Global Nationalism

 Dear Readers, The election results for Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh will be announced on the 8th of December. The elections for Himachal Pradesh were already held on the 12th of November. The Gujarat elections will be held on the 1st and 5th of December. The BJP is in power in both states and the Congress is the largest opposition party. The Aam Aadmi Party is also fighting the elections. It is difficult to know who won in Himachal while in Gujarat it is easier to guess who will win. Himachal Pradesh: The total number of seats in the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly is 68 and in order to win the elections a party must win at least 34 seats. The previous election was held in 2017. The BJP won with 44 seats defeating the Congress which got 21 seats. The CPI(M) won 1 seat and independents won 2 seats.      The BJP formed the government with a clear majority and nominated Jai Ram Thakur as the Chief Minister.  However several bypoll elections have taken place after the election. Both

  Dear Readers, Today is the first Saturday of the month and so I will write about current events in India. I will discuss the following: India's performance at the Olympics, changing the name of the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award to the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award. 1) The Olympics: Today is the 7th of August 2021, the penultimate day of the 2020 Olympics. Therefore I will discuss India's performance in the Olympics this year as it is unlikely that there will be anymore great changes to the medal tally. India has won 7 medals in these Olympic Games. This is the highest medal tally ever for India in the Olympics. The previous highest tally was in 2012 when India won 7 medals. These are the medals won by India: Gold - India won 1  Gold Medal. Neeraj Chopra won the Gold in the final of the Men's Javelin Throw.  Silver - India won 2  Silver Medals. Mirabai Chanu won the Silver in Women's Weight Lifting. Ravi Kumar Dahiya won the Silver in Men's 57kg Wrestling

 Dear Reader, Today is the fourth Saturday of the month and so as per my schedule I will be writing a summary of the posts that I have written during this month. The first post I wrote this month was "Pew Survey on India and Religion".  In it I discussed a report the the Pew Research Center made and released this month. That report was about a survey that Pew had conducted in India in 2019 and 2020 before the pandemic. In this survey they asked Indians questions about religion. They were asked about religious tolerance, diversity, their beliefs and practices.  This was done to learn and understand the religious views of Indians.  The results of the survey showed that first of all the vast majority - 97% - of Indians are religious and that most of them respect other religions. Some other findings were that Indians of different religions have some shared beliefs such as karma, re-incarnation, heaven and hell etc. In my post I said that this survey shows that Indians are a very

 Dear Reader, Today is the fourth Saturday of the month and as per the schedule of this blog, I will write about a nation outside of South Asia.  The country that I will discuss about today is the United States of America. The topic I want to discuss today is the Congressional hearing that took place on the 20th of July in which Dr. Anthony Fauci - the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases - was questioned by members of Congress. One of the members was Senator Rand Paul, from the state of Kentucky.  Dr. Anthony Fauci Senator Rand Paul           After the hearing he has said that he will send a letter to the Department of Justice, seeking a criminal referral against Dr. Fauci for lying to Congress, which is a crime. If he is proven to be guilty, then he will face a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment and a fine of $250,000 (1). This is because in an earlier hearing on May 11th of this year Fauci gave a statement claiming that the National Institute

 Dear Reader, Today is the third Saturday of the month and hence I will be discussing nationalism in a south Asian country. Today the country I will be writing about is Aghanistan. Afghanistan is a country that has a long history. It is a land that has been invaded and conquered by various empires and foreign powers. This goes back to the Persian and Greek Empires and the Mauryan Empires which each ruled either the whole area or a part of the territory at some point in time/ However Afghanistan has had periods when it was independent. The modern state of Afghanistan is considered by historians to have started with the Durrani empire which ruled Afghanistan from 1747 - 1826. Ahmed Shah Durani the founder of the empire is also called the father of the nation of Afghanistan. The empire ended after the Sikhs defeated them and they were driven out of the Indian subcontinent. After the decline of the empire Afghanistan was surrounded by empires from China, Russia and the British East India C

Today is the second Saturday of the month and hence I will be writing about Indian Nationalism in general. Today I want to discuss about Narendra Modi and his influence on Indian nationalism.  Narendra Damodardas Modi is the 14th and current Prime Minister of India. He was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014.  He is right now the individual who is the leading figure of Indian nationalism.  To understand this phenomenon we need to go back to his days as the Chief Minister of Gujarat.   In 2001 Keshubhai Patel was the Chief Minister. Due to poor health and criticisms of his handling of the earthquake Modi replaced him as the CM. He was sworn in in October 2001. He was elected to the State Legislative Assembly on 24 February 2002 in a by-election.   The most well known incident during his time as Chief Minister was the violence that erupted in the state in February 2002. It was caused by an attack on a train in Godhra in which a mob of Muslims burnt it. The train carried a lar

Today is the First Saturday of the month and hence I will be discussing about current events relating to nationalism in India.  Today I will write about The Pew Survey on Religion in India. The Pew Research Centre this week released a report that contained a survey that they conducted in India. The survey was focused on religion in the country. It was conducted by face-to-face questions with 30,000 people in India across various states in 17 Indian languages.  It was conducted in late 2019 to early 2020 before the pandemic had started in India. These are some of the questions that were asked along with the answers:-  1) % of Indian adults who say They are very free to practise their religion:  General population 91%.   Hindus: 91%  Muslims: 89%  Christians: 89%  Sikhs:82%  Buddhists:93%  Jains:85%   2) % of Indian adults who say that respecting all religions is very important to being truly Indian: Hindus:85%  Muslims:78%  Christians:78%  Sikhs:81%  Buddhists: 84%  Jains:83%   Why is