Month: January 2021

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-05

About: This is the bread we’ve baked this week, in our World, and I’ve cut it down for you, also adding a slice of history, on what was before us.

Everywhere

Pressure in Russia: From Russia Without Love

I’m tired of climbing hills in the US and my eyes have moved to what’s happening beyond the mountains, in Russia. Yes, it’s about Alexei Navalny, the Russian Opposition Leader who is having a very tough time out there in the awfully cold Russian winter. Arrested, jailed, poisoned, arrested, jailed. Repeat.

Navalny, a lawyer-turned-activist came out of the cold in 2008, when he began exposing high-level corruption in Russian politics through his blog. He has since spearheaded many anti-corruption rallies, is considered to be the face of the Opposition in Russia, and has been arrested numerous times. He was barred from challenging current President, Vladimir Putin, in the 2018 Presidential Elections because of a previous conviction for fraud in a criminal case said to be politically motivated. The conviction was overturned by Russia’s Supreme Court, but he was found guilty in a re-trial, which earned criticism from the European Court of Human Rights.

Russia is known to eliminate dissidents and political activists by poisoning them, and Navalny too had a taste of this when in August 2020 he was poisoned with the soviet-era banned lethal nerve agent Novichok, which almost knocked him off. Of course, it will be hard to prove it in Russia. He managed to get himself on a plane to Germany where he was treated and recovered from the poisoning effects. And this was not the first instance: two years before, he had a bright green liquid dye sprayed upon him in Barnaul, Siberia, by an assailant who pretended to shake his hand, resulting in considerable damage to an eye.

In the current upturn of events, Navalny was arrested, on return from Germany, on the bizarre rule-break that he violated a suspended criminal sentence by remaining in Germany for further treatment after being released from Hospital – following his treatment for poisoning. The suspended sentence was from a 2014 trial termed as ‘arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable’ by the European Court of Human Rights for which Russia was ordered to pay Navalny and his brother near 76,000 Euros in compensation. Instead of finding out who poisoned the victim, Russia is running after the victim?

Now you get the picture? Having grown really big as a country and lived this long there are many Laws & Rules, but legalities don’t really matter in Russia where the rules of the game are changed and the goal posts are shifted for any curling shot to become a goal. Look at what a man fighting the system is up against!

A very tough road ahead for Navalny, and he has unstinted support coming his way, with spontaneous protests against his arrest, erupting across Russia.

Let’s delve into history to understand the ‘coldness’ of Russia and its ‘Iron Curtain’ (coined by the then British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill) calling. The explosive Russian Revolution of 1917 – actually consisting of two cataclysmic revolutions, both happening in that one year, the February Revolution, and the October Revolution, changed Russia like never before.

In the first, the last Tsarist regime, represented by the Romanov dynasty, which celebrated a spectacular three centuries in power (Peter the Great and Catherine the Great were Romanovs), was overthrown, forever ending Imperial Rule, and in the second, the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks and Red Guards led by Vladimir Lenin staged a coup and established communist rule leading to the formation of what we all knew as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the Communist Party.

Nicolas-II, the last Romanov Emperor, abdicated soon after the February Revolution, and his family, Empress Alexandra, and their five children were taken prisoners. On a July night, in 1918, the family and four servants were ordered to dress quickly and go down to the cellar of the house in which they were being held, on the pretext that they are to be moved to a new location for their own safety. They were told to wait while the truck meant to transport them arrived. A few minutes later an execution squad of the secret police was brought in and the order of their execution, for countless crimes on Soviet Russia, was read out.

The armed men then gunned down the imperial family in a hail of gunfire. Those who were still breathing, when the smoked cleared, were stabbed to death. The bodies were disposed off in a chaotic manner and remained undiscovered for decades leading to speculation that someone from the family might have survived and actually be alive. It is said that the royals had diamonds and jewellery secretly sewn into their corsets, which had a bullet-proof effect, resulting in bullets not making their mark.

In later years, the remains of Nicholas, Alexandra, and three of their children were excavated in a forest near Yekaterinburg, in the year 1991, and positively identified two years later using DNA fingerprinting. The Crown Prince Alexei and one Romanov daughter – Anastasia– were not accounted for, fuelling the persistent legend and fantasy that Anastasia was alive and had escaped: countless stories and movies have been made on Anastasia. In subsequent years, scientists were able to confirm the deaths and the Romanov family was finally put to rest in St. Petersburg. The Crown Jewels became the property of the Soviet Union and a large portion is held in museums in the Kremlin. Given those tumultuous times, some of the fabulous jewels went missing – unable to be traced, to this day.

To further thread the story of Russia, after Lenin, it was Dictator Joseph Stalin, then Nikita Khrushchev over to Mikail Gorbachev until dissolution of the Soviet Union, on 25 December 1991. Russia then held its original name, with Boris Yeltsin as President, who hands over to Vladimir Putin – with Dmitry Medvedev stealing some years in between, due to term limits. Putin has been President since 2012 and in January 2020 modified the Russian Constitution in a way that would scrap term limits for Presidents, paving the way for him to remain President indefinitely. Sounds typical African style ruling, doesn’t it?

I’m breathless…this is the perhaps the briefest history you can get on Russia.

Back from the past to the present, Russian police have detained more than 4,000 people – and counting – in a crackdown on protests in support of the jailed Alexei Navalny. Tens of thousands of people defied a heavy police presence to join some of the largest rallies against President Vladimir Putin, in years.

Russia is one hard country to crack and President Putin, with his KGB secret service background holds the aces, the iron, the jewels, and the aggression to controlling Russia. Who can poison that? Alexei Navalny needs all the bravery and smartness he can muster to melt this iron rule.

Wonder Women of Estonia

Women leaders are rising-up in many countries and are proving to be better rulers than men – watch out! On 26 January, 43 years old Kaja Kallas was sworn as Estonia’s first female Prime Minister since Estonia ‘regained’ independence in 1991. Estonia was an independent country until it was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940. On the break-up of the USSR, Estonia restored its independence on 20 August 1991, which is celebrated as ‘Day of Restoration of Independence’. For a change we have a tame ‘Restoration of Independence Day’ rather than the fiery Independence Day most Countries in the world celebrate.

