Author: Kumar Govindan

I am the first Graduate - an Engineer - in the family; the first to be employed in the Government Sector, India; the first to go overseas for work - USA; the first to throw it all and become an Entrepreneur (and fail); the first to get back to work - this time with the Tata Group, India - after 4 years of chasing 'business dreams'; and, the first to pick-up the Entrepreneur thread again. I now run a Women's Apparel design and styling Boutique - Mavira Designs - along with my wife. The objective of my Blog is to tell my story, intermingled with news stories from all corners of the World, with wit and pun - to squeeze a few laughs, perhaps a smile. I'm sure you will enjoy the reading.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-41

About: the world this week, 3 October to 9 October 2021, opening Pandora’s box, sexual transgressions in a religious establishment, violence in an Indian State, a vaccine for Malaria, the Nobel Prizes, and an Airline returns home.

Everywhere

In Greek mythology, the first woman created by the Gods was called Pandora. The Gods gave her a closed box, which they said contained special gifts, and which, they warned, was never ever to be opened – The Gods temptingly do this all the time in different stories in various religions.

’Curiosity killed the cat’ goes the age-old saying. And one bright day the ever curious Pandora decided to see what’s inside the box, after all. She opened the box, and to her dismay found every kind of evil – greed, envy, hatred, pain, disease, hunger, poverty, war, and death, etc.,- which ails mankind today, flying out into the-until then-peaceful world, sowing the seeds of constant discord and turmoil. Pandora quickly gathered her wits and just managed to slam-shut the box – you guessed it – before the only remaining ‘gift’ – Hope – could escape. That means, whatever challenges mankind faces and problems he is confronted with, hope always remains. And there is always a chance that we can make good and move ahead. There is also another message: some secrets are best kept secret. And we should keep our own Pandora’s boxes tightly shut forever! Pandora’s Box now means anything that is best left untouched, for fear of what might come out of it.

Getting rich, famous, and powerful is not easy on Earth and it is a chequered, riddled, and often secretive path. Now the secret deals and hidden assets of some of the world’s richest and most powerful people have been revealed in the biggest leak of offshore data, in history. Branded the Pandora Papers, the cache consists of about 11.9 million files (comprising 2.9 terabytes of data) from companies hired by wealthy clients to create offshore structures and trusts in tax havens such as Panama, Dubai, Monaco, Switzerland, and the Cayman Islands.

The Pandora Papers was published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) beginning on 3 October 2021. The leak exposed the secret offshore accounts of 35 world leaders, including current and former Presidents, Prime Ministers, and Heads of State as well as more than 100 billionaires, celebrities, and business leaders. They also shine a light on the dark finances of more than 300 other public officials such as government ministers, judges, mayors and military generals, in more than 90 countries.

The news organisations of the ICIJ described the document leak as their most expansive expose of financial secrecy yet in nations, surpassing their previous release of the Panama Papers in 2016, which had 11.5 million confidential documents.

Now, onto another Pandora opening.

The Roman Catholic Church has been under tremendous fire, in the recent past, over sexual abuse scandals – often involving children – rocking the worldwide establishment.

Speaking at the release of a lengthy report into sexual abuse in the French Catholic Church, this Tuesday, the head of a Panel investigating abuses by Church members, says French Catholic priests abused 216,000 victims since 1950. The number could rise to 330,000, when abuse by lay members of the Church was included. One victim called the report a turning point in France’s history.

The French inquiry was commissioned by the French Catholic Church in 2018. It spent more than two-and-a-half years combing through court, police, and church records, and speaking to victims and witnesses. It said that until the early 2000s, the Catholic Church had showed a profound and even cruel indifference towards the victims. The commission found evidence of a minimum of 2,900 to 3,200 abusers – out of a total of 115,000 priests and other clerics. Its report, which is nearly 2,500 pages long, says the vast majority of victims were pre-adolescent boys from a wide variety of social backgrounds. The Catholic Church is, after the circle of family and friends, is the environment that has the highest prevalence of sexual violence.

The report is certainly damning and the Church needs to wake up, confess and make course corrections. The Pope actually heard me: he said that this is a ‘moment of shame’ and called upon leaders of the Church to ensure that ‘similar tragedies’ never happen again.

This week, a region called Lakhimpuri Kheri stormed the headlines of India and is still running berserk.

Lakhimpur Kheri is the largest of 75 districts in the State of Uttar Pradesh (UP), India, and borders Nepal. Its capital is the city of Lakhimpur. Kheri is a town about two kilometres from Lakhimpur.

This Sunday, one of UP’s Deputy Chief Ministers, Keshav Prasad Maurya along with Union Minister of State for Home, Ajay Mishra Teni were scheduled to visit Lakhimpur Kheri District to lay foundation stones for upcoming Government Schemes in the area. The plan was to arrive by helicopter at a makeshift helipad in Tikonia and drive to the Tikonia-Banbirpur Road for the event(s).

A farmers group, which was against the implementation of the path-breaking, new Farm Laws – passed by India’s Parliament – apparently chose the occasion to register a protest against a recent statement made by Ajay Mishra Teni against farmer leaders. And to protest the Farm Laws as well.

Around 300 farmers from nearby villages gathered in Tikonia and gheraoed the helipad, holding black flags. The Deputy Chief Minister got wind of the brewing problem, changed plans and chose to reach the Tikonia-Banbirpur Road, by road, instead.

The protesters, in turn, learnt about the change and spilled themselves on to the road to keep-up their drive. This brought them into direct confrontation with a convoy of cars, which was heading to welcome the visiting dignities and participate in the event.

What followed in unclear – with the protestors and the Government shouting out their own versions- and in the senseless melee that followed eight people were left dead. Videos showed Farmers pelting stones on the convoy; a car ramming in to the people and running over a few of them; a man being mercilessly lynched; a vehicle being set ablaze. And suddenly uncontrolled violence took the drivers seat; Politicians are all over the place stirring the cauldron and making links to their own parochial agendas.

I quote Editor, Author, and Publisher Minaz Merchant, “The Lakhimpur Kheri violence unpeels what is right and wrong with our journalism. The facts remain blurred behind conflicting video images. The narrative can, therefore, be easily fixed. The first principle of journalism is getting the facts right. The second principle is speaking truth to power.” None of these principles appear to have adhered to.

An investigation has been ordered into the sequence of events and it’s better we wait until they uncover the facts of the gory incident.

Protesting is a right in a democracy of our kind, but violence in any form is simply unacceptable – including protesting in other than peaceful ways, throwing stones, and running over people.

Meanwhile, there is an alarming increase in another kind of violence in the Indian State of Kashmir – the targeted killing of Hindus and Sikhs by jihadi terrorists from across the border. Seven civilians were murdered in cold blood this week: on Tuesday, a Kashmiri Pandit businessman was shot dead in his pharmacy while a street food vendor and the president of a taxi stand were also gunned down. Then terrorists stormed into a government school in Srinagar and shot dead the Principal and a teacher who were from the Sikh and Hindu communities.

We all, especially Politicians and Journalists, need to be more outraged and vocal in such targeted killings. Kashmir must heal and return to normalcy.

Heal we must from disease too. Malaria, the mosquito-borne disease, has been around for millions of years. It is one of the world’s oldest and deadliest: up to 30 million years old! It kills over 400,000 people each year, and can seriously weaken the immune systems of those who survive it. Nearly 95% of malaria deaths happen in Africa – mainly among children under five years. Mosquitoes thrive in sub-Saharan Africa in part because of its mosquito-friendly tropical climate. And the region’s been waiting for a miracle.

There is no vaccine for Malaria, but well into the COVID-19 regime when Vaccine is a word we have learnt by heart and thanks to Pandora’s hope we might finally have a Vaccine for malaria – the miracle is here!

In a historic move, the World Health Organization (WHO) backed the world’s first malaria vaccine for children. After decades of research, the vaccine named Mosquirix got the green light for distribution in Africa and other high-risk regions. Also called RTS,S, the vaccine has been more than 30 years in the making. Created by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline in 1987, it was subsequently developed and tested with support and funding from PATH, (formerly known as the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health), a Seattle-based global health group, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Whatever, the WHO still suggests using things like medications and insecticide-treated bed nets and other preventive measures we have been using all along to keep those pesky, buzzing insects away from our skin.

In recent years, lack of funding and political support have snagged malaria eradication efforts around the world. And while there are still some unknowns with Mosquirix, the world’s celebrating a scientific breakthrough that could save millions of lives.

The Nobel Prizes for 2021 are being rolled out and the winners announced this week by Swiss based, The Nobel Foundation.

Ardem Patapoutian and David Julius won the Nobel for Physiology or Medicine ‘for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch’; Benjamin List and David MacMillan received the Nobel for Chemistry ‘for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis’ – a tool for molecule building.

The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded ‘for groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of complex systems’: to Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann ‘for the physical modelling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability, and reliably predicting global warming’, and to Giorgio Parisi, ‘for discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scale’.

Maria Tessa and Dmitry Muratov won the Nobel Peace Prize ‘for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace’.

The Nobel for Literature was awarded to Abdulrazak Gurnah, ‘for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents’

Abdulrazak is a Zanzibar born Tanzanian novelist living in the United Kingdom. He began writing as a 21 year old English exile and even though Swahili was his first language, English became his means of expression. He is the author of ten novels and several short stories and essays with the theme of refugee disruption running through most of his work. Some of which are, Memory of Departure, 1987, By the Sea 2001, Gravel Heart, 2017, and Afterlives, 2020.

Only the Nobel for Economics – not on the original Nobel list – and called The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences has not been awarded as yet. The winner is expected to be announced in the upcoming week. I reckon they are still working out the equations?

Many are not very impressed by the Awards. Said one, “In terms of the gap between the world’s population and the winners – the biggest gap is a gender one. The number of female prize winners is really, really tiny.”

Should we look at everything through a male or female tinted magnifying glass? May the best person win – based on the exacting selection standards of the Nobel Foundation, on outstanding excellence achieved by humankind to improve life on Earth.

