The Power of “Diez”

 

India’s greatest batsman and probably the best after Australian Legend, Donald Bradman, Brazilian Football legend Pele, 1986 World-cup winning Argentina’s captain and the flamboyant Diego Maradona, Italian great Roberto Baggio, and currently the man who is touted by many as the greatest footballer ever in the history of the game, Lionel Messi. They all were greats in their respective sports, but you know what’s common between them? Well, anyone can guess it!!! Yes, you guessed it correctly – they all donned No. 10 T-shirts!!!

The number 10 – is one of the most auspicious and audacious numbers in almost every mythology, every religion and every civilization in this world. Ten is the first number occurring in the number system which has a zero in it. It is also the first two-digit number in the number system. The number presents itself many a times in various religions ranging from the Hindus to the Mayans. Every religion has something which is 10 in number and is considered very auspicious. The number 10 has also a very marked significance in numerology. Let us see the importance of this number from the religious as well as from the numerological perspective.

Religious Beliefs:

• The Ten Commandments of Exodus and Deuteronomy are considered to be a cornerstone of Christianity and Judaism.
• In Hinduism, Lord Vishnu will take Ten different incarnations (of which, one, the Kalki incarnation is still left) for the destruction of the evil from this planet and restoration of “Dharma”.
• According to Jewish religion, a minimum of ten people are needed to open a Synagogue, the worship place for the Jews.
• Each year, in the Temple of Jerusalem, during the office of expiations, the great priest announces the name of God loudly and clearly, an exact 10 times.
• According to the Chinese tradition, men possess 10 souls: 3 superior souls, and 7 inferior souls.
• Earlier, the Christian peasants used to provide exactly one-tenth of their harvest to the ruler as an expression of divine right.
• This is interesting!!! In the past, the Roman year had only 10 months, beginning in March and finishing in December. The Romans divided these lunar months into three parts, which they called calends, nones and ides. (Remember something called “Ides of March”?)
• There are 10 various regions of the universe corresponding to the 10 various psychic parts of man.

 

Numerology:

• The number 10 is a holy number and a symbol of totality. The main reason for this is because it is the sum of the first four numbers and is also the total number of fingers on our hand.  Mathematician and scientist, Pythagoras, considered 10 as a symbol of universal creation. The reason bring that ten is the foundation of most counting systems and symbolizes the return to oneness or the beginning—after you count to ten on your fingers, you must start again.
• 10 is the symbol of matter (4) in harmony (6): 4+6.
• 10 is the sum of two 5’s. Hence it represents the two opposite current directions of the conscience: involution and evolution.
• According to a numerologist, the 1 is followed by 0 indicates the column and the circle, meaning the principle of male and female, and thus this symbol also refers to the Androgyny nature.
• According to Agriappa, “ten is called the number of all or the universal number, and the complete number marking the full course of life.” He also attributes 10 a sense of totality, the achievement, the return to the unit after the development of the cycle of the first numbers.

 

Hence, we see that there are many things which are ten in number in various religions, thus cementing the importance of the number. We also saw that the number is a prolific and versatile symbol, and is used to represent many things in numerology and symbology. No wonder the number is favorite among sport persons!!

The “Pele Goof-up”

Brazil’s all-time great footballer, Pele, has a very dramatic story on how he got his No. 10 T-shirt. In the 1958 World cup, the Brazilian Football Federation forgot to send the T-shirt numbers along with the player’s list. Hence, the FIFA assigned the number to the players randomly, and incidentally, Pele got No. 10. Brazil won that World Cup handsomely with Pele being the top scorer of the tournament with 6 goals. Hence the no. 10 stuck with Pele forever. In fact, it was Pele who made the No. 10 most famous among the footballers’ with Maradona and Messi following his footsteps.

The ritual of giving numbers to players in football started way back in 1928 in a match between Arsenal and Sheffield. Earlier, the playing 11 used to be given numbers from 1-11 starting with the goalkeeper (No. 1) and the main playmaker of the team was usually given the No. 10. Strikers were normally assigned 9 and 11. But in 1993, the EPL removed the stringent conditions on numbering of the players followed by Italian Serie A as well as Bundesliga.

