Ajay0

Indian researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have designed a sustainable hydrogel to remove microplastics from water. https://www.deccanherald.com/science/iisc-bengaluru-develops-sustainable-hydrogel-that-removes-microplastics-from-water-2975465

On January, the Indian navy had responded to distress calls from a UK oil tanker and an American merchant vessel, rendering fire-fighting services and crew rescue. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/british-oil-tanker-marlin-luanda-ins-visakhapatman-fire-under-control-gulf-of-aden-2494416-2024-01-28 On 27 January, the Indian navy responded to a distress call from a UK oil tanker MV Merlin Luanda, that caught fire after Houthi missile attack. Indian Navy's INS Visakhapatnam, a guided missile destroyer, deployed in the Gulf of Aden deployed a team to help fire-fighting on the United Kingdom's merchant vessel. According to Navy provided information the distress call was made on the night of 26 January, Friday. The captain of the UK merchant vessel praised the Indian Navy for fighting fire on his vessel after it was hit by a missile. He says “The Indian navy went out of the way with its specialised team to help them" On 18-1-24, the Indian Navy on Thursday successfully rescued the crew of the US-owned vessel Genco Picardy in the Gulf of Aden after an attack by Yemen’s Houthi movement, Reuters reported. https://www.marinelink.com/news/indian-navy-rescues-crew-usowned-ship-510897

The Indian navy recaptured the Bulgarian merchant vessel MV Ruen from Somali pirates, ensuring the safety of the Bulgarian crew. All 17 crew-members were safely evacuated without injuries, thanks to the collaborative efforts of multiple Indian navy assets. Bulgarian President Rumen Radev thanked the Indian Navy for the rescue. The 40-hour operation ended the pirate takeover. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/17/india-recaptures-somali-pirate-ship-and-frees-crew

An acronym I found useful in creating a reference framework for breaking bad habits is M3 or MMM. It expands to ... Make a commitment. Modify your environment. Monitor your performance. I would say a high state of consciousness, mental strength as well as enthusiasm, as well as acting out the ideal habits for a duration of a month at least is necessary to get rid of old habits and develop the new ones.

An another informative article on spontaneous awakenings by psychologist Jessica Corneille. https://therapytips.org/interviews/what-happens-when-you-have-a-spontaneous-spiritual-experience

@Princess Arabia Interesting and useful inputs. Thank you for this.

Prana means life-force in sanskrit and is an integral element of eastern medical arts like Ayurveda, Tibetan medicine, acupuncture, reiki, pranic healing as well as martial arts. It is known as chi in Chinese and Ki in Japanese. Every sentient being possess a certain amount of prana, and low prana levels are supposed to correspond with poor physiological and psychological health. High levels of prana is associated with good physiological and psychological health, faster healing, youthfulness and being mindful or aware without much effort. Eastern religious and medical philosophies thus focus on increasing and stabilising prana for human betterment and well-being. Here is an insightful article by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on the nature of prana, and ways to increase it. https://www.artofliving.org/wisdom/knowledge-sheets/yagna

The arms industry is a highly lucrative business. This is one of the reasons why Nato did not come to a full stop after the Cold War and continues inspite of the bickerings and lack of cohesion among the member states. Imho, like in Afghanistan the war in Ukraine will continue for some time till optimal profits are reaped by the military industrial complex. As Assange stated , a long unsuccessful war is more profitable than a short successful war. The stock values of westen defence companies have skyrocketed after the Ukraine invasion as well as the Hamas-Israel conflict. https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2022/03/04/war-stocks-are-surging-as-russia-ukraine-conflict-rages-on-lockheed-martin-northrop-up-20/ https://theconversation.com/ukraine-the-worlds-defence-giants-are-quietly-making-billions-from-the-war-178806 https://www.newsweek.com/politicians-defense-stock-profits-israel-hamas-conflict-1840327 The fact that politicians are among the major reapers of profits as shown in the above article shows that they have advance knowledge of such conflicts. Engineered conflicts thus are bound to be lucrative to the arms industry and I would say that world attention should scrutinize such events proactively to ensure that the hidden agendas do not get a chance to materialize.