The Tata Group is one of India’s largest and most respected privately run salt-to-software business conglomerate. I would call them the original pioneers of Make-In-India. The Tatas also started India’s first Airline, Tata Airlines, before it was nationalised and became Air India. It was once the world’s best Airline, under the Tatas.

Now, after 70 years Air India flew back to the hanger of the Tatas – becoming the winning bidder for the debt-laden state-run airline. This comes on the wings of the Government’s strategy of not being in the business of business. Way to go!

More, once boxed-up stories are flying out with World Inthavaaram. Stay with hope! Fly with Tata.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-40

About: the world this week, 26 September to 2 October 2021, discovery of new ancient human footprints, solving a murder in London, no drivers no fuel, a King of R&B music is found guilty, and a secret service agent just cannot find time to die.

Everywhere

The more foot steps mankind takes, trying to move ahead, the more he finds his lost footprints, left behind – fossilised too- on the sands of time. And discovers more leg on how he evolved to getting his feet of the day.

North America and South America are said to be about the last continents that were inhabited by humans, but exactly when is unclear. The commonly held view is that people arrived in North America from Asia through Beringia, a land bridge that once connected the two continents around 13,000 to 16,000 years ago. But many recent discoveries have suggested humans might have been in North America earlier than previously thought.

Researchers studying fossilised human footprints in the Tularosa Basin, White Sands National Park, New Mexico, US, say that they have the first unequivocal evidence that humans lived in North America at least 23,000 years ago. They were able to accurately date sixty-one footprints by radiocarbon dating layers of aquatic plant seeds that had been preserved above and below the prints. The footprints were most likely made on soft ground, at the edge of a wetland. Wind probably blew dust over the surface, silting in the prints. The hunter-gatherer man of ancient times would have done about 10,000 steps a day, meaning at least a few footprints would survive in the fossil record.

The analysis of the the footprints reveal they were could have been made by teenagers and children between 9 and 14 years old: a pattern that’s seen at other fossilised footprint sites. Tracks of mammoths, giant sloths, wolves, and birds are also present at the site. One hypothesis for the presence of ‘teenage prints’ is division of labor, in which adults are involved in skilled tasks whereas fetching and carrying was delegated to teenagers, who literally ran around. Children generally accompany the teenagers, and collectively they leave a higher number of footprints.

Times have changed, and we now leave footprints on the internet. And before it becomes fossilised, Google just licks it up and takes it to the clouds!

Brexit effects spilling out? Over the weekend thousands of fuel stations in the United Kingdom (UK) closed down amid fears of a nationwide shortage, putting up, ‘sorry out of use’, sign boards. There are many reasons and one of them is, when the UK said goodbye to the European Union, Long-Haul Truck Drivers in turn decided to exit the UK. And adding the COVID-19 pandemic situation, an ageing workforce, and delays in licensing of new drivers, the UK was left with a shortage of about 100,000 drivers. Now the fuel is not reaching the stations and the UK is reaching out to overseas truck drivers with promises of providing temporary visas, to drive them out of the crisis. Some say the writing was always on the wall and the present situation has only highlighted an existing fact – sorry, the footprints were discovered awfully late!

In World Inthavaaram 2021-12 https://kumargovindan.wordpress.com/2021/03/20/world-inthavaaram-2021-12/

I talked about the murder of Sarah Everard, a Marketing Executive, in London, and made a case for a return of the Sherlock Holmes detective kind. Looks like he wasn’t needed, after all.

Everard disappeared on 3 March as she walked home after visiting a friend. She was reported missing by her partner the next day when she failed to meet him as arranged. Her body was recovered seven days later from a woodland near Ashford in Kent, London, UK.

Police solved the case with the arrest of Wayne Couzens, a serving Metropolitan Police officer at the time of the murder. He pleaded guilty to the kidnap, rape and murder of Everard. The sentencing is awaited.

Wayne Couzens used police equipment, including his warrant card and training about COVID-19 rules, to deceive Sarah Everard into getting into a car with him before he raped and murdered her. He had also handcuffed her during the arrest. He then burned the body and moved it to green bags that he had specifically purchased for the purpose.

The Met Police said: “We are sickened, angered and devastated by this man’s crimes, which betray everything we stand for”. Scotland Yard said people stopped by a lone plainclothes officer should challenge their legitimacy and could try ‘waving a bus down’ to escape a person they believe is pretending to be police. But then, its extraordinary to wave down a bus at the sight of a policeman or call 999 to check whether a policeman is indeed a policeman. And rather, is it not time to curb the powers of the police?

What made a seemingly responsible man do this? On the surface, Wayne Couzens was a dedicated police officer and a devoted family man who was never happier than when playing with his children or tinkering with his motorcycle. But underneath the veneer of respectability was a sexual deviant who, fuelled by extreme pornography, was driven to depraved actions to fire his weird desires – a dark behaviour he hid very well from his colleagues. Despite being an armed officer tasked with protecting politicians, dignitaries and VIPs, Couzens admitted regularly using prostitutes and was also suspected of taking dangerous body-building steroids. What about the Met Police’s vetting and monitoring procedures that failed to spot his descent into crime? To begin with, the Police ought to be policed from within – crime detection begins at home.

American Singer and Songwriter R Kelly (Robert Sylvester Kelly), aged 54, is credited with redefining Rhythm & Blues (R&B), and Hip-Hop Music, and in the process earned nicknames such as the King of R&B, The King of Pop-Soul, etc. He is know for songs such as, ‘I Believe I Can Fly – which won a Grammy Award in 1998, ‘Bump N’ Grind’, Ignition Remix, and ‘Gotham City’. He had a Grammy nomination for writing Michael Jackson’s song, ‘You Are Not Alone’.

Now coming to real life music, it’s been almost ’30 years of drumming’ since allegations of sexual harassment were made on R Kelly, and finally, this week a US Court found him guilty of charges levelled against him. The sentencing is scheduled for May 2022 and he faces up to 20 years in prison.

Kelly has been accused of sexual abuse, manipulations, and inappropriate relationships, sex trafficking, racketeering – including kidnapping & bribery. Previously, he escaped the long arm of the law and was acquitted of child pornography charges in 2008.

This is the highest-profile case of the Me Too era. Prosecutors called him one of the worst and dangerous sexual predators, who used fame and superstar status to groom and exploit women and girls, over decades.

Please Yourself

There is definitely, ‘No Time To Die’, with the latest – the 25th, over 60 years – James Bond movie finally premiering this 28th September at the Royal Albert Hall, London. And this is the last, which will be having Daniel Craig playing British Secret Service Agent 007… Bond… James Bond. The release was postponed at least three times from its originally planned April 2020 as the coronavirus outbreak forced cinemas around the world to close.

‘No Time to Die’ is Daniel Craig’s fifth Bond movie after first stirring & shaking it up with ‘Casino Royale’, finding tons of solace in ‘Quantum of Solace’, falling and rising again in ‘Skyfall’, and holding-on in ‘Spectre’.

‘No Time To Die’ opens with a haunting piano motif, with Singer Billie Eilish’s voice weary as she sings, “I should have known I’d leave alone”. A familiar tremolo guitar ushers in the chorus, where the singer builds-up her theme: “I’ve fallen for a lie… Are you death or paradise? Now you’ll never see me cry,” she concludes in a crescendo, “There’s just no time to die.”

Billie Eilish, at 18 years, is the youngest singer to record the theme song for a James Bond Film. It is a dramatic, unsettling ballad that hints the plot will centre around Bond’s betrayal. The lyrics of the song refer to lies and deceit, as Eilish sings, “You were never on my side”.

The theme song is considered as one of the best in a long time. The flourish of violins, electronic guitar, and faint brass all pay tribute to the classic Bond signature tune, but Eilish’s subtle synth motif makes this song her own. After winning the Grammy this year, for ‘Everything I Wanted’, I reckon this is more than Billie Eilish ever wanted.

After the world premiere the movie’s theatrical release happened on 30 September 2021 in the United Kingdom and will be 8 October 2021 in the United States,

’No Time To Die’ is a traditional Bond Film. Watch it for the Bond Pleasure.

More investigative action-packed stories, which leave footprints, coming up in the weeks ahead. Walk with World Inthavaaram.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-39

About: the world this week, 19 September to 25 September 2021, doing your own research, Canada Elections, moving about in disguise, population competition, Space Tourists returning home, and The Emmys.

Everywhere

With the COVID-19 pandemic appearing to slightly dim, it’s lights-on for the anti-vaccination mob who live by the now famous credo, ’I’ll Do My Own Research’ to convince themselves and those willing to lend an ear – on not getting vaccinated. If everyone was to do his own research I wonder how one would find common ground and stay on the same page on matters concerning deadly infectious diseases, which require a huge coordinated effort to contain. Often one’s work is the starting point for another: we ride on the shoulders of research done long before we came on the scene. Should each one of us independently find out why the apple fell on Newton’s head when the great Scientist had already ‘caught the apple’ and discovered gravity? And confirmed by many other Experts!

Doing your own research may lead you astray with the Google algorithm designed to help you find and confirm the negatives that you are looking for. And you ending up swallowing tons of fake information, which you are no expert to digest – and then throw up!

What do we do on decisions such as to get vaccinated or not? Just follow the Experts. Don’t do your own research and expect to find anything different from what the Experts did. And don’t trust anyone who tells you to do your own research: they’re out to bamboozle you. We need to respect learning and hard-earned knowledge, don’t we?

We have vaccines against measles, mumps, pertussis, diphtheria, tetanus, polio, and others, which is mandated by most countries to take. Anti-vaxxers should realise that it is actually a good thing to get vaccinated. Kindergarten should change a person!

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau drunk on his government’s excellent performance during the pandemic gambled on a snap election hoping to win a majority in Parliament. Won he did, but fell-short of the hoped-for-majority. His Liberal Party won 158 seats to the Opposition Conservative’s 119 and the target of 170 suddenly looked higher than it did before the Elections. Well, the snap decision snapped; it backfired.

