FREEWHEELING

About: A break free commentary on events on our Planet, anchored on the news of the world. Any comments beyond the storyline, are entirely mine, without prejudice -take it or leave it. This is a run of events from 27 September to 10 October 2025: Peace at last in the Middle East; Terror in the UK; a killer stampede in India; and an expert on Chimpanzees climbs a higher tree.

PEACE

United States President Donald Trump, taking along Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, hammered and forged what appears to be a comprehensive 20-Point Plan to end the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. It is the best attempt, so far, at stopping this over two-year old war, and perhaps progressing to everlasting peace in the region. Since the Plan was first in made in end September, it has now crossed many deadlines, but without any significant changes in the points. It included a ‘go to hell’ deadline of 5th October if Hamas did not accept.

All 48 hostages-alive and dead are to be released within 72 hours of Israel’s acceptance. That was many 72 hours ago. The Hamas side delayed, trying to draw thin wire from thick bar stock metal, even while almost all Arab nations and other countries approved the Plan. Then Trump had to deploy his special Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff, and outside Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner to squeeze out a breakthrough. And finally the signatures were made, and the ceasefire effected, with Israel’s forces withdrawing to the first, of many lines of control – a Yellow Line – on Friday, 10th October. This marks the beginning of the 72 hour count-down to the release of all the hostages.

There was instant jubilation on both sides: while Israel began making preparations to receive the hostages, the Palestinians began crawling back to Gaza. At this stage, Israel still controls about 53% of Gaza.

All the living hostages are to be transferred to the Red Cross, then to Israeli custody for medical care and reunification with families. This is expected to take place on Monday, 13th October. The remains of slain hostages will be returned to Israel with full military honours and forensic identification. A special Israel Defence Forces (IDF) engineering unit will inspect every coffin to ensure they do not contain explosives.

Now, with the first point kicking-in, Israel on its part gets ready to release 250 life sentence prisoners plus 1700 Gazans. Israel will not free members of the Nukhba Force—Hamas’s elite commando unit responsible for the 7th October massacre and mass kidnappings—nor Marwan Barghouti, the mastermind of the Second Intifada, who is currently serving five life sentences.

Other points of the Plan are as follows.

Those, of Hamas, who commit to peaceful co-existence and to decommission their weapons will be given amnesty. Those who wish to leave Gaza will be provided safe passage. For the other Gazans, no one will be forced to leave and those who wish to leave will be free to do so and free to return. People will be encouraged to stay and use the opportunity to build a New Gaza. Full aid will be immediately sent into Gaza through the United Nations and Agencies not associated with Israel or Hamas. Gaza will be made a ‘deradicalized’ terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbours. And Gaza will be redeveloped. The IDF will withdraw to the agreed upon lines, starting from the release of the hostages. During this time, all military operations will be suspended, and battle lines will remain frozen until conditions are met for the complete staged withdrawal.

Gaza will be governed by a temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee, responsible for delivering day-to-day running of public services. This committee will be made up of qualified Palestinians and international experts, with oversight and supervision by a new international transitional body, the ‘Board of Peace,’ which will be headed and chaired by Donald Trump, with other members and heads of State to be announced, including Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. This body will set the framework and handle the funding for the redevelopment of Gaza until such time as the Palestinian Authority has completed its reform program, as outlined in various proposals.

A Trump economic development plan to rebuild and energise Gaza will be created by convening a panel of experts who have created modern miracle cities in the Middle East. A special economic zone will be established with preferred tariff and access rates to be negotiated with participating countries.

Hamas and other factions agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form. All military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, will be destroyed-not rebuilt. Gaza will be demilitarised under the supervision of independent monitors. The New Gaza will be fully committed to building a prosperous economy and to peaceful coexistence with its neighbours. A guarantee will be provided by regional partners to ensure that Hamas, and its factions, comply with their obligations.

The US will work with Arab and international partners to develop a temporary International Stabilisation Force (ISF) to immediately deploy in Gaza. The ISF will train and provide support to vetted Palestinian police forces in Gaza in consultation with Jordan and Egypt. This force will be the internal security solution. The ISF will work with Israel and Egypt to help secure border areas, along with newly trained Palestinian police forces.

Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza. As the ISF establishes control, the IDF will withdraw based on standards, milestones, and timeframes linked to demilitarisation that will be agreed upon between the IDF, ISF, the Guarantors, and the US. Practically, the IDF will progressively hand over the Gaza territory it now controls to the ISF. This will be according to an agreement they will make with the transitional authority until they are withdrawn completely from Gaza, save for a security perimeter presence that will remain until Gaza is properly secure from any resurgent terror threat. In the event Hamas delays or rejects the Plan, the above, including the scaled-up aid operation, will proceed in the terror-free areas handed over from the IDF to the ISF.

An interfaith dialogue process will be established based on the values of tolerance and peaceful co-existence to try and change mindsets and narratives of Palestinians and Israelis by emphasising the benefits that can be derived from peace. While this advances and the reform program is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood – the aspiration of the Palestinian people.

UNITED KINGDOM: TERROR

Yom Kippur is the holiest day in the Jewish religious calendar. It is a solemn time of fasting and atonement, thought to be the day God seals the fate of each person for the coming years. Traditionally, Jews ask for forgiveness for wrongdoings over the past year, from both God and fellow humans. Work is forbidden on the day and is set aside for prayer and reflection.

This year on 2nd October Jews were gathering for a prayer service at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in the Crumpsall area in north Manchester. A man-later identified as 35-year-old Jihad Al-Shamie- driving a car rammed it directly at people outside the Synagogue, got down and began stabbing people before being shot dead by Police who arrived within seven minutes of a call being made to emergency services. The Police gave the attacker, then holding a knife a couple of warnings before they opened fire, killing him.

Two members of the Jewish community died, while a fourth has been hospitalised with severe injuries.

The head of Counter Terrorism Policing says they believe Jihad Al-Shamie may have been influenced by extreme Islamist ideology. The attacker was on police bail for an alleged rape before this incident-he was yet to be charged with the crime.

INDIA: A KILLER STAMPEDE

On 27th September a tragic crowd crush occurred during a political, ‘Meet The People’ Meeting, organised by the newly formed Political Party, Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam(TVK) ahead of the State Assembly Elections due in 2026. TVK is founded by popular Tamil film actor Joseph Vijay. 41 people were killed and over a 100 were injured, which included 18 women and 10 children (aged 5 to 15).

The tragedy happened in Velusamypuram, on the Karur–Erode Highway, Karur District, Tamil Nadu. This was the third leg of Vijay’s bellowing campaign tour, following successful, staggering, crowd-pulling events in districts like Tiruchi, Ariyalur, Nagapattinam, Tiruvarur, and Namakkal. The Karur rally was permitted by the Police between 3pm and 10pm, with an expected crowd of around 10,000–15,000, but turnout swelled to over 25,000.

TVK organisers initially proposed venues in densely populated areas of Karur town, which the Police rejected for safety reasons, suggesting Velusamypuram instead. Supporters began arriving from 9am from neighbouring areas-mostly to see the Actor rather than listen to him-creating early congestion on the arterial roads. TVK announced Vijay’s arrival at noon, but he reached the venue around only 7pm. This delay was seen as a cause for restlessness in the crowd.

When Vijay’s convoy finally reached the venue, a massive surge occurred. Supporters rushed toward his campaign-bus to catch a glimpse, causing people to squeeze sideways and trample each other. People climbed nearby trees and mounted the tin-roof of shops for a better view. The crowd pushed toward an electricity generator enclosure, triggering a power outage that plunged the area into darkness and heightened panic, exacerbating the chaos. Ambulances in the vicinity were pressed into service to carry away those fallen or fainted and providing a getaway path for them became a serious challenge for the Police. In this melee, the stampede unfolded rapidly around 7.20 pm while Vijay was beginning his speech. The Police were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the crowd. The incident lasted minutes but resulted in suffocation, crush injuries, and trampling.

Vijay was quickly escorted away to de-escalate the situation and he ‘fled the scene’, taking a chartered plane from Tiruchi Airport to Chennai. It appears that this was done to prevent ‘see crowds’ gathering again and enable relief efforts?

