Carbon Footprint: Whose fault is it anyway?

It has been taught to us since junior schooling that the environment is a place for all living beings. We have been taught interdependence and mutual benefit. For the next ten minutes let us forget that humans are destroying everything for their own greed. Let us dissect this and see.

Every living thing has a role to play in this eco-system. Since time immemorial, animals and plants have been maintaining all sorts of cycles to keep the ground cool and the wind blowing. The plants have refilled oxygen in the air that every organism breathes and taken in their carbon dioxide. Animals have been carrying forward the food chain smoothly. The simplest way to explain food chain would be this: the lion eats the deer, who feasts on the grass. More deer would mean less grass; that would mean more soil erosion. Soil erosion leads to damage to trees and that would get us into all sorts of trouble. So you see what I mean when I say how animals maintain the food chain.

Carbon footprint is the measure of emission of greenhouse gases by an individual or an organisation. Before humans found ways to emit greenhouse gases, there were seldom any instruments of harm. But since that ship has already sailed, it is wiser to look at things that can be done. Animals are our hope of bringing global warming to somewhat a stop. This is how.

Animals regulate the system of a particular region. Like a few cycles mentioned above, every region has a different setting, climatic conditions, and weather and eco system. Biodiversity of a particular region is adapted to a style which is maintained by animals and plants of that region. Therefore, animals have a direct involvement in maintaining the carbon cycle of the forests among others.

In a lot of villages where I surveyed people, there one problem was tigers harming their crops and cattle. These were villages close to protected forest areas. That was the first time I really understood what animals could really do. So, forests are animals’ habitat and therefore, they protect them. In a forest, people are only afraid to go because they fear being eaten. Out of the lot of them, 70% of people wouldn’t mind killing the tigers, but they couldn’t because a) it is illegal, and b) they were scared. Only 30% truly understand that only animals can hold the forests and their environments together. Of course protecting their habitat isn’t the first thing, but it is a chief reason, and I say this after really hearing it first hand from people who have experienced it.

By protecting our forests, they are directly helping reduce the carbon footprint of every individual. Every person who doesn’t understand the power of one tree, one whiff of oxygen, one less unit of greenhouse gases in our air, is likely to be in debt of animals that are protecting their share of trees.

But now we can remind ourselves again that we are destroying everything. Let us take a moment and think about this, shall we? Why do we say that the animals and plants are helping us? The world is not centered around us. We are a part of the system; everyone has a role to play. The organisms are not serving us, they are doing their job. It’s time we do ours. 

Vaibhavi Khanwalkar

Wonders of Sleep

You spend about eight out of every 24hrs, or one third of your entire life, in sleep. Sleep is a divine law and also many answers to our problems come to us when we are in a deep sleep.

Your subconscious mind never rests or sleeps. It is always active, controlling all your vital forces. The healing process takes place more rapidly while you are asleep, because there is no interference from your conscious mind. Remarkable answers are given to you while you are asleep.

Lack of asleep can cause you to become irritable, moody and sometimes depressed. All human beings need a minimum of six hours of sleep to be healthy. Most people need more. Those who think they can get along on less are fooling themselves. Medical researchers who have investigated sleep processes and lack of sleep point out that severe insomnia have led to psychological breakdown in some instances.

One way to find out why we need sleep is to look at what happens when we do not get it. In 1964, a seventeen -year old boy named Randy Gardner kept himself awake for 264 hours i.e., eleven straight days! Medical tests showed that during the time he was awake, his thinking process deteriorated. His speech became slurred. He also suffered from memory lapses.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, as many as 200,000 traffic accidents a year are related to sleep problems. Drivers are five to ten times more likely to have an accident late at night than during the daytime.

 There was a man named Ray Hammerstrom who worked as a roller in a Pittsburgh steel mill. Despite the best efforts of the installers, a machine which was installed recently could not be made to work properly. Ray thought a lot about the problem. He also tried to figure out a new design, but nothing worked. One afternoon he lay down for a nap. As he fell asleep, he thought about the problem. During his nap he had a dream in which he saw a perfect design for the problem. When he got up, he sketched his new design according to his dream. This visionary cat nap won Ray a check for $15,000, the largest award the firm had ever given an employee for a new idea.

Remember that, your future is the result of your habitual thinking which is already in your mind unless you change it through prayer. There is nothing strange in the dream where you see the headlines of the newspapers long before the events even take place. Tomorrow’s events are in your subconscious mind. So are the next week’s and next month’s. No disaster or tragedy can happen to you if you decide to pray. Nothing is predetermined. Your mental attitude ie the way you think, feel, believe determines your destiny.

