G20

                 The G20 or Group of Twenty

The G20 (Group of Twenty) is an international forum that brings together the world's 20 largest economies, representing around 85% of the global GDP. The G20 was established in 1999 to promote international financial stability and address the challenges posed by globalization. The forum operates based on consensus and without a permanent secretariat or headquarters.

The G20 consists of 19 countries and the European Union and includes Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union.

The G20 holds annual summits, which are attended by the leaders of the member countries. The conferences provide an opportunity for the leaders to discuss issues of global importance, including the global economy, trade, climate change, and development. The G20 also has various working groups that focus on specific issues, such as energy, employment, and development.

India has been a member of the G20 since its inception in 1999. As a member of the G20, India has played an active role in shaping the agenda of the forum and has participated in discussions on a wide range of issues, including the global economy, trade, climate change, and development.

India is the fifth-largest economy in the world and is considered a major player in the global economy. The country has made significant progress in recent years in terms of economic growth and development, and it is expected to continue to play an important role in the G20 in the coming years.

In its capacity as a member of the G20, India has also been involved in various initiatives and working groups, such as the G20 Development Working Group, the G20 Energy Sustainability Working Group, and the G20 Employment Working Group. Through its participation in these groups, India has been able to contribute to the development of global economic policy and address major challenges facing the world today.

Social Media Addiction

 

Social Media Addiction is just as addictive as drugs or alcohol

Yes, being addicted to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or any other social platform may seem harmless at first, but it can have significant unforeseen consequences. It can trigger a dopamine response in the brain, a very similar scenario to that triggered by drug or alcohol use. Experts call it ‘social media addiction’.

Social media platforms have exponentially grown in recent years, particularly in expanding to all ages and for all needs. Now, every type of platform like socializing, dating, businesses, and even mental health resources are available.

Social media addiction is very similar to behavioral addiction. We spend excessive time thinking about social media activities. It makes us check social media platforms again and again.

Check out these seven signs of social media addiction;

• 1) You Feel Anxious When You Cannot Access Social Media
• 2) Your Social Media Usage Is Cutting into Your Work Time
• 3) You Immediately Check Your Phone When You Hear a Notification
• 4) You Tentatively Monitor Your Posts to See How Many Likes You Get
• 5) You Check Your Accounts Right When You Wake up And Right before Bed6) 
• 6) Your Spouse, Friends, and Family Say You Seem “Distant”
• 7) You Measure Life Events by How Upload-Worthy They Are
• You have a tendency of oversharing your every thought for the purpose of approval and acknowledgment.

Suddenly you feel depressed, unproductive, and downright irritable, all because of the world within your phone.

It will make you not want to have real social interactions if you can say one thing to hundreds of people in one click. Your mind will be occupied with viewing photos, liking posts, and commenting instead of learning something new.

How does social media addiction affect your life?

Research has shown that social media addiction produces a surge in dopamine due to the reward center part of our brain that gets activated with each like, comment, thumbs up, and retweet that is facilitated.

Each time our reward center gets activated and dopamine gets released, the behavior becomes reinforced and the brain can leave you wanting more and more, and feeling addicted.

Eventually, it will take more of that stimulus to activate the same level of dopamine and addiction persists. This affects your cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and psychological well-being.

For instance, you may get a feeling of Ahhh, when you logged in to your social media profile. A sigh of relief, isn’t it? However, feelings of distress with or without physiological symptoms (fidgety, increase in heart rate, tearfulness, for example) when not engaging in social media.

When someone is addicted, he/she may notice an immediate return to old behavior and consequential impairments suddenly if resumed social media.

A 2018 study found that teens who spend 5 hours per day using their phones were almost twice as likely to exhibit depressive symptoms than counterparts who dedicated only 1 hour to their phones.

Interestingly, the relationship between excessive mobile use and depression appears to be strongly linked to gender, with 58% more females than males experiencing depressive symptoms.

A recent study containing over 23,500 participants between the ages of 16 and 88 found that being a young, single female was most strongly associated with displaying addictive social media behavior.

Social media addiction doesn’t just affect behavior during the day; it even damages people’s ability to sleep. If prolonged exposure to screens wasn’t bad enough for people’s sleep, social media addictions are making it even harder for people to get a good night’s sleep.

45% of people check social media instead of sleeping, and roughly 10% of teens check their phones more than 10 times per night.

Social media can also be a distraction as it can be dangerous to look at your phone while driving or walking across the street. 90% of drivers admit to using smartphones behind the wheel. Of those respondents, 50% reportedly use their smartphones to check social media.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that each day, 9 people are killed and more than 1,000 are injured as a result of smartphone use while driving.

