Tag: Iran

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2022-39

About –the stories of the world this week, 25 September to 1 October 2022: All kinds of tensions – religious, nature blowing, stealing land, a country making a right-turn, homeland surgical operations, and a classic Tamil novel becomes a movie and hits the cinema screen.

Everywhere

The protests in Iran on the killing of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, while in Detention by the Morality Police, over improper wearing of the hijab-headscarf continues. Over 70 people have been killed in the unrest and thousands arrested. Women cutting off their hair and burning the hijab has become the signature of the protests against the stringent Islamic Dress Code. Iranian Authorities are struggling to put-down this bold defiance, uncovering after quite a long time, in Iran. And the excessive force being used probably unveils how things went wrong in the first place.

In the United States, a force of nature, Hurricane Ian made landfall along the southwestern coast of Florida as a powerful Category-4 storm. It’s one of the strongest hurricanes in recent times to hit the west coast of the Florida Peninsula. The extremely dangerous conditions unleashed by the Hurricane including catastrophic floods, and life-threatening storm surges continued as the storm advanced inland. In a second landfall it battered South Carolina after leaving a trail of destruction across Florida.

Religious Tensions

Leicester is a city in England’s East Midlands region close to the River Soar, where the National Forest area ends. And it is one of its oldest cities with a deep history. Leicester Cathedral, which has stood for over 900 years in the heart of the city is where Britain’s King Richard III was reinterred in 2015.

Leicester has a population over 4.5 Lakhs with a demography of Whites being the largest ethnic group at over 50%, followed by Asians at about 37%.

Recent Hindu-Muslim violence in Leicester caused shock and outrage, and was alarming as the city is known for its diversity, its multiculturisim roots, and has been a model of cohesion for decades. And such unrest is extremely rare. Some tensions in Leicester had been brewing for a while, but it had never got to the point of confrontation before.

The recent disturbances in Leicester first began last month after an India-Pakistan cricket match. On 28 August, cricket fans from Hindu and Muslim communities clashed after India beat Pakistan in the Asia Cup T20 tournament in Dubai. Eight people were arrested on suspicion of assault and violent disorder.

In the weeks following the incident, several disturbances in East Leicester led to more arrests. The tensions reached boiling point on 17th September when a group of Hindus peacefully marched through Green Lane Road, which has predominantly Muslim-owned businesses, chanting, “Jai Shri Ram (Hail Lord Ram)”. Then fights broke out, bottles were thrown, property was smashed and a religious flag was pulled off a Hindu temple in the area. There were even roars that this is a ‘Muslim only area’ and how dare others enter. Over last weekend, multiple retaliatory marches and protests further escalated tensions.

However, this may not be as straightforward as a sporting feud that has got out of hand: It seems like there were simmering tensions before this cricket match. A pointer is an incident which occurred before the 28th August incident in which a young Muslim man said that he was assaulted by a Hindu gang. No one has been charged, but the allegations alone appear to have been enough to stoke further tensions. It is learnt that particular pieces of misinformation such as this fuelled tension in the run-up to the worst of the disorder on the weekend of 17-18 September. One false story was referenced several times.

“Today my 15 years daughter was nearly kidnapped,” read a post uploaded on Facebook, supposedly by a concerned father. “Three Indian boys got out and asked her if she was Muslim. She said yes and one guy tried to grab her.” The post was liked hundreds of times, not on Facebook but on Twitter after a community activist, tweeted the family’s story on 13 September. He also shared a message from the police, which he said was “confirming the incident which took place on 12 September”. But there had been no kidnap attempt. A day later, Leicestershire Police issued a statement after investigating and stated that the incident did not take place at all. The community activist deleted his posts and said the attempted abduction had not happened and that his initial version had been based on conversation with the family making the allegation. But damage had already been done and this false kidnap claim kept being regurgitated on other social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Instagram. Messages forwarded many times over were initially taken by some as the truth. On Instagram, profiles – some with hundreds of thousands of followers – shared screenshots of the original post and allegedly accused a Hindu man of being behind the ‘failed abduction’.

Days later a mob of more than 200 people, mostly Muslims, attacked Durga Bhawan Hindu Centre in Smethwick, Birmingham, and shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ slogans. And following this an Islamist group shared posts calling for a demonstration outside the Shree Sanatan Hindu Mandir in Wembley. This is the latest in a series of incidents targeting Hindus in the United Kingdom in recent days.

In a video posted on Twitter, an Islamist could be seen provoking Muslims in the city, calling Hindus gangsters, and mocking the religion.

Hindu-hatred and Hindu-phobia seem to be the new words in Town.