Pulitzer prize winning American journalist, Presbyterian minister and senior lecturer Christopher Lynn Hedge's insights on NATO... https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Chris_Hedges

It is not correct to under-assess Russian military capabilities. Inspite of all the volunteers and aid the west has poured into Ukraine, Russia is still progressively gaining more Ukrainian territory, and even western propagandists have sobered down in recent times as their predictions of russian collapse a year back has not materialised. The Russians have a proud military tradition, being the ones who ended Napoleon's dictatorship and the Nazi war machine, which were the greatest military powers in their time. Their economy has also improved more than any G7 nation. Even now, Europe still buys gas worth billions of dollars from Russia amply replenishing its war chest. The US has also recently stated that China is boosting the Russian military capabilities. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/12/china-supporting-russia-in-massive-military-expansion-us-says I am sorry to see all this conflict which I find nonsensical in the first place. It is a failure of the UN and NAM ( non-aligned movement) to prevent conflict by creating the necessary diplomatic mechanisms for peace and consensus in this regard.

Do not ignore the effect of right action saying, "This will come to nothing." Just as by the gradual fall of raindrops the water jar is filled, so in time the wise become replete with good.~ Buddha, Dhammapada Verse 122 'The transformation, though overnight, was never an overnight process. In Chemistry classes we do the acid-base titration experiments. The final drop from the pipette changes the colour of the solution in the beaker. But were not the earlier drops significant? Similarly, righteous living all through life purified me and enabled the overnight transformation.' ~ Rajini Menon

US is a strategic partner to India with respect to containment of China, which has emerged as a political, economic and military superpower in its own right, and is considered a far bigger threat than Russia. Chinese army and navy is superior in numbers to the US, and the difference is growing as well. Biden had also stated that he does not support Taiwan's independence, clearly showing US weakness and wariness in taking on China. https://www.deccanherald.com/world/us-does-not-support-taiwan-independence-says-biden-2848032 This was the reason for US-India strategic relationship for containment of China's exponentially growing power. However this does not equate with India's interests being aligned with US-NATO. US-NATO's defeat by Taliban in 2021 after sustaining heavy casualties and trillions of dollars down the drain, showcased its military and political limitations. Their military inability to effectively counter Houthi attacks on the Red Sea has now hiked shipping costs further causing economic damage to the recession hit west. China already have a good working relationship with neighboring Russia, and a Russia-China coalition against India can do much strategic damage to the latter. Also around 70 percent of Indian military hardware is from the Russians due to their cost-effectiveness and willingness to transfer military technology such as nuclear submarines. Western weaponry on the other hand is highly expensive and they were also not willing to transfer the same military technologies. It is for these reasons that India has a good relationship with Russia and it cannot ill-afford to antagonize it and make it go completely to the Chinese side. Even though India is considered as the world's largest democracy, western nations had traditionally aligned with the long running military dictatorship in Pakistan considering that Pakistan was a major market of western military weaponry bought heavily by the unregulated military dictatorship. It was 9/11 and dramatic rise in Islamic terrorism that prompted western nations to change their focus to India. India's fast rising economy after the 1990 economic liberalisation reforms also presented a far more lucrative market as well. India has started indigenizing much of its weaponry and also diversified and increased its weapons imports from France, spain, South Korea and US, so as to reduce its strategic dependence on Russia. However this is a process that will take some time.

