2014 Year in review

As we say good bye to 2014, it is saddening to note that not a lot has changed from the previous years. Overall gloom across the world prevails, threat of terrorism looms larger and the world remains a chaotic place to live.

The year began with Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa infecting over 19000 people and killing over  7000 people. It was the year ruthless militant groups such as Boko Haram and ISIS came into prominence. In April Boko Haram abducted 276 girls and held hostage from a school in Nigeria whereas a Sunni militant group called the ISIS began an offensive through Northern Iraq aiming to capture the capital city of Baghdad and overthrow the Iraqi regime.  

The year ended with the most deadliest terrorist attack ever to have occured in Pakistan. In December seven members of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) conducted a terrorist attack on the Army Public School in the Pakistani city of Peshawar killing 145 people, including 132 school children. TTP is said to be a merger of 13 groups to form a super terrorist group.

Militant groups such as Boko Haram and ISIS join the already existing militant outfits such as Al-Qaeda and the Taliban unleashing terror within their countries and beyond.  Pockets of terrorist outfits are mushrooming in various countries like spreading cancer cells. Countries that promoted terrorism are now paying a price as terrorism boomeranged on itself.

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had said while blasting a certain country’s support for terrorism…

“It’s like that old story—you can’t keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbours. Eventually those snakes are going to turn on whoever has them in the backyard.”

The former first lady has very aptly put down the consequences of supporting terrorism.

Moving on from terrorism, 2014 also happend to be the year planes started missing mysteriously. The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was one of the biggest shocks to the world in 2014. The flight vanished without leaving a trace on March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The mystery of the disappearance of MH370 as of this writing is yet to be identified. 

To add to the woes, in July Malaysian airlines met with another disaster. MH17 enroute from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down by rebels in Ukraine airspace killing all 298 passengers and crew.

Then came the Ice Bucket Challenge, sometimes called the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, a bizarre activity involving dumping a bucket of ice water on someone's head to promote awareness of the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and encourage donations to research. It went viral on social media during July–August 2014. The challenge encourages nominated participants to be filmed having a bucket of ice water poured on their heads and then nominating others to do the same. A common stipulation is that nominated participants have 24 hours to comply or forfeit by way of a charitable financial donation.

Moving away from man made disasters, in the years ahead natural disasters remain a major concern. Chances of another earthquake triggering Tsunamis similar to the events occurred in Indonesia or Japan may not be too far ahead. According to a study Java, Sumatra the Indonesian islands remain to be one of the most dangerous earthquake prone places on earth and Istanbul, Turkey remains the top spot to hit a major earthquake.

On a lighter note, on the internet front while the world searched for celebrities such as Jennifer Lawrence and Kim Kardashian, the most searched person in India was Sunny Leone a former porn actress and currently a Bollywood actress pushing Prime minister Narendra Modi to the second place!

So there we go folks.

Let us hope the year 2015 will be a more prosperous and peaceful year.

Wishing one and all a Happy New Year 2015