In medieval times it was not uncommon for Kings and Queens to wander about their Kingdom, in disguise, to see for themselves how ordinary folks are going about the business of their lives and to sense the mood- doing their own royal research, in a way? India’s newly-minted Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya went back in time to do exactly that, when he made a surprise visit to New Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital, in disguise, as a general patient. During the visit, a security guard chided him and hit him for trying to sit on a bench. He found a 75 years old woman pleading with the guards to get a stretcher for her son, as she couldn’t find one. And not one of the 1500 security guards was willing to help. How do you find a vaccine for this behaviour? Mandaviya gave up his disguise and talked to the Prime Minister about the incident and what he had uncovered, and instead of adopting a Rambo style suspension of the guard, Mandaviya decided to try improve the system and not just one person. That sure is a healthy outlook on affairs in the Kingdom.

While China and India are on a different league when it comes to population – occupying the top two positions – good old United States of America is being challenged by Nigeria, for the third position. And according to a United Nations report, Nigeria is expected to surpass the US and become the third-most populous country in the world by 2050. Planet Earth is not enough, let’s try space?

The SpaceX Tourist Mission including (other than the lift-off to the edge of Space, and landing) three days of orbiting around the Earth, and enjoying the sights, ended successfully on the 19th September, with the return of the crew of four safely to Earth. The Capsule named as Resilience, harbouring them made an automatic re-entry and then parachuted into calm seas off the coast of Florida. It was a sight to behold with four speed-breaking parachutes – first two and then another two opening up-holding Resilience to carefully touch down onto the calm waters. And after a ‘hold dip’ the Capsule buoyed and floated before being suspiciously watched, inspected – it had a visibly scorched exterior – escorted, and rigged by the recovery crew, after which it was lifted onto a Recovery Vessel. The weather was extremely friendly and gave space to the Space-returnees to enjoy the moment.

Within an hour, the four smiling crew members were seen emerging one by one from the capsule’s side hatch. Each stood on the deck for a few moments in front of the capsule to wave and a give thumbs-up before being escorted to a medical station on board for checkups at sea. Afterwards they were flown by helicopter back to Cape Canaveral for reunion with their families.

Please Yourself

What the Oscar Awards are for the Movies, and the Grammys for Music, The Emmy Awards are for Television – recognising the best that Television has produced. And what we watched – often binged – with delight in our Homes.

The Emmy Awards officially called the Primetime Emmy Awards are awards bestowed by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS) in recognition of excellence in American primetime television programming.

The 73rd edition of the Emmys was held this week at the Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles, USA. Cedric the Entertainer, actor, and standup comedian who has been a sitcom staple from ‘The Steve Harvey Show’ to ‘The Neighbourhood’, hosted the show.

Apple TV’s, ’Ted Lasso’ – a superb American football comedy, which you can enjoy without knowing anything about football- came into the night with the most nominations of 13 and could lasso only four heads. Netflix’s, ‘The Crown’ – about the story of the British Royal Family- received 11 nominations and ended up with the biggest haul of seven crowns.

Kate Winslet, who we know as the famous ‘Rose’ of Titanic-the movie – rose cleverly to win Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series, Anthology Series or Movie, for the ‘Mare of Easttown,’ a HBO production on crime detection. Maybe we should put her on the job of finding out if it indeed was an iceberg that tippled the Titanic. Netflix’s chess based classic drama, ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ check-mated the award for the Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series. ‘Last Week Tonight with John Oliver’ won the Outstanding Variety Talk Series, this week; ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ won the Outstanding Competition Program, without dragging further. ‘Saturday Night Live’ won the Outstanding Variety Sketch Series, and lived another night. I’ve mentioned the key winners to aid your navigation on Television and decide what to watch.

The over three-hour telecast squeezed in twenty-eight live awards, including one notable stretch to present the lifetime Governor’s Award to Debbie Allen, a consummate multi-skilled – dancer, choreographer, actor, director, producer, and singer – whose career spans such pop culture staples as ‘Fame’, ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, and ‘The Cosby Show’. The 71 years old Allen said, “It’s taken a lot of courage to be the only woman in the room a lot of times”.

More courageous stories to sing, dance, sit or stand, and watch in the coming weeks. Stay with World Inthavaaram.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-38

About: the world this week, 12 September to 18 September 2021, edging spacing, shape-shift evolution, US Open opens up to teenagers, India breaks vaccination records, and fashion blasts in New York.

Everywhere

Space

Flying to the edge of space is fast becoming a tourism habit. Virgin Group Boss, Richard Branson, started it and was quickly followed by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. They rushed to the edge touched it and returned home within the space of a few hours. And on returning, Jeff Bezos even pulled out a Texan hat, grabbed a horse and raced away to the edge of the desert.

Now, Elon Musk’s SpaceX was galvanised to do something better, and this Wednesday a SpaceX rocket lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre, Cape Canaveral, Florida, in a first ever mission to the Earth’s Orbit, crewed entirely by four Tourists, none of who are professional astronauts. They include a 38 years old billionaire who self-funded the mission, a 29 years old childhood cancer survivor, a 51 years old geologist and community college teacher, and a 42 years old Lockheed Martin employee-who got a ticket through an online raffle.

The Tourists will spend the entire mission aboard the special Capsule that detached from the Falcon-9 launch rocket after reaching orbital speed and successfully manoeuvred into its designated orbit. They will remain in orbit for three days strapped to their seats in the Capsule, before returning to Earth in a splashdown ending, off the coast of Florida, this Saturday. The Capsule will circle around Earth once every 90 minutes travelling at more than 17,500 miles per hour during which time the passengers experience weightlessness and will be enthralled by panoramic views of the Earth. The crew will share a special zero-gravity-friendly toilet located near the top of the Capsule and sleep in their reclining seats. They will come back with lots of stories to tell.

While other tourist spots across the world struggle to get people over to soak in their sights, the Space Tourist spot is above them all.

Shape-Shift

We have tirelessly and endlessly talked about climate change: hurricanes, landslides, incessant rain and flash floods, melting icebergs, wildfires, heat waves, and the kind, which swept through and flooded the media in recent times. While mankind knowingly or unknowingly made disastrous changes-causing climate change- in the name of development and advancement of civilisation, other animals are quietly adapting: making internal adjustments, actually shaping up to things to come. Shape-Shift!

Animals have sensed the change, in their own mysterious ways, and are growing larger wings, beaks, or legs, or ears, as Planet Earth grows warmer and races towards becoming blazing hot. Looks like increasing their appendages is a cool way to cool off. For e.g., an Australian parrot species saw its beak size increase to between 4% and 10%, on average, since 1871.

Within a species, animals in warmer climates are growing larger appendages, such as wings and beaks, with the greater surface area enabling better body temperature control and regulation. At the same time, body sizes are tending to shrink, since smaller bodies hold on to lesser heat. I reckon they can teach us Mass and Heat Balance.

Now, will mankind in turn, grow longer noses, larger ears, or even tails and wings, to balance the climate change effects? We need to closely watch these spaces (and our ‘backs’ for any signs of tail growth).

Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden warned of a Code Red moment on climate change during a tour of parts of the USA affected by extreme weather in recent times: New York, New Jersey, and Louisiana that were devastated by Hurricane Ida, to California which is dealing with raging wildfires.

India

This Friday was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 71st Birthday and India gave him a stupendous birthday present of having achieved over 25 million vaccination jabs in a single day – a world record – and reaching a total of over 791 million COVID-19 inoculation shots till date. That’s more than the combined population of 78 countries, in just one day, Wow! The Prime Minister said he was humbled beyond measure…and his hair keeps growing. Happy Birthday to a very hard working Prime Minister. I wish he had a birthday haircut! Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder!

US Open Tennis

Last Saturday, eighteen years old Emma Raducanu, of Britain, won her first-ever Grand Slam US Open Tennis Title beating nineteen years old Leylah Fernandez, of Canada, without dropping a single set in the entire tournament. And in the process served many aces to set new world records. She won in straight sets of 6-4, 6-3, with some amazing, unbelievable shots, fearlessly dominating from inside the baseline. And sealed the match with a serve ace!

Emma, ranked 150 in the World, started the Tournament as a Qualifier and ended up receiving the trophy from the hands of Tennis Legend Billie Jean King. Another British tennis great, Virginia Wade, looking as beautiful as she was in her playing days, watched and cheered from the stands.

Let me take a quick detour to the phenomenal Virginia Wade who won the Women’s Singles, US Open in 1968, the Australian Open in 1972, and the Wimbledon in 1977 – in Wimbledon’s 100th Anniversary year. She was the No.1 British Player for over a decade, in her time. She had also won four Grand Slam Tennis Doubles Championships. She retired from Tennis in 1986 and has worked as a commentator on BBC and various news networks in the USA. The now 76 years old Virginia Wade has ‘remained single’ throughout her life keeping her personal life absolutely personal and secret. And has never been seriously linked or seen with another person in her entire career. That’s a singular achievement.

Back to Emma, some of the history making and records breaking stunts Emma Raducanu achieved goes likes this: First Qualifier in the open era to win a Grand Slam; First British female winner in the US Open since Virginia Wade waded to the podium in 1968; youngest women’s Grand Slam winner since Maria Sharapova’s Wimbledon win in 2002; youngest Briton to win a Grand Slam Title; First woman to win the US Open without dropping a set since Serena Williams did it 2014… The young are bouncing back with a vengeance and the old are still trying to serve with resilience.

Serbian Novak Djokovic, 34, the No. 1-ranked men’s player in the world was on the verge of making history to break a tie with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, who also have 20 major titles, for the most in men’s tennis history. And also the first man to win all four majors: the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open, in the same year. But, Russian Daniil Medvedev, 25, spoiled Djokovic’s party by defeating him in straight sets, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4, to win his first Grand Slam US Open Title. That’s as straight as it can be!

Recall that Medvedev went through two Grand Slam final defeats before this win, and somehow it seemed that this was his to take. Failure strengthens the arms and legs, and pain needs a winning outlet. Medvedev received the trophy from another Tennis great, Stan Smith (I remember Stan Smith’s Tennis Classes during ‘my’ playing days).