In cricket, numbered T-shirts were first introduced in the 1995 World Series in Australia. It was the host team who first wore numbered T-shirts. After the retirement of Sachin Tendulkar, the BCCI was even thinking of retiring the No. 10 T-shirt along with him. There have been many incidences in football history with clubs taking the decision to retire the player number along with the player.

This is the power of the number 10. Numerologically, it stands out to be the most powerful number of all and the most repeated number in the various religious books like The Bible, The Bhagvad Gita, The Quran, etc. There has been a lot of research concerning the positive power of the number and how its use affects us practically. Ten, as in English or Diez as in Spanish or Dus, as in Hindi, hence is the most decorative, the most celebrated number of all.

World War I: Zooming Past a 100 Years!! – Part 1

The Assassination of the Archduke

As the world commemorates the 100 years of the beginning of World War 1 —  a war which brought about intolerable pain and death all over the world, especially in Europe, a war which badly crippled the world economy, a war which was a devastating adversary of its own kind, a war which will be a symbol of homicide for the generations to come – let us look at the reasons that caused the war and it turns out to be the assassination of the Heir-Apparent of the Empire of Austro-Hungary, Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

Before continuing the story of assassination, let us first see the conditions which prevailed in Europe at that time. There were countries called the “Great Powers”, which included Britain, France, Russia, Germany and Austro-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. There existed various treaties between them. For example, a treaty existed between France, Russia and Serbia that if any of them is attacked, the other two would send their militaries to support it. The most controversial region was the Balkan region comprising of Serbia, a sovereign state, Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was claimed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Yugoslavia. There was a bitter dispute between the Austro-Hungarians and the Serbians over the Bosnia issue. The Serbs began to build up terrorist organizations, most notable of which was the Black Hand, also known as the Young Bosnia.

The main aim of the terrorist organizations was to create terror in the rank of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and force them to give up the issue of Bosnia. They achieved this through the support of the minority Serbs which lived in the Empire. The Black Hand used to smuggle weapons such as guns, rifles, hand-grenades inside the Empire. As the issue remained unresolved, the Black Hand decided to assassinate notable persons in the Austro-Hungary regime. And who better than the heir to the throne, the Archduke himself?  Ferdinand was a staunch supporter of a federalist regime and the claim of his government over Bosnia. Hence, they made a very meticulous plan to assassinate him.

Franz Ferdinand was to observe the military maneuvers in Bosnia in June 1914. Following the maneuvers, Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie planned to visit Sarajevo to open the state museum in its new premises. The Black Hand came to know of this trip and thought it as the most appropriate place to assassinate him in Sarajevo. The group employed a group of six assassins and they were given the required ammunition by their chief.

June, the 28^th, 1914:

The assassins were made to stand apart from each other at specific intervals en-route the path which the Archduke had planned to take. As the convoy carrying Ferdinand and his wife neared, two of the assassins failed to take a shot just out of sheer nervousness!! The third hurled a grenade at the car, but it bounced back off the folded back convertible cover into the street, leaving the Archduke unwounded. The driver then raced the car past at high speed and thus the other 3 assassins didn’t get a chance to shoot.

After attending the reception hosted by the Mayor of Sarajevo, Franz Ferdinand decided to cancel his visit to the museum and instead visit the hospital to see the people wounded due to the bomb explosion. Hence, they were to take another route to the hospital, different from the original one which would have taken them to the museum. But somehow, the driver of the car didn’t even know about the changed plans and he went onto the previously decided route. One of the assassins, Gavrilo Princip, was awaiting the return of the motorcade and decided to stand beside a food-store, which was at cross-roads, where the driver was supposed to go straight and not turn his car in order to get to the hospital. But as the driver, unaware of the route change, turned his car in the wrong street just beside where Princip was standing, and the Chief Police Officer, who was in another car, ordered him to reverse his car, Princip struck. He fired two shots at the motor car from point blank, one hit the Archduke and the other hit his wife, Sophie. Sophie was dead till the motorcade reached the hospital, while the Archduke died ten minutes later.