Should Vijay have stayed back and helped get the injured to Hospital instead of abandoning them? I think he should have stood his ground and ensured every possible relief to the affected, at that point of time. Never mind, he could be lynched, but then he has his safety bouncers around him. And what is a Hero for?
A one-member commission under retired judge Aruna Jagadeesan was formed to probe and submit its findings within two months. On 5th October a Madras High Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT), led by IPS officer Asra Garg, began investigations.

Will this yield results and a means of ‘Lessons Learning’? The illicit liquor tragedy which occurred in June 2024, when people in Tamil Nadu’s Kallakurichi district consumed illegal liquor contaminated with methanol, leading to the deaths of 68 people is still under investigation.

Actor Vijay alleged a vendetta by the ruling State Government ahead of elections, questioning why the incident happened only in Karur (a stronghold of the Govt). TVK blamed a power outage, police lathi charges, and stone-pelting, slipper throwing incidents. A probe by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is being sought to unravel the reasons behind the stampede.

It is said that the request for a Meeting at the same, for another Political party, was denied on the grounds of that Standard Operation Procedures (SOP) for such kind of meetings was under development. Whatever, we should know once the reasons are found and are published.

This incident highlights risks in celebrity-driven politics: over-reliance on star power without robust second-tier leadership or safety protocols. It echoes past tragedies like the 2024 Hathras stampede but underscores Tamil Nadu’s history of actor-politicians managing crowds. The probe’s findings could impact Vijay’s 2026 prospects, with calls for stricter rally guidelines. TVK maintains the ‘truth will emerge’ vowing to continue with greater strength. Families continue to grieve, with ongoing treatment for survivors.

Responsibility for safety at Election Meetings is a shared one, the Party Meeting Organisers, the Police, and the people themselves. Ultimately the buck stops at the desk of the Chief Minister of the Govt, for maintaining law & order – they have the experience to tackle such crowds. It’s their job to gather intelligence and make swift changes or even cancel a Meeting seeing a seemingly uncontrollable surge in crowding. And law & Order has failed time and again in multiple dimensions in Tamil Nadu.

On the other hand, Vijay’s TVK cannot absolve themselves. If he cannot ‘govern’ a meeting, how can he govern the State? Serious questions! The TVK chooses Saturdays for its Meetings and Vijay is hardly a talker. He doesn’t seem to have built up a political team around him and appears to be a one-man show. The second-rung of leadership is glaringly missing. This could well be a wake-up call.

Finally, nothing beats self-control: the people are driven crazy and lose control of themselves ‘to see their Star Leader’.

Another reason for the stampede is abysmal civic facilities – an open sewer swallowed kids and people falling in them! Infrastructure should be able to absorb any ‘growth in people’. And the Government has a responsibility here as well.

People, especially in Tamil Nadu, should shun the frenzy to see movie stars – their outward glamour and shine does not help in anyway. Watch the movies, whistle and shout in the theatres, but when you return home you must learn to forget the stars and focus on living your life well. Become the star of your own life.

JANE GOODALL

Over six million years ago lived the last grandmother of humans and chimpanzees – Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens – A Brief History of Humankind.
On 1st October, primatologist, ethologist, conservationist, animal advocate, and educator Dr Jane Goodall died at age 91. Goodwill founded the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) and is a United Nations Messenger of Peace. She passed away in her sleep due to natural causes in Los Angeles, California, while on a speaking tour in the United States.

The JGI promotes understanding and protection of the Great Apes and its habitat and its goal is to inspire individual action by young people of all ages to help animals, other people, and to protect this shared world of ours.

JGI’s research continues the world’s longest-running field research on chimpanzees. This research provides ever-new insights into the daily lives of chimpa nzees, and has developed a deep knowledge of the lives and behaviour of over 200 chimps since Jane’s early work in it’s over 55 years of study. The research plays a unique role in understanding our closest living relatives, providing essential information for the conservation of chimpanzees and contributing to a myriad of other scientific discoveries that benefit humans and chimpanzees alike.

Jane Goodwill is considered the world’s preeminent chimpanzee expert. And was best known for more than six decades of field research on the social and family life of wild chimpanzees in the Kasakela Chimpanzee Community at Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. Beginning in 1960, under the mentorship of the palaeontologist Louis Leakey, Goodall’s research demonstrated that chimpanzees share many key traits with humans, such as using tools, having complex emotions, forming lasting social bonds, engaging in organised warfare, and passing on knowledge across generations. This redefined the traditional view that humans are uniquely different from other animals.

While observing one chimpanzee feeding at a termite mound, she watched him repeatedly place stalks of grass into termite holes, then remove them from the hole covered with clinging termites, effectively ‘fishing’ for termites. The chimpanzees would also take twigs from trees and strip off the leaves to make the twig more effective, a form of object modification that is the rudimentary beginnings of toolmaking.

Goodall set herself apart from convention by naming the animals in her studies of primates instead of assigning each a number. Numbering was a nearly universal practice at the time and was thought to be important in avoiding emotional attachment to the subject being studied. Among those whom Goodall named during her years in Gombe were: David Greybeard, a grey-chinned male who first warmed up to Goodall; Goliath, a friend of David Greybeard, originally the alpha male named for his bold nature; Mike, who through his cunning and improvisation displaced Goliath as the alpha male; Humphrey, a big, strong, bullysome male; Gigi, a large, sterile female who delighted in being the ‘Aunt’ of any young chimps or humans… to mention a few. Wonder, if there was an Uncle around?

Said about her by the CEO of the National Geographic Society, “Dr. Jane Goodall brought so much light into this world, demonstrating beautifully what one person can achieve. To know Jane was to know an extraordinary scientist, conservationist, humanitarian, educator, mentor and, perhaps most profoundly, an enduring champion for hope”.

Goodall was married twice. In March 1964 she married Baron Hugo van Lawick, a Dutch nobleman and wildlife photographer in London. She was known during their marriage as Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall. The couple had a son. They divorced in 1974. The following year, she married Derek Bryceson, a member of Tanzania’s parliament and the director of that country’s national parks. Bryceson died of cancer in October 1980. Owing to his position in the Tanzanian government as head of the country’s national park system, Bryceson was able to protect Goodall’s research project and implement an embargo on tourism at Gombe.

Goodall said that dogs, and not the chimpanzees she studied, were her favourite animal.

LAST WORD

US President Donald Trump had probably set himself the goal of receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. And he seems to have almost done it with the Israel-Hamas Peace Plan , which is slowly beginning to shape-up.

Meanwhile, the Noble Peace Committee thought it could not wait any longer and awarded the prize to Venezuela’s Opposition Leader, who promptly dedicated the Award to Donald Trump. Did the Nobel Committee miss something here?

On 10 October, the Norwegian Nobel Committee decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2025 to Maria Corina Machado, who it said is ‘a brave and committed champion of peace – to a woman who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness’. She is receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.

Venezuela’s authoritarian regime under Nicolas Maduro has been in power since the death of former President Hugo Chavez, in 2013. In the Election held in 2024, Machado was the opposition’s presidential candidate, but the regime blocked her candidacy. She then backed the representative of a different party, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, in the election. And though the Opposition won in a landslide Maduro refused to accept the results and only tightened his grip on power.

The next STOP for Trump must be the Russia-Ukraine War. If he indeed does it, he might have just booked himself the next Nobel?

In the good old days, in my part of the world, when you wanted to book a seat in a Bus, which just entered the Bus Stand, you ran alongside it and dropped a handkerchief through the window on a seat – to occupy it – while you body-massaged yourself through the crowds. I reckon Donald Trump did just that. Hope the hankie stays its course.

More war and peace stories coming-up in the weeks ahead. Stay alive with Freewheeling.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2024-42

About: the world this week, 13 October to 19 October 2024: Hamas’ head knocked off; Indian Railways-accident prone; Nobel Prizes; India-Canada row; Mumbai gangsters; Lady Justice; and a retirement in Tennis.

