Editor,
Humanity today is facing many challenges that are difficult to fully understand. Across the globe, about 808 million people, or one in every ten, are living in extreme poverty, that is, they are struggling every day for food and survival. Worst of all, families are breaking apart due to the loss of jobs. In India, official data shows an unemployment rate of 5.1 per cent in April 2025. Job creation has a slow pace as well, with only 1.29 crore new jobs added in 2024-25, which has pushed the government to announce a one lakh crore rupee employment scheme to create three and a half crore jobs over the next two years. But to what extent this would pacify the overall picture?
This financial turmoil has also been linked to rising mental health issues. In 2022, India reported 1.71 lakh suicides, the highest ever recorded, with students making up 7.6 per cent of the cases. Divorce rates are going up in urban areas, road accidents continue to take nearly 1.5 lakh lives every year, and serious diseases such as cancer, STIs, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, kidney failure and eye-related problems are spreading fast, even among the younger generations.
The social fabric too is weakening. Tobacco use kills more than 13 lakh Indians every year despite health warnings from the government. Drug abuse is on the rise, with crores of youth falling into addiction in India alone. Crimes such as rape, with more than 30,000 cases reported annually, continue to rob people of dignity and safety. Debates around abortion remain unsettled, while discrimination and marginalisation keep many communities struggling both in India and across the world. At the same time, the richest one per cent of people now control more than half of the world’s wealth, while large companies continue to profit by exploiting the weak and tribal lands. Politics, once adored as a way of strengthened Democracy, now falls deep into the chasm of corruption and the misuse of constitutional powers.
Even Nature seems to have set sinister plots against us. Between 2000 and 2021, India experienced more than 1,700 extreme weather events such as cyclones, floods, earthquakes and heatwaves. Climate change now threatens to displace millions, especially the poor. Technology, once celebrated as mankind’s biggest achievement post Enlightenment period, has also revealed a darker pattern. Furthermore, on a postmodern scene, a governmental survey of this year found that 85.5 per cent of Indian households own a smartphone, and among the youth aged between 15 and 29, almost 95 to 98 per cent use one. Many spend several hours online every day – ranging from 6-8 hours per day, often at the cost of their studies, relationships and mental health, and these are not exaggerated data.
Wherever we look, it feels as though humanity is left unprotected – from poverty, injustice, disasters, and even from our own self-made mistakes. The question then is, where do we turn for help? Should we invoke the Supreme Power whom we religiously called God? Should we rely on our own strength – would it help me, would it help us? Should we turn to science, which solves some problems but creates another one? Is it to the politicians, who deliver neat speeches, yet deliver little when it comes to real life change? Should we turn back to our traditional ways and wisdom we left behind under colonial pressure? Or, in our desperation, should we look beyond our world, towards supposed supra-intelligent beings far beyond our galaxy whom so far we have read only in novels and watch in movies?
Ultimately, I believe the answer may lie within all of us. If we ask the right questions, we may also find the answers. And when we do, it is necessary for us to act on them. Only then can we hope to save, if not save, then at least ease ourselves, our families, our society, and the world at large from the harsh realities of existence.
Sunrise Pohtam
Via e-mail
