Mearl Colaco

Four words wrapped in a hashtag has brought the world’s attention to the abduction of more than 300 teenage girls in Nigeria. Although these innocent teenagers were abducted on April 14, it got traction recently after the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls showed up in tweets almost every single day. It’s outrageous that the whole episode was kept under wraps for more than two weeks, until some brave Nigerian activists launched an online campaign using the hashtags #BringBackOurDaughters, #BringBackOurGirls. These hashtag campaigns went viral in no time and pressurized Nigerian President Goodluck Joanathan to take action.  After abducting the teenagers, those maniacs who call themselves Boko Haram had the cheek to come back into the city and abduct more girls right from their homes. And to add more to it, they sent videos of the girls they abducted. In those nerve-wrecking videos, some weird looking men dressed in military gear- supposed leaders of the group - vow to sell the girls a...

The largest democracy on earth concludes its five-week election cycle in which a whopping 537-million people came out to cast their votes. It was not only the voter turnout that was mind-boggling, but the results of India's 2014 elections swung in large numbers in the kitty of the political party called the BJP (Bharitya Janta Party). It already looks like the Indian voters have bid a firm goodbye to Gandhi-led political dynasties that have been governing the nation for decades now. With the 2014 election results, Narendra Modi from the BJP will be sworn in as the 15th Prime Minister of India.  So when the majority of the 66-percent of eligible voters voted for Modi and his party, why do we have so many people – nationally and internationally - jumping the bandwagon concluding the gloomy fate of the minorities of India which accounts for 20-percent of the population. Well I belong to the minority population in India, but have never ever experienced any kind of d...