New Delhi: After Chinese troops were observed to have “thinned” out in at least four stand-off points, China on Wednesday said that “actions” were being taken in line with an “agreement” reached with India

This was the first official statement from either country that there had been changes in the ground situation in eastern Ladakh following talks between the two sides. However, the Chinese side did not provide any detail on the “actions” at the border with India.

Military sources had earlier stated that the density of Chinese troops at Galwan and Hot Springs had come down from Monday, which was reciprocated by India. However, there had been no change in status at Pangong Tso, where Chinese troops are on India’s side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC). There had, however, been no official statement from India on these developments.

This was echoed by the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson at her briefing on Monday. “Both sides agree to implement the important consensus of the two leaders, avoid escalation of differences into disputes, work together to uphold peace and tranquillity in the border area, and create favourable atmosphere for the sound and stable development of bilateral relations,” said Hua.

Several other rounds of talks among the militaries are expected to take place in the coming days at the border.

However, there are no signs that China is willing to retract its troops from the area until Finger 4 in Pangong Tso, which is well within the territory claimed by India. It was at Pangong Tso that Indian and Chinese soldiers had come to blows in early May, which was one of the early markers of the start of the stand-off between the two armies.

India has sought a restoration of the status quo ante before the first detection of Chinese troops at Galwan, with the vacation of soldiers from the finger region in Pangong Tso being a top priority.

With the growing digital advancements of this virtual age, a sense of nothingness has taken over this generation in a huge way which eventually leads to mental illness in the form of anxiety disorders, personality disorders, psychotic disorders, eating disorders and needless to mention, depression. It is never easy to boil Depression down to a single definition/statement that covers all its aspects and symptoms at the same time. It is one of the major mental disorders that affect people irrespective of gender, age so on and the like.

However, even in this 21st century, many misconceptions seem to be there in the society. Many people seem to have adopted the notion of depression in such a prejudiced way that it automatically links their idea of it to a fragile and futile make-believe concept which is not only harmful for them but it also affects the people around them in the long run. This article aims at representing some of the common internalized misconceptions that seem to be wrongly associated with depression which go a long way towards causing further anxiety issues for people who suffer from depression.

1. It’s all in the head!

It is not. If you are one of those people who throw around this phrase in a casual manner whenever you hear someone talking about their fight with depression or other forms of mental disorders, it is high time you understand the repercussions associated with it. It may have a long lasting influence on that individual without you having a slightest idea about it.
It has been clinically proved to be one of the most damaging mental disorders that have the capability to break an individual inside out.

2. It is a way to seek attention.

People who happen to be clinically depressed for quite some time have a really hard time getting over it. There are various ways that they try to find their happiness in. some of them are vocal about it and many are not. However, stigmatizing, calling them names, terming them as mere attention seekers go on to make their journey way more difficult than it already is.
It takes a lot of courage and inner strength for people to come up and share their sufferings with other people. In no way do they seek attention nor do they want sympathy from anyone. In most cases, all they want is someone to listen, and understand what is going on in their mind when it is really difficult itself for them to understand it in the first place.

3. It’s genetic.

Statistics show that only around 15% of who suffer from depression has relatives who had depression in the past. Each person deals with it in a different way. The way it affects people is different. Even when it is genetic, two individuals may not show similar symptoms and the recovery time varies from one another.
Depression is just sadness!
Feeling sad temporarily and being depressed are two absolutely different things. Depression is a long term illness and is very different than being sad. It can be escalated from sadness, but it affects in a much wider way. Sadness is a temporary feeling which usually goes away on its own unlike depression. Depression comes along with a lot more other negative feelings including anxiety, unnecessary guilt feelings, overthinking, emptiness, nothingness and the like.

4. Only women get depressed.

There is this systematic internalized patriarchal fragile notion of being a Man present within us due to which in most of the cases, men choose to keep shut and do not express their emotions which eventually leads to unbearable pain and sufferings.
Women unlike men, are relatively more vocal about it and do not refrain themselves from talking about how they feel.

5. It’s just a weakness and never a big of a deal.

Due to the systematic stigmatization associated with depression, many people tend to think it is a mere temporary weakness or disability. No one chooses to be depressed and it has nothing to do with how strong they actually are.
Clinical depression is a big deal that needs regular psychological treatment in order for the patient’s recovery. Sometimes it even takes up to 8-10 years.

