the west coast of Japan ahead of the US-China summit on curbing the country’s nuclear weapons program, has again plunged the topic into the limelight of the world’s politics and this was also conducive to the US president Mr. Trump’s viral comment, “we are sending an armada.”
North Korea is unequivocally a nuisance but haplessly intractable also. The intransigent and quaintly secluded behaviour of the North Korean tyrants have exacerbate the condition so much that today there seems to be no way back.
It all commenced with the eruption “625 upheaval” or the Korean War (1950-53) between North and South Korea. Though, in the west, this war is known as the “Forgotten war” (because of no public attention to the war as compared to other eastern wars such as the Indo-China (Vietnamese) war) but ironically the consequences of this war are much more robustly felt today and amusingly as far as the international laws are concerned, both countries are still at war (technically) owing to no written peace agreement.
The Korean War started due to animosity of North Korea towards the South Korea. Pyongyang invaded Seoul on June 25, 1950 as part of the belligerent strategy of Kim II-sung , grandfather of the current dictator King Jong-un. North Korean armies infringed the 38th parallel and launched a full-fledged military assault on South Korea. Though the war was an illegitimate “move forward” policy of North Korea, but because that epoch was of the notorious “cold war”, its aggravation was preordained. Moreover, the newly formed People’s Republic of China, under Mao Zedong was also very much curious to distinguish itself as an epitome of the rising wave of Communism.
The United States in alliance with all the major European nations came up for the support of South Korea while PRC and the Soviet Union took place in war to fillip the North Korean side. The war was in itself a huge disaster. It was the first war in history to ever record full air combat between flying jets of the US and the USSR. The war observed death of around 5, 45,688 soldiers and left more than one million soldiers completely disabled from both the sides.
After the war, the North Korea was isolated out but still it managed to gain two friends from the “enemy of an enemy is a friend” policy of the Soviet Union and PRC. In 1950s only, USSR started assisting North Korea in the development of the latter’s nascent nuclear program. In 1969, for the first time the matter became a global issue after Chinese intelligence reports corroborated that North Korea was much near to being a nuclear-powered nation.
But soon, North Korea realized that being completely segregated out of the global processes and dealing with various impediments imposed on it after the Korean war, was not working fine; it again started its process of assimilating back into the mainstream.  In 1947, the country joined IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and allowed international agencies to look into its nuclear work. Moving ahead, in 1985, it even joined the NPT(Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty).
When everything was working exactly fine, suddenly a jolt came and things started being reversed. After developing Yongbyon nuclear reactor, a complete reversal in North Korea’s international policy took place. The uranium powered Yongbyon reactor, capable of producing weapon-grade plutonium, changed the complete outlook of the international political scenario in the Korean peninsula and subsequently in the year 1993 North Korea rescinded NPT, and refuted to get its nuclear supplies screened. After five years the US intelligence agencies reported about the covert development of advanced nuclear sites in North Korea. The matter finally became clear in the year 2002 when North Korea itself confessed having nuclear arms. The world was flabbergasted at the news since this remarked starting of an era of uncertainty in the Korean and South Chinese region. The bellicose attitude of North Korea and its floundering of international etiquettes as well as regulations triggered the commencement of six party talks including China, North Korea, the US, Russia, Japan and South Korea. Washington demanded complete dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear weapons but Pyongyang abjured conformity to any such demand. It officially walked out of the six-party talks in 2005 and the very next year, it underwent its first two nuclear tests with around 5 kilotons of explosive strength.
Since then, there has been no looking back. The aggressive attitude of North Korea aimed at subjugating the world through its continuous threats of attack as well as its clear belittling of international forums has done much in raising tensions all around the Korean peninsula. There has been no nation in the East that has remained unfazed by the illegit attempts of North Korea to attain hegemony over the whole region. And, hence this problem is of utmost gravity and needs to be dealt with much sensitivity.
 Quick action will only lead to disasters and certainly the world is not at all ready for a nuclear war. No matter where the war takes place, it will just come as Hara-kiri to the humanity. The nightmares of Japan still continue to haunt the world and hence this situation needs to be tackled with supreme strategic fastidiousness and scrupulous management. Today we can’t manage to further procrastinate the matter. We can’t dare to adopt a dilatory attitude in this matter because if we don’t deal with it in the present, the world might not see a future.



Jai Hind, Jai Bharat
Jai Ma Bharti

Tuesday 18 April 2017

LORD PARASHURAMA:THE PROGENITOR OF LIFE(2)

It has been an overwhelming fact that the aura of the sixth avatar of Lord Vishnu has not been constricted to one single place but in fact, spreads widely over the whole of the Indian subcontinent.

