Tag: James Bond

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2022-15

About: the world this week, 10 April to 16 April 2022, of course Ukraine, a shooting in the USA, the virus in China, India flies a new plane and shows off its foreign policy, and the festivals we celebrate.

Everywhere

Ukraine

Surely, the hunger for Ukraine to survive and chase out the invader is much more than Russia trying to find nazis in Ukraine or blindly obey the orders of its maniac Boss. Whoever has the best reason and the passion to win the war will ultimately prevail. But the damage and destruction to man and material is monstrous. Will it be possible to resettle and rebuild again?

Russia has probably discovered that it is better to search for nazis in Russia itself. Russian troops seem to be gradually vacating areas cleverly made impregnable by a rock-solid and determined Ukraine. Russia is moving to the Eastern part where they think the chances of hatching some kind of a victory, besides finding hidden nazis, is better than an egg on the face!

Towards the end of the week one of Russia’s most important warships – the guided missile cruiser Moskva- the flag ship of its Black Sea Fleet was abandoned, and sank to settle down at the bottom of the Black Sea. It was destroyed by a cruise missile attack by Ukraine. This is a massive blow to Russia, which will be hard for it to accept. Ukraine said it effectively used the Neptune cruise missiles to attack Moskva and destroy the ship. And of course, Russia says an on-board ammunition explosion caused a fire, which ‘killed the ship’. Either way Russia has a serious problem.

Ukraine is trying to get control of the skies and believes it may decide the outcome of the war. History tells us that in the David versus Goliath Battle, David won. And there is nothing more powerful on Earth than a group of determined people fighting to stay alive. Every day, the stories of strength, heroism, and conviction coming out of Ukraine is overwhelming.

Despite all the noises the war rages on, and maybe it will stop when Russia decides – after being whacked by Ukraine, on land, sea, and the air. And never capable of admitting it.

United States of America

The shootings are back with a bang. At least 16 people were injured – five in critical condition- in a shooting at a subway station in Brooklyn, New York. The shooting happened this Tuesday during the morning rush hour. The attacker showed a clean pair of heels, fleeing the crime scene immediately after the attack.

Police say, the incident is not being investigated as an act of terrorism. And a motive is yet to be established.

Later in the week, Police arrested a Frank R James, 62, accused of the shooting carnage. James had set off smoke grenades in a commuter packed sub-way car and then fired 33 shots with a 9 mm handgun.

Police found him – on a tip-off – at a McDonald’s outlet in Manhattan’s East Village neighbourhood. James was gone when police arrived, but they soon spotted him at a busy corner nearby, when Police cars zoomed-in, Officers leapt out, and soon had him ‘peacefully’ handcuffed.

In recent months, James has railed in online videos about racism and violence in the US and about his experience with mental health care in New York City. Some pointers there, and the reasons need to be unravelled.

Pakistan

This week, Pakistan’s Parliament elected Shehbaz Sharif as its new Prime Minister (PM) following the ouster of PM Imran Khan, in a vote of no confidence. Earlier Imran Khan fended-off every kind of fast, swing, and spin bowling before being declared out due to a decision by the Third Umpire who went strictly by the Rule Book aka The Constitution. Team Imran – Members of Parliament of Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Party – resigned en masse, boycotting the election of the new PM.

Shebaz Sharif is the younger brother of three-time PM Nawaz Sharif. He is the president of the Pakistan Muslim League (N) – ’N’ for Nawaz Sherif the founder- party. Previously, he served as the Chief Minister of Punjab three times, making him the longest-serving Chief Minister of Punjab.

The Government will hopefully stay in place until August 2023, when general elections are due. Until then, anything can happen. And no PM had ever completed a full five-year term in Pakistan’s 75 years history. Maybe a handful more of PMs lying up ahead?

China

The strangulating lockdown in China’s City of Shanghai continues from the beginning of last week. Shanghai is battling one of China’s biggest outbreaks since the coronavirus first came into being in the city of Wuhan about 800 km to the west. This week, on Thursday, cases touched a new high of 27,000 nos.

With the strictest ever curbs, millions in the city are increasingly frustrated, confined inside their homes, struggling to get daily supplies, with reports of shortage of essential items including medical supplies, doing the rounds. For many, their patience has worn thin and is likely to burst, spilling contents all over China.

Meanwhile, the World better keep a watch on what China eats for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

India

India Flies

This week, the first ever ‘Made in India’ civil Dornier aircraft took to the air and successfully kept its flight path: the plan is that it will provide connectivity to remote towns of northeast India. This is being described as a significant landmark in India’s aviation history.

The 17 seat, Dornier 228 Aircraft undertook the commercial flight from Assam’s Dibugarh to Arunachal Pradesh’s Pasighat on 12th April, taking the Ministers in the Government for a safe ride in the path-breaking flight.

The Dornier is manufactured by India’s Hindustan Aeronautics Limited with technology transfer from Germany, which owns the original Dornier.

India’s New James Bond

India’s External Affairs Minister (EAM) is doing his Job with flying colours taking India’s Foreign Policy to new independent heights and connectivity. He even earned praise from Pakistan’s now ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan who said that India has a strong, independent Foreign Policy. And nobody can dictate to India.

On India’s ‘warm energy’ relationship with Russia, EAM Jaishankar said that those who are looking at India’s energy purchases from Russia would be better served if they turned their attention to Europe. He said, “We do buy energy that is necessary of your energy security. But I suspect, looking at the figures, probably our total purchases for the month would be less than what Europe does in an afternoon. So, you may want to think about that”.

With that kind of energy levels, later in the week, though a wee bit slow on the draw, Jaishankar came out with all guns firing. When United States Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said that the US is worried about India’s Human Rights Record, Jaishankar slightly lifted-up his cowboy hat and said that India too is concerned about US’s human rights record. ‘I would tell you that we also take our views on other people’s human rights situation, including that of the United States”.

In the South of India, in the dirt trails of the olden days, when movie Superstars such as M G Ramachandaran (MGR) and Shivaji Ganesan ruled the silver screen of Tamil Nadu cinema, there was another contemporary, a handsome actor called Jaishankar, who, though could not compete with the two big stars, did soft romantic and action movies and earned his badge as the ‘James Bond of Tamil cinema’. Jaishankar even did Western type cowboy-horse-gun movies and grew his spurs.

Now, I know the name Jaishankar can make a big punch and fire a gun –It has a history, mind it!

Please Yourself

This week a cornucopia of Festivals are being celebrated or were celebrated in India and across the World, and as a friend of mine who works in NASA said in a forwarded message, listing the many festivals: ‘divided by race / religion, but let’s stay united as one mankind’.

We have: Ramadan fasting underway; Ram Navami – Lord Rama’s Birthday, Good Friday – commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the ultimate sacrifice for our sins; Cheti Chand- arrival of spring and harvest and new year for Sindhi Hindus; Vaisakhi/Baisakhi – harvest, again; Puthandu-Tamil New Year’s Day; Chaitra Navratri Parana-the day following which new beginnings can be undertaken…Festivals remind us of the goodness in each one of us: let’s put it to great use by shrinking our differences and expanding our agreements.

More festivals and tales shooting up in the weeks ahead. Shield yourself with World Inthavaaram.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-40

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

Everywhere

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Please Yourself

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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