Kallis leads the Reform Party which was founded by her father, Sim Kallas, who was also Prime Minister in 2002-2003. Kaja Kallis studied to become a Lawyer specialising in Estonian and European competition law, and also holds a Master of Business Administration degree in Economics. She will need every letter of her education to stay competitive and administer well.

There’s another woman in the Estonian hierarchy, with the President also being a woman, Kersti Kaljulaid. She achieved that at the age of 46. In the year 2016. That makes Estonia one of the few countries where both the head of State and head of Government are woman.

In 2018, President Kaljulaid ran the New York City Marathon, during a working tour of the United States, and finished in just over four hours.

I’m sure both Women know how to run Estonia. For a start, one is a marathon woman.

Larry King (is) Dead: the Art of Conversation Lives On

After hosting ‘Larry King Live’ on CNN for over 25 years and retiring in 2010 to host ‘Larry King Now’, the legendary American talk-show host Larry King, 87, died on 24 January at Cedars Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles due to COVID-19.

Larry King had diabetes and suffered from a series of medical issues over the years including several heart attacks and a quintuple bypass surgery. He had been diagnosed with lung cancer and successfully underwent surgery to treat it. He also underwent a procedure to address angina.

Larry King married eight times (twice to the same woman) and has four children. Last year he lost two of his children who died within weeks of each other: a son of heart-attack, and a daughter of lung cancer.

King interviewed countless newsmakers and every-day people. He interviewed every sitting President from Gerald Ford to Barack Obama doing more than 30,000 interviews and listening-in to thousands of phone calls from viewers of his Call-in Show(s).

Larry King had a distinctive, unmistakable appearance in his Talk Shows: oversized spectacles and ever-present suspenders. He was known for not spending time preparing for interviews, preferring instead to let his natural curiosity guide the conversation. He read all day long and watched news which made him really well-informed. He would allow his guests to talk and then spring up the questions, with the flow. King adopted an affable easygoing demeanour and perfected a casual approach to the Question & Answer format, always leaning forward and listening intently to his guests, rarely interrupting. He treated every guest the same – Presidents, famous people, and the common man. And he loved being in front of the camera.

“I just love what I do, I love asking questions, I love doing interviews” said Larry King.

We would love him to do an interview with God and allow us a phone call to ask God a question? Rest in Peace Larry King.

COVID-19 Vaccination Updates

The biggest vaccination campaign in history is on a roll with more than 90 million doses in 62 countries have been administered, averaging 4.3 million doses a day.

Israel is on track to probably becoming the first country to achieve herd immunity (70% required) – expected in about 45 days – with about 26% of the population already vaccinated.

India has vaccinated near about 2.92 million (Source: Ministry of Health) people and the vaccination drive is gathering momentum after an initial tardiness, finding about 6 lakh arms per day. On the coronavirus infections front, India is counting about 13,000 downhill positive cases per day and Schools have been opened for Class 10 and Class 12, at least in my region. Getting back to normalcy for sure.

Nearer Home, in Attur, Tamilnadu, a good medical doctor friend of mine was one of the first to receive the Covishield Vaccine -made by the Serum Institute of India – and I’m sure she will frame the photo for the History records. I did share that photo-shoot within my Group, to inspire. And to dispel any doubts, the nay-say people might have. We should roll up our sleeves, when the time comes. We are not safe until everyone is safe.

Please Yourself

Planning to buy a car? Go Toyota, or go electric?

This week Japanese Company, Toyota drove up the ramp to wear the Global Crown of the World’s best-selling automaker. The one runner-up sash went to the German Volkswagen Group.

Toyota sold 9.5 million vehicles around the world in 2020, which includes its Daihatsu and Hino lineups. Volkswagen did 9.3 million units, which includes its brands of Audi, Skoda and Porsche.

Meanwhile, electric car-maker Tesla has set up shop in Bengaluru, India. The future is electric, and we need to keep looking out for the electrifying offers we can get to use clean energy, to clean-up the mess we made of relying on greenhouse gas-emitting petrol and diesel.

More interesting stories, coming-up, in the week(s) ahead

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-04

About: Today’s news is tomorrow’s History. This is some news of what happened this week, in our World.

Everywhere

History Has Its Eyes On US

Finally, afters weeks of playing ‘Raiders of the Capitol Hill’, President Donald Trump took a plane out of Washington to fly into the sunset. Needs to be seen whether he took that whip with him, and we would need to keep our ears ‘out-of-wax’ to listen to the sound of a whiplash, in the coming months. ‘I’ll be back’ (in some form), he said. Sounds like Terminator?

On 20 January 2021, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., all of 77, – described by ex-President Barack Obama as a Lion of American History – royally stepped into the shoes of the 46th President of the United States of America (USA), and in a first in US history, a woman – African-American, Asian-Indian, Kamala Harris, going on 57, was sworn in as Vice President (the 49th of the USA). For President Biden it was one step higher after having served as Vice President for eight years under President Barack Obama. Well-prepared and experienced for the job at hand!

Pop stars Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez offered starting company, singing their hearts out with a fiery rendition of the US National Anthem and ‘This Land is for You and Me’, respectively. Never mind some Spanish was thrown in. Singer song-writer Garth Brooks performed ‘Amazing Grace’ to amazing applause. While a young 22 years old, National Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman, ‘Climbed a Hill’ to say ‘History has its eyes on US’ and that we should be brave enough to see light and be it.

Now, I wish to see some climbing-up in the right directions and eyes on healing of wounds in a divided America. Light at the end of a four years old tunnel? The fashion colours of the inaugural event matched the rainbow. Singers came in white, black, red, blue; the Poet in royal yellow the new First Lady in cool blue and the Vice President in purple – marrying the red and blue. Ex-Presidents and their wives brought their colours too. Memories to keep.

