Normal And Abnormal

Solution for Israel - Palestine Conflict  The Israeli -Palestine issue must be the longest unresolved dispute in the world. An attempt is being made here to resolve the issue for ever. All available options have been evaluated. Based on the following data pertaining to the West Bank and Gaza Strip the proposal have been arrived at. West Bank: Area - 5,860 km² Population - 2.23 million (Muslim 75%) Gaza Strip: Area - 365 km² Population - 7.78 lakhs (Muslim 99%, Christian - 1%) The Proposed Solution a) Israel may be asked to divide the West Bank into two sections of equal area. Palestine may be be allowed to pick one section for them. The remaining section may be taken by Israel. The Muslims in the Israeli owned land may be asked to move to the land owned by Palestine. The non-Muslims in the Palestine owned land may be given the choice to move to the Israeli section or to remain in the existing area. b) The Gaza Strip may be given in full to Palestine. The non-Muslims living

St Peters Basilica in Vatican City is the biggest church in the world. According to UN estimate the  world population at the mid year 2023 is 805 crores. As per the broad estimate by the sociologist Phil Zuckerman, there are about 75 crores people in the world do not believe in the existence of a God.  Therefore, the remaining 730 crores people believe in some form of God and follow some religion and their prescribed observance. There are about 4,000 recognised religions in the world. About 83% of the religious population in the world would fall in 12 major religions. When these are the basic statistics of the religions in the world, we discuss below whether religion and it's God are an individual matter or a social one. No man in the world has ever seen God or spoken to Him. Religion is scripted by man within his knowledge as per his needs. Almost all religions are revolving around imagination of primarily illiterate men comparing with the knowledge of today. Whether i

        Image courtesy - NDTV During the Second World War, Hitler and company massacred over 8 million Jews. After wandering around the world for centuries the Jewish community could land at their own place.  On May 14, 1948 the head of the Jewish Agency, David Ben Gurion proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. US President Harry S Trueman recognised  the new nation on the same day. The declaration of independence of Palestine was written by their poet Mahmoud Darwish and proclaimed by Yasser Arafat on 15 November 1988. Palestine does not belong to any particular people or community. The land was under the control of various empires like the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines and eventually the Islamic Caliphate and the Ottoman Empire. Throughout history a great diversity of people have moved into the region and made Palestine their homeland. They were Cananites, Jebusites, Philistines from Crete,  Anatolian and Lydian Greeks, Hebrews,

                    Part III         History of the Dispute          The Jerusalem Temple   The  partition plan of Palestine of the United Nations in 1947 was not implemented and this caused the 1947-49 Palestine War. The Israeli -Palestine status quo began following Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, known as the Palestine territory, following the 1967 Six Day War. And this is now said to be the world's longest conflict, despite many peace processing attempts time and again. Public declaration of the effort to see a Jewish home land established in Palestine, including the First Zionist Congress of 1897 and the Balfour Declaration of 1917 caused abnormalities in the region after continuous Jewish immigration. Following the World War I, a mandate was issued on Palestine a binding obligation for the establishment in Palestine of national home for the Jewish people. This caused to arise conflicts between Jews and Arabs. The history of Jews and Judaism e

                                      Part II                  Palestine     Today's image of Jacob's well Palestine is officially a state located in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jerusalem and Ramallah are considered as the capitals. According to an estimate by the World Bank in 2021 it has a population of 49.2 lakhs. It has an area of 6,020 km². Arabic is the recognised language. 15 November 1988 is the officially declared formation date. While Islam is the major religion, there is a negligible population consists of Judaism and Christianity. Christians are found to be more highly educated population among Palestinians. Palestine is the cradle of Christianity, and the West Bank and Jerusalem form much of the Holy Land of Christians. As of July 2019, 138 out of 193 member states of the United Nations and two non member states recognised Palestine. Estimated GDP (nominal) of 2021 was $18.109 billions (121st) and PCI was $3,464 (131st). The currencies in c

                     Part I                       Israel  The room of the Last Supper at Mount Zion  Israel is a middle East country located on the Mediterranean sea. This region is regarded as the Biblical Holy Land by the Jews, Christians and Muslims. Estimated current population of Israel is 91,74,520 which is 0.11% of the world population . The area of the country is 22,145 km², which is less than the Indian state of Kerala (38,863 km²) Hebrew is the prime language of Israel which is spoken almost by the entire population. About 70% of the population constitute Judaism, 18% Muslim, 2% Christian and the remaining 10% are Druze and other unclassified religions. GDP (nominal) of the country is (2023) $564.15 billion and GDP pci (nominal) is $58,273. Another notable poinotnt is that since 1966, 13 people from Israel has won the most prestigious Nobel Prize. The name Israel first appears in the Bible is in Genesis 32:28, "Your name will  be called Jacob, but Israel; ...