My thoughts on the subject. An issue with herbal medicines is that it is slow in the healing process which is of a holistic nature. There are no side-effects but healing is slow and gradual and not easily tangible. They are taken more as a preventive medicine. Allopathic medicines are significant in emergencies, and healing is fast and tangible. I also must state here that I have come across people who had exhausted all options that Allopathy could offer, but got effective treatment in Ayurveda and Hatha yoga. Arthur Boorman and Brad Willis are famous examples in this regard who were able to heal themselves with Hatha Yoga and Ayurveda when they were given a poor prognosis by their doctors. S.N.Goenka was a rich Burmese businessman who had consulted allopathic doctors around the world for his severe migraines unsuccessfully. After learning and practicing the vipassana meditation technique under Vipassana teacher Sayagyi U Ba Khin, he experienced healing and became a life-long proponent of Vipassana and helped spread it in Asia and around the world. A colleague of mine , who worked as an aeronautical engineer , had issues with infertility and had consulted various Allopathic specialists and treatments to no avail. He and his wife had resigned to a life with no children. In his forties he came across an Ayurvedic treatment method for fertility issues with a good track record. After trying out this treatment, he and his wife had two children. Because he got his children late in life, he used to joke about looking like a grandfather next to them in photographs. But he was happy that the treatment worked and hence usually spreads a good word about Ayurveda. These case studies showed me that allopathic treatments need not be the last word, and alternative medicines can also be opted for healing purposes.

Insightful article by Christopher Hedges on Nato... https://scheerpost.com/2022/07/11/hedges-nato-the-most-dangerous-military-alliance-on-the-planet/

The Indian IT and BPO/call center sectors rakes around 250 billion dollars and 50 billion dollars respectively annually. Its possible that some scamsters or wannabe bpo entrepreneurs are testing the waters to see if their skills are adequate enough. They can also be from an another country as well.

Great thread. Yes, rights should be complemented by duties. Full-fledged individuality is bound to result in anarchy and chaos unless it is balanced with a heightened sense of morality. It is the sense of morality that determines obedience to just laws as well as disobedience to unjust laws, and which is the true condition for growth, not criminality.

Due to lack of self-knowledge, human beings are bound to emotionally identify with their external identities related to race, religion, creed, nationality,ideology and so on leading to disharmony and conflicts. Look at the way the Israelis and Arabs have been fighting for decades even though they are of the same Abrahamic family and semitic race. Arab finances and Israeli technology can make the Middle east a technological and greater economic power at present. But there are no leaders with vision for the same. So all the money and intellectual talent are wasted in conflict and making other weapons exporting countries rich. Same goes for the Americans, Europeans and Russians in conflict with each other even though they are of the same race, culture and religion. The level of human unconsciousness is very high, and I would say it is bound to result in high chances of foolish or poor decision making leading to conflicts or their exacerbation. There has been a couple of instances where the world was close to a nuclear holocaust in the last century, and it was only because certain officers refused to obey orders from above that the US, Russia and Europe is still standing now, and is not a radioactive wasteland at present. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov They are actually lucky to be still alive now. But will their good luck continue in the future is the right question to ask! Only a fool depends on luck. Hence the necessity for developing space technology to the point that we can develop large living habitats in the moon and mars.

ISRO's Aditya-L1 will track the Sun on Monday as it gets completely cloaked by the Moon during the Total Solar Eclipse. https://www.hindustantimes.com/science/total-solar-eclipse-today-april-8-2024-isros-aditya-l1-to-track-the-sun-during-darkness-101712535333181.html

Hey, thanks. Investment in science and technology pays the highest dividends, and hopefully other third and fourth world countries will emulate India's example, and attain prosperity for themselves from poverty. Gandhi had stated that intelligence and good work ethics is the true wealth, and not gold and silver. The Arabs at a time were ahead of the west in science and technology, especially during the Arab Golden Age. It was the mongol invasions that unfortunately ended the Arab golden age in the thirteenth century. Imho, if it weren't for the mongol invasions, the Arab civilization would have been at a highly advanced state now scientifically and technologically speaking, boosting the regional, Asian and global economy. Hopefully, the middle easterners, rightfully proud of their heritage, will do greater feats in science and technology than their brilliant ancestors.