Let’s raid recent history. Joe Biden lost his first wife, Neilia Hunter Biden, and daughter in a car accident shortly after being elected US Senator, in 1972. His wife was driving with their three children, on a Christmas Shopping trip, when their car was hit by a Tractor Trailor. Neilia and daughter, Naomi (about a year old) died in the accident while the two sons, Joseph Beau Biden and Robert Hunter Biden though severely injured, survived. In 2015 Beau Biden died after a fight with brain cancer.

In 1977 Joe Biden married Jill Tracy Jacobs, now Jill Biden. They have a daughter Ashley Blazer Biden. From all his children Joe Biden has seven grandchildren. And two German Shepard dogs, Champ and Major, to watch over the family. The White House security detail just got barked-up.

Kamala Harris is the daughter of Shyamala Gopalan, from Tamil Nadu, India and Donald J Harris from British Jamaica. That makes her of Jamaican-Indian descent. Mother Shamala was a biologist who worked on breast cancer at the University of California, Berkeley and received her PhD in 1964. Father Harris is a Professor emeritus of Economics at Stanford University and received his PhD in economics in 1966. Kamala’s parents divorced when she was seven.

Kamala was a trail-blazer all her life breaking many men-only glass ceilings to get this high. She graduated in Political Science and Economics from Howard University and in law from Hastings College, University of California, and was admitted to the California Bar in 1990. She has worked as District Attorney of San Francisco, and Attorney General of California before becoming US Senator from California, in 2017.

Kamala married Dough Emhoff in 2014 and is step-mother, or ‘Momala’, to Emhoff’s two children, son Cole and daughter Ella, from his previous marriage to film producer Kerstin Emhoff.

We all saw and listened. We hope for a new beginning, a seismic shift, and History being made at every turn.

Sport

Cricket

In perhaps one of the finest Test series wins by any side in cricket, India beat Australia in a fighting game of cricket making a 2-1 series score, retaining the Border-Gavaskar Trophy they won in Australia two years ago.

India was down on many fronts such as Captain Virat Kohli exiting the series, injuries hitting the players hard – to kick some out of the boundary, and playing in a Stadium which was one of the best hunting grounds for Australia. In the process India broke the – until now – unbeatable winning streak of the Australian cricket team at the Gabba, Brisbane Fortress, which stretched for 31 tests from 1988 to 2020.

India needed 328 runs to win on Tuesday, the final day of the four-test series, as Shubman Gill’s, 91 and Rishabh Pant’s unbeaten 89 led the chase for the touring side. Pant hit the winning runs with just three overs remaining, to inflict a first defeat on Australia at the Gabba and record the highest fourth innings run chase. India erupted in celebration and many looked at retired Test-Cricketer, Rahul David’s, mentoring the young boys, as head of the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru, as a rightful reason for the success. That is a tough wall to break, indeed.

I see a new young India climb-up from the battle, charged to win many wars across the sporting world, and a solid inspiration in all walks of life.

Tennis: The Australian Open

The first Tennis Grand Slam Tournament of the year, the Australian Open bounced into quarantine problems after a record 72 players arriving by different flights for the tournament to be held in Melbourne Park, Melbourne, found themselves being herded into quarantine. This, after passengers in their respective flights tested positive for COVID-19. They cannot practice and will have to rust for 14 days. Most have been allotted five hours each day to go out and train in strict bio-secure bubbles. However, the Organisers confirmed that the 8 February start date – three weeks after the original start date – will be kept, despite the contagious times.

For the moment the coronavirus is serving aces. And we need a strong return, over the nets, to keep the game going.

COVID-19 Vaccinations

Over 56.58 million vaccination doses have been administered across the world with the US needling top of the charts with about 17.55 million, quickly followed by China with 15 million. The UK comes in at a distant third with 5.4 million and then Israel with 3.29 million followed by the UAE, Italy, Germany, Russia, Turkey, Spain and India, as on 22 January 2021. From calculations, it appears that Israel will be one fo the first countries to reach the so called ‘herd immunity’ threshold, of over 70% vaccinated, in about 50 days. That sure is a milestone.

India has shot the arms of 10,43,534 (Source: Ministry of Health) people with the Vaccine, since starting the Vaccination Drive on 16 January 2021. In the first phase, India is targeting to administer the vaccine to around 3 crore healthcare and frontline workers. In the second round, people above the age of 50 will be jabbed, while those with comorbidities will be given preference. And Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi plans to lead the charge in the second phase.

Hunting In Packs

While President Joe Biden, in his inaugural speech, called for ‘unity’ and collaboration in tackling America’s generous problems, further South of America, in the Para State of Brazil, in a lake on the Iriri River about 100 adult electric eels were getting together, to practice the art – probably connected to the American Grid – even while Biden was mirror-speaking his speech. The electric eels, a type of knife fish, were found to be cooperating with one another in rustling up a meal of fish. Electric eels are normally categorised as solitary fellows that shock and awe fish into submission.

After spending much of the day wriggling at the bottom of the lake, around dusk and dawn a gaggle off eels start swimming in circles to herd shoals of small fish into shallow waters and follow it up with a synchronised attack, simultaneously zapping their prey with powerful electric discharges, making the fish jump out of water and fall to the surface when there are quickly gobbled-up by the clever eels. Each hunt usually took about an hour and involved upto seven electric-shock attacks.

Electric eels can generate up to 600 volts of electricity – enough to kill a man. Their bodies contain electric organs with about 6000 specialised cells called electrocytes that store power like tiny batteries. When attacking (or threatened) these cells discharge simultaneously delivering that ‘knock-out punch’. Electric eels are air-breathers and must come to the surface frequently. They grow up to 2.5 meters in length and weigh about 18 kg.

Scientists were shocked to make this extraordinary discovery saying nothing like this has ever been documented in ‘electric eel History’.

Other aquatic animals that commonly hunt in groups are Orca (also called a Killer Whale), dolphins, piranha, and some kinds of sharks. The list is growing for sure. Imagine if all the mosquitoes in the neighbourhood get together for a bloody meal?

We now have our eyes on the Electric eels, as well, and need more eyes to watch other animals, least they get together, on land and water, and come after us. We live in a fascinating world of still life…and sudden death!

If there is one lesson we can learn from the eels, it is that if we stick together we can achieve a whole lot of things, besides getting ourselves a decent meal!

