Koalas and Kangaroos

Hello Readers

I hope you all are happy and well.

Jane Goodall quotes:

“As I'm travelling around, I meet many small children. And when I look at a small plant; and think how we've harmed this beautiful planet since I was that age, I feel a kind of desperation, anger, shame. I don't know what I think; I don't know what the emotion is.”

In this blog:

•       The deadly bush fires of Australia.
•     A comprehensive report of the ongoing situation and methods to prevent such conflagrations.
•         Thoughts by Jane Goodall- English primatologist and anthropologist.
  

A long time ago, there lived families of Koala bears Kangaroos in Australia who lived happily and were overwhelmed by nature which it was surrounded with and were very grateful to their life.

But one sad day, the same nature was engulfed by an unstoppable inferno. It could not help the grateful Kangaroo and its family, along with Kangaroo countless animals charred in the fire. The end.

So after you have read the above, I am sure most of you would have understood. What is this article going to be?

The bush fires in Australia it is.

Going back to the short story, why did nature betray those poor animals? Do you feel it is logical?

There is always rhetoric going on which says that forest fires, bush fires and other types of fervours which occur are purely natural.

The community of wildlife conservationists and ecological researchers do not agree with this explanation, as there are some culprits behind these fires which are triggered for industrial or personal gains most of the times.

Before this fateful incident, we witnessed the amazon fires which destroyed the ecosystem balance in the region, and many precious species of flora and fauna vaporized.

Now the problem from both sides, there are many research papers available on the web which show that vegetative fires do spread in a carbon-rich environment and the appearance of such fires is dated back to 420 million years ago,

On the other hand, there is a massive number of incidents where apocalyptic fires caused due to human intervention.

The bush fires of Australia have become a litmus test and a testing time for the political class and a miserable one for the animals in the wild.

Courtesy Google images

What caused the Australian Bush fires: A report from the Telegraph.

Question: Australia is burning - but why are the bushfires so bad and is climate change to blame?

Australia is no stranger to wildfires, but this season has been unprecedented in scale and intensity - and the summer is far from over.

So far at least 17 people have died in blazes that have swept the country, more than 1,200 homes have been destroyed, and 5.5 million hectares (13.5 million acres) of land has been burnt.

So what has caused the blazes which have devastated vast swathes of the country?

Why are the fires so bad?

Australia’s deadly fires have been fueled by a combination of extreme heat, prolonged drought and strong winds. The country is in the grip of a heatwave, with record-breaking temperatures over the last three months. In mid-December the nation saw the hottest day in history - the average temperature was 41.9 degrees Celsius.

These conditions, which show few signs of abating in the next few weeks, have been accompanied by brisk winds which fan the flames and push the smoke across Australia’s major cities.

On Monday wind speeds were recorded at 60 miles per hour.

All this follows the country’s driest spring since records began 120 years ago, with much of New South Wales and Queensland experiencing rainfall shortfalls since early 2017. Trees, shrubs and grasslands have turned into the perfect fuel for flames.

 

Courtesy Google images

Has climate change caused the fires?

Bush fires are a regular feature in Australia’s calendar - often triggered by natural causes such as lightning strikes - and cannot be blamed on climate change or rising greenhouse gas emissions alone.

But experts say that the changing climate is key to understanding the ferocity of this year's blazes - hotter, drier conditions are making the country’s fire season longer and much more dangerous.

And Australia’s climate is changing. According to the country’s Bureau of Meteorology, temperatures have already risen by more than one degrees Celsius since 1920 - with much of the increase taking place since 1950.

What is being done to stop the fires?

So far, the response has been mostly reactive - aimed at evacuating residents to safety and stopping the blazes from spreading.

Australia relies on hundreds of thousands of volunteer firefighters, who have been working around the clock to try and bring the fires under control for months.

The armed forces have now also been deployed to fight the fires. They evacuate residents, and the United States, Canada and New Zealand have also sent resources including firefighters to help stem the blazes.

But in the long term, experts have said that there should be a review of building standards in bushfire zones to create resilient homes and larger buffer zones between the bush and properties.

There have also been calls for an emphasis on traditional fire management techniques used by Indigenous communities and a paid fire service less reliant on volunteers.

Why has Australia’s government been criticised for its response?

The country’s government and conservative Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, have been widely denounced for their response to the crisis - particularly the insistence that fires are nothing new and climate change is irrelevant.

At the end of last year the Deputy Prime Minister, Michael McCormack, said “raving inner-city lefties” were stoking concerns about the climate and that fires had existed in the country “since time began.” And Mr Morrison decided to take a family holiday to Hawaii in December despite the infernos.

