Offtrack

2014: Time to Remember

by Trans World Features 31 Dec 2014, 09:41 am

When Ebola ravaged humanity in Africa, the Asian nations witnessed severe blows of terrorism. Amid the chaos and disasters and killings, two child right activists belonging to two conflicting nations jointly won the Nobel Peace prize, making 2014 one memorable year in the history of the world. TWF correspondent Supriyo Hazra looks back

The mega arrival of India’s 15th Prime Minister

A remarkable campaigning for the past two years and banking on his slogan of development, India saw the arrival of country’s 15th Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the hub of India’s political power New Delhi  after he captained the country’s main opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),  to register a thumping victory at the Lok Sabha polls  ousting the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. The dynastic charm of Rahul Gandhi-Sonia Gandhi licked dust as Modi wave swept India.

Hailing from the humble background of a teaseller,  Modi has earned the position of being the captain of the world’s largest democracy. In the past few months, since he came to power, Modi has met several world leaders including US President Barack Obama and Japanese premier Shinzo Abe. Modi won hearts by addressing in Hindi at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly where he had pitched ideas like ‘G-All’ and urged the globe to follow an International Yoga Day. Modi also received a rockstar welcome when he addressed the Indian diaspora at the  Madison Square Garden in New York, and a similar en core in Australia. In India, he initiated some significant campaigns including the ‘Swacch Bharat’ mission and even observed December 25, the birthday of former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee as Good Governance Day.  

Charge of the orange brigade: Ending the ten-year-old UPA government tenure,  the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) banked heavily on the Narendra Modi wave which is still sweeping the country as the party  won Assembly polls in several states including Jharkhand and Maharashtra. The party will also make a crucial role in creating the government in Jammu and Kashmir where PDP won the highest number of 28 seats followed by 25 by BJP in the 87-member assembly.   

  Alliance of love: In Maharashtra the political alliance of BJP and the Shiv Sena, which were partners for 25 years, was broken  over disagreement on the seat-sharing issue just before the Assembly elections that was held this year. While BJP got most seats in polls, they were short of majority and Congress ally Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) decided to unconditionally support the BJP, putting Sena in a sport. Later in December this year, the two parties ended their estrangement as the Shiv Sena  formally joined the Maharashtra  government. Devendra Fadnavis became the new chief minister of the state.
 
AK-49: 2013 had witnessed the rise of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo Arvind Kejriwal and his remarkable victory in the Delhi Assembly polls. The IITian even took oath as the Chief Minister of Delhi, promising the people of the national capital to live up to their expectations by fulfilling the pre-poll promises. But shocking many of his followers and the people of Delhi, who had put their faith in the young politician, Kejriwal resigned after staying in power for 49 days as his AAP government-backed Jan Lokpal Bill was not tabled in the Delhi Assembly. His sudden decision to quit was strongly reflected in the Lok Sabha polls where he himself battled from Varanasi against Prime Minister Modi. Modi registered a thumping victory from the seat. Kejriwal remained satisfied with only four seats won by his two-year-old party from Punjab. Now, with the bells for Assembly polls in Delhi ringing once again, Kejriwal is busy preparing to take up the challenge of coming back to power in the national capital by making promises like giving special status for villages of Delhi.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee gets Bharat Ratana: The Indian government decided to confer former Indian Prime Minister and statesman Atal Bihari Vajpayee and late Indian educationist-politician and freedom fighter Madan Mohan Malviya with the highest civilian award  Bharat Ratna. Despite being a BJP prime minister, Vajpayee’s Bharat Ratna was not disputed by many political rivals.

The warring neighbours: The relationship between two conflict neighbours, India and Pakistan  further deteriorated   with firing from across the border. Pakistan continued firing at the Indian borders since the beginning of the year. Situations started changing for the better when Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited several SAARC leaders including Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to visit India during his swearing-in ceremony. Sharif attended the ceremony. But,  firings from the other side of the border started in the middle of the year again, taking human toll. 

Despite attacks and infiltrations by militants, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined Sharif in condemning the ghastly attack by Taliban militants at a school in  Pakistan’s Peshwar city on December 17 which killed 141 people, including 132 school children.  

India’s child rights crusader shares Nobel Peace Prize with Malala: Amid the tensions across the border-two persons- Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai- tried to unite hearts as they jointly received the Nobel Peace prize. Pakistani girl Malala Yousafzai is the youngest ever Nobel laureate who had survived a near-fatal attack by the Taliban in 2012 for advocating girls’ right to education. On the other hand, India’s Satyarthi, 60, and his organization, Bachpan Bachao Andolan, have worked to eradicate modern slavery in India.  The duo is now considered as the new face of peace for both the nations who have been engaged in conflicts since their inception in 1947.
 