-Sahil Shaparia

Saying the F Word Loud

Miss R-Evolutionaries page on Facebook memed a comment which goes like this-

“If you don’t want to be a feminist, that’s cool. There’s a basket by the door where you can stick your college education at an institution of your choosing, your independently rented/owned residence, your credit cards, your car, your right to vote, your birth control, your career, your job if you get married and/or have a baby, your money as well as your autonomous control of it, your ability to consent to sex, your ability to make your healthcare decisions, your ability to serve on a jury your ability to compete in sports at various levels, any military service you have done/want to do as well as accompanying benefits, your right to run for public office, your right to breastfeed in public, your ability to fill for divorce and other legal protections including child support, your right to have domestic violence and rape committed against you to be investigated and tried in court. Now that I think about it, if all these ‘I don’t need feminism’ chicks want to give ALL THAT back, then we may need a U-Haul instead of a basket”

It has not even been a century since the world gave half its humankind the political right to vote.  If United Kingdom gave it in 1918 (only to propertied women above 30 years of age when men above 21 could vote; universal suffrage was attained only in 1928), then Saudi Arabia joined the wagon only in 2011.And have we grown tired of the F-word already?

Disclaimer: This is not an attempt to make you a feminist; far from that. This is an attempt to vindicate a movement that finds itself maligned amidst an imbroglio furthered by a syndicate of vested interests.

We know there is discourse going on against feminism. Oh you are a feminist?  You mean the one belonging to the man-hating-wagon? Or is it the one for whom gender equality means women above men? Or the one who is responsible for breaking homes and families.

This typecasting has been responsible for much that has gone wrong with the way the movement is perceived to be (mind it, ‘perceived to be’). For record, it is not, never was, man versus woman, but was always about man and woman as a society versus patriarchy, no matter who its agents, caretakers and beneficiaries be.

Patriarchy. The term which, simply put, refers to a society where men hold relative power, dominion and status (economically, politically, legally). Now as soon as we hear this word, we get defensive. No I don’t treat my women as inferior beings; no patriarchy has gone down the drain and replaced with matriarchy.

Firstly, congratulations to you for treating your womenfolk as they deserve to be treated and not how patriarchy would they were, but you do not deserve any more appreciation than this. Secondly, equally worrisome as this new matriarchal society is, it is untrue. Has patriarchy really gone?

Are you telling me rapes do not happen? Or that rape culture has nothing to do with patriarchy? Are you telling me rapists are not breathing the same air as you and me do but belong outside the spectrum of our possibilities? Are you telling me that my body is free? That I can play Holi as bare breasted as my brothers? That it has been desexualized and it can breathe and bra straps and cleavages do not give to rise to “passions”? Are you telling me I am free of sexist jokes? Are you telling me you find nothing patriarchal about the institution of marriage wherein by the way it is not arbitrarily decided that I as a woman will have to relinquish one thing that serves my existence and identity- my name?  Are you guaranteeing me that no one will sneer at my buttocks as I cross the general compartment before you spit your argument against having a women’s coach? Are you telling me parents have stopped giving and asking for dowry? Or that there is no such thing as female genital mutilation? Or that there is no difference in the way parents raise their sons and daughters? Or that parents do not thump their chests when they say, “I have raised my daughter as a son?”, or that there is not a huge disparity in the number of women who graduate and number of women sitting in boardrooms of top companies? or that religion has had no contribution to all this, where if Islam allows polygamy then Hinduism will never let me, a faint-hearted woman, cremate my parents when they die? The day my fears as a 21 year old are same as that of a man my age, and you tell me all these things with modicum of veracity in them, I will readily relinquish my claim. We must get the question straight and our politics right- as long as patriarchy exists, the fight against it will.

Feminism has long been accused of rupturing cordial family lives and peaceful homes. I think the main reason for it is that cordiality and peace, doesn’t not guarantee equality. If it is engrained in the very consciousness of each partner to play particular roles, they will play it and they will play it well. They will feel a sense of fulfillment because they played it so good. What feminism does is to bring consciousness, to reconsider these roles, to make known that freedom of choice is the most natural right of a living being. Choice is a privilege my friends. Choice to work, not to work, to cook, to not cook, to have only two children and no more, or none at all, to have sex or not to have sex, and most of all, to be respected for these choices. To adjust and compromise as equal partners but to never sacrifice. Ignorance is bliss, consciousness is uncomfortable.