There are physical impacts that can occur from social media addiction such as carpal tunnel syndrome where you have problems with your hands or wrists from too much typing. Typing on your smartphone can also cause strain in your finger tendons.

You could also develop eyestrain from staring at the screen for too long.

It is important to be in control of your time spent on social media or it can destroy your physical and mental health over time.

How to break social media addiction?

Once you admit you have a problem, you must follow recovery steps as soon as possible. It does not mean that you have to abstain from social media entirely, but setting limits can be a better idea – the controlled use of the internet.

You may be able to break a social media addiction by

• 1) Set the limit to your time spent on social media and stick to it. Nowadays, many phones have this feature to show phone use by default.
• 2) Going on a cleanse, deleting apps
• 3) Disabling the push notifications and lessen the urge to constantly check your feed.
• 4) Dedicating time to other hobbies or activities.
• 4) Do something productive like walking, reading a book, exercising, etc.
• 5) Share your maximum time with family and relatives. It is your parents who will come to your rescue.
• 6) Identify your buddies away from home. Spend more time with them in person.
• 7) Speaking to a trained professional can be a good option if you are confused about your addiction status.

Remember, it’s you who is responsible for your well-being. Set your goals, and share them with your family or a friend so that they can check in with you about them.

Breaking habits alone can be difficult and takes along. Have patience and live in the moment instead of living to occupy your social media feed. 

The Creepy Disappearance Of The 727

       

          The Creepy Disappearance Of The 727

Despite living in a technically advanced world where streets, jungles, and mountains can be explored live thousands of miles away from the safety of our rooms, we have been cut down to size by well-meaning incidents that rubbish our knowledge and soil our technology in a peculiar ‘’dead-beat’’ fashion that leaves bewildered civilization in their wake. We’ve all heard epic and blood-curdling tales of banks and diamonds heists. Chances are, you’ve probably never heard of the three-man team colluding to steal 92,500 lbs (41,900 Kg) Boeing 727 plane. To start off with, such a gigantic flying contraption requires a fairly long runway. Owing to the staggering size, ear-splitting roar to top up with the powerful engines, you’ll most likely draw the attention of the town when landing a stolen Boeing in your backyard if finding a skilled pilot won’t be a problem and making a runway won’t be a hitch.

However, humanity comes equipped with crafty devils who’ll take on fate, hop into a plane, and escape both civilian and army radar alike before vanishing into the horizon with the spoils, never to be seen or heard from again. That was exactly what happened to a Boeing 727 on the evening hours of May 25, 2003. The grounded plane, though airworthy, had had its fair of trouble.

After being retired from active service by American Airlines, the plane changed hands severally until it landed on the desk of a Miami-based Aerospace Sales and Leasing Co who wasted no time in pulling out the passenger seats and converting her into a tanker before being flown to Angola. For some unknown reasons, the deal fell through and remained grounded in Quatro de Fevereiro International Airport with steadily accumulating parking fees. With the debts pilling and the plane slowly falling into disrepair, Ben Charles Padilla, an American engineer was dispatched to return her into the flight-ready status and things went bananas.

After a series of testing, the plane took to the runway without clearance, and after executing a series of erratically dangerous maneuvers with both lights and transponder switched off; the plane took into the air and vanished. In the course of investigations, it was thought Padilla was at the controls as the remaining two were literally inexperienced in flying such a plane. To add to the otherwise puzzling puzzle, news surfaced of the unidentified plane in unpaved Congo airstrips but nothing came of it. To date, its fate is unknown.

                    Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

Malaysia Airlines flight 370 disappearance, also called MH370 disappearance, disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet on March 8, 2014, during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The disappearance of the Boeing 777 with 227 passengers and 12 crew members onboard led to a search effort stretching from the Indian Ocean west of Australia to Central Asia. The perplexing nature of the loss of flight 370 is such that it has become one of history’s most famous missing aircraft.

Flight 370 took off at 12:41 AM local time and reached a cruising altitude of 10,700 meters (35,000 feet) at 1:01 AM. The Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), which transmitted data about the aircraft’s performance, sent its last transmission at 1:07 AM and was subsequently switched off. The last voice communication from the crew occurred at 1:19 AM, and at 1:21 AM the plane’s transponder, which communicated with air-traffic control, was switched off, just as the plane was about to enter Vietnamese airspace over the South China Sea. At 1:30 AM Malaysian military and civilian radar began tracking the plane as it turned around and then flew southwest over the Malay Peninsula and then northwest over the Strait of Malacca. At 2:22 AM Malaysian military radar lost contact with the plane over the Andaman Sea. An Inmarsat satellite in geostationary orbit over the Indian Ocean received hourly signals from flight 370 and last detected the plane at 8:11 AM.

