THE INDO EUROPEANS & ALEXANDER’S INVASION INTO INDIA

 

The civilizations of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon existed for millennia and were getting old. A fresh blood was needed for the human race and it was provided by the Indo Europeans. 

Gradually this race has conquered all of Europe and also penetrated via Iran into India. These Indo Europeans spoke a language which is regarded as the common ancestor of all European languages excluding Hungarian, Finnish and the Basque dialects of Spain. Persian and Sanskrit too came from the same parental language.  

These Aryans lived on the shores of Caspian Sea for centuries in what is now Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan & Turkmenistan. They lived on the peaks which surrounded the plateau of Iran and are therefore called Aryans. They then gradually moved into Iran, and through Iran into the present day Afghanistan, Pakistan & India. Their initial area of life near the Caspian Sea was bounded on the East by the Chinese Empire. It is probable that some pressure from the Chinese civilization on the East led to their Southward journey.

Of course some Indian historians challenged the view and said that Aryans were indigenous to India, but they were unable to show any concrete proof on it to the Historians of the world that it is so. It merely remains a claim as of now.

From these Aryan people originated the Medes & Persians and Media was later unified with Persia. Ultimately the Persians battled the Greeks but could not subdue them. And instead Alexander conquered the Persian Empire and was at the gates of India.

For entering India, he had to first battle Porus the King of the Pauravas in 326 BC. It was a very tough battle because it was the monsoon season and Hydaspes (Jhelum river) was in spate. A direct crossing of the river would have been suicidal as Porus waited on the Southern bank of the river with his war elephants. Alexander’s men have faced war elephants in the battle of Gaugamela with the Persians where the Persians fielded 15 elephants, while Porus waited with between 85 and 200 war elephants. Alexander moved his troops up and down the river banks trying to confuse Porus and finally made a crossing upstream on a stormy night. 

In the battle, due to the elephants and the difficult conditions the Greek army had to take good losses. Porus fought very bravely and impressed Alexander with his valour. The king of Taxila, Ambhi who was a staunch rival of Porus sided with Alexander in the battle after submitting to him. Ambhi sent 5000 troops in support of Alexander.         

Alexander, after his victory over Porus conquered 5 other Kingdoms/Republics and arrived to the Banks of the Sutlej. Recklessly brave as he was, he wanted to go into the heartland of India and conquer it. He conquered the Indian part of Punjab, Himachal and Kashmir. The king of Kashmir Abhisara submitted to Alexander and sent emissaries including his own brother along with valuable treasures and war elephants.

Before that when he crossed the Indus and marched into the Punjab (Pakistan) he encountered a fierce resistance from Democratic clans, independent republics and monarchies.

After defeating Porus, Alexander marched into the foothills of the Himalayas (adjacent to Himachal & Jammu) where he encountered Glausai, a powerful tribe that held a heavily populated & fortified territory. Alexander took 37 of their cities.

Around their capital of Sangala (near Amritsar/Lahore region) the Kathaians were an independent tribal republic known for their exceptional military skill. They inflicted 1200 casualties on the Greeks and in retaliation after victory Sangala was burnt down by Alexander.  

During his retreat down the Indus river while returning back to Greece, the Greeks were attacked by Mallavas & Kshudrakas who were republican tribes. During the siege of the Mallava stronghold Alexander had his lung pierced by an arrow. In retaliation the Macedonian army executed a brutal campaign against them.

While going back, at the confluence of the Jhelum and Chenab rivers the Sibia tribe confronted Alexander. Then the Agalassoi tribe fought back with 40,000 infantry which was overcome.

The Magadha Empire was then very powerful and was under Dhana Nanda, and the Nada army was ready on the Southern side of the Sutlej river for the battle with 200,000 infantry, 20,000 cavalry, 2000 chariots and some 3000 war elephants.  Alexander had about 60,000 men under him in all and the reports of the number of Magadha armies and specially the number of elephants made his soldiers fearful.