Please Yourself

Early this week, magicians and illusionists around the world celebrated 100 years of the famous ‘sawing a woman in half’ trick, first performed by magician P. T. Selbit in Finsbury Park Empire Theatre, London, on 17 January 1921. Selbit is recognised as the first magician to show and promote such a trick on a public stage. This magic trick became as iconic as pulling a rabbit out of a hat, and formed the mainstay of many Magic Shows across the world.

Selbit would put his female assistant into a tight wooden box, about the size of a coffin, and secure her inside with ropes tied to her wrists and ankles. The box was then closed so that the audience could not see her, and placed in a horizontal position. Selbit would then proceed to saw the middle of the box with a large hand saw to give the impression that because of the restraints and no-room in the box the woman’s waist must have been in the path of the saw and hence cut through. At the end, the box would be opened and the woman -still with the ropes attached- would be revealed as being unharmed.

It is said that in later performances, to heighten the drama, Mr Selbit would sometimes tip fake blood into the drains and have an Ambulance waiting outside the Theatre with the sign, ‘in case the saw clips’.

Those were the times when such a magic performance wasn’t considered good unless someone fainted in the audience!

We need magic to spruce up our lives. Look for it all around you – find someone to saw?

More electric stories, coming-up, in the week(s) ahead, for us to sharpen our saws!

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-03

About: This is a story, told from my perspective, on what happened this week, in our World.

Everywhere

Indonesia

On 9th January 2021, Sriwijaya Air flight SJY 182, a 26 year old Boeing 737-500 aircraft, took off from Jakarta, Indonesia, on a routine flight – usually 90 minutes – to Pontianak, in the West Kalimantan province of the Island of Borneo. In a few minutes after take-off the plane climbed to a height of 11000 feet when suddenly it dropped to about 3000 feet, in less than a minute, and then unexpectedly crashed into the Java Sea, killing all 50 passengers and 12 crew members. This included seven children and three babies. The plane has a capacity of 130, and all people on-board the flight were Indonesian. The reason for the crash is unclear and the black boxes, both of which have been found and retrieved, are being analysed to find answers.

Indonesian rescuers have pulled body parts, clothing and scraps of metal from the Java Sea on Sunday morning thereby confirming the crash. And search operations are in full swing.

This is only the 5th accident for Sriwijaya and the first involving onboard deaths. On 27 August 2008, Boeing 737-200, Flight 62 overran the runway at Jambi, Sumatra, striking and killing a farmer in a nearby hut who was taking shelter from the rain.

Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelago nation, with a population of more than 260 million people. Sriwijaya Air, established on 10 November 2003, is Indonesia’s third largest Domestic, Budget Airline operating from its hub at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Indonesia. It flies people to about 53 destinations within Indonesia and three regional countries.

Air travel is inherently risky and Airline Operators adopt some of the best safety measures available in any mode of human transportation. We can only wish and hope technology further improves and evolves to minimise the chances of an accident off this magnitude.

Going back in time, Srivijaya (written as Sri Vijaya or Sriwijaya) is a Sanskrit derived name meaning ‘prosperous victor’. The name is based on an historical Indonesian Buddhist thalassocracy (ie. primarily maritime realms, seaborne empire) based in Sumatra, Indonesia between the 8th and 12th century. It was the first unified Kingdom, in the region, to dominate much of the Malay Archipelago.

History says that in a rare case of India attacking another country, the Chola King, Rajendra Chola-I, son of the great RajaRaja Chola, of India’s Tamilnadu invaded the Srivijaya Kingdom and brought it to its knees to accept the Chola suzerainty. The provocation was said to be disputes over trade routes by the Srivijya Kingdom affecting a flourishing trade between the Cholas and the Chinese. And the Cholas had an awesome fleet of warships at that time with much of sea-coast under their control. Rajendra Chola-I, one of the greatest Kings of India, expanded the Chola Empire like none before him taking it to the banks of the Ganges in North India and across the Bay of Bengal. The Chola Empire’s territories extended to coastal Burma, the Andaman & Nicobar Island, Lakshawadeep, Maldives, Sumatra, Java, Malaya, and neighbouring Sri Lanka, during his reign between 1014 and 1044 CE.

The Cholas have been one of my all-time favourites with fabulous achievements to their credit. Theirs was a great Empire, and it is distressing to learn that very little is written and known about them in India. And I hope that I have ignited a ‘kind of spark’ here.

Reeling from the aircraft disaster, Indonesia was struck again, this time by a 6.2 magnitude earthquake, on Friday morning, on the Island of Sulwesi, leaving at least 30 dead. This came just hours after an earlier, smaller tremor. Hundreds of people were injured and thousands displaced by the quake.

Disaster never comes alone? It brings along its brothers, sisters and cousins, I guess!

Uganda

Reggae singer, pop star-turned-politician Bobi Wine, aged 38, – real name, Robert Kyagulanyi – hopes to unseat long-serving Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni who has been in power of near about 35 years, since the fall of Dictator Idi Amin. And is one of the world’s most despised Dictators. Museveni is seeking a sixth term in the Elections being held on 14th January and besides Bobi Wine there are nine other challengers in the fray.

Over the last two decades Bobi Wine has written and sung songs about improving basic needs in Uganda: access to healthcare, education, clean water, and justice, which music he wishes to string into a Presidential win.

Bobi Wine’s mother was a nurse who worked to bring bread to the table, and bought land in Kampala’s Kamwokya slum where Bobi built his world-famous recording studio. This has earned Bobi Wine the title of ’Ghetto President’ with the run for the presidency.

His song, ‘Tuliyambala Engule‘ (We shall wear the Victor’s Crown) has become one of the campaign’s unofficial themes.

There has never been a peaceful handover of power in Uganda. The Government has suspended social media and internet services during the Elections. Counting is underway, and we hope to hear a new reggae music album hit the Ugandan Charts. Will it be ‘wine’ for the celebrations? Early counting results show President Museveni leading, and results may be declared in the coming days. Let the music play on. Uganda’s national bird, the grey crowned crane, looking down from this week’s doodle, will make its pick, for sure.

