Looking back at a year of fear...

As I look back at this year, there are indeed many great moments and achievements that are worthy of cherishing. Dubai’s record-breaking firework display on January 1, the appointment of Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister of India, Germany’s victory of the Fifa World Cup, the success story of Mangalyaan, the successful landing of Rosetta spacecraft’s Philae probe on Comet 67P, the opening of Dubai Tram and the launching of Plan 2021 are some of them, but overpowering their goodness are those terrible moments that have cost a great deal to many.

The recent attack on the military school in Peshawar is just one of them as many innocent children became martyrs for no fault of theirs. Terror attacks around the world and political uprisings have created a global turmoil. The violence surrounding the Sochi Olympics undermined Russia’s security. The mysterious disappearance and crash of two flights of Malaysian Airlines is yet another tragic instance. The growing tensions between Israel and Hamas have claimed lives of many and Gaza has become a land-strip of violence and sorrow. Daesh came out with events that left every body in shock such as the beheading of civilians, radical movements and all sorts of terror activities that rocked the world.

The rate of rapes faced by women has increased rapidly and the security of women in the world is unsure. Many people have had to face a gruesome death when they did not expect it like the American school teacher who was recently stabbed in an Abu Dhabi mall. Random bombings in many parts of the world by various terrorist groups have filled pages of various newspapers on a daily basis. Ebola has rocked nations and have swiped out millions, but that I must say, was not really a human error. There is an endless list of such disasters so let’s wait and see whether 2015 will be a better year...

- The reader is an Indian student based in Dubai