Already they were away from home fighting for some 8 years and they refused to fight the Magadha forces. So Alexander had no choice but to turn back. That is finally how the brilliant campaign of Alexander ended. Of course on the way Alexander died of a febrile fever at Babylon. He was then just 32 years old and by that age itself he completed all his conquests.

 

 

BEGININGS OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY-THALES, ANXIMANDER, ANAXAMENES & XENOPHANES

 

1.                 THALES-He is considered to be the father of Greek Philosophy and was born sometime around 624 BC at Miletus and lived into the 6^th century BC. The 6^th century BC is a remarkable century in human history. It had Buddha & Mahavira in India, Confucius & Lao Tse in China and Zoroaster in Persia. Thales comes from the city of Miletus in Asia Minor (Turkey). 

Thales said WATER is the element from which the whole universe evolved. This may look absurd to us today, but for his time which pushed everything on to God, that itself was a great step. 

2.                 ANAXIMANDER-He was the disciple of Thales and was born in 610 BC. He too was born at Miletus. He prepared the maps of the then known world and also Astronomical charts as well. 

He differed with his teacher and said that in the beginning an indeterminate unknown substance pervaded the entire Universe and it is infinite and ever existing. He named it as Apeiron. It is not like any substance that is known to us and all the substances known to us evolved from it. It did not have any properties either. He also believed that there are many worlds like ours in the Universe and also propounded a rudimentary THEORY OF EVOLUTION. 

These were amazing theories coming from a person living in the 6^th century BC. 

3.                 ANAXAMENES-He is the disciple of Anaximander. He WAS BORN IN 585 BC. He differed with his teacher as well as his teacher’s teacher.

He believed that the world evolved from AIR and said that earth was formed by hardening of air.

The above 3 philosophers were collectively known as the Milesian school of philosophy as all the three are from Miletus.

4.                 XENOPHANES- He was born in 570 BC. He was a satirical poet who fearlessly criticised all superstitions and is also a social reformer.

He said that man created God in his own image and if bulls, lions and horses had hands and if they were able to make toys with them, then they would have made them look just like themselves. The Ethiopians depict their gods like a Negro whereas people from Thrace depict them as a Caucasian. 

In fact there is only one God who is greater than all. He is not like humans either in looks or in thinking. He hears all, sees all and thinks all. Without moving he can move everything with his power. 

He believed that all things have evolved from the EARTH and again merge back with the sand in the end. 

 

EMIGRANTS TO OTHER COUNTRIES FROM INDIA.

I came across an interesting article today, one that reflects on the emigration of Indians. 

Indians believe that too many people are migrating to other countries but what is the fact? 

From the figures available, India has one of the lowest emigration rates in the world. Of the 95 countries with more than 10 million population India's share on emigration is a mere 1.3% of its population and ranks 81st... 

Emigrants as share of country's population rounded off 

Syria-----------------------36%

Venezuela----------------29

South Sudan-------------27

Ukraine.-------------------26

Romania.----------------- 24

Afghanistan--------------18

Haiti------------------------17

Cuba-----------------------17

Portugal-------------------17

Dom Republ--------------17 

India 81st at 1.3% and China 88th at 0.8%....so the population of India and China that have migrated is just a small percentage compared to many other countries. 

Earlier when millions of people went to the Gulf to work no one bothered and it was thought it is good for the country as they send in remittances. 

The reason for that most that went were low skilled workers like electricians, plumbers. mechanics and so on.  

However immigration to the US was opened up in 1991 through H1B exclusively to cater to the demand the US had at that time for programmers, and the later Y2K made more and more Indians go to the US. 

A 1946 law allowed only 100 Indians into the US each year and as of the year 1960 there were only 12000 Indians in the US. By 1990, this rose to about 900,000 people. Only after the H1B was introduced this immigration gained pace and by 2024 there were 3.2 million Indians who went there mostly after 1990.  

As of now the overseas Indian population in the US is estimated to be 5.5 million as per US census estimates. 

So people may say that too many people are leaving India for other countries but that is not a fact at all. But yes the only worry is those who are migrating now are the professionals. 

