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Discrimination has been a major issue coming to light across the world in recent times. The latest instance of this came to light with the furore over the suicide of a Hyderabad University student last week. While this may have been the outcome of discrimination based on caste, a different brand of discrimination has been filling American ears as Republican presidential candidates, led by Donald Trump, have sought to incite fears over the presence of "the other" in the nation of liberty.
Meanwhile, America has been struck by another type of white invasion. This time natural. #Blizzard2016 has pretty much enveloped most of the south and eastern segments of America in a sheet of snow. And all the while, nature takes its own course, unheedful of the affairs of earthlings, and stamps its law, leaving homo sapiens saying "give us a space to live"...
This campaign, Trump has largely been 'the not-so-gracious candidate with more than a few gaffes'. Throwing condemnation on immigrants and proponents of non-violence, he has received praise and support from...well, his supporters. Last week, Tuesday, he got endorsement from actress Aissa Wayne, daughter of late actor John Wayne. Invoking the ghost of the Hollywood cowboy, Trump saluted Wayne's "strength and power". In the above AP photo, Trump stands in front of a wax statue of John Wayne during a news conference at the John Wayne Museum on Tuesday, January 19, 2016, in Winterset, Iowa.
Speaking of historical figures being reinvoked, the Indian Republic Day is almost here. And in this photograph by The Hindu 's K.V. Srinivasan, the father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi gets a scrubbing and retouching at the Marina beach in Chennai on Thursday, January 21. A lot of the discrimination prevailing today might not have struck the great man as entirely kosher. Etched though Mahatma Gandhi's ideals remain in our memory and the Indian Constitution, if they aren't acted upon, soon they might become mere frozen ghosts of our past...
...like these frozen blue jeans, a new winter trend. Many such pairs have been sighted, plugged in the snow outside people's homes in a ghostly stance, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The above AP photo shows an eerie scene outside Tom Grotting's residence in Minneapolis. Grotting says he started putting out frozen jeans "for no good reason". After all, it is the residents' prerogative what they want to have in their yards, no matter how much of an eyesore it may be...
... but imagine having a 150-foot structure towering outside your home. In New Bern, North Carolina, a historic white grain silo was demolished on Wednesday, January 20. The above AP photo shows the imploding giant spraying clouds of debris and dust into the neighbourhood of North Craven Street, alongside the Neuse river. The half-a-century-old edifice was considered an eyesore and brought down to clear up 24 acres of riverfront property.
History is contained not just in long-standing landmarks, but more so in traditions and conventions. The above Reuters photo depicts a re-enactment of the Battle of Isandlwana in South Africa on January 23. A hark back to the year 1879, this battle was the first major encounter in the Anglo-Zulu War between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom. While the Africans brandished spears and cow-hide shields, the colonial troops were armed with muskets and rifles. Not a very fair fight.
But sometimes, it's not so much about a fair fight as a fight for fairness. In this Friday, January 22 AP photo, Iraqi security forces are seen responding to an Islamic State group attack on their position in Ramadi, 115 km west of Baghdad. The IS, which controls large parts of Syria and Iraq where it declared an Islamic caliphate in June 2014, suffered several defeats recently in both countries, including the loss of the Iraqi city of Ramadi and parts of northern and northeastern Syria over the past months. Both picturesque regions in their time, laid waste to by insurgency and dominion...
There is no excuse for a land made barren by human warfare. But what about when drought drains the last drop of potable water from the soil? Is it a man-made crippling or a natural handicap? In this January 22 Reuters image, a South African woman fills a bucket from the last tap to have running water in their village, Qwabe, north of Durban, as the other communal taps were cut off, rendering the future bleak for the region.
But even in bleakness, there is some beauty. An abandoned boat lies, almost poetically, on the dried-up lake bed of Lake Poopo, on the outskirts of Untavi, Bolivia, in the above AP photograph. Drought caused by the recurrent El Niño meteorological phenomenon is considered the main driver of the lake's demise. Along with climate change, authorities say another factor is the diversion of water from Poopo’s tributaries, mostly for mining but also for agriculture. But the real problem today in some places, even amid global warming, is the biting cold...
...like in Peshawar, where children are sitting huddled under a makeshift home as thick fog blankets the city, as seen in this AP image dated January 22. While some parts of Pakistan are facing harsh winter...
...Margie Haddon walks down 5th Avenue in Brooklyn with a shovel she purchased in preparation for a predicted snowstorm, in New York, shown in this New York Times photograph dated January 22. With forecasters warning of a potentially crippling winter storm that could dump over two feet of snow on the mid-Atlantic region starting Friday afternoon, millions of people along the East Coast braced for a weekend of travel disruptions and possible power losses...
...And as the hash-tag #Blizzard2016 inundated the social media, this image made was available by NASA via Twitter on Saturday, January 23. This click from the International Space Station eyes the storm passing over the United States. The blizzard, crashing down with hurricane-force winds, brought much of the East Coast to a standstill on Saturday, dumping snow, stranding travelers and shutting down the nation's capital and its largest city.
Meanwhile, some were seeing the blissful side of the blizzard. While a lot of Americans were snowed in, Alejandro Caceres of Austin, Texas, made a snow sculpture of U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden, complete with nerdy shell-rimmed frames, hair-strand fringe, and USB arm. Snowden himself >retweeted the image and said he was speechless. As the NSA continues to hunt Snowden for revealing classified U.S. documents, he might as well stay in his shell and slowly plan his way back home. He must feel a bit like...
... these unfortunate Olive Ridleys. On January 20, over 150 turtle carcasses were found washed up on Puri beach in Odisha. The State's coastal laws prohibit fishing in a 20-km distance from specified locations on the beach. Two illegal trawlers were immediately arrested as a consequence. The shelled amphibians had reportedly come to the mouth of the Devi and Rishikulya rivers for annual nesting. In the PTI photo above, renowned sand-artist Sudarsan Pattnaik creates a sand sculpture of turtles with message, “Give us space to live”, at Puri beach on Wednesday.
In some ways, the ill-fated amphibians might mirror the human condition in this age. Eating into our natural resources, spewing toxicity into the air, and killing our own brethren, we certainly need a "space to live". Or soon, we might have to "live in space", or invent a new habitat. Like this new frog genus, Frankixalus jerdonii , seen in this AP photo in Systematics Lab, University of Delhi, Department of Environmental Studies, in New Delhi. The study documents the tree frogs’ unusual maternal behavior, with the females laying fertilised eggs in a tree-hole filled with water, and then returning at regular intervals after the tadpoles hatch to feed them with unfertilised eggs.
