21 st century is marred by the outbreak of various zoonotic diseases. Be it the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Ebola haemorrhagic fever, Nipah virus encephalitis, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), Swine Flu (H1N1) or Bird Flu (H5N1). They have resulted in millions of fatalities around the globe. The new addition in this line is the new strain of coronavirus i.e. SARS-CoV2 which has resulted into COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 pandemic is notified as 'biological' disaster by the government of India. Hence it is important to understand the meaning of “biological disaster” and assess India’s preparedness with respect to handling of a “biological disaster”. Means to Counter Biological disaster As per the constitutional norm, health is a state subject. The primary responsibility of dealing with the state government. There are a number of legislations that control and govern the nation's health. Government can enforce these legislations to contain the sp...

The truth about inequality The great promise of communism in the 20 th century was the removal of inequalities. However if failed comprehensively by 1991. The worldwide spread of capitalism and LPG wad the next big promise. But sadly data show that the world income inequality has grown and diminished. The seven key truths about income inequalities are: Income inequalities is lowest in Europe and highest in Middle East. The top 10% income share is 37% in Europe, 41% in China and 56% in India. In the Middle East top 10% cornered 61% of National Income. Since 1980s inequality has sharply risen in India, China, Russia, and North America. Regions like Brazil, Middle East and Sub-Sharan Africa are the inequality frontiers, as they never experienced post World War-II egalitarian. In 1980 the top 1% income share was roughly 10% in US and Western Europe, but today it is roughly 20% in US and 16% in Western Europe. The bottom 50% of share in America steeply dropped from 20% in ...

Who came first - Viruses or Humans? Do humans really mark the pinnacle of evolution of viruses? While we’ve evolved along a pathway of ever-increasing complexity, viruses have streamlined, successfully jettisoning all but a handful of essential genes. Viruses are the most abundant biological entities on Earth. They are present everywhere, in our surrounding, the oceans, the soil and in every living being. Retroviruses contributed to about half of our genomic sequences and to the evolution of the mammalian placenta. Contemporary viruses reflect evolution ranging from the RNA world to the DNA-protein world. Viruses and Bacteria both descended from an ancient cellular life form. But while - like humans - bacteria evolved to become more complex, viruses became simpler. Today, viruses are so small and simple, thet can't even replicate on their own. Viruses carry only the essential genetic information they need to be able to slip inside a host cell and coax it into making new ...

Well, the lockdown/ curfew has barely begun, and people are already bored. As restaurants, bars, beaches, parks, and pretty much everything else has been closed, all you can do it get out and got to a general store to buy necessary items. As the total number of cases around the globe are increasing day-by-day, I think it was a necessary step that was required to contain the spread of the pandemic Coronavirus. However, thinking out of the box, the 21 day isolation may very well present us with the opportunities to try out our hands at something new or even get things done around the house which we have been putting off. without further ado, let us now take a look at the top 8 things we can do during a lockdown: 1. EXERCISE A complete lockdown behind the doors can take a took on the mental health as well as the physical health, and lockdown can easily translate to a week of slouching on the couch. At a time like this, it becomes to get the blood circulation and retain health...

All the 4 convicts of Nirbhaya Rape Case were hanged on the 20 th March at 05:30 AM (IST). It seemed like Justice has been served to the Nirbhaya, but is it really the true justice? True justice is something which is meant to be handled at the present moment, but in this case the Justice has been served 7 years 3 months and 4 days or, 2651 days later. Nobody could understand the frustration which was dealt by the family members during the trial period, waiting, waiting and just waiting for the justice to be served. Why the judiciary took so much time for the justice to be served? There are many possible reasons for this delay, as indicated by the experts. These reasons will be discussed later in the article. But first of all, Justice is one of civilisation’s foundational Right . Securing justice – social, economic and political – to all citizens is one of the key mandates of the Indian Constitution . This has been explicitly made so in the Article 39-A of the Constitution ...

Nirbhaya Case History: 16 th December of 2012 was the day when India witnessed a horrific incident. Because of the heinous incident, India lost a daughter once again, but the daughter had to go through more than what is called heart-wrenching. It was the night when Jyoti Singh was gang raped and her friend Awindra Pratap Pandey was almost beaten to death. Though, he somehow escaped the fury of death. Jyoti, was fighting for her life after she had been brutally assaulted by six men. The six men (Ram Singh, the bus driver, Mukesh Singh, his brother, Vinay Sharma, an assistant gym instructor, Pawan Gupta, a fruit seller, Akshay Thakur and a Juvenile) were already present in a bus that Jyoti along with her male friend boarded. It is believed that the men on the bus passed some comment to which Jyoti and her friend reacted. After this, the men couldn’t stand that a woman raised her voice. In order to satisfy their ego, they raped Jyoti. One of them was a juvenile too and is said t...

