WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2023-51

About: the world this week, 17 December to 23 December 2023; Israel and Hamas; Shooting in Prague, Czechia; Earthquake in China; the Pope and LGBTQIA; Parliament shakes in India; Floods in Southern India; and the Coronavirus and Kerala.

Everywhere

Israel-Hamas War

Late last week, in a tragic accident, Israel admitted mistakenly killing three hostages during a search and rescue operation.

An Israeli soldier stationed in a building in Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighbourhood, identified three suspicious people exiting the building several dozen meters away. All three were shirtless, with one of them carrying a stick with a makeshift white flag. The soldier, who believed the men moving toward him was an attempt by Hamas to lure Israeli soldiers into a trap, immediately opened fire and shouted “terrorists!” to the other forces. The hostages either managed to escape Hamas captivity or were abandoned, before they were mistakenly shot dead.

This is in the tense background of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) having encountered several, seemingly unarmed civilians in the area, who turned out to be Hamas suicide bombers. There have also been countess attempts by Hamas to trick soldiers into an ambush. This is an awfully difficult and unforgiving war.

Over the week, Israel offered the Terrorist Hamas a deal, “Release 40 hostages – the old, woman, and children – and we stop bombing for a week”. Hamas did not take it.

Shooting in the Czech Republic

This week on the 21st December, in the deadliest attack in modern Czech history a gunman shot dead 14 people and injured another 25 at Prague’s Charles University.

The shooting started at the Faculty of Arts building, on Jan Palach Square. The gunman, who was studying Polish history at Charles University, murdered his father before shooting his classmates in a killing spree, and in the end possibly killed himself, after being shot-at by the Police. The motives were not immediately known.

The Police, who discovered a large arsenal of weapons at the building where the shooting took place, were tipped off earlier in the day that the suspect was likely heading to Prague from his town in the Kladno region, outside the capital, with intentions of taking his own life.

The gunman later identified as David Kozak had a gun permit and owned several weapons. He is also suspected of killing a man and his four-month-old daughter in Prague, a week ago. Police are also probing any connection between Kozak and a series of Russian-language messages posted on Telegram. One of the messages indicated that the attack may have been influenced by two previous mass shootings in Russia: one this month at a school in Bryansk near the Ukraine border, and the other in 2021 in Kazan. David Kozak was an excellent student and had not criminal history.

The Czech Republic has relatively liberal gun laws compared to the rest of Europe. To obtain a gun legally, a person needs an official licence, which requires a medical examination, a weapon proficiency exam, and no previous criminal record.

Charles University in Prague, founded in 1347 is the oldest and largest University in the Czech Republic -Czechia – and one of the oldest institutions in Europe.

Bless LGBTQIA

This week, Pope Francis relaxed controls, making the Church a little more LGBTQIA (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual) friendly. He is allowing Priests to bless same-sex couples. This is a forward-looking step, and a walk back on a 2021 Vatican Ruling that banned blessing Gay couples, because ‘God cannot bless sin’. However, reading the fine print, the new rule clarifies that a blessing, which is typically, a prayer, should not be given at a Gay Wedding or Civil Ceremony. It also reaffirmed that marriage is between man and woman.

China’s Earthquake

A powerful 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck a mountainous region in northwestern China, resulting in at least 127 deaths and over 700 injuries, making it the deadliest earthquake in the area in nine years. Gansu province is severely affected, along with the neighbouring Qinghai province.

The affected area in Qinghai province is adjacent to the Tibet Himalayan region, prone to frequent earthquakes because of continental plate shifts.

Preliminary analysis shows that the quake was a thrust-type rupture, one of three above magnitude 6 to have struck within 200 km of the epicentre since 1900. At least 32 aftershocks were reported in the hour after the quake hit.

Infrastructure was severely impacted, leading to power and water supply disruptions, damage to rural roads, railway lines, and the cracking of a bridge across the Yellow River.

India’s Parliament: A Tumultuous Week

This week India’s Opposition Parties created a ruckus in Parliament, displaying placards, shouting, disruption the proceedings, and not allowing Parliament to function – all against the rules. They were demanding a statement from the Home Minister on last week’s ‘Smoke in The Eyes’ security breach, which was not forthcoming. This forced the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, and the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, respectively, to take punitive action on the errant Members of Parliament (MP) by suspending them.

The string of suspension of Opposition MPs in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha grew to a mammoth total of 146 – a first-time record. That’s almost two-third of the Opposition kicked-out of Parliament, for bad behaviour.

To make matters worse, the suspended MPs sitting on the steps of the Parliament premises got into a ‘College-Times Strike’ mode. They were entertained by one of the MPs mimicking and mocking the Vice-President (VP) of India, who is also the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. The VP called it an insult on his background as a farmer and Chairman. Another MP was seen nonchalantly filming the episode on his mobile. This created a huge social-media storm that drowned other news, for days.

Meanwhile, the Government cooly went about its law-making business, slipping in path-breaking new Laws to replace the British-era colonial laws. And got them passed, ‘without breaking into a sweat’, in both Houses.

New criminal law reforms, replacing the old are: The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Bill (BNSS) replaces the Indian Penal Code,1860; the Bharatiya Sakshya Bill (BSS) replaces the Indian Evidence Act, 1872; and the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita Bill (BNSSS) replaces the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898.

With these changes, the criminal justice system of India is significantly reframed, finally growing out of a colonial mindset. The old laws were centred around punishment and deterrence: the new bills shift the emphasis to justice and reformation, in keeping with the changes of modern-day India.

Some highlights of the new Laws:

Twenty new offences have been included in the BNSS. These include organised crime, terrorist acts, hit-and-run, mob lynching, sexual exploitation of a woman by deceitful means, snatching, abetment outside India, acts endangering the sovereignty, integrity, and unity of India, and publication of false or fake news.

In a first, the government has included ‘community service’ as a punishment for theft of less than INR 5,000 and five other petty offences. Adultery and homosexual sex are not listed as crimes. Attempting to commit suicide will no longer be considered a criminal offence.

The sedition law has been repealed, and the sedition provision has been redefined to contain actions against India-deshdroh– instead of actions against the Government-rajdroh. One is free to criticise the Government, but not say anything to demean the nation.

Police will have to register a First Information Report (FIR) within 3 days of the complaint and in cases involving a punishment of 3 to 7 years, the FIR is to be registered after preliminary investigation. Chargesheets will have to be filed in 180 days and the Magistrate will have to take cognisance within 14 days. Forensic science has been given a lot of importance in evidenced gathering, as is electronic evidence.

The Government said that it had received a total of 3200 suggestions from 18 States, 6 Union Territories, the Supreme Court of India, 16 High Courts, 27 Judicial academics, several MPs, and bureaucrats, in the mammoth exercise to make the new laws. And 158 meetings were held to consider the suggestions.

Also passed was the Telecommunication Bill 2023, replacing the 138-year-old colonial-era Telegraph Act, 1885, and other allied laws.

The Govt will allocate spectrum for telecommunications through the Auction Method and for Satellite communications through an Administrative Method. Companies will require an authorisation to start services instead of Licences that are issued at present. It is mandatory to issue SIMs after capturing verifiable biometric data of the applicant to prevent misuse. Obtaining a SIM or any other telecom resource through fraud, cheating, personation will entail a jail term up to three years or a fine upto INR 50 Lakhs per person.

India’s Down South Floods

The South Indian State of Tamil Nadu is having a tough time. Cyclone Michaung had unleashed mayhem in Chennai more than a week ago and just when the State was limping back to normalcy it was hit by the rains again – this time in the southern districts.

Unprecedented rains caused by a cyclonic circulation in the Bay of Bengal battered the districts of Tirunelveli, Tuticorin, Tenkasi, and Kanyakumari, inundating roads, flooding houses, affecting train services, and leaving authorities scrambling to rescue those stranded. Helicopters in the air, and boats on the water were pressed into service.

Tamil Nadu received almost 50 mm of rainfall between this Sunday and Monday, compared with the 2.50 mm that would be normal at this time of year. Kayalpattinam in Tuticorin received more than 95 cm in 24 hours, which sank the Town. Tuticorin City grappled with about 5 feet of water. More than 10,000 people had to be rescued. About 150 people have died, succumbing to the fury of the floods.

Entire neighbourhoods remained submerged, with houses appearing like lonely islands surrounded by murky, brown water. Lakes were overflowing and rivers were in spate. Towards the end of the week, the waters began receding, slowly.

There is this heart-warming story of a Train, which left Tiruchendur Station on Sunday at about 8.30 pm bound for Chennai. About 34 km into the journey it was stopped at Srivaikuntam Station by alert Railway Staff, when it began raining heavily, following a cloud burst. The Railways decided not to allow the train to go any further, which proved to be a wise decision. The rains then intensified and subsequently it was found that about 12 km of track was washed-away due to land eroded by the rains, in the route ahead of the Station. The Station itself was completely isolated as a water island after about 300 passengers had been evacuated. The remaining had to stay put in the Train as the escape route was cut-off. And the Railway Station staff did their darnest until help came, only after the waters receded. Food was dropped-in by Helicopters. Imagine, about 1000 lives would have been lost that day, if it weren’t for the Railway Men. Cheers to them.

Questions on better preparedness and early warning are being asked and hope to see a flood of improvements next time around.

COVID-19 Again, and Kerala

The SARS.CoV-2 coronavirus is on the prowl again, growing its family and trying to spike our lives. Reminds us that the virus continues to evolve in different ways.

This week, what is called the JN.1 variant of the coronavirus was detected in India for the first time.

The JN.1 is a descendant sub-lineage of BA.2.86 or Pirola sub-variant of Omicron, and carries an additional mutation on its spike protein. After Kerala, the JN.1 was found in Goa, then Maharashtra, Karnataka, and in some other States. A total of over 595 Covid-19 cases have been reported.

