EDITORIAL
BY DHIREN SHAH
Hello Readers,
Last week, India inaugurated Lord Ram’s statue to be opened in the public. This site was built more than 500 years ago has a Ram Temple and it was the site of the birth of Hindu God Ram. Then came the Mughals, who demolished the Ram Temple and built a mosque and named it after then King Babar, calling it Babri Musjid.
In the supreme court of India, the Hindus proved that it was the birthplace of Ram and originally, it was a Hindu temple and demolished by the Mughals. After many years, the supreme court of India gave a judgment in favor of the Hindus.
Under the leadership of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, they built a Ram Mandir (temple) and on January 22, 2024, inaugurated the statue of Lord Ram. As I heard, Mumbai had some incidents of violence of stone throwing and damaged cars and devotees of Ram were hurt. So, the next day the government of Mumbai knocked down hundreds of illegally built shops with bulldozers. However, I do not agree with their action. There are thousands of shops illegally built in Mumbai, and all the cities in India. Some of the rich landlords extended their properties without any permits. By knocking down the shops, poor or middle-class residents that had nothing to do with the stone throwing will have a problem in their day-to-day lives now. For those who were arrested for throwing stones, prosecute them and punish them hard. However, some might be running their small business in a hut, or some kind of store and their income sustains their livelihood. This is a lousy tactic in my opinion to frighten them into not doing it again. Even Indian Prime Minister Modi should have mentioned something about the bulldozer treatment, or he should have announced some compensation to those who lost their livelihood, by way of their shops.
The ban on single use plastic bags raised the amount of plastic garbage of by nearly three times. What happened? New Jersey had the strictest or toughest one bag use plastic bag restrictions in the nation when it was originally implemented in 2022. Now, the state has passed a new bill. I don’t know how, but the statistics are totally different. FCR researchers said that before the ban, we used about 53 million pounds of plastic and now we are using about 151 million pounds of plastic. The reusable plastic bags or polypropylene bags made out of plastic are much thicker, using about 15 times more plastic per bag. Also, waste of reusable plastic bags adds up to the waste of plastic consumed.
Mark Zuckerberg bought $170 million worth of land in Kauai, Hawaii to build a luxury bunker which can protect people from bombs, drone missiles and any possible known attacks. That means he thinks there could be an attack on US land and he can live in the bunker with luxury. For him, that much money is just like a penny to us. However, if he has to hide from any government, including us, he can do so. This bunker has the highest level of secrecy kept by Zuckerberg. Everyone working on the project, including painters, carpenters, electricians, construction workers, engineers, architects, security guards, staff and all must sign a strict nondisclosure agreement before they are hired. However, the Kauai Island local residents do not like what is going on. I visited Kauai to my brother-in-law’s house. The people are so nice, friendly and courteous, and everything is open. What Zuckerberg is doing impedes on the lifestyle of Kauaians.
Per ABC News: “The Alabama attorney general said Friday that nitrogen gas is now a ‘proven’ method of execution and that he believes more such executions will follow after the first one in the U.S. was carried out. However humane society and some other politicians have objected about the death.”
According to them, it took almost two minutes for Kenneth Smith, 58, to be executed, which means it was not a humane and painless death. I have a question for those people, when Kenneth Smith killed someone, was a humane and painless death for that innocent person?
Have a wonderful week. I’ll talk to you next week.