The assassination had great repercussions. The Serbian Government clearly refused to have had any hand in the assassination, and the Austro-Hungary government sent them an ultimatum stating fast inquiries in the case and quick results. But the Serbs didn’t oblige and instead confirmed the support of Russia, in case they were attacked. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, infuriated by the slow progress in the investigation of the assassination, took the support of Germany and attacked Serbia. France, too, due to its Treaty with Russia and Serbia, was forced to join the war. Germany, then tried to attack France through Belgium, and thus Britain, who was in treaty with Belgium, joined the war too. U.S.A joined later with Italy and Ottoman Empire. Thus, began the World War 1.

The assassins were duly arrested in the later years by the Austro-Hungarian Government, put to trial and executed. But it is really fascinating to see how such a little incident, in the context of the world, could ignite the whole world and draw them into a seemingly endless and disastrous war. The assassination of the Archduke truly proved to be the “spark” which ignited one of the greatest wars in human history.

 

 

The Story Behind “The Day of Infamy”

December the 7^th, 1941 – Time, around 8 am – Place, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii – On this day, this time and at this place took place one of the gravest and the most disastrous attack by a foreign country on the U.S soil. Before 9/11 happened, the “surprise” attack on the Pearl Harbor by the Japanese empire was considered to be the “biggest and the worst terrorist” attack to have happened on American soil. The attack took down one of the biggest battleships of the U.S.A, the U.S.S Arizona. This attack, we can say, literally changed the course of the war as well as of world history, as within 36 hours of the attack, the U.S.A entered the WW II in support of the Allies and played a major part in bringing about the destruction of the “over-confident” Nazi Germany and their beloved “Fuhrer”.

The First World War brought about a great amount of devastation in terms of economy as well as human lives for the countries who participated in the war, especially the U.S.A, who had entered the war late. People, back then, were stirred by idealistic approach; they sought to make the world a better place to live in by entering the war. But after the war, they understood this harsh reality.  And hence the US government didn’t participate in WW II for 2 years, despite constant requests from the then charismatic England P.M., Winston Churchill.

So then if the U.S people were so much against going to war, what now made them enter it? Yes, to some extent, it was the Pearl Harbor attack, but most importantly, it was the Presidential Address given by President Franklin D Roosevelt, which truly steered the nationalist feelings into the hearts of the American people and brought them into the war. The speech, known as the “Day of Infamy”, is probably one of the greatest speeches given in the history of mankind, and what is very intriguing about it is that it was prepared in just 24 hours of the attack. Let us explore the story behind this famous speech….

President Roosevelt heard about the attack at around 12 in the afternoon form the Secretary of Navy, Frank Knox. All, except the President, were surprised at the news of the attack, as both the countries were peacefully discussing the Pacific issue between them at the time. The whole afternoon, the whole defense staff sat along with the President gathering reports of damages to U.S installations, ships and planes in Hawaii. The President then decided that it was time U.S.A took some harsh steps against the Japanese ad decided to enter the war. But for that, he needed the support of the Congress. Hence, he decided to address a joint session of the Congress the next afternoon. Both his speech-writers were not present in Washington D.C. at that moment; hence he took it to himself to write the speech.

His main aim was to stir the nationalist feelings of the Congress so that they approve of him of going into the war. He, unlike his predecessor Woodrow Wilson, who had steered the Congress into WW I by inspiring “idealistic” feelings, decided to keep the speech as short as possible. His Secretary of State, Cordell Hull had recommended him to give a full exposition of Japanese-American relations and how the Japanese had betrayed them. But F.D.R neglected his advice and went on to with his own version. At night, he called his Secretary Grace Tully, to type down the first draft and then he made changes into it, of which the most famous and probably, the most important, the word which became the the instrument of driving the country into war, was that he replaced  “world history” with “infamy” and also “simultaneously” with “sudden”. Here is an excerpt from the speech, probably the part which made it most famous. (The original words are written in bracket after the corrected word):

“Yesterday, December seventh, 1941, a date which will live in infamy (world history), the United States of America was suddenly (simultaneously) and deliberately attacked by the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan………”

There were actually a total of three drafts made, but he did corrections only in the first draft. The only part which he didn’t write was an addition by one of his aides, Harry Hopkins. He suggested a next-to-last sentence that evolved in:

“With confidence in our armed forces – with the unbounding determination of our people – we will gain the inevitable triumph – so help us God.”