The JN.1 was first detected in Luxembourg in August this year and later reported in The United Kingdom, Iceland, France, and the United States.

JN.1 was previously classified a Variant of Interest as part of its parent lineage BA.2.86, but the World Health Organization (WHO) has now classified it as a separate Variant of Interest. Talk about a grown-up leaving the parents’ home, fully armed to take-on the World?

WHO said current vaccines will continue to protect against severe disease and death from JN.1 and other circulating variants of the COVID-19 virus. And it is best to continue to hold on to the masking and hand-washing techniques, learnt and executed so well.

Often, the State of Kerala is the first to detect a disease outbreak, wondered why?

Kerala recorded India’s first JN.1 Covid sub-variant in a 79 years old woman at the beginning of this month. Earlier, the State also recorded the first cases of Nipah virus, Monkeypox, and other diseases. There are many other reasons as to why Kerala is the first to record diseases and subsequently becoming a hotbed of them.

Kerala’s geography contributes to the frequency with its sizeable forest cover and intense monsoon pattern making it prone to outbreaks. The State has witnessed several zoonotic outbreaks owing to the shrinkage of natural habitats and proximity to human settlements, in a densely populated region. Take for example, the Nipah virus: a special investigation found that humanity’s drive for resources is destroying the wildlife habitat of bats – which carry tens of thousands of viruses – and creating conditions ripe for a bat-borne disease to spill over to humanity. Civet cats have almost become urban animals as their natural habitats have been wiped out. These animals are believed to be the mediators for the pathogen that caused Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). Bats, which lost their natural habitats, moved into human habitations. These animals are now considered as the reservoirs of Nipah and Ebola virus.

Another reason for Kerala being the home of such diseases is the State’s population. People of Kerala are spread across the globe, with a large number of students studying medicine and many expatriates working as doctors or nurses around the world. They face the occupational hazard of viral attacks and may unwittingly spread undiagnosed diseases to others when they return to India.

There’s also the State’s management and health system. The State has rigourous testing and its population is also highly aware. For e.g., when the first case of monkeypox was reported from Kollam in Kerala, the concerned person who returned from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) underwent a test. This, after he learnt that his contact abroad had tested positive, even though he was asymptomatic.

Many a time, Kerala has been criticised for reporting an outbreak. Experts say that should not be done. Its active surveillance mechanism, capacity-building exercises for healthcare workers, frontline staff, community engagement and strategic interventions have not just been helpful in detecting viruses, but also in keeping the disease outbreaks in control.

It is left to be seen if COVID-19 does make a strong comeback in the State, but Kerala is known for handling outbreaks and, in fact, virologists and epidemiologists have hailed its robust surveillance.

More stories will rain in the weeks ahead. Hold on to World Inthavaaram.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2023-01

About: World Inthavaaram is news that made the week. ‘Inthavaaram’, in Tamil, means ‘this week’. I began in week 41 of the year 2020 and have been writing and publishing every week with a unique calligraphy doodle -in my own hand -to match the stories. I collect news from all over the world and present it in a fresh, light-hearted manner.

This week is about a never-ending war, lingering Covid19, a path-breaking medical invention, politics of economics, bidding bye to a Pope and a legendary football player.

Everywhere

New cold winds are blowing in January of the brand New Year. The sun itself has become awfully shy and wears a blazer to keep itself warm, I guess. But dear Earth is getting warmer by the degree. In the United Kingdom (UK), for example, last year 2022, was the warmest year on record. The average annual temperature was more than 10 degrees Centigrade for the first time. Is this a hot sign of things to come?

Kick-starting the New Year, the diaries, calendars, and resolutions are singing all over the world. I started a new Bullet Journal-doing it fo the past four years. In every month I allocate a page titled ‘World’ to record the ‘news temperatures and flare-up’s’ of the year. Some events keep hugging the pages, hogging the headlines seemingly forever.

Ukraine is fighting back like hell in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine War. This week a Ukrainian missile strike killed 89 Russian troops – the actual death toll is still being assessed: we may never know. The attack was one of the deadliest by Ukrainian forces since the war began last year. It involved four rockets fired from United States-made launchers targeting barracks in the Russian-occupied eastern Donetsk region. And it is a massive blow to Russia’s ill thought-out, meaningless invasion of Ukraine. Russia surely finds itself at a stage where it does not know how to exit honourably.Late in the week, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a ceasefire for 36 hours on 6th and 7th January along the entire line of contact between the armies in Ukraine. This is to allow Russian Orthodox Christians to attend Christmas services, considering the appeal of Patriarch Kirill, Bishop and Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church. Perhaps, he should appeal and pray for the war to stop?

Covid 19 has a stranglehold on China and is tearing through the country, with most of its people never exposed to the coronavirus and the elderly not fully vaccinated. While the coronavirus Omicron variant causes mild symptoms in most people, a large number of Chinese are still vulnerable to severe illness. The country’s weak health-care system is already under huge pressure.

The always tight-lipped and walled China says only 13 people have died from Covid19 so far in December. The real toll is undoubtedly much higher. China only counts as Covid19 deaths those who die from respiratory failure or pneumonia. But the virus often causes death by damaging other organs-other kinds of failure. China’s crematoriums are busy: it is estimated that over 5,000 people are probably dying of Covid19 every day; the burial queues are getting longer. And a model predicts that in a worst-case scenario 1.5 million Chinese will die from the virus in the coming months. The World Health Organization (WHO) has demanded that more information be shared with the World. And has accused China of ‘under-representing’ the severity of its Covid outbreak and criticised its ‘narrow’ definition of what constitutes a Covid death But, is China listening?

Base Editing: A Path-breaking Invention

First, a quick basic lesson in the science of Genetics.

Bases are nitrogen containing biological compounds which store information and is the language of life. We must have learnt in school that the four types of Base – Adenine (A), Cytosine (C), Guanine (G), and Thymine (T)-are the building blocks of our genetic code-the DNA (DeoxyriboNucleic Acid). Just as letters in the alphabet spell out words that carry meaning, the billions of bases in our DNA spell out the instruction manual for our body. In RNA (RiboNucleic Acid), the base Uracil (U) takes the place of T.

The incurable cancer of a teenage girl, Alyssa from Leicester, UK, has been cleared from her body in the first use of a revolutionary new type of technology medicine, called ‘Base Editing’.

Alyssa was diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in May last year. T-cells are the body’s guardian angels-seeking out and destroying devilish disease threats – but for Alyssa they had become the danger and were growing out of control. Her cancer was aggressive. Chemotherapy, and then a bone-marrow transplant, were unable to rid it from her body.

All other treatments for Alyssa’s leukaemia having failed, doctors at the Great Ormond Street Hospital, Bloomsbury, London Borough of Camden, UK, used ‘base editing’, which was invented only six years ago-to perform a feat of biological engineering to build her a new living drug. Six months later, the cancer is undetectable, but Alyssa is still being monitored in case it makes a comeback. This would have been unthinkable just a few years ago and has been made possible by incredible advances in Genetics.

Base Editing allows scientists to zoom to a precise part of the genetic code and then alter the molecular structure of just one base, converting it into another and changing the genetic instructions. The large team of doctors and scientists used this tool to engineer a new type of T-cell that was capable of hunting down and killing Alyssa’s cancerous T-cells. They started with healthy T-cells that came from a donor and went about modifying (editing) them.

The first base edit disabled the T-cells targeting mechanism, so they would not assault Alyssa’s body; the second removed a chemical marking, called CD7, which is on all T-cells; the third edit was an invisibility cloak that prevented the cells being killed by a chemotherapy drug; the final stage of genetic modification instructed the T-cells to go hunting for anything with the CD7 marking on it so that it would destroy every T-cell in her body – including the cancerous ones. That’s why this marking has to be removed from the therapy – otherwise it would just destroy itself. Looks so easy!

If the therapy works, Alyssa’s immune system-including T-cells-will be rebuilt with the second bone-marrow transplant. She is the first patient to be treated with this technology. This kind of genetic manipulation is a very fast-moving area of science with enormous potential across a range of diseases. What a start in the New Year!

America Fails to Elect a Speaker: Speechless

Meanwhile, in the United States (US) of America, for the first time in a century, the House of Representatives, one person did not receive the necessary 218 votes on the first ballot to become Speaker of the House. Speaker hopeful, Kevin McCarthy secured 203 votes, leaving the top job up for grabs as Republicans took control of the Chamber. Hard right lawmakers followed through on their threats to oppose him as Speaker. By the end of the week Kevin McCarthy lost a historic eleventh vote over three days. And still no US House Speaker. Democracy is a work in progress!

A Pope Dies

Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI the first Pope to resign in 600 years, died on 31st December, aged 95. He had resigned in February 2013 citing a ‘lack of strength of mind and body’ due to his advanced age. Speaking in Latin he had said: “After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.”

Pope Benedict’s handling of sexual abuse cases within the Catholic Church and opposition to usage of condoms in areas of high HIV transmission, despite their effectiveness in preventing the spread of HIV, led to substantial criticism in the public domain.

Amazon Sheds Fat-Letters

This week, e-commerce technology giant Amazon announced that it is shedding about 18,000, A to Z roles as it goes on a drive to cut costs. The job cuts amount to around 6% of the company’s roughly 3,00,000 strong corporate workforce. Amazon is the latest technology firm to unveil major layoffs as the cost of living crisis sees customers cut back on spending. Amazon said it had to announce the layoffs sooner than they wanted to, as the information had leaked out.

India’s Demonetisation is OK

Most of us may faintly recall that dour day of 8 November 2016 when India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, appeared on National Television to announce that all Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 banknotes, of the Mahatma Gandhi Series, will no longer carry legal tender.