Year of medical negligence:

Cataract disaster: The year witnessed two major medical negligence which left several patients helplessly suffer. In Punjab, more than 15 people  lost their eye sights after they underwent a cataract surgery at an eye camp organized by an NGO in Gurdaspur district. A charity owner Manjit Joshi, who had oprganized the camp, was later arrested by the police.

Sterilization horror in Chhattisgarh: In Chhattisgarh, another major tragedy left people shocked as more then 10 women were killed due to the sterilization surgery at a camp in Chhattisgarh’s Bilaspur area. These women underwent surgery on Saturday as part of an annual “family planning” camp. These camps are held between October and February every year and women who go through the surgery are given Rs. 1,400.Four doctors who were suspended  and an FIR was lodged against Dr RK  Gupta, the surgeon who performed the surgeries. The incident showed a pathetic state of Indian health facilities.

Crime against Women: 

Another rape incident shames Delhi: Two years back, the gang-rape of a student in Delhi had triggered massive protests across the nation and even forced the government to make anti-rape laws more stringent in the nation. But the rape horror continued to haunt the nation. Amid several violent cases, it shocked many when a young woman was raped in New Delhi by the driver of   Uber cab service on way to her home in December.

Terrorism

Burdwan blast opens Pandora’s box

On Oct 2, a terror module got busted in Khagragarh in West Bengal’s Burdwan district after an accidental explosion took place in a house. Suspected Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) terrorists were making Improvised Explosive Device (IED), when the blast occurred killing 2 of them. The blast exposed West Bengal as a cradle of hibernating terrorists and their nurturing. It also exposed how Bangladesh terrorists were using the soil of India to direct terror against Bangladesh. The explosion also led to a dispute between the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal and the BJP led federal government. NIA later began probing the explosion as several arrests were made.

Blast in Bengaluru: A low-intensity blast in Bangalore on Dec 28 triggered panic across the nation which is gearing up to welcome 2015 in new few days amid fun and revelry. The blast killed a woman and injured another person. 
 
Space achievements:

India will remember 2014 as a landmark year in space mission success after the country succeeded  in its first inter-planetary Mars Orbiter Mission . The country’s space expedition witnessed more achievements when two successful launches of GSLVs and five foreign satellites in the orbit were also performed. In January,  India's space research mission achieved a significant milestone and entered the Cryo club when the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-D5) carrying communication satellite GSAT-14 was successfully launched from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. The GSLV-D5 with Indigenous Cryogenic Stage is a technology which was once denied to the country by Russia under pressure of USA but it has finally been achieved by India as it entered big league or big boys' club in space science.
 

In October this year, ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C26) successfully launched IRNSS-1C, the third satellite in the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS)  from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC). IRNSS-1C is the third of the seven satellites constituting the space segment of the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System.  

India achieved glory when ISRO's PolarSatellite Launch Vehicle PSLV-C23 was successfully launched from the Mission Control Centre at Sriharikota  in June this year. PSLV-C23  carried SPOT-7, a 714 kg, French earth observing satellite as the main payload besides other satellites like 14 kg AISAT of Germany, NLS7.1 (CAN-X4) & NLS7.2 (CAN-X5) of Canada each weighing 15 kg and the 7 kg VELOX-1 of Singapore.  

World: Disease, terrorism batter humanity

Ebola: Disaster strikes Africa

It was only a single case of the deadly Ebola virus which was reported from Guinea in 2013. But in 2014, the disease took the shape of an epidemic as it spread to several other countries in the West African region. Triggering global panic, countries initiated their own measures to stop the disease from entering their nation. At the end of the year, the virus, for which there is no vaccine and no known cure, has taken 7,588 lives so far and has sickened more than 18,000 people.

War-torn Gaza:
 
Israel and Palestine lock horns in another deadly war which continued for nearly 50 days. The abduction ad the killing of three Israeli teens and then the kidnapping and murder of a Palestinian teenager had triggered the battle that continued until the end of August. The conflict killed at least 2200 Palestinians and 70 Israelis. The United Nations have been playing a crucial role in bringing peace in the region. The organizations website said: “The UN continues to support a negotiated political settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
The quest for a lasting solution was “more uncertain than ever” and the situation on the ground remained “explosive,” UN envoy Robert Serry warned the Security Council in December. 