Please Yourself

The Met Gala

This week we saw celebrities of the world carefully strutting about in the weirdest and wildest possible, eye-catching costumes at the Met Gala Event in New York City, USA. And expanded the dimensions of Planet Earth, with imagination running riot. Well, what’s the Met Gala about?

The Met Gala, formally called the Costume Institute Gala is an annual fundraising event for the benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s, Costume Institute, in New York City. The event raises money for the Institute – one of the biggest fundraising nights of its kind in the City- which is the only one of the Met’s curatorial departments that has to fund itself. It also marks the opening of the Institute’s annual fashion exhibit.

Each year’s event celebrates the theme of that year’s Costume Institute Exhibition, which in turn sets the tone for the formal dress of the night. Guests are expected to choose their fashion to match the theme of the exhibit. This year’s theme was, ‘explore American Independence’.

Let’s get underneath the Gala story:

The Met Gala was established in 1948 by fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert, and the first Gala started as a midnight dinner with entry tickets. Based upon the legacy left by former Vogue editor-in-chief Diana Vreeland, who was a special consultant to the Costume Institute, since 1973 the Met Gala has become well known as a luxurious, blockbuster event, ‘the jewel in New York City’s social crown’ and regarded among the most prominent and most exclusive social events in the world. Attendance is by invitation only. From 1948 to 1971, the event was held at venues including the Waldorf-Astoria, Central Park, and the Rainbow Room, and includes a cocktail hour and a formal dinner.

The Met Gala is also fashion industry’s equivalent of the Oscars, and brings fashion designers, supermodels, and Hollywood stars together to show-off the best of their bodies, awe-inspiring ideas, and the clothes adorning them.

I saw the true colours of our origins, identifying ourselves with the animal and plant kingdom in which we are the intelligent rulers, with colourful brains. We also reached out to a possible upcoming world of machines.

I saw a fully head-to-toe covering black outfit, which would put a bat to shame and give the Taliban a run for their guns; a feathered bird dress, which dare not fly; a horse, racing on a chest with its tail in hand; flowers creeping all over the body, one even had a white-yellow flower springing-up from a milky breast; iron-clad body armour; and even the back of ‘Tax the Rich’ – bright red on white, among other stunning costumes. And nearly all were worn by cats walking down the ramp. If some wore the barest minimum, others made up in kind, with miles of clothing. And it was a dazzling melange of colours in a potpourri of fashion.

I saw through Kendall Jenner’s sheer gown, embellished with glittering rhinestones inspired by Actress Audrey Hepburn’s, My Fair Lady, Givenchy dress. Her sister Kim Kardashian was the one who arrive in the all-black, making the Taliban heads turn. I liked co-host, singer and songwriter Bille Eilish’s peach gown, sweeping the carpets. Other celebrities who were decked-up to captivate the audience are supermodel Gigi Hadid, Actress Jennifer Lopez, Singer Alicia Keys, Singer Rihanna… I disliked singer Olivia Rodrigo’s skin-tight lace dress. And thought brand new US Open Winner, Emma Raducanu did justice to Tennis in her printed monochrome Chanel outfit with a pearl belt detail at the waist.

We held all of this in our minds? I’m sure the animals and plants that have been left out would demand representation.

More fashionable stories to sing in the coming weeks. Stay dressed with World Inthavaaram.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-37

About: the world this week, 5 September to 11 September 2021, musings on mankind, abortion, the Kingdom of eSwatini, a Bishop in Spain, Tennis and Football, and a brand new Superhero movie.

Everywhere

Mankind has grown beyond the wildest imagination of our cave-dwelling, hunter-gatherer, stone-tool forefathers. And we are growing our known Universe every single day: we sight a new Star, a new Galaxy, a new Black Hole; spy a fiery Meteor, stare at a beautiful shooting star; find a new Sun-spot…the list goes on. Then we send out space-ships to get as close as possible, tickle them, even land and dig on them – ingeniously fly above too, testing space.

On dear Planet Earth, we discover a new kind of frog in the thick plant and leafy forest undergrowth, or a new species of fish, or my favourite sharks, in the depths of the mighty oceans. All this is made possible by stupendous, never-before in-existence technology, invented by the ever hard-working, relentlessly exploring man. On the way, we designed and manufactured ferocious weapons that can wipe out all of us – without a trace- from the face of the Earth, within seconds. We also created computers and networking – sewing the world together – and suddenly, knowledge is strewn all over the place; you just need to pick it up and use it to make your own thing.

Then it hits you like a sledgehammer: a narrow-minded, cave-thinking force, with their beards, menacing weapons, and disrespect for the woman of mankind emerge from the darkest corners of Earth and occupy centre stage in a country. Do they realise that their mothers are women? And there is a fear of that Country returning to antediluvian times. Have we come full circle? Should we?

This week, such a force, called the Taliban, which had with unbelievable ease gained control of the country of Afghanistan, lazily announced the formation of an Interim Government. It was bulleted with the Who’s-Who on the ‘Wanted List’ of the United Nations and many Countries. Where does Afghanistan go from here?

Unconfirmed reports fire-in that the Panjshir Valley, the last region holding-out, which is not under Taliban rule in Afghanistan and which has steadfastly remained out of any occupying force during its entire history has also been defeated and taken. But there is still signs of a resistance hanging out there.

There is nothing but hope to hold on to. Meanwhile, the rest of the world may start growing a beard and cover itself up!

Eswatini: A Last Kingdom

Eswatini is a tiny, land-locked country in Africa bordered by South Africa and Mozambique with a population of about 1.2 million ‘swazis’. It is officially known as the Kingdom of Eswatini – Kingdom of eSwatini- and was formerly known as Swaziland: the name change happened in 2018. It is the last standing, absolute monarchy in Africa. The country gained its independence from Great Britain in 1968 and is celebrating 53 years of Independence. Well, actually it is not.

Over the past months people are spilling on to the streets, protesting the strangulating monarchy, the brutality of Police and Military action, and clamouring for democracy and a better life, with over 60% of the population living in abject poverty. There are certain parts of the country, which even in this year 2021, do no know what electricity is or what it means to have clean drinking water.

Eswatini is ruled by the ‘superhuman’ King Mswati III, since 1986. He lives an obnoxiously extravagant lifestyle and has over 30 children from a ‘bevy of wives’ (at least 15, on the last count). He owns expansive mansions, a flat of expensive vehicles, and a top-of-the-line personal jet. While the poor people struggle for a livelihood, the King is hoping to surpass his father, King Sobhuza II, who had accumulated 70 wives and over 200 children, in the wife development department. Age is on his side and being in the fifties he may well get past his father. The famous annual reed dance festival of Eswatini helps him find suitable women to add to his collection. And it goes on…

With his talent for adding wives and planting seed, the King should be able to find the means and resources to improve the lot of his people and multiply their incomes. And crown himself with true people’s glory. Or, maybe Kings & Queens are an old-fashion item that need to be thrown out? Over to Eswatini. They decide.

Abortions

Early this month, the State of Texas, United States, brought-in a new law banning abortions once a foetal heartbeat is detected, which is as early as six weeks. Many women don’t even know that they are pregnant around this time. Further, there are no exceptions for cases of rape or incest. Means, you have to carry on with having the baby. The Texas Law is one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the US. And Texas is also doing things differently. It’s giving private citizens the power to enforce the abortion ban. i.e., people can sue abortion providers, friends, and family members who they believe violated the law or helped someone get an abortion. And they can get a prize of at least USD 10,000, if they are successful.

India is, by far, more progressive that the US, on abortion. Recall the recently amended Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act of 1971, which allows women to seek abortions as part of reproductive rights and gender justice. The upper limit of MTP is twenty-four weeks for women including rape survivors, victims of incest, differently-abled women and minors. Failure of contraception is also acknowledged, and MTP is available to ‘any woman or her partner’. The Indian law is definitely empathetic and sensitive, rightfully allowing women to be in control of what happens in their bodies.

Continuing with the pregnancy theme, this week, Mexico’s Supreme Court has ruled that criminal penalties for terminating pregnancies are unconstitutional. The decision to decriminalise abortion in Latin America’s second largest catholic nation brought hopes that throughout Mexico women with the ability to carry a child have the conditions and freedom to determine their reproductive destiny.

The US takes many steps forward and least a few steps backward every once in a while. It can take ‘baby steps’ and learn from India, and Mexico. Some hand-holding is required!

A Spanish Bishop: Falling in Love

Xavier Novell became Spain’s youngest Bishop in the year 2010, at the age of 41, in Solsona, North-Eastern Catalonia. He was a strident critic of homosexuality, advocated gay conversions, and carried out exorcisms; holding on to traditional values of abortion; and being an outspoken supporter of Catalonian Independence. Despite being a a rising star in the Spain’s Catholic Church, last month he gave it all up and secured the Vatican’s approval to resign as a Bishop, citing ‘personal reasons’ – most of us have used this ‘pregnant-with-meaning’ phrase so often in our lives, haven’t we?

Turns out that he had fallen in love with a divorcee, who is a psychologist and novelist, writing Satanic-tinged erotic fiction. In his youth Xavier Novell had fallen in love with a 18 year old girl and wanted to marry her and raise a family, before deciding on the path of God, culminating in his becoming a Bishop.

Wow, what a way to fall – in love!

Paralympic Games, Tokyo: The End

The Paralympic Games came to an end on Sunday and India finished with a fabulous haul of 19 medals – the highest in its History. More sportspersons added glory than ever before.

In total, India bagged 13 medals (Gold-5, Silver-8, Bronze -6) and was placed 24th with China, Great Britain, and the United States topping the tables on most medals won – in that order.

I hope such medal winning unleashes the sporting spirit in India and every State competes with each another, to send the best Athletes to all forms of the Olympic Games.

Tennis and Football

The US Open is nearing the stage of the final matches and I talked about Emma Raducanu in World Inthavaaram 2021-28

https://kumargovindan.wordpress.com/2021/07/10/world-inthavaaram-2021-28/

Keep that in mind and read on.