He said the action would curtail the shadow economy, increase cashless transactions and reduce the use of illicit and counterfeit cash that funds illegal activities and terrorism. The Govt also announced the issuance of new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 banknotes in exchange for the demonetised banknotes. Oh, I loved those new green 500, pink 2000, which first emerged, followed by the orange 200 and blue 100 notes, later on.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) stipulated that demonetised notes should be deposited with the Bank over a period of 50 days until 30 December 2016. In the final tally, the RBI said that approximately 99.3% of demonetised currency was deposited- returned to the Government coffers.

The announcement of the demonetisation decision sparked massive confusion and chaos for several weeks as people scrambled for the new currency notes, forming snaky queues before Banks and ATM kiosks, for days. Some people even died waiting to have their money exchanged. The move was severely criticised by those opposed to the Government, as poorly planned and unfair, sparking protests.

India has previously demonetised bank notes in 1946 and 1978 with the objective of curbing counterfeit money and black money.

This week the Supreme Court of India upheld the demonetisation decision with a 4:1 majority. A five-judge Constitution bench dismissed a batch of 58 petitions challenging the demonetisation exercise. It said that the decision, being the Executive’s economic policy, cannot be reversed. And that Centre’s decision-making process cannot be flawed as there was consultation between RBI and the Government. It is not relevant whether the objectives were achieved or not.

The ruling comes as yet another badge to pin on the chest of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which had been subjected to tremendous outrage on the demonetisation drive by the Opposition Parties. And the BJP is shining the light and ringing the bell on the awesome changes, especially the significant rise in digital payments, brought about by demonetisation.

A Dragging Horror in New Delhi

India’s capital Delhi has a knack of getting into gruesome acts, every year, at stunning regularity.

This year on New Year’s Eve a young 20 year old woman, Anjali Singh along with her friend, Nidhi drives a few streets away from her home to a Hotel for an event management. On the return, after midnight, she and a her friend after some kind of an altercation mount the scooter to ride Home. On the way they are hit by a car with Nidhi on the pillion ‘safely’ falling off and Anjali getting trapped under the car along with the scooter. And being dragged for about 10km and mauled to death in a horrific manner, with body parts split-up. It appears that someone in the car knew Anjali was stuck as the car went forward and backwards with Anjali screaming before dragging her in an unmindful manner. It appears the five people inside the car were drunk and with loud music running, they did not hear anything! Heart-wrenching. Police weren’t around despite being called to the scene and the city being under a New Year Security blanket. Nidhi, who could have shouted her guts out, scooted from the scene – fled, fearing ‘everything’ and stayed silent without telling anyone anything for almost two days. Further, Nidhi said Anjali was in an ‘inebriated’ state while the post-mortem report she was not under the influence of Alcohol. As the stories spin, investigations have begun to find out what exactly happened. Unbelievable that a friend could do this to a friend. It is a combined failure of the Police System in particular and the community at large?

Everybody needs to do their part, and unfortunately not one person did theirs, that day.

Goodbye Pele

Football King, Pele passed away last week, and this week his funeral was held in the city of Santos, Brazil. His coffin was kept in the Urbano Caldeira -Vila Belmiro- stadium, home of Pele’s former club Santos, for mourners to pass through for one final look at one of history’s most magnificent athletes, before entombment.

Pele’s coffin was then driven to the mausoleum that he had bought 19 years ago inside the Memorial Ecumenical Cemetery, a high-rise building that holds the Guinness world record as the tallest cemetery in the world. The Santos soccer club estimated that 230,000 mourners had been through the stadium. And huge crowds turned out to accompany the procession.

The procession had started at the Stadium and his coffin was carried through the streets of Santos, including the street where Pele’s 100 year old mother lives.

Hundreds of thousands of people waited for hours under a burning sun on Monday to file past Pele’s coffin. “This is no sacrifice,” said one who traveled three hours to the Stadium and had to be at work in five hours, yet had another few hours before he would be through the line. “He gave us so much joy that it’s a pleasure to be here.”

Pele being a footballer like no other, his final resting place is exceptional too: a large replica stadium complete with artificial turf inside the world’s tallest vertical cemetery.

Some of Brazil’s best-known footballers have faced a furious backlash as fans questioned why they had failed to attend ceremonies bidding farewell to Pele. And only a handful of Brazil’s World Cup winners made the trip to pay homage. “Pele is a citizen of the world, at the same level as Nelson Mandela or Mahatma Gandhi, but Brazilians don’t know how to recognise that,” lamented a former player.

Pele married three times, fathering seven children. He leaves behind his present wife, Marcia Aoki.

Play well through the year 2023. Fix the posts and shoot your goals, with World Inthavaaram.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2022-51

About –the stories of the world this week, 18 December to 24 December: return of the mask – a country overwhelmed; a warship sinks; a President visits a President – Europe to America; no education for girls; Football World Cup; and Christmas – the gift of the magi.

Everywhere

While the world is gradually stepping-out of the pandemic, China finds itself locked in a terrific battle with the Covid19 causing coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 variants. Cases of infection have been recorded in 31 of its provinces and there is an explosion of people struck by the virus.

Meanwhile, it’s tails-up for the world, as we brace for another possible virus invasion from China. The masks are out again, and all the colourful terms we learnt during the pandemic could be put to use one more time. Call it a deja vu? Return of the Mask?

China lifted its most severe Covid policies attributed to the Zero Covid Policy – including forcing people into quarantine camps – just a week after landmark protests against the strict controls. People with Covid can now isolate at home rather than in state facilities if they have mild or no symptoms. They also no longer need to show tests for most venues, and can travel more freely inside the country.

But, the country is currently experiencing a surge in cases, and recorded its highest number of daily Covid numbers since the pandemic began in the year 2020. Several major cities including the capital Beijing and the southern trade hub Guangzhou are experiencing outbreaks. And there are serious concerns about a fresh Covid19 wave hitting the country.

The abrupt shift in China’s stringent Covid policy has left its people and health facilities ill-prepared to deal with the huge wave of infections, leading to widespread shortages of common drugs, and other essentials.

One of the reasons for the present outbreak is that vaccination levels are lower – though China claims 90% of its population has been fully vaccinated – than in other countries and only half of people aged over 80 have received three doses of vaccination. China has refused to import vaccines despite evidence that its homemade vaccines have been proved to be less effective in protecting people against serious Covid illness and death.

Experts predict that 60% of China is likely to be infected over the next 90 days, with deaths likely in millions.

China should get its act together and do everything possible to contain this wave of Covid19 and prevent its spread. For a start it should be more open about the data of infections and death, which, at the moment, only fuels scepticism about the real impact.

Thailand’s warship HTMS Sukhothai, a 76 metres long corvette (small warship) had been on Day Two of a routine patrol, east off South-Eastern Thailand when it got caught in a storm, this week’s Sunday night. The waves were as high as 3 metre and caused the water to climb the decks, flood the hull and then the electricity room, cutting off power, and ultimately sinking the ship with a crew of 105 on board.

Other naval ships were immediately alerted and sent to help, but only the HTMS Kraburi frigate reached the vessel before it sank, about 32km east of Bang Saphan in the Prachuap Khiri Khan province, off the Gulf of Thailand.

Rescuers have saved about 75 people so far, scouring the rough seas with boats and helicopters. Survivors have been found after floating for hours, some in an unconscious state.

The warship was commissioned in 1987 and built in the United States of America.

The two events that occupied this year’s headlines and refused to go away are, one – the Russia-Ukraine War, and two the fact that it’s over 455 days since the Taliban banned teenage girls from school in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan remains the only country on the planet banning children from getting an education. It only got worser this week when in another devastative, regressive action, the Taliban imposed a ban on university education for women: they cannot enrol themselves in public and private universities in Afghanistan. This comes three months after thousands of girls and women across the country took university entrance exams. The universities are currently closed for the winter and were to reopen in March 2023.

Before Afghanistan reached this stage, following the Taliban’s takeover of the country, universities were compelled to implement new rules, such as gender-segregated classrooms and entrances. Women were only permitted to be educated by women professors or old men.

Being rich in knowledge, full of dreams, no matter where they live, women of Afghanistan feel empty as the world has betrayed them.

Denying women the right to education is soul-crushing. A murder of the mind?

This week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky flew to the United States, his first visit outside the country since the war began. He addressed the US Congress and in a well-crafted speech said, “Your money is not charity. It is an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way.”

The extraordinary measures taken to transport President Zelensky from Ukraine to the US capital are a sign of just how crucial the two countries’ relationship is for both sides. After visiting the front line in Eastern Ukraine this Tuesday, Zelensky’s journey to Washington DC began with an overnight train journey to Poland before boarding a US Air Force plane, reportedly supported by a NATO spy-plane and an F-15 fighter jet. Hands-off Russia? Finally they are veering around from calling the ongoing invasion of Ukraine a special operation, and admitting it is indeed a war. And they want to end it!

FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Ends

The football World Cup finals were played this Sunday, and we witnessed one of the best-ever football final matches, in a long time. It was a slow-start thriller, building up the momentum to a nail-biting climax, which kept one on the edge. And rolling memories, long after it was over.

Argentina stepped in confidently and the ball seemed stuck to their legs for most of the first half of play and the beginning of the second – in about 75 minutes of probably the most dominated finals ever. Superstar Lionel Messi shot the first goal on a penalty and assisted another – a deft pass to Di Maria- to give Argentina a solid 2-0 lead before half-time. We could not see any vibrant signs of France – appeared drugged out, but just when we were beginning to give up on them, emerging superstar Kylian Mbappe copied Messi, scoring in a penalty and then a field-goal himself. Suddenly the game seem to be anybody’s after the second half scoring by France to equalise.

The game went in to extra time and Messi again delivered in a field goal scramble, making in 3-2. But the spirit of France had woken-up and Mbappe scored yet another goal – a hattrick- on a penalty shot making it 3-3 and driving the game to a penalty-shot decider.

Both stars, Mbappe and Messi got the first kicks inside, but Argentina’s goal-keeper stopped the next from France and the third shot from France missed the goal completely. The fourth went home. But Argentina kept their cool scoring all their shots making it 4-2. Argentina won, taking the Cup home after 36 years.