Everywhere

Israel Eliminates Hamas’ Head

Israel confirmed that after a year-long pursuit, this 16th October, Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has eliminated Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the terrorist organisation Hamas, in an operation in the southern Gaza Strip. Israel has accused Yahya Sinwar for orchestrating the savage barbarism of 7th October 2023 leading to the ongoing war. Over the years, he has promoted the Hamas’ ideology against Israel, both before and during the war, and was responsible for the murder and abduction of countless Israelis.

Yahya Sinwar had been hiding for the past year behind the civilian population of Gaza, both above and below ground in the Hamas tunnels, in the Gaza Strip. It was said that he used to surround himself with the hostages-as human shields. However, when he was killed in a dilapidated building, there were no hostages around him.

In recent weeks the IDF, under its Southern Command, has been operating in the southern Gaza Strip, following intelligence of suspected locations of senior members of Hamas. IDF soldiers of the 828th Brigade (Bislach) identified and eliminated three terrorists during one such routine operation. After completing the process of identifying the bodies it was confirmed that Yahya Sinwar was surprisingly one among the three terrorists. Sinwar was killed by an infantry soldier only 9 months into his service, who wasn’t even in uniform on 7th October 2023. Not special forces, not the Air Force. Someone said Yahya Sinwar died like a dog, throwing a stick at an approaching drone, with one hand battered and mangled. The end was dusty, brutal, and bloody, The world is free off yet another personification of evil, a terrorist master-mind joining the ranks of Osama Bin Laden.

What next? Israeli is probably into the last legs of getting the 101 hostages back home. Israel’s Prime Minister (PM) once again asked Hamas to surrender, lay down arms and release the hostages, to end the war. He also guaranteed the safety of those who return the hostages. With the top rung of the Hamas and Hezbollah leadership knocked-off, the war is not over until the hostages are released and the rocket-firing into Israel stops. And the war enters yet another phase. The beginning of the end; or is it the end of the beginning?

Meanwhile, the world awaits Israel’s retaliation to Iran’s missile attack on Israel.

Indian Railways: Right or Wrong Track?

In a deeply worrying (and growing) trend, train accidents are reaching the ‘Headline Stations’ more often than ever before. And they seem to be following a track-misguided, though.

At least seven people were injured in a train collision on 11th October in the southern State of Tamil Nadu when the Mysuru-Darbhanga Bagmathi Express slammed into a stationary goods train at Kavaraipettai, in north Chennai.

The Bagmathi Express is a superfast train running between Mysore in Karnataka, and Darbhanaga in Bihar, covering a distance of 3047 km. It passes through Bengaluru, Chennai, Vijayawada, Nagpur, and Patna.

The Bagmathi Express entered a loop line instead of the main line at around 8.30 pm on Friday and rammed into a parked goods train on the secondary track. The severe collision resulted in the derailment of 12 bogies of the passenger train. Some coaches caught fire, and others derailed. Fortunately, no deaths were reported, but some passengers suffered injuries, with three grievously admitted to Hospital and four treated for their injuries.There were over 1,300 passengers on board, all except the injured left for Darbhanga on a special train, last Saturday.

A Southern Railways Official explained the collision, “It was not supposed to stop a Kavaraipettai station, so it was to pass through it. After leaving Chennai, green signals were given for this train. The driver was following the signals correctly, but the train should have taken the main line. Instead, it took the loop line at the switch, which is where the error occurred.”

Nobel Prizes 2024

Between 1901 and 2024, the ‘real’ Nobel Prizes, and the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences (also called the Economics Nobel), in memory of Alfred Nobel, were awarded 626 times to 1009 people and organisations. With some receiving the Nobel Prize more than once, this makes a total of 973 individuals and 28 organisations. Here, we are in the year 2024.

This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton, ‘for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks’.

John Hopfield was born in Chicago, USA, and works in Princeton University, New Jersey, USA. Geoffrey Hinton was born in London, United Kingdom, and works in the University of Toronto, Canada.

This year’s physics laureates used tools from physics to construct methods that helped lay the foundation for today’s powerful machine learning. John Hopfield created a structure that can store and reconstruct information. Geoffrey Hinton invented a method that can independently discover properties in data and which has become important for the large artificial neural networks now in use.

All this leads us to the mesmerising world of Artificial Intelligence (AI), which is impacting the way we work, like never before.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to three Scientists: one half to American David Baker ‘for computational protein design’, and the other half jointly to Britain’s Demis Hassabis and American John M. Jumper – both working in London – ‘for protein structure prediction’. It’s all about proteins this year, life’s ingenious chemical tools, those complicated molecules made up of a chain of amino acids. David has succeeded with the almost impossible feat of building entirely new kinds of proteins. Demis and John have developed an AI model to solve a 50-year old problem of predicting the complex structures of proteins. These discoveries hold enormous potential.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Americans, Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun ‘for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation’. MicroRNA is a new class of tiny RNA molecules that play a crucial role in gene regulation. Their ground-breaking discovery in the small worm C.elegans (a kind of round worm) revealed a completely new principle of gene regulation. This turned out to be essential for multicellular organisms, including humans. MicroRNAs are proving to be fundamentally important for how organisms develop and function.

The Nobel Prize in Literature went to South Korea’s Han Kang, 53, ‘for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life’.

A citation said, she has unique awareness of the connections between body and soul, the living and the dead, and her poetic and experimental style has become an innovator in contemporary prose.

Han Kang is the first South Korean writer and the first female Asian writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Han Kang was born in South Korean’s Gwangju before, at the age of nine, moving with her family to Seoul. She comes from a literary background, her father being a reputed novelist. Alongside her writing, she has also devoted herself to art and music, which is reflected throughout her entire literary production.

Han Kang began her career in 1993 with the publication of a number of poems in the magazine, ‘Literature and Society’. Her prose debut came in 1995 with the short story collection ‘Love of Yeosu’, followed soon afterwards by several other prose works, both novels and short stories. Notable among these is the novel, ‘Your Cold Hands’, which bears obvious traces of Han Kang’s interest in art. The book reproduces a manuscript left behind by a missing sculptor who is obsessed with making plaster casts of female bodies. There is a preoccupation with the human anatomy and the play between persona and experience, where a conflict arises in the work of the sculptor between what the body reveals and what it conceals. ‘Life is a sheet arching over an abyss, and we live above it like masked acrobats’, as a sentence towards the end of the book tellingly asserts.

Han Kang’s major international breakthrough came with the novel, ‘The Vegetarian’ Written in three parts, the book portrays the violent consequences that ensue when its protagonist Yeong-hye refuses to submit to the norms of food intake. Her decision not to eat meat is met with various, entirely different reactions. Her behaviour is forcibly rejected by both her husband and her authoritarian father, and she is exploited erotically and aesthetically by her brother-in-law, a video artist who becomes obsessed with her passive body. Ultimately, she is committed to a psychiatric clinic, where her sister attempts to rescue her and bring her back to a ‘normal’ life.

The Nobel Peace Prize goes to Japan’s Nihon Hidankyo ‘for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating, through witness testimony, that nuclear weapons must never be used again’.

Nihon Hidankyo is a grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, founded in 1956, also known as Hibakusha (bomb-affected people). Its main activities include sending delegations to international conferences and events and holding speaking tours where survivors share firsthand accounts of the horrors of nuclear weapons. The extraordinary efforts of Nihon Hidankyo and other representatives of the Hibakusha have contributed greatly to the establishment of a nuclear taboo-stigmatising use of nuclear weapons.

The Nobel Prize for Economics, was awarded to America’s, Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, and James Robinson, University of Chicago ‘for studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity’. They provided an explanation of why some countries are rich and others poor. And insights into why there are such vast differences in prosperity between nations. One important explanation is persistent differences in societal institutions. They have developed theoretical tools that can explain why differences in institutions persist and how institutions can change.

India-Canada Row

Relations between India and Canada reached a nadir with each country striking hot at the each other, through Diplomats. Relations between the two countries have been fraught since last year, when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he had evidence linking Indian agents to the assassination of a Sikh separatist leader -designated as a wanted Terrorist by India-Hardeep Singh Nijjar, 45, in his country. In June 2023, Nijjar was shot dead outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, a Vancouver suburb with a large Sikh population. He was a Canadian citizen campaigning for the creation of an independent Sikh homeland Khalistan carved out of India. The Khalistan movement is outlawed in India.

