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China’s Manoeuvres Dr Arvind Kumar China is giving India a tough and complex challenge politically, strategically, economically and environmentally. China’s military and economic clout provides it better prospects in international community where India has to struggle hard to make its presence felt. At this juncture, India can ill-afford to confront China militarily and such a move may not be in our national interest as well. While safeguarding its territorial and strategic interests, India should hone up its diplomatic skills in regional water diplomacy, environmental negotiations and undertaking joint economic ventures in Africa. It is important to keep China engaged through frequent high-level visits and expansion of economic cooperation in non-strategic areas.  Regional forums like ASEAN-ARF and SCO should see increased bilateral interaction. Currently, when China is too sensitive to outside interference in South China Sea, in its backyard, India should tread with...

World Malaria Day 2013 World Malaria Day will be held every year on 25th of April and recognizes global efforts to control Malaria. World Malaria Day 2013 theme is " Invest in the future: defeat malaria" . Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease caused by a eukaryotic protist of the genus Plasmodium. Malaria is naturally transmitted by the bite of a female Anopheles  mosquito. The purpose of the day is to raise awareness of malaria as a disease that is preventable and treatable and to mobilize communities across the world to get involved in the fight against it. The RBM (Roll Back Malaria) Partnership was launched in 1998 by WHO, UNICEF, UNDP and the World Bank, in an effort to provide a coordinated global response to the disease. The RBM Partnership is led by the Executive Director, and served by a Secretariat  that is hosted by the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. The Secretariat works to facilitate policy coordination at a global level....

EARTH DAY Dr Arvind Kumar Earth Day is an annual event that is celebrated around the world on 22nd April for the past four decades. The purpose of Earth Day is to honour, appreciate, protect, and respect the environment. The first Earth Day was held in 1970 in the United States, and drew over 20 million Americans from different communities and college campuses to become involved with environmental issues. Earth Day allows citizens to create awareness of the environment and to learn how people’s everyday decisions affect the environment. Earth Day has become one of the largest outdoor events in recent years, with about one billion people joining in the activities in thousands of different locations around the world. It is important to create awareness on how to save the earth from damage by pollution. It is up to us to make the earth a safer and healthier place for future generations. People’s everyday actions are related to pollution, which is destroying the environment and ...

Remembering Baba Ambedkar By Dr Arvind Kumar 14th April marks the Birth Anniversary of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the Father of the Indian Constitution. Popularly known as Babasaheb Ambedkar, he was an eminent jurist, a revolutionary social thinker and a charismatic leader of the masses. As the chief architect of the Indian Constitution, Ambedkar imbued the nation’s founding document with visionary prescience. Ambedkar’s life was a tribute to the nation’s founding vision of inclusion and secularism for he fought throughout his life against social evils like untouchablity. He ably campaigned for the rights of the Dalits and other socially backward classes. For his extraordinary breadth of vision and erudition, Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru appointed Dr. Ambedkar as the nation’s first Law Minister. Ambedkar was born on 14 April 1891 in Madhya Pradesh and subsequently his family to Satara in Maharashtra. Ambedkar’s early experiences were life changing and would later influence...

Baisakhi Festival By Dr Arvind Kumar Baisakhi, also known as Vasakhi, is an ancient harvest festival in the Punjab region of North India. Baisakhi is also a Sikh religious festival. It usually falls on the first day of the Baisakh month in the solar Nanakshahi calendar, which corresponds to 13 April in the Gregorian calendar. According to English calendar, the date of Baisakhi corresponds to April 13 every year and April 14 once in every 36 years. This difference in Baisakhi dates is due to the fact that day of Baisakhi is reckoned according to solar calendar and not the lunar calendar. This day is also observed as the beginning of the Hindu solar New Year celebrated by the people of Nepal and India. The special importance attached to the occasion shows regional variation outside of Punjab too. The festival is celebrated as Rongali Bihu in Assam, Naba Barsha in West Bengal and Tripura, Puthandu(Tamil New Year) in Tamil Nadu, Vis...

Jallianwala Bagh Massacre By Dr Arvind Kumar 13th April this year marks the 94 th Anniversary of the 1919 Amritsar massacre, also known alternately as the Jallianwala Bagh massacre: for after the Jallianwala Bagh in the northern Indian city of Amritsar where, on April 13, 1919 (which happened to be ' Baisakhi' one of Punjab's largest religious festivals) fifty British Indian Army soldiers, commanded by Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer, began shooting at an unarmed gathering of men, women and children without warning. The shooting lasted for ten to fifteen minutes, until ammunition ran out. Dyer ordered soldiers to reload their rifles several times and they were ordered to shoot to kill. Official British Raj sources estimated the fatalities at 379, and with 1,100 wounded. Civil Surgeon Dr Smith indicated that there were 1,526 casualties. However, the casualty number quoted by the Indian National Congress was more than 1,500, with roughly 1,000 killed Hunter Commissi...

Durga Navratri                                                     By Dr Arvind Kumar 11 th April marks the inaugural day of the Navratri celebrations. The word ‘Navratri’ literally means nine nights in Sanskrit, the period of eight days and nine nights has its own significance and is divided into sets of three days to worship three different aspects of the supreme goddess. For the first three days the goddess is regarded as a spiritual force called Durga also known as Kali in order to destroy all our impurities. Second three days are devoted to the goddess Lakshmi, who is considered to have the power of bestowing on her devotees inexhaustible wealth and final three days are spent in worshipping the goddess of wisdom, Saraswati. In order to have all-round success in life, believers seek the blessings of all three aspects of the divine femininity, he...

Prevention of Blindness By Dr Arvind Kumar 1st April inaugurates the commencement of the prevention of blindness week to be observed from 1 to 7 April by the National Society for the Prevention of Blindness-India (NSPB-I) and its State and district branches. According to broad estimates, India had 7 million blind people. As per criteria to assess blindness adopted by the Government of India, nearly 15 million were blind according to the 2001 Census. Of them, 2.70 lakh were children aged less than 16. Over 50 per cent of blindness could be prevented in children. In many cases, impairment of vision was preventable or curable. There is lack of knowledge about proper nutrition and hygiene. An estimated 456 million people of India's total population require vision correction (spectacles, contact lenses or refractive surgery) to be able to see and function for learning, work and life in general. Twenty six million people are blind or vision impaired due to eye disease. A f...