Team Argentina, moulded by coach Lionel Scaloni, has delivered to expectations and it is a well-deserved victory.

The jubilant homecoming of team Argentina was beyond measure with millions turning up to welcome their heroes. And Argentina declared a national holiday for people to watch the nation team ride an open bus during a parade in Buenos Aires centred around the iconic Obelisk that was built in 1936 to commemorative the quadricentennial of the first foundation of the city. It was sight to behold: looked like a huge beehive filled with honey from up above.

Indian Women’s Hockey Strikes Gold

The inaugural International Federation of Hockey (FIH) Hockey Nations Cup 2022 held in Spain saw India’s Women’s Team beat Spain 1-0, at Valencia, on 17th December, to win Gold.

The competing teams were Chile, Italy, South Africa, Indian, Japan, Spain, Ireland, and Korea.

This wonderful win was drowned in the drum-beats of the Football World Cup, but it is something to cheer about and ‘sticks out’ in journey of women’s hockey in India. Way to go!

Beware: a Warning

In Qatar two mass gathering events were held simultaneously, one, the FIFA World Cup 2022 and two, the Camel Mzayen Club’s Camel Beauty Pageant Festival. These attracted hundreds of thousands of people from within the Middle East and across the world. Many are attending both events, interacting closely with each other and with camels, creating ideal conditions for the transmission of camel-associated zoonotic pathogens with epidemic potential. These pathogens include the highly lethal MERS-CoV (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus). Dromedary camels in the Middle East are a major reservoir of MERS-CoV. Humans sporadically become infected through direct or indirect contact with MERS-CoV-infected camels or camel dairy products. People need to stay alert and watchful: we started the year trying to get off riding the coronavirus ride and need to shake it of least we take a Camel ride and drive ourselves into another pandemic.

Please Yourself

Christmas is upon us and it’s a wonderful time of the year to spend time with family, loved ones, give and receive dream gifts – especially from Santa Claus and to un-wind and crank-up our engines to travel the new year ahead. Children would be looking in excitement at the stockings on the Christmas trees to see if Santa indeed came down the chimney in the middle of the night and made good promises sought .

There’s no better season to just curl-up on your favourite sofa, probably with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand, and read the day away. And what’s nicer to read during the holidays than stories about Christmas itself?

One of my all-time favourite Christmas stories has been O’Henry’s, ‘The Gift of the Magi’, a beautiful short story about the personal sacrifices we are willing to make for the ones we love with the might of our heart.

It’s Christmas Eve, and the young very much in love couple, Mrs & Mr James Dillingham Young – Jim and Della – find that despite their best efforts over the past months they could not save enough to buy each other a Christmas Gift.

O’Henry begins the story with Della counting her savings to one dollar and eighty-seven cents and fretting on how to buy Jim a gift – a worthy platinum chain for his gold watch to replace the present ‘unworthy leather strap’.

There were two possessions that Jim and Della took mighty pride. One was Jim’s gold watch – a family heirloom handed down from Grandfather to Father to him. Two, Della’s beautiful hair, which fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters, reaching below her knee. King Solomon (despite all his treasures) and Queen Sheba (despite all her beauty) would have burnt with envy on the respective possessions of Jim and Della.

In an awkward moment, Della decides to cut and sell her hair to buy Jim a watch chain. On returning home- with her head covered with a scarf- Jim is stunned when he finds out that she had cut her hair to buy him a watch chain. Della wonders whether Jim will love her the same despite the hair? On his turn, Jim had sold the gold watch to buy her the most beautiful set of combs: pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims, which she had secretly worshipped for long on a Broadway window (and Jim had noticed).

Despite losing their most valued possessions, the husband and wife in this story realize that their mutual sacrifice signifies a much greater gift: their eternal love and devotion to one another. Jim asks Della to keep aside the gifts and celebrate Christmas – “they’re too nice to use at present. And now suppose you put the chops on”.

Wrote O’Henry in the Story – I quote- “The magi, as you know, were wise men-wonderfully wise men-who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were doubtless wise ones, possibly bearing on privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were wise. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi”.

Merry Christmas: Be wise, be a magi when you give or receive a gift. And cherish your love.

More soulful stories coming up in the weeks ahead. Watch the watch and keep the hair. Celebrate with World Inthavaaram.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-48

About: the world this week, 21 November to 27 November 2021, maybe another coronavirus wave in the making, America in black & white, India sends its new Farm Laws to the ground, the President of India on an award delivering spree, and dead meat eating, honey making bees.

Everywhere

This week saw Europe battle yet another surge of the never-say-quit coronavirus induced Covid-19. A fourth Wave? Germany is thinking lockdown; Portugal – one for the most vaccinated in the world -announced a week of contact containment after declaring a state of calamity; Czech Republic declared a state of emergency; Slovenia announced a nationwide lockdown; France, Switzerland, and Italy saw the biggest one day increases on record. Austria is already in the swing of a full national lockdown. The story goes on…

A New Variant, B.1.1.529, named as ‘Omicron’ – a Variant of Concern (VOC)- is the new hungry kid doing the rounds. It has over 32 mutations in its -now awfully familiar-spike protein and was first discovered in South Africa were the cases shot up by 321% from last week. After the Delta Variant, Omicron is becoming infamous.

The United States (US) is also seeing a spike in Covid-19 cases during this Thanksgiving Season.

Where Art Thou, O Lady of Justice?

On another battle front, the US was busy fighting its internal black & white ghosts – punishing shooters, releasing some, and breaking-out innocent people caught in prisons. Lots of red in the proceedings.

A Jury in the US found three white men guilty of killing a 25 year old black man, Ahmaud Arbery, who was fatally shot while jogging in Brunswick, Georgia, in 2020. The details are inexplicable and stunning: two white men claiming concerns about several break-ins in the neighbourhood, grabbed their guns, jumped into a truck pursued – stalked and cornered – Arbery who was on his usual jog of the day; and later, joined by a third white man, shot and killed Arbery with a shotgun. The best part is, the three killers had the audacity to say that they were ‘defending themselves’ while ‘attempting to make a citizen’s arrest’. Taking law into their own hands without an iota of evidence?

In another story, 61 year old Anthony Broadwater who spent 16 years in prison for a rape he did not commit was finally exonerated this week. He was convicted of the rape of author Alice Sebold, who wrote the fiction book, ‘The Lovely Bones’ and a memoir called ‘Lucky’ in which she detailed the rape, which happened to her when she was a freshman at Syracuse University, in 1981. Based on the memoir and a line-up identification parade, Broadwater who was then 20 years old was arrested. He had just returned home to Syracuse following a brief stint in the Marine Corps.

Anthony Broadwater was released from prison in 1998, but the conviction and subsequent sex offender status tagged him relentlessly, and would have been nailed on him for the rest of his life, if it were not for the exoneration. He struggled to find work after getting out of jail, when employers dug out his criminal record. However, he managed by creating work for himself, doing landscaping, tree removal, hauling, clean-outs etc. Broadwater met the woman to be his wife in 1999 and gave her the transcripts and other documents of his case, telling her to read them and decide if she wanted to be with him. She believed him and decided, ‘Yes’. She wanted to have kids but he did not want to bring children in to the world because of his situation and tarnished name…and now he says it’s too late.

Broadwater said, “I never gave up. I could never, ever give up and live under these conditions…I was going to do everything I could to prove my innocence”. On Sebold, Broadwater said he would like an apology, “I sympathise with her, on what happened to her” he said. “I just hope there’s a sincere apology. I would accept it. I’m not bitter or have malice towards her”.

In yet another story of wrongful confinement in prison,Kevin Strickland, 62 years old, spend more than 43 years in prison – the longest prison time for a wrongful conviction in the history of US State of Missouri. Strickland was convicted in 1979 for the murders of three people, in 1978, who were killed when four suspects broke into a Kansas City Bungalow. The only person who survived the shootings, Cynthia Douglas identified Strickland as one of the suspects. However, she later said police pressured her to tie Strickland to the crime. Strickland had long maintained his innocence saying that he was at home watching Television during the time of the shootings. Cynthia Douglas, who died in 2015 realised her mistake and spent years trying to clear Strickland’s name.

Now, on to some real shooting… killing and actually getting away with it. In August 2020 Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17 year old from Antioch, Illinois fatally shot and wounded two men and wounded another in Kenosha, Wisconsin. This was during protests, riots, and civil unrest following the shooting of a black man, Jacob Blake, by a white police officer. Rittenhouse and the three men he shot were white. In this case, the Jury reached a ’not guilt’ verdict and Rittenhouse was absolved of all charges. Here, the self defence stand worked- in a State where the Law allows a person to defend himself using firearms.

In the image of the blind-folded Lady of Justice the sword always stays below the scales, which signifies that the sword must be raised only after the evidence is carefully-weighed on a balance, with impartiality. Was the sword raised too soon?

That’s a lot of fire to breathe this week. What do we make of it all? How many Counts of Monte Cristo are we making – with or without the revenge angle?

It’s worth recalling Martin Luther King Jr saying,”Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”.

India’s Farm Laws Sent To The Ground, Plough Again?

Late last week, in an unexpected turn India’s Prime Minister (PM) announced repealing of Three Farm Laws – passed by India’s Parliament last year. The new Farm Laws were aimed at modernising India’s agriculture sector, giving farmers more freedom to sell their produce, while retaining crucial Minimum Support Prizes. However, it sparked year long protests, mostly in the North Indian States, which refused to go away, and caused spin-off incidents leading to many lives being lost in a growing surge of protests.

India’s PM accepted failure in not being able to implement the new Farm Laws, despite it being said by nearly every Economist worth his money, that the laws were pathbreaking and would unshackle Indian agriculture.

The PM said, “I apologise to the people of the country with a true and pure heart… we were not able to convince farmers. There must have been some deficiency in our efforts that we could not convince some farmers.”