List of top countries whose population live outside the country.

India------------18.5 million

China-----------11.7

Mexico---------11.6

Ukraine--------- 9.8

Russia---------- 9.1

Syria------------ 8.9

Bangladesh----8.7

Venezuela------8.3

Afghanistan--- 7.5

Philippines----7.0

 However, as you can see above, in total numbers India far exceeds all other countries.

 

RUKHMABAI- FEMINIST AND THE 2ND WOMAN PRACTICING DOCTOR IN INDIA.

 

The first woman Doctor who started practicing in India was Kadambini Ganguly who started her practice in 1886. After her came Rukhmabai who was born in 1864 to Maharashtrian parents. She was involved in a landmark legal case involving child marriage.

After the death of her father, her mother married Jayantibai married Sakharam Arjun, an eminent physician and social activist of Bombay. Remarriage of widows was permitted in the caste ( carpenter) to which her mother belonged.

2 and half years later, the 11 year old Rukhmabai was married to Dadaji Bhikaji, a cousin of Sakharam Arjun. It was agreed that Dadaji would stay with Rukhmabai’s family and would be looked after by them (illarikam). 6 months after marriage when she attained puberty a “Garbhadan” ceremony was held but Sakharam Arjun  who had reformist tendencies did not let the marriage be consummated.

Bhikaji was then 20 years old but he was made to attend school in 6^th standard which made him unhappy. (I think that is an absurd thing that was done by her stepfather. Surely a 20 year old would not sit in the 6^th class with young children) After his mother died Bhikaji started living with his maternal uncle and developed a life of indolence doing precisely nothing and accumulated debts which he hoped to clear by using the property that would come along with Rukhmabai. So it looks like he saw his wife as a Bank from which he can draw and do nothing. She however, refused to move in with Bhikaji into his maternal uncle’s house.

During those years Rukhmabai studied at home with books from the Church library. Because of her father, she came into contact with religious and social reformers of Western India at that time which exposed her to liberal reformism.

Finally in the year 1884, Bhikaji sent a legal notice to Rukhmabai’s parents asking them to stop telling Rukhmabai not to join him. Her father replied it through their lawyers.

In 1885 Bhikaji instituted a suit on Rukhmabai for “Restitution of conjugal rights”. This is a legal remedy in the English law which lets one spouse ask a court to order the other spouse to return to live with them when they have left without a fair and reasonable excuse. The Judge who was an Englishman ruled that the law does not apply in this case and that she was forcibly married in her infancy.

The case drew criticism from Hindu sources like media which included Bal Gangadhar Tilak’s  “Mahratta (Maratha)” which said that the Judge did not understand Hindu law and he sought reforms by violent means.

In 1886 the case was brought up for retrial and was upheld by another English Judge. Later in 1887 another Judge ordered that either Rukhmabai should go and live with her husband as per Hindu custom or face 6 months imprisonment.  Rukhmabai responded that she would rather go to jail than to obey the verdict. This again ignited a big social debate and Bala Ganagdhar Tilak’s “Kesari” said that Rukhmabai’s rebellion was because of English education and Hinduism is in danger while Max Mueller supported Rukhmabai’s thought.

After a series of court cases which resulted in the affirmation of the marriage, she appealed to Queen Victoria. It has been claimed that Queen Victoria overruled the courts and dissolved the marriage but no documentary evidence was available for that.

In 1888 a settlement was reached by which Rukhmabai paying  Bhikaji Rs 2000  and relinquished her claim on her. She went on to become a widely regarded feminist and medical practitioner.

She travelled to England in 1889 to study medicine and studied at the Royal School of Medicine for Women in London.  As women were then not eligible for qualifying examinations at the London Medical Colleges, she travelled to Edinburg in Scotland and obtained a Triple Qualification in 1894 which enabled her to practice Medicine in Britain.   

