Stopopedia

New books, unromantic rains and some other stuff What do you think this blog post is going to be about? Rains in the month of June? Probably. However, since the title has the word ‘June’ in it, I can assure you that this will be something related to the month of June. In hindsight, I could have pretended to be a wonderful author and whipped up something totally unexpected and swooned you but hey! Who am I kidding? The last time I wrote something half decent was a very long time ago and that’s kind of why I am here talking to you through this blog. Here I am, wiping the metaphorical dust and cobwebs off my blog page and writing something entirely new. At the moment, I hope this newfound motivation of mine stays and I successfully keep my blog from gathering dust again. (Fingers crossed!) If you're thinking, ‘Krishna, stop. You haven't written for a long time and you’re procrastinating by simply rambling.’, I won’t keep you waiting any longer and dive right in. As promised, I wil...

  The Doomsday Clock has been set to ‘100 seconds to midnight’ this year. It is a wake-up call for world leaders to rise and save humanity from a total apocalypse. Climate change is real and it is evident, now more than ever. The present condition of the earth is extremely shameful. As intelligent creations of nature, we humans have done a shoddy job of looking after the environment. As a species, we have managed to consistently impinge Mother Earth, the consequences of which are clearly visible now. A wise man once said, ‘We have not inherited the earth from our forefathers; we have borrowed it from our children.’ Anthropogenic climate disruption is the cause of all mishaps happening today. If we do not respond to the planet’s cries for help, it won’t be long before civilization crumbles. Each action of ours affects the environment directly or indirectly. As people living in cities, we do not feel the change directly, but in the blink of a geological eye, glaciers, forests, rive...

  A stray, brown dog sniffs the footpath in front of a house. It sniffs around, looking for food. It is time for it to eat and is just waiting to find a stray morsel. A young boy stands at the window of the house. As he eats a biscuit, he puts his forearms outside the railings of the window. In 2 bites, the biscuit disappears. He seems to be looking out at the oblivious dog but in reality, his mind is somewhere far away, travelling faster than light. The mind is a beautiful thing, one that defies all laws of space and time and transcends all limitations man has ever faced. It's almost like using Doraemon's Any-Way Door, a ship sailing on the wind of wishes.  The sky is an orangish-purple hue, with the sun almost gone. The hot-cold February air blows into the window, ruffling the young boy's hair. A draught of cold air gushes in and disrupts the boy's chain of thought. Suddenly, as if remembering important matters that need his attention, he closes the window and draws t...

      One Direction disbanded and left everyone heartbroken. Although there are a lot of Directioners who pine the absence of the band, a lot of fans took the broken shards of their heart and hooked it on to something new: BTS. In a world where being ‘lit’ meant watching Friends and reading popular books written in English, it was actually astonishing to see how people vibed to something in a completely foreign language. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, it is impossible to not know BTS. You are either a fan or are one of those people who dislike them. If you’re an adult, you have inevitably come across at least one teen with bright purple hair who listens to ‘strange Korean music’. In spite of everything, if you have magically managed to evade this entire kpop sensation that’s taking over the world, let’s back up a bit and know BTS. In 2013, a group of 7 Korean nobodies debuted with the song ‘ No More Dream ’. Belonging to a failing company, these 7 dudes h...

  India is a country that is geographically rich and has great topographical variety. We are blessed with the seas on three sides, the Himalayas in the north along with numerous forests and rivers. While we benefit from all of them, there are also some threats that these resources pose. Natural hazards are some unpredictable, unfavourable changes taking place in nature that causes mass destruction. With development in technology, we have gotten better at foreseeing and mitigating them. With time, the IMD and the disaster management force of India have become more and more experienced due to which we are able to soften the blow of disasters. It is not true that India’s preparedness for mitigation of natural disasters is weak even with technology. Cyclones have become an annual occurrence in the Bay of Bengal. With their powerful instruments, the IMD is able to predict the disastrous waves and inform people beforehand. This valuable information enables the government to bring their p...

History shows that alcohol has always been consumed by people all over the world. Even though alcohol has an important role in many cultures and it has its own transcendental effects, alcohol has detrimental effects on human life. Consumption of alcohol can lead to liver damage, fatty liver, eye problems, vomiting, etc. Additionally, alcohol can cause impairment in judgement, anxiety, depression and a shorter memory span. All of these are just the effects of alcohol on an individual. It also has adverse effects on the social life of a person. When under the influence of alcohol, people are known to have committed crime- stolen, killed or abused family members. Alcohol is, in fact, the reason behind many failed marriages and even more cases of poverty and unemployment. When one looks at these adverse effects of alcohol, it is only logical to deduce that alcohol sale must be prohibited. Prohibition seems to be the answer to all of our problems. However, prohibition is not a very feasible...

‘... Liberty of thoughts, expression, belief, faith and worship...’ These lines from the Preamble of The Constitution of India state its intention of providing the citizens with the right to express themselves freely. This ideal of the Preamble is reflected in Article 19(A) of the Constitution, which gives Indian citizens their fundamental rights. The right to speech is a basic human right. In India, this right allows the citizens to speak up and share their opinion publically without any fear. However, in recent times, it has been noted that this right has been condemned for many. Recently, in the USA, Donald Trump proposed to put some restrictions on what people could post on social media. While this appears to be a power move attempting to curtail people's tendencies to spread unverified information, aka rumours, it takes away their liberty to say what they want and what they feel. Obviously, Trump then had to face lots of protests, but that's a story for another day! Th...