India has a road network of 63.73 lakh km which is the second largest in India in the world. This can be bifurcated as below. a) National Highways - 1,44,634 km. b) State Highways - 1,86,908 km. c) Other  roads - 59,02,539 km When we take Kerala,the state has 1,812 km National Highways, 4,342 km of state highways numbering about 72 and 25,394 km of major district roads. As per the quality of the roads, the following countries hold the top rankings. 1. Singapore 2. Netherlands  3. Switzerland  4. Japan 5. Denmark 6. Spain. As far as road accidents are concerned, as per available information, about 1.5 lakh people die in road accidents in an year in India. In other words it is 1130 accidents and 422 deaths every day. In 2021 there were 4,12,432 accidents reported taking 1,53,972 lives and causing injuries 3,84,448 people in the country. Now coming back to Kerala there were an average of 12 people died in road accidents every day in 2022. During the period of 2018-2022, there

         Supreme Court of India  (Image courtesy, The Times of India) According to a written reply submitted in the Rajya sabha few months back by the Law Minister Sri Arjun Ram Meghwal, 5.02 crores cases are pending in various courts across India. Out of these cases, over 1,69,000 are pending in different Districts and High Courts for over 30 years. As on 2022 December about 85% of these cases are pending in District Courts. Surprisingly the government itself is the biggest litigant having 50% of these cases are sponsored by the state. And most interestingly India has the largest number of court cases pending in the world. As per strategy paper of the Niti Aayog submitted in 2018, it would take about 324 years to clear the backlog at the prevailing rate of disposal. Hence in most such cases the victim and the accused pass away without knowing the justice by themselves. As on 2022 the sanctioned strength of judges in India was 21.03 judges per million population. According

   UN Headquarters in New York  The ongoing tussle between Israel and Palestine have already taken the lives of over 3,200 people from both sides and injured over 11,000 including a good number of children. Since no any solution is in the vicinity it is requested that UN may interfere strongly. UN may ask both countries to put down the weapons as is where is basis. Also warn that no third country should interfere directly or indirectly. After that bring both of them across the table and UN may remain as the mediator. Try to find a practical solution from the meeting. We may not allow large number of innocent people and children to die in the name of any sorts of disputes. None other than UN can do anything in these matters. At present  UN is acting as mere data provider only according to our view. UN may, therefore, actively interfere in this Israel-Palestine war on top most priority. K V George 

Image courtesy - Hindustan Times  The final medal tally of the Asian Games 2023 at Hangzhou, China. (Gold, Silver, Bronze & Total) China 201 - 111 - 71 : 383 Japan   52 -   67- 69 : 188 S Korea 42 -  59- 89 : 190 India      28 -  38 - 41 :  107 Uzb-stn 22 -  18 - 31 :   71 We Indians are proud of our record breaking performance in the Asian Games. Is this an appreciable performance? I may prefer to say it a deplorable attainment. China has bagged almost four times of medals received by us. In gold alone, when we got 28 they could get 201. Both countries have more or less same population to pick from. Chinese are not born athletes or talented in sports by birth . They train their people well in time and then send to the games venue. Most of our people have no set goals. Just send for the games; that's all. In the athletic disciplines, how many of our athletes have reached the bronze medal level of the previous Asian Game, before nominating them. It is not the people

India rank 41 out of 44 countries in old age pension. There are 14.9 cr people in India aged 60 and above as on 2022. This is 10.5 % of the total population. We may find here the old age pension prevailing in some selected countries in the world. UK £12,792 p.a. (Rs 13,35,485) or Rs1,11,290 per month. France $1,327 p.m. (Rs1,10,592) Netherlands EUR 1230.24 + holiday allowance 72.04 =EUR 1302.28 (Rs1,18,911.p.m) Many countries in the world are paying old age pension more or less in the same level as shown above. But unfortunately we old age people are considered scrap by our great country. According to National Policy on Sr Citizens 2011 the estimated population of Sr Citizens would be as below (in millions) Yr.        Popula-     60+        80+             tion 2000     1008         76           6 2050     1572       324         48 The earlier governments were giving some travel concession in Indian Railways for Sr Citizens. This has been withdrawn by this government. Our p

We may have a non-conventional look at the Indian economic development. As per Forbes report India has 169 billionaires in 2023 which was 166 in 2022, 101 in 2017 and 9 in 2000. As per information 73% of wealth generated in 2017 went to the richest 1%. The poverty rate in India was 26%in 2000, 27.4% in 2012, 21.6% in 2014 and 2015 it was 176 million. In 2023 it is 14.96%.  Poverty line in India is earning below Rs 27,000 per annum or Rs 2,250 per month or Rs 75 per day. In today's price can one live with Rs 75 a day? Internationally poverty line is marked at two ranges, $10 and $5.50 a day. If this becomes the benchmark, many more Indians may fall under below poverty line. According to Oxfam, it takes 941 years for a minimum wage earned worker to reach the level of a well paid executive of a garment company in India. Now it is the people of India to determine their targets of growth. Do we want to eat fairly good food three times in a day? Do we want to continue living