This was probably the second best part of the speech. In the speech, he told about how the country was constantly trying to maintain peace with the Japanese and how they had utterly betrayed them. The issue was now of nationalist importance, the world was watching how the country reacts to such a grave attack, it raised questions on their military strength. All these answers were needed to be given. And to give these answers, war was inevitable. Such was the impact of Roosevelt’s speech, that the Congress passed the Declaration of War on the Japanese in just 30 minutes of the delivery of speech.

The reading draft of the speech was considered to have been lost, but it was found later in the Senate Records in 1984, 43 years after the speech was delivered and the First Draft of the speech along with the correction remains conserved in the Roosevelt Memorial in the U.S.A. Such was the importance of that event in Roosevelt’s mind that even being not able to walk properly due to some problem in one leg, he climbed up the dais of the Congress on his own to give the most important speech of his career.

Such is the gravity of the speech that President George. W. Bush, in his Presidential Address after the 9/11 attack mentioned this speech and said that people really need to remember the speech and rally behind the war against terror.

“The Day of Infamy” will probably go down in the annals of history as the speech that wholly changed the course of how the world is shaped today. It is still regarded by many, including me, as the greatest political speech in the history of mankind.

CCS :The Pragmatic Way out?

“We have to heal our wounded world. The chaos, despair and senseless destruction we see today are a result of the alienation that people feel from each other and from the environment.”

-Michael Jackson

Imagine yourself a 100 years after on this Earth. What do you think the earth will look like? Will it be easy for us to even take in the fresh oxygen from the atmosphere? Scientists and their research give us the expected results. Due to the reckless deforestation and the ever growing need of power leading to the setting up of more power plants and finally, due to the increased use of vehicles, scientists have predicted that the Earth’s average temperature will rise by about 4 deg C if emission of greenhouse gases continues at the present rate.

Since 1980s the problem has aggravated and caused the attention of environmentalists. There have been many attempts to address this issue on a global level, the most successful of them being the Rio de Janeiro Summit. But still, the issue remains burning, hot and alive, ready to engulf the whole earth into it. Recently, I read an article about one of the emerging techniques in controlling carbon dioxide emissions. The technique is called Carbon Capture and Storage or CCS.

The first plant based on CCS was started in the Schwaze Pumpe power plant in East Germany run by the utility Vattenfall back in 2008. Recently, in March 2014, a power plant in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Canada has fully installed the CCS system in their power plant and has been successfully running it since then. The CCS really produces a very viable option for the utilization or the storage of carbon dioxide released from the power plants. Here are some of the key points about the CCS:

• The CCS basically consists of three steps: firstly, the capturing of CO2 from the flue gases ejecting out of the chimney, second step involves the transportation of gas for sequestration and the third step involves sequestration or the storage of gas in the facility, which can be in geological rocks or in old, depleted oil fields.

 

• For the transportation purposes, there is a requirement of pure carbon dioxide passing through the pipeline. Hence the captured gas must be stripped off the other greenhouse gases. The capture can be done either by extraction from the flue gases after combustion from the chimney, or from the furnace it self or the gas can be extracted by the process of pre-fuel oxidation.

 

• After the purified gas has been obtained, 95% of the existing CCS facilities transport gas through pipeline. Transport through pipelines may involve inherent leakages and the gradual depletion of pipe material due to corrosion, in case impurities are present within the gas. Hence, shipping too is considered a viable option for transporting the gas.

 

• The chief storage of the gas is presently done in depleted oil fields, where the gas is used for the process of Enhance Oil Recovery (EOR), in certain specific geological formations, which have been studied and it has been found out that these rocks are impenetrable and allow a leakage of just 1% in 5000 years. Other sources for the disposal of carbon dooxide include saline aquaries, but as they have never been properly studied, the leakage problem lurks around them.

 

• One of the options which is considered to be very efficient is still under research in Australia. This comprises of the Utilization of CO2 instead of its storage. The gas can be used to combine with solid metal oxides like Mg and Ca to produce carbonates, which are very useful in many industrial processes. But the feasibility of this project is yet to be determined.

Along with its many advantages come the drawbacks, with the chief one being the leakage problem involved. If such high amounts of gas leaks out into the atmosphere, it can be more hazardous than the same amount of gas being gradually leaked out!! The second major issue is that the cost of a power plant with full fledges CCS system installed is 80% more than a normal power plant. Also the fuel consumption rises by 18-40% in such plants.

