2025 is incumbent upon us and it is election year! This year about 64 countries around the world are going to hold elections and this includes the USA, the EU (27 member states) and Mauritius. India, where an election happens every five years, is the world’s largest democracy and recently held elections where the BJP won a majority in Parliament along with its coalition the National Democratic Alliance. However, the BJP won 240 seats in all, down from 303 seats last time which indicates a clear message from the population that it reconsiders its ultra nationalistic policies and reviews its stance on foreign policy. It seems that it will also have to review its economic policies drastically since the latest news indicate that investors are pulling out of the Indian market in record numbers, making its economic woes much worse since the last mandate. As a result, unemployment is rife and the economic outlook has been reappraised.
Cast your votes!
2024 is also the year where we will see an election in the United States of America (USA). There are two Presidential nominees from each side, i.e Mrs Kamala Harris from the Democrats and Donald Trump from the Republicans. Both seem to have a good grasp of the economy. However, Kamala Harris appears to have the best policies when it comes to protecting the democracy and perpetuating the American legacy. Who will win is still unclear because there will be a close race this time. It is also a momentous time in US history because a Harris win will be the first time a Jamaican American woman becomes President. She has chosen Tim Walz as her Vice President and has also received the endorsement of Vladimir Putin notably for the elections. According to reports, Kamala Harris also seems to have had the upper hand in the televised debate held yesterday in the USA.
Image: Elections in the USA (Image credit: Bing)
On the international stage, the USA has come out a winner on several fronts during the Joe Biden Presidency. It has confirmed its position as the world’s leading economy and the world’s best military and has recently topped the medal tally in the Paris 2024 Olympics. The USA is known for doing its best in order to retain its superpower status although its hegemony is being called into question by the BRICS alliance. The BRICS wants to introduce a new currency to challenge the monopoly of the US dollar but it seems to have backfired. Both the Indian economy and the Chinese economy are showing signs of slow down. India’s growth rate has slumped to 6.7% while China’s GDP forecasts have been reviewed to 5.00%. The BRICS alliance views a digital currency as a serious contender to the US dollar but they do not have one yet; however a blockchain-based payment system is in development as an alternative to the the American SWIFT system.
Image: Digital currency (Image credit: Bing)
2025: Endgame
There are two major war fronts on Earth at this time in 2024: the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Iran conflict, a situation in which many countries are directly and indirectly involved. This is creating an atmosphere of hostility all over the world. Moreover, the sword of Damocles hangs over Taiwan as China continues to claim its One-China principle. If there is a third war in the world, the situation can easily escalate to a world war. We want to prevent this at all costs. In actual fact, this invidious situation perdures in the world because there are slaughterhouses for meat-eating all over the world. This is creating tidal waves of mass karma which will not be allowed once the Golden Age ushers in, which has been prophesized to be circa 2025. There is also the threat of pandemics which looms over us and diseases such as monkey pox can crop up at any time. Furthermore, we have the problem of global warming and climage change which is slowly but surely putting the long-term sustainability of our lives in peril. This is why we need to empower the United Nations and institutions like the ICJ (International Court of Justice) so as the rule of law and diplomatic solutions prevail instead of criminality and war mongering.
Backlash against AI
At the moment, there seems to be a global backlash against AI. Creators and artists all over the world are protesting against their content being taken wholesale and in an unwarranted way to train AI models such as generative AI in order to come up with books, art or movies. In fact, the work of artists should be properly remunerated over the entire lifetime of the AI model if a company or organisation wants to train an AI model with creators’ content. They should, in a certain sense, pay royalty. Moreover, the stocks of several valuable AI companies such as NVIDIA have plummeted and we might as well be seeing the AI bubble bust. What comes as a welcome breath of fresh air, however, is that AI control seems to have been circumvented and countries such as India and the EU are leading the way in making sure that AI remains a force for good in the world. The risks posed by AI are numerous and they are existential in nature, which means that human society stands challenged by its development as machines can, at any time, seek to subvert our civilization. This is why it is important to legislate and enforce laws which protect human society and human health against AI.
Lord Kalki and the Golden Age
Lord Kalki, the avatar of Vishnu who rides the Devadatta, holds the promise of a new age and has come in the need of the hour so as to help us navigate the challenges posed by this yuga-sandhya or transition of the ages. We have the choice to continue business as usual or to pay heed to his advice and adopt spiritual practices in order to purify ourselves and the world. Best of all is to adopt a spiritual lifestyle, because our lives can be moulded in a Krishna conscious way so as to put God in the centre and pursue our daily duties while living in harmony with nature. We can then adopt a vegetarian diet, and free ourselves from karma which keep us shackled to this temporary, mundane world which is full of anxieties. In that way, while chanting God’s glories, even at the time of death, we would enter the world of deathlessness and the timeless realm, Vaikuntha, where there is no anxiety at all – no birth, death, old age or disease. If we align ourselves completely with God’s laws, we can create such an atmosphere of heaven on Earth in this world and in this very lifetime.
I invite you to read my book, The Spiritual Science of the Vedas, in order to have an exposé of such a lifestyle and its philosophy. I also invite you to read the many books of our Founder-Acharya, His Divine Grace A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada so as to gain a complete understanding of the Vedic literature.
Jai Sri Krishna! Radhe Radhe!
This Radhastami (September, 11 2024)
Image credits: Bing
The author: Krishna Leela Prakash
The Guru: His Divine Grace A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
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