The PM has shown sagacity and a nerve to listen and climb down, which his opponents said he did not have, painting him as an unbending leader. Sometimes stepping back can lead to a great leap forward. Tomorrow is another day!

Keeping Warm Ahead of Winter

With Winter looking to enter New Delhi, the President of India is trying to keep Rashtrapathi Bhavan warm, with a footfall of awards. I reckon he is working on a clever climate change mitigation plan warming-up our hearts too with all these presentations. He walks down to-to pin that medal on a deserving chest and rushes back to claim his high seat. It began with the Civilian Awards- The Padmas- and then ran into the Sports Awards -Khel Ratna – and this week it is the Gallantry Awards presented to the bravest of Indians.

Gallantry Awards have been instituted by the Government of India to honour the acts of bravery and sacrifice of the officers of the Armed Forces, other lawfully constituted forces and civilians. Beginning this Monday the President, who is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Armed Forces, presented Gallantry Awards 2021 and Distinguished Service Decorations in a Defence Investiture Ceremony at Rashtrapathi Bhavan.

What are the Gallantry Awards?

In the period just after its Independence, India had three gallantry awards: Param Vir Chakra, Maha Vir Chakra, and Vir Chakra. Thereafter, three other gallantry awards, Ashoka Chakra Class-I, Ashoka Chakra Class-II and Ashoka Chakra Class-III were instituted by the Government on 4 January, 1952. Subsequently these awards were renamed as Ashoka Chakra, Kirti Chakra and Shaurya Chakra respectively, in January, 1967. Order of precedence of these awards is, the Param Vir Chakra, the Ashoka Chakra, the Maha Vir Chakra, the Kirti Chakra, the Vir Chakra and the Shaurya Chakra.

Some of the awards, for the year are: Maha Vir Chakra to Colonel Bikumalla Santosh Babu, who was martyred in the violent clashes with Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley during Operation Snow Leopard; Vir Chakra Award to Indian Air Force pilot, Group Captain Abhinandan Varthaman, who shot down a Pakistan F-16 fighter jet in the Balakot Surgical Strikes; Vir Chakra to Havildar K Palani who was also martyred along with Col Santosh Babu at Galwan Valley. Kirti Chakra (posthumously) to Sapper Prakash Jadhav for neutralising terrorists in an operation in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). Shaurya Chakra (posthumously) to Naib Subedar Sombir for killing an A-Plus-Plus category terrorist during an operation in J&K.

Watching the receipt of the awards, by family members of those who had made the supreme sacrifice for the country, was heart-wrenching and unforgettable. It brought more than a tear to the eye. It touched a chord deep down: I am able to write this article comfortably sitting in my home due to the untiring efforts, in extreme weather conditions, of our Defence Personnel who watch and safe-keep our borders, most of which are invisible lines. A salute to all of them: we owe them everything.

Honey, I Just Ate All the Meat.

Most of the Bees that we know, generally feed upon pollen and nectar -turning them into honey- but certain species of bees called Vulture Bees, have evolved to feasting on dead meat.

Scientists at the University of California-Riverside, Columbia University, and Cornell University studied the gut bacteria or microbiomes of Vulture Bees in Costa Rica. And found that they were rich in acid loving bacteria similar to those found in vultures, hyenas, and other animals that feed on carrion -decaying flesh of animals.

Contrast this with the guts of honeybees, bumblebees, and stingless bees that are colonised by the same five crore microbes, and they have retained the bacteria for roughly 80 million years – holding them tight in a sticky, sweet, relationship.

With the intense competition for nectar, Vulture Bees has evolved to sourcing their honey from meat rather than nectar. Though they feed on meat the ‘non-vegetarian honey’ is just as sweet and edible. They store the meat in special chambers in the hives that are sealed off for two weeks – to allow them to rot – before they access it to begin the honey making process. And the chambers are separate from where the honey is stored.

Well, how do bees make honey in the first place? Bees fly from flower to flower – over thousands of them – to suck out the nectar with their tongues, and store it in what’s called their honey stomach, which is different from their food stomach. When their honey stomach is full, they fly back to the hive and pass it on, through their mouths, to other worker bees who chew it for about half an hour. The process is repeated, passed from bee to bee, until it gradually turns into honey. Then the bees store it in honeycomb cells, which are like tiny jars made of wax. The honey is still a bit wet, so they fan it with their wings to dry it out and becomes more sticky. When it’s ready, they seal the cell with a wax lid to keep it clean.

Let’s talk about vegetarian Honey and Non-vegetarian Honey?

More shooting and breaking-out stories coming up in the weeks ahead, stick with World Inthavaaram… there’s honey in it!

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.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-28

About: the world this week, 4th July to 10th July 2021, a wonderful cocktail of coronavirus, happily married-ever-after, spelling, killing, political, death of a tragedy king; and ball game-football and tennis-stories.

Everywhere

Cocktail

It’s July and we have climbed over half the mountain height of 2021. Many had to use Oxygen Cylinders to breathe, to reach this top.

It seems like just the other day, in early 2020, when we first learnt to wear nose & mouth covering face masks-while some specialised in wearing stylish chin masks – wash our hands endlessly, and keep a measured physical distance from one another. The hugs and kisses shrank to ‘cave levels’. And we invented a new form of cave living called ‘Lockdown’.

We then quickly got our outstanding brains to collaborate and challenged the SARS-CoV-2 induced COVID-19 pandemic with brilliant Vaccines in double quick time. Pfizer, Moderna, Sinopharm, Astra Zeneca-Covishield, Covaxin, Sputnik V, Johnson & Johnson… became household names. And suddenly, we all became Google Doctors: never knew being a Medical Doctor was so easy!

When we thought it was almost over, there appeared fresh kids on the block: Waves-we called them. The first outbreak became the first Wave, then the Second Wave…and now we are living in various stages of Waves. Some just cannot figure out which Wave, though!

Then came the Coronavirus Variants furiously mutating to hijack the next available Greek Alphabet: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and now the Delta Variant is the most famous of them all, while other Alphabets are struggling on the sidelines to get noticed. The latest is that the Lambda Variant, at the WHO ‘Variant of Interest’ level, is ‘coming soon’. I hope we don’t run out of Alphabets…and Vaccines.

Never mind the Greeks, and the pandemic, I would love to move on to dance with former US President Jimmy Carter, 96, and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, 93 who ringed in 75 years of rock-solid marriage. Is peanut farming, and all that came with it, the root of their enduring marriage? When Jimmy Carter left the Presidential White House in 1981, he was 56 years old and deep in debt. Forced to sell his Peanut Farm Business, Carter started writing books to generate income. He has published more than 30 books from a children’s book to reflections on his presidency. Maybe a Titanic Jim-Rose love-story is in the works.

There is support coming for Jimmy Carter’s writing:Zaila Avant-garde, a teenage basketball prodigy has become the first African American to win the US Scripps National Spelling Bee. The 14 years old from New Orleans, Louisiana, spelled her way to victory with the word ‘murraya’, a type of tropical tree. To get to that stage she had to spell out ‘querimonious’ (given to complaint) and ‘solidungulate’ (having a single undivided hoof on each foot, as in a Horse). The home-schooled girl said, “For spelling, I usually try to do about 13,000 words, and that usually takes about seven hours”. Despite practising for so many hours a day, she describes spelling as a side hobby. Zaila’s main focus is on becoming a basketball pro. I’m sure she can spell basketball!

Assassinations are back with a bang. Haiti’s President Jovenel Moise, who took office in 2017, was killed during an attack on his private residence early on Wednesday. The attackers, believed to be mercenaries, stormed Moise’s home at around midnight and fatally wounded him. The first lady, Martine Moise, was also shot and quickly evacuated to a hospital in Miami, USA, for treatment. Haitian Police have detained two suspects and killed four others-all foreigners-connected to the assassination. The country has been reeling from violence for weeks and the acting Prime Minister, Claude Joseph, declared a ‘state of siege’.

Haiti’s President of the Supreme Court would normally be next in line, but he recently died of Covid-19. The acting Prime Minister Joseph has to be approved by Haiti’s parliament for him to formally replace the slain President. But without recent elections, the Haitian Parliament is effectively defunct. Throughout his presidency, Moise had repeatedly failed to hold elections at local and national levels, leaving much of the country’s governing infrastructure empty. Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world. And natural disasters like the 2010 earthquake have only worsened the situation. An estimated 60% of Haiti’s eleven million citizens live below the poverty line.

In another assassination-an attempt-prominent Dutch Crime Reporter-Journalist, and TV Presenter, Peter R de Vries, 64, was shot up to five times in a Central Amsterdam street on Tuesday and is fighting for his life in Hospital. He is famous in the Netherlands for exposing notorious criminals and speaking on behalf of crime victims. The attack has sent shockwaves through Dutch society, which has for years watched De Vries on Television, handling-and solving-notable cases, including some of the most illustrious judicial errors in Dutch crime history.

Even before these assassinations, Hackers went on the prowl. And Russian-linked hackers, attacked software provider Kaseya, affecting thousands of businesses in at least 17 countries. They impacted everything from grocery stores to schools. It could be the biggest global ransomware attack ever recorded. The group, which goes by REvil, is known for hacking Brazil based, American meat processor JBS (Jose Batista Sobrinho) back in May- and bleeding the company of USD 11 million. Now, it’s demanding USD 70 million from Kaseya.

Meanwhile, faraway in Space, USA’s NASA, keep flying Ingenuity, which made its ninth successful flight on Mars on Monday, when it remained in the Martian air for about 166 seconds and flew as fast as 5 meters per second.

In another part of Space, nearer Earth, China started space-walking its Taikonauts, outside its work-in-progress Space Station.