Canada said it has clear and compelling evidence that agents of India engaged in and continue to engage in activities that pose a significant threat to public safety. And that India used organised crime elements, specifically naming ‘the Bishnoi Group’, which is connected to India’s agents.

India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) says Lawrence Bishnoi is the head of an organised criminal syndicate operating along with his associate Goldy Brar – a Canada based Indian Gangster. Lawrence Bishnoi is currently lodged in Sabarmati Central jail, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, since 2014, awaiting trial on terrorism charges. Wonder how he is able to run a murderous network from Jail?

The situation escalated when Canada identified six Indian Diplomats in the Indian Embassy in Canada as ‘persons of interest’ in its investigation into the killing of Nijjar. India quickly announced that it is withdrawing the Indian High Commissioner to Canada and ‘other targeted diplomats’, citing security concerns.

And then in a sharp escalation, and a tit-for-tat move, India on Monday ordered the expulsion of six Canadian diplomats. And issued a hard-hitting response to Canada’s ‘preposterous imputations’ warning that India ‘reserves the right to take further steps in response’.

Mumbai Gangsters

It was a murder unlike anything Mumbai had seen in almost three decades.

Former Maharashtra State Minister, Baba Siddique, 66, was waylaid by three persons in Mumbai’s Nirmal Nagar area, just outside his Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) son Zeeshan Siddique’s office, and shot dead last Saturday night. He was getting into his car in the affluent neighbourhood of Bandra when the air filled with firecracker smoke. As shots rang out, fired by three hooded assailants hiding close by, six bullets hit Siddique in the chest. He fell to the floor in a pool of blood. By the time he reached hospital, Siddique was declared dead.

Siddique himself was a MLA in the Vandre West Assembly constituency, Maharashtra, for three consecutive terms, in 1999, 2004, and 2009, and had also served as Minister of State for Food & Civil Supplies and Labour in the State Government.

Responsibility for the killing was quickly claimed by one of India’s most notorious gangsters, Lawrence Bishnoi, who continues to control one of the country’s largest criminal empires-from behind bars. His so-called ‘Bishnoi Gang’ has been linked to several high-profile killings in India, including of a famous Punjabi rapper, and is also accused of being involved in transnational terrorism in Canada.

Siddique was not only a well-known political face in Mumbai but was also known for his close relationships with Bollywood stars, with Actor Salman Khan chief among them. It was this friendship, suggested one alleged Bishnoi gang affiliate in a Facebook post after the killing, that resulted in the politician’s assassination, linked to a feud going back to the 90s. “Salman Khan, we did not want this war but you made our brother lose his life,” said the post.

India’s Lady Justice

Typically, Lady Justice representing the moral force in Judicial Systems, is depicted as a blindfolded lady with scales in one hand, and a sword in the other. She balances the relative substance and value of the available evidence and arguments on both sides of a dispute impartially (being blindfolded), and tips the scale on the side of justice. The sword represents that justice can be swift and final.

This week, India’s Supreme Court did a makeover of Lady Justice-to do away with India’s colonial legacy-replacing the sword with India’s Constitution and removing the blindfold. Signalling a new era for Indian Justice. Said India’s Chief Justice, “the law is not blind: it sees everyone equally”.

Tennis

Tennis ace, Spain’s Rafael Nadal, 38, announced his retirement from professional tennis leaving the Court open for ‘younger guys’ to serve and stroke their way to glory. He will longer stand in their way. Nadal revealed that he would last be in action in Spain’s Davis Cup tie versus Netherlands, in November.

Nadal has been ranked world No. 1 in Singles for 209 weeks, and has finished as the year-end No. 1 five times. He has clinched 22 Grand Slam Singles titles, which includes a record-haul of 14 French Open trophies. Nadal also has won 92 ATP-level singles titles, and an Olympic gold medal.

After Nadal’s retirement, Novak Djokovic will be the only active player from the Big Three. Roger Federer has already retired, and said he could feel a ‘change of guard’ in both women’s and men’s tennis.

More forceful stories coming-up in the weeks ahead. Stay watchful with World Inthavaaram.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2023-41

About: the world this week, 8 October to 14 October 2023; Unfathomable terror unleashed on Israel; Afghanistan’s Earthquake; Nobel Prizes; Asian Games close and Cricket World Cup begins.

Everywhere

Israel Under Attack

Last Saturday, 7th October it was the Jewish Sabbah in Israel and also a holy festival day-the Sukkot. Families usually gather to spend time together, at home or in a synagogue, and friends just meet over for a chat. This year, excited music-lovers were looking forward to the Supernova Music Festival, held in the desert, in Southern Israel to coincide with the Sukkot. It was billed as ‘a journey of unity and love’ with ‘mind-blowing and breath-taking content’ in a place of stunning beauty. Thousands of young people signed up for the party but were not told of the exact location until a few hours before. It was Kibbutz Re’im, about 5 kilometres (km) from the Israel-Gaza border.

But out of the dawn sky, a hail of rockets signalled the start of an attack that, as it unfolded, was unprecedented in its scale and coordination. Shortly thereafter a steady stream of rockets began to rain on Israel. For years, Israel has fortified the border between itself and the small Palestinian enclave of Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas-the Islamist militant organisation. But within hours, its impenetrability was exposed as flawed.

As the rockets rained, about 5000 of them, Hamas- designated as a terrorist group by the United States (US), United Kingdom (UK), European Union, among others – was gathering terrorists where they had planned to penetrate the heavily fortified Gaza-Israel barrier. And within hours, the barrier had been breached again and again in several coordinated, direct assaults on barrier crossing points. And Hamas tried to bypass the barrier completely, including by flying over it on paragliders in the air, and also by boat in the sea.

Hamas terrorists swept out of Gaza in all directions into Israel, assaulted 27 different locations, apparently with orders to kill on sight. The furthest Hamas penetrated was to the town of Ofakim, which lies about 22 km east of Gaza.

Hamas posted the first images from the ground, taken at Kerem Shalom – the most southern of Gaza’s crossings: Terrorists overrunning a check point and the bloodied bodies of two Israeli soldiers on the ground; at least five motorbikes, each carrying two Terrorists armed with rifles, passing through a hole which had been cut in the wire fence section of the barrier; Israeli soldiers being pulled-out of a destroyed tank; one very disturbing video of a woman, whose lifeless and undressed body, face-down – later identified as German citizen Shani Louk- dumped on the back of a pick-up truck and human savages sprawled around her; another of a blood-soaked woman being dragged and pushed into a car.

At the music festival near Re’im, gunmen were firing at will at the large group of young people who had gathered to party and dance. The terrorists had a van loaded with weapons and spent hours searching the area for other Israelis. Hostages were taken from the festival and other locations and transported back into Gaza. Israel says more than 150 Israelis have been abducted and are being kept as hostages. Within just a few hours of the attack, hundreds of Israelis were dead. And it happened in a way no one thought was even possible.

Help was beginning to arrive to the stricken southern region of Israel within a few hours, but Hamas was in effective control of a large swathe of territory.

The speed and deadliness of the surprise attack stunned Israel. Questions over how it was able to happen will be asked for years.

It is completely unprecedented that a terrorist organisation would have the capacity or the wherewithal to mount coordinated, simultaneous assaults from the air, sea, and land. In addition, Hamas possessing the ability to keep its preparations unknown from a country like Israel that has among the most sophisticated intelligence services in the world strongly suggests that it had external state support, advice, and guidance in the planning and execution of the attack on Israel. Iran, accordingly, will be strongly suspected of being behind this.

Israel acknowledged it was ‘surprised’, but quickly got into the act of defending itself and began ferociously attacking the Gaza Strip. It declared it was at War with Hamas and called up an unprecedented 300,000 reservists. And vowed a deadly retaliation under ‘Operation Iron Swords’. Hamas in turn threatened to execute an Israeli captive for every Israeli bombing of a civilian house without warning.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised a military operation that will be both massive and decisive, with the intention of permanently destroying and disabling Hamas’ ability to attack Israel again.

By the end of the week, after Israel regained control of areas invaded by Hamas, the horrors of Hamas’ attack on border communities and Kibbutz Beeri began emerging. And they are beyond human comprehension.

