About: the world this week, 3 March 2024 to 9 March 2024: Airdropping; Abortion Rights; Kidnapping School Children; Indelible Election Ink; Possible Presidents; a Prime Minister; Gone Neutrality; Murder and Drugs; and sand Star Dunes.

Everywhere

Last week, the United States of America, probably under Home Election pressure, decided to airdrop food and other essential supplies into the Gaza. This in the backdrop of the United Nations (UN) saying that more than half a million people in the Gaza were one step away from famine. And airdropping seems to be the best choice given that delivery by trucks, on the ground ran into stampede problems or Hamas grabbing them easily. Israel acknowledged the plan, but sealed its lips. People in Gaza are eating animal feed and cactuses to survive, and children are dying in hospitals from malnutrition and dehydration. Experts say the measure is well-intentioned but unwise, and won’t solve the problem. And towards the end of the week, 5 people died, and many sustained injuries on being hit by the airdropped packages.

Meanwhile, hopes for a ceasefire ahead of the Muslim festival of Ramzan faltered. Israel demanded clear answers from Hamas on key issues as well as a list of the surviving Israeli hostages who could be released. Hamas says, “Practically, it is impossible to know who is still alive because of continuing Israeli bombing. They are in different areas with different groups. We have asked for a ceasefire to collect that data”. That’s a typical Catch-22 situation, but smirks of complete indifference to the plight of the over 130 hostages held in captivity for over 145 days, and ‘bargaining tool’.

Israel intends to push on with its offensive against Hamas, especially into the southern Gaza city of Rafah. On a completely different front, Israel announced new housing plans in the West Bank, expanding its settlements in the area, slowly dashing hopes of an independent Palestinian State.

In Nigeria gunmen kidnapped more than 200 school students in the northern town of Kuriga this Thursday, in the biggest mass abduction from a school since 2021. Kidnappings for ransom by armed men have become endemic in northern Nigeria, disrupting daily lives and preventing thousands of children from attending school. The last major reported abduction involving school children was in July 2021 when gunmen took more than 150 students in a raid. The students were re-united months later with their families after they paid ransoms.

This Monday, France approved a historic bill, with 780 for and 72 against, to enshrine Abortion Rights permanently in the country’s Constitution, becoming the first country in the world to do so. France said, “the message we are sending to all women is, your body belongs to you and no-one can decide for you”. That’s indeed a powerful and significant step in respecting a woman’s unalloyed right to her body.

India is gearing for the quinquennial Parliamentary Elections to the Lower House, Lok Sabha – Members of Parliament directly elected by the people- to be announced in the coming weeks. The General Elections are expected to be held during April-May 2024. The Party winning the majority of seats in Parliament forms the Government, with its designated Prime Minister, and has a term of 5 years to unleash its magic, if any.

When people vote at the allotted booths in their area, indelible ink is applied on the left forefinger of a person as proof that he or she has cast the vote. In case a voter has the left forefinger missing, the ink is applied to any other finger on the left hand. And there are rules, laid down by India’s Election Commission, for other conditions, including the extreme of having no hands at all. The indelible marking is also to prevent electoral fraud and double-voting.

Typically, the indelible ink stain stays on the skin for 72–96 hours, lasting 2 to 4 weeks on the fingernail and cuticle area. The ink makes a permanent mark on the cuticle area, which only disappears with the growth of the new nail. It can take up to 4 months for the stain to be replaced completely by new nail growth. Electoral ink stain typically contains a pigment for instant recognition, a silver nitrate, which stains the skin on exposure to ultraviolet light. This leaves a mark that is impossible to wash off and is only removed as external skin cells are replaced. Industry-standard electoral inks contain between 10% and 18% silver nitrate solution, depending on when the mark must be visible.

The indelible ink used in India’s elections is manufactured and supplied by only one Company, in the whole of India: Mysore Paints and Varnish Ltd. (MPVL) working out of the State of Karnataka. The indelible ink used in India was first developed by the Council of Industrial Research-National Physical Laboratories (NPL), New Delhi in 1962, and has been used ever since.

It is estimated that India would require 26.55 Lakh vials of the marker, at a cost of INR 55 crore. One vial of 10 mg can be used for 700 voters. Each vial costs INR 174. MPVL says that 70% of the production is done and the remaining will be completed by 15 March 2024.

MPVL also exports the ink to Cambodia, Fiji Islands, Sierra Leone, and a host of countries are now lining up to order, to mark their voters.

Last heard, MPVL is working on a marker pen to replace the glass vials. That seems to be an easy and practical way of marking, and wonder what is taking them so long?

This week,Nikki Haley, a former Ambassador to the United Nations, decided to end her presidential campaign. A decision that will almost certainly ensure that Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination and once again faces Democratic President Joe Biden in the November 2024 Presidential Elections. Haley called it quits after Super Tuesday as Biden and Trump swept to victory in respective statewide nominating contests across the country.

Trump is sailing into battle against Biden powered by anger over the two policy issues that have driven his comeback campaign so far: immigration, and the economy.

This week, Pakistan’s ‘elected’ Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif took oath as PM on 4th March – his second stint in Office. He assured his folks that he would not allow Pakistan to become part of some ‘great game’ and would maintain cordial relations with neighbours based on the principles of equality. India’s PM offered facilitations, and Indian folk are ‘equally’ watching what unfolds across the border.