Back on Earth, India’s Prime Minister decided that cooperation was lacking in the country and started a brand-new ministry called ‘Ministry of Cooperation’ primarily to kick-off the Cooperative sector, best exemplified by the ‘utterly, butterly, delicious’, taste of India, Amul kind. His Ministers called it visionary: on our part, we need to taste the results to decide. Having bought the butter, the PM went on to re-slice his Cabinet bringing-in fresh faces, rewarding performers with better ‘butter’ positions, and sacking those who slipped on the butter, through the past years. It was a massive shake-up, bold and beautiful, with old-on-old-heads, old-on-young heads, and brilliant degrees-graduate, masters, doctorates… making the grade. Stirred & shaken, India should do ‘butter-well’ in the upcoming days, weeks, months, and years.

Yesteryears ace Indian Actor, Dilip Kumar (born as Mohammed Yusuf Khan) – The ‘Tragedy King’ of Hindi Cinema- gave-up his last breath this Thursday at the ripe age of 98. He is best remembered for the epic roles in the dramatic Devdas (1955) and the historical Mughal-e-Azam (1960). Dilip Kumar is considered one of the greatest actors in the history of Hindi cinema, holding the Guinness World Record for winning the maximum number of awards by an Indian actor. In total, he acted in 65 films over a period of 50 years. With his low-key, naturalistic acting style, he excelled in a wide range of roles augmented by his good looks, deep voice, and superb accent.

Dilip Kumar was romantically linked with famous Indian actress, the Venus of Indian Cinema, Madhubala, for over seven years until they broke-up. Madhubala went on to marry playback singer and Actor Kishore Kumar until her death at age 36, when illness related to a congenital heart disease took her away too soon and broke many an Indian heart.

Dilip Kumar then fell deeply in love with Actress Saira Banu, who was 22 years younger than him, and married her in 1966. The couple did not have children. And lost what could have been a son, in the eight month of a pregnancy, in 1972. Dilip Kumar later married Hyderabad socialite Asma Sahiba, taking her as a second wife in 1981. That marriage ended in January 1983. But he always had Saira Banu with him… till the last.

Over the past weeks Dilip Kumar had been in and out of Hospitals, and he must have seen this coming. RIP Dilip Kumar.

Ball Games

The Sporting World was kicking-up to Open Stadiums without spectators or space-out ones. The Euro 2020 Football Tournament saw some real kicking around and Italy has reached the finals. England beat Denmark, also to reach the finals, which is their first major final in 55 years. It’s an Italy- England showdown on Sunday, 11 July 2021. Time to take sides and cheer your team.

The Wimbledon Tennis Tournament is coming to a close and Swiss Legend Roger Federer,39, got mauled by world No 18, the 24 years old Polish Hubert Hurkacz, who played fluent tennis to win 6-4, 7-6, 6-0 in the quarter-finals. Roger exited quickly and gracefully, waving to the crowd on his way out of the stage where he acted many a winning game – but not this time. Will we see him again at Wimbledon? Au revoir?

Later, Hurkacz was felled in the semi-finals by Italy’s Matteo Berretini who is the first to reach the Wimbledon Gentlemen’s Finals. Berretini plays Serbia’s Novak Djokovic who on Friday funnelled-out Canada’s Denis Shapovalov in the other semi-finals. Djokovic remains on course for a sixth Wimbledon Crown, and a 20th Grand Slam Title to go level with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.

Coincidentally, it’s Italy’s ‘ball-run of the year’ reaching the finals of major Tournaments in Tennis and Football, both of which are being played on Sunday, 11 July 2021. It’s going to be a hard-working Sunday for many of us fans. What with our legs on a football and the hands on a tennis racquet (and the TV remote, and a glass of…).

While the great oldies battled the grass to try to whack that ball consistently over the net, without forgetting the drawn boundaries, 18 years old Emma Raducanu who entered the Tournament on a wildcard saw the tennis balls as big as footballs, in a dream run.

Ranked 336th in the world, and rated only the 10th best female player in the country, Raducanu became the youngest British woman to reach the fourth round at Wimbledon in more than 50 years, after beating the experienced, in-form Romanian Sorana Cirstea.

Emma Raducanu was born in Toronto and moved to the United Kingdom when she was two years old. Her parents are from Romania and China respectively. Two months ago, Raducanu was sitting her final A-levels, in economics and maths, at a grammar school in South London. She speaks Mandarin, but said in English, ‘I’m just trying to stay here as long as possible’.

The long was cut-short in the next match when Emma sadly lost the match to Australia’s Ajla Tomljanovic, when she was forced to retire after suffering from breathing problems, while trailing 6-4, 3-0.

Ajla Tomljaovic went on to lose to fellow Australian Ashleigh Barty in the quarter-finals, who keep her own breath to meet Czech Republic’s Karolina Pliskova in the Finals clash, happening this Saturday.

Emma Raducanu has left us gasping for breath. Must have been a terrible time retiring hurt after getting this far. I hope she comes out stronger and ‘wilder’ in her next Tournament.

And, of course, I would love to see Roger Federer play again.

More stronger, breathing stories coming up in the weeks ahead.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-27

About: the world this week, 27th June to 3rd July 2021. A new branch pops-up in the tree of human origin; the Heat Dome of Canada; a brief fighting history of India; and other stories.

Everywhere

Origin of Mankind: Enter the Dragon Man

Planet Earth came in being about 4.5 billion years ago as an outcome of the Big-Bang-which itself happened over 13.5 billion years ago-when matter and energy that had formed, later coalesced into atoms and molecules. And the first living organisms on Earth appeared about 3.8 billion years ago.

At the moment, we know that the first humans-hominids-evolved from a genus called Australopithecus Africanus (Southern Ape of Africa) in Africa about 2.5 million years ago, originating from a common Ape ancestor. We modern humans, technically called Homo Sapiens, belong to the family of the Great Apes.

Aahuaaa uaaa uaaaaaaaa, Tarzan of the Apes, said it all along!

I was awfully good in Biology at school and here is a big chance to dig into my school-day basics and show it off: A Species consists of animals of a kind, which can mate with one another and give birth to fertile offspring, e.g., Lions are of the species Leo; Genus/Genera is a bunch of Species all of which evolved from one common Ancestor, e.g., Lions-Panthera Leo, Tigers-Panthera Tigris, are different species under the Genus Panthera; Genera, in turn, are grouped together into Families. E.g., the Family of cats consists of lions (and tigers) – Panthera, cheetahs – Acinonyx, and domestic cats – Felis. And members of a Family can trace their lineage to a single matriarch or patriarch. There you have it: Species-Genus-Family.

The first primitive humans moved ‘Out of Africa’ to settle in various parts of the world-in search of food and better living conditions-and thereafter, over millions of years, evolved into distinct species. It wasn’t one human species that evolved in a linear manner, rather there were several species of humans that co-existed at the same time. We’ve read about Homo Neanderthalensis, Homo Rudolfensis, Homo Ergaster, Homo Heidelbergensis, Home Erectus, Home Denisova, Homo Floresiensis, Home Soloensis, Homo Luzonensis, Homo Habilis, Homo Naledi, etc.

Keep in mind Homo is the genus, and Sapiens, Neanderthal, etc., is the species.

The truth is that certain species overlapped one another, like Homo Sapiens lived alongside Homo Neanderthals and Home Erectus. Maybe we interbred with them. Whatever, after about 13,000 years all other Human Species went into extinction leaving Homo Sapiens as the only surviving, dominant human species. Here we are, in all our two-legged, upright, brainy glory.

How do we know this? Some of our ancestors left autographs-that are well represented in the fossil records-but most of what we know about, say, Neanderthals and Denisovans comes from genetic information in our DNA. And Scientists all over the world have been digging into Planet Earth like crazy to piece together the complicated zig-saw puzzle of how we came into being the shape and size we are today.

Last week, Scientists confirmed that a more than a 140,000 years old skull found in Harbin, in North-Eastern China belongs to a new ancient species of humans called Homo Longi and have nicknamed it ‘Dragon Man’. It is estimated that the skull belonged to a man, who was about 50 years old when he died, and lived between 138,000 and 309,000 years ago.

The Harbin Skull was discovered in 1933 by a Chinese man, when a bridge was being built over the River Songhua in Harbin, China. At the time, that part of China was under Japanese occupation, and the man who found it took it home and stored it for safekeeping by burying it at the bottom of an abandoned well. After the war, the man returned to farming, during a cataclysmic time in Chinese history, and never re-excavated his treasure. The skull remained unknown to science for decades.

Then the third generation of the man’s family learnt about the secret discovery before his death and recovered the fossil from the well in 2018. The family donated the find to the Geoscience Museum of Hebei, GEO University, China, where Researchers have been studying it for the past three years.

This discovery is the latest addition to a human family tree that is rapidly growing and shifting due to new fossil finds and analysis of ancient DNA preserved in teeth, bones and cave dirt.

Meanwhile, on another dig, in Israel, an international group of archaeologists have discovered, in an excavation site in Nesher Ramla, Israel, what they claim, is a missing piece in the story of human evolution. They recovered a skull thought to represent a distinct human population, which lived in and around modern-day Israel from about 420,000 to 120,000 years ago. The analysis of the skull established that it wasn’t fully Homo Sapiens nor was it Neanderthal, which was the only other type of human thought to have been living in the region at that time.

Instead, the skull to which this person belonged, falls right in the middle: a unique population of Homo never before recognised by science.This human community is believed to have traded both their culture and genes with nearby Homo Sapiens groups for thousands of years.

The mysterious Nesher Ramla Homo may even represent our most recent common ancestor with Neanderthals. Its mix of traits supports genetic evidence that early gene flow between Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals occurred between 400,000 and 200,000 years ago. In other words, that interbreeding between the different Homo populations was more common than previously thought.

We need to keep up the digging, until we learn more about ourselves. And watch that DNA!

A Building Collapse in the USA raises Dust

Last week, a section of a 12-storey Condominium, Champlain Towers, collapsed in Surfside, a town near Miami, Florida, USA, leaving at least twenty people dead. So far, over thirty-seven people have been rescued and about 145 are still missing. Rescue crews continued to search for survivors amid fire and smoke.