The United States of America (USA), again.

On 13 January, The USA executed the first woman, Lisa Montgomery, 52, in nearly 70 years, since 1953. She was the only woman on a death row and was executed by lethal injection at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Lisa Montgomery was sentenced to death in 2008 for the murder of a pregnant woman, cutting the fetus out and kidnapping it, in the year 2004. The baby survived.

The US Supreme Court denied a last-ditch effort by the Defense Attorneys who argued that she should have been given a competency hearing to prove her severe mental illness, which would have made her ineligible for the death penalty.

Jaws-II

Meanwhile, we are not done with President Donald Trump who on Wednesday was impeached a second time for instigating the horrible insurrection riots of Capitol Hill, in a culmination of a ‘I do not accept the Presidential Election Results – the Election was stolen from me’ attitude. This is the first-ever US President to be impeached twice, and that too in a single term. Now, the Senate should decide whether to throw him out of Office, which is unlikely as it requires a 2/3rds majority vote. He might live to see another Election having escaped the jaws of justice twice over?

I’m disappointed with the Republicans for failing to control this ‘Bull in an American Shop’. The ten Republicans who broke ranks and voted to impeach the President have the conscience, which others don’t.

Looking up, a lot for firsts are being added to American History. Make America great, again?

Test Cricket Down Under

Playing traditional Test Cricket with Australia, in Australia, India was horribly ‘ground under’, badly mauled in the first test, losing it with what looked like a ‘mobile number score card’ in the second innings. Then it started climbing from the down and clawed back to a superb win in the second test to level the series 1-1. Now in the third test India showed sublime steely defiance to bat out the final day and draw the match-chasing an unlikely 407 runs to win. India got to a score of 334 with five wickets down in an incredible performance, which will go down in Indian Test Cricket History as one of the best fight-backs.

There’s a deciding fourth match coming up in the Test Series and the Winner can still take it all. With Indian Captain Virat Kohli taking ‘baby leave’ (It’s a girl) filling-in Captain Ajinkya Rahane, is becoming man enough to lead the Team, milking the Australian muscle.

Vaccines, again

India is beginning to roll out one of the biggest Vaccination drives in the world with the precious Vaccines, stored cold, being dispatched to various destinations across India. The first vaccination is expected to happen on the 16th January.

I say, get that arm ready for the punch!

Data Security and Breaches

This is a topic on a high these days with people debating on which messenger service to move to after the very popular Facebook owned WhatsApp announced some fat changes in its Privacy & Data sharing Rules between its Companies, to take effect from 8 February 2021. Who reads the legal-jargon fully loaded-fine print anyway before ticking ‘I accept’? Suddenly, there was a scramble to discover other messenger Apps with leaner terms & conditions. My College Group hunted down Signal after initially tinkering with Telegram, and we are moving to new data highways.

Meanwhile, in a data breach unprecedented in its scale in India, a large multi-speciality private Hospital in Kerala had all of its patients’ records of the last five years leaked on to the internet. These were records of Medical Test Results, Scans, Prescriptions, etc., searchable by a unique patient ID.

The Government too was caught napping, when in early January this year there was a story on a technology portal about how details of COVID-19 test results of tens of thousands of patients were leaked on the internet through multiple Government of Delhi domains.

How does this happen? Most common ways are, criminal hacking, human error, malware, unauthorised use, social engineering, etc.

What do we do to prevent data breaches from happening? Some tips are: Limit access to valuable data, conduct employee security awareness training, company-wide, update software regularly, encrypt data, and develop a cyber breach. Keep updating that software on your Mobile Phones, Computers and other software driven electronic devices.

My golden rule is, engage with social media ‘fully dressed’ and undress yourself only when you are at home. Share, and ‘show things’ that you would like everyone in this world to see and don’t mind it… and keep all other things to yourself.

Please Yourself

It was a tiring day, after close-of-work I had a hot shower-allowing the steam to caress the skin and soften the body, and then decided I deserved to reward myself with a good movie. I switched on Netflix and after the mandatory flirting through a cornucopia of movie choices opened the curtain on Rajiv Menon’s inspirational 2019 Tamil movie ‘Sarvam Thaalamayam’ (rhythms everywhere) starring music director G V Prakash as the hero, Peter Johnson. G V Prakash? Oops, I had never seen him act in a movie before this. Never mind, let the film roll.

It’s a story about a famous mridangam player named Vembu Iyer – strung impeccably by the great Malayalam Film Actor, Nedumudi Venu – and his student Peter Johnson, son of a poor expert mridangam maker. Peter is a diehard fan of Actor Vijay with innate music skills, which he displays to wide acclaim on the streets, when celebrating the film openings of his hero. While delivering a mridangam to the maestro Vembu Iyer, playing on Stage, he is enthralled by the scene and decides to learn from the master himself. The movie is about finding one’s calling and relentlessly trying to achieve it after various up & downs. The heroine, Sara, is a nurse who besides the actual nursing job, including treating Peter on first contact (falling in love is a must) when he gets injured in a street brawl, nurses the talent of Peter. She encourages him to learn from the ‘beats of nature’ if he is unable to find himself a Teacher, when Vembu Iyer throws him out over a misunderstanding. The movie is about how Peter gets back to Vembu Iyer, finishes his training and comes out beating the mridangam on his own. Many memorable performances by the cast. Watch it for the motivation.

More stories, coming-up, in the weeks ahead.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-02

About: This is a beautiful story, told from my perspective, on what happened this week, in our World.

Everywhere

The New American Gangster

The United States of America (USA) is hogging the headlines, all for the wrong hurt reasons. President Donald Trump continued to unabashedly find unavailable fault lines in America’s just concluded ‘democratic’ Presidential Elections, which he lost, – speaking figuratively – by about the distance between Washington and New York. And refused to acknowledge defeat. He had the temerity to call up Georgia’s Secretary of State to find new dishes to cook up a victory for himself, and poison Biden’s food. ‘Bold abuse of power’ said the incoming Vice-President-Elect. Needs to stomach this and perhaps much more, before Inauguration Day on 20 January 2021.