Russian Tensions

Tensions are rising in Russia. Last week, Russia kicked off a five-day referendum in the occupied Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine. The question on the ballot: “Do you wish to secede from Ukraine?” It comes as Russia announced a troop surge of 300,000 and its first draft since World War II amid mounting nuclear concerns. Meanwhile, thousands fled the country to escape the draft.

Ukrainians report that Russian soldiers are going door-to-door, coercing people ‘under a gun barrel’ to vote in favour of annexation. When ‘The Results’ were announced there was no surprise – all four occupied regions of Ukraine voted to join Russia.

Ukraine and Western countries including the US have condemned the vote as a sham. The United Nations Security Council said it will never accept the results and the four regions will remain part of Ukraine.

That’s a sham referendum for sure, but late this week Russia went ahead and declared these territories as Annexed to Russia, and henceforth people living in them are Russian citizens. That’s cold-blooded land-grabbing.

Italy: Right Turn

Italy is turning in the ‘right’ direction. The ultra-conservative Brothers of Italy Party led by Giorgia Meloni won 26% of the vote and along with coalition partners, The League – led by Matteo Salvini (8.8%) and Forza Italia – led by Silvio Berlusconi (8.1%) secured a clear majority in Parliament. Together with a smaller party representing less than 1% of the vote their right-wing coalition obtained 43.8% of the total votes. All this translates into 237 seats in the 400 seat Chamber of Deputies-called the Lower House, and 115 seats in the 200 seat Senate of the Republic – called the Upper House. Their main rival, the centre-left Democratic Party won 19% of the vote with 84 seats in the Chamber and 44 seats in the Senate.

Giorgia Meloni, 45, is all set to become Italy’s first female Prime Minister leading the most far-right government since the fascist era of the Second World War. It’s expected to take weeks for a new government to be formed. And President, Sergio Mattarella will have to nominate her, which is expected to happen during the month of October.

Meloni entered Italy’s crowded political scene in 2006 and co-founded the Brothers of Italy in 2012, a party whose agenda is rooted in Euroskepticism and anti-immigration policies. In the last election, in 2018, the party won just 4.5% of the vote, but its popularity has soared in recent years.

Meloni differs from coalition partner leaders on the issue of Ukraine. Whereas Berlusconi and Salvini have both said they would like to review sanctions against Russia because of their impact on the Italian economy, Meloni has been steadfast in her support for defending Ukraine. She is deeply conservative, openly anti-LBGT, and has threatened to place same sex unions, which were legalised in Italy in 2016, under review. She has also called abortion a ‘tragedy’ raising fears for the future of women’s rights in the country.

Meloni has a daughter with her partner Andrea Giambruno, a journalist who works for Silvio Berlusconi’s Mediaset TV channel.

A Cool Homeland Surgical Operation

The Popular Front of India (PFI) is an Indian Political Organization founded in 2006 with the merger of the Karnataka Forum of Dignity (KFD), the National Development Front (NDF) of Kerala- established in Kerala two years after the demolition of the Babri Masjid to protect the interests of the Muslim community – and the Manitha Neethi Pasarai of Tamilnadu. It was formed to counter Hindu groups and engages in radical and exclusivist style of Muslim minority politics. It is said to be a resurrection of the banned, terrorist Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), and affiliate of the Indian Mujahideen and also has links to the Jamat-ul-Mujahideen Bangalesh (JMB)- another proscribed organisation. That’s danger written all over. The PFI has various wings such as National Women’s Front and the Campus Front of India.

The PFI’s stated purpose is to establish Islamic rule in India.

Last week in a superbly planned surgical operation called ‘Operation Octopus’, India’s National Investigative Agency conducted large-scale raids in the ‘tentacle premises’ of PFI and its affiliates across the country on charges of terror funding and money laundering. And at the end of which about 100 PFI leaders and activists suddenly found themselves behind bars.

The raids had the stamp of good homework and not many had an inkling of what was coming up. It was conducted in a flawless manner with the entire PFI top leadership caught unawares and picked up in single swoop – meticulous planning by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and ‘India’s James Bond’, National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval.

This week, the Indian Government, loaded with solid evidence used the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) to declare that the PFI and its associates as an unlawful organisation and banned it with immediate effect, for a period of five years. PFI and its associates have been indulging in unlawful activities, which are against the integrity, sovereignty, and security of the country. And have the potential of disturbing public peace and communal harmony of the country, as well as support militancy in the country.

A notification to the effect was issued by MHA, on 27 September. Eight associate organisations of PFI have been declared unlawful associations: Rehab India Foundation(RIF), Campus Front of India(CFI), All India Imams Council(AIIC), National Confederation of Human Rights Org (NCHRO), National Women’s Front, Jr. Front, Empower India Foundation and Rehab Foundation, Kerala.

The MHA has also revealed that some of the PFI’s founding members are the leaders of Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and had connections with ‘Global Terrorist Groups like Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)” and that the PFI and its associates have been working ‘covertly to increase radicalisation of the Muslim community’ by promoting a sense of insecurity.