The disaster, which destroyed 55 of the 136 apartments, may turn out to be the deadliest building collapse in America in 20 years. Champlain Towers opened its doors in 1981.

There seems to be no evidence of foul play that led to the collapse. Maybe the building wasn’t built exactly to code? Or, perhaps to keep running costs down critical maintenance and upkeep was thrown into the sea?

The cause of the collapse is still unknown. Some experts believe a column or concrete slab gave way below the pool deck, taking the rest of the building down with it. In 2018, an engineering report found ‘major structural damages’ to the building. And urged the building managers to fix the ‘abundant cracking’ found in columns, beams, and walls of the parking garage below the pool deck. Some reported damage was likely due to corrosion from consistent water leaks and years of salty air along the coastline.

Nowhere is Safe: The Heat Dome

Over the past week Canada has been heated-up by an unprecedented heatwave that has melted all previous temperature records.

On this week’s Tuesday, Canada recorded its highest ever temperature for a third straight day of 49.5 Centigrade (C) in Lytton, British Columbia. And temperatures in Canada had never crossed 45C.

The heat is believed to have been a contributing factor in the deaths of sixty-nine people in the Vancouver suburbs of Burnaby and Surrey. Most were elderly or had underlying health conditions.

I have a friend, a criminal lawyer, from Tiruchirapalli, Tamilnadu, India, who flew to Vancouver to legally visit his daughter- spread the warmth-just before India’s second wave of the pandemic. And he says Vancouver has outdone and murdered the heat in Tiruchi – known for its boiler temperatures.

One explanation is that the heatwave was caused by two pressure systems, the first coming from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, and the second from James Bay and Hudson Bay in Canada. The Pacific North-West got caught in a region where a series of feedbacks set up these very hot temperatures with very little cloud cover and very warm temperatures at night. And these types of extreme hot weather events are being exacerbated by global warming. Warming is too mild a term, I would use heating, to put the temperature in perspective.

The heatwave is being described as a ‘Heat Dome’ (no relation of Israel’s Iron Dome). The term refers to the idea that this type of warmth extends high into the atmosphere and isn’t just a thin layer, and that it can have an impact on pressure and wind patterns. The Heat Dome showing-up acting in the Pacific North-West has served to essentially shut off the flow of cool marine air off the Pacific into the land area.

How unusual is the Heat Dome? Similar events did not happen that often and take place every one to three decades.

Clever Climate Scientists have got into a Research Dome of their own and declared, ‘Nowhere is safe’.

India Outclasses the USA

The World leader in COVID-19 Vaccination doses done is China with over 1.24 billion doses in the year of celebrating 100 years of the Communist Party. The next spot was held by the United States of America, until India overtook it this week with over 340 million doses administered.

All over the world, more than 3.1 billion doses have been administered across 180 countries at rate rate of about 41.9 million doses a day.

Continuing the dig into our history, some Researches have found that there was a kind of devastating coronavirus around while we still living in the caves!

Teeth, Heads… and some Muscle.

In other news not related to the COVID-19 pandemic: China’s President Xi Jinping said China will ‘Bash the Heads’ of anyone who tries to bully or influence China, Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, said Russia will ‘Knock Out the Teeth’ of anyone who tries to attack Russia.

Better start wearing Helmets, all the time – with that mask tightly tucked inside, courtesy China.

Meanwhile, India too showed some muscle-has been growing it in recent times. When the European Union (EU) Countries unfairly and unjustly refused to accept fully vaccinated- by Covishield and Covaxin- Indians into their countries, India returned the favour and said if you don’t accept our Vaccination Certificates we’ll place anybody from the EU on the mandatory quarantine period, irrespective of any EU Vaccination Certificates, when they enter India. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. Last heard, the EU was backing-out and approvals were coming in quickly.

Please Yourself

While the Tiruchi Lawyer friend of mine was getting baked in Canada, a Doctor friend, in very much cooler Attur, India, handed me a book to read, Tamil Historical Novel, ‘Vanthargal… Vendrarkal’ (They came… they conquered) written by Tamil Journalist and Writer Madhan. After a hesitant start I became fascinated with the early History of India beginning from the time of Mohammad of Ghazni, in the years after CE (Common Era) 1000. I’ve just started attacking the book, but here are some learnings.

India had natural borders at its head, with the mighty Himalayas lording over the North and the then always-in-spate River Indus in the West drawing a neat meandering line. Peninsular India had the great Oceans watching over it in the South, while the River Brahamaputra guarded the East.

Despite being endowed with such natural boundary walls the great civilisation that was India crumbled under the brutal, ceaseless onslaught of invaders such as, The Afghans, The Turks, The Persians, The Mongols, The Mughals…who came either to pillage its wealth or establish their Kingdoms.

Invaders found chinks in India’s natural armour, which they exploited to the bone – time and again. They ‘walked-into’ India multiple times through the Khyber pass and the Gomal Pass, which Indian Kings did not bother to join-together to seal off. Or maybe build a Fort-Gate to block entry.

Despite India having fantastic warriors, brilliant individual fighters, superhuman heroes, backed-up by a great thriving civilisation, it failed to stop the ceaseless invasions only because India failed to stay united and collaborate in unison against an invading army. In the few times they joined together they made pulp of the invaders, but then these instances were rare and absolutely short-lived. And the Kings would go back to their old ways of ‘showing -off, pleasure warfare’ and infighting.

To give an example, if only the great King Prithviraj Chauhan had joined hands with his father-in-law King Jayachandra and both supported each other, the History of India would have been completely different.

Prithviraj cleverly and bravely stole King Jayachandran’s daughter, Samyuktha, from under his very eyes creating that life-long famous rivalry between them (King Jayachandran drowned himself in humiliation and seethed with revenge until the end) Could the King have got a better Braveheart than Prithviraj for his Princess daughter?

When it was most needed, the father-in-law, King Jayachandran, never offered his ample resources and army to his son-in-law. And Prithviraj never asked.

Mohammad Ghori who invaded India, after Mohammad of Ghazni, used this division and bitter rivalry to his advantage to win a second time, after being throughly whacked in the first battle by Prithviraj, who had magically weaved together the many small Indian Kingdoms to join the fight. While Prithviraj was ‘kind enough’ to allow Mohammad Ghori to escape – and return with a bigger army, Mohammad Ghori had Prithviraj promptly beheaded when he defeated and captured him.

Indian Rulers and Kings fought with mind-boggling bravery, but under the guise of ‘war dharma’ and ‘large-heartedness’ they often let-off captured invaders easily. They considered battles as a show-post of individual bravery and a pastime, limiting themselves to self-protection and self-preservation. While India’s troops were often divided by caste divisions, the invaders were united by religion.

Another reason is Indian Kings failed to raise and breed high-stock horses for battles, instead depending on Arabian Horses, in addition to their own. The Afghan horses were superb riding beasts and were no match to those used by Indian Kings.

Riding to the present, just look around, and you can see the mirror of the past – people endlessly fighting each other, wallowing in petty rivalries: so many examples in our daily lives -within families, within Governments; State versus the Centre, North versus South, Aryan versus Dravidian… Remember where we came from?

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

More brave stories coming up in the weeks ahead. Stay together, collaborate, agree to agree, or agree to disagree, but stay united working to a common purpose of improving the lives of Homo Sapiens, on Earth and beyond.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-19

About: My window to the world, this week, 1st May to 8th May 2021. The gates opened-up on many things.

Everywhere

Bill Gates and The Ramayana

It was a stunning, bombshell of a headline news when Microsoft Co-Founder Bill Gates and his wife of 27 years, Melinda Gates, announced their separation and filed for divorce. They had been running the nonprofit, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for over 20 years, fighting poverty, disease, and inequality around the world (and perhaps silently fighting each other? We may never know). And more recently contributing to the development of the coronavirus vaccine, to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thats a lot of time together, to get to this stage during which period they raised three children – all of them who have now become adults.

What could have brought them to this? Reports say that there was another woman in the life of Bill Gates, which wasn’t a secret. Bill Gates took annual ‘learning’ vacations with his ex-girlfriend, a software entrepreneur and venture capitalist even after his marriage, which was an agreement made with Melinda.

Bill Gates, before marrying Melinda, sought his ex-girlfriend’s approval, which she did give saying, ‘I said she’d be a good match for him because she had intellectual stamina’. Appears that when the ex-girlfriend, who was senior to Bill, was ready for marriage, Bill wasn’t and they broke-up, but stayed in touch, as good friends.

With the wealth of knowledge, the wealth of money, and the wealth of shared interests, why could not they find satisfaction in each other after almost three decades of marriage? I ran to the Ramayana for some answers.

In the great Indian Epic Ramayana, when Sage Vishwamitra was preparing to conduct a Yagna (a Hindu ritual done in front of a sacred fire) in his Ashram, in the forest, he had with him the young Ayodhya Princes, Rama and Laxmana to keep at bay the disruptive, ferocious Rakshashas (super-natural, raw-flesh eating beings) living in the forests. Sita and other Princesses from the near Kingdom were also present to witness the Yagna. The occasion was also to serve as a means of enlightenment and education for the young Princes and Princesses-who would later become Rulers and Kings-co-mingling with the Sage and his students, to rub knowledge off one another.

One evening during a discussion in the Ashram, Vishwamitra was asked why fidelity was so important in marriage and especially to the Rishis (a Hindu Sage or learned and enlightened person), to which the Sage said it was a measure of how satisfied we are with the spouse’s offerings. And that the dissatisfied seek satisfaction elsewhere.