Over the past four years the US has been offering the world high quality technicolour ‘cowboy – red-Indian’ entertainment, and it’s now reaching a crescendo. Actually, it did, when on Wednesday, Trump-supporting Protestors stormed Capitol Hill where Election Results were being counted, ahead of final certification, in a first-ever Capitol breach since the British attacks in the year 1814, and ransacked offices inside; also ‘occupying various chairs’. A woman was shot dead in the process. Unbelievable scenes out there. The President cooly told the invaders, “We have to have peace, so go home. We love you, you’re very special”. Christopher Columbus must have been pleased. The mayhem started after Trump told his supporters that he will be joining them in a march to the Capitol. Isn’t that fuel enough? I say fire him!

After these bizarre action scenes, Trump finally agreed to ensure a smooth transition, once Congress certified the Biden-Harris win later that day. However, he continued with his rant that the Presidential Election was stolen from him and that he will not attend the inauguration of the new President.Cheese!

Meanwhile, the blue Democrats won both run-off Elections in the State of Georgia making it a tie, and giving them control in the Senate, with the Vice-President having to lean-in to tilt the balance. The Biden-Harris team now has control of both law-making Houses and can push ‘change bills’ without a sweat on their brow.

America’s democracy is forever stained and the people who ‘rode the trail’ with the President are equally to blame for allowing him to gallop in to this crazy stage. Should have used the lasso, long ago, or truthfully borrowed one from Wonder Woman 2021 (is there one?) to rein him in.

I think this is the nearest to a coup the USA has ever seen. And we thought India’s noisy, mike-pulling and throwing democracy was lousy? We have competition, but India has never seen a challenge to its National Election results in this fashion.

There’s a joke doing the rounds on the internet, “Due to the pandemic travel restrictions, this year the US had to organise the coup at home”. Maybe, it’s time other countries offer their Peace Keeping Troops to force democratic peace in the US? I’ve admired America all my life and have never seen it go so low down. Wonder who has the stars & stripes in their eyes. We are awed & struck by the world’s awe & strike specialist. The new American Gangster?

Vaccinating India

India was running behind the USA in the COVID-19 infections and while the USA started out on another track – Vaccinations, India is yet to start. Nevertheless, India is ‘doing the heats’ with dry vaccination runs all over the Country. The confidence is visible in every step the Government takes, but where is the Vaccine? Close-friend Israel has already punched over a million arms and India is just beginning to roll up its sleeves. This Sunday, the Drugs Controller General of India approved two Vaccines for ‘emergency use’, The Oxford AstraZeneca Vaccine – already being used in the UK – will be jabbing under the name ‘Covishield’, and the homemade ‘Covaxin’.

The homespun one has stirred the proverbial hornets nest on being approved far too quickly, with unknown results of Phase-III Trials and unspoken efficacy levels.

Has India jumped the gun? I would trust the Government, the approving Authorities, and the hard-working Scientists behind the home effort… and offer my arm.

We Are The Children. The Child is the Father (& Mother) of Man.

The United Nations Children’s Fund, originally called United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), has estimated that about 371,504 babies will be born around the world on New Year’s Day, out of which a Himalayan 59,995 will be born in India. That’s a damn good start for the Government’s ‘Make in India’ programme. China comes a poor second with 35,615 babies. Finally, we have beaten China! And this is one area India is unmatched and unbeatable?

2021’s first baby will be born in Fiji and the last in the USA. UNICEF goes on to say that, in total, an estimated 140 million children will be born in 2021 with an average life expectancy of 84 years. Naturally, the UNICEF, itself born in the year 1946, has dedicated its 75th year to reimagining a better world for children. The job of the UNICEF is to work full-time in saving children’s lives around the world and ensuring that they survive, find, and develop their true potential – lurking inside their genes, to make this world a better place, and to carry forward the story of humankind. Of course.

Ever since my wife and I started our Women’s Apparel Design and manufacturing Company, we have dressed-up many women for their Wedding Day. And in the recent past, most have returned with a baby – inside or outside. I witness, first hand, ‘the swell’ in India’s population. One of our customers who has failed to make complete payment for the Wedding dresses, and used the lockdown to her advantage, suddenly sprouted up on Friday to settle. She said she now has a two-month old baby boy. My, that’s a job very well done!

Never mind, my School Teacher – I still keep in touch with her- who lives, retired in Bengaluru, India, worries to no end that none of her married children have gone into the production mode, and the wait for a grandchild seems never-ending. I hope these statistics enable her keep the faith, and bring her children to sow their seed in India’s fertile environment. New vista’s for development, around the corner!

Please Yourself. Aim for the Stars.

The New Year invariably brings us to the start of making new resolutions, to accomplish various tasks during the year, and turn the page on the old. Goal-setting is actually good, it works wonders and gives direction and meaning to an otherwise meandering life.

You need to decide where you want to go, else anything will take you anywhere!

I follow Larry Kim, the CEO of Mobile Monkey and Founder of Word Stream, on Twitter, and he dishes out some sane advice. Here is one of them – ten ways to make 2021 your best year:

Review your past years. Show your appreciation. Set Big Goals. Make a Vision Board. Plan your Calendar. Organise using an agenda. Create a reading list – reading stimulates the mind and improves focus and concentration (I’ve already ordered two books, on Amazon, to read. Nina Stibbe’s, Reasons To Be Cheerful, and Elle McNicoll’s, A Kind Of Spark). Set a morning routine. Commit to eat healthier. Monetise your passion(I’m trying with my writing).

I leave you with this thoughtful saying, by Khalil Gibran, which I keep on the opening page of my Bullet Journal, every year. It inspires me, hope it does the same magic to you.

“A traveller am I and a navigator and every day I discover a new region with my soul”

Have a great fulfilling year ahead. Work that arm, shake that leg, and crank that ‘supercomputer’, between your ears. There’s nothing you cannot do with such awesome resources at your command.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-01

About: This is a wonderful story, from my perspective, on what happened this week, in our World. This week we take five heavy steps in 2020 and two light steps in 2021. A solid start, for sure.