Investigations showed that the PFI and its cadres have been consistently engaging in violent, subversive, and terrorist acts, including chopping off the limb of a Malayalam college professor, and murder of several persons in the States of Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu; cold-blooded killings of people associated with organisations espousing other faiths; obtaining explosives to target prominent people and places and destruction of public property.

Looks like the Octopus has got itself a prize catch!

Tears Play

Perhaps it was the music that stirred emotions, with British singer Ellie Goulding bringing a memorable night in London to a conclusion, or maybe it was the volley of memories or the replays in the mind, and there are plenty of those shared between these tennis greats, being brought to the fore.

As Nadal sat alongside his friend and great rival at the O2 Arena in London last friday night, the pair cried. Fans chanted Federer’s name, the pair hugged and Federer received one last standing ovation. There was no doubt that this was it, the Swiss great’s final professional match in the ATP’s Laver Cup. He retires in a rally of tears – a genius who made tennis look effortless.

Please Yourself: Relieve Tension

Ace Indian filmmaker and director Mani Rathinam’s magnum-opus Ponniyin Selvan (son of River Ponni – Cauvery) based on the eponymous literary masterpiece by Tamil writer Kalki Krishnamurthy released this week, on 30 September, in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi languages.

Its Trailer became the first of a Tamil Film to be screened in Las Vegas, USA.

The film is directed by Mani Rathinam with Music scored by Academy Award winner A R Rahman, Lyrics by Vairamuthu and others, Art Direction by Thota Tharani, cinematography by Ravi Varma.

The casting includes most of the brightest stars of South Indian cinema and includes former Miss World Aishwarya Rai in a beautiful role. And the promotions have created a never before seen anticipation of a movie release.

The movie is about one of the greatest Kingdoms the world has seen, the Cholas of South India and the story is being told in two parts in a budget of over 450 crores. It is produced by Mani Rathinam’s own Madras Talkies and Subaskaran Allirajah’s Lyca Productions, which is a sub group of Lycamobiles.

Ponniyin Selvam is a historical fiction novel, first serialised in the weekly editions of the the popular Tamil magazine Kalki from 29 October 1950 to 16 May 1954, and later integrated and released as a novel in five volumes of about 2210 pages in 1955. It tells the story of early days of Arulmozhivarman who later became the great Chola Emperor Rajaraja Chola I (947 CE – 1014 CE).

Ponniyin Selvan is widely considered to be the greatest novel ever written in Tamil. The craze for the series which was published weekly was such that it elevated the magazine circulation to reach a staggering figure of 71,366 copies – no mean achievement in India of the early days. Even today, the novel has a cult following and and enduring fan base, across generations for its well-etched characters, tightly woven plot, vivid narration, wit of dialogue, and sketches/drawings of the Chola period brought alive by famous artist and painter Maniyam Selvam.

For those who have read the story and are also familiar with Indian movie stars, the star cast is a galaxy: Karthi as Vallavarayan Vandiathevan, Vikram as Aditya Karikalan, Jayam Ravi as Arulmozhi Varman, Trisha Krishnan as Kundavai, Aishwarya Rai as Nandhini, Shobitha Dhulipala as Vaanathi, Aishwarya Lakshmi as Poonguzhali, Jayaram as Azhwarkadiyaan Nambi, among many others

Read more about Ponniyin Selvan at:

https://kumargovindan.com/2020/03/31/on-first-reading-kalkis-ponniyin-selvan-2/

More stories coming up in the weeks ahead, to break-down tensions. Watch the world with World Inthavaaram.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2022-38

About –the stories of the world this week, 18 September to 24 September 2022: the end of an era; veiling beauty; bluffing a war; fortified food; and a new golf hero.

Everywhere

A Final Journey

The State Funeral of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II was held on Monday, this week. The monarch was lying in state in London’s Westminster Abbey since Wednesday as Heads of State, and the general public filed past her coffin to pay their respects and bid farewell. Long queues were seen along the banks of the River Thames as people waited their turn for that one last glimpse. The Queen died on 8th September while at her summer residence, Balmoral.

The Queen’s State Funeral was the United Kingdom’s first in over half a century. The last one was in 1965, when British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was accorded this honour.

Ahead of the final hymn of the funeral service, the Crown Jeweller removed the Imperial Sceptre, the Orb, and the Crown, from the Queen’s coffin and placed them at the Church Altar. And Queen Elizabeth II began her final journey: to Wellington Arch where the Coffin was transferred from the State Gun Carriage to the State Hearse for the last-lap journey to Windsor Castle, where the Queen lived for the last two years of her life.