Ranging from Karnataka in South to the splendid and serene hills of Arunachal Pradesh in North-East, indubitably Lord Parshuram still holds his own substance and vitality. At first it may appear incredible to believe that these far distant places have been interwined in the thread of the legends of Lord Parshuram, but after requisite scrutiny and collation of the various descriptions of Lord Parashuram in Mahabharata and Ramayana, one can easily infer that the world as a whole was a mere patch of land for the almighty. In his previous incarnation as Lord Vamana, he had grown big enough to make the whole universe drown under his feet and hence the manifest power of the supreme lord can never be deemed with a skeptical mind.
Let us dig further down to see a few legends regarding Lord Parshuram’s visit in Karnataka and the mountains of Arunachal Pradesh.
According to the first book of Mahabharata, Lord Parshuram traveled the whole of earth and decimated the Kshatriya clan. After fulfilling his oath of carrying out the gory extirpation of the scoundrels, he had indeed created five rivers of blood. As per a related legend, while returning from a battle Lord Parashuram rested at the bank of a river situated in what is now known as Badami Taluka of Bagalkot district of Karnataka. While he was about to go ahead, he started washing his blood-stained axe with the river water. As the blood started diffusing down in the river, anon the whole river turned red and unaware of the presence of Lord Parshuram, women washing their clothes downstream were left awe-struck and shrieked “Aihole” meaning “Oh! What a river”. Thus even today the whole village is known as “Aihole”.
Moving on to the far reaching mountains of Arunachal Pradesh, down the Brahmaputra plateau, in the lower reaches of Lohit River, there lays the special Parashuram Kund. 21 km north of Tezu in Lohit district of Arunachal Pradesh lays this enigmatic place. Though the river here flows in fast skirring streamlines, but in a mysterious manner, the boulders have so arranged themselves that now a whole “Kund” has been established there by the artistry of nature itself. According to Kalika Purana, Lord Parshuram washed his sin of killing Kshatriyas at this place. Although he had wielded the weapon in order to sabotage the tyrants and immoral people, but still since he was a Brahmin, warfare was not supposed to be his work and hence Lord Parshuram came here to atone for his actions. Every year more than 70,000 pilgrims from around the nation as well as from neighboring countries like Nepal throng the place and on the day of Makarsakranti, the vitality of this place beggars description.

Words are left inadequate in describing the supreme Lord Parshuram, the one who is omnipotent and omnipresent, the one whose significance even outreaches the boundaries of time and the one whose strength is purely unfathomable.

Though I have mentioned only two legends, but in actuality, the whole nation abounds with so many other legends about the great lord which we will uncover in the coming posts.

JAI HIND, JAI BHARAT
JAI MA BHARTI


Sunday 16 April 2017

LORD PARASHURAMA:THE PROGENITOR OF LIFE(1)

Lord Parshuram, the sixth incarnation of Lord Vishnu, continues to be the eternal truth.  For posterities to come, his fame will never fade away even a bit; the perennial truth, Lord Parshuram will continue to redeem the world of its sins and malefactors.

The enigmatic charm engulfing lord Parshuram is inexorably stupendous.  Today, we will talk about a line of philosophy pertinent to the unrivaled significance of Lord Parshuram that lucidly hints at why Lord Parshuram is more indispensable than even Lord Rama and Lord Krishna.

According to Darwin’s theory and evolutionary Biology, when life on earth was a novice, it could only be found in the deep oceans.  As the progress of the forms continued, the life under deep oceans invaded the lands and we got amphibians, soon the amphibians adapted themselves to become terrestrial. Afterward, the terrestrial kingdom pervaded the land. The story then moved further to the evolution of terrestrial animals into the sapient Homo sapiens.
This is the line of thought of the modern Biology and amusing what our Vedas had predicted thousands of years back seems to share no discreteness from the modern theory of evolution.

 According to the Hindu mythology, Lord Brahma is the progenitor of life, Lord Vishnu signifies sustaining in the world, and Lord Shiva ultimately bears the onus of redeeming people from the recurrent cycles of life. To get a pellucid view (according to Hinduism) about how life evolved on earth, let us focus our attention on Lord Vishnu and his incarnations.

As per the concerned Hindu scriptures, Lord Vishnu will incarnate ten times on earth in order to perform the salvation of earth from evil and to edify and enlighten the ignoramus human beings. In Bhagwat Geeta, Chapter IV and verse 7, Lord Krishna (an incarnation of Lord Vishnu) himself quoted,
YADA YADA HI DHARMASYA ,
GLANIRBHAVATI BHARATA,
 ABHYUTTANAM ADHARMASYA,
 TADAATMANAAM SRUJAMYAHAM.

O Bharata, whenever there is a decline of righteousness and rise of evil, I manifest myself.