Ukraine –Russia crisis:

Ukraine witnessed a major crisis in 2014. A conflict blew up in the eastern part of the country which was earlier considered as not more then an internal political crisis of the nation, grabbing global attention towards it. An international crisis evolved  over the control of the Crimean Peninsula between Russia and Ukraine.  Russia annexed Crimea in March this year.  Following the annexation, pro-Russian separatists had taken control of parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine in April. Later the region was declared independent. The fighting that followed the annexation in the later months has claimed 4,700 people and millions others have been  displaced in the region. The US did not accept Russia’s annexation of Crimea. In December, US president Barack Obama ordered a ban on the export of goods, technology and services to Crimea.

Terrorism: The black spot on humanity:

Terrorism and terrorist activities continued to burn normal lives across the globe with several countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and others being ravaged by militant activities quite regularly. Blasts and suicide attacks are reported frequently from Asian nations like Afghanistan and Pakistan. Two major terrorist attacks of 2014:

1)    Pakistan school violence: Pakistan witnessed one of the bloodiest day in its history on December 16, when Taliban militants attacked an Army school in the country’s Peshawar city and killed 141 people, including 132 school children. The incident shocked global leaders and people across the globe triggering countries like India to issue special warning, fearing similar attacks on its soil.  

2)    200 girls kidnapped in Nigeria: Triggering panic, Boko Haram militants abducted more than 200 girls from their boarding school in northeastern Nigeria. In a video released recently, Boko Haram's leader, Abubakar Shekau has said that the girls have been converted to Islam and been married off.  

3) Emergence of ISIS: The militant named Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), also known as simply Islamic State,  has emerged as a growing threat to humanity in 2014. The group expanded its activities this year and it  took advantage of the chaos caused by the ongoing civil war in Syria and hence  expanded itself beyond Iraq's borders. The group even recruited several Syrian rebels to expand its strength. It conducted successful missions in March as it took control of the Syrian city of Raqqa from Bashar al-Assad's army. The US voiced its deepest concern after the group took over Mosul.  IS also released a video showing the beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley, who had gone missing in Syria. They beheaded more people, including another American aid worker.  

  Afghanistan gets a new leader:
 
Moving away from the series of terrorists attack that has continuously battered the Asian  nation, Afghanistan voted to elect Ashraf Ghani as their new president. He replaced Hamid Karzai in the country's first democratic transfer of power since the fall of Taliban.

Tragedies in the sky:

The world witnessed the worst aviation tragedies this year with even a  Malaysian airlines flight number MH370 disappearing mysteriously  into thin air on March 8.

Mysterious disappearance of MH370: Several countries joined hands to search for the mysteriously disappeared Malaysian airlines flight number MH370 on March 8. However, the search operations never found out the reason behind the disappearance of the flight. The plane  was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members. It was flying between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing. Nine months have passed since its disappearance, but search over the southern Indian Ocean has not yielded any result.  Experts believe that the plane possibly crashed in the Ocean.  

Downing the MH17: Months after the mysterious disappearance of MH370, another aviation tragedy hit global headlines as Malaysia Airlines Flight 17  exploded midair and came down in flames on July 17. The mishap occurred after the flight, which was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur , was reportedly hit by a missile belonging to the separatist groups in the eastern Ukraine. All the 298 people, who were flying the flight, were killed in the incident.

Air Asia Flight goes missing: Nearly nine months after the MH370 tragedy, a AirAsia flight with 162 people, mostly Indonesian, on board flying to Singapore from Indonesia went missing in the air after it lost contact with air traffic control on December 28. Later it was discovered that the flight had crashed killing all on board.

Ferry sinks in South Korea:  As many as 304 passengers were killed as vessel MV Sewol in South Korea sank onApril 16. The ferry, which was carrying 476 people, was going from Incheon to Jeju when the mishap occurred. A South Korean court on November 11 sentenced the captain of the sunken ferry Sewol to 36 years in prison for abandoning the passengers who were traveling in it at the time of its sinking.   


The Royal Baby:

Prince Williams and the Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton are expecting their second child. Their first child  Prince George was born in 2013. He turned a year-old on July 22 this year. Prince William had married Kate Middleton in 2011 after a long courtship.

Robin Williams no more

 Robin Williams, the Oscar-winning actor and comedian who won hearts of young and old with his roles in films like Mrs Doubtfire and Jumanji, is no more. The 63-year-old actor was found dead on August 11 in his home in Northern California and he might have ended his life himself since he was suffering from depression.