Initial searches for the plane concentrated on the South China Sea. After it was determined that flight 370 had turned to the west shortly after the transponder was switched off, search efforts moved to the Strait of Malacca and the Andaman Sea. On March 15, a week after the plane had disappeared, the Inmarsat contract was disclosed. Analysis of the signal could not locate the plane precisely but did determine that the plane might have been anywhere on two arcs, one stretching from Java southward into the Indian Ocean southwest of Australia and the other stretching northward across Asia from Vietnam to Turkmenistan. The search area was then expanded to the Indian Ocean southwest of Australia on the southern arc and Southeast Asia, western China, the Indian subcontinent, and Central Asia on the northern arc. On March 24 Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak announced that, based on an analysis of the final signals, Inmarsat and the U.K. Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) had concluded that the flight crashed in a remote part of the Indian Ocean 2,500 km (1,500 miles) southwest of Australia. Thus, it was extremely unlikely that anyone on board survived. 

The search for wreckage was hampered by the remote location of the crash site. Beginning on April 6, an Australian ship detected several acoustic pings possibly from the Boeing 777’s flight recorder (or “black box”) about 2,000 km (1,200 miles) northwest of Perth, Western Australia. Further analysis by the AAIB of the Inmarsat data also found a partial signal from the plane at 8:19 AM consistent with the location of the acoustic pings, the last of which was heard on April 8. If the signals were from flight 370, the flight recorder was likely at the end of its battery life. Further searches were conducted using a robotic submarine. However, the pings had been spread over a wide area, the submarine found no debris, and tests found that a faulty cable in the acoustic equipment could have produced the pings.

In the weeks following flight 370’s disappearance, theories ranged from mechanical failure to pilot suicide. The loss of the ACARS and transponder signals spurred ongoing speculation about some form of hijacking, but no individual or group claimed responsibility, and it seemed unlikely that hijackers would have flown the plane to the southern Indian Ocean. That the signals had likely been switched off from inside the aircraft suggested suicide by one of the crew—a possibility that Malaysian authorities have yet to rule out—but nothing suspicious was found in the behavior of the captain, the first officer, or the cabin crew prior to the flight. After the discovery of the debris, some speculated that flight 370 was shot down, but no evidence of shrapnel from a missile or other projectiles has been found. 

The Bermuda Triangle Theory

 

What is the Bermuda Triangle?

For decades, the Atlantic Ocean’s fabled Bermuda Triangle has captured the human imagination with unexplained disappearances of ships, planes, and people.

Some speculate that unknown and mysterious forces account for the unexplained disappearances, such as extraterrestrials capturing humans for study; the influence of the lost continent of Atlantis; vortices that suck objects into other dimensions; and other whimsical ideas.  Some explanations are more grounded in science, if not in evidence.  These include oceanic flatulence (methane gas erupting from ocean sediments) and disruptions in geomagnetic lines of flux.

Environmental considerations could explain many, if not most, of the disappearances.  The majority of Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes pass through the Bermuda Triangle, and in the days prior to improved weather forecasting, these dangerous storms claimed many ships.  Also, the Gulf Stream can cause rapid, sometimes violent, weather changes.  Additionally, the large number of islands in the Caribbean Sea creates many areas of shallow water that can be treacherous to ship navigation. And there is some evidence to suggest that the Bermuda Triangle is a place where a “magnetic” compass sometimes points towards “true” north, as opposed to “magnetic” north. 

The U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard contend that there are no supernatural explanations for disasters at sea.  Their experience suggests that the combined forces of nature and human fallibility outdo even the most incredulous science fiction. They add that no official maps exist that delineate the boundaries of the Bermuda Triangle. The U. S. Board of Geographic Names does not recognize the Bermuda Triangle as an official name and does not maintain an official file on the area.

The ocean has always been a mysterious place to humans, and when foul weather or poor navigation is involved, it can be a very deadly place.  This is true all over the world.  There is no evidence that mysterious disappearances occur with any greater frequency in the Bermuda Triangle than in any other large, well-traveled area of the ocean. 

                  IPL 2022 Auction Review

Two frenetic days of auction bidding and drama gave way to ten finalized IPL 2022 squads. At the end of the mega process, which saw 204 players being sold,   I rate the performance of the ten franchises at the Indian Premier League mega auction.

 Chennai Super Kings [CSK]

Rating: 7/10

Noticeably calmer than the rest of the tables, Chennai Super Kings appeared sorted with their thinking, which clearly revolved around getting a large chunk of their IPL 2021 team sheet back into the mix and building a decent core of players. Mere mortals cannot judge if the Chennai Super Kings squad looks good or bad because they simply have too many brains in the setup.

