In 58 posts with close to 100k words, we shared a lot in 2024! Explore 2024’s biggest geopolitical shifts, cultural battles, and bold insights with Drishtikone’s year in review. See you in 2025! Happy New Year! Be safe!
When you see Russia get into existential war over Ukraine, or Israel bomb Syria or India battle with Pakistan or Bangladesh, it is not because of some whim. It has a historical and geographical context. That is critical to understand for analyzing geopolitics.
Dive into the shadowy world of the Deep State—its hidden structures, powerful networks, and the far-reaching impact on global events and control.
“Devi is like a scream – a madness that is neither insanity nor compulsiveness, but pure ecstasy.” - Sadhguru
Just because you are a remarkably bad doctor doesn’t mean that medical science should be dismantled. You went to a medical school. Simply that act doesn’t make you the most kick-ass surgeon on the face of the earth. Your skills do.
What you work on, you attain to it.
Buddha had been to every gurukul he could and he did every Sadhana to the best of his ability. But with some “me” still intact. “I will do like no one else.”
When all was lost, he just sat. Determined to perish or “get it.” Then he “got it.”
Until then Gautama was not Buddha. All that greatness was not manifest.
Simply because a society has been taught to hold the feminine divine high above all, does not mean that every single person in the society has mastered the respect for the feminine. If everyone was a monk, maybe he could. And, that ain’t so.
Therefore, everyone is a “Work in Progress.” Devi may be a “figurehead” but not a manifestation as yet for everyone.
This is precisely why believing is for idiots. Just believing in something doesn’t get you there. Exactly like believing in ‘love thy neighbor’ has only led to the complete wipeout of the entire population of the indigenous in at least three continents!
But this should not stop a spiritual tradition that aspires to touch the realm of the feminine divine. That is the aspiration. If that becomes one’s devotion, magic can happen.
Those who chide Hindus for worshipping the Devi and yet having crimes like rape in the country are only worth contempt for their nonsense. It’s like saying just because you believe in Usain Bolt and yet cannot create the world record, you shouldn’t even have a track field around you! Believing in Bolt doesn’t make one a Bolt. Self-effort does. Nothing, absolutely nothing is ever gained by belief. Except for deception! In a city full of useless believers, if the athletic track is available, maybe someone will have the smarts to step on it and run. And, who knows, he or she may have a shot at Bolt’s record. Without a track, however, all you will have is a society of believers who can just have useless dreams.
Happy Navratri!
Interesting world of ‘journalism’ we have these days. Where a beheading, a decapitation of a human being is spun around as a “fatal knife attack”. As if someone took a kitchen knife and attacked mistakenly. Inadvertently.
Beheading is not just a “fatal attack”.
It is a hate crime powered by a psychopathic person who has extreme desensitization to every human emotion! He is an automaton whose mind has been switched by an ideological intervention from one that harbored humanity to a completely dark irreparable state.
Beheading is not the end of one human being. It is the death of humanity as we know it.
But, New York Times, an ideological hit-machine which was once upon a time a newspaper, in its infinite wisdom found a rather sordid thesaurus which could make such semantic dishonesty get past the editorial test.
And btw, there are many who will search for this headline and call it “fake news” because it won’t show up. The news item now reads (Source)
Before the hue-and-cry over its obvious lack of journalistic integrity, twisted its editorial arms, the NY Times heading read like this (found it neatly ensconced in the web archives!!). (Source)
When your humanity is constipated, don’t bother about journalism. Just join a puppet show, you will look cute. And look just the part!
The next war will be fought by intelligence. Well, all wars are. But this will be intelligence on auto-pilot.
Those who need to make a move to infiltrate the best of the outfits to extract the data and the information, along with generating the algorithms have been doing so for quite some time.
Recently, Twitter hired someone called Fei-Fei Li as an independent director. She is a professor at Stanford and ex VP at Google. She was the Chief Scientist of Artificial Intelligence / Machine learning at Google. Many assert that she has links to the Chinese Communist Party.
Anders Corr, publisher of Journal of Political Risk says that many of the investing companies who have a stake in Twitter have investments in China and are, therefore, it can be assumed, conflicted.