Nevertheless, in spite of such limitations, the CCS stands out as one of the most efficient and ground breaking technique to decrease the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. It is considered by many as a temporary technique used to control the emissions. It’s a Bridge solution. We still need to find a permanent solution to save ourselves and our Mother Earth from the catastrophe!!

ISIS: The Next Saddam?

The Middle East countries have a tendency of never maintaining peace, be it among themselves or even within themselves. Every now and then, there are reports of Terrorist attacks by Terrorist organization who call themselves Mujahideen , and who in the name of their Allah call their actions of killing people, which include people of their religion too as Jihad!!Really, this is ridiculous!!

These countries then unite together against a common enemy, Israel, and attack it from all sides…why? Just because they didn’t give a part of their territory which were rightfully theirs and the Arab nations have had no hold over this territory from the time Israel was born!!

And then recently, there have been common people who protest against their own rulers, Sheikhs, who have still vested power with themselves in this new free and almost 75% democratic world. This really is a positive sign shown by the citizens. But still, the Arab Spring, as the revolution is named, needs some improvement. It has utterly failed in the country where it originated, in Egypt, where the government has since been overthrown again by the military. People really need to carry the purpose of the revolution forward, they need to establish a stable government and reduce the control of the army over the government. A defining Constitution has to be made and enforced as early as possible so that proper law and order can be maintained.

Let’s concentrate on Iraq and Syria right now. Iraq and Syria, along with Afghanistan were one of the most progressive Arab nations in the 1960s. In Iraq, in 1979, Saddam Hussein and his Ba’ath Party came to power and changed the whole demography of the country. Genocides, on a very large scale, were carried out in Northern Iraq against the minority Shia Muslims and the Kurd, who were demanding a separate state of Kurdistan. Nearly around 20000 people have been said to be tortured in prisons and ultimately executed during the Saddam regime. Highly lethal chemical weapons were used on the Kurds to wipe them off. Such large was the scale of the killings that Saddam’s genocide is considered next to Hitler’s genocide of the Jews.

After 10 years of comparatively less violence in the country, the ISIS has suddenly emerged from nowhere and has turned the country into a battleground again. With the organization claiming to have killed 1700 soldiers, most of them Sunni Muslims, the ISIS is certainly on the path of becoming the next Saddam. Here are some things you must know about the ISIS:

• The ISIS was formed in 2003 by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as Al-Qaeda in Iraq and swore loyalty to Osama Bin Laden. In 2006, it changed its name to Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), with aims of governing territories in the Northern Iraq, including Baghdad. In 2010, it included some part of Northern Syria too, and hence changed its name to Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, also known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
• The leader of the group is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi also known as Abu Dua. The CIA has put a $10 million on his head, only second to Al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
• Levant region, which the ISIL claims, is actually is geographical and cultural region consisting of countries like Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine.
• There is a very serious misconception about the ISIS. The ISIS is has broken all its ties with the Al-Qaeda in 2013 and is an independent organization now.
• The ISIS participated actively in the Syrian Civil War of 2012-13. Starting in 2013, the group has made rapid military gains in controlling large parts of Northern Syria.
• The ISIS is composed of Sunni Muslims and they are filled with utter hatred against the Shiaites who are now ruling the government in Iraq.
• In the month of June 2014, the ISIS launced a large scale offensive in Iraq, leading to the capture of Mosul, the second most populous city of Iraq after Baghdad. The ISIS, two days after, captured the city of Tirkit, which is just 150 km from the capital.
• The ISIS is believed to have an approximate number of 5000 odd fighters composed of the local Sunni Muslims as well as foreigner, large percentage of which are from Chechnya.

Leading to these widespread attacks, the Government of Iran, which is prominently Shia, has offered to support Noor al-Maliki’s government against the ISIS. Uncle Sam, who withdrew its troops in 2011, has been surprisingly quiet over this whole issue. The USA has cleared that it won’t send ant land troops but could help with air strikes.

The ISIS has proved themselves ruthless, releasing videos of their killings. The ISIS has literally conducted the second highest genocide in the history of Iraq.

So, will Abu Dua be the next Saddam? Only time (and Uncle Sam’s stance!!) will tell!!!!!