Children were found butchered, decapitated in a kibbutz, people were mercilessly burnt alive in cars, or hounded into bomb shelters and just blasted with grenades thrown-in. Our eyes see but our hearts refuse to believe that human beings can be capable of such savage cruelty – an inconceivable slaughter of hundreds of civilians in their own homes and at the scene of a party, the abduction of civilians, children, and the elderly, and sadistic psychological abuse of families.

Israel said, and at least 1300 civilians and soldiers were killed during the heinous terrorist attack. A further 3000 people were injured. This was the most harrowing murder of jews since the Holocaust – genocide of 6 million jews during World War-II by Hitler’s Nazi’s.

Then began the strike-back on Hamas in the Gaza Strip, with Israel vowing to eliminate every Hamas terrorist. Israel pounded the Gaza with precision air-strikes taking down known Hamas hideouts, buildings and facilities. Israel cut-off water, power, and fuel supplies to Gaza, and its only power plant ran out of fuel plunging Gaza City into darkness. Israel has amassed its troops on the border with Gaza and is preparing for, possibly the deadliest assault on a terrorist group. And this Friday it issued a warning to civilians of Gaza City to evacuate – within 24 hours- to the southern part of the Gaza, south of Wadi Gaza, beyond the Gaza river so that civilians are not trapped in the War. That’s about 1.1 million people to move out.

Gaza has a population of about 2.3 million living in five areas called: North Gaza, Gaza City, Deir el-Balah, Khan Younis, and Rafah. The Gaza Strip is an area of 365 sq.km – about 41km long and 10km wide. There are actually two layers of Gaza, one- on the surface is the civilian community and two- below the surface in a maze of tunnels, forbidden to civilians where live the Hamas from where they carry our their nefarious activities and launch attacks on Israel. Hamas has deliberately embedded itself in every aspect of civilian life in homes with the tunnels running below mosques, schools, and markets, making them vulnerable military targets. They use civilians as shield and pawns in their fight against Israel – as a standard practice.

The US was quick to announce support sending arms and ammunition – especially refills for for Israel’s famous Iron Dome, which destroys incoming Hamas Rockets. The USS Gerald Ford Carrier Strike Group, which is the largest warship in the world was despatched to the Mediterranean Sea. The UK is also sending two Royal Navy ships and surveillance aircraft to the eastern Mediterranean in plans to bolster security. Support for Israel poured in from many countries, including India, unequivocally condemning the ravenous killing by Hamas as an inadmissible act of terror. Even Afghanistan’s ‘deadly and unforgiving’ Taliban has condemned the terrorist act of Hamas.

Hamas too got its share of ‘uncivilised’ support, around the world-more on that next week.

What and who are Hamas, how did they come to be? But first, a bit about Islam to understand the fundamentals.

After the death of Prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam, in the year 632, a group of Muslims, who would come to be known as Sunnis, believed that Muhammad’s successor as Caliph of the Islamic community should be Abu Bakr, whereas a second group of Muslims, who would come to be known as the Shias, believed that his successor should be Ali.

Abu Bakr is the father-in-law of the Prophet through his daughter Aisha. He is known as the first Caliph – Al-Siddiq – of the Rashidun (rightly guided, perfect) Caliphate (an institution), which is the successor state to the Prophet’s domains. Ali ibn Abi Talib, the son-in-law of the Prophet, was the last Caliph of the Caliphate. He was also a senior companion of the Prophet and considered to be the first Imam, the rightful political and religious successor to Muhammed. The Rashidun Caliphate was successively ruled by Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali – the last.

The vast majority of Muslims in various counties are Sunni Muslims with the Shia’s being about 10% of the Muslim community. Typical Shia majority countries are Azerbaijan, Iraq, and Bharain. All others are predominantly Sunni.

The Quran is the central religious text of Islam. Muslims believed it represents the words of God revealed by archangel Gabriel to Muhammad. Angel is a supernatural spiritual being who serves God. Archangels are the second level angels in the hierarchy of Angels. Gabriel is an archangel with the power to announced God’s will to men. That’s the religious background.

Now, about Hamas.

Hamas, officially the Islamic Resistance Movement was founded in 1987 by Palestinian politician, Ahmed Yassin. Its name is an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya and is primarily a Sunni Islamist political and militant organization. It emerged out of the Mujama al-Islamiya (also founded by Yassin), which had been established in Gaza in 1973 as a religious charity involved with the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood. This was shortly after the first intifada – uprising, rebellion- against Israel. Yassin also created the Islamic University of Gaza, which is considered a hotbed of radicalism. This has since been destroyed and raised to the ground in the Israeli air-strikes, early this week.

The Hamas Covenant or Hamas Charter was originally issued in August 1988 and outlines the founding identity, stand, and aims of Hamas. A new charter was issued by Hamas leader Khaled Mashal in May 2017.

The original Charter identified Hamas as the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine and declares its members to be Muslims who ‘fear God and raise the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors’. The charter states, among other extremist things, the following: ‘our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious’ and calls for the eventual creation of an Islamic state in Palestine in place of Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and the obliteration or dissolution of Israel; there is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad; Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavours; Hamas is humanistic, and tolerant of other religions as long as they ‘stop disputing the sovereignty of Islam in this region’. The Charter adds that, ‘renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion of Islam’. The original charter was criticised for its violent language against all Jews, and an incitement to genocide.

Mahmoud Zahar, co-founder of Hamas, said in 2006 that Hamas “will not change a single word in its covenant.” In 2010, he reaffirmed a major commitment of the covenant saying, “Our ultimate plan is to have Palestine in its entirety. I say this loud and clear so that nobody will accuse me of employing political tactics. We will not recognise the Israeli enemy.” In summary, Hamas rejects Israel’s right to exist.

Hamas became increasingly involved in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict by the late 1990s; it opposed the Israel–Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), Letters of Mutual Recognition as well as the Oslo Accords, which saw Hamas’ secular rival Fatah renounce ‘the use of terrorism and other acts of violence’ and recognise Israel in pursuit of a two-state solution. Hamas continued to advocate Palestinian armed resistance to end what it calls ‘Israeli occupation’. Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative election, gaining a majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council, and subsequently took control of Gaza Strip from Fatah in 2007.

Since 2007, Hamas has fought several wars with Israel. The Hamas government has pushed through changes that gave greater influence to Islamic law in the Gaza Strip. It has a social service wing, Dawah, and a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. It has spent its entire time and money in building an arsenal to fight Israel.

Many Western countries and their allies have designated Hamas as a terrorist organisation, citing their usage of human shields; methods of hostage-taking of civilians; and history of violence against non-combatants, including massacres of civilian populations, suicide bombings, and indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli population centres. However, a 2018 attempt to condemn Hamas for ‘acts of terror’ at the United Nations failed.

Hamas is currently governing the Gaza Strip of the Palestinian territories. While it is headquartered in Gaza City, it also has a presence in the West Bank (the larger of the two Palestinian territories), in which Fatah exercises control. It is widely considered to be the ‘dominant political force’ within the Palestinian territories. Its main political rivals are Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Fatah.

On 7 October 2023, Hamas launched a major armed campaign dubbed ‘Operation al-Aqsa Flood’ against Israel, which resulted in the present barbaric terrorist outrage on Israel.

Going back into history.

The region of Palestine or the land of Israel was among the earliest civilisations in the world. During the Iron Age, 1200 BCE to 600 BCE, two related Kingdoms ruled much of Palestine-the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah. A third called the Philistines occupied its southern coast. For a deeper understanding and the genesis of Israel-Palestine Conflict read:

https://kumargovindan.com/2021/05/15/world-inthavaaram-2021-20/

The inhumane, merciless killings of Jews by Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists is akin to the mobile killing units of the Nazi Einsatzgruppen, which also went into villages to exterminate Jews during the Holocaust, and the ‘pogroms’ waged against Jews in the Russian Empire. Israel appears to be in no mood to be magnanimous about the murderers of innocents, including children and the elderly. And has vowed to finish the War on its terms. Israel have even right to defend itself living in close proximity to Hamas whose sole objective is Israel’s destruction.