The case generated a lot of debate both within India and England. Ultimately this case influenced the enactment of the “Age of Consent Act” in 1891. But that was not much really because it raised age of consent from 10 to 12 years across British India and Rukhmabai became the 2^nd woman from India to qualify and practice medicine after Kadambini Ganguly.  In 1895 she returned back to India and worked as the Chief Medical Officer at the women’s hospital in Surat. She then joined the Zenana Women’s hospital in Rajkot where she stayed till her retirement in 1929. She chose to settle at Bombay after her retirement. She died in 1955 aged 90.

Her life points out the primitive laws India has followed at that time regarding women. There was resistance at every level by Hindu organizations to level them. One cannot imagine Bal Gangadhar Tilak who is one of the leading political leaders at that time opposing reforms on women.

This piece on Rukhmabai would not be complete without small mention about Kadambini Ganguly. She was the 1^st female Indian medical doctor of western medicine along with Anandibai Joshi and both have got their degrees in 1886. However the latter died soon after obtaining the Medical degree. Kadambini was also the 1^st woman speaker of the Indian national Congress. She was heavily criticised by the conservatives and in the Bengali magazine named “Bangabashi” she was indirectly called a whore. Her husband Dwarakanath Ganguly took the case to the court and won. That got a jail sentence of 6 months for the editor of the magazine.

DHIRUBHAI AMBANI AND HIS JAMNAGAR REFINERY-A MIRACLE

Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State visited India to get refining of crude oil done for the US and then called India a refining superpower of the world. 

That is really an exaggeration because China leads the world’s refining capacity with 18.5 million barrels per day, 2nd is the US with 18.4 million barrels per day, 3rd is Russia with 6.8 million barrels per day, and then India in 4th position  with 5.8 million barrels per day. 

As Rubio visited Jamnagar Refinery, it is in focus now and I happened to see a video on the Jamnagar Refinery and the facts shown in that video stunned me. I have also done a bit of research on that. Giving a link to the video below...

India exported 65 million tons of Petro products in the year 2025 (for which data is available). Of this, Reliance’s Jamnagar refinery alone accounts for 70%. 

India has an aggregate refining capacity of 267 million tons or over 5 million barrels per day which is about 6% of the Worlds refining capacity.

Reliance’s Jamnagar refinery capacity alone is 1.4 million barrels of crude or 68 million tons annually. So, this refinery alone consists more than 25% of India’s refinery capacity. 

It is relevant to note here that the Jamnagar refinery operates over 100% of its capacity frequently. On one occasion it ran at 121% of its installed capacity which is simply unbelievable. 

This refinery is the largest standalone refinery in the world itself and contributes 1.5% to the worlds refining capacity.  2nd in the world is Paraguana Refinery in Venezuela with an installed capacity of 950,000 barrels per day. 

The Nelson Complexity Index (NCI) measures an oil refinery's level of sophistication, conversion capacity, and ability to turn crude oil into high-value light products (such as gasoline and diesel) relative to a basic crude distillation unit (which has an index of 1.0). 

The Jamnagar refinery complex features a high Nelson Complexity Index of 21, allowing it to process over 216 different grades of crude oil, including heavy and ultra-heavy crudes. It is the most complex refinery in the world itself by the Index. 

The US refineries average 9.5 on the NCI scale and the European refineries average 6.5. The Chinese refineries have an NCI of 12. 

The Jamnagar Refinery was built by Reliance on 7500 acres of barren land near the sea. The refinery complex alone covers 1000 acres. 

This massive and complex refinery was built with lightning speed in just 33 months’ time and commenced operations in Dec 1999. 70,000 workers were on the construction of the project day and night. 

Prior to the refinery commencing refining operations India was forced to import refined Petro products for its use. This refinery turned that around and made India an exporter of Petro products. 

India’s refining capacity in 1999 was a mere 70 million tons and the Jamnagar refinery alone has added a like amount to the refining capacity of India. 

The refinery did not bother the local areas for water and set up a desalination plant with a capacity of 400,000 cubic meters (or 400 million litres of fresh water) of water per day sufficient for its use. 

This water, after being used in the refinery is treated and is then used to water the massive greenbelt made of mango trees planted by Reliance. 