Indian laws like the draconian section 498a dowry act, sexual harassment at workplace act, domestic violence act, are issues that are responsible for the downcast of feminism. These laws are made on majoritarian basis such that in majority cases women get domestically violated or sexually harassed at workplace. This is not gender equality. It is the failure of legal system to provide immunity to even minor number of cases. Our legal system fails if it is based on majoritarianism. TOI pointed out in a recent article dated March 22, 2015, that 10% of dowry cases are false leading to mental, social and physical torture suffered by husband and his family. This is a feminist fight because this is the misuse of a right that the movement earned. With rights come duties.

If terrorism is waged in the name of God, God does not get maligned. If pseudo-feminists, government policies and laws, and one section of society’s attempt to orchestrate a well-organized vendetta against a political, economic and cultural movement, it should not malign that which is the only neutral stand to take as long my father’s approval overrides my mothers’- feminism.

In the end I’d like to quote Arundhati Roy,
“Sometimes I think the world is divided into those who have a comfortable relationship with power and those who have a naturally adversarial relationship with power”

Flowers are good, but give me a revolution.

- Cheshta Rajora

Undergraduate Research Journals

The blog shares the best Undergraduate Research Journals which promotes and published undergraduate research papers around the world.

All of these undergraduate journals are peer-reviewed; professional-level, open-access academic publication that is accepts manuscripts and technical notes of the highest scientific value and outstanding scientific analysis. Each paper published in the these journals undergoes a double-blind peer review process facilitated by the Journal‘s Editorial Review Board and sometimes a faculty review by a member of the Faculty Advisory Board. Publication in the journals is highly competitive and beneficial for undergraduate students who want to make their career in Research and Development.

Some of the best journals 

1.  Colombian Undergraduate Science Journal : http://cusj.columbia.edu/

2.  JUR Press : http://jur.colostate.edu

3.  The Stanford Undergraduate Research Journal : http://surj.stanford.edu

4.   Reinvention : http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/reinvention/

5.   Student Pulse : http://www.studentpulse.com

Get the Results you want

The true inner meaning of success is to be successful at the enterprise of living. A long period of peace, joy and happiness on this plane may be termed success. The real things of life such as peace, harmony, security and happiness are indefinable. They come from the deep self of human beings. Meditating on those qualities builds these treasures of heaven in our subconscious. That is the true place where... “moth and rust do not consume, where thieves do not break through and steal”

But the question arises, how to be successful in life? How to get the results we want? We have worked hard, still we have failed! What was wrong in our technique?

Any time when you try to force your subconscious mind to do something for you, you will fail. The results you want will become more distant instead of closer. Your subconscious mind does not respond to mental compulsion. Your failure to get results may also be a consequence of mentally making some statements as

·        Things are getting worse

·        I will never get an answer

·        I see no way out

·        I don’t know that to do, etc

When you use such statements, you get no response from your subconscious mind. Like a soldier marking time, you go neither forward nor backward. In other words you don’t get anywhere.

“When your desires and imagination are in conflict, your imagination gains the day”

Suppose you were asked to walk along a narrow plank that was resting on the floor, you would do it easily. But now suppose the same plank were twenty feet up, stretching between two walls, would you walk it? Could you? Probably not. Your desire to walk the length of the plank would come into conflict with your imagination. You would imagine yourself falling a long way to the ground. You might very much want to walk across the plank (Desire), but your fear of falling would keep you from being able to do it (Imagination). The more effort you put into conquering your imagination, the greater strength is given to the dominant idea of falling. Mental effort often leads to self-defeat, creating the opposite of what is desired.

Have you ever had something like this happen to you? You have to take an examination of some kind. You have pit a lot of time preparing for it. You feel as if you know it well. But when you face an exam, you find that your mind is blank. All you knowledge of the subject has suddenly deserted you. You can’t recall anything. You try harder and harder to remember, but the harder you try, the farther the knowledge seems to flee. Frustrated, you leave the examination room. The mental pressure slowly eases. Suddenly the answers you were hunting for so desperately a few minutes ago flow back to your mind. You told yourself that you knew the material, yes you did…but not even you needed. The mistake you made was to try to force yourself to remember. By the law of reversed effort, this led, not to success, but to failure, what you got was the opposite of what you asked or prayed for.

Now the question arises, how to avoid this conflict?

You avoid all conflict between your desires and imagination by entering into a sleepy state that brings all effort to a minimum. The conscious mind is submerged to a great extent when in a sleepy state. The best time to infuse anything in your subconscious is just prior to sleep. In this state the negative thoughts and imagery that tend to neutralize your desire and thus prevent acceptance by your subconscious mind no longer present themselves. When you imagine the reality of the fulfilled desire and feel the thrill of accomplishment, your subconscious brings about the realization of your desire.

