Let it be a year of hope

It is the first day of 2024. The new year is here. The last moments of the by gone year went into celebrations for the world that is now given to fun.

There is no harm in being happy, or making an expression of happiness. Even the moral imperatives of human expression around the globe vary. What works as normal at one place might be seen as horrible at some other place in the world.

The different ways of living life, and varied way of expressing joy or sadness, are here to stay. But there are some serious question that all of us – the human family on the planet earth – need to ask itself.

The challenges at the collective level are too huge to be missed. We have been grappling with such challenges through out the year gone by, and there is no reason why we wouldn't continue grappling with them.

One of the huge challenges, that is existential in impact, is the climate change. Something that some years before was a contentious issue, is now a global given. The industrial revolution, and the invasion of machine in every sphere of human life, have gifted us the destruction of environment.

The smoke we emanate on the surface of the earth has choked our arial lungs. Our planet is literally suffocated. Similarly, the AI is frighteningly looking into our eyes.

If this new scientific domain unleashes in an uncontrollable way, the humanity is at a risk of losing control over everything. It is not a digital game, or a Hollywood movie that we can rescue ourselves at the end. It is a real threat. And then we have high end, mass destruction weapons.

God forbid, if the deadly global conflicts are no resolved amicably, it can kill us in millions. Let's pray, 2024 proves a year of hope on all counts.