Origin & evolution of the Universe
  The aim of this thesis is to question some of the basic assumptions that go
into building the $\Lambda$CDM model of our universe. The assumptions we focus
on are the initial conditions of the universe, the fundamental forces in the
universe on large scales and the approximations made in analysing cosmological
data. For each of the assumptions we outline the theoretical understanding
behind them, the current methods used to study them and how they can be
improved and finally we also perform numerical analysis to quantify the novel
solutions/methods we propose to extend the previous assumptions.
