Week #12 Articles {February 1, '21}

Articles Written By Ananya Nayar and Misaki Tomiyama, Website edited by Misaki Tomiyama

Articles for this week-

World News-

• Biden ends Transgender Military Ban

• The Teacher Who Convinced the Bahamas to Ban Plastic

India News-

• Farmer Protests in Delhi

• Republic Day 2021

Other Articles-

• This Week’s Topic- Why are there only 28 days in February?

• This Week in History

• This Day Signifies

Biden ends Transgender Military Ban

Article by Misaki Tomiyama

On Monday last week, President Joe Biden signed an executive order which allowed all qualified Americans to serve in the US military and therefore ending the transgender military ban former President Donald Trump had put in effect during his presidency.

In 2017, Donald Trump enacted a law stating that banned transgender individuals from serving in the military.

The white house has said that "President Biden believes that gender identity should not be a bar to military service, and that America’s strength is found in its diversity,"

On the day the executive order was signed, Joe Biden has also tweeted- “Today, I repealed the discriminatory ban on transgender people serving in the military. It’s simple: America is safer when everyone qualified to serve can do so openly and with pride.”

His actions are believed to be a step against LGBTQ+ discrimination.

The Teacher Who Convinced the Bahamas to Ban Plastic

Article By Misaki Tomiyama

Kristal Ambrose- founder of The Bahamas Plastic Movement in 2013 is currently aiming to eradicate plastic consumption and usage in The Bahamas. Plastic waste is an overwhelming problem in the Bahamas- because of the tourism industries and domestic use of plastic in the Bahamas, there are tons of foreign plastic on the beaches of this nation.

Plastic is becoming a severe problem in our world nowadays and poses a lot of threat to our environment. (You can read more about plastic consumption in one of our previous articles- Plastic Consumption, The Bulletin Buzz) The Bahamas Plastic Movement is a nonprofit organisation aiming to “build a community of education and activism around plastic pollution.” They envision “a Bahamas where an engaged public has created a nation free of plastic debris.”

29-year-old Kristal Ambrose- also known as Kristal Ocean, along with her students are fighting to eradicate ocean plastic. In 2012, she sailed across the Pacific Ocean to study the Western Garbage Patch, and she was inspired to bring change into her home the Bahamas, and start a Bahamas Plastic Movement, to eradicate ocean plastic. She created a free plastic camp for local children in the Bahamas, educating more than 500 students so far.

Kristal, along with the environment minister has met and discussed the plastic issue in their nation, and to ban single-use plastic. (Single-use plastic is plastic goods made primarily from fossil fuel-based chemicals that are meant to be disposed of right after use, such as plastic bottles, plastic bags, plastic straws etc.) The government acted quickly in response to Kristal’s actions and banned single-use plastic in the region.

Kristal has become widely recognized and recently won the Goldman 2020 Environmental prize.

It is believed that, by 2050, there are going to be more plastic in the ocean than there are fish in the sea. Kristal Ocean believes that the reason this world is full of plastic and full of environmental problems is because of us, and we should be the ones who should act and solve this problem.

Farmer Protests in Delhi

Article By Ananya Nayar

Farmers all over the country- especially North India have been protesting for a change in the laws that the Indian Government is stubborn on for over 6 months.

Police and people were aware of the fact that many farmers would appear in trucks for a truck rally on Republic Day (26th of Jan) and they worked to barricade roads and fasten borders between states prior to the date. However, on Republic Day itself, Farmers were allowed to protest in their trucks, but soon the protests became more violent. As the farmers stormed parts of Delhi, people began blaming the Central Government for not holding and taking control of the situation properly. The Delhi Police announced that the protesting Farmers ‘violated the conditions pre-agreed for their tractor parade and resorted to violence and vandalism, leaving many police personnel injured…. Extensive damage to the public property also occurred.’

83 Police personnel were injured after being attacked by agitating farmers in Delhi today, Delhi Police said.

The traffic and violence soon began to head towards Red Fort, a historic monument in Delhi. It was reported that broken shards of glass, scattered pieces of paper and vandalised ticket counters were seen at the Red Fort in Delhi. A group of protestors climbed to the ramparts of the fort and unfurled the Nishan Sahib flags (Sikh Religion Flags) on January 26. This took a dangerous and risky turn- because religion was now involved in the protests, and in the past, Sikh’s and Hindu’s have not had a great history- this activity also triggered and threatened many policemen. India watched in shock as television screens flashed images of farmers hoisting the Nishan Sahib flag atop a pole in the Red Fort’s premises — for many, including some farm leaders themselves, a line had been crossed. Never before had the Red Fort been breached on Republic Day, which was supposed to bring people together because of nationalism.

Soon, other farmer unions stated that ‘some miscreants joined the protest to defame our movement. We did not plan to unfurl the flags at Red Fort, this was not our program.’

Later, the Government proceeded to detain 200 people involved with the vandalism and destruction in Red Fort and public places.

On Saturday, the Times of India reported that 700 vehicles will depart from Punjab to continue protests, this time peacefully.

Republic Day 2021, India

Article By Ananya Nayar

Republic Day, on the 26th of January, signifies the date when India was declared Independent from the oppressed British Colonial rule. The Delhi Republic Day Parade is the largest and most prestigious parade for the Republic Day celebrations, it lasts for hours and happens outside the Rashtrapati Bhawan (where the Prime Minister Resides) to India Gate, it was first held in 1950 and has occurred every year since. The Parade begins with the unfurling of the National flag by the President of India and then marches by parts of the navy, airforce, army and their bands begin.

