Genesis

In a routine and mundane life on earth, a particular date doesn't have a significant importance until and unless it has some events or incidents associated with it. In one date different incidents occur in different part of the world. Some incident are routine life incidents such as birth, death, graduation or marriage which involves a particular person or a group of person's memory. But some incidents can change the course of history and can affect millions of people. There are many such dates where over the years the world witnessed many remarkable events. Such a date is 16th December. 16th December 1773: Boston Tea Party Boston Tea party was a protest against the Tea act of the British government. The British colonies demanded "No taxation without representation" and threw boxes of tea in to the Boston harbour. Boston tea party was one of the epic defiance of the British rule and over the years the Boston Tea Party has been one of the most signifi...

On 17th July 2018, one of the last frontiers of internet boom bites the dust. Yahoo Messenger has been permanently shut down. 20 years is a very young age to die but in internet market it's considered as a substantial period. Yahoo messenger can be considered as a first generation dating software where people from different countries and continents can chat with each other using different chat rooms. There were similar software such as MSN messenger and AOL instant messenger but none had been as popular as Yahoo messenger. Yahoo messenger was a tool many urban kids of India loved to use. They thought they can talk to people and improve their English. So many Indian kids sat in dingy internet cafe equipped with dial-up connection and chatted with yahoo messenger for long time. But there was a serious flaw in the whole concept. The flaw was identifying who is on the other side. But internet boom is all about anonymity. So yahoo quite well played with it. As the user base and popul...

Five years back on one of the infamous Friday the 13th I had penned down some of the interesting events of that day. Least I knew that five years down the line, those events will significantly change the world. The first incident I said was about the decision of fast track court in Nirbhaya rape case. All the four accused were sentenced to death by fast track court. In five years’ time, the Honbl'e Supreme court of India have confirmed the death sentence and declined a review petition by the accused. The wheel of justice runs really slow and hopefully someday in near future, Nirbhaya gets justice. On 13-09-2013, Narendra Modi was elected the prime ministerial candidate of BJP and under his able leadership the party has won the landmark 2014 general elections and forming the BJP government in center. Subsequently the party won many state elections with comfortable majority. In some states, the party couldn't win the desired number of seats; therefore it took the help of al...

28th September 1907: Bhagat Singh's Birthday Happy Birthday Saheed Bhagat Singh. In a short span of 23 years you have created a name for yourself which people requires a minimum half a century to build. You stood against the might of British Empire and the British Empire at some point of time was sweating due to your charismatic nature and fan following. You were hanged to death on 23rd March 1931 in Lahore Conspiracy case. Though your teaching and sacrifice has largely been forgotten by the younger generation, your contribution towards the Indian independence is commendable. Hope you show a brighter path of wisdom to the current generation.  28th September 1929 (Lata Mangeskar Birthday) Happy Birthday to Bharat Ratna Lataji. Today is your 88th Birthday. The number 88 is just a number as your melodious voice does the entire talking. Your first recorded song was way back in 1942 and the last recorded song was in 2015, so its 73 years of playback singing. It is estimated that you ...

September 11 1893: The first world's parliament of religion started in Art Institute of Chicago, USA. Swami Vivekananda from India delivered his first lecture on the first day itself and got a standing ovation from the crowd of nearly 7000 people for 2 minutes when he said "Sisters and brothers of America!". His explanation of Hinduism and other aspects of religion while giving small examples like a frog in a well literally shook the collective consciousn ess of the world. The world saw India in a different perspective from that point. September 11 2001: The 9/11 attack on USA as it is called changed the world politics forever. On this day USA was attacked by terrorist of Al-Qaeda as they hijacked 4 civilian air planes (2 of them Boeing 767 and other 2 of them Boeing 757). Two air crafts hit the iconic twin towers (world trade centre), the other one hit the nerve centre of American defence pentagon and fourth plane was crashed in Pennsylvania. Around 3000 American ci...

Republic of Sudan witnessed the first civil war from 1955 to 1972 and second civil war from 1983 to 2005. As a result of the civil wars more than 2 million people died due to famine, disease and human rights violation. 4 million people were displaced due to the civil war. This picture was taken by Late Kevin Carter in Sudan in 1993. Kevin was from South Africa and he was in Sudan for an assignment. During those time Sudan was facing acute famine and the little girl in the picture is trying to get to the UN feeding center and all of a sudden a vulture came and landed just behind the starving girl as if it is waiting for its prey. Kevin took the photograph and waited if the vulture would spread its wing. After a wait of 20 minutes he chased away the vulture. He sold the picture to The New York Times and it was published on 26th March 1993. This picture had a massive outcry and many people called the office of The New York Times to know about the well being of the girl in the sub...

On this day I remember three of the legends in their respective fields.  Hindi literature is incomplete without the occurrence of the name of "Upanyas Samrat" Munsi Premchand. Munsi Premchand was born on 31st July 1880 and his real name was Dhanpat Rai Srivastav. Till date in the Hindi heartland of India, the school going children studies his classic writings and tries to understand the reality of socio economic life of India under the British rule. His novels and short stories such as "Godaan", "Namak ka daroga", "Nirmala" and "Seva Sadan" reflect the stark realities of those times.   Ask any one in India to name his/her favourite playback singer in Hindi films and in the most probability you will hear this gentleman’s name i.e Mohammed Rafi.  Mohammed Rafi passed away on 31 st  July 1980 in Mumbai.  His association with legendary music directors like Naushad, S D Burman, Shankar-Jaikishan, O.P. Nayyar, Ravi, Laxmikant-Pyarel...