What is Article 370? Article 370 of the Indian Constitution used to give special status to the region of Jammu and Kashmir. The article was drafted in Part XXI of the Constitution: Temporary, Transitional and Special Provisions. Under this article all the provisions of the constitution which are applicable to other states are not applicable to J&K. For example, till 1965, J&K had a Sadr-e-Riyasat for governor and prime minister in place of chief minister. This article along with Article 35A defined that the J&K state's resident live under separate set of laws, including those related to citizenship, ownership of property, and fundamental rights, as compared to resident of other Indian states. As a result of this provision, Indian citizens from other states cannot purchase land or property in Jammu and Kashmir. History of Article 370 In October, 1947, after signing on the Instrument of Accession by the then Maharaja of Kashmir, Hari Singh, three subjects on...

What is Unemployment? Unemployment refers to a situation in which the workers who are capable of working and willing to work do not get employed or fail to secure work or any other activity which gives them income or means of livelihood. People who are unfit for work due to physical reason or do not want to work are excluded from the category of unemployment. Basic Definitions 1. Workforce: A worker is one who participate in any economic activity. 2. Labour Force: It refers to the segment of population which supplies or offers to supply labour for production and therefore includes both employed and unemployed persons. 3. Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR): It is defined as the percentage of persons in labour force (i.e. working or seeking or available for work) in the population. 4. Work Participation Rate: It is defined as the percentage of employed persons in the population. 5. Unemployment Rate: Is is defined as a number of unemployed people divided by th...

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented Budget 2019-20 on 05.07.2019 Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman became second women in the history of Independence India to present the Union Budget . She presented the maiden budget of Narendra Modi 2.0 government in the Lok Sabha. KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THE BUDGET 10-POINT VISION FOR THE DECADE Building Team India with Jan Bhagidari : Minimum Government Maximum Governance Achieving green Mother Earth and Blue skies through a pollution-free India Making Digital India reach every sector of the economy Launching Gaganyan, Chandrayan, other Space and Satellite programmes Building physical and social infrastructure Water, water management, clean rivers Blue Economy Self-sufficiency and export of food-grains, pulses, oilseeds, fruits and vegetables Achieving a healthy society via Ayushman Bharat , well-nourished women & children, safety of citizens Emphasis on MSMEs, Start-ups, defence manufacturing, automobiles, el...

A Closer Look at India’s languages (Infographic), Credit: daytranslations.com The compulsory imposition of Hindi in schools under the draft National Education Policy (NEP) 2019 displeased non-Hindi speaking states like Tamil Nadu. After much backlash the clause was revised to make it non-mandatory. This was not the first time in the independence history of India that the issue of languages has arisen. It arose in the past, it will arise in the future. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND India has a rich heritage in terms of languages and every language spoken, even by the most remote areas, is respected by the Constitution. “History demonstrates that, from times immemorial, India has been a multilingual country, each language having a certain region in which it was supreme, but none of these regions truly constituted unilingual kingdom or principality.” In ancient India, Sanskrit was most prevailing language by the 'elites' and Pali was the medium of communication for 'lo...

Youth UNESCO Definition: Best understand as a period of transition from the dependence on childhood to adulthood's independence and awareness of our independence as a member of a community. Youth is a more fluid category rather than a fixed age group. Youth being enthusiastic, vibrant, innovative and dynamic in nature is the most important section of the population. They are the most valuable segment of the population and are not a ready laboratory to test the finished products of the state apparatus. Rather, they are the variables that should be utilized for creating new opportunities based on the skills of contemporary relevance. The youth of the nation are the trustees of prosperity. Youth force is dynamic in nature as most skills and orientations are acquired in this age. The youth can act ideally as a bridge between two generations. It is an age cohort that, if explained properly, can understand the need of flexibility in order to smoothen its own growth and development...

Source:  https://www.eci.gov.in/ General Election, the biggest Democratic 'Festival' (comes every five year) was ended on 19.05.2019. This festival was observed in 543 constituencies across 29 states and 7 Union Territories (UTs), spread over a month, in seven phases. About 900 million citizens were eligible to vote in one of the seven phases depending on the region. More than 350 political parties of various sizes and ideologies contested to win the trust of the people and vie to win seats in Lok Sabha. The finale (counting of votes) will be concluded on 23 May, 2019. Some of the important national issues (according to me) on which General Election - 2019 was fought on are as follows: National Security India in the recent times have been struggling with the problem of terrorism. Action against terrorism and extremism was the main focus by the majority of the political parties. The issue of lousy procurement policies in defense and declining defense budget was als...

I have already written a post on Media and its role in a Democracy , in which I concluded that unbiased media is a must for Democracy to operate efficiently (a very well known fact) . Now we are going to analyse how the highly skewed or biased media intentionally or unintentionally can change the course of natural flow of any news, or change the flow of news in a particular direction. It is wrong to say that every-time every-thing has to be unbiased, because its not. The closest thing to unbiased I have witnessed is the scientific studies which are designed to be void of all emotional associations while presenting data and information. To be human is to have biases as we all individuals have our prejudices, preferences and positions; to write or think without reflecting them in some way or the other is nearly impossible. In media sector, however, we have to try. Media person or journalists should be factual and as fair as the facts allow them to be. Well-executed journalism allows...