US Shutdown

The U.S shutdown?

The United States of America’s government is shutdown. What does this mean? The government doesn’t have enough money to fund itself, apart from highly essential services like defense, white house security and the pay for senators and congressmen. What is the reason for the shutdown? The Republicans want the Obamacare to be postponed and no funds should be allocated for that. The Democrats are staunchly against the Republican stand. So the Senate, which is controlled by the Democrats, passes a bill, but fails in the Congress because Republicans control the Congress. Both the sides have been negotiating to reach the middle ground. This has been nothing but failure in these talks. Now, the Republicans are planning to pass bills with specific funding to certain activities like veteran services, etc. The Democrats have decided to vote against this. So again a deadlock.

The result of this is 800,000 federal workers have not received their pay. Tourists can’t go to national parks, buildings or sightseeing. Tourism Industry is the second worst affected. Dollar is losing its value in the international market. I do not see an end to this unless Republicans accept Obamacare or Democrats forget it. Hope it doesn't last as long as Clinton's shutdown did.

The death of the conscience of human kind

Gandhi

Since October 2^nd would be birth anniversary of Mohandas. K. Gandhi, this post is about him. Mahatma Gandhi, Bapu, Gandhiji are some of the names by which he is addressed by more than a billion people of India. Gandhi was born in Porbandar, which is in the state of Gujarat in India.

Gandhi’s inspiration to always follow truth was from a drama about the king Harichandra. The drama was about a King, who vowed to be always truthful. Due to his promise, he lost his kingdom, sold his wife, child and himself as slaves. In the end, he didn’t even have the money to cremate and do the final rites to his only son. But still he did not lie. Gandhi’s inspiration to always speak the truth came from this drama.

Gandhi studied law in England, but before he was allowed to go, his mother asked three promises from him. They were he should not drink alcohol, should not get into a relationship with any women, and should not meat. He followed this till his death. Since he was vegan, his wife was one too. When she fell sick and the doctors informed her that only by giving her medicines made from animals, she could be saved. But she refused those medicines and chose death.

Gandhi’s worst days were his last days. Before he was shot, all that Gandhi wanted was harmony between Hindus and Muslims of India. After the partition between India and Pakistan in 1947, there were huge religious clashes all over India. No one knows who started it, but the horrors can never be forgotten. Young babies barely 8 months were literally torn into two pieces, young kids were thrown alive into fire, women were raped, and men were slaughtered. All of it only stopped, after Gandhi sat for a fast unto death. But it did not stop immediately, but after hearing the news that Gandhi was going to die. Gandhi was ready to give up his life, if these religious violence ended. After a few months, he was shot dead by a religious lunatic.

Second Blog

Since last week I wrote about an architectural marvel, this week I would like to talk about the golden temple of India. There is one temple located at Amritsar and, the other at Sripuram. In India gold is a fascination for everyone. Most people spend their entire life savings in their daughter’s marriage, where the major purchases are jewels.

  In India I would say the general population is mad about gold. Sometimes one could see the markets are empty but, the jewelry shops are never empty.

So, let me move into this golden temple at sripuram. No one knows the exact cost for this construction of this place. But it was estimated to be around $ 250,000,000. All the money for this construction was donated by people.

Here is a picture of the temple.

The outer pathway is star shaped, which signifies that anyone who walks that path would be successful and happy. This structure was constructed in 2006. This is an interior picture of the temple.

Every single design has gold. The most surprising thing is in India 25% of the population lives on less than a dollar a day. But we import gold worth more than a billion dollars every month. One thing which I don’t like about this temple is that it is controlled by one single man. I am not sure whether you liked it, but I just didn’t get any other topic.