6. Only medication can treat depression.

Medication is one of the types by which patients are treated sometimes. It is not the only way. There are various other therapy sessions that include meditation/music therapy and other cognitive therapies that have been proved to be equally valid and helpful in treating depression.

7. Depression is always caused by trauma.

In many cases traumatic past incidents play a major role in triggering the sense of depression in people. Even people who have no such traumatizing past history can suffer from depression.

All cases are different and unique at the same time. Hence, any form of generalization or stigmatization can be way more harmful than we can even imagine. These kinds of insensitive judgmental concepts do not help, but they only contribute in making their struggle way harder than it already is. It is high time people understand to what extent these wrong judgmental thoughts and misinterpretations cause trouble for them who already are going through a lot. All we should do is to stop being judgmental and be kinder enough to help each other out in difficult situations that will eventually contribute to the process of making the world a better place, for all of us.

– Suvasree Bandyopadhyay.

Am I Safe ? The question which comes into every women’s mind at some point in her life. Earlier women used to feel insecure outside their homes but now they don’t even feel secure in their own homes.

The subjection of a major proportion of women in our country to torture is so regular that the fear part has become a part of a woman’s daily life. There is a constant fear in the back of every women’s mind whether she admits it or not .

India which is a developing country has also developed multitudinous crimes for women in the last few decades. Thomas Reuters Foundation in its 2018 survey ranked India as the world most dangerous country for women ahead of Afghanistan, Syria and Saudi Arabia. A similar poll seven years ago had ranked India fourth, with Afghanistan top of the list.

According to National Crime Records Bureau Rape is the fourth most common crime committed against women in India.
The official crime statistics for 2016 shows a woman is raped every 13 minutes; six women are gang raped every day.
According to 2018 NCRB data Uttar Pradesh is the most unsafe for women while state wise Madhya Pradesh recorded the highest number of rape cases. Among the Union territories New Delhi recorded the highest number of rape cases.

Crime against women is increasing with every passing day . Everyday newspaper articles and social media is filled with infinite cases of violence against women.
How phenomenal is that right ? Women in our country aren’t considered as humans they are just considered as mere tools to fulfill a man’s sexual desire because in a country where men indulge in violence just to establish their superiority and power over women what else can we accept. In January 2011, the International Men and Gender Equality Survey Questionnaire reported that 24% of Indian men had committed sexual violence at some point during their lives.

The increasing crime rates are imposing a serious question that where is India lacking. The same Indians who worship goddess Durga during navratri humiliate her afterwards. Has hypocrisy become an important characteristic of Indian masses?

India ranked 95th out of 129 countries in global gender equality index and 112th out of 153 on gender gap index. These surveys clearly show that Patriarchy is still playing very hard on Indian women and male superiority is still prevalent in India.
Our Indian Society still believes that women are responsible for the things happened and happening to them, this is so because they wear revealing clothes and invite the opposite sex to harass them. But dear society what about the five month old toddler who was raped by her relative, what about Asifa did they also invited their perpetrators by any means or they were also wearing revealing clothes to serve the purpose. They didn’t but then also they were raped.

No matter how many excuses our society presents but the reality will not change that the reason behind the occurrence of such incidents is the hideous mentality of some males present in our country. They have been brought up in such an environment which has forced them to become a malefactor.

We say we can’t help it and change the present scenario but we can. We can do so just by giving right values to every male around us and by making them understand that:

“ Real Men Don’t Rape

They Respect ”

A.P.J Abdul Kalam ( Avul pakir jainulabdeen) (15 October 1931- 27 July 2015) . Kalam was born to a Tamil Muslim family in the oil grimage centre of Rameshwaram on Pamban island and raised in Rameshwaram, Tamil Nadu and studies physics and aerospace engineering.

At that time the financial condition of his family was poor so from an early age he started supporting his family financially. But he never gave up education. Along with supporting his family he continued his studies and completed graduation. Kalam earned a degree in aeronautical engineering from the Madras institute of technology.

The great missile man becomes the president of India in 2002 .11th president of India (2002-2007) succeeding K.R Narayana. He won the 2002 presidential election with an electoral votes of 922884 surpassing the 107366 votes won by Lakshmi sahagal. During his presidency period , the army and country achieved many milestones that contributed a lot to the nation. He served the nation with a open heart that’s why he was called ” People President ” . But at the end of his term period, he was not satisfied with his work that’s why he wanted to be the president a second time but later on forefiled his name. After the leaving the presidential office at the end of his term Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam again turn to his old passion which is teaching students. He worked for many reowned & prestigious institution of India located across the country. Above all, according to his the youth of the country is very talented but need the opportunity to prove their worth that’s why he supported them is very good dead , he always appreciated and motivated them by taking practical examples. He was friendly with students and youth through this nature youth easily became friendly with them and tell them about their issues.