-Sahil Shaparia

Capital Punishment Should not be abolished, instead be made Stringent

One of the heated topics of discussion today is regarding the implementation of capital punishment. Truly speaking, it has completely lost its meaning in the present scenario in India, where crimes are increasing at an exponential rate but the justice and the punishment levels are deteriorating to the level which is encouraging a lot of anti-socials and criminals to continue with their acts of insolence and then ultimately go free , unpunished. Where is the “JUSTICE?”  “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” that’s what the old system of justice says, but the thing does not remain same anymore.

Look at the developments of the countries like USA, INDONESIA, DUBAI, SAUDI ARABIA and so on and so forth. The crime ratio in these countries where apt measures are being taken for the inhuman activities is terribly low. This is obviously because they know that they have to reap what they sow. So there is no question of capital punishment of being abolished, instead it should be made more stringent. Leaving the criminals free would be a great deal of injustice to those who had withstood the pain, the agony and the intense trauma. In India where the brutal cases of murder, rape have become a part of day to day life , I don’t think there is any alternative to capital and corporal punishment.

It is said that everyone deserves a second chance to rectify themselves, but providing them this chance is creating more nuisance, insecurity and distress in the society. It is better to remove a rotten apple in order to save a basket full of apples. Death penalty is morally justified when applied in murder especially with aggravating elements such as child murderers, multiple homicide, cop killers, torture murder, mass killing such as terrorism, massacre and genocide. Whoever has committed murder must die. There is no juridical substitute or surrogate for life that can be taken for the satisfaction of justice. There is no likeness or proportion between life, however painful, and death, and therefore there is no equality between the crime of murder and the retaliation of it but what can be accomplished by the execution of the criminal.

We can have a look at the cases of implementation of capital punishment in independent India. Some 26 mercy petitions are pending before the President, some of them since 1992. The mercy pleas of Seema Gavit  were rejected by President after Supreme Court of India confirmed her death sentence. Taking into account the ear 2015, President Pranab Mukherjee has rejected 24 mercy pleas including that of Yakub Menon, Ajmal Kasab, Afzal Guru. On 27 April 1995, Auto Shankar was hanged in Salem, Tamil Nadu. On 14 August 2004, Dhananjoy Chatterjee was hanged for the murder (following a rape) of 18-year-old Hetal Parekh at her apartment residence in Bhowanipur on 5 March 1990. Chatterjee, whose mercy plea was rejected on 4 August 2004, was kept at Alipore for nearly 14 years. Ajmal Kasab , convicted of Mumbai attack on 3 may, 2010 was hanged on 21 November, 2012 in Yerwada Central Jail, Pune. Afzal Guru was convicted of conspiracy in connection with the 2001 Indian Parliament attack and was sentenced to death. He was to be executed in 2006 but the execution was upheld and he was hanged on 9 February, 2013 in Delhi’s Tihar jail.

Yakub Menon , convicted of 1993 Bombay bombings was hanged on 30^th July,2015 in Nagpur Central Jail. On 13 March 2012, a court in Sirsa, Haryana, condemned to death the 22-year-old Nikka Singh for raping and strangling to death a 75-year-old woman on 11 February 2011. The rape and cold-blooded murder of a woman, who was of grandmother’s age of the accused, falls in the rarest of the rare case. Kehar Singh was hanged on 6 January 1989, for conspiracy in the plot of the Indira Gandhi assassination, carried out by Satwant Singh and Beant Singh. There have been calls for the introduction of the death penalty for rapists and molesters, especially since 2012 Delhi gang rape case and later crimes.        

                                                                                  

Whoever has lost their near and dear ones know what loss they have encountered. It is true that they won’t come back but that doesn't mean the criminals be set free. Retribution is simply revenge and cannot be condoned. Capital punishment has to be implemented when and where needed, but definitely after a proper case study and making sure that no innocent gets punished for someone else’s act.

Implementing capital punishment is the only medicine the brutalists deserve. There should be a strong say, a strong voice to guide this ideality for the ultimate betterment of the nation. To the rapists, I have a thing to say “just portray the image of your mother in your mind whenever such inhumane thoughts flicker, it might make a difference not only in your life but also in thousands of other lives.”  It is urgent to be inhumane to those who had been inhumane to bring in humanity to this day. Live and let others live, sing and let others sing the joyful song of life.

-Ahana Bhattacharya