They have planted 130,000 mango trees of some 100 varieties of mango in the belt and the produce of mangoes is exported. 

This refinery does not need any Port to import its crude. It uses the Single Point Mooring Systems or SPM’s where massive crude oil carrying ships can anchor at sea near the moorings from where crude is pumped through undersea pipelines to the refinery. 

Luckily Dhirubhai Ambani who can be called nothing but a visionary lived long enough to see his dream come true. A much maligned man he is. Manipulative he is, yes but just look at his vision and futuristic thought. 

He dreamed of something that never existed in the world at that time and no amount of appreciation is enough for this man. 

And all that from a man from a relatively low industrialised country at that time. An American building such a refinery need not be appreciated as much but an Indian doing it is nothing short of a miracle.

https://youtu.be/a-mvR4-bZlc?si=9qP3cgHJJJ0rj77w

HERACLITUS, PARMENIDES & ZENO GREEK PHILOSOPHERS OF THE 6TH CENTURY BC

 

    HERACLITUS: He is from the Ionian city of EPHESUS and was born in 535 BC. He believed that everything changes continuously and all things are in a state of flux. He also said that you cannot bathe in a river twice because by that time the river changes too.

Heraclitus said, there is nothing everlasting in the Universe and everything is in a state of FLUX. He was born as an Aristocrat and therefore detested Democracy. He claimed that he discovered something that no other philosopher before him did and said that the Universe evolved from FIRE.

He said that everything in the Universe is evolving and constantly turning into another thing. He believed that all things have dyads in nature. 

     PARAMENIDES: He was born in the Greek city of Elea in Italy in 540 BC. He is an interesting character and his philosophy is totally opposite to that of Heraclitus who said everything is in a state of Flux. Nay said this guy and made the theory of Parmenides stand on its head. He said that nothing changes in the Universe and it is an illusion to think that there is any change at all.

Like Socrates before him Parmenides too had disciples and disciples of disciples and is known as the Eleatic school. The greatest disciple of this guy is Zeno who is the founder of Dialectics.

Whatever is there will never change. It has existence. It is everlasting, indivisible, homogeneous, uniform, and motionless and does not change.

Then, what is all this change, differences, plurality, birth, death etc.? Parmenides says like our Sankara that all those are our imagination. There is no sensible world and it is only an appearance. 

No one created something that exists. Neither can anyone destroy it. It is complete, infinite, and motionless. One can never say that it existed before or will exist in future, because it is there at present. It exists as a whole, inseparable and continuous. It is motionless and stands still at one place. It exists in itself.

Parmenides said that motion is impossible. Does motion not mean an object going to a place where it is not present? Since there is no place that it does not exist, motion is impossible. 

     ZENO: He was born in Elea in 490 BC. Dialectics is the art of accepting an argument and then by logic try to find paradoxes in the argument to counter it. Zeno was the first philosopher top use Dialectics.

To support his guru Paramenides theory of no change, he narrated the famous 4 paradoxes which could only be answered in the modern day 2400 years after they were narrated. 

1^st Paradox: It is impossible to go from one place to another. For example if a person has to travel 100 meters first he has to travel 50 meters, before that 25 meters, before that 12.5 meters etc. infinitesimally. The time given to the person is finite whereas he has to cross an infinite number of divisions. This is impossible. 

2^nd Paradox: Remember the story of Achilles and the tortoise? Zeno was the first person to narrate this. In a hundred meters race the tortoise was kept 10 meters ahead of Achilles. By logic Achilles should easily cross the tortoise. But for this first he has to cross 10 meters. By this time the tortoise would have gone some distance. Again Achilles will have to cross that additional distance. In the meantime the tortoise would have gone a little ahead again. Like this an infinite number of divisions had to be crossed by Achilles in a finite amount of time, which is impossible.

3^rd Paradox: At any single indivisible instant in time, a flying arrow occupies a space equal to it and is at rest. If time is composed of these static instants, and the arrow does not move during any single instant, then motion cannot happen at all.