Let us have a glance over all the Dashavatars (ten incarnations) if Lord Vishnu

Matsya: The almighty incarnated in the form of a fish (the marine life).
Kurma: The amphibian tortoise.
Varaha: The terrestrial wild boar.
Narasimha: Half man-half lion body.
Vamana: A dwarf, under-developed man.
Parashuram: Epitome of strength, courage, and love for his family.
Rama: One who never digresses from the correct path.
Krishna: The one who is adorable, shrewd and can resort to anything to save the mankind from peril.

The ninth avatar is still debated. Various schools of thoughts have their own dispositions about the ninth avatar while the tenth avatar has presumably not taken birth hitherto and will set his feet on the earth just before the apocalypse.

If we have a look at the descriptions of all the avatars mentioned above, we can quickly jump over the conclusion that indeed, Lord Parashuram is the optimum paradigm of a human life form. The one who is the virtuoso in every field of work, the greatest teacher ever born, the one who is insurmountable, the one who has unrivalled dexterity in all the Vedas, the one whose glory can never diminish (even the tenth avatar will receive his education from Lord Parashuram), the one who venerate his parents and loved ones in an unparallel manner and the one whose fame can never be tarnished.

The sixth incarnation of Lord Vishnu carries more significance than any other one because through this incarnation only, Lord Vishnu has portrayed how the transition of undeveloped life forms to fully mature forms, took place. Such is the glory of Lord Parashuram that he, in fact, signifies the true commencement of human life on earth and is literally the true source of energy and life.

The human mind is not perceptible enough to even catch a glimpse of the power that Lord Parshuram wields, we can't even mull over how much strength his character holds, our dimensions of thoughts are just abysmal for the almighty but still even thinking about the Lord can exonerate us from our wrongdoings and immoral thoughts and this post is just a measure to progress ahead towards the God.

P.S. This is the first blog in the upcoming series of posts on Lord Parashuram in order to make people aware about the true vitality of the supreme Lord Parshuram.


 JAI HIND, JAI BHARAT
JAI MA BHARTI

Thursday 6 April 2017

Hydro power Development in Arunachal Pradesh and its challenges.

Nature, in India, hides so many clandestine secrets in its lap that it never fails to hit the bullseye in flabbergasting you. While the whole nation today continues to grapple with the problem of energy conservation and energy shortage to feed the demands of an over-increasing population, the solution lies at a place which till now has been completely neglected.

Though the issue of Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh springs into action as soon as any talk is about to take place between Indian diplomats and their Chinese counterparts, but more or less the true potential of Arunachal Pradesh transcends all the disputes and petty claims by the Chinese on this Indian territory. The vitality, beauty and importance of the "Land of Dawn-lit Mountains" are unparalleled and that is evident from the excessive potential that lies in this area.

Nature has decorated this state with such an astonishing beauty that it is impossible for some abysmal words to expound it to anyone who has never been to this place. The state is one of the seven sisters states in India and stands 14th in the area-wise category among the rest of the twenty-eight Indian states. The huge waterfalls and a God-gifted labyrinth of river systems allocate the state with an unmatched crucial structure.

In the year 2003, NDA government headed by former Prime Minister Shri. Atal Bihari Vajpayee kickstarted the dream Indian electricity generation project, under which an increment of 50,000 MW of electricity generation capacity was to be rendered to different generation plants around the nation. Out of 162 generation plants, 42 were situated in Arunachal Pradesh only and bore the onus of generating around half of desired value of 50,000 MW. 

A couple of years later the work did start but soon afterwards, red tapes, lack of motivation on behalf of stakeholders and various environment issues (that are not being dealt at the bureaucratic level) have completely stalled the project as well as the great vision. 

After a few years, Memoranda of Agreement(MoA) were signed between the state government and private developers, conducive to this, all the major projects were handed out for Survey and Investigation (S&I), which is counted among the initial steps towards the proceeding of approvals of various formal clearances. 

Haplessly, everything came to a complete standstill and various projects have not even taken off even after fourteen years of the commencement of the programme. Special projects such as 2000MW Subhansiri Lower Hydroelectric Project (SLHEP) and 3000MW Lower valley Dibang Project (which is also supposed to be instrumental in controlling the floods in the lower Dibang valley) are still waiting in the queue to get the nod of the respective authorities. 

Problems at the grass-root level.
Initially, it was thought of that the main problems are arising due to the resistance offered by the ethnic tribal groups of the areas which have no other source of income but their land which they are not ready to jeopardise for the formation of the hydroelectric projects. Their illiteracy, as well as complete disconnection from the world outside their territories too, aggravate their insecurity regarding proper resettlement. But soon, after proper scrutinies by various NGOs brought out the fact that this is only the half story. 

The government till now has been reluctant in talking the tribal people out of their woes. The land acquisition act as well as successive failures of state governments around the nation, with respect to the resettlement of tribal people, has instilled an aura of suspicion and doubt around all the tribal communities of Arunachal Pradesh.

The problems of the tribals can be placed in three categories which we will discuss in the following points:

1. De-facto ownership :  The tribal communities all around the proposed project areas have been living there since time immemorial and just like people in the cities who have built buildings, houses etc. in order to demarcate their area, the tribals too have set up their whole world around these forest areas and have been feeding themselves only through the products and services that they can get out of the natural vegetation and forests situated there. Their first problem is that they are not being considered as legitimate stakeholders of the area. The private companies have snubbed them off completely and the state government is also taciturn in contemplating about the welfare of these tribes. Being unable to search for a secured platform on any side, the tribes have resorted to offering complete resistance towards S&I and other programs. Since the de facto ownership of the land rests in the hands of the native people of the area, it is necessary to induce them into all the important affairs of the land. 

2.Fear of being duped by the local governmental agencies: History is abound of instances in which local tribes were completely devastated owing to the formation of dams and hydroelectric projects in their endemic area. All the promises of constructive resettlement, in such cases, have proved to be spurious. Either the governments fail to reimburse compensation or many a time, the compensation amount is usurped by scoundrel officials. Unfortunately, in the both the cases, only the pauper tribals are the ones who incur most pain. Besides this, illiteracy, inability to do technical work and complete lack of knowledge of the outside world too paralyses the hopes of these people for a better future. 
The process through which compensation is allocated is also inefficacious and hence there is a huge demand now to effect proper amendments in Arunachal Pradesh Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy(2008). The government talks about remunerating the tribals through monetary funds which according to the tribals is in toto futile since money, unlike their land and its productivity, will be exhausted in a very short period of time and afterwards it will become impossible for them to even survive in the world. Some even allege that such methods are government's plan of enticing the young tribals and ultimately they will be stinted.

3. Environmental Concerns:  Various NGOs have alleged that the private stakeholders are medium-sized companies which have no experience in handling hydro-electric projects. Apart from this, any small mistake can lead to a wide-scale smothering of the exotic as well as endemic flora and fauna of the state. Arunachal Pradesh is mostly known for its unrivalled beauty and nature. This cradle of nature is home to so many endangered species of animals, birds, and aquatic species, all of which will be sabotaged up to an irreversible extent. They accuse that till now the state government has been considering important practices as mere box-ticking exercises and numerous procedures have been unfairly expedited and this can lead to ultimate pandemonium in the whole state. 

The reluctance exhibited by the responsible authorities to mark out a comprehensive and conclusive program in order to tackle all the burning issues have added fuel to the fire thus exacerbating the problems of all the stakeholders. 

Hence today there is a strong need to go ahead with a well-defined strategy which takes into account affordability, productivity, environment and above all the needs of the vulnerable tribal groups. Otherwise, no one will be able to salvage himself out of the disaster.

JAI HIND, JAI BHARAT
JAI MA BHARTI

Sunday 2 April 2017

THE REASON.....

In life, the toughest choice that you will ever encounter will be to decide whether you must let go of things or to keep on going. There are times when we are shattered, battered down to the ground and the world seems futile. Whenever you are surrounded by formidable choices, unravelling dilemmas and inexplicable complexity of life; just use the simple tool of "WHY". There are times when making a conclusive decision seems completely impossible and in no manner, we are able to ascertain what needs to be done, just ask a simple question of "WHY'.

Impulsive decisions and awry decisions blurted out of your conscience can never be transformed into reality, since the choices that have a dearth of reason never see the dawn of success. As we move on to take decisions in life, we must be careful to find the reason as to why we want to do some things. Are we just trying to do them out of our pride? Or are we trying to do them out of necessity, obligation etc? 

The reason behind anything works as an integral part of our journey. The perfect analogy for the reason-desire is of fuel-engine. Both complete each other and no one can be dispensed with. Great goals demand un-fatiguable perseverance and sans reasons no such journey can be sentenced to completion. At any possible time, there is a bevvy of people trying to achieve the same thing you are vying for, but what separated the winner from the loser is just a simple "WHY". The world simply doesn't care about your efficaciousness because it is highly probable that many other people who are working just like can be as much efficacious as you are, the thin line that creates a division between winning and losing is nothing except a simple "reason". When others will be sleeping, the person who has a necessity to succeed will be working; when others will be having fun, chilling out with their friends and family, the people who have an obligation to success will be working out in order to turn their raw dreams into discrete reality. Many a time, you will feel worn out as if no strength is residue inside your heart; in those moments your reason will kick you back into action. This reason comes into play as a fuel in order to make you stand out of the crowd and snatch away things that are meant for you. The biggest discovery that you can ever make is simply, of the "reason" we are talking about your existence. The day you encounter the reality and truth of your existence, you will dodge out of the daily trifles that will surround you and will go on to perform feats that you believed were exceptionally impossible for a person like you. 

JAI HIND, JAI BHARAT
JAI MA BHARTI