Kaala Prayanam

  Rosa Louise McCauley Parks  was an American activist  in the civil rights movement,  best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott.  She was also active in the black power movement  and the support of political prisoners  in the USA.   On  December 1, 1955,  in Montgomery, the capital of Alabama state in America she rejected bus driver James F. Blake 's  order to vacate a front seat in a bus for a white female passenger. She was arrested. Parks challenged her arrest in court.  S he helped inspire the black community to boycott the Montgomery buses for over a year.  In November 1956 the court decided that bus segregation was unconstitutional  under the Equal Protection Clause  of the  14th Amendment to the US Constitution.  But  she was fired from her job and received death threats for years afterward.   The United States Congress  honored her as "the first lady of civil ...

  Josephine Baker was the first black woman to be honored at the Paris Pantheon, Paris' highest honor on 30th November 2021.  Freda Josephine McDonald, naturalized as Josephine Baker was an American-born black French dancer, singer, spy, actress, and Civil Rights Activist. She retained the surname of her second husband   William Howard Baker.  Her ancestry is unknown. Her mother Carrie and her adopted parents were slaves. In 1917 when she was 11 Baker experienced terrifying racial violence.  By age 12, she had dropped out of school.   At 13, she worked as a waitress , scavenging for food.   A symbol of the Jazz Age she became a star of the theatre in 1920s Paris. She first danced in Paris in 1925. Next year she became a sensation with her famous performance 'Dance Sauvage' at the Folies Bergere cabaret hall.  She was the first black woman to star in a major motion picture, the 1927 French silent film Siren of the Tropics , directed by  Mario ...

  American author Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, (now part of Philadelphia) Pennsylvania, America on 29th November 1832.  Louisa May Alcott was a novelist, short story writer, and poet. Her novels remain as popular today as when they were first published in the nineteenth century. "Little Women " (1868) and its sequels   "Good Wives" (1869)  "Little Men"   (1871)  and "Jo's Boys"   (1886)  were semi-autobiographical, based on the life of Alcott and her own three sisters. Alcott was a feminist and an abolitionist and remained unmarried throughout her life.  She actively participated in reform movements such as temperance (anti-alcohol)  and women's suffrage.  Her views are reflected in her writings. She was also the daughter of a Transcendentalist parents. Transcendentalism was a philosophical, spiritual, and literacy movement developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in the New England region of America. Through her father, s...

  American-born Nancy Astor, elected as the First Female Member of the British House of Commons in the United Kingdom, took her seat in the Parliament on 28 November 1919.    Divorcee Nancy Langhorne Shaw married hotel heir Waldorf Astor in 1906 and their grand country home at Cliveden, in Buckinghamshire, became an important political salon (meeting place) in the early 20th century. Nancy Astor began her political career after her husband succeeded to the peerage (ancestral post) and entered the House of Lords. She was elected in her husband's former seat in 1919 and became the first woman to sit in the House of Commons. She held her seat until her retirement in 1945. Although not a suffragette, Astor's political career set an important precedent. She frequently advocated for women's participation in public life. Her political views were often controversial. She was antisemitic and sometimes xenophobic. She initially regarded Nazism in a good light. Born on May 19, 1879 ...

  Bernhard Kruger was in captivity after World War II for forging British Pound Sterling and American Dollar notes in World War II. He was born on 26th November 1904 in Riesa town in the Saxony Kingdom, in the German Empire.   Bernhard Kruger was a member of the Nazi Party, a Major in the Nazi Party paramilitary, and a leader of the intelligence agency foreign branch in the Reich Security Main Office during World War II. As one of the responsibilities of this office, he falsified passports and documents. In Operation Bernhard he forged 60 crore value pound notes (worth approximately 800 crore American dollars now) to fund Germany. This counterfeiting operation was named after Kruger, who led the operation from a segregated factory built at Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp manned by 142 Jewish inmates. This operation ended in 1944. He succeeded in forging American dollar notes. In May 1945 his team of prisoners was transferred to Ebensee Concentration Camp in Aus...