The Queen was then buried, with her coffin lowered into the Royal Vault, alongside her late husband, Prince Philip, in the King George VI Memorial Chapel, within the St. George’s Chapel of the Windsor Castle premises.

That’s the end of an era!

Anti-Hijab Protests

Mahsa Amini, a 22 years old Kurdish woman from the north-western city of Saqez in Iran was visiting the capital Tehran, with her family, on 13 September 2022. Amini, wearing a long black coat and headscarf was outside a metro station, with her brother, when she was accosted by the Morality Police – known formally as ‘Gasht-e Ershad (Guidance Patrols). They accused her of wearing ‘unsuitable attire’- not strictly following the Islamic Dress Code – and promptly arrested her for breaking the law. She was taken to a Detention Centre and Re-Education Centre where she fell into a coma, shortly after collapsing, and eventually died three days later, on 16 September.

There were reports that the police hit Amini’s head with a baton and banged her head against one of their vehicles. Of course, the police denied and refuted all allegations of mistreatment, and said she suffered ‘sudden heart failure’. But, her family firmly said she was fit and healthy and that she suffered bruises to her legs while in custody. They blamed the Morality Police for her sudden death.

The death sparked widespread anger, with thousands of people taking to the streets, and a series of protests breaking out in Iran. Women across many cities openly challenged the regime by cutting off their hair and burning the hijab, demanding freedom from such archaic laws and disproportionate use of force to enforce them. Iran has not seen this scale of protest and unrest in a very long time.

The United Nations has condemned the death of Amini and demanded an independent investigation on the allegations of torture and ill-treatment.

Going back in time, Iran under the late Shah of Iran was a modern society where women had the freedom to wear ‘suitable clothing’ of their own choice.

Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran imposed a mandatory Islamic Dress Code, requiring all women to wear a headscarf and loose-fitting clothing that would effectively disguise their figures, in public.

The Morality Police were tasked, among other things, with ensuring women conform with the authorities’ interpretation of ‘proper’ clothing. Officers have the power to stop women and assess whether they are showing too much hair; their trousers and overcoats are too short or close-fitting; or they are wearing too much make-up. Punishments for violating the rules include a fine, prison time, or flogging.

Girls, from the age of seven upwards are required to cover their hair, failing which they will not be able to go to school, or get a job.

This is what a free-thinking woman had to say:

“The only crime that Mahsa Amini committed was to be born female in a society led by men. It’s revolting that we still have this shameful treatment towards women in the 21st century. The world is too often led by men who impose rules on how women must speak, eat, think, dress, and even dream! What possible crime did Amini do to receive such a horrific punishment? Was the brightness of her hair blinding someone? How does a head without a religious accessory affect the life of anyone else?”

While all this was happening, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi withdrew from a planned interview with CNN’s chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour at the United Nations General Assembly, in New York, on Wednesday. This after she declined a last-minute demand to wear a headscarf. Amanpour, who grew up in the Iranian capital Tehran and is a fluent Farsi speaker, said that she wears a headscarf while reporting in Iran to comply with the local laws and customs, “otherwise you couldn’t operate as a journalist.” But, she said that she would not cover her head to conduct an interview with an Iranian official outside a country where it is not required. That definitely is a bold stand!

As we Homo Sapiens grow older, instead of getting wiser, are we not becoming more narrow-minded? Look at Afghanistan where girls have been denied the right to education for about a year, since the Taliban came to power, for the only reason that they are female! That basic thing called Freedom, is still a precious die hard word, which we cannot take for granted, after all!

The Bluff Just Got Deeper

This week, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would be mobilising 300,000 military reservists to serve in Ukraine. He insisted that Russia was merely defending itself and its territories – and that the West did not want to see peace in Ukraine. Amazing ‘eyes wide open blindness!’

However, Ukrainians think this may actually be good for Ukraine as, for all these months, Russia wanted its people to remain distanced from the military campaign: the State will leave you alone so long as you stay away from politics and demonstrate indifference towards the war. The mobilisation might change this. The 300,000 families of the reservists will start to feel the war personally.

The mobilisation move also confirms that Russia will be unable to defend territories it has occupied, without more personnel.

Food Development

Dr. Norman Ernest Borlaug was an American Scientist – Agronomist, who led initiatives worldwide that contributed to ‘big-bang’ increases in agricultural production, resulting in what we all know as ‘The Green Revolution’. Borlaug was awarded multiple honours, including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 – for having given a well-founded hope – for a lifetime spent on work to feed a hungry world. Borlaug was often called the ‘Father of the Green Revolution’- that got permanently planted to his name. And is credited with saving over a billion people worldwide from starvation. However, Borlaug always emphasised that he himself was only part of a team.

Although a scientist with outstanding contributions, Borlaug’s greatest achievement could perhaps be his relentless struggle to integrate the various streams of agricultural research into viable technologies and to convince political leaders to bring these advances to fruition.

