Ravi S. Iyer: Worldly

Last updated on 28th December 2014 The episode, Cold War 12 out of 24: MAD Nuclear warfare threat (1960 - 1972) , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEqaBdX6LiY , 46 min. 42 secs, shook me up. Of course I knew about how nukes could devastate cities but I did not know that way back in the 60s itself, the nukes had become some orders of magnitude more powerful than the ones used to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And the two superpowers were actively considering that the other may launch a nuclear attack! I felt it appropriate to transcribe some portions of this video about how powerful nuclear weapons had become even around fifty years back, and how tense both the superpowers were about this nuclear war possibility, and have provided it as a comment in the youtube link above (Specific comment link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEqaBdX6LiY&google_comment_id=z13qutgqjl2pzb2g004ci1bpmnbgipprpxs0k ). If I recall correctly, the then (60s) Russian ambassador to the USA says in the v...

I just saw a really great Amanpour interview of Yousufzai and Satyarthi. I checked the CNN site ( http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/category/latest-episode/ ) - it does not have the transcript (or video) of the show put up yet - perhaps it may get put up later on. If readers are interested in knowing about activism related to prevention of child labour, and universal child education, and did not see this program live I think they should view the video (if available) or read the transcript. Given below is the text of a mail I sent to Amanpour a little while back: Subject: Deeply touched by your interview-program of Yousufzai and Satyarthi, Nobel peace laureates 2014 Dear Ms. Amanpour, I was deeply touched by your excellent interview-cum-show/program of Malala Yousufzai and Kailash Satyarthi, the Nobel peace prize winners for 2014, which I watched on CNN International (and initial part on CNN-IBN (India)). You asked a lot of relevant questions which received quite good answers from b...