He added many projects that contributed to the society also he was the one who helped in the development of Agni & Prithvi missiles. Thus came to know as the Missile man of India for his work on the development of ballistic missile and launch vehicle technology. He spent the next four decades as a scientist & science administrator, mainly at the Defence research & development organisation (DRDO) and the Indian space research organisation (ISRO) & was intimately involved in Indians civilian program & millitary missile development.

He also played a pivotal organisational, technical and political role in India’s pokhran nuclear test in 1998 , the first since the original nuclear test by Indians in 1974. During his Lifetime Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam was not only awarded and honoured by Indian organisation & committee but also by many international organizations & committees. During his Lifetime ,Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam wrote many books but his most notable work was ” INDIA 2020″ which have an action plan to make India a superpower. Dr. Kalam was a man of simplicity & integrity . He was so busy at work that he rises up early in the morning and work till late hours after midnight.

The man had the vision to make India a great country. And according to his the youth are the real assets of the country that’s why we should inspire & motivate them. The man who lead Indian’s entry into the exclusive club of countries making their own Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles ( IBRM).

7 Invention of Kalam :

• Nandhi ( Double engine powered hovercraft)
• Pokhran-2
• Indigenous Guided Missiles
• Kalam Raju Stent ( low cost coronary stent)
• Kalam Raju tablet ( aimed at arming health workers at the primary level to respond to emergency medical situation)
• Light weight calipers ( After polio free India , to make easy for special people )
• Project Devil & Project Valiant ( Develop ballistic mission)

Kalam put forward a country wide plan called technology vision 2020, which he described as a road map for transforming India from a less developed to a developed society in 20 years. The plan called for, among other measures, increasing agricultural productivity, emphasizing technology as a vehicle for economic growth, and widening access to health care & education.

He was such a bachelor who became father of India Missile man . His other child were Indian students and scholars.

Shakuntla Devi , born on 4th november, 1929, was an Indian writer and mental calculator, popularly known as the ‘human computer’. Her talent earned her a place in the 1982 edition of  The Guinness Book of World Records. She was born in Bangalore, India.

Born to Hindu Kannada Brahmin parents, Devi was a precocious child and she demonstrated her arithmetic abilities at the University of Mysore without any formal education.

Shakuntala Devi wrote a number of books in her later years, including novels as well as texts about mathematics, puzzles, and astrology. She wrote the book The World of Homosexuals, which is considered the first study of homosexuality in India. She treated homosexuality in a positive light and is considered a pioneer in the field.

Shakuntla Devi travelled the world demonstrating her arithmetic talents, including a tour of Europe in 1950 and a performance in New York City in 1976.

In 1988, she travelled to US to have her abilities studied by Arthur Jensen a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Jensen tested her performance of several tasks, including the calculation of large numbers. Examples of the problems presented to Devi included calculating the cube root of 61,629,875 and the seventh root of 170,859,375. Jensen reported that Shakuntala Devi provided the solution to the above mentioned problems (395 and 15, respectively) before Jensen could copy them down in his notebook.  Jensen published his findings in the academic journal Intelligence in 1990.

In 1977, she wrote The World of Homosexuals, the first study of  homosexuality in India.

In april 2013, she was admitted to a hospital in Bangalore with respiratory problems. Over the following two weeks she suffered from complications of the heart and kidneys. She died on 21st april, 2013 in the hospital. Sje was 83 years old.

On 4th november, 2013 she was honoured with a Google Doodle.

Remember, being in junior classes and studying those flash cards learning new words, new adjectives. It taught us the difference between beautiful and ugly by portraying a white person as beautiful and a black person as ugly. That was just a beginning and we never realized how this affected our minds. Some of us might remember the protests against racism and police brutality in the late 1960s, the outrage of African Americans has a sad and sickening familiarity. It is sad because yet another black man was killed by the police officer although he was not resisting arrest, even if had he been resisting, the officers had no write to apply lethal force to an unarmed person. We do not have to look back for examples of racism. We can see it now with disgusting awful frequency. Watching the video of George Floyd being murdered in broad daylight by a police officer, made me sick. It scared me and made me think our humanity has come to an end. It’s just an example of disgrace on humanity. People are protesting against it and Donald trump is touting them as thugs and threatening to send the National Guard.