Norman Borlaug obtained a PhD in Plant Protection at the age of 27, and worked in Mexico in the 1940s and 1950s to make the country self-sufficient in grain. He recommended improved methods of cultivation, and developed a robust strain of wheat – Dwarf Wheat – that was adapted to Mexican conditions. By the year 1956, the country had become self-sufficient in wheat. Success in Mexico made Borlaug a much sought-after adviser to countries whose food production was not keeping pace with their population growth. In the mid-1960s, he introduced dwarf wheat into India and Pakistan, and production increased enormously.

The Dr. Norman E. Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application, endowed by the Rockefeller Foundation, is presented every October of the year in Des Moines, Iowa, by the World Food Prize Foundation. This USD 10,000 Award recognises exceptional, science-based achievement in international agriculture and food production by an individual under the age of 40 years. Awardees are those who emulate the same intellectual courage, stamina, and determination in the fight to eliminate global hunger and poverty, demonstrated by Borlaug as a young scientist. The Award presentation is appropriately held in the historically preserved and environmentally renovated World Food Prize Hall of Laureates. This USD 29.8 million project restored the century-old Des Moines Public Library and transformed it as a special tribute to World Food Prize founder Norman Borlaug.

The individuals chosen to be recipients of the Borlaug Field award are selected by an anonymous international jury, chaired by Dr. W. Ronnie Coffman of Cornell University. Coffman, who was Borlaug’s only doctorate student, serves as a member of the World Food Prize Council of Advisors.

This year, India’s Dr. Mahalingam Govindaraj, Senior Scientist for Crop Development at HarvestPlus and the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT (International Centre for Tropical Agriculture) has been named the 2022 recipient of the Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application. He is recognised for his outstanding leadership in mainstreaming biofortified crops, particularly pearl millet, in India and Africa. For more than a decade, he has directed the development and dissemination of high-yielding, high-iron and high-zinc pearl millet varieties, which have contributed to better nutrition for thousands of farmers and their communities.

In 2014, Govindaraj released Dhanashakti, the world’s first biofortified Pearl Millet (bajra- in Hindi; kambu – in Tamil). Independent clinical studies showed that 200 grams of Dhanashakti provided women with more than 80% of their recommended daily allowance of iron, compared to only 20% in regular pearl millet varieties. Now, more than 120,000 farming households in India grow Dhanashakti. Estimates say that by 2024, ten years after Dhanashakti’s release, more than 9 million people in India will be consuming iron-and zinc-rich pearl millet and reaping the health benefits of better nutrition.

Govindaraj’s active collaboration with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research led to India becoming the first country in the world to commit to iron and zinc standards as core traits in its national cultivar release policy. Pearl millet became the first crop in which minimum levels of these essential micronutrients were mandated in 2018. As it’s estimated that India loses over USD 12 billion in GDP annually to micronutrient deficiencies, this was an important policy milestone in advancing a nutrition-sensitive food system.

Govindaraj received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Plant Breeding & Genetics from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, and a B.Sc. degree from the Agricultural College and Research Institute, Killikulam, Vallanadu, Tuticorin, Tamilnadu.

The only other Indian to win the award is Dr. Aditi Mukherji, a young social scientist, who incidentally was the first recipient, in 2012. During her intense fieldwork surveying more than 4000 groundwater users, Aditi discovered that smallholder farmers in water-abundant eastern India were being prevented by certain policy restrictions from getting access to the water resources needed to irrigate their crops. She then worked with farmers to ensure that their voices were heard by Policymakers.

Aditi was educated at Presidency College, Kolkatta; Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; and the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai. She completed her Ph.D in Human Geography at Cambridge University, United Kingdom.

A New Golf Hero

Ines Laklalech, 24, a Rookie, from Casablanca, won the Ladies European Tour title at the Lacoste Ladies Open de France in Deauville, defeating England’s Meghan MacLaren in a play-off. In doing so, she became the first Moroccan, the first Arab, and the first North African woman to win a Ladies European Tour title.

Laklalech had finished level with MacLaren on 14-under par. The pair returned to the 18th for the play-off, where MacLaren could only manage a six while Laklalech carded five.

Ines said the victory would be something she would remember “for the rest of my life” as she celebrated her historic win. “It feels amazing. It’s special to hear it. I don’t have any words to describe this”, she said.

Diksha Dagar of India finished in the third place on 11-under-par after a final round of seven-under-par 64.

In other stories to ‘look up’ to, America’s NASA has solved a problem that kept its un-crewed Artemis Mission to the Moon, grounded on Earth. And I expect a successful launch to happen in the upcoming week.

More stories of freedom and development coming up in the weeks ahead. Feed and fortify yourself with World Inthavaaram.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-26

About: the world this week, 20th June to 26th June 2021. Hardline Iran, Apple Daily in Hong Kong, Space, Cricket, Outbreaks, and Britney Spears.