Afghanistan’s Earthquake

Last Saturday was deadly in other ways.

A 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck on Saturday 40 km west of the oasis City of Herat – the third largest in Afghanistan, and the capital of the western Herat Province.

More than 2,000 people have died as the nation reels from another quake at a time of deep economic crisis. The number killed is about 2400 people, with more 1300 hurt and 1,320 houses completely or partially destroyed. The toll could rise further.

The initial quake was also felt in neighbouring provinces of Badghis and Farah and was followed by multiple aftershocks.

Afghanistan has suffered significant damage from a series of recent earthquakes amid an ongoing dire economic and hunger crises, killing and displacing tens of thousands. The country has long been one of Asia’s poorest and has been ravaged by conflict for decades. But its ability to respond to natural disasters has been further hampered since the Taliban seized power in 2021 following the chaotic US withdrawal, an event that saw many international aid groups pull out.

It also led to Washington and its allies freezing about USD seven billion of the country’s foreign reserves and cutting off international funding. The situation has crippled an economy already heavily dependent on aid.

Noble Prizes

Last week the winners of Nobel Prize in Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, and Peace were announced.

This week, the Nobel Prize in Literature 2023 was awarded to Norwegian author Jon Fosse, ‘for his innovative plays and prose, which give voice to the unsayable’. His immense oeuvre written in the language Norwegian Nynorsk and spanning a variety of genres consists of a wealth of plays, novels, poetry collections, essays, children’s books and translations. While he is today one of the most widely performed playwrights in the world, he has also become increasingly recognised for his prose.

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2023 was awarded to America’s Claudia Goldin ‘for having advanced our understanding of women’s labour market outcomes’.

Claudia Goldin, provided the first comprehensive account of women’s earnings and labour market participation through the centuries, presenting new and often surprising facts. Women’s choices have often been, and remain, limited by marriage and responsibility for the home and family is at the heart of her analyses and explanatory models. She uncovered key drivers of gender differences in the labour market.

Over the past century, the proportion of women in paid work has tripled in many high-income countries. This is one of the biggest societal and economic changes in the labour market in modern times, but significant gender differences remain. It was first in the 1980s that a researcher adopted a comprehensive approach to explaining the source of these differences.

Sports

Asian Games

The Asian Games came to a close this Sunday and India finished fourth in the overall medals tally with its best ever performance of 107 medals Gold-28; Silver-38; Bronze-41. Indian athletes were honoured and warmly received all over the country in various moments of celebrations.

China won 383 medals, Japan-188, and South Korea -190. Uzbekistan finished fifth, after India, with 71 medals.

ICC Cricket World Cup 2023

The 13th edition of the Men’s Cricket World Cup, a quadrennial One Day International (ODI) cricket tournament contested by national teams and organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC) is underway in India. It is the first men’s Cricket World Cup, which India is hosting solely. The tournament started on 5th October and is scheduled to conclude on 19th November. England are the defending champions.

Ten national teams are participating: Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Netherlands, Sri Lanka, and Zimbabwe. West Indies missing out on qualification for the first time in its history.

The tournament is taking place in ten different stadiums, in ten cities across India. The first and second semi-finals will be held at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai and Eden Gardens in Kolkata respectively, while the final will take place at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad.

More good and bad stories coming-up in the weeks ahead. Heal with World Inthavaaram.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2022-40

About –the stories of the world this week, 2 October to 8 October 2022: deadly football, a tight election in Brazil, 5G in India, a fierce helicopter, Noble Prizes – and human evolution.

Everywhere

Crushing Football in Indonesia

Football – Association Football – is the most popular sport in Indonesia in terms of attendance, participation, and revenue. And the domestic league, played at all levels – from children to middle-aged men – is widely followed across the country.

Liga 1, the Indonesian domestic league is hugely popular and was started around 1930 in the Dutch colonial era. The National Body that kicks the football around the country is the Football Association of Indonesia (PSSI). Some of the major teams are: Persija Jakarta, Persib Bandung, Persebaya Surabaya, PSM Makassar, Persita Tangerang, PSMS Medan, PSIS Semarang, Persik Kediri, Persipura Jayapura, Persiwa Wamena, and Arema Malang.

Few places in the world can match the passion for football generated by fans in Indonesia, where stadiums are regularly packed to the rafters to cheer their sides. Fans are strongly attached to their clubs, and such fanaticism often ends in violence and hooliganism, mostly outside the stadiums.

On Saturday, last week, in Malang, East Java the home team Area FC lost, 2-3, to long-time, bitter rival Persebaya Surabaya at an overcrowded Kanjuruhan stadium. On the final whistle, marking the defeat, Arema FC fans invaded the pitch, causing the Police to chase them to bring order. They then started attacking the Police, damaging vehicles and a Police car was set on fire. In response, the Police began firing tear gas, on the spread of which spectators in the stadium panicked and started running towards the exits. And in the stampede and the surge to leave the Stadium that followed, at least 130 people were suffocated or crushed to death and hundreds injured. This is one of the world’s worst stadium disasters. Two police officers also died in the melee.

The Kanjuruhan stadium has a stated capacity of 38,000 and 42,000 tickets were sold for the match. However, being the home ground of Arema FC, Persebaya Surabaya fans were banned from buying tickets, fearing clashes between the sides – whoever wins or loses.

FIFA, the world’s governing football body, states that no ‘crowd control gas’ should be carried or used by stewards or Police at matches. Here, Police had fired numerous tear gas rounds ‘continuously and fast’ after the situation with the fans became ‘tense’. If the crowds panic and the Police also panic, it can lead to nothing but disaster. It did.

Across the world, other instances of Stadium disasters are:

In the year 1964, 320 people were killed and more than 1,000 injured during a stampede at a Peru-Argentina Olympic qualifier in Peru’s Capital, Lima.

In 1985, during the European Cup final between England’s Liverpool and Italy’s Juventus Clubs, 39 people died and 600 were hurt at the Heysel stadium in Brussels, Belgium, when fans were crushed against a wall that then collapsed.

In 1989, in the United Kingdom, crush of football fans led to the death of 97 Liverpool fans attending the club’s FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest at the Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield. The tragedy was largely attributed to mistakes by the Police.

Lessons still to be learnt: new ‘safety’ goals are to be set by the Police and Authorities managing sport in stadiums.

Close Presidential Elections in Brazil

Brazil’s bitterly divisive presidential election is headed for a runoff on 30th October as incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro beat expectations to finish a closer-than-expected second to front-runner Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Lula, seeking a presidential comeback, secured 48.4% of the vote to Bolsonaro’s 43.2%. Simone Tebet, a member of the Brazilian Federal Senate, an academic and lawyer politician came a distant third with 4.2% of the votes.

It was an unexpectedly strong result for the combative ex-army captain Bolsonaro, and for Brazil’s far-right, which also had surprise good showings in a series of key congressional and governors’ races.

Lula, the popular but tarnished ex-President who led Brazil from 2003 to 2010, had been the favourite to win the race – possibly in a single round.

Super-fast 5G in India

On 1st October, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched 5G services in India ushering a new era of super-fast communications.

In telecommunications, 5G is the Fifth Generation technology standard for broadband cellular networks, which cellular phone companies began deploying worldwide in 2019, and is the planned successor to the 4G networks which provide connectivity to most current cellphones. 5G is up to 100 times faster than 4G.

Let’s go back a decade to when it all started with 1G and move up a decade and a Generation, at a time.

In 1980 we had 1G with mobile voice calls. In 1990 we stepped on to 2G with mobile voice calls and SMS (Short Message Service). In 2000 we walked fast on 3G with mobile web browsing. Then in 2010 we began running on 4G with mobile video consumption and higher data speed. Now 5G provides the sprint: faster connectivity speeds, ultra-low latency and greater bandwidth dramatically enhancing day-to-day experiences. Services that we used to see as futuristic, such as e-health, connected vehicles and traffic systems, and advanced mobile cloud gaming have arrived.

