Rameez Makhdoomi
Srinagar, Dec 30: The five developments that defined year 2014 are penned down as under
1 Year of Fatal Air Disasters
2014 would be remembered as the year of heartrending air crashes as this was one of those years which witnessed the most aviation deaths — 1,320 to be precise enough . Coincidentally, all air tragedies were linked with Malaysia directly or indirectly. In March, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, a Boeing 777 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, disappeared with 239 people on board. No wreckage of ill fated plane has been found yet. On July 17, another Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777, Flight MH17, was shot down over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board.
AirAsia Flight the Malaysia-based airline, 8501 which recently met crash and all passengers perished left Juanda International Airport in Surabaya, Indonesia, at 5:35 a.m. local time on Sunday, en route to Singapore. The plane lost contact with air-traffic control less than two hours later, according to AirAsia Airlines .
2 Peshawar School Massacre
The dastardly massacre in Peshawar School which took lives of 132 children pained the humane hearts all-over the world. Pertinently, on 16 December 2014, seven members of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) conducted a terrorist attack on the Army Public School in the Pakistani city ofPeshawar. They entered the school and opened fire on school staff and children, killing 145 people, including 132 schoolchildren, ranging between eight and eighteen years of age.
On account of this gruesome tragedy whole world was shocked and Nation of Pakistan is still in shock.
3 Kashmir Floods 2014
Kashmr floods which took more than 200 lives and destroyed property worth billions dominated the psyche of Kashmiri this year. At the start of September soon ater lashing rains Kashmir was rocked by epic floods and this iwas s a unique tragedy in many ways .It was the first tragedy in our part of the world that hit a urban center (Srinagar) and destroyed all the economic nerve centers of Summer Capital Srinagar .All the economic hubs form Lalchowk to Karanagar to Rambagh were destroyed in one go . All the business apex bodies and other relevant bodies have placed the rough cost of losses caused to Kashmir Economy at more than one lac Crore. Thousands of houses have been destroyed. Scores of precious lives were lost in these floods. The main sector of Kashmir economy i.e tourism sector has been completely destroyed by the recent floods. The other important sector of Kashmir economy i.e horticulture sector has also been dented badly by these floods.
4 Rise of ISIS
ISS is the (slightly confusing) English acronym for the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, a Sunni jihadist group whose sudden capture of Mosul, Tikrit and extensive swaths of Iraqi and other Syrian territory was the new challenge in the world of violence with their some supporters labeling them heroes and others labeling them brutal terrorists. Nevertheless 2014 saw ISIS on rise.
5 Nobel Peace Prize for Satyarthi and Malala
In 2014 in an optimistic development for India and Pakistan , India’s Kailash Satyarthi and Pakistan’s Malala Yousafzai, won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for their fight against the oppression of children and their right to education, received the award at a ceremony in Oslo.
“Even if one single child is in danger then the entire world is in danger,” Mr Satyarthi, 60, said in joint press conference with 17-year-old Malala, with whom he shared the $ 1.1 million prize.