Everywhere

Iran

Ebrahim Raisi, 60, a conservative hardline Judiciary Chief won Iran’s Presidential Election by a landslide, sweeping-up nearly 62% of the 28.9 million votes.

Raisi, a protege of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sailed to victory in a poll that saw all of his serious rivals barred in the run-up to the race. Many reform-minded Iranians refused to take part in an Election widely seen as a foregone conclusion. Overall voter turnout was about 49%, the lowest since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979.

Flash-back: before that Islamic scoop-up year, Iran was ruled by the Shah of Iran, of the Pahlavi Dynasty, who tried to westernise and modernise the country, but had to flee to live in exile – leaving behind everything – at the end of the Iranian Revolution. That saw the return of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, from exile, and hardcore Islam.

Raisi has a brutal human rights record and is accused of being responsible for the mass execution – called Death Commissions – of thousands of political prisoners in 1988, at the end of the Iran-Iraq war. Amnesty International is still looking to investigate and nail him for crimes against humanity.

On winning, Raisi said, ‘I am proud of being a defender of human rights and of people’s security and comfort, as a Prosecutor, wherever I was’. The good, the bad, and the ugly say the same thing.

Ebrahim Raisi steps into the role of President of Iran in August 2021, taking over from the incumbent President, Hassan Rouhani, who assumed office on 3 August 2013. He, in turn, succeeded Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who served 8 years in office from 2005 to 2013. Rouhani won re-election in the 2017 presidential election.

In another story on Iran, it failed, yet again, to get its homemade satellite launched into orbit, in a fourth unsuccessful attempt. The launch, conducted on 12th June, comes more than one year after the country’s previous attempt to put a satellite into orbit. In April of last year, Iran launched the NOUR-1 military satellite into orbit after previous failed attempts to launch similar satellites. The United States of America (USA), tracking the Satellite says it is uncontrolled and not operational. Guess, it’s just a ‘hard’ object out there is Space.

No More ‘an Apple a Day’

Apple Daily, Hong Kong’s biggest pro-democracy newspaper was founded by Jimmy Lai, 73, in 1995, with the first edition being rolled-out on 20th June of that year.

In 1994 Lai was audacious enough to call Chinese President Li Peng the ‘son of a turtle egg’ in a weekly magazine that he launched before the daily. This was perhaps the sign of things to come: the strident tone of critical reporting on China.

Jimmy Lai fled China as a child with nothing in his pockets and went on to make it big in Hong Kong, growing into a business magnate, a media-tycoon, and a multi-millionaire.

When the Great Chinese Famine gripped mainland China in 1960, Lai smuggled himself out of the Southern Mainland province of Guangdong and into Hong Kong in the bottom of a fishing boat. He arrived in the city at the age of 12 and dirt poor.

Lai took up odd jobs at a textile factory and lived in the slum neighbourhood of Sham Shui Po, one of Hong Kong’s most impoverished districts – still is.

Within two decades, Lai learned English, worked his way up the factory floor, rising to the position of salesman. He then decided to start his own clothing retail line. On a trip to New York, USA, during fabric sampling season, he bought a pizza. Written on the napkin was the name Giordano. That became the name of his wildly successful, casual men’s clothing chain, which made Lai his first fortune.

Lai then channeled his wealth into starting a publishing company called ‘Next Digital’ with Apple Daily as its flagship Daily Newspaper. It started off as a successful local tabloid, best known for its sensationalist articles and bold catchy headlines. But over the past 26 years, it evolved into one of the city’s loudest pro-democracy voices – one of few that dared to challenge China. Apple Daily went on to become a runaway commercial success.

When Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997, the city was guaranteed its own legal system and certain democratic freedoms until the year 2047, when it will most likely return, in total, to China.

In July 2019 Jimmy Lai met the then Vice President of the USA, Mike Pence, and Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, in Washington to discuss the erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy over a contentious Extradition Bill that had sparked mass protests. This act was viewed by China as a threat to its national security and interference in the affairs of Hong Kong. It used words such as ‘national scum and Hong Kong sinners’ on Lai’s meeting. The Extradition Bill was later scrapped.

Last year, on 20th June, China introduced a new National Security Law in Hong Kong in response to massive pro-democracy protests that swept through the city, without public consultation or city legislative involvement.

The law essentially reduced Hong Kong’s judicial autonomy and made it easier to punish demonstrators and activists. It criminalises secession, subversion, and collusion with foreign forces with the maximum sentence of life in prison.

Since the law was enacted in June 2020, more than 100 people have been arrested under its provisions. And millions have flooded Hong Kong’s highways in marches against Beijing’s perceived encroachment on the original, treasured, Hong Kong freedoms.