Source : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/australia-burning-bushfires-bad/

How can we stop a wildfire which is caused by us!  here are some SOS tips recommended by the National Geographic society

·        Contact your local fire department or the park service if you notice an unattended or out-of-control fire.

·        Never leave a fire unattended. Completely extinguish the fire—by dousing it with water and stirring the ashes until cold—before sleeping or leaving the campsite.

·        Always take care when using and fueling lanterns, stoves, and heaters. Make sure lighting and heating devices are cool before refueling.

·        Avoid spilling flammable liquids and store fuel away from appliances.

·        Do not discard cigarettes, matches, and smoking materials from moving vehicles, or anywhere on park grounds. Be sure to extinguish cigarettes before disposing of them entirely.

·        Follow local ordinances when burning yard waste. Avoid backyard burning in windy conditions, and keep a shovel, water, and fire retardant nearby to prevent fires in check. Remove all flammables from the yard when burning.

Source:https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/natural-disasters/wildfire-safety-tips/

Before I conclude, should we not understand that we came from nature and we go back to it, why intentionally harm it when you know the consequences would be catastrophic not only to you but for all those innocent animals and the life-giving plants?

Let us strive to protect nature. Indeed nature will protect you.

When you think of destroying nature, think, would you ruin your mother? Do you like to see her suffer?

Courtesy Google images

 

Thanks for all my readers who suggested to me to etch about this topic.

Thanks a lot for your time. Have a great day ahead.

Helios.

Engine Room

Hello Readers 

Hope you all are well!

We welcome yet another new year with happiness and zeal, thanks to all my readers who have always kept me motivated to write more every year.

Some fresh thoughts to begin this year with synergy.

There was a time in the history of transportation when all the crucial means of transport was running on steam, the engine room or the popularly called boiler rooms were the heart of trains, ships and mechanized industries.

Until the boom of the internal combustion engines and electric powered engines, steam engines ruled all along.

So what would it take to work in an engine room?

These two words actually are what it takes: pressure and time.

The boiler pressure which is concealed with water that converts it into steam, and the time taken to bring that pressure would determine the performance of the engine. 

Working in an engine room was at times challenging because to maintain that pressure always was a gruesome task, as the fireman had to open the burner doors to feed boilers with more and more coal to keep the pistons going.

One of the biggest boilers were found in the fateful ship Titanic it is said that if we plan to power entire London using the amount of coal which was used in Titanic it would last for 10 years!

Well, the world moved on thanks to great inventors like Étienne Lenoir a Belgian engineer who introduced this world to internal combustion engines,the world could think beyond steam, and the face of the engine phenomenally changed forever.

Courtesy Google images. An intellectual & financial engine )

A trifling comparison

Now imagine, your mind is the engine room; at first, it needs some constant fuel to keep itself pumped! These are your thoughts good or bad, it burns like coal. Once the coal starts burning, it gives out the soot and the smoke that is how you react to your point of view.

The steam is your intellect, which analysis thoughts with the help of the boiler that is your brain and ultimately pushes the piston rod to make the vehicle your body move forward physically or mentally, our lives are all about keeping this vehicle up and running on the wheels of joy and sadness on the rails of destiny.

Maturity is the time you took to boil the water of experience and understanding life!

When you reach the next station while travelling on a train or a port in a ship, you would not know much about new places but, you manage to find out that is experience.

Trains don’t stop just because the loco piolet doesn’t like the station. Similarly, life is a journey which all start without knowing the end, keep your engine room running by using only the coal available ( good thoughts) and discarding the stones and pebbles(bad ideas).

 So please keep doing what you do and get better at it until you choose to move on something new and the cycle continues.

Let this year plant  thoughts of compassion and empathy to all of us.

Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes:

“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”

The quest to become a great mind is challenging and beautiful, let’s sign up.

Thanks a lot for your support as always.

Helios.

Felony and Lenity

Hello Readers

Hope you all are doing well.

I busted a mirror and got seven years bad luck, but my lawyer thinks he can get me five.

-Steven Wright

Before we start, want you to keep this word in mind “Clemency” simply meaning mercy or leniency.

In this blog:

•     The recent brutal gang rape and murder in Hyderabad India and its after math.

•      The Rape accused in the 2015 Delhi Nirbhaya case commenting about Delhi pollution and his application for clemency to the honourable  president of India.

1   .  What happened in Hyderabad? On the 27 of November 2019.

A brutal rape and murder of a 26-year-old veterinary doctor in the wee hours by four miscreants posing to help her when she was back where she had parked her vehicle and noticed it had a flat tire.