Interestingly, quite similar to what happened in case of the New York Post story, when a financial commentator - Finance Chill - posted a video comment on the back of Fei-Fei, his Twitter accounts were blocked. He had three - all three were blocked!
On May 11 (Monday), Twitter announced the appointment of the former artificial intelligence (AI) department of Twitter ’s parent company, Google. The person in charge, Dr. Li Feifei , an expert in artificial intelligence image recognition , is the independent director of the company. A financial commentator signed " Finance Chill " posted a video comment on Li Feifei's background on May 17 . The three Twitter accounts held by " Finance Cold Eye " were subsequently blocked, and it is unknown whether they are related. Our reporter discovered on the morning of May 19th, Beijing time that the three accounts of " Finance Chill": @charles984681, @goodrick8964, and @ziyoufeng8964 have all been blocked. (Source) {this is the translated version from Mandarin - so some translations could be off}
Further, in an even more disturbing story, a hedge fund company Elliot Management acquired a large stake in Twitter. And, as part of that deal appointed 4 directors, which included Li Fei Fei. And yes, they also asked for the current CEO Jack Dorsey to leave his position!
Do you think this is a hoax? Think again. Here is the Reuter’s story on this.
Hedge fund Elliott Management Corp has amassed a stake in Twitter Inc TWTR.N and is pushing for changes, including removal of the social media company's chief executive, Jack Dorsey, two people familiar with the matter said on Friday. (Source)
Fei-Fei’s resume is long and complex. She is brilliant obviously. But her moral compass is confusing. As seem to be her loyalties.
Fei-Fei Li has links to research programs with ties to China's People's Liberation Army and with organizations run by the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department. Li's appointment came after she left her role as chief scientist of AI/ML (artificial intelligence/machine learning) at Google Cloud in October 2018 following a controversy surrounding Google's Project Maven initiative, which helped the Pentagon identify drone targets from blurry video footage. The project prompted an employee revolt at Google, with some 4,000 signing a petition against Project Maven, and some quitting in protest. Li was also instrumental in the setting up of a new Google AI lab in China. Twitter currently uses an AI technique called deep learning to recommend tweets to its users and also uses AI to identify racist content and hate speech, or content from extremist groups. France-based commentator Wang Longmeng said hiring Li to work at Twitter was like hiring a fox to guard the hen-coop. "They seem to have ignored the backstory of Li's previous cooperation with China," he said. "Li Fei-fei ... secretly opposed Google's cooperation with the U.S. Department of Defense from a high moral standpoint ... but turned a blind eye to Project Dragonfly, in which Google was planning to help the Chinese Communist Party vet online speech." (Source)
Remember yesterday’s story on Biden and the brazen blockade by social media tech giants? (Issue # 156) Well, it has reached crazy levels. Jim Jordan the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, has a website. It is a government site.
The Biden story was posted there.
And when someone tried to share a link from the Congressional website, it was blocked by Twitter as well!
Twitter is now stronger than the US Congress. How does that sound for democracy?
This is brazen as hell.
I have never liked Donald Trump. But he is the elected President of the United States. As are the House representatives. We may disagree with their policies. Have issues with their corruption.
But to subvert the rules on which a democracy runs? Well, that is to break down the very house under which we want shelter. The roof of laws that we need for a functioning democracy is exactly what we are demolishing right now.
Which is precisely what those who want fascism to be unleashed in the world, want. They don’t know or understand the beauty, complexity, or challenges that come with democracy. For, they have never had one.
And, that difference is precisely what they are using to get their way through.
This assault on democracy has not just happened in the US. It is happening in India as well.
Today, Republic TV’s Consulting Editor, Pradeep Bhandari was encircled, assaulted, and then arrested by the Mumbai Police even though he had an anticipatory bail!
Thereafter, he was kept in the police station for 10 hours despite that arrest being illegal.
His phones were snatched and he was asked to unlock them!
Bhandari also revealed that the police seized three mobile phones from him, and when protested, he was said that they had ‘orders from above’ to confiscate his phones. When he refused to unlock the phones, the police even called a tech expert to unlock the phones. He said that one of the phones belongs to his friend, but police refuse to give that phone also. (Source)
Yes, this kind of brazen-ness has not been seen since the emergency.
And, it is not that the Mumbai police is after anyone who sets his foot in Maharashtra. They are going for anyone anywhere in India. It does not matter who you are, you aren’t safe.
There is a crazy nut advocate who is hungry for his 15-minute of fame - Vibhor Anand. Every society, and specifically every democracy, has such people. There are many who believe that US astronauts never set foot on the moon.
Big bloody deal!!!
He goes on air and shares some outrageous stuff. Once we had reluctantly shared something he had said more like a cursory thing. Because unless there is proof or some reference-check, one should not speak about things in an outrageous manner. One loses his own credibility.
Such controversy theorists know they want their short term fame and everyone else chalks their outrageous ways to that fetish. But arresting them? For juvenile spraying because you cannot handle your outburst? That’s mighty stupid!
Unless.
Unless, of course, that guy was actually making some real expose!
I wouldn’t take Anand on face-value for I couldn’t vouch for the authenticity of so many things he would say. But, when someone comes from Mumbai to arrest a Supreme Court lawyer who lives in Delhi and takes him back to interrogate?!!! That is not fishy! That is an admission of guilt!
Why was a Supreme Court lawyer, from a family that has had Chief Justice of India, arrested from Delhi and dragged to Mumbai? National security threat?
The complaint mentioned 14 Twitter accounts, including one owned by Vibhor Anand, that posted theories regarding Disha's death and events leading to her death. The FIR mentions that Anand tried to defame Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and Tourism Minister Aditya Thackeray through his Tweets, Youtube videos and social media posts. In his social media posts about Disha Salian’s death, Vibhor Anand had also mentioned the names of actor Arbaaz Khan, Ekta Kapoor and others. (Source)
What?!!
You arrested and dragged a Supreme Court lawyer from Delhi to Mumbai for defamation?!! Over nutty controversy theories?!!
That doesn’t pass the sniff test of a 3-year-old!
What is happening in Mumbai is not just an emergency. It is mafia rule and it is extending to all over India!
And, those journalists who are silent and happy that such a thing is happening to those they oppose ideologically will one day pay for this. Why? Because the house of democracy and rules which prevent abuse to their freedoms is being demolished by someone and they are cheerleading that carnage. When they need its shelter, it won’t be there. For, a precedent has been set. And, they were a party to it!
India rush orders high altitude kits: India has bought high altitude warfare kits from the US on an urgent basis, officials with the knowledge of the matter said, a sign that the South Asian nation is preparing for an extended winter deployment after talks to ease tensions along its border with China stalled. The Indian Army used an agreement which allows the two militaries to take logistical assistance from each other such as buying fuel and spare parts for warships and aircraft, for the transaction, the officials said, asking not to be identified given rules for speaking to the media. The Logistics Exchange Memorandum Agreement signed in August 2016 aims to promote interoperability between the two militaries. The worst standoff between the Asia neighbors in four decades has prompted India and China to move thousands of troops, tanks and missiles to the disputed Himalayan border, while fighter jets are on stand-by. (Source)
RS Prasad’s chopper damaged: Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad’s helicopter suffered a minor mishap on Saturday. As per reports, the chopper’s rotor was damaged in the hangar after the senior BJP had alighted. (Source)
China is angry over Taiwan-India closeness: Hu Xijin, the Editor-in-Chief of the Communist Party of China’s mouthpiece Global Times, perturbed by the increasing closeness of two countries, took to Twitter to issue threats to India. Citing an India Today report, Xijin claimed that when social powers played with the Taiwan question, they should be aware that China could support separatist forces in North-East India.
Pope Pious XII had helped Hitler with exorcism: Italian journalist Fabio Marchese Ragona has a new book out that reveals that Eugenio Pacelli who became Pope Pius XII – regarded by many as an anti-Semitic Nazi sympathizer – actually performed exorcisms ‘from a distance’ on Adolf Hitler. (Source)
If you have ever flown to the US from Europe or Asia, you will notice how the planes always go over Greenland and then enter the US via Canada. They don’t fly directly across the Pacific. Do you know why?
Security and safety, you think? In case of emergency, it’s easier to crash over land as opposed to a deep ocean.
Well, that’s not the real reason why the planes do that. Let us find out what it is.
Check out today’s “The Drishtikone Daily” edition.
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