Two teenage women who were not too well known to anyone before this US Open will play for the singles championship on Saturday in what is probably the most improbable matchup for a Grand Slam Final since the modern era of tennis began more than fifty years ago. Emma Raducanu, 18 years old, of Britain and Leylah Fernandez, 19 years old, of Canada are the two teenage sensations who knocked off seasoned professionals in the world rankings to get to this stage. May the best ‘born in Canada’ teenager win.

In Football this week, Lionel Messi scored a hat-trick to give Argentina a 3-0 win over Bolivia in a World Cup 2022 qualifier, lifting him above all-time great Pele as South America’s top international scorer with 79 goals. It was Messi’s seventh hat-trick for Argentina.

I am already looking forward to the FIFA Football World Cup 2022 to be played in Qatar between 21 November 2022 and 18 December 2022.

Please Yourself

There are two famous Comic Book Entertainment Companies based in the United Sates, that have, between them, invented all the Superheroes we know – to wow us. DC (Detective Comics) which first created the magic of Mandrake the Magician and then brought to Earth, Superman, flew Batman, ringed Wonder Women…among others; while Marvel Comics spinned Spider-Man (the all-time best superhero revenue earner), forged Iron Man, led Captain America, went green with The Hulk, hammered Thor, and painted Black Panther…among others.

Most of these superheroes were of Western origin and the Eastern World was ignored, kind of felt left-out – needed its own Superhero!

Now, Marvel (Marvel Cinematic Universe-MCU)after looking deeply at Asia produced its first Asian Superhero Movie called, ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ based on its titular Marvel Comics character. The Ten Rings are ten mystical weapons that grant their user immortality and great power.

The film stars Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, a brutally trained martial artist and assassin who leaves his father’s secret organization, known as Ten Rings, to live an ordinary life in San Francisco, United States. The Superhero lives as a Valet Driver, Shaun, parking cars and spending weeknight karaoke sessions with his co-worker and best friend Katy, from which stage the story rings out.

The goofy exchanges between Shaun and Katy are a stand-out and along with the superb action sequences and special effects, the film is already one of the freshest Marvel pictures to come along in a long time.

Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, who is of Japanese descent, the movie is made up of a predominantly Asian cast of, Awkwafina (Katy), Tony Leung, and the unmissable, Michelle Yeoh.

The Film released on 3 September 2021 in the US and has become a box-office hit.

More teenage sport and superhero stories up ahead in the coming weeks. You’ll fall in love with World Inthavaaram.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-36

About: the world this week, 29 August to 4 September 2021, end of a US war, India medals the Paralympics, which in turn lessons us about keeping time, India sprints in a marathon vaccination-drive, and a famous Pop Music group is on the comeback, Mamma Mia!

Everywhere

The United States (US) seriously kept a commitment of withdrawing its armed forces from Afghanistan and did it one day ahead of the scheduled 31 August 2021. It was an inevitable good decision, though it would have been better if the ending was, ‘and they lived happily ever after’ kind. On the contrary it was unimaginable chaos up to the last flight out of the country. And the US did its best – they have fought so many of the World’s wars and deserve our support. And now they do not wish to bring about change in another country through military action – twice bitten forever shy!

The World needs to move on, and away from war: instead, spend the money, the effort, and the brains on education, healthcare, and the kind. Arm people with weapons of knowledge and missiles of clear thinking. Maybe we should be able to say a ‘Farewell to Arms’, one day?

Meanwhile, resistance to the Taliban is alive, kicking, and roaring in the Panjshir Valley, the last region holding-out, which is not under Taliban rule, in Afghanistan. News of attempts at a negotiated settlement; of the internet being cut-down; of the Resistance Forces repealing attacks by the Taliban- which has the place surrounded, are doing the rounds.

We need to watch that Valley of Resistance. I believe that are some tough people – maybe lions- out there.

The US based Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes, and trends shaping the world. And a Pew Survey conducted before the Taliban took over said that nearly 99% of Afghans favoured Islamic Sharia Law being enforced in Afghanistan. Need we say more?

If only Pew could predict Hurricanes – based on the ruffle and tremble in people’s voices? Whatever, Ida, a Category-4 Hurricane, found its way through America and smashed the State of Louisiana, wrecking havoc, rendering thousands homeless, and those who kept their homes, lived in darkness without power. The rising water levels also brought to the surface, Alligators from the deep, who easily found their footing – roads to walk (and swim)- competing with human folk. A 71 years old man was attacked and killed by an Alligator while he was walking in the flood waters. Next up for Louisiana is the scorching heat, in the days to come.

In another deluge, in flash flooding caused by remnants of Hurricane Ida, parts of New York were submerged in water and as many as 40 people were swallowed by the ‘alligator waters’. New Yorkers termed it a ‘Historic’ Weather Event. Record rainfall, which prompted an unprecedented rain and flood emergency warning in New York City, turned streets into rivers and caused subway services to be shut down. Perhaps we should keep Noah’s Ark on standby, at all times – talk to the spanking new Governor of New York. New brooms sweep well, they say. Can she sweep-off water? For a start she said, “I don’t ever want again to see Niagara Falls rushing down the stairs of one of the New York City subways.”

Otherwise, the cycle keeps cycling. I’m tired of saying Climate Change.

Paralympic Games, Tokyo

While Hurricanes and tornadoes are swirling and wandering around wealthier nations, it’s raining medals for India at the Paralympic Games.

India’s Bhavina Patel started the drizzle by winning a Silver in the Singles Class-4 Table-Tennis Tournament, playing from her wheelchair. And suddenly India struck a gold seam. Sumit Antil – wearing an artificial leg – threw 68.55 meters to win the Javelin Gold Medal, while Avani Lekhara, with her spinal chord injury – paralysed from waist down -showed real spine in consistently hitting the target in the 10m Air Rifle competition to score 249.6 and win Gold. She is the first Indian Woman to do so in this event. Later, she went on to add another medal – a bronze in the 50m Rifle 3 Position Event becoming the first Indian Woman (again) to win two medals in the Paralympics. Records are shot outside the arena too!

Then the Indian medal tally jumped high when defending champion Mariappan Thangavel, hopped on his artificial leg to clear 1.86m to win the High Jump Silver (Gold was 1.88m) and polio affected Sharad Kumar followed behind to take the Bronze with a 1.83m jump.

Nishad Kumar won the Silver in another High Jump event, clearing 2.06m, for those with a unilateral upper limb impairment. Devendra Jhajharia won a Silver Medal, in men’s javelin category for those with arm deficiency, with a 64.35m (metre) throw, while Sundar Singh Gurjar picked up Bronze with a 64.01m travel of his javelin. Paralytic limb affected Yogesh Kathuniya won himself a Silver Medal in the men’s discus with a throw of 44.38m. Polio affected Singhraj Adhana grabbed the Bronze in the men’s 10m Air Pistol Shooting with points of 216.8. On Friday, Harvinder Singh, who lives with a limb deficiency, won India’s first ever Archery medal, clinching Bronze.

In total India bagged 13 medals (Gold-2, Silver-6, Bronze -5) as at the time of publishing this Post.

Never mind the handicaps, the Paralympic Games set an example on the importance of keeping time. I am a stickler of time, always arriving well-ahead of an important event, or a meeting, or making my World Inthavaaram post every saturday morning, but many never bother to keep time…a few minutes is not all right. Malaysian shot putter Muhammad Ziyad Zolkefli, along with two other competitors arrived three minutes late for the Shot Put event. And was allowed to compete as they might have a logical reason for being late, which was being examined by the Tournament Referee. Meanwhile, Muhammad Ziyad Zolkefli ‘putted damn well’, and went on to win the Gold Medal. But, by then the Referee came back, after studying the evidence, and concluded that ‘there was no justifiable reason for the athletes failure to show up to the event in time’. This resulted in Zolkefli being stripped of the medal and given to the person who won Silver. Rules are rules – they must be followed as the gold standard. Tardiness can be costly.

COVID-19 Vaccination

India is going strong: after jabbing more than 10 million arms last week, it repeated the feat this week. Who said India cannot do it? Media news company, CNN, said so: that India doing 600 million doses by August 2021 is an ‘incredibly ambitious undertaking’ with its ‘poor rural healthcare infrastructure and inadequate healthcare system that is already buckling under tremendous pressure from the coronavirus’. India did over 654 million does by 31 August 2021. Hope someone in CNN is reading…and listening. It’s time the world looks at India with eyes wide open. The ‘Snake Charmer only’ days are over – everything India does these days is charming.

Please Yourself

The Return of ABBA

During the Wonder Years of my school days, in the late 1960’s and 1970’s my English music voyage began with the Beatles, Bee Gees, Boney M, Osibisa…and yes, ABBA. Songs that still sing in the mind are: Mama Mia, Dancing Queen, Tragedy, Knowing Me Knowing You, Name of the Game, Take a Chance on Me, Fernando, Waterloo…

The Swedish Pop Music group – Benny Anderson, Agnetha Faltskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, and Bjorn Ulvaeus are reuniting for a new album called ‘Voyage’, their first in 40 years. The Album will be released on 5 November 2021 and includes a Christmas song. Two tracks from Voyage, ‘I Still Have Faith in You and ‘Don’t Shut Me Down’, are already out in the air. Their 1992 greatest hits collection, Abba Gold, is the longest running album in the United Kingdom’s album charts. In July, it became the first to surpass 1000 weeks in that position, and is currently sitting at No. 14.

They have also announced a new concert experience in London, also called Voyage, beginning in May 2022. ABBA says, “London is the best city to be in when it comes to entertainment, theatre, musicals…We have always felt that the Brits see us as their own”.

ABBA was formed in the 1970’s with the first letters of the names of the group’s members, and went on to become one of the most successful pop bands ever, reaching the height of fame in the mid 1970’s. Their song catalogue is also one of the most brilliant in all Pop Music.

Knowing ‘A’ and knowing ‘B’, the letters started looking and singing to each other and they became married couples with each of the A’s taking a B. I recall most of the promotions had the B’s reversed, facing the A’s. Sadly, both couples consciously uncoupled in 1981 and it was a tragedy that by 1983 the Group fizzled out – wonder which Winner took it all! They cut their final Album in 1981. Then in the year 2016 they briefly go together to perform one song to celebrate 50 years of songwriting partnership, ‘The Way Old Friends Do’.

