It was a Sunday morning and I just opened the special issue of my paper and read an article regarding the conditions of poor people in Africa and I was really moved. People are neglected and it really makes you wonder whether they are also in the same planet!!. Lack of food, lack of medication, lack of security, in general lack of life. People are homeless and the country and its growth, there is no one to care about!!!!!. Also add the problems of child exploitation, drug peddling, illegal arms……man it makes u feel numb!!!
Now when I turned the page over there was this article about the amount of money spent by each country towards the space research and it was surprising to see that the money spent for particular projects are more than some of the African nation’s economy and in fact the most amusing factor was the money spent in failures and trials (up in smoke) were quite enough to develop one poor African nation.
I would say that was irony, if only we would have diverted some of the money spent in smoke to some poor people, you could have made a meaning for life. Cut the crap of telling “we need research for better living” and other such proverbs. What are u going to do with the space exploration when a whole continent needs your help.
Why does this happen, Ramon Magsaysay award winner Mr.P.Sainath, narrated the following incident. This happened right here in India. During 2006 there was severe drought in Maharashtra (esp.; Nasik) and cotton farmers were committing suicide in scores and there was a big crisis, at the same time there was a Fashion week in Mumbai which was just 300 Kms away.
Now the biggest part of this story is there were more reporters and journalist to cover the fashion week than the number of journalist to cover over the farmer deaths. Moral of the story: “Media space is given only for the good and sensational things and not to the problems and ironies”. So today what is happening in NASA is more relevant and more sensational than what is happening in Africa.
Therefore many of us know more about the space research of NASA and Columbia space craft than the name of few countries of Africa. I am not trying to say that we should just work towards the poor, I am saying that the way we view the world should change. Do Research, but towards the necessary and absolutely essential stuffs, for e.g. researching a solution to detect hearing disability is more important than researching a dancing IPod. Read this, there is a hugely funded research going on to find ways to make the stomach stop feeling hungry by the use of some stimulants so that people don’t become fat. Sarcastically speaking, so many poor people are so hungry that they forgot the feeling of having a satisfied stomach and they are numb towards being hungry. I can give a lot of example but I am just stopping with two.
Now which article in this paper is relevant for me. Frankly speaking both are irrelevant to me because tomorrow when I go and face the world these things are really insignificant to me because I am in a society where I can only bring out my thoughts and I am crippled to make a contribution.
posted by visveshwar @ 3/21/2008 10:51:00 pm
Comments: 3