Rama then joins the conversation declaring, ‘I shall always strive to find all my satisfaction in a single wife’. Vishwamitra quickly retorts, ‘What if your wife does not find satisfaction in you’, hoping to get a response from Rama, but it was Sita who replied, ‘If she is wise, she will accommodate the inadequacy. If he is wise, he will strive to grow and rise to fulfil her expectations’. This transpired before Rama won and married Sita. And the Ramayana is, among many other things, mostly about staying true to one wife, establishing and following rules, and setting an example in a time when Kings took many wives to spread their seed.

That sure is enlightenment. Maybe Bill Gates should have strived harder. And Melinda appears to have given-up accommodating any inadequacies! But I think years into the marriage you develop ‘many permanent sets’ having exceeded the elasticity limits many times over, and one fine day it just snaps and stays broken. Time to move on and explore new limits and expand known boundaries. Why not?

On a lighter vein, maybe if Bill Gates followed the Linux model of open source programming he would have excelled in his marriage, and the word of the Ramayana would have been a powerful point to make.

Population Explosion

A 25 years old woman, Halima Cisse, in the West-African country of Mali has given birth to nonuplets, nine babies-five girls and four boys-in a single delivery. This was more than the seven seen during ultrasound tests-two of them had probably gone into hiding. All children were delivered by Caesarean Delivery (C-Section), and the mother and newborns are said to be doing well. Cisse was admitted to a Moroccan clinic following a two-week stay in a hospital in the Malian capital, Bamako, prior to the delivery.

The instances of women delivering nonuplets is extremely rare in this world. Only two sets of nonuplets have previously been recorded: one born to a woman in Australia in 1971 and another to a woman in Malaysia in 1999, but none of the babies survived more than a few days.

The record for the most children delivered in a single birth, to survive, belongs to Nadya Suleman, who in 2009 gave birth to octuplets-six boys and two girls- in California, United States, according to the Guinness World Records. The babies, conceived using in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment, were delivered by C-Section.

Is there a better definition of human population explosion? I wish Halima Cisse’s babies survive their birth and go on to become path-breaking adults, as they did at birth.

A Spring Revolution

The Myanmar saga goes on. More than 750 people have been killed since the Military seized power in a coup, three months ago. Thousands of people have been detained, including its democratically elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. The borders are closed and the internet effectively blocked, but people are resisting the coup in many ways. ‘They have the guns, we have the people’, says a protester.

How far will this go and at what cost? I hope The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which is already engaged in a dialogue with the Army Generals, and the United Nations up the ante on the Leaders of the Coup and bring back normalcy to Myanmar.

I’ll be Back: What Goes Up must Come Down?

Debris from the core of a Chinese Rocket, about 30m length and weighing about 18 tons is expected to fall back to Earth in an uncontrolled re-entry this weekend.

This was used to launch the first module of China’s upcoming new Space Station, in April 2021. This would be one of the largest items, in decades, to have an undirected dive into the atmosphere. Welcome back home?

Recall the worldwide attention when fragments of the US Space Station, Skylab, fell back on Earth with debris scattering across Western Australian, in the year 1979.

Modern practice now calls for rocket stages to be de-orbited as soon as possible after their mission. In the case of large core segments, these would normally come straight back, within one orbit, falling into the ocean or on land. USA’s SpaceX, for example, has made designs such that it lands its core stages by controlled propulsion, so they can be reused.

For upper-stages, that go into an orbit and may travel around the Earth several times as they precisely position a payload, the preference is to include a re-ignitable engine that can steer the stage into a return to Earth at the earliest opportunity.

Various Space Agencies are tracking the path of Rocket and I wonder whether China is being irresponsible, again. However the exact point of impact can be predicted only a few hours before the actual fall. I hope the Oceans are welcoming enough and receive the debris with open octopus arms!

India’s State Elections and the Results

It was a beautiful Sunday, I had a shower, a strong breakfast, bristled with energy and filled with positivity that my expectations would come true as the counting of votes in the five State Assembly Elections of India began at 8am. I had fried-fish and fish curry waiting to be walloped at lunch, and I was expecting to spend lots of energy in cheering my favourite horses to the winning majority line.

The start was extremely welcoming but soon after the fish curry did its work at lunch – a few naughty bones got stuck in my throat, the horses I had bet-on started losing. Eventually, I had to go to bed ‘with the horse’s tail between my legs’.

While the results of Puducherry and Assam were on ‘my expected lines’ the states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal were not.

In West Bengal a fiery tigress of a woman led her party to a landslide win for the third successive time, but lost her own election as a candidate. I call it, ‘Operation Successful, but Patient died’. The challenger settled for second place, but bettered its previous seats-won record by a whooping 2500%. I wanted them to win.

In Tamil Nadu I was disappointed that a Party led by an ordinary man, who had climbed up the political ladder and by sheer chance became Chief Minister, grabbed the opportunity, and excelled on the job, was not rewarded for courageous work he had done especially during the first wave of the pandemic. He won his own Election by one of the largest margins in the State. If we do not respect good work, we encourage unqualified people to win. The ‘rising son’ winner who took oath as Chief Minister on the 7th May, immediately showed his true colours: his twitter page said, ‘Belongs to the Dravidian stock’. I consider it a regressive, parochial way of identifying yourself when you should be the Chief Minister of all people. The Party he heads has always been this way- various shades of black and red!

Ultimately, they say, ‘the people’s choice is God’s choice’, and democracy certainly works in mysterious ways: accept and move-on.

The Outbreak In India

India is in the agonising throes of a brutal second wave of coronavirus infections in the COVID-19 pandemic with over 4 lakhs cases per day and near about 4000 deaths. And there is already frightening talk of a sure third wave unless India fights it out.

The stories of struggles for hospital beds, medical personnel, oxygen, medicines, and burial space are heart-wrenching, especially in the worst affected States of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Kerala, and Karnataka. The State of Goa is on a different league: one in two people have tested positive for the virus and the State has the highest positivity ratio in the country, of 51.4%.

Meanwhile, the Press continues to be hysterical and it’s a sordid drama that unfolds on the TV screens every day.

State Governments are enforcing various kinds of lockdowns. Authorities are slowly rising-up to the tremendous challenge of saving lives, and I’m sure the worst will be behind us in a couple of weeks. Allright, we are here, now, let’s try to find some solutions.

In India’s ongoing Vaccination Drive, about 167 million people have been vaccinated – one short or two-with Maharashtra State leading in the highest number of vaccinations followed by Rajasthan and Gujarat -all over 10 million. My own State of Tamil Nadu has done about 4 million.

How do we contain the virus?

Experts say containing the coronavirus in the short term will be hard, slow and painful. Improved Government messaging, communication, and streamlining of medical distribution are solutions to work upon. The load on the health care system has to be reduced by making sure that mild cases don’t progress to the critical stage.

India has historically underinvested in its health care, which has led to the collapse of the system, under the bulging weight of hospital admissions. It is a ‘now or never moment’ to begin ramping-up medical infrastructure, all over the country.

The thinking is that India should invest not less than 5% of its GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in health care if it wants to prevent another collapse of the health care system. Presently, India invests as little as 1.5% of GDP in Health. Terrible, isn’t it? Glad we noticed.

Comparatively, the United States of America invests about 17% of GDP in Healthcare; Switzerland-12.2%, Germany-11.2%, France-11.2%, Sweden-11%, Japan-10.9%, The United Kingdom-9.8%, New Zealand-9.3%, Spain-8%, China-6.6%, Italy-6.4%.

Looking at the percentage of GDP figures, we know where the fault lies and add the fact that India has the second-largest population in the world, we get a dizzy cocktail. Successive Governments, through the years have failed us in developing a penetrating health care system and this is a final wake-up call. Such a fragile system was bound to crumble at the slightest application of pressure. And it did exactly that.

One of India’s ‘biggest failures’ in controlling the pandemic has been in communication – direct and indirect. The government should have actively discouraged events like weddings, mass gatherings, political rallies, and religious festivals. It should have also actively advised people against attending super-spreader events.

India was also under attack by more powerfully evolved mutants of the virus and new properties such as the virus being air-borne and spreading in this manner.

Looking back in history, the AIDS and polio epidemics were tackled through high quality messaging at the national level. With COVID-19, we have-after a reasonably good start-been inconsistent with the intensity of messaging, including on basic protocols like masking and physical distancing.

With the mind space occupied by gruesome tales of suffering it’s hard to think about and ‘please yourself’ with anything else. This too shall pass.

More outbreaking stories coming up in the weeks ahead.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-01

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

Everywhere

The Software Of Life: The Hard Story of Katalin Kariko

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The World of Abortions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Ancient World

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

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

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

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

For sure the Romans ate well!

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

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

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!

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Israel-Hamas War

Shooting in the Czech Republic

Bless LGBTQIA

China’s Earthquake

India’s Parliament: A Tumultuous Week

India’s Down South Floods

COVID-19 Again, and Kerala

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Base Editing: A Path-breaking Invention

America Fails to Elect a Speaker: Speechless

A Pope Dies

Amazon Sheds Fat-Letters

India’s Demonetisation is OK

A Dragging Horror in New Delhi

Goodbye Pele

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FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Ends

Indian Women’s Hockey Strikes Gold

Beware: a Warning

Please Yourself

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Where Art Thou, O Lady of Justice?

India’s Farm Laws Sent To The Ground, Plough Again?

Keeping Warm Ahead of Winter

Honey, I Just Ate All the Meat.

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Irreversible

More Greek

Curtains on The Tokyo Olympics 2020

New York and America

India’s Parliament

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Cocktail

Ball Games

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Origin of Mankind: Enter the Dragon Man

A Building Collapse in the USA raises Dust

Nowhere is Safe: The Heat Dome

India Outclasses the USA

Teeth, Heads… and some Muscle.

Please Yourself

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Bill Gates and The Ramayana

Population Explosion

A Spring Revolution

I’ll be Back: What Goes Up must Come Down?

India’s State Elections and the Results

The Outbreak In India

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The Software Of Life: The Hard Story of Katalin Kariko

The World of Abortions

The Ancient World

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