A shrewd MS Dhoni as a leader and a franchise that backs experience over anything else, CSK once again stuck to their usual auction mantra but pulled a surprise with the purchase of Under-19 star Rajvardhan Hangargekar, an excellent player who could make their starting XI. While they splurged on some familiar names, CSK has a lot riding on these big …

 Delhi Capitals [DC]

Rating 7/10

Delhi Capitals would have been left questioning the timing of the mega auction, having built an extremely good squad over the last three years. But here we are in 2022, with Delhi losing the core of their line-up, and having to rebuild from scratch. Well almost. Their retentions were already top-notch, but DC still needed to get their auction right.

They did well on day one to steal David Warner for INR 6.5 crore, and rope in the likes of Sarfaraz Khan (arguably the best buy of the auction at INR 20 lakhs) and Mustafizur Rahman at cheap rates. However, they couldn’t quite build a formidable fast bowling group, something that made them a fearsome unit in the last couple of IPL seasons. The spin department also looks thin on paper while their overseas backup players aren’t the strongest either.

 Gujarat Titans [GT]

Rating: 5/10

Given the draft choices they made – a top-notch trio of Hardik Pandya, Shubman Gill, and Rashid Khan – much was expected of Gujarat Titans, but they lacked clear planning and it showed evidently when they had no wicketkeepers until the final hour of the auction and then frantically bid on two of the first names that came up in the accelerated auction.

The middle-order lacks firepower with much riding on David Miller and Hardik Pandya, both not in their best form in recent times. The bowling attack, the quicks, in particular, stand out with Mohammed Shami, Lockie Ferguson, and Alzarri Joseph potentially forging a formidable trio.

 Lucknow Super Giants [LSG]

Rating 8/10

Incredibly well balanced, Lucknow Super Giants bid on multi-utility players and got some from the top drawer early in the auction. Alongside their three draft picks – KL Rahul, Ravi Bishnoi, and Marcus Stoinis – Lucknow had several issues sorted out at the onset, helping them remain collected as the auction paced up.

The late bids for Dushmantha Chameera and Evin Lewis gave them two solid backup overseas players. They pushed the barriers to beat Mumbai Indians at securing Avesh Khan, another massive win considering the rest of their pace attack. The pace attack is still dependent on Mark Wood staying fit throughout or Chameera stepping up in his stead, but overall a solid auction for Lucknow ahead of their first season.

 Kolkata Knight Riders [KKR]

Rating: 7/10

It’s hard to understand what exactly Kolkata Knight Riders were looking for from the auction. Their early bids for Pat Cummins, Shreyas Iyer, and Nitish Rana broke the bank and left them with two one-dimensional middle-order batters and an overseas pacer who may not even be available for the whole duration.

From there, it was hard work rebuilding the team. With a forgettable day one, Kolkata could have salvaged things a bit by being slightly proactive earlier on day two, especially to acquire some Indian batters and overseas all-rounders or quicks, but they waited too long and eventually ended up having to plug too many holes towards the end. The late bids for Alex Hales and Sam Billings salvaged their auction to an e…

 Mumbai Indians [MI]

Rating: 7/10

Mumbai Indians wouldn’t be too pleased with their squad despite the exceptional overseas group of quicks they have built for future seasons. The Jasprit Bumrah-Jofra Archer pairing with Tymal Mills and Riley Meredith to back up is the talk of the town, but they sorely miss an Indian standout quick.

Mumbai let go of the likes of Kartik Tyagi, Avesh Khan, and Prasidh Krishna too easy and paid the price, eventually having to settle down for a relatively mediocre lot of Indian fast bowlers. The spin attack also appears thin on paper. The bid for Tim David makes their batting top-notch yet again, with South Africa’s under-19 star Dewald Brevis another good buy in what could be the last mega auction in the IPL.

 Punjab Kings [PBKS]

Rating: 9/10

It’s safe to say Punjab Kings aced the auction and built a sensational squad for the years ahead. There is flexibility, a solid batting core, hard-hitting batters, one standout quick, good support seamers, a frontline spinner, and a clear backup spinner. They ticked several checkboxes along the way and on paper, have the best squad heading into the IPL 2022 season.