I still have faith in ABBA and will certainly not shut them down…not yet!

Sharks

My respect for sharks grew teeth ever since I read the Elle McNicoll’s superb book, ‘A Kind of Spark’ where the central character Addie is awfully fond of sharks and swallows a ton of books on sharks-finds them more fascinating than ‘dull’ Dolphins. These are some interesting facts about sharks that I hunted down:

‘Sharks are older than trees and have been around for a very long time. They have existed for more than 450 million years, while the earliest tree lived about 350 million years ago. Sharks are also one of the few animals to have survived four of the five mass extinctions – they outlived the Dinosaurs. There are over 1000 species of sharks with new ones being discovered every year.

And you may be surprised, sharks do not have bones- they are made up of a flexible cartilage skeleton. Shark teeth are constantly replaced throughout their life – springing up in about 10 days or several months. Typically, a shark looses about 30,000 teeth during its lifetime, and grows them back!

More teeth to grow about sharks; stories of music and comebacks will be sung in the coming weeks. Listen and swim with the World Inthavaaram!

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-35

About: the world this week, 22 August to 28 August 2021, hunted down stories of Afghanistan, the coronavirus, the Paralympic Games, and what it means to have a heart of gold.

Everywhere

I couldn’t help returning to the COVID-19 story – we have become keep-the-distance friends, and it just keeps coming back.

We got into the pandemic mode in January 2020 and have been living it through with new gadgets – face masks, new techniques – physical distancing and washing our sins as often as possible. Then we learnt to bare our arms to get vaccination shots, beginning at the end of the year 2020. It’s a tribute to human ingenuity that we could find a medicine to counter the effects of the infection and begin a scientific fight against the coronavirus so quickly. Vaccines were green lighted for emergency use across the World after the mandated testing and trials, and the number of shots made, were added to the daily COVID-19 scoring sheets all over the World.

This week, finally, one Vaccine made it to the fully approved status: Pfizer’s COVID-19 Vaccine. The United States gave the approval on Monday, potentially boosting public confidence in vaccines. Before Pfizer’s vaccine gets lonely, finding a spot to jab, I’m sure others will join the ‘fight for the arm’.

I still find vaccine hesitancy a problem to deal with in my region of Salem District, Tamil Nadu, India. My ‘on-call’ car driver refuses to take the vaccine and has become awfully inventive in finding slippery excuses. I have told him that he will not be called to drive until he gets vaccinated: hope that drives him to take the vaccine. Many other stories are doing the rounds, with people typically saying, “nothing’s gonna happen to me, I won’t get infected”. Good luck to them!

Meanwhile, India achieved the milestone of giving at least one shot to more than half of its eligible population. And on Friday did a historic 10 million vaccination shots (equivalent to two New Zealand’s) on a single day. That’s path blazing!

Over the past weeks, one State in India, Kerala, stood as an outlier, steadfastly running away with over 50% of the total COVID-19 load in India. Looks like Kerala is determined to get everybody infected – for ‘natural’ vaccination – and the rest vaccinated by the newly discovered vaccines. You can reach the ‘famous herd immunity in double-quick time’? After previously winning many awards and citations for its ‘Model’ handling of the COVID-19 in the first wave, maybe Kerala is trying a new Model. God’s own country’s Model?

On another side of the World, another Model country, New Zealand, which recently went into lockdown over a single COVID-19 case, is seeing the numbers climb. And like the hard-to-come century in cricket, New Zealand is batting not to hit one – staying at the wicket. The are focussed on ‘zero – stump out’ the virus, whenever and wherever it enters the field.

We simply cannot declare victory over the coronavirus, not yet. In these infectious times, any time seems too soon. We need to make our own model of living with it, adopting best practices, based on evolving knowledge and the science of things.

Exit Afghanistan

The exodus from Afghanistan continues this week following the Taliban swinging into a power hold in the country. People fear a difficult, miserable life, under Taliban Rule, even as the Taliban asked the US not to encourage Afghans to leave the country. We need them, says the Taliban.

More than 111,000 people have been evacuated by the United States which vows to keep the deadline of 31 August 2021. The wild scenes outside Kabul Airport, of people clamouring to get inside the Airport and thereafter into a Plane out of the country was heart-wrenching.

The Afghanistan situation got into a messier quagmire when on Thursday over 170 people including 13 US service members were killed and about 200 wounded, when two suicide bombers and a gunman struck one of the main entrances to Kabul’s International Airport. This was just hours after western intelligence agencies warned of an imminent threat to the ongoing evacuation operation. Children were among those who died.

The IS (Islamic State)-Khorasan, a local branch of the dreaded ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham) claimed responsibility calling it a ‘martyrdom operation’.

Hardline fanaticism in any religion is unacceptable and religious heads should rein-in the extreme out swingers.

United States (US) President Joe Biden vowed to hunt down the killers, but is sticking to his target of getting US out of Afghanistan. Never has the US been in such a dire situation, in the recent past. And this is the deadliest attack on the US in Afghanistan. And it stings all the more, as it happened just when the US is a few days away from fully exiting the country, after 20 long years.

Meanwhile the last standing bastion untouched by the Taliban, The Panjshir Valley, is holding-up. It has been surrounded by the Taliban and it is more 444 hours since the 4 hours deadline to surrender was shouted out by the Taliban. Maybe the Lions of Panjshir could do a No.300 Spartan story here that would reverberate throughout History, as much as the original.

I thought for a moment on what I would do if I were the President or Prime Minister of a Country. Three things rush to my mind: 1- Recognise the Vice President of Afghanistan, leading the Panjshir Resistance, as the President/Government of Afghanistan; 2- Open refugee corridors for those resisting the Taliban, and 3- Impose sanctions on Pakistan and mobilise other countries to do the same. The World should be on the same page on militancy and terrorism. One man’s terrorist cannot be another man’s freedom-fighter.

Paralympic Games

Paralympics are international contests for athletes with disabilities that are normally held immediately after the Olympic Games, called the Paralympic Games.

The Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games finally opened on 24 August 2021, about a year later than planned – a year besotted by all kinds of difficulties.

These were the words of the Organisers: “Paralympic athletes know that no matter which way the wind blows, its power can be harnessed to move forward. They know that by being brave and spreading their wings, they can reach extraordinary heights.”

The opening ceremony was full of colour and celebration, strung on the concept of ‘We Have Wings’ intended to raise awareness of the courage of Paralympians. There were no crowds to watch the opening ceremony, as will be the case throughout the Games. The paralympic cauldron, placed lower than its Olympic counterpart so that competitors can feel closer to it, opened like a flower to embody vitality and hope, and was lit by a trio of Japanese Para-athletes.

In all, about 4,400 athletes from 162 national Paralympic Committees of countries will compete in 539 medal events across 22 sports in Japan’s Tokyo, the first city to hold the summer Paralympics twice, having first done so in 1964.

The Indian Oskar Schindler

With stories of exodus of people from Afghanistan hogging the media, I came across this beautiful story and it touched my heart. Most of us must have seen the Academy award-winning Steven Spielberg’s Holocaust movie, Schindler’s List, where a German Industrialist and Nazi Party member tactfully outmanoeuvred the Nazis and saved thousands of Jews from the harrowing death camps.

My story is based in India and how one man showed ‘pure gold good-heartedness’ to save nearly a thousand Polish refugees from the same Germans.

During the Second World War when Adolf Hitler attacked Poland in 1939, the Polish Army gathered about 500 women and 200 children and put on them on a Ship which they left at sea, to save them from the invading Germans. The Ship’s Captain was told to take them to any country that would be glad to give them shelter. The last thing the families told those leaving was, “if we are alive or survive, we’ll meet again”.

The Ship, with the Polish refugees onboard, set sail but was refused entry by many European and Asian Countries. It sailed on, and after a long journey and reached a Port in Iran, where it was again denied entry and thrown out. After wandering about in the sea, the Ship arrived at the Port of Bombay (now Mumbai) India. Most of India was then under British Rule and the British Governor of Bombay also refused permission.

The news then reached the ears of the Maharaja of Nawanagar, Jamnagar, Gujarat, Digvijaysinghji Ranjitsinji Jadeja, or Jam Saheb, as he was called. He became genuinely concerned, sent word and allowed the ship to dock in his Kingdom at a port near Jamnagar. He provided shelter to all the Polish woman and children and also arranged free education for the children, at an Army School. They were very well taken care of by Jam Saheb who regularly visited them with presents, and was affectionally called Bapu. He told them, “you may not have your parents, but I am now your father”.

The Polish refugees stayed in Jamnagar for nine years until World War-II ended and then returned to Poland. One of the refugees later became the Prime Minister of Poland. Even today, the descendants of these refugees come over to Jamnagar, every year, to pay their respects. That’s a wonderful India-Poland connection.

In Poland there are many roads and schemes named after Maharaja Jam Saheb and he is fondly remembered for the ‘goodness of heart’ of that day.

The Maharaja was awarded The Presidential Medal, Poland’s highest medal, when Poland broke the shackles of its wretched government at that time.

India’s School History Books need to be rewritten to reflect such glorious stories – many of which are yet to see the print-ink on paper, rather than the mischievous deeds of invaders.

More gold-tipped good-hearted stories, up ahead in the coming weeks. Stay with the World Inthavaaram.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-34

About: the world this week, 15 August to 21 August 2021, India’s Independence Day, the Taliban steam-rolling through Afghanistan, and a beautiful world heritage temple in South India.

Everywhere

India

At the top of this week, on 15th August, India celebrated its 75th Independence Day. It may be an off-beat thought, but I think it’s time India stops celebrating Independence Day: only keeps reminding us of Colonial Rule and the antics of the British in India, when they plundered its riches and cooked their own one-sided, make-believe stories. It’s meaningless beyond a point. Forget the unsavoury past, learn and carry forward the lessons it taught, turn the pages; open a new book.