This case is considered one of the brutal cases after the infamous Nirbaya case in Delhi.

I could post the whole story, which is going on in the media, but, everyone would have read and heard about it all over the media that is not my intention.

The summary of what happened is, a lady late in her twenties was on her way back home   noticed her vehicle Tyre was punctured and was lured by some lorry drivers who offered to fix her vehicle eventually assaulting her sexually, murdered her and burnt her!

What a sad state of affairs in India, are we in such a society that we can’t protect the dignity and safety of our women! Whom we worship as goddesses of different forms!

A famous Sanskrit quote:

"Yatra naryastu pujyante ramante tatra Devata, 

yatraitaastu na pujyante sarvaastatrafalaah kriyaah "

 This famous shloka from Manusmruthi which means: where Women are honoured, divinity blossoms there, and where women are dishonoured, all action no matter how noble remains unfruitful.

This was the culture our elders had thought us, but I don’t know why everything contradictory is happening in India.

I sincerely do not believe by comparing the statistics of other country and feeling happy that we are better off, we should think about setting up an example not by comparing with others.

This incident took a different turn when police encountered the accused just a week after during a normal crime reconstruction exercise, when the accused tried to escape and also shoot at the police, in retaliation the police exterminated them!

While the whole country has different opinions about this, at one hand people saying it was a perfect thing what they have done, on the other side people saying that judicial procedure should have taken place! So that the accused could have their say.

Personally, if the people who were shot down were the real perpetrators of the crime, then they deserve to die! There is an enquiry going on the encounter hope the police come out clean.

2. The Delhi Nirbaya case: Clemency!

I was sipping my coffee one winter morning last week; I was amazed to read that the accused Akshay Kumar was seeking clemency!

One of the four men convicted in the 2012 Nirbaya rape and murder case has asked the Supreme Court to spare him the death penalty since life in Delhi is by default getting “short” due to air and water pollution. No, you read that right. This absurd argument finds a mention in a plea filed by Akshay Singh Thakur requesting the Supreme Court to review his conviction in the Nirbaya rape and murder case.

Akshay Singh Thakur -- the lone convict not to have filed a review plea -- has filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking a review of his conviction in the Nirbaya rape and murder case. The petition brings up points of law, argues that Akshay was incorrectly convicted and talks about capital punishment which is abolished in various countries.

At one point, Akshay’s review petition inexplicably brings up Delhi’s air quality. “... It is important to pertain here that Air Quality of Delhi NCR ( National Captial region)  and the metro city is burst and as a gas chamber... the water of Delhi NCR and the metro city is also full of poison... Everyone is aware of what is happening in Delhi NCR concerning water and air,” the petition says before asking a simple question.

“Life is short too short, then why the death penalty? [sic]"  

Courtesy: (https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/nirbhaya-rape-murder-akshay-singh-thakur-supreme-court-review-delhi-air-water-pollution-1627071-2019-12-10)

Can you believe a rape accused who has lost all his legal means to defend himself can talk like this!

Now about the clemency: We have a supreme court in India which is considered the highest body of the judiciary, but the accused still has a chance to apply to the president of India to grant him life imprisonment instead of hanging till death!

The law in India: Articles 72 and 161 of the Constitution

Grant of pardon wipes off the guilt of accused and brings him to the original position of innocence as if he had never committed the offence for which he was charged. Under Indian law, the President of India and the Governors of States have been given the power to grant pardons, reprieves, respites or remissions of punishment or to suspend, remit or commute the sentence. The law governing the grant of pardon is contained in Articles 72 and 161 of the Constitution. 

(courtesy: https://www.lawteacher.net/free-law-essays/administrative-law/power-to-pardon-an-analysis-law-essays.php)

This law is there only for the innocent who are framed wrongly, not for a convicted person who has committed such a brutal crime that humanity can't even imagine.

I strongly feel there should be a constitutional amendment to be made in this regard.

The provision should only be awarded for the accused who are actually innocent. I urge the honourable president of India to reject the petition at the earliest and order the accused to face the gallows.

The purpose of the law is to protect its people, and people created the law; therefore, corrections should be made when the law is not serving its purpose!

 

Courtesy: Google images

  

We talk about law, evidence, forensic study, proving who is guilty and the terms of the punishment, we should also think about the poor souls who were cut short of their lives and were used as a material forgetting all human values, and the pain they went through, all of their life ambitions just smashed because of such thugs, is not unfair?

Please let me know your comments on this post.

Thanks a lot for your time.

Helios.