The team has their four overseas picks sorted, and bid on good backup ones with several young Indian players also exceptional picks in this format. The batting, in particular, stands out with Shikhar Dhawan, Jonny Bairstow, Mayank Agarwal, Liam Livingstone, and Shahrukh Khan forming a terrific top five. They probably missed out on an Indian left-handed middle-order…

 Rajasthan Royals [RR]

Rating: 8/10

Rajasthan Royals, like Lucknow and Punjab, sorted their batting group pretty quickly and had one of the best buys of the auction in Yuzvendra Chahal. With their batting line-up, a premier wrist-spinner, an Indian quick (Prasidh Krishna) and two first XI overseas picks other than Jos Buttler (Trent Boult and Shimron Hetmyer) sorted, Rajasthan had a dream day one at the IPL auctions.

They roped in some useful names towards the end of the auction in Rassie van der Dussen and Nathan Coulter-Nile. The latter might need to be in the XI as they seem to lack a powerful all-rounder. The finishing group is still light unless they plan on opening with Yashasvi Jaiswal and Devdutt Padikkal and moving Jos Buttler down the order. They w…

 Royal Challengers Bangalore [RCB]

Rating: 8/10

While the general sentiment early on was that RCB messed up the auction, they slowly built a good unit with well-rounded quicks, an impressive group of young players, and the standout leg-spinner in Wanindu Hasaranga, who could also be the one balancing this line-up. This is assuming RCB has eventually figured out that they need to back Hasaranga, something they failed to do last time around.

The likes of Finn Allen and Sherfane Rutherford are good overseas backup buys, but their first-choice buys, in particular, that of Faf du Plessis could make their plans too rigid, especially if they decide on the South African as captain. The middle-order is light on experience with too much onus placed on Glenn Maxwell, …

 Sunrisers Hyderabad [SRH]

Rating: 5/10

Sunrisers Hyderabad arguably had a poor auction with them backing too many young Indian unproven players. The fact that they do not have one standout senior Indian player in the batting group could work against them when building the squad. Nicholas Pooran and Aiden Markram could form the middle-order alongside Abdul Samad with Washington Sundar as a floating batter, but they do not quite have the experience of conditions and it could work against Sunrisers.

The bowling revolves around Indian quicks with Marco Jansen, again inexperienced, the only solid first-choice frontline overseas quick. Sundar aside, the spin bowling is also pretty light, and this could force the likes of Abhishek Sharma and Shreyas Gopal to play through the season.

               Virat Kohli's Test Captaincy 

Soon after the third Test against South Africa ended in Cape Town on Friday, Virat Kohli walked up to his teammates and informed them it had been his last as captain. And on Saturday evening, he took to social media and made it official.

Captaining India is a high-pressure job - where a leader is under constant scrutiny after a defeat or even after a series win - and after a point of time, it does take a toll on a player's psyche. In the past, there have been several instances of legends giving up the role to focus on their game - Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid being the ideal examples.

“Being a player and a captain, you set your standards so high that you don’t want to compromise on that. The moment you see there is a chance of compromising, you don’t like it. It is human nature. It has happened over the years and when you see that the set standard is not being met, that’s when you tend to take such decisions.

“One of the possible reasons could be when the amount of required support from the other players is not as much as compared to you. Even that can force you to make a decision. You set the standard so high and give 110 percent for the country as a player, and maybe, some of them are not. As a captain, you might feel that if I can do it, why can’t they? The fact remains that everyone is not Sachin Tendulkar or Virat Kohli. So, concessions have to be given, but maybe, you don’t realize it at that time and feel frustrated.

The aura around Kohli's captaincy, in truth, was much larger than the actual scope of his role, and this was simply a reflection of how aggressively personality-driven cricket's marketing and packaging has become. Even Sachin Tendulkar didn't have a dedicated camera following his every movement to ensure that the producer could bring you every pump of his fist and every raise of his eyebrow. And as the camera sought Kohli out, Kohli played up to it, a symbiotic relationship that filled our screens with frenzied send-offs, fingers on lips to quieten the opposition's fans, and hands cupped around ears to raise the volume of India's fans.

As a test captain, Virat is the only Indian captain to have a more than a 50%+ win percentage ratio. 

Virat is also the Indian captain with the most overseas test wins. As stats show probably Virat is the best test captain till now.

 I believe that head coach Dravid should have a discussion with the selection panel regarding the appointment of the future leader. “As selectors, we always thought a captain should be someone who is respected by everyone - be it senior or junior. Most importantly, he should have a permanent place in the team. He commands respect. You have to pick a guy, who has that respect. Rahul would be the best person to suggest a name who could motivate a team and take them forward. Captaincy is not an easy job, you need to have a temperament for the job like Dhoni, and Rahul being around, he should suggest a name and then the selectors and can decide accordingly.”

With Kohli stepping down, the Board now faces the challenging task of picking a new skipper for the home series against Sri Lanka.

Thank you