For example, the story of the brave exploits of Kongu Chieftain, Dheeran Chinnamalai, who fought the British between the late 1700’s & early 1800’s, and was considered undefeatable in battle, was hidden by the British least he becomes a stirring example and inspires others. In the end Dheeran Chinnamalai was not defeated by the British, but by his own cook who gave him away, leading to his capture and hanging at Sankagiri Fort, near Salem, Tamilnadu. Indians were always their own best enemies.

Commemorate 15th August 1947 as a Remembrance Day to pay quiet homage to those who suffered, fought for freedom from foreign rule, sacrificed their lives; and those irreparably scalded by partition and the bloody exodus that followed.

Instead, divert energies to celebrating Republic Day with great gusto, with re-dedication to nation building, and improving the quality of life. Reimagine the ancient, rich culture of India, its plurality, traditions, and yesteryear greatness. And think about the reasons of how India allowed foreign invaders to invade the country and plunder at will, despite fantastic natural boundaries. If only India’s Kings, of the pre-invasion era, had stayed united! Resolve never to repeat the past mistakes of history.

Prime Minister Modi heard, and has declared 14th August as Partition Horrors Remembrance Day to take cognisance the scarifies of people due to the violence that followed partition of India into the two countries of India and Pakistan (which further broke in two-with Bangladesh becoming an independent country). A tragic period in history when millions were displaced, and the killing, looting, and rape still vivid in many memories.

Afghanistan: enter the Taliban

The Taliban just strolled over, almost cat-walked, and took control of Afghanistan in one of the coolest ever take-overs of a country. The Afghan President, Ashraf Ghani, fled; the Afghan Army-trained for nearly two decades by the United States-crumbled on the mere sound of the Taliban approaching; and there was a rush to exit the country through the Airport, fearing the worst of times. On the contrary, the Taliban marched steadily, paused, and just walked-in brandishing their guns, and flaunting their beards. Almost everyone had a deadly gun in their hand; some, menacing rocket launchers too.

The media decried the decision of the United States (US) to leave Afghanistan. Some even said hastily – after 20 years? I think it was the right thing to do, and I support the decision to pull-out US Troops from over two decades of fighting someone else’s war and training the Army and Police to defend the country. See the results! No country likes foreign occupation and control. The best time to leave was 19 years ago (after knocking out Bin Laden); the next best time is today.

Only the people of Afghanistan can decide what they want. If they want the Taliban, so be it; and by the looks of it, the Taliban could not have make such a naked comeback without the tacit, fully-clothed support of Afghans. If eventually they discover the Taliban to be unfit to govern – with their beards, guns, whips, and antediluvian beliefs and laws -they need to get together and find a way to throw them out.

Well, who are the Taliban, anyway?

The Taliban was founded in Kandahar, Southern Afghanistan, in 1994, by Mullah Mohammad Omar, of the Pashtun Tribe. He was once a Mujahideen (Islamic guerrillas who engage in jihad) Commander that helped push the occupying Soviets out of the country in 1989. Mohammad Omar formed the Taliban with about fifty followers, who rose up to challenge the instability, corruption, and crime that consumed Afghanistan during the post-Soviet-era civil war – they lived by a code.

The Pashtun constitute the largest ethnic group of Afghanistan and bore the exclusive name of ‘Afghan’, which came to represent Afghanistan.

The Taliban, or ‘students’ (in the Pashto language) are also linked to Northern Pakistan. The predominantly Pashtun movement-that the Taliban is- first appeared in Pakistan’s religious seminaries-mostly funded by Saudi Arabia-which preached a hardline form of Sunni Islam.

The core Taliban fighters are Afghan refugees mainly drawn from the ‘madrasas’ of Pakistan. These refugees had moved across the Border into Pakistan during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. And Pakistan established religious schools and seminaries in these refugee camps to gain influence by indoctrinating the refugees. Over many years, these seminaries were converted into Arms and Bombs making factories, and terrorist training centres by the Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). Typically a Mosque had a labyrinth of factories in its underground floors. These madrasas provided numerous cadres of Al Qaeda and fighters for the Afghan Taliban using enormous funds from the Middle East and Pakistan.

The promise made by the Taliban was to restore peace; provide a corruption-free government, and security; and strictly enforce their own austere version of Sharia, or Islamic law, once in power. Perhaps this become a ‘catch word’ and many Afghans fell for these early charms, after years of struggle against an outside force. The Taliban quickly subdued local warlords who controlled Southern Afghanistan and gradually swarmed all over the country. They climbed into the seat of power in 1996 by capturing Kabul and forming a Government with Mohammed Omar as the Emir and Head of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan – as they called it.

Following the 9/11, 2001, terror attacks on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre in New York City, the US began hunting down the terrorists responsible and nailed Osma Bin Laden as the brain behind the unbelievable attack on America. They tracked Bin Laden to Afghanistan where he was in hiding, harboured by Mohammad Omar’s Taliban.

When the Taliban refused US demands to hand over Bin Laden, American forces invaded Afghanistan, in 2001, and quickly toppled Mullah Omar’s government. Mullah Omar and other Taliban leaders escaped the country and found sanctuary in neighbouring Pakistan from where they mounted an insurgent campaign to regain power in Afghanistan.

Mohammed Omar died in 2013 of tuberculosis, while in hiding, and his death was kept secret by the Taliban, for almost two years. Following his death, Mullah Mansoor, the deputy of Mohammad Omar, became the leader. And following his death, in a US drone strike in 2016, his deputy Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada took over and is now the reigning supreme leader of the Taliban.

A new interim Afghan Government was formed after the defeat of the Taliban, in 2001, headed by a local chieftain, Hamid Karzai, until the county could put in place a democratic process to elect a President and a Parliament, to form a government. He went on to becoming an elected President for two terms and was then succeeded by President Ashraf Ghani who was into his second term when the Taliban breezed-in.

Meanwhile, the Taliban were re-building and became a consistent thorn in the flesh – with relentless killings and assassinations – throughout the terms off Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani until the present ‘coming of second age’ and return to power. The Taliban had also opened a political office in Doha, United Arab Emirates, to enable talks and facilitate their return from the fringes to the mainstream.

In February 2020, the US and the Taliban signed a historic deal that laid out a 14 month timetable for America to withdraw all of its forces from Afghanistan. In the interim, talks between the Taliban and the Afghan Government meant to end the war gained little traction. By leaving Afghanistan, the US has kept its commitment, and not much is known about the ‘terms of endearment’ except that the Taliban will not attack US troops; that they will not harbour terrorist groups…and the kind.

What does the Taliban want? Their aim is simple, they want what they lost in 2001 to America. They want their Islamic Emirate to be back in power and their vision of Islamic law enforced. They don’t want a parliament. They don’t want electoral politics. They will have an Emir and a council of mullahs (a learned muslim of Islamic theology, practices, and law), and that’s the vision they see for themselves, guided by Islam.

The Taliban says, they will rule Afghanistan according to a strict interpretation of Islam’s legal system called Sharia law. What is Sharia?

Sharia literally means, ‘the clear, well-trodden path to water’. Sharia law is derived from both the Koran, Islam’s central holy text, and fatwas – the rulings of Islamic scholars. It acts as a code for living that all Muslims should adhere to, including prayers, fasting and donations to the poor. It aims to help Muslims understand how they should lead every aspect of their lives according to God’s wishes.

In simpler implementation terms, it means that if you get caught stealing, your hand could be cut off – as punishment, and if you commit adultery you may be stoned to death. If a woman wears nail polish, the tip of her finger may be cut-off. Women need to be fully covered when they venture out of their homes – allowed only with a male companion. Girls aged 10 years and over cannot go to schools and are practically slaves to men. And men have to grow and keep beards. Newspapers and Television are taboo…the list goes on. Archaic, medieval? This is just the beginning and has a lot to do with interpretation of Islamic Laws. And the Taliban have their own peculiar way of doing it.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head -and survived-by the Taliban, when she was 15 years old, for campaigning for girls’ education in Pakistan is a monumental symbol of the Taliban Effect. And, remember, this happened in Pakistan.

There is wild speculation on what would happen. Are the Taliban freedom fighters? Are they militants? Are they terrorists? They are definitely militant: we have read stores of their inhuman brutality, in the name of religion. Will Afghanistan become a hotbed for hot-heads and terrorists who want to impose a new world order- their order? The Taliban, for example, wants to see the whole world follow Islamic law. We have to wait, watch, and be prepared at the same time.

Like getting used to living with the coronavirus; with North Korea, with Burma; maybe we, rather the Afghans, should get used to living with the Taliban?

The story is not over. There is still one region, which has not given up as yet, which has not fallen into the hands of the Taliban: the Panjshir Valley of northern Afghanistan, near the Hindu Kush mountain range, 150 kilometres north of Kabul.

Panjshir means ‘five lions’ in Persian and local folklore says it refers to the five Pandava Brothers of the Mahabharatha Epic who are believed to have based themselves in the Valley and defended it. There is another legend which tells about five brothers who managed to contain the floodwaters in the valley by building a dam, for Mohamud of Ghazni. Is it the same five brothers? Let our imaginations run wild.

Local commander Ahmad Shah Massoud famously and successfully defended the Panjshir Valley from being taken during the Soviet-Afghan War from 1980 to 1985 and also defended it from being overrun by the Taliban during 1996 to 2001. The Panjshir Valley is considered a natural fortress and one of Afghanistan’s safest regions: it has never been conquered by any foreign force or the Taliban.

In this imbroglio, Amrullah Saleh, Afghanistan’s Vice President, has declared himself the care-taker President of Afghanistan. He hails from the Tajik-dominated Panjshir Valley, and is a member of the Northern Alliance which is opposed to the Taliban. He is currently lodged in the Panjshir Valley and along with Ahamad Massoud, the son of slain Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, and Bismallah Khan Mohammadi, Afghanistan’s Defence Minister in the Ghani cabinet, is mobilising forces to counter the takeover of Afghanistan and offering the only known resistance to the Taliban.

