Year-ender 2024: An eventful year!

The year that is on the threshold of ending had been, indeed, an eventful one, marked by continuity, as well as developments capable of changing the course of the world.

If one needed a tagline for 2024, one could well call it a "year of elections!” Around 80 countries, involving over four billion people, conducted national elections during the year, including some of the world's most populous countries, like Bangladesh, Brazil, Pakistan, Russia, India, Mexico, Indonesia, and the United States. France, the United Kingdom, and Japan also had elections, as did the European Parliament.

The most impactful were the US elections, in which the mercurial Donald Trump, with expected ease, trounced the Democratic party candidate Kamala Harris, thereby bringing about a frown of unease on the brow of the international community, which has not yet forgotten the disruption that the maverick Republican had earlier caused to the global order. The most predictable (apart from those in Russia, of course), were the UK elections, where a jaded electorate bid goodbye and good riddance to a moth-eaten Tory party and elevated the Labour party, under the leadership of Keir Starmer, to power. The most ironic, naturally, were the Bangladesh elections, which Sheikh Hasina won overwhelmingly, only to be dethroned by large-scale protests and forced to flee the country!

Among India's neighbours, Sri Lanka witnessed political turmoil, followed by a new President being elected. In the Maldives archipelago, newly elected President Moharned Muizzu had to eat the humble pie and retreat from his pro-China policies due to the people's dislike of such a tilt. Throughout 2024, Pakistan continued to grapple with political instability and protests following the arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan. In stark contrast, peaceful national elections were held in India, with a politically savvy electorate enabling the NDA government to continue to sit on the saddle, but cutting the BJP a peg down to size to ensure that it did not display autocratic inclinations!

As for continuity, 2024 witnessed the continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russia-Ukraine war, Israel's retaliatory attack on Hamas and the slaughter of thousands of innocent Palestinians, and the Myanmar and Sudanese civil wars. The ongoing Israel-Hamas war led to spill over into other countries, most notably Lebanon, but a fragile truce between Israel and Hezbollah has mercifully deterred further escalation. Another late-year development in Syria gave the global order some joy, since it resulted in the fall of the Assad family, with Bashar al-Assad fleeing to Moscow, and the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham taking over, marking a significant shift in Syria's future and giving hope to Syrians who had been displaced by the conflict.

Despite time gradually running out for Planet Earth on the environmental front, 2024 saw the continuation of the climate summit farce, with the holding of the UN Climate Conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, under the shadow of new data predicting 2024 to be the hottest year on record. Another shadow that hung over COP-29 was that Donald Trump, the climate change denier who had pulled the United States from the Paris Agreement, was elected US President and is likely to do so again! 2024 was a year marked by devastating natural disasters, direct consequences of climate change flash floods and unseasonal rains in Afghanistan and Pakistan killing over 1,000 people. The year saw catastrophic floods in Brazil, Indonesia, Spain, and Kenya, as well as deadly landslides in Papua New Guinea. Wildfires and hurricanes also contributed to the widespread devastation.

While the rare total eclipse in April marked the pinnacle of 2024 celestial events, in the field of space exploration, China's May launch of the Chang'e-6 space mission, the first ever to collect samples from the far side of the moon, was the highlight of the year, outstrip ping the "achievements of individuals like Elon Musk with his SpaceX programmes. In the sporting arena, the Paris Olympics, with its parade of athletes across the River Seine, the first al fresco Olympics opening ceremony ever held, easily topped the list of events for the year.

In India, apart from the Lok Sabha elections, Assembly elections were held in a number of States, with those in Jammu and Kashmir being the landmark ones. Overall, it had been advantage NDA in the political sphere, though the year did see the Supreme Court grant ball to leaders like Arvind Kejriwal and Hernant Soren, enabling them and others to resume active politics. Among the developments in the States, the most tragic was the ethnic strife that rocked the beautiful State of Manipur, its tragic dimensions made starker because the NDA government at the Centre betrayed an amazing indifference towards tackling the issue. Among the numerous environment-related tragedies, Indisputably the Wayanad tragedy, which saw the loss of hundreds of lives, was the most poignant. Among other milestone events in India in 2024 was the repeal of The Indian Penal Code (IPC) and its replacement by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which came into effect on July 1, 2024.

By Arup Kumar Dutta