Like its predecessors, 5G networks are cellular networks, in which the service area is divided into small geographical areas called cells. All 5G wireless devices in a cell are connected to the Internet and telephone network by radio waves through a local antenna in the cell. The new networks have higher download speeds, eventually up to 10 gigabits per second. In addition to 5G being faster than existing networks, 5G has higher bandwidth and can thus connect more of different devices, improving the quality of Internet services in crowded areas.

India’s Blue Thunder

India’s indigenously built Light Combat Helicopter (LCH) was commissioned this week and named Prachand, meaning ‘fierce’.

This is a fierce lift-off for India’s Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan campaign, which intent is to make India a self-reliant country in all aspects.

Prachand is a multi-role, light attack helicopter, capable of taking-off and landing at an altitude of 16,400 feet – perhaps the only one of its kind in the world with such a high flight ceiling. It is manufactured by India’s Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and designed by its in-house Rotary Wing Research and Design Centre.

It has been ordered by the Indian Air Force and the Indian Army based on a lessons -learnt outcome during the 1999 Kargil War, in which India successfully staved off and attack by Pakistan. The war revealed that Indian armed forces lacked a suitably armed rotorcraft capable of operating unrestricted in the high-altitudes.

Prachand is equipped with a two-person tandem cockpit to accommodate a pilot and co-pilot gunner and can perform both the anti-infantry and anti-armour missions. The features that are unique to Prachand include its narrow fuselage, a crashworthy tricycle landing gear arrangement and self-sealing fuel tanks, armour protection, and a low visibility stealth profile. It is protected via an extensive electronic warfare suite which comprises multiple defensive elements to guard against various kinds of threats. These include a radar warning receiver, laser warning receiver and a missile approach warning system. The protective measures included consist of a digital camouflage system, an infrared suppressor fitted to the engine exhaust, and an exterior covered by canted flat panels to minimise its radar cross-section. It is furnished with an integrated dynamic system, including a hingeless main rotor and bearing-less tail rotor, which works in conjunction with an anti-resonance isolation system to dampen vibrations.

That’s breathtaking capability developed by India. Way to go! Prachand whirled memories of the 1983 Hollywood movie, ‘Blue Thunder’ starring ‘Jaws fame’ Roy Scheider, about a combat style Police surveillance helicopter. Remember the movie?

Rewards for Path-Breaking Work – The Nobel Prizes

The question of our origin and what makes us humans unique has engaged humanity since ancient times. I’ve always been fascinated by human evolution: how did we get here in our present shape? Finally, we are getting some definitive answers to the many puzzling questions about our origins.

First, a few scientific definitions: hold your head tight before it starts spinning.

Taxonomy is a scheme of hierarchical classification in which things are organised into groups or types. Human taxonomy is the classification of the human species within the zoological taxonomy. Genome means the complete set of genes or genetic material present in a cell or organism. It is made of DNA (or RNA) and other elements that control the activity of genes. Genome sequencing is a laboratory method that is used to determine the entire genetic makeup of a specific organism or cell type.

We humans belong to the Kingdom – Animalia, Phylum-Chordata, Class-Mammalia, Order-Primates, Family-Hominidae, Subfamily-Homininae, Tribe-Hominini, Genus-Homo, Species-Sapiens. Going deeper, the genus Homo is placed in the tribe Hominini alongside Pan-Chimpanzees. The two genera diverged over an extended time of hybridization spanning roughly 10 to 6 million years ago, with possible admixture as late as 4 million years ago.

The genus, Homo includes both anatomically modern humans and extinct varieties of archaic humans. In the Tribe ‘Homini’ only one species exists today – that’s us Homo Sapiens (meaning ‘wise man’, in Latin), or plain human beings. Other human varieties went extinct just like the Dinosaurs did. And the reasons are yet to be conclusively established.

Now, armed with this scientific background, let’s move to more nobler things:

This year’s The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to Sweden’s Svante Paabo for his work on human evolution – for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution. The Prize committee said he achieved the seemingly impossible task of cracking the genetic code of one of our extinct relatives – Neanderthals (Homo Neanderthalensis). He also performed the ‘sensational’ feat of discovering a previously unknown relative – Denisovans (Homo Denisova). His work significantly helped explore our own evolutionary history and how humans spread around the planet.

Svante Paabo successfully sequenced the genome of a Neanderthal in the year 2010 by extracting the DNA from the femur bones of three 38,000 years old female Neanderthal specimens from Vindija Cave, Croatia, and other bones found in Spain, Russia, and Germany.

Recall, by the end of the 1990’s, almost the entire human genome had been sequenced, which was an outstanding, path-breaking accomplishment that allowed subsequent studies of the genetic relationship between different human populations.

Paabo found that gene transfer had occurred from these now extinct hominins to Homo Sapiens following the migration out of Africa. This ancient flow of genes to present-day humans has physiological relevance today, for example affecting how our immune system reacts to infections.

Paabo’s seminal research gave rise to an entirely new scientific discipline: paleogenomics. By revealing genetic differences that distinguish all living humans from extinct hominins, his discoveries provide the basis for exploring what makes us uniquely human.

Paleontological and archeological research provided evidence that the anatomically modern Homo Sapiens, first appeared in Africa approximately 300,000 years ago, while our closest known relatives, Neanderthals, developed outside Africa and populated Europe and Western Asia from around 400,000 years until 30,000 years ago, at which point they went extinct. About 70,000 years ago, groups of Homo Sapiens migrated from Africa to the Middle East and, from there they spread to the rest of the world. Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals thus coexisted in large parts of Eurasia for tens of thousands of years.

We know about our relationship with the extinct Neanderthals from clues derived from genomic information. Comparisons with contemporary humans and chimpanzees demonstrated that Neanderthals were genetically distinct. It has also been demonstrated that the most recent common ancestor of Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens lived around 800,000 years ago. This means that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens interbred during their millennia of coexistence. In modern day humans with European or Asian descent, approximately 1 to 4% of the genome originates from the Neanderthals.

In 2008, a 40,000-year-old fragment from a finger bone was discovered in the Denisova cave in the southern part of Siberia. The bone contained exceptionally well-preserved DNA, which Paabo’s team sequenced. The results caused a sensation: the DNA sequence was unique when compared to all known sequences from Neanderthals and present-day humans. Paabo had discovered a previously unknown hominin, which was given the name Denisova. Comparisons with sequences from contemporary humans from different parts of the world showed that gene flow had also occurred between Denisova and Homo sapiens. This relationship was first seen in populations in Melanesia and other parts of South East Asia, where individuals carry up to 6% Denisova DNA.

At the time when Homo Sapiens migrated out of Africa, at least two now extinct hominin populations inhabited Eurasia. Neanderthals lived in western Eurasia, whereas Denisovans populated the eastern parts of the continent. During the expansion of Homo sapiens outside Africa and their migration east, they not only encountered and interbred with Neanderthals, but also with Denisovans Interbreeding occurred when Homo sapiens spread across the continent, leaving traces that remain in our DNA.

A flashback: Neanderthals were the first species of fossil hominins discovered and have secured their place in our collective imagination ever since. The first Neanderthal fossils were found in Engis, Belgium in 1829, but were not identified as belonging to Neanderthals until almost 100 years later. The first fossils to be called Neanderthals were found in 1856 in Germany, at a site in the Neander Valley (where Neanderthals get their name from).

The other Nobel Prizes of 2022, announced are:

The Nobel Prize in Physics to France’s Alain Aspect, USA’s John F. Clauser and Austria’s Anton Zeilinger, ‘for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science’.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry to USA’s Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Denmark’s Morten Meldal, and USA’s K. Barry Sharpless, ‘for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistrye’.

The Nobel Prize in Literature awarded to the French author Annie Ernaux ‘for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory’.

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski from Belarus, the Russian human rights organisation Memorial, and the Ukrainian human rights organisation Center for Civil Liberties: they represent civil society in their home countries. Said the announcement , “They have for many years promoted the right to criticise power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens. They have made an outstanding effort to document war crimes, human right abuses and the abuse of power. Together they demonstrate the significance of civil society for peace and democracy”.

Over the years there was a grouse about the ‘tiny amount’ of female prize winners. Maybe someone heard?

As of 2022, Unique Nobel Prize laureates include 885 men, 59 women, and 25 Organizations. Only one woman, Marie Curie, has been honoured twice, with the Nobel Prize in Physics 1903 and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1911.

