random thoughts

Renowned scientist Stephen Hawking has said that within the next 100 years humans have to find a new planet and colonize it. Earth will become uninhabitable due to either the effects of drastic climate change, destruction from nuclear war or genetically engineered viruses. Time is running out. The only option is to accelerate space exploration and hope to find a planet to inhabit. Earlier the reason for space exploration was to see if we could find intelligent life beyond earth. This was purely to satisfy the theory of evolution. If there are earth like planets in the universe, life would have evolved elsewhere as well. We have the means of tracing intelligence through some signatures of technology. The so-called sightings of UFOs has further increased the curiosity of outer space. There is no doubt that we are on a mission to destroy earth, pretty fast. The signs of this destruction are for all to see. Glaciers disappearing at a rapid rate, global temperatures rising rapidly, water...

Vigilantes are those who take law into their own hands without legal sanction. It is usually due to the inadequacy of legal agencies that vigilantes grow. Lynching is a common form of vigilante justice meted out which is a extrajudicial justice motivated by non-existence of law and order. Vigilante justice is common in countries like South Africa, Somalia, Brazil and Philippines. The main cause for vigilantism is either that law enforcement agencies are not present or unable to enforce the law of the land. Heard Yogi Adityanath, the Chief Minster of Uttar Pradesh speak for the first time at the India Today forum- UP Panchayat .  He mostly spoke on the achievements and plans of the new government that took office less than two months back. Then there was an interview cum Q&A session compared by Rahul Kanwal. Only on the question of prohibition, Yogi wriggled out of answering it by stating that his priority is law and order. But everyone is expecting him to spring a surprise so...

India is faced with the prospect of a prolonged and costly conflict in Kashmir. New strategies are deployed by separatists every other day to weaken the resolve of the armed forces and put doubts in the minds of the government, both the Sate and the Union. After the stone pelting, by mobs sympathetic to the cause of terrorists, to deter the army from flushing out terrorists, now it is looting of the banks by terror groups to both hit soft targets and finance the terror operations and in the process stretch the army to the point of breaking. One cannot but expect Pakistan to indulge in brinkmanship over Kashmir. The recent beheading of two Indian Jawans on the LOC points to the complicity of Pakistan in terrorism aimed at India. Fishing in troubled waters is a given strategy of Pak when it comes to internationalizing the Kashmir issue. Pakistan somehow wants US to get involved in the resolution of the Kashmir dispute. It will obviously give Pakistan a better chance of resolving it in ...

Was watching Arnab Goswami on Republic TV (test broadcast) talking about the reasons behind the launch of the channel and at the same time introducing the journalists and experts who will be giving the news, or as he puts it, a perspective. One thing, I am by the way a great fan of Arnab, that caught my attention and started off an internal probe was the allusion to independent media. While taking a dig at the existing national news channels (English, of course) he said that they were compromised and therefore not able to take up relevant issues and take on the entrenched powers that be. Can news media be truly independent. Yes, it is possible to be independent of the government, as it happens in most democracies, including India. The state run Doordarshan, by definition, cannot be independent of the government diktats and sensitivities. The private news channels are independent of the state control, still come under the laws of the country, but dependent on the source of funding. If...

It was heartening to hear, first thing in the morning, that President Trump doesn't mind meeting with the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. Many a things can be sorted out when there is a meeting, specially between the top leaders. One was getting the impression that Trump was heading for a confrontation with North Korea, what with the USS Carl Vinson led strike group arriving in the Sea of Japan to take part in a three nation military drill. From the viewpoint of North Korea, the annual military exercise involving South Korean and American troops is a prelude for an invasion. The American side feels that this joint military exercise is a guarantee of continued US support for South Korea. Relations between US and North Korea is deteriorating as North Korea increases its quest for both ballistic missiles and nuclear warhead capability. The latest test firing, though a failure, of a medium range missile that exploded a few minutes into flight, was seen as a belligerent message to bo...