4^th Paradox: This involves objects moving past each other in a stadium at different speeds, creating logical contradictions regarding relative speeds and the assumption that time is composed of indivisible minimum units.

TELUGU LANGUAGE & PEOPLE-ORIGINS

 

Today as I was going through some videos on You Tube, by chance I came across a Video on Telugu saying that new facts are uncovered on it. I always have a suspicion on YouTube videos and feel they represent more of opinions on such issues than fact. So, I checked on the net and found it is true. There are some interesting facts about Telugu which I want to mention here. 

Recent breakthroughs in population genetics and genomic sequencing have revealed a highly unique, ancient, and rich ancestral makeup for Telugu.

Major studies on Indian DNA including extensive analysis by the University of California at Berkeley reveal the genetic profile of the Telugu population.

There are 3 primary ancestral sources for Telugu DNA.

1. Ancient Ancestral South Indian- dates back to more than 50,000 years.

2. Indus Valley Civilization allied ancestry-around 5000-4000 years ago the Indus Valley people mixed heavily with the above stream...and formed the Ancestral South Indian profile.

3. Ancestral North Indian- profiles show that Telugu groups carry minor to moderate amounts of Ancestral North Indian ancestry.

Linguistically Telugu is an independent Dravidian language that split from Proto Dravidian around 1000 BC.

Historical linguists classify it under the South Dravidian II/Central Dravidian branch ..it is close to Tamil and Kannada.

The earliest physical evidence of Telugu words date back to Prakrit( script) inscriptions dating back to 400 BC to 257 BC

Telugu is spoken by over 8 crore native speakers and is the most widely spoken Dravidian language and the 4th most spoken after Hindi, Bengali and Marathi.

In his inscriptions Ashoka mentioned Andhra Bhrityulu which means Andhra vassals.

The Andhras were first mentioned in the Aitareya Brahmana of Rigveda dating to around 700-800 BC.

The Brahmana says that the Andhras were a non Aryan/Dasyu tribe who were exiled from Northern India near the Yamuna river, and they crossed the Vindhya range and migrated into the Southern Deccan. Andhras also appear in the Mahabharata and Ramayana. In the Mahabharata it is narrated that Andhras fought on the side of the Kauravas

PYTHAGORAS.

 

     Pythagoras was born in 582 BC and died in 500 BC. He is from a small Greek island known as Samos in the Aegean Sea. Samos was a very affluent Greek settlement and was well known then. During the time of Pythagoras Samos came under a tyrant Polycrates which made Pythagoras migrate to a city named Crotone around 530 BC. 

Before Socrates, Pythogoras was the most famous of all Greek Philosophers. 

Every child of today is familiar with the Pythogoras Theorem in Geometry over 2500 years after he was dead and gone. 

Pythagoras said that the origin of everything is numerals and without numerals there is no World. Today this may look absurd to us, but then, have our ancestors not said that everything came from “OM”. 

Amazingly the British did more research to discover Indian culture than Indians themselves. Arthur Anthony Mc Donnel wrote “A History of Sanskrit Literature” which was published in the year 1900. In that he said that it is highly probable that Pythagoras visited Persia through which he has imbibed Indian thought.   

In his book, he detailed several striking parallels between Pythagorean and ancient Indian thought. He said that the doctrine of transmigration of souls was never there in Greek thought and was brought in by Pythagoras suddenly, and had no indigenous explanation. The mathematical formulations for the Pythagorean Theorem, the philosophical assumption of 5 elements, and specific religious beliefs like taboo against eating beans had existing parallels in 6^th century BC India.

Pythagoras established a society in Crotone where the members lived together like  a family, wore the same type of clothes and had strict discipline just like in our Buddhist Sangha’s of that time. 

Pythagoras said Soul is everlasting and it does not perish. So every life form that is born dies and is again reborn as human or animal. Souls have afterlife. However, in this cycle if one goes around with good moral and ethical principles, then in some of the afterlives the soul would cease to have an afterlife. Now, this is much too close to Indian philosophical thought, so little wonder that Mc Donnel speculated that Pythagoras had a brush with Indian thought. 

