[Bharat Nain]

In light of recent events, it suddenly hit me hard today of how lucky I am to live in a country like USA. I lost about 6 friends of mine, 2 in Indonesia, 1 in Sri Lanka(Galle), and 3 in India(Madras, Tamil Nadu). It probably wont hit you as hard as it hits me, but I want you all to realize that you are extremely lucky that you a part of this country or one of the technologically advanced countries.

Most of the countries hit by the Tsunami did not have the infrastructure or technology to detect, prevent or reduce the death toll. Indonesia was too close to the epicenter of the quake, its was hard to detect, and therefore death was almost inevitable. A lot of kids where killed because when one of the first waves hit the place, the kids saw some fish on the beach and ran towards the beach, instead of running the opposite direction. It's the same story for Sri Lanka and India, except if Sri Lanka and India had the infra structure there was a huge possibility of saving a few hundred lives(or more) in the coastal area. Thailand, which is a slightly more developed country faced a problem which they shouldn't have. I think in the 1970s the government launched a false alert of a Tsunami and many businesses suffered severely. So the government now refuses to launch any alerts about it. Whats worse is, when something like this hits these countries, recovering is a big deal. My friend in Sri Lanka was only injured by the Tsunami, but didn't receive help in good time and died. Not to mention, the leaders of some of those countries(government) is not stable, corrupted greatly and openly and such. It's plain sad. To add to that, the whole continent of Africa has moved a tad bit. The axis has changed a tad bit. Maldives I think might have to be removed from the map or atleast parts of it. So this has kinda impacted the whole world.

On the other hand, countries like America, Canada, UK, Brazil etc are so far ahead in technology. If anything happens, we have an infra structure ready to get things back to normal, or the recover speedily. People are warned in advance if anything, if anything happens, there is an extreme amount of help to the extent that if anything happens in other countries, we reach out and help.

With all this said, I am proud to say that FIRST has had a great impact over here, and I hope it spreads to other countries and improves their status in Science and Technology. It would be nice to see lives saved and lives changed because FIRST existed in those under developed or developing countries.

Finally, back to my original point, I want you all to realize that you are blessed and very lucky to be in these countries. I don't want to start any controversial discussion or anything, just realize that you are blessed and should value your country. God bless you all and have a great new year!