A glance at the news headlines in the past few weeks made me very frustrated. Some of the headlines read: “ Mysterious viral fever attack leaves scores of kids dead”, “ Floods devastate northeast India”, “One more train disaster”, “ Farmers upset at not getting quality seeds”. Headlines in previous years around this time are more or less the same. Why is it that we are not able to tackle and find lasting solutions to these perennial problems?

The last ten months have witnessed unusually severe natural calamities affecting the sub-continent. The tsunami of December 2004, the Mumbai floods of July this year, and the recent Muzaffarabad earthquake have caused great devastation. But these disasters have a silver lining for India. Our administration did respond with some vigour and alacrity compared with the littoral states of the Indian ocean, US authorities in the wake of hurricane Katrina, and Pakistan officials now.

December 26 2004 saw an unprecedented disaster killing more than 150,000 innocent people, uprooting millions, and devastating the economy of vast regions in many nations in South and South-East Asia. It is impossible, with today’s technology to precisely anticipate an earthquake and know when and where it will affect people. Such unavoidable suffering is part of human existence, and we have to face it with courage and accept it with equanimity.

A city has been turned into rubble and thousands perished in the recent earthquake in Iran. The image of a mother crying on seeing her dead children in the rubble will be forever etched in my mind. We cannot predict the ways of nature.