The World Is In Me

  Off late strategic foreign relationship thinkers in India are lobbying hard for establishing formal relationship with Taiwan to counter the assertive China. To understand how Taiwan acts as a counter balance to China we have to go back to history. It all started in 19th century in China, decline of Qing dynasty and birth of personalities who were going to shape its future for generation to come - Sun Yat-Sen, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong . Taiwan till then was part of China. Two parallel events happened during this period - annexation of Taiwan by Japan and formation of Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP) also known as Kuomintang (KMT), which like the Congress party in India, became an umbrella party for people of various ideologies, by Sun Yat-Sen. Under this party the Republic of China (ROC) was formed with Sun Yat-Sen as its leader. After death of Sun Yat-Sen the mantle was passed on to one of his favorite Chiang Kai-shek. However, by then fracture in the KMT was becoming visi...

2020 has been an eventful year and if we had thought that it could not have been worse, it has again  surprised us. Two countries in western Asia, Armenia and Azerbaijan are in full blow war since September 27th and till now there has been no sign of abating. Nagorno-Karabakh a 4400 sq.km landlocked region, claimed by both the countries is the center of this conflict. Though internationally this land locked region is recognized to be part of Azerbaijan, but is populated by people of Armenians origin. Now, coming to the background of this conflict, like most of the arm conflicts this one too has multiple facets to look into. Religious and Historical – Armenia was historically a Christian dominated region whereas Azerbaijan a Shia Muslim. In fact, Azerbaijan is the second largest Shia population after Iran. in fact, that is one reason for its close proximity with Iran which is its’ neighbor in southern region and share naval border over Caspian Sea. Ottomans in 1915 started pu...

United Nation created at the end of World War (WW II) in 1945, aimed at maintaining the peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations based on principles of equality and self-determination, achieve international cooperation to solve major challenges faced by humanity and to be a center for harmonizing the actions of nation in the attainment of common good. As 22 nd September marked the 75 th anniversary of the world body, I think it is a right time to retrospect and understand why many thinks that UN has lost its significance in the world affairs when humanity is facing multitude of challenges. So far United Nation has been successful in avoiding any direct confrontation amongst major countries and thus preventing the humanity from the scourge of a military WW III. But the last seven decades has been blotted with enough confrontations which critics often sites to questions UN’s significance. And when the world is facing the rage of a C-19 crisis, which is the first t...

 On 9 th September, 2020 US President Donald J. Trump took on Twitter to thank a post from JerusalemPost which read as follows - “#Breaking: @realDonaldTrump was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his hand in reaching the #IsrealUAEDeal…..” Within 72 hrs of above breaking news, the President again received the 2 nd nomination for his role in Serbia-Kosovo peace agreement. Though both were just nominations and the actual outcome could be different, this news did give a reason to all Trump supporters to cheer as the run up for the election has just started gathering steam all across the US. 2018 also President Trump was close to get the Nobel Peace prize for his attempt to reconcile the relations in Korean Peninsula and Syria. But over the period of last couple of years there has been hardly any ground traction for either of the agreements. Demolishing of the inter-Korean embassy office by Pyongyang and uneasy state of the rubble turned Syria again pro...

The phrase Fake news is generally used to denote a deliberate disinformation spreading content which one can easily encounter in any social media platforms like Whatsapp, Twitter or Facebook. Though this term got prominence in January 11, 2017 when then US President-elect Mr. Donald Trump used it to label CNN a “fake news” channel but we will be surprised to know that this term has a long and quite an illustrious history. A quick look in the Google Books Ngrams Viewer, which tracks the popularity and usage of a word or phrase for last 200 years, we can very well see that this term has been in popular uses since 1820s and had seen its popularity during the period between 1920s and 1940s before reaching its ultimate fames during 2000s. It was chosen as the word of the year 2017 by Glasgow based Collin dictionary War & Politics If major world events are plotted on the timeline axis of the above Google Ngrams Viewer graph, the peaks seem to coincides with the Wars that the major En...

Imagine your selves as a real naughty kids for sometime. It is a typical Sunday morning and you don't have any friends around to play. Suddenly you hear a puppy's cry. You look for the puppy & see that it is one of those cutest little one. What will you all do? Will not the thought of taking it to home cross your mind for a moment? My dear readers, I infact did it. And do you know what response I got from my Mom? “ If you continue demanding a dog, either I will stay or the canine will stay in house; both cannot.”  That dream of having a dog as pet got a premature death. I am always fond of pet. I wanted my parents to give me one on my birthday, but that still remains an alluring dream. For me a pet is always more than a friend. A true companion who can take away your boredom & showers you with love and expect nothing but affection from you in return. As I grew up, like most of us, we get surrounded by so many whom we also have to call friends. My friend list...