Previous Republic Day Parades have guests from all over the World, in the past few years the President of Brazil, the President of South Africa and the Prime Minister of Vietnam attended the processions. This year no foreign guests were invited due to Covid-19, but citizens and people residing in India could purchase tickets, like previous years and they could attend the parade in socially distanced seats. This year, Prime Minister Boris Johnson from the United Kingdom was supposed to be present at the celebrations, but a new Covid strain caused him to stay in London.

Troops prepared for this march wielding swords and wearing turbans of colours of the Indian flag and regiment, bands appeared with shining tubas and showing whiskered moustaches.

Along with this, the parade presented the diversity, and not only a flamboyant display of the military and the power was shown, but many School Children danced, folk dances from parts all over India paraded, athletes proudly flaunted their stunts and talents, and police and military battalions with military hardware all proceeded down the route towards India Gate.

This week’s topic- Why are there only 28 days in February?

Article By Misaki Tomiyama

On the Gregorian calendar, February has 28 days, and the rest of the months either have 30 or 31 days. Have you ever wondered why there are only 28 days in February and why the days of the months are so inconsistent? Well, we will address the answers to these questions in this week’s article.

To begin with, why did people even invent calendars in the first place? Romulus, who is said to be the founder and first king of Rome, faced several problems organising the festivals, feasts, military ceremonies and religious celebrations he had, and he needed a calendar to organise all of them. Ancient astronomers already knew the total number of days from one solstice to another. As a result, Rome and many other cultures worked off a lunar calendar.

The Gregorian calendar was a calendar introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII. This is the calendar we all use today. The first Roman calendar was what inspired the Gregorian calendar, but it was different, it had 10 months instead of 12. These months began in March, and ended in December, having either 30 or 31 days.

Numa Pompilius, one of the Roman kings, added two months, January and February to the calendar, in order to fully sync the calendar with the lunar year, and this is why we have 12 months in a year. The original calendar had 6 months of 31 days, and 4 months of 30, adding up to a total of 304 days in a year. At that time, even numbers were unlucky, so the king subtracted one day from all of the days of the month with an even number, making it 29 days instead of 30. The lunar year had 355 days, so there were 56 more days remaining to add on the calendar after the reforms were made- which meant that one of the months had to have an even number of days after January and February were placed, so Numa chose to make February the unlucky month to have even number of days, since it was also the month to host Roman rituals to honour the dead.

There was a lot of confusion with Numa’s calendar, however, so when Caesar came into power in 46 BC, he threw away Numa’s calendar and started using the solar calendar instead. Caesar moved January and February to the beginning of the year and added a total of 10 days to different months to achieve 365 days in total.

Extending the topic- why do we have a leap year? A tropical year (time the sun takes to completely revolve around the sun) is slightly longer than 365 days, and we have 29 days in February every 4 years to make up for the short days combined.

This Week in History

Article by Ananya Nayar

On the 25th of January 1905, the World’s largest diamond was discovered in a mine in South Africa during a mine process inspection. Frederick Wells spotted a glistening slab of stone above his head 18 feet below the earth’s surface and presented it to Mr Cullinan, who owned the mine. The diamond was named after Mr Cullinan and later, the ‘Cullinan’ diamond was given to the King of England Edward VII as a birthday present.

On the 26th of January 1788, 11 British Ships sailed to Australia (New South Wales at the time) and settled on the Island, colonising and founding it. The land was first used to train and make an agricultural work camp for British troops.

Alas, World War 2, on the 27th January 1945, Soviet Troops stormed Poland and freed thousands from the cruel concentration camps, and in the process revealed what the concentration camps were to the world, and showed how harsh they were. They also exposed the Nazi’s for their discrimination against Jews (or their antisemitism) and discrimination against people of colour or people with disabilities. Auschwitz was a group of these labour or death camps, with four gassing houses, corpse cellars, cremating ovens and more disgusting orchestrated killing terrains.

On the 28th of January 1986, the Space Shuttle ‘Challenger’ exploded mid-air after take off, within two minutes. There were no survivors and the tragedy was confusion because this launch was predicted to be quite successful.

Mohandas Gandhi, or Mahatma Gandhi, who led India to Independence was brutally assassinated on the 30th of January 1948, years after India got independence from the British. A Hindu Extremist shot the political and spiritual leader who strongly believed in non-violence. He was 78 years old when he was shot 3 times in the Birla Garden while proceeding to his prayer rooms. Gandhi had apparently smiled at him, and raised his hands above his head, and fell like that too.

This day signifies- 1st Feb ’21

Article By Misaki Tomiyama

1st February is National Freedom Day in the United States! This day celebrates the freedom from slavery in the United States, also recognising the country as a symbol of liberty. On February 1st, 1865, Abraham Lincoln signed a resolution proposing the 13th amendment to the US Constitution, which was to outlaw slavery in the US.

On this day, people in the States celebrate their freedom all over social media, schools talk about the history of America, and appreciate liberty and freedom in their country, the national Freedom Day was established in order to create hopes for promoting goodwill, fairness and equality.