Yo Bebytalk. Hope you are doing fine and well. Your sweet little island is also not exempt from poverty it seems. It is sad that the UK is also having bad financial times, and the homeless over there is now more than a lakh. More than 1,300 people died while homeless across the United Kingdom in 2022, marking an 85 percent increase since 2019. The UK's maiden space rocket launch last year also ended in failure and is now lying at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean. I am sure this must have caused a lot of heartache and trauma in UK space buffs. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/plane-carrying-rocket-takes-off-for-1st-uk-satellite-launch/articleshow/96867469.cms?from=mdr Hopefully, Rishi Sunak, the present UK prime minister of Indian origin ruling the UK, about to conduct trade deals with India, can also bring about closer collaboration between ISRO and UKSA to get rid of any teething issues. The million strong Indian community has the highest median income in the UK and is the richest community after the Jews. So I am a well-wisher of the UK. All the best.

You seem to be intent on trolling. I have explained about much of India's poverty that came about in the last century under western colonialism over here.

Housing 50 billion human beings is not an issue ! I am talking about the flora and fauna who require their own habitat. Where do we house them ! This is true. Mahatma Gandhi had stated that earth has enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed. If every man desires and wants a mansion, private jet and fleet of cars, it will bankrupt the earth's natural resources. Gandhi was a minimalist who made his own food, sandals and clothes, performed manual labor and was a practicioner of the medical system of naturopathy as per his ideals of self-reliance, simple living and high thinking. If everyone of the 50 billion had a Gandhian lifestyle, there would be harmony with nature. But most people would rather be a billionaire with attitude like Trump with gold-laced buildings and furniture rather than Gandhi. Due to numerous desires, it is human nature to seek materialistic wealth and luxury to fulfill them , and one must account for that. Running away to Mars 250 million kilometers away is not an easy thing. Indian space probe Mangalyaan is the first to reach the Martian orbit in its first attempt showing the challenges of navigation in this regard at such a large distance. Roughly sixty percent of all spacecraft destined for Mars failed before completing their missions, with some failing before their observations could even begin. Mangalyaan, which was India's first interplanetary mission, was set to circle Mars with a designed 6 month lifespan, with five solar-powered instruments gathering scientific data. It however lasted eight years in Mars' atmosphere, and scientists from several institutions have collected information about the planet's surface features, morphology, atmosphere and exosphere. Scientists even used Mangalyaan to study the Solar Corona when the Earth and Mars were on the opposite sides of the Sun, during the conjunction event of May-June 2015. Mars has a better habitable terrain and atmosphere than Moon and has a high possibility of being terraformed to have a human population and living habitat.

Yes, there are many who follow a syncretism of different religious systems. Zen is said to have emerged from a confluence of Taoism and Buddhism. Sikhism has many features of Islam and Hinduism in it. Mahatma Gandhi followed an amalgamation of Hinduism and Jainism, and much of his views on nonviolence stemmed from Jainism.

Earth having around 8 billion people at present has itself decimated animal populations by nearly 70 percent. Half of the world’s rainforest's has been destroyed in just one century. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/animal-populations-plummeted-by-nearly-70-percent-last-50-years-new-report/ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity-wiped-out-animals-since-1970-major-report-finds https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/forests-and-deserts/rate-of-deforestation If it has even 50 billion people itself, all of the remaining animal and plant life will be decimated in a short period of time. https://medium.com/climate-conscious/the-magical-number-of-humans-earth-can-support-40c4e1c0411e

India is the fourth country on earth to succeed in a soft landing on the moon, and the first to do so on the lunar south pole, with the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft. The Indian space programme has a vision of creating lunar habitats and this is the reason for the first ever lunar landing in the south pole which is considered to have resources for successful habitation such as oxygen, metals , solar power and ease of radio communications. The sequence of crewed space travel, space station, the future Chandrayan-4 project to get lunar soil samples, bringing astronauts to the moon by 2040 are small steps in this regard. The moon and asteroids can be mined for valuable metals and minerals, which can also be excellent wealth generators. Hopefully, excess population on earth can be transferred to new habitats in large space stations, moon, mars and habitable moons of other planets. This can greatly reduce the pressure on nature on earth , and also reduce ugly competition for natural resources on earth which can lead to conflicts and wars as well, further fragmenting humanity. Also considering the prospect of an asteroid strike or nuclear holocaust by foolish and short-sighted politicians that can end humanity , it is wise to invest in lunar habitats that can allow the human race to survive and flourish.