This week Sweden dropped its decades – over 200 years – of cultivated Neutrality and joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as its 32nd member, almost two years after first applying. Of course, the war in Ukraine prompted a security re-think and behold, there they are now ‘safely’ ensconced in NATO. Swedish PM, Ulf Kristerson, handed over the final documentation to the United States Govt, the last step in a drawn-out process to secure the backing of all members to join the military alliance.

Sweden’s famous neutrality dates to as far back as 1812 when they lost territory to Russia during the Napoleonic Wars. In the year 1834, King Karl XIV declared the country’s neutrality, urging other countries particularly Russia and Britain to respect Sweden’s wish to stay out of their conflicts. They steadily kept up the neutrality during the two World Wars and the Cold War, but gradually, since 2009, entered in to mutual defence treaties with the European Union and other Nordic countries. That’s telling of our times, is it not? From neutrality to taking sides; from peace to war?

In India’s Union Territory of Puducherry, in the South, a nine-year old girl, Aarthi, a Class 5 student in the local Government School, was playing outside her house in Muthialpet, when she went missing on 2nd March. The parents, one of them a driver at the local Primary Health Centre promptly made a Police complaint, when the girl could not be traced after hours of searching. Two days later, a sack was found floating in a drain near their house. On hauling it out and opening, the Police found the girl dead, with hands and feet tied with ropes. Investigations revealed that she was kidnapped, raped and then murdered. Police were quick to nab four suspects, including three minors, and began their investigation.

When one of the accused, a 19-year old boy, Karunas, from the same area, was being interrogated when he suddenly took out a blade, that he had on him, and began cutting his arms and legs. His behaviour convinced the police that he was seriously into using drugs. He also confessed to the killing. The suspect had taken the girl to the terrace of his house and began to sexually harasses her. And was joined by a 56 year old man, Vivekanandan, who insisted that he would be the first to be upon her. And when both tried to rape her, the girl screamed. They beat her up heavily to silence her, resulting in her death. They then tied the girl’s hands and feet with ropes, put her in a sack, and dumped her into the nearby drain canal.

The horrific incident has shaken the soul of Puducherry. The Authorities promised to act on curbing the drug menace using the ‘proverbial iron hand’ and would look-in any lapses by the Police force.

This happened at a time with swirling news of multiple incidents of drug-busting by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in the neighbouring State of Tamil Nadu was occupying the headlines, over the past weeks.

More than a week ago, a joint team of the NCB and the Delhi Police busted an international drugs trafficking network and arrested three persons, all from the State of Tamil Nadu. They seized 50 kg of pseudoephedrine – a narcotics making chemical – that was being sent to Australia and New Zealand by concealing it in mixed food powder and desiccated coconut. The trail led to the mastermind, a Chennai-based Film Producer, Jaffer Sadiq, who is also a leader of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) Party which rules the State of Tamil Nadu. Since the incident, Jaffer Sadiq has gone absconding, and the DMK quickly threw him under the bus – suspended him from the party. Later, the NCB conducted searches at Jaffer Sadiq’s house in Chennai following information received from New Zealand customs authorities.

Soon many other stories of drug-busting in Tamil Nadu broke to the surface, and suddenly it became a minefield of them out there. Investigations are underway to throw light on the dark state of the now-visible drug-menace in the State.

They are among the wonders of the deserts of the world: star dunes, the vaguely pyramid-shaped sand formations up to about 300 meters tall with arms stretching out from a central peak to give them a star-like appearance when viewed from above.

This week, Scientists, unveiled the first in-depth study of a star dune, revealing the internal structure and showing how long it took for one of them to form – more quickly than expected, but still a process unfolding over many centuries.

The study focused upon a star dune in eastern Morocco called Lala Lallia, meaning ‘highest sacred point’ in the local Berber language. It is situated within the Sahara Desert in a small sand sea called Erg Chebbi about 5 km from the town of Merzouga, close to the border with Algeria.

Lala Lallia rises about 100 metres above the surrounding dunes and is approximately 700 meters wide, containing about five and a half million metric tons of sand. The researchers used ground-penetrating radar to peer inside the dune and employed luminescence dating to determine how long Lala Lallia has taken to form, a method based on the amount of energy trapped inside the grains of sand. The answer: about 900 years, accumulating roughly 6,400 metric tons annually as wind relentlessly blows sand through the desert. They also determined that Lala Lallia is moving westerly at a speed of 0.5 meters annually.

Star dunes make up just under 10% of the dunes in Earth’s deserts and are the tallest ones, surpassing other types such as crescent-shaped barchan dunes and straight and lengthy linear dunes. They also have been spotted on Mars and on Saturn’s large moon Titan. Star dunes are formed in areas with complex wind regimes, which means winds blowing from different directions, and net sand accumulation, points within the desert where big piles of sand can be blown around to form giant dunes.

While many star dunes are known today, only a single ancient one has been found preserved as sandstone in a geological record, dating to about 250 million years ago, in Scotland, United Kingdom.

Earth’s largest star dunes are found in the Badain Jaran desert in western China. Star dunes are also found in places including the Namib Sand Sea in Namibia, large sand seas in Algeria such as the Grand Erg Oriental and Grand Erg Occidental, and Rub’ al Khali in Saudi Arabia. In North America, Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado contains a series of them.

“They form extraordinary and awe-inspiring landscapes. From the ground they can be intimidating, mobile mountains of sand”, said a Scientist.

More sand stories coming-up in the weeks ahead. Stay star-struck with World Inthavaaram.