More gritty, armoured stories coming up in the weeks ahead, work hard and stay the course, you may win a Nobel; meanwhile, keep reading World Inthavaaram to evolve better.

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2021-41

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

Everywhere

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

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

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

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

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

Now, onto another Pandora opening.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WORLD INTHAVAARAM, 2020-41

About This Article:

‘Inthavaaram’ is a literal English Translation of the Tamil ‘This (Intha) Week (Vaaram)’.

In ‘World Inthavaaram’ I have collected news from all over the World, during the week – in a backstage inventory, in my corner of the World, Tamil Nadu, India – cherry-picking, and stringing together happenings that I think are interesting, and worth knowing about. I might add a ‘My Opinion’ paragraph at the end of a news item, which is entirely my own uninfluenced analysis, based on the facts and data available in the public domain. The intent is to give you – the Reader – a direction to form your own opinion.

My Opinion can change, as I learn more and grow in wisdom.

I’ll be doing this every week. Hence look out!

Everywhere

The week began with the infected President of the United States of America, flying down to Hospital to fight the coronavirus, lying down in bed, during which time, he got-up briefly, all of a sudden (thinking is was Easter), to take the virus for a deadly ride on the roads. And then flew back home to the White House, gasped for breath standing on the balcony and pulled-off his mask for all to see. Or was it for quicker air? He received the COVID-19 treatment that no man on Earth has ever received and declared, ‘We should not be afraid of the coronavirus’. I reckon we have no more breath to explain to this man how infectious diseases can spread, especially from a Rose Garden: the last count of fragrance was about 30 from that unmasked, close hand-shake and hugs-filled gathering on the green lawns. Is there a Centre of Disease Control mowing about in America? They need better machines.

My Opinion:The President is being reckless and irresponsible in ‘not respecting the virus’ and the Science, which specifies simple measures to keep infections under control, and from spreading. Being the commander-in-chief he should set an example in every way possible – including wearing a mask. The virus gives a damn about politics; all it needs is another body to propagate. Never mind you are the President!

The Armenia – Azerbaijan War.

Man keeps fighting for a piece of land to live and to die on.

The former Soviet Union Republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan went to war in September this year over who fully owns Nagorno-Karabakh, and seven surrounding districts, an enclave internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but controlled by ethnic Armenians. Originally this was established, by the Soviets, as an Armenian-majority autonomous administrative region of Azerbaijan. During the collapse of the Soviet Union, in 1988 and then in 1991 Nagorno-Karabakh first wanted to be a part of Armenia, and second, declared its independence, based on a referendum it held – naturally, the Armenian majority voted to break away from Azerbaijan – which is not recognised by the United Nations or any country, including Armenia. The self-declared unrecognised Republic is called Artsakh. This started a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, in 1988, until Russia intervened to broker a cease-fire in 1994.

They have re-discovered their guns and ammunition this year. And yes, they are roaring. But over the weekend they have agreed to cease-fire. Hope it holds.

Sounds a wee bit like India’s Kashmir problem?

My Opinion: Going by the History and available facts: Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan, appears to have a rightful claim on Nagorno-Karabakh and it should continue as an autonomous region within Azerbaijan. Of course, I need more facts and to separately put myself in the shoes of Armenia and Azerbaijan to make a judgement. Whatever, looking from the Nagorno-Karabakh side, It should not matter, after all these years, on which side you belong, as long as you hold all sides and freedom within is unchallenged. Religion should not be a basis of division and Country boundary making – we differentiate to integrate, don’t we?

Local: India

Rape is hugging the headlines, stripping the newspapers of other stories, with the ghastly, inhuman Hathras case in the State of Uttar Pradesh. Why does this keep happening in India? We need to look deep inside our homes, in the way we bring-up our sons and how we understand the many divisions in society. These layers were formed centuries ago, which are not relevant today. Maybe, we should ‘dissolve them with our actions’.

Meanwhile, the local Kallakurichi lawmaker, Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) in Tamilnadu marries for love, but the girl’s father – a temple priest – cries foul saying the friends of the family cannot take such benefits. The MLA had asked for the girl’s hand, in the proper manner, which was, however, turned-down by the father for reasons known only to God. Whatever, the girl stood by the love of her life, accepted the knot-tying to bridge the gap of over 15 years between them. The families had known each other for quite some time; perhaps only too well. Well? The Press went to Town on the ‘divisions and ladders in society’, but I won’t beat down that path. Later, when the couple were dragged to Court, it ruled that it was alright, well within the laws. Go ahead and make your day, it said. Days to forget, nights to remember?

India successfully tested a Supersonic Missile Assisted Release of Torpedo (SMART) system, that could strike enemy submarines more than 643 km away. The weapon, a first of its kind in India, was launched from Wheeler Island, off the coast of Odisha State . The Government declared that all mission objectives have been met perfectly. Ready to strike.

With China trying to nibble at its borders, India has to climb-up to the challenge of its adversary. Eye of the Tiger!

Games

The Indian Premier League Cricket Season – Twenty Overs matches – organised by the Board of Cricket Control for India (BCCI) is being held in an off-India venue, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), played on the sands of time. Due to the pandemic restrictions, all matches will be played without an audience, players will not be allowed to used saliva to shine the ball, and Captains cannot shake hands after the toss…among other wonderful rules.

The third Tennis Grand Slam of the year, The French Open, is rolling on the Roland Garros, Paris, about this time, and is drawing to a close. In a first ever, we have a Polish teenage sensation Iga Swiatek win the Title. It was deadly straightforward when she beat American Sofia Kenin in two sets. The 19-year-old claimed the French Open title without dropping a single set all through the tournament, becoming the lowest-ranked female Champion and the first Polish player to win a Grand Slam Singles Title. She is also the youngest French Open Winner since 1992. Time to celebrate, Poland.

Now, the men are at work: Spain’s Rafael Nadal has owned Roland Garros for nearly all of his career. And Serbian Novak Djokovic is trying to buy the lease this year. We are looking forward to this Sunday to see the Winner, of this land dispute.

Moving to bigger balls, it was enchanting to read about a young girl, Karishma Ali, living in a remote Village in Pakistan’s Chitral Valley, a mountainous region bordering Afganishthan, becoming the first woman, from her region, to have played football at a national and international level. This, in a Country where a girl can get shot for going to School. Last year Karishma was named among Forbes’ ’30 Under 30’ in Asia in the august company of Tennis Star Naomi Osaka and K-Pop band Blackpink. She has braved the mandatory threats to her life – for daring to play football – with her father strongly behind her, all the way. What a Dad!

Serious Stuff

The Nobel Prizes are announced in the categories that Swedish Industrialist and Chemist Alfred Nobel had willed in 1895 – a year before his death.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna for the development of a method for genome editing. They discovered one of gene technology’s sharpest tools: the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors. Using these, researchers can change the DNA of animals, plants and micro-organisms with extremely high precision. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said this year’s prize was about ‘rewriting the code of life.’ Talk about playing God. Well, we’re getting there. Imagine going to a Science Saloon for a genetic cut.

The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Scientists, Sir Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez for their work to understand Black Holes. Roger Penrose got the the award ‘for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of Relativity’, while Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez got it ‘for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy’. The winners share the prize money of 10 million kronor, about Rs 8.30 crore.

Black holes are just that – a region of space where the gravitational pull is so strong that not even light cannot escape. We can rightfully call them Monsters and they live at the centre of galaxies sitting quietly trying to swallow as much as they can, or at least to tug at the various stars. They are one of the most exotic objects in the Universe. Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez provided the most convincing evidence yet of a supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy – the Milky Way. They called in Sagittarius ‘A’.

The Nobel in Medicine was awarded jointly to Harvey J Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M Rice, ‘for the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus’. Did you know that Hepatitis C causes approximately 400,000 deaths a year? Now, you do. This is a decisive contribution to fight blood-borne hepatitis that causes cirrhosis and liver cancer in people around the world. Prior to their work the discovery of Hepatitis A and B viruses had been firm first steps, but the majority of blood-borne hepatitis cases remained unexplained. This discovery enabled the design of sensