Come January 1st and the eve would draw people to sparkling festivals, fiestas and fireworks to celebrate the onset of the new year in the open, restaurants, cafes and night clubs, the world over. The weather this time the in and around the city of Toronto was cool but comfortable for those who had gathered for fun.

A Warmer New Year Day

Normally a freezing weather would throw a thick white blanket of snow over the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) during these days but now meteorological conditions are different. If the warm spell was welcome for the merry-makers, it raised eyebrows of others for quite a different reason. Scientists heard rattle of faster approaching climate change. Experts recorded the year 2015 as the hottest ever year before and the new year, they assume, would be warmer still. We nevertheless, shake hands with the new year 2016 with hope and with best of our wishes to our valued readers and friends.

Before we discuss some of the decent or the challenging events ensued during this period, it is interesting to know why January1st is universally accepted as the beginning of a new year, even when many religious communities and cultures have their own calendars that mark new year day differently.

Why first of Jan the New Year Day

In primitive times man looked up in the sky to understand about nature’s formation of days and nights or different seasons like summer, monsoon, winter, fall or spring coming and going at regular intervals. With passage of time, he identified celestial bodies like sun moon stars etc as different gods and spirits who trigger the whole gambit and began worshiping them. It is largely believed that the astronomers who understood these movements became the first priests.

Mankind tagged farming and others life sustaining activities to seasons and developed lunar or solar based calendar to better comprehend time of their arrival or exit. As a result, more than 30 Calendars came to exist the world over. Mayan, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, Mesopotamian, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus and Sikhs are a few to mention who have their own calendars to mark time. For them, the new year doesn’t start with first day of January but on some other day varying with their knowledge of cosmology and legendary belief.

Later Gregorian calendar, formulated by Pope Gregory XIII, was introduced in the 16th century and became universally accepted. It divided the year into 12 months and advised that on first day of January earth’s journey around the sun commences that takes little more than 365 days to complete. This became the international norm after England, France, Spain and various other European countries implemented Gregorian timetable also in colonies they came to rule in earlier times.

Year 2015 Not so Bright One.

Though we welcome new year with hope and expectations yet fear can’t be wished away because it has appeared from the silhouette of terror attacks, mass exodus of refugees from their homelands, frightening climate change, attempts to revive Fascism in parts of the world in 2015.

Unfortunately the year gone by opened its account with a series of massacres in Nigeria by Islamist terrorist organization Boko Haram, killing more than 2000 people, followed by the ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and Levant) beheading of over a dozen Egyptian Christians and the demolition of the ancient city sites of Nimrud and others in Iraq. Al-Shabaab, another notorious terrorist outfit, killed students in a mass shooting at a university college in Kenya.

ISIL didn’t spare Muslim brethren and killed them mercilessly during Ramadan, massacred a Shia Imam and 24 others in Mosques in Kuwait. Their suicide bombers have killed and injured tourists in Tunisia. They attacked Paris twice in 2015 and downed planes carrying civilians. US led NATO military planes have started hitting ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq. Russia joins air strikes against ISIL and also against anti-government forces in Syria making Mid East crises trickier. The story is too tragic and long and the United Nations Security Council has adopted a resolution to combat terrorism. The bull has to be grabbed by horns.

Nature too didn’t lag behind in 2015 to punish man. Not to talk of its floods, droughts and typhoons, etc usually hitting different parts of the world, the most shocking were the two tremors of magnitude 7.8 and 7.3 in quick succession hitting Nepal, that killed more than 9000 people there and hundreds other in India, China and Bangladesh. Later Hindu Kush region was also struck by a 7.5 magnitude earthquake that killed hundreds in Pakistan, Afghanistan and in India.

Nonetheless not all bad

Luckily amidst lot of hatred and animosity some positive happenings dis show up during the year. India and Bangladesh have officially ratified their 1974 agreement to exchange some enclaves along their borders. It would be the peaceful exchange of land between two neighbors in South Asia, known as one of the most war prone region of the world.

Chinese and Taiwanese presidents, Xi Jin Ping and Ma Ying-Jeou, formally met for the first time in 2015 after they separated 66 years ago to become arch cold war enemies. The meeting has been hailed as a sign of new stability in relations. Also Cuba and the United States re-establish full diplomatic relations, ending a 54-year stretch of hostility between the nations.

The year recorded two most important space events — first NASA’s spacecraft performed a close flyby of Pluto, becoming the first spacecraft in history to visit the distant world environment. And secondly, SpaceX (a private American aerospace company to revolutionize space technologies) brought the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket back to Earth to be used again many a times like an aircraft. Such steps would make man’s future space travel plans more viable.

The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Paris is historic because for the first time it has committed all countries to reduce carbon emissions and mandated developed countries to fiscally help developing nations to adopt green means of development. If decisions taken in Paris were implemented in letter and spirit, it would spare planet earth from the fury of climate change.

Cuba becomes the first country in the world to eradicate mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis.

In the end

With the change of Tory regime in Canada in 2015, people, particularly the immigrants, the First Nations and the minorities have heaved a sigh of relief because Stephan Harper the former Conservative PM was pushing Canada into a world of armed conflict and at home followed his anti-immigrant, anti-First Nations track. He was also reluctant to accept Syrian refugees in Canada. But in the year 2016 the tide has been turned by Justin Trudeau, his liberal successor. May be he put Canada back on peace track and make it again ‘The best place to live in this world’.

But the voices of Fascism are becoming clearer and louder around. South of us in US where Presidential polls are due in 2016, a contender of the coveted post is a talking rouge. Donald Trump of the Republican Party has received widespread notoriety for proposing ban of Muslim immigration.

Back home, if PM Narendra Modi talked of normalization of relations with neighbor Pakistan, his cohorts in Nagpur (RSS) talk of Akhand Bharat (merger of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka into India). Intolerance is on the rise and even a mild democratic criticism is not acceptable. Ruling BJP’s top brass often threaten Muslims to leave the country and go to Pakistan. Such demagogues were unheard of in India known as a Secular Socialist Democratic Republic.

In spite of some such the dark spots, it is hoped that peace, harmony and justice would prevail all over the world. Millions wont be forced to leave their homes to become refugees. Let earth remain green and pollution free and not turn red with the blood of innocents spilled over it.

Let 2016 be the year warmer in spirits, not as much as in temperature!