Pythagoras postulated that the world is formed by dyads. He has defined 10 such dyads but does not deny other dyads. 

Greeks never had the concept of zero which India had at that time. So they did their addition, subtraction, division & multiplication through Geometry. 

Pythagoras ultimately said gave one number to everything; humans had one number while horse had another and so on for everything. Even feelings have been given numbers. 

This may look absurd to us but BAG Fuller in his “History of Philosophy” says that we need not think it to be so. The modern Physics and Chemistry rely completely on mathematics and even the definition of the elements is through numbers.  So, to that extent, if there are no numbers, there is no world.

Pythagoras assumed that the earth is not flat but is spherical. He said (as many others did) that Earth is the center of the Universe and the Moon, Sun, Planets and stars orbit it. He went on to say that these bodies while orbiting so make musical sounds. We may consider this absurd but again that was what he said. 

Western philosophy has 2 very important branches; 1. Materialism & 2. Idealism. While, Thales and other Greek philosophers were the originators of materialism, Pythagoras was the originator of Idealism. A war is on between the 2 basic systems for centuries and would continue to rage on.

PARIS AGREEMENT ON CLIMATE CHANGE.

 Leaders of 195 countries met at Paris in 2015 at the UN Climate Change Conference COP21 (the 21^st year of the Conference) to unite the world on Global warming.

The nations agreed on a new global climate plan as per which they agreed to:

Keep the global temperature rise well below 2 degrees centigrade over the pre-industrial revolution times.

Try to limit the rise below 1.5 degrees.

Help poorer nations to pay for clean energy and climate change. 

Based on the agreement countries set their own goals to cut pollution and the plans are called NDC’s (Nationally Determined Contributions). Nations check their progress under the plan every 5 years.  

Scientists measure 1.5 degree target with a 20 year global average and not just by 1 or 2 solitary years. This is currently at 1.4 degrees above pre industrial levels. 2024 recorded a temperature rise of over 2 degrees.

A recent UN Environment Programme Report warns that the global temperature would surpass the threshold of 1.5 degrees in a few years and would peak at 1.8 degrees and this looks certainly dangerous for the next generation.

The system of Carbon Credits had been brought in, as per which a Carbon Credit is:

“A tradable Electronic Certificate that represents reduction, avoidance or removal of 1 MT of carbon Dioxide or an equivalent Greenhouse gas.”

Projects that lower emissions like planting trees, building solar farms etc. generate credits once verified by an independent organization. Companies buy and sell these credits in carbon markets to meet legal limits or climate goals. Once a business uses a credit to compensate for its emissions the credit is permanently retired so that it cannot be reused again.

There are Compliance Markets for Carbon Credits is a government regulated system where companies face legal penalties if they exceed pollution limits.

There are Voluntary Markets for carbon Credits where organizations or individuals buy credits on their own from another to reach internal net-zero goals.

In India the Carbon Credit markets are regulated by the Ministry of Power through the “Bureau of Energy Efficiency”.

India’s NDC’s:

Reduce emission intensity by 47% by 2035 from the 2005 levels. Reach 60% non-fossil fuel powered electricity generation by 2035 & create enough forest cover to reduce 3.5 billion to 4.0  billion tons of CO2 emissions by 2035.

There are also the Carbon Offsets as against Carbon Credits. These represent the actual environmental benefit or the reduction or removal of 1 MT of Greenhouse Gas emissions, resulting from an action taken to compensate for emissions made elsewhere.

WHY SET A LIMIT ON TEMPERTAURE RISE AT ALL? : If global temperature rises by 1.5 degrees centigrade over pre industrial revolution level, it would trigger widespread changes in our climate. The effects would be:

Major land regions will experience more frequent and intense extreme heat, there would be heavy precipitation and severe flooding and there would risk of severe droughts and wildfires. They would affect Ecosystems & wildlife and pose extinction risks for many species. Oceans would raise flooding coastal communities and eroding shorelines. Although this rise is manageable at 1.5 degree rise, it becomes dangerous if the rise is 2 degrees. The acidity of the oceans would increase harming fish.

