Talking about nothing but ultimately everything

 The story goes something like this. Satyabhama, the wife of Lord Krishna, expressed a strong desire to have the Parijat tree. As seldom things happen without twists, so was the case with the Parijat tree. It was a celestial plant, and it was only found in the Indralok. Indra considered keeping the celestial plant, which came out of Samudra Manthan, as his duty. The plant was something that was not to be shared with anyone especially earthlings. In the past, Indra had declined a similar request from Lord Shiva. Add to the complexity of this situation, Krishna had saved Indra from Narkasur, the asura king, and hence, Indra owed a favour to Krishna. The situation which Indra faced is a classic case of an ethical dilemma a person faces - Returning a favour versus upholding your principles, especially when the person asking for favour is someone whom you admire and adore. Indra made his intentions clear and said that Krishna can have gold, precious stones, and all riches of the Indralo...

Japan, the small island country, is devoid of any major natural resource. It is frequently impacted by disasters like Tsunami and Earthquake. Still, it is the third-largest GDP of the world in nominal terms, after the USA and China. While, the Democratic Republic Of Congo, the African country, endowed with rich resource deposit does not feature even in the top 50 GDP of the world. In fact, it is currently at the 88th position. Similarly, Jharkhand, the most mineral-rich state of India, also lags on the development parameter. The answer to this dichotomy lies at the heart of the understanding of growth and development. The human capital of a region is contributed by the people of the region and their standard of living. The Standard of living is an overarching concept that cuts across many domains. It has been appositely captured in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) announced by the United Nations in 2015. It includes poverty reduction, zero hunger, quality education as well as n...

Galileo Galilei, the father of modern science, was put under house arrest by the church for stating the fact, which was not conforming to their belief. The fact that the Earth revolves around the Sun. He paid the price for someone else's ignorance. Since then till now, we have unshackled many beliefs and learned a lot of lessons. The primary of them is - education is the progressive discovery of our own ignorance. As light exposes cracks in the building, education too, in a similar manner, exposes our ignorance. Our shortcomings are presented before us to look into and rectify them. However, sometimes it is the curiosity of knowing things that removes ignorance. It was the curiosity of Dmitri Mendeleev, the Russian chemist, that he sought to find the relation between the chemical elements. He was curious to know how Sodium is similar to Potassium, or how Chlorine is different from Argon. Mendeleev's quest for solving the puzzle led to the first modern Periodic Table of chemi...

On 6th August 1945, the world woke up to the inhuman side of technology. USA dropped nuclear bomb on Hiroshima , Japan, killing thousands of people and marking the beginning of the end of Second World War. But one question has remained since then, if one has such lethal technology, must they use it, regardless of its repercussions ? Sensitivity of human spirit should always be given an upper hand over the technology. Technology is not an end in itself, it is a tool to further human interests and in that sense, technology should be bounded by human rationality. Mahatma Gandhi was not a big supporter of heavy industries based on technology. He, in fact, supported cottage industries because he viewed technology not as something which has to grow to its grandeur divorced from the actual purpose it intends to serve. For Mahatma Gandhi heavy industries cause harm to the environment and increased mechanization would cause higher unemployment and thus, serves very little purpose. Wis...

In a bid to dominate and extract benefits, there is tendency to usurp power. This insatiable desire for power has grown in different fields from environmental affairs to societal interactions, from economic dealings to geopolitical relations. Such love for power is detrimental for peace. Love is a universal value. In contrast to other non-universal value, it is permanent. Love is worth pursuing for every individual and in every period of time. Ashoka, the Mauryan King, applied it in his Dhamma philosophy, so have we done in modern democratic system to bring peace and ensure people welfare. But, at many times in history such noble idea of power of love has been relegated and it continues to be so today also. Its place has been taken up by love for power. Result of which has been World Wars, environmental degradation, poverty, gender injustice, oppressed castes among other things. Such power intoxication is not limited to institutional level. In fact, it starts from a single person wh...

It is said "Every cloud has a silver lining". Positives can be taken out of every situation howsoever worse it may be. If nothing else, it at least offers a lesson. Progress, in normal times is organic, incremental and slow. Many a times a silver bullet for the problem exists but, it is procrastinated. Sometimes people become afraid of radical upheaval and keep the tasks to be done at bay. But, a moment of crisis takes away the luxury of procrastination, fear of change and vacillation. Such impact of crisis plays out at different levels. It can be an individual who has witnessed failure and looks to improve oneself or, it can be a community trying to address the existing social fault lines like "Black Lives Matter" protest in USA following George Floyd death. Even, national government recalibrates or sometimes revamps policy in the face of crisis, like many countries across the world have done during COVID-19 pandemic. A natural extension of it applies to the w...

A lot has been said and written about the COVID-19 . Its cause, alleged cover up, possible economic impacts, future multilateral repercussions are being discussed at great length. But, equally important are the philosophical lessons this pandemic has inadvertently given us which are not only metaphysically but pragmatically significant. The first important lesson for all of us is that we need to shun the anthropocentric view of Earth. We need to realize that we are not entitled to treat fellow creatures of earth, the ways in which nature prohibits us. This ethical dimension is not some new found wisdom. It can be found in Advaitavada /non-dualism. Advaitavada says all living creatures share same soul as that of God and if all share the same soul then harming other creatures for luxury or convenience goes out of question. Similar ideas can also be found in the works of western philosophers. James Stuart Mill expanded the idea of Utilitarianism to include environmental concerns. H...