Using the draconian new law, Hong Kong police arrested Jimmy Lai, and others in a city-wide operation. Hundreds of police raided Lai’s Next Digital headquarters, where his flagship Apple Daily is produced and published.

In a well configured sequence of arrest-release on bail-arrest on another charge… Lai was charged on suspicion of colluding with foreign forces and endangering national security, partly from having sought sanctions against Hong Kong, among other charges, and finally jailed for 14 months for taking part in ‘unauthorised assemblies’ during protests in August 2019.

Since the law took effect, Apple Daily has been crippled ‘bite by bite’. With Jimmy Lai already in jail, five of the newspaper’s top editors and executives were accused of the same crime, apparently for using articles to call for sanctions against Hong Kong by foreign countries, and thrown into jail.

Hundreds of police officers twice raided the publication’s newsroom, most recently seizing computers and materials-an alarming development for journalists and their sources in an increasingly sensitive environment. Several Apple Daily journalists had already quit before this month, saying the rewards of their work no longer outweighed the risk of imprisonment.

Even as official pressure piled on the newspaper, public support surged. Last Friday, after the arrest of its top editors, Apple Daily printed 500,000 copies, which sold out.

With a never-ending saga of the might of the State, hanging like the proverbial sword of Damocles upon it, Apple Daily announced on Wednesday that it is folding-up and would publish its final copy this Thursday. And due to an untenable environment in which its journalists have been arrested and millions of dollars in assets have been frozen. Its digital platform will cease operations on the same day.

In the end, an Apple a day could not keep China away!

Cricket

The World Test Championship is a cricket league competition started by the International Cricket Council (ICC), on 1 August 2019, as a premier test tournament. This was in-keeping with a goal of having one ‘Pinnacle Tournament’ for each of the three forms of the game of cricket: Test Cricket, One-Day Matches, and the Twenty-Twenty format That’s quite a spinning range of cricket, from the quick one-liners to the long dialogues.

The first ICC World Test Championship began with the 2019 Ashes series and culminated this week with New Zealand winning the inaugural World Championship Test. That makes them the best in Test Cricket, on the day. Congratulations New Zealand.

New Zealand who were the first to qualify for the finals defeated India in the match played from 18 to 23 June 2021 at the Rose Bowl, Southampton, England. The opening and the fourth day was washed-out by rain and the match went into the reserve day. India, captained by Virat Kohli, came into the match with balls of talent but it was New Zealand’s run day, led from the front by its Captain, Kane Williamson. In the end, very good just wasn’t good for India, though India still remains a great test side. Maybe the weather did not pace itself well? Whatever, New Zealand deserved the win.

The second ICC World Test Championship is scheduled to start from August 2021 and will run till 2023.

Space

NASA’s experimental Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, is having a rocking time on the Red Planet, with Big Brother Rover, Perseverance, watching closely.

Ingenuity has now flown eight times, travelling further than NASA hoped it would be possible. Originally designed to fly only five times, Ingenuity has exceeded all expectations and has become bolder. Could it become a spoilt-kid, overtime? The early flights by Ingenuity began and ended at the same place, called the Wright Brothers Field. Now it is soaring from one new airfield to another.

Need to dig out more names to name more airfields? Perhaps, that’s NASA’s newest challenge.

An Outbreak Bites the Dust

In a fabulous achievement, the Ebola Outbreak that broke-out in the African country of Guinea in the middle of February this year was declared over on 19 June 2021. It was the first time the disease resurfaced, in Guinea, since the deadly outbreak in West Africa that ended in 2016.

Guinea had declared the outbreak on 14 February 2021 after three cases were detected in the same region where the 2014–2016 outbreak first emerged before spreading into neighbouring Liberia, Sierra Leone, and beyond.

A total of sixteen confirmed and seven probable cases were reported in the outbreak in which eleven patients survived and twelve lives were lost. Shortly after the infections were detected, a swift response was mounted, supported by the World Health Organization (WHO), digging deep into the expertise gained in fighting recent outbreaks both in Guinea and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Genome sequencing found that the virus behind Guinea’s just-ended outbreak was similar to that identified in the 2014–2016 outbreak.

WHO helped ship around 24,000 Ebola vaccine doses and supported the vaccination drive. More than one hundred WHO experts were on the ground coordinating key aspects of the response such as infection prevention and control, disease surveillance, testing, vaccination, and treatment using new drugs.

There are two approved Vaccines for Ebola, a single-dose one made by Merck, and the two-dose Vaccine made by Janssen.

Congratulations Team Ebola. This is a sign that we are getting better, faster, smarter in fighting Ebola. We hope innovations, lessons learnt, and the expertise gained are published soon, for the world to get ahead in fighting such disease outbreaks.