You guessed it, India has leaned towards the Northern Alliance in the past being supportive of its fight against the Taliban. Watch this space.

Please Yourself

The Ramappa Temple, also known as the Kakatiya Rudreshwara Temple, located in Palampet Village, about 200km from Hyderabad, in the Mulugu District of India’s Telangana State recently made it to United Nations, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) list of World Heritage Sites.

The 800 years old Temple is dedicated to Lord Siva and is known for its intricate sandstone and basalt sculptures of high artistic quality that have stood the test of time: they illustrate dance customs, postures, and Kakatiyan culture. The Temple has decorated beams and pillars of carved granite and dolerite with a distinctive pyramidal horizontally stepped tower made of lightweight porous bricks – called floating bricks – which reduce the weight of the roof structures making it bearable for the unique sand stone and sand box foundation on which it stands to this day.

The Temple sits on a six foot high star-shaped platform provided with a 10 feet wide corridor with walls, pillars, and ceilings adorned with elaborate carvings. There is a hall in front of the sanctum sanctorum with four polished black pillars, which are placed with mathematical precision.

The Temple was built in the year 1213 CE, by Recharla Rudradeva, a Military Commander of the Kakatiya Kings Dynasty. And named after the chief sculptor Ramappa, who completed the job is 14 years. There is also an inscription, which mentions the name of the Builder and the year. The Temple has survived wars, plunders, natural disasters including an earthquake. That sure is foundation worth standing on.

The hidden stories of India are marvellous, fascinating, and truly incredible. And there is still so much to discover.

More stories will be sculptured in the weeks ahead. Float with the World Inthavaaram: you are on a strong foundation.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-33

About: the world this week, 8 August to 14 August 2021, irreversible changes, running out of Greek letters, the end of the Tokyo Olympics, New York, and India’s stuck Parliament.

Everywhere

My maid who helps with the cooking and house-keeping returned after a month long hiatus babysitting her just-born second grandson. After a few days with the pots and pans, she took a quick break to attend the Baby Shower of her close relative. It’s gonna be a boy she beamed, on returning. A customer dropped in to our store yesterday. Her daughter had married early this year-we had done the bridal dresses-and she is already in the family way. It’s gonna be a boy – I can guess from the ‘dark look’ of her face, she said, with bright knowledge lines written all over her own face.

A doctor friend dropped by for an evening chat, and we discussed, among other things, the booming baby boy-boom and wondered what could be the reason. Perhaps, Climate Change is to blame – easy? Wow! That’s my next story.

Irreversible

Over the past few months we have witnessed weird weather stories bursting around the world: the Americas, North Africa, and Europe saw deadly heat waves and wildfires – America met with a lot of hurricanes; Asia saw pluvial floods and landslides caused by extreme rainfall; Australia too saw lots of water and we read stories of snakes, mice, and spiders spreading all over dry land.

We have become clever enough to acknowledge that climate change is widespread, rapid, and intensifying. That’s exactly the key finding of the latest scientific report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It finds changes in the Earth’s climate in every region and across the whole climate system. Many changes are unprecedented in thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years. Some, such as a continued sea-level rise, are irreversible. That’s a great word pregnant with meaning. More boys tumbling out?

What do we do? The only way is to do whatever is required for sustained reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Benefits for air quality would come quickly, while global temperatures would take 20 to 30 years to stabilize.

The IPCC was created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as an organization of Governments that are members of the United Nations or WMO. It currently has 195 members. The IPCC has the objective of providing Governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies. It’s reports are also a key input into international climate change negotiations.

That’s a code red alert on climate change. And ‘it promises’ that things will only get worse unless nations of the Earth get their heads out of the clouds and start on an action plan at the soonest.

More Greek

The Coronavirus is still as bold as ever and surging in the United States, especially in the Sunshine State of Florida. That thing called the Delta Variant is shining the most, but other variants are on the prowl and looking to grab a throat-hold on defenceless passers-by. Please Get Vaccinated.

India is doing good bringing down the cases to around 30,000 per day, but the State of Kerala is an outlier owning more than the 50% cases of all India. Once it was was on a different league altogether, a Model worth emulating across the country, but then they have swing to the other extreme end – not worth liking or sharing, at all!

Following up on his announcement, last month, to get people into the vaccination mode, French President Emmanuel Macron introduced a Health Pass in France. Starting on 9 August 2021, French citizens will have to show proof of vaccination, immunity, or negative COVID-19 test for outdoor activities such as, riding on trains, dining in restaurants, and going to various kinds of venues. While post-announcement the vaccination rates did rise up considerably, it in turn brought more than 230,000 people – anarchists, far-right activists, and anti-vaxxers – across France on to the streets to protest the Health Pass. It is now a fourth straight weekend of demonstrations. Many have decried the Health Pass as a violation of freedom and Government overreach.

France is not alone, with Italy and Germany also having faced similar protests. While health experts are driving themselves to bring the virus under control, many others are finding fault lines, to nudge open.

In these weekly posts, I often worried that variants of the coronavirus could outnumber the 24 letters of the Green Alphabet. Well, The World Health Organization’s (WHO) Technical Chief of COVID-19, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, seems to have heard me. The WHO is already looking at new names for mutations amid fears there will be more variants trying to get past out steadily improving defences. Star Constellations are the front runners to take over the baton in what is turning out to be a relay race. And we could see variants known as Aries, Gemini… Greeks Gods and Goddesses have also been lined-up, but they are being discussed with the Gods themselves – copyright issues!

Thus far, 11 mutations have been named: four ‘variants of concern’, including the infamous Delta, and Beta; four ‘variants of interest’, such as Eta and Lambda; some which have since been downgraded, on losing the spike momentum and fizzling out, such as Epsilon, Zeta, and Theta.

I reckon that by the time the pandemic turns endemic we could all be full of the Greek Alphabet and the Stars in our heads! And surely we don’t want to think beyond the Greek, should we?

Curtains on The Tokyo Olympics 2020

The Olympic Fire is out in the cauldron, with the Games coming to an end on 8 August 2021. The United States (US) won the most number of medals, 113 (and most gold, 39), followed by China, Britain, Japan.

Tokyo 2020 saw world records broken in 24 events, with swimmers and rowers making the most breakthroughs, shattering six world records each. Four world records were broken in weightlifting and three in athletics and cycling track events.

With no spectators being allowed in the vast majority of the venues, the Organisers resorted to digital engagement to create an atmosphere which made athletes feel they were not alone. A cheer wall was established in the stadiums with more than 250 million videos coming from different corners of the world, supporting athletes from their National Olympic Committees.

Tokyo 2020 social posts have generated more than 4.7 billion engagements, with the majority of them happening during the Games time.

Twenty-seven year old Australian swimmer Emma McKeon’s seven medals (4 gold and 3 bronze) win, stood-up as the most among all athletes in the Tokyo Olympics.

Some US highlights are: track star Allyson Felix is now the most decorated US track and field athlete in Olympic history; Caeleb Dressel took home the most gold medals with five victories from men’s 50m and 100m freestyle, 100m butterfly, 4x100m freestyle and medley relay. He is the most successful male swimmer in the pool in Tokyo; the US women’s basketball team won its seventh gold medal in a row.

After decades of trying, India finally won a Gold medal in Athletics with Neeraj Chopra throwing a winning distance of 87.58 metres, in the Javelin event. Neeraj is only the second Indian athlete ever to win individual Olympic gold. Indians are traditional javelin/spear throwers and finally it’s showing, why not?

India ended the Olympics with its best ever haul of 7 medals and while Indians were enthralled, it rained cash and goodies on the medal winners.

On COVID-19, it’s not clear that the Games served as the super-spreader event as many in Japan had feared.

The Summer Paralympics will be held between 24 August and 5 September 2021, 16 days after the completion of the Olympics.

Up next: The 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, kicking off in February.

I would give a huge Gold Medal to Japan for fearlessly conducting the Games. Keep it up Japan.

See you in Paris 2024.

New York and America

With the Olympics having concluded and the weightlifting events having different winners, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo gave up lifting weights on the sexual harassment charges. Of course, he thought about this three daughters and their future and said he will resign in two weeks. A new Governor – in a first, a woman – New York Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, is getting ready to pick-up the broom and clean-up the toxic environment. Good luck to her.

Keeping the story running on the United States, its decision to quit Afghanistan is turning out to be disastrous, as the very Taliban they sought to annihilate are making a ferocious comeback. The Afghanistan Army that America nurtured and trained for over a decade is unable to offer resistance and Towns and Cities are being flooded with the Taliban. Another Climate Change effect?

India’s Parliament

While climate change induced fires engulfed many countries, India’s Upper House-Rajya Sabha, and Lower House-Lok Sabha, of Parliament, saw Opposition Party fire freeze serious business leading to a lock-jam for most of this Monsoon season. This was to protest alleged snooping by the Government on its citizens and a demand to repeal already passed laws. The Chairman of the Upper House tried to douse the fire with his tears – but such clouded thinking didn’t work. He should have called for Hercules to divert River Yamuna to fight the fires – and clean-up as well.

More herculean and fighting stories coming up in the weeks ahead. Stay locked to World Inthavaaram.

This is my Blog where I essay stories on life about and around me, on subjects that stir and shake me up, as I turn, and make life's pages count: hoping to inspire you to live your own story!

Everywhere

Everywhere

Please Yourself

Everywhere

Please Yourself

Everywhere

Space

Shape-Shift

India

US Open Tennis

Please Yourself

The Met Gala

Everywhere

Eswatini: A Last Kingdom

Abortions

A Spanish Bishop: Falling in Love

Paralympic Games, Tokyo: The End

Tennis and Football

Please Yourself

Everywhere

Paralympic Games, Tokyo

COVID-19 Vaccination

Please Yourself

The Return of ABBA

Sharks

Everywhere

Exit Afghanistan

Paralympic Games

The Indian Oskar Schindler

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India

Afghanistan: enter the Taliban

Please Yourself

Everywhere

Irreversible

More Greek

Curtains on The Tokyo Olympics 2020

New York and America

India’s Parliament

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