Everywhere

The Software Of Life: The Hard Story of Katalin Kariko

Ever wondered how we got a Vaccine for Covid-19 so quickly? This is the incredible, fascinating story of how an indefatigable, never-say-give-up biochemist provided the foundation and the springboard for making this possible.

I quote this unforgettable, powerful – my all time favourite – speech by Howard Roark, in a court, in Ayn Rand’s classic, ‘The Fountainhead’, defending his unconventional method of approach to work.

“Throughout the centuries there were men (also meaning women) who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was the first, the road new, the vision un-borrowed, and the response they received-hatred. The great creators-the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors-stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anaesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of un-borrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered, and they paid. But they won”. Let’s take the next step on this week’s road.

The announcement of the discovery of messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) – one of the fundamental building blocks of life – and cracking of the genetic code happened within weeks of each other in a climax of scientific excitement in the year 1961. We have all, by now, become awfully familiar with mRNA, haven’t we?

For more than a decade, researchers in the US and Europe had been attempting to unravel exactly how the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is involved in the creation of proteins – the long strings of amino acids, and the carrier of genetic information, that are sine quo non to the growth and functioning of all life forms. It was discovered that mRNA is the answer. These molecules act like digital tape recorders, repeatedly copying instructions from DNA in the cell nucleus, and carrying them to protein-making and synthesizing structures called ribosomes. Without this key role, DNA would be nothing but a useless string of chemicals, and so some have dubbed mRNA the ‘software of life.’ Now, onto our biochemist, the mRNA Scientist.

Katalin Kariko was born in the year 1955, in a Christian family in Szolnok, Central Hungary. She grew up in Kisujzellas on the Great Hungarian Plain where her father worked as a butcher. Fascinated by science, Kariko began her career, at age 23, at the Biological Research Centre in the University of Szeged, Hungary, where she obtained her PhD. Kariko was first exposed to the functions of mRNA as an under-graduate student in 1976, during a lecture at the University and has been intrigued ever since. Her PhD was on studying how mRNA might be used to target viruses. While the concept of gene therapy was also beginning to take off at the same time, she felt mRNA had the potential to become a game-changer in kicking-up the body’s cells to fight infections.

Communist Hungary being always hungry for resources couldn’t feed Kariko’s hunger, leave alone her appetite, for research, and in 1985 the University sacked her.

With little opportunities elsewhere, Kariko got a job at the Temple University, Philadelphia, USA and decided to immigrate. Hungarians being forbidden to take money outside the country, she sold the family car in the black market, and hid the money by sewing it up inside her two-year old daughter’s stuffed toy teddy bear.

It did not take long for the American Dream to crash-land. And after four years, Kariko was forced to leave Temple University and join the neighbouring University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), following a dispute with her boss, who even attempted to have her deported.

By the early to mid 1990s, the initial excitement surrounding mRNA was beginning to thin-out and fade. While scientists had cracked the problem of how to create their own mRNA, a new hurdle had emerged: when injected into animals it induced such a severe inflammatory response from the immune system that the animal died. Any thoughts of human trials was impossible.

However, Kariko was determined to solve this problem. But many other scientists were turning away from the field, and her bosses at UPenn felt mRNA had shown itself to be impractical, and she was wasting her time. They issued an ultimatum, if she wanted to continue working with mRNA she would lose her prestigious faculty position, and face a substantial pay cut.

Meanwhile, Kariko was diagnosed with cancer and her husband who had gone back to Hungary, to complete unfinished business, got stranded over a Visa issue.

While undergoing surgery, Kariko thought it over: decided to stay in UPenn, accept the humiliation of being demoted, and continue to doggedly pursue the problem. This led to a chance meeting with Drew Weissman, a respected immunologist, who moved to UPenn in 1977, which would both change the course of her career, and that of science.

While Kariko’s academic status at UPenn remained lowly, Weissman had the necessary funding to finance her experiments, and the two began a partnership.

Kariko and Weissman realised that the key to creating a form of mRNA which could be administered safely, was to identify which of the underlying nucleosides – the letters of RNA’s genetic code – were provoking the immune system and replace them with something else ‘more friendly’. In the early 2000s, Kariko stumbled upon a study which showed that one of these letters, Uridine, could trigger certain immune receptors. It was the crucial piece of information she had been searching for.

Every strand of mRNA is made up of four molecular building blocks called nucleosides. But in its altered, synthetic form, one of those building blocks, like a misaligned wheel on a car, was throwing everything off by signalling the immune system. So Kariko and Weissman simply substituted it with a slightly tweaked version, creating a hybrid mRNA that could sneak its way into cells without overly alerting the body’s defences.

In 2005, Kariko and Weissman published their Study, announcing a specifically modified form of mRNA, which replaced Uridine with an analog – a molecule which looked the same, but did not induce an immune response. It was a clever biological trick, and one which worked. When mice were injected with this modified mRNA, they lived. Kariko and Weissman filed a patent, established a company, but then found there was no interest shown in their work. Nobody invited them anywhere to talk about it, nothing at all.

Unknown to them, some scientists were quietly paying attention and reading the fine print of their publication. And in 2010 a Biotech company called Moderna, was founded with a group of Harvard and MIT professors, with the specific aim of using modified mRNA to create vaccines and therapeutics. A decade on, Moderna is now one of the leaders in the Covid-19 vaccine research and production, as part of America’s ‘Operation Warp Speed’ which goal is to produce and deliver 300 million doses of safe and effective vaccines with the initial doses available by January 2021. Around the same time Moderna was founded, Kariko and Weissman finally managed to commercialise their finding, licensing their technology to a small German company called BioNTech, after five years of trying and failing.

Both Moderna and BioNTech, which was founded by a Turkish born entrepreneur, had their focus on the lucrative fields of cancer immunotherapy, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Now that Kariko and Weissman’s discovery made it possible to safely administer mRNA to patients, some of the original goals for mRNA back in the 1970s, suddenly become viable possibilities, again.

