IS INDIAN STANDARD TIME IS REALLY STANDARD !?

IST is 5.30 hours ahead of UTC. UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) is the prime time standard by which the world regulates the clocks and time. It is about 1 second of mean solar time at 0 degrees longitude.

Whereas Indian Standard Time is calculated on the basis of 82.5° E longitude at Shankargarh Fort in Allahabad district, so that it would be as close to UTC +5:30 as possible.

For every 15° longitude there is a difference of one hour. India spans longitudes of 68° at the western end and 98° at the eastern boundary and as there is a difference of one hour for every 15° of longitude, the two extremes differ by two hours. Thus, when the sun sets at 4 p.m. in Kohima, it sets at 6 p.m. in Porbunder. IST was fixed in 1906 midway at 82.5°, or 5/ hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Periodically, there are demands from the Northeast region for a separate time zone so that the clocks there may be advanced by an hour.

A few years ago, then Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, frustrated with the decision of the Centre not to have a separate Northeast time, unilaterally decided that Assam would follow ChaiBagaan time. Bagaan time or tea time is a reference to an informal practice followed in tea gardens in Assam which is an hour ahead of IST. It alerts us to the fact that there is indeed a long history of the application of different time zones in India.

Creation of two time zones for a nation like India will end up with unimaginable chaos creating a massive mess in day to day life of 1.2 billion people.

 Proposal of advancing IST by half an hour avoids the problems and provides maximum energy saving during evening hours when the utilities fail to supply continuous power. Load shedding is common all over the country and power and energy shortages amount to 11 percent and 12 percent respectively.

The Indian government has setup many committees to assess the necessity of dual time zones and advancing IST, however, all the reports suggested to continue the existing time zone. (source: The Hindu, Internet)

IGNOMINIOUS END OF BLACK BANNERS

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, a Sunni Islamic radical wing emerged to establish caliphate all over the globe. IS grew out of an insurgency in Iraq and was affiliated to al-Queda until 2014. By that time it had established a foothold in Iraq and Syria.

 2014 was a spectacular year for IS, in a series of swift and unanticipated military ascendancy that awed and shocked the world and established its dominance in several regions of Iraq and Syria and showcased the advance of barbaric ideology.
It has seized away more than 50 places, including Mosul, Iraq's second largest city - demonstrating the brutality of an order rarely seen in the human history.

By the end of 2016, IS achieved military dominance in almost every region in Syria and across northern and central Iraq. At it peaks group has controlled over 130 significant regions and cities, the geographical size spanning bigger than many European nations. IS started collecting taxes and exercising control over military bases, border crossings, oil fields, and dams.

Map as on December, 2014.

At least 8 million people are captive in those seized regions and survived for three years three months, slaying the social life and human rights completely. Isis transformed the world of jihadism by recruiting tens of thousands of followers from five continents—faster, in larger numbers, and from further corners of the Earth than any other modern extremist group. However, from mid-2016, the IS began to suffer a steady stream of turbulence, witnessing there fall. The liberation of Mosul by the Iraqi government, the place where caliphate was pronounced - was destroyed, Iraqi forces believed IS game is over with Mosul's fall and soon afterwards they captured Hawija and Tal Afar.

The Syrian democratic forces backed by US militia, group made up of Syrian kurds and Arabs, announced they have seized Raqqa, the IS capital is Syria. Thus bringing an end to - bizarre pseudo state founded on illusory goals.  “How far they’ve fallen. It’s a striking contrast to three years ago, when they planted the flag, in the summer of 2014, and proclaimed God’s kingdom on Earth had come again—and now they’ve evaporated,” Will McCants, the author of the best-selling book “The isis Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State".

Yet the organisation is not dead. Nor are all its leaders. Hundreds of fighters have fled south to regroup in the lawless borderlands of the Euphrates River Valley between Syria and Iraq. Their zealotry will endure, in different forms and perhaps under different banners. isis also claims some three dozen wilayats, or provinces, spread from Algeria to the Philippines—across North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia—that have, at various times, pledged loyalty to the caliphate. Some are dormant. Others are small. All have been deadly.

There is a serious lack of political leadership in the region. If the situation is not handled in a most diplomatic, democratic and effective means - the demon may rise from the ashes again.