This idiot Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement twice: Once in 2020 while Biden re-joined it and Trump did it again in 2026. With blabbering and stupid idiots like Trump around humanity does not need an alien species to disturb the earth.

 

 

WHERE IS THE UNIVERSE HEADED-AND WHAT WOULD FINALLY HAPPEN?

 

From the time of the Big Bang that took place 1377 crore years ago, the Universe is expanding incessantly and galaxies in the Universe are flying away from each other. 

As per the Big Bang theory the matter in the Universe was concentrated in a small area before the Big Bang happened. The diameter of the Universe at the time of Big Bang was indeterminate, but the heat and pressure in that primordial ball were immense beyond imagination.

Theoretical models suggest that the entire matter in the Universe coalesced into a singularity. However later estimations indicate a size as big as a few meters.  What is the state of matter at this primitive stage, we cannot even fathom. But whatever the temperature and the pressure of the primordial ball, it is inevitable that it had to explode given the conditions, and so it did 1377 crore years ago. In 1 year the Universe has expanded to 100,000 light years in diameter.

But how did that happen? Einstein postulated that nothing can travel faster than light which means that the Universe can at best expand to only 1 light year in diameter in 1year. But it expanded 100,000 times more which is phenomenally faster than light.

Scientists say that is because space itself stretches and the fabric of space expands faster while the objects in it do not travel at more than the speed of light. They say that there is no limit to the expansion of the speed of the Universe.

But that looks to be a paradox to me, and in their enthusiasm, it looks to me that the theorists seem to have gone overboard. 

They claim that there is no speed limit for the expansion of space unlike in the case of objects but obviously if the space expands so fast, then is it not inevitable that the objects in it should also do so?  How can they say that space would expand far faster than light, while the objects within it would not? What the basis do they to rest their theory on? How can anyone postulate such a thing when they cannot even judge the conditions of that time and not knowing the properties of space?   

The primordial ball contained not just the matter known to us, but it also contained dark matter and dark energy to the tune of 95% which today none of our instruments are capable of measuring. The mass of the Universe is estimated by scientists to be 1.5* 10⁵⁰ tons. The Dark energy which consists of 68% mass-energy of the Universe speeds up its expansion continuously so that it accelerates.

We know that the Universe is constantly expanding, and today the known Universe should have a diameter of 1377 crore light years. However, the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes have revealed that the expansion of the Universe is in fact accelerating and this acceleration is on account of the Dark energy present in the Universe. Considering this acceleration, the diameter of the Universe has now grown to 9300 crore light years. One should keep in mind that this diameter is the diameter of the observable Universe.

That is which our instruments can allow us to postulate on and we have no means of knowing what is beyond it.  For all we know there may be other such similar Universes outside it, and logically that have to be so. There is no reason to assume that there is only Universe just because we know of only one.     

The Big Bang did not happen at a single place in the universe. It happened everywhere at once. So each Galaxy is moving away from another. As galaxies drift apart, new star formation would stop and older stars would die and the Universe would become cold, dark and empty.

But most of the theory of the Universe ending is a mere assumption. It may or may not have an end, and we can only speculate on that. Theoretically all the Hydrogen and Helium should have been exhausted by now given the rate of fusion in stars and the 1377 crore years age of the Universe, yet even today 73-75% of the mass of the Universe is Hydrogen.  Then Helium makes up 24-25% of the mass of the Universe. 

It is postulated that all the Hydrogen in the Universe has formed after the big bang. That being the case, despite zillions of stars burning Hydrogen up for 13.7 billion years would not bring down its content?

There is no explanation as to why this is so? New stars continue to form while the older stars die, so given the current conditions in the Universe, it is very difficult to accept that it would finally become cold, dark & empty. But Astronomy in some areas is like a dark street wherein one has to venture with dark glasses. Our knowledge and technology is too meagre to speculate about the ending of the Universe.