In 2013, Kariko accepted an offer to become Senior Vice President at BioNTech after UPenn refused to reinstate her to the faculty position she had been demoted from in 1995. She was told, UPenn concluded that she wasn’t ‘Faculty Quality’. When she said she was leaving they laughed at her and said, ‘BioNTech doesn’t even have a website.’ Kariko has been at the helm of BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine development ever since, and the Official Vaccine co-developed with Pfizer has now been approved for use.The rest, they say, is history.

With the Covid-19 pandemic requiring vaccine development on an unprecedented scale, mRNA vaccine approaches held a clear advantage over the more traditional but time consuming method of using a dead or inactivated form of the virus to create an immune response. Basically, the mRNA tells cells what proteins to make, essential to keeping our bodies alive and heathy. The mRNA degrades quickly and the instructions it gives the body aren’t permanent, making the technology and ideal platform for a variety of applications.

After so many years of adversity, and struggling to convince people that her research was worthwhile, she is still trying to comprehend the fact that her breakthrough in mRNA technology could now change the lives of billions around the world, and help end the pandemic. She has passed on the strong-willed message to her daughter, Susan Francia, who won the gold medal in the US Rowing Team, in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics.

Katalin Kariko deserves a Noble Prize. Medicine, or Chemistry – you decide!

The World of Abortions

This Wednesday, Argentina, South America’s third-most populous, catholic-majority country, legalised abortion in an historic vote to give millions of women access to legal terminations under a new law supported by its President, Alberto Fernández.

The law will legalize abortion in all cases up to 14 weeks of pregnancy. Abortion in Argentina, is currently only permitted when a pregnancy results from rape or endangers the life or health of the woman. In all other circumstances, abortion is illegal and is punishable by up to fifteen years in jail.

According to a study report nearly 40,000 women and children in Argentina were hospitalized in 2016 as a result of unsafe, clandestine abortions or miscarriages.

Let’s do a quick flashback, when India passed a similar, important legislation in January 2020, which went largely un-noticed and un-applauded. India amended its Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act allowing women to seek abortions as part of reproductive rights and gender justice placing India in the top league of countries serving women who wish to make individual choices based on their own perspectives and situations. The new law leans forward a lot, is empathetic, and looks at a very sensitive issue with a human face.

India’s MTP Act raised the upper limit of MTP from 20 to 24 weeks for women, including rape survivors, victims of incest, differently-abled women and minors. Failure of contraception is also acknowledged, and MTP is now available to ‘any woman or her partner’ replacing the old provision for ‘only married woman or her husband.’ It proposes requirement of opinion of one Registered Medical Practitioner (RMP) for termination of pregnancy up to 20 weeks. It also provides for the requirement of opinion of two RMPs for termination of pregnancy of 20 to 24 weeks. It seeks to increase the upper limit from 20 to 24 weeks for survivors of rape, victims of incest and other vulnerable women. For unmarried women, the Bill seeks to relax the contraceptive-failure condition for ‘any woman or her partner’ from the present provision for ‘only married woman or her husband’, allowing them to medically terminate the pregnancy.

Whoa, unbelievable things happening inside us! I’ve always believed that a woman should have complete control over her body, and make informed choices depending on the predicament she is in.

The striking Indian farmers should have applauded this law, which is as path-breaking at the new Farm Laws. Sometimes, we simply do to know what is good for us until we plough, seed and watch the results swell – and occupy space!

Rajinican’t: In World Inthavaaram, 2020-49, I talked about 70 year old South-Indian Tamil superstar Rajinikanth’s decision to enter Indian Politics.

https://kumargovindan.wordpress.com/2020/12/05/world-inthavaaram-2020-49/

This time around, after many tireless flicks of the cigarette, it missed the lips. The Actor was hospitalised with irregular blood pressure during a shooting of his 168th film ‘Annaatthe’ (meaning, elder brother) and the movie crew got infected with Covid-19. This was weeks before he was to make an announcement of launch of a casteless, boundary less New Political Party on 31st December 2020 to take on the mighty parochial, chauvinist Dravidian Parties of Tamilnadu. The Doctors on discharging him from Hospital put the brakes on his ventures outside the bed and advised complete bed-rest for at least a week. In 2016 Rajini has undergone a kidney transplant and has been plagued with health issues over the years. Given the stranglehold of the pandemic, making it awfully difficult to meet people and convince them to vote for him, Rajini decided to quit politics even before he entered it, citing health issues. God sent him an email (probably a mRNA hit him in Hospital?), while lying on his Hospital Bed, and Rajini read it well.

Millions of his fans were disappointed. But, I think it’s a bold decision. Made me wonder why he was ‘still acting’ when he was planning to launch his political career in a couple of days? Appears that he wanted to finish the shooting, of the already started film, before plunging into full-time politics. It wasn’t to be. Wisdom is making intelligent choices on things you can and cannot do. Cigarette-flicking takes the pressure off the head, putting it in the hands…and it works!

The Ancient World

Every new year becomes seemingly brighter, once we unravel and learn more about new things of ancient life on Earth; the way our ancestors lived – well, actually the way they ate their food.

Archaeologists digging in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii have made the extraordinary find of a hot food and drinks snacks shop – known as a termopolium – that served up the ancient equivalent of street food to locals and passersby. The shop, with its bright frescoes and terracotta jars, was discovered in 2019 and unveiled last Saturday. It is expected to be opened to the public – for viewings only – this year. Once the travel restrictions are lifted, buy yourself a ticket to Pompeii for an ancient snack?

Pompeii, 23 km southeast of Naples, Italy, was home to about 13,000 people when it was buried in a volcanic eruption from ‘loudly thinking’ Mount Vesuvius, in 79 CE.

Traces of nearly 2,000-year-old food were found in some of the deep terra cotta jars containing hot food which the shop-keeper probably lowered into a counter with circular holes. The front of the counter was decorated with brightly coloured frescoes, some depicting animals that were part of the ingredients in the food sold, such as a colourful rooster and two ducks hanging upside down. Traces of pork, fish, snails and beef had been found in the containers, a discovery which is a ‘testimony to the great variety of animal products used to prepare dishes.’

For sure the Romans ate well!

The UN has declared 2021 as the International Year of Peace and Trust, while it’s also the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables.

Happy New Year 2021. The best is yet to come! And there’s lots to eat.