  Mirabal sisters, opponents of the dictatorship (from 1930 till his death in 1960) of Rafael Trujillo, of the Dominican Republic, were assassinated along with their driver on 25th June 1960.  Patria, Minerva, and Maria Teresa Mirabal came from a rich family in the Dominican Republic's central Cibao region. They and their husbands resisted the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. Minerva, the first woman to graduate from law school in the Dominican Republic, rejected Trujillo's advances at a party. She was repeatedly harassed by his forces. Trujillo's regime was brutal. Known as "El Jefe" he exercised total control over the country, suppressed political opposition, restricted civil liberties, abused human rights on a large scale, and regularly employed violence and intimidation against his critics. He massacred lakhs of Haitians and cracked down harder in the wake of the Cuban Revolution in 1959. To hold the power and to continue it dictators also do some good works. ...

  Doctor Charles Darwin published his book 'On the Origin of Species' on 24 November 1859. This book radically changed the view of human evolution and laid the foundation for evolutionary biology.  Charles Darwin is an English naturalist. He is most famous for his theory of evolution by natural selection. Wrote 'On the Origin of Species'. It sparked debates about human origins and religious beliefs. Changed scientific understanding of how living things develop over time. He studied medicine at Edinburgh University. In 1831 he joined a 5 year voyage on HMS Beagle as the ship's naturalist. During this trip, he observed many plants, and animals, collected specimens, and made notes. Returned to England. Began developing ideas about evolution. Worked for 20 years to gather evidence to support his theory. Studied and wrote about various scientific topics till death. Married his cousin Emma Wedgwood in 1839. Had ten children. Born on 12.2.1809 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, Un...

  In late 1654, Blaise Pascal became famous for his mystical vision and influential works on philosophy and theology, but not for his scientific inventions. Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician, scientist, and religious philosopher. He laid the foundation for the modern theory of probabilities. Invented an early calculator, the Pascaline. Worked on the nature and principles of hydraulic fluids. Formulated Pascal's law of pressure. Invented syringe and hydraulic press. In the 1970s, in his honor, in recognition of his work on understanding atmospheric pressure and its estimation in terms of weight, the Pascal (Pa) unit was named. Due to social insecurity, unsolved crises, and self disbelief the literated, now inversely, become nonsecular and theists. Born on 19.6.1623 in Clermont Ferrand, France, Pascal died on 19.8.1662 at 39 with a stomach tumor.

Newspapers, with freedom of press, are the lifeline of democracy. In British India false news were published in favour of the rulers. The first PM of India Nehru encouraged press freedom. In Indira Gandhi's period, especially in the emergency, it was imprisoned impartially. Later all freedoms are shackled. Now are killed. Like National Independence the press freedom is enjoyed by some, supporting the rulers. Others including the neutrals are being jailed under the UAP Act years together without trial and bail. Courts closed their eyes. The freedom of the press, the Fourth Pillar and that of the commonmen, the Fifth Pillar of democracy are snatched away. Hence the democracy is dead. Sculpture of newaspaper boy (hawker), on bicycle, installed in the Vidhansabha Cowk in Nagpur, Maharashtra.

Different types of tombs in a Graveyard at a village on the Highway between Ha Long and Hanoi cities in Vietnam. There are common (for all) and private (for a family) graveyards in Vietnam. Cremation and burial are common. Buddhists cremate. Burial is traditional. Cremation is increased upto 70% recently especially in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh Cities. Hanoi Govt offers $130 rebate for families who cremate their dead. Many Vietnamese honour their dead in the burial place 3 years after their initial burial. While cremating or burning the dead Vietnamese follow the customs mostly like Hindus. Some superstitions before and after the cremation or burial are also practised. In Cambodia Theravada Buddhism is predominant religion. So, it is traditional to cremate here. Some practise burial also.