The Great Vaccination Sprint

Jabbing India’s 1.39 billion population against the effects of COVID-19 is a staggering, Himalayan task and the Government of India showed serious intent- packed a huge punch, getting off the starting blocks at blazing speed, on the first day of its newly charged-up, free Adult (above age 18 years) Vaccination Drive. In a world record, 8.616 million doses were administered on 21 June 2021, Monday, across the various States of India. That is almost equivalent to the population of Naftali Bennett’s Israel, or twice the population of Jacintha Arden’s New Zealand – all in a single day.

The follow through wasn’t bad with over 5.4 million on Day-2 and 6.4 million on Day-3.

India is now only behind the USA in vaccinations done with over 305 million does given compared to the USA’s 321 million.

With the current pace of vaccination at about 42.6 million per day and looking at between 70% and 85% vaccinated for herd immunity it would take another year to achieve a high level of global immunity. Until then, stick to the basics of COVID-19 appropriate behaviour.

Please Yourself

Overprotected: Till The World Ends?

First, the script: something about conservatorship – also known as a guardianship – happens when a judge (in California, United States) appoints a responsible person or organization-called the Conservator-to care for another adult-called the Conservatee-who cannot care for herself or manage her own finances. Now, over to the soundtrack, and the music.

The world knows Britney Spears as the iconic pop-star, the Princess of Pop, of the 1990s and 2000s. ‘Baby one more time’, ‘Oops… I did it again’, are songs that climbed high on the Music Charts and still reverberate in the air-many times over. More than 20 years later, her debut album (Baby one more time) still remains the best-selling album by a teenage solo artist, at age 16.

At the start of her career, at age 18, Britney Spears famously claimed she was a virgin and was ‘saving herself’ for marriage-waiting for that special someone. But then, it turns out that she was ‘Not That Innocent’ as she wanted us to believe. And kept going with, Baby One More Time…

Over time, her stage outfits became skimpier, her performances racier, her behaviour crazier, and her album sales touched newer heights. She was also linked to singer Justin Timberlake at that time.

In the year 2004, after a fun-filled New Year’s Eve week in Sin City-Las Vegas, Nevada-where she partied hard through the night with childhood friend Jason Alexander, Spears shocked the world by saying, ‘I do’, in Vegas’s, A Little White Wedding Chapel (has a Drive-Thru tunnel of vows) at 5am, the next day, on Sunday 3rd January. Dressed in a baseball hat and ripped jeans Britney married Jason Alexander. ‘They weren’t dressed in wedding attire, but it was very romantic and there was a feeling of love between them. They appeared to be extremely happy. They were laughing, but crying too, during the ceremony. I thought it was a marriage that would last forever’, said the Chapel Owner.

It wasn’t to be, and on the contrary worked out be a Quickie, as 55 hours later, Britney Spears had the marriage annulled. And went out dancing afterwards.

Then, Oops, she did it again! After meeting each other on the dance floor at a Hollywood club, Spears and Kevin Federline announced their engagement in July 2004. The singer famously popped the question to Federline on her private plane. Spears then walked down the aisle, this time in a proper wedding dress, in a proper ceremony.

Two kids, one reality show, and three years later the couple called it quits.

In the middle of 2000s, she had multiple public mental health struggles that media outlets and the paparazzi harped on, from shaving her head to hitting a photographer’s car with an umbrella. And in 2008, she was twice admitted for psychiatric care under an apparent mental health crisis.

During the same year, Britney was put under a Conservatorship largely due to her father, Jamie Spears, who petitioned for a temporary one, that was eventually made permanent, becoming both her personal and financial Conservator. He gained control of much of her life, and had the power to take actions like restricting Britney’s visitors, filing restraining orders on her behalf, negotiating business deals, and overseeing her medical decisions. Britney has being paying a considerable amount from her nearly USD 60 million fortune in legal and Conservator fees, with a significant amount going to her dad for his role as a Conservator.

In response, fans have launched a Free Britney movement, expressing concerns over the singer’s well-being. On her part, Spears was awfully troubled by the conservatorship, for years, but she chose to stay silent about it, in public.

That changed this week when she spoke-up, taking the mike this week and in a testimony to the judge: that her conservatorship is abusive; has prevented her from getting married and having a third child, and that she’s being barred from removing her IUD; that she’s been forced to work against her will; that she’s required to live with the people she works with, without privacy; and she compared her situation ‘to sex trafficking.’

Britney Spears,39, said a lot of things, in that testimony, but most importantly, she’s said that she doesn’t believe anyone will listen. Will she be unshackled from the Conservatorship? The Court’s decision is awaited.

That’s heart-wrenching. Once you establish a person is crazy, everything she says is crazy because she is crazy?

Ooh la la. Have a great week ahead. Enjoy your freedom. Sing your songs.