Dear friends Happy Diwali to one and all!!! As the morning unfolds you may be finding your facebook pages filled with Diwali wishes and lovely smses in your phones.  Before you respond to all those, you may like to have a small glimpses of a not so beautiful incident that had happened in front of my block in the apartment I stay. It was way past 10pm on the night of Diwali, beyond permissible hours of burning banned crackers. Lighting of noise cracker was rampant nearby the badminton court which is adjacent to my block. A neighbor of mine went down requesting to restrain from using the banned crackers. Forget about restraining, acting naive, they were in denial and don't even know who were burning those. The noise decibel reached further height and it was around 11:00 pm. Police had to come, seized some crackers, warned few and left. I saw children running upstairs in fear, holding bunch of bombs and noise crackers, terrified that the police had come. It made ...

Just saw My Name is Khan, nice movie. It really evoked in me ideas that were churning in since long. We stay in a society which we like to believe is “a diversified one but still united.” At least that is what is taught to us as I was growing up. But as I am coming out of my cocoon and exploring the world around me, this believe, which I too also shared, is starting to crumble down. Are we really united? Do we have really have the feeling to stand for each other’s cause or what exactly is this division, that I now believe does exit, is based upon? Like these, plethora of weird questions come in my mind as I am writing these very words. With the observation I have over the period of time, I am bound to believe that we are living in a society which has become more sensitive towards ideas, comments or any form of expression than that of our grandparents. And it will continue to increase in future. The world around us has become more polarised basing upon religion, caste, gender, sexu...

Yesterday I saw Invictus , a wonderful movie by Clint Eastwood. It is about the time of Nelson Mandela when he was just elected as the president of South Africa post apartheid. It showed how divided the country was during that time and how Madiba (as Nelson is called by inhabitants) forged unity among the people by inspiring François Pienaar, the then captain of Springbok( South African National Rugby team), who later goes on to win world cup for his country. A truely inspiring movie and the most inspiring was the poem that Nelson mentioned, Invictus. The poem that kept him standing when all he wanted to do was to lie down in the prison of Robben Island where he remained for eighteen years of his twenty seven years in jail. Friends I will like to share with you the poem. Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings ...

“Bhaiya didn’t they gave a demo of how to play a cd in this”, anxious Mayank, with a torch in his hand to help me look inside the CPU, asked me. Again gaining composure on myself I steadily jacked all the wires to the DVD writer and then slowly slide the metal lid of the CPU to close it, and the electronic circuit , laughing like a baby as it has been successful in hiding the compact disc inside it, was devoured of light. “Bhaiya you should have been bit careful”, Mayank continued. I had to answer now, showing my newly nurtured all-izz-well attitude I said, “No issues Mayank, tomorrow I shall give a call to the DELL call centre, guys will come and this DVD-Writer will be back in life.” Tensed Mayan left for the day saying adieu. Closing the door behind me I again switched on my UPS through which the life flowed back to my sleeping baby monster DELL INSPIRON 560s, my first desktop, whose DVD-Writer has few moments back have just swallowed one small diametric compact disc and no...

Hi friends. How are you? I am writing again after a long gap. I hope you are fine and had a safe Holi. On that note belated happy Holi to all of you. Well today’s blog is something that I thought of writing ever since I saw t he controversial movie by Danny Boyle- Slumdog millionaire. Therefore, I did a bit of research work. I followed all kinds of discussions on this movie in print media and different news channels. Our movie stars are putting forward their  opinion. Forget film stars and all big shots even my little sisters, my parents, my aunts each has a take on this movie. Seriously speaking this is the first time in my life I am seeing so much discussion on a film in India . Does Slumdog Millionaire portrays the true India –the India that is shining? Everybody has his or her own opinion. My stand on it is a simple YES. It represents the true India . The life of the slum that has being shown is meticulously portrayed. Whatever be our slogan India shining incredible India et...

Shahruk khan-the name itself pumps me up with loads of energy, oodles of enthusiasm, and tons of joy. Give me his any movies (old/new), show me any of his adds or anything under the sun that he is connected to, will fill me up with happiness that a child has on watching a colored balloon in a mela. Since my childhood days, I had been his great fan. I still remember when I scored poorly in class 2; my Dad blamed it to my craze of Shahruk Khan. I made it a point to watch his each new release. I did not know why exactly I liked him then, was it because of his dimple or was it because of his cheesy dialogues those he delivered effortlessly or was it because of his extraordinary screen presence. I still cannot recollect the reason I had as a child. As I grew up, I started analyzing him. By now, the phenomenon called SRK has become a subject of research for me and I as a person who questions a lot of why for everything, it was obvious for me to figure out the answer for this. I started ...

Hi everybody. I am sure everybody reading this is having a blast of time. I am too having a great time. Just completed the B-Tech and now enjoying the holidays in between and waiting for the call letter from TCS. I really love holidays. It gives me an opportunity to reinvent myself, read novels, watch loads of movies, listen to good music and spend hell lot of time with my parents and cousins. I had been waiting for this holiday for a long time. I had made plans beforehand about this. I had decided that I shall be enjoying this days to the fullest because once my job starts it will be really difficult for me to have so much of leisure time. Now let me tell you how I am spending this holidays. Holidays kick started with IPL. Its fever was so severe that without its evening dose I could not go to bed at night. I was supporting Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). The passion was so intense that I even went to Eden to watch the match with KKR and Chennai Super Kings. Yes I was very disappointed w...