EDITORIAL
BY DHIREN SHAH
Hello Readers,
The 2024 Presidential Election is less than 9 months away, or exactly 258 days away from February 20, 2024. Both front runners have faced negative news. Trump has many cases and many charges. Biden has a bad report about his health and memory. There are no other Democrats who stand out to be a presidential candidate, including Vice President Kamala Harris.
The Republicans have one candidate outside of the frontrunner, Nikki Haley, who seems capable of running the show, but she does not have that charisma to attract people to her side. If she loses in South Carolina, it will be over for her, and it may be over for her political career as well. She took a big risk to continue, with the hope that Donald Trump may be convicted and cannot run in the election. However, the election laws allow him to run for election even if he is convicted.
There are only a few requirements for someone to run and serve as President. The most important requirement is that person must be a citizen by birth in the United States of America. Also, the person must be 35 years of age before Election Day. Indictments, convictions, and serving jail time does not stop any person from running for president. As long as the person wins by a majority of votes in the Electoral College, they can serve as President.
The 2025 Gubernatorial Election of New Jersey has started to take shape. So far, three people have already announced their intentions. Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, former president of the NJ State Senate Steven Sweeney, and now Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. Other politicians have shown interest, including US representative from District 11 Mikie Sherrill, which includes parts of Morris, Essex and Passaic Counties. She had the best rating in the January polls to be the frontrunner in the Democratic Primary. Also included are Josh Gottheimer, an attorney and US representative from District 5, Linden Mayor Derek Armstead, and Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller. There are some more candidates out there, but they have now shown interest yet.
For the first time, a Hindu temple has been built in Abu Dhabi, a stronghold Muslim country in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The best part about the BAPS Temple in Abu Dhabi I like is that they have selected in their construction specialists from different religions, including Hindu, Muslim, Catholic Christian, Sikh, Parsi (from Persian Countries) and Sheikh. This is an unusual step towards international peace between the religions. I think it’s a good start. To bring peace and harmony in this world, we require peace within and starting to learn how to forgive others.
A religion with non-violence theme, Jain Religion, has been taught nowadays at Harvard University since 2017.
Here is an example of the course’s description – Nonviolent Communication for Upstanders, School of Public Health Harvard University 2017: Explore manifestations of power dynamics and how to speak up when we observe or experience harmful language, attitudes or beliefs. Learn how to utilize the principles of nonviolent communication that can help us to find the right words when we observe harm that is caused to others.
Have a wonderful week. I’ll talk to you next week.