I am not in favor of violence. I am not saying that burning buildings or destroying public property is correct, all I am saying is justice is not on their side. There is  no second thought to the fact that,  some things have changed in major, a black man was elected as president twice, yet so many things remained unchanged; segregated neighborhoods and schools, disparate treatment and a lot more to that.  We should not do this, we can be better than this. We should not tolerate it just for the sake of being a part of this so called liberal society. No race is superior to another. BLACK LIVES MATTER, Colin K. was right. Why does being black makes you a thug? Why are people teaching us that the color of your skin determines your value in this world? Racism is a virus, deeply rooted, systematically that exist in some form or another, is rampant in our society today.

Being angry at this lately, spreading awareness through social media, showing how devastated you are from this whole incident does not make you any less of a racist if you still joke around, judging people on their skin color in your real life. Symbolic statements and gestures matter a lot but they do not change injustice. We need to change in enforcement.

We have had plenty of reasons to be ashamed of a large portion of the human species (because there are always exceptions, not all people are bad). The color of our blood is red; it is not white or black. There is no difference it is just the darkness in our minds.

With the passing of several months since its sudden arrival it is by now clear that COVID-19 has dealt a devastating blow to the global economy. But global economy is not a monolithic structure. It is an aggregate of many national and regional economies. The virus, it is widely believed, has originated in China which after boasting of impressive growth rate is now nervous about its decline. But China is not alone in this situation. There has been a steep fall in economic activities around the world. There are large scale lockdowns and quarantined spaces. The Governments in different parts of the world are trying to provide stimulus packages and incentivise production process to cope with the adverse economic situation.

But not everyone is optimistic. World Trade Organization (WTO) economists argue that the decline will likely exceed the trade slump brought on by the global financial crisis of 2008‑09. “The unavoidable declines in trade and output will have painful consequences for households and businesses, on top of the human suffering caused by the disease itself”, mentioned the WTO Director-General, Roberto Azevêdo in a press release on 20 April, 2020. He also warned that the world trade is expected to fall between 13% and 32% in 2020 as the COVID 19 pandemic disrupts normal economic activity and life around the world.

There are scholars like Stephen Rosh, economics professor at Yale University, who is rather doubtful about the success of such measures, at least in near future. He does not think much about the effectiveness of the adopted fiscal and monetary policies. While one may indulge in debate about Rosh’s opinion it is important to point out that we are confronted globally with an unpleasant economic scenario. Not only China, worse affected will be developing economies like India, China’s neighbour, whose economy in the pre-pandemic period was being considered to be ‘rising’. Even the advanced economies like that of the USA are not immune from the pandemic effect on economy. In a sense, COVID-19 is a ‘great equaliser’. It spares none, no matter how robust the economy is.

The issue is not to panic or not to give up. The fight must go on against the dreadful virus not only in epidemiological and biotechnological terms but also in economic terms. The global economic fight, however, cannot be waged only at the level of individual economies. The national economies must fight from their own locations but should also establish and sustain proper networking in this endeavour with other economies. The synergistic effort pays. For instance, one of the worst affected domains of the economic onslaught of the pandemic, the share markets, according to The New York Times faced the ‘tornado like head wing’. But a positive development is that after initial rout, stock markets are rebounding. It provides a lesson: that the countries must come together to fight the virus rather than trying to shed each other’s blood, economically speaking. Morgan Stanley’s Chief Global Economist, Chetan Ahya, has recently in an interview mentioned that he doesn’t think that the virus shock would fundamentally challenge the growth cycle. The word ‘fundamentally’ is very important. The underlying logic is that the global economy periodically has weathered a number of shocks but still has managed to experience growth. 

Much of information about the global economy remains cloudy. Not everything can be expected to be clear. But let us understand that if different countries unite to fight the ravages caused by ‘the common enemy’ there is a recovery possible. One agrees that there is stiff competition among the economies of the world for the twin pursuit of wealth and power. One also understands that ‘mercy, and ‘charity’ are not the norms of economic competition. But the pandemic has sent us an implicit signal: the national economies should indulge in ‘minimal cooperation’ among themselves at this stage to revive intense competition. When everybody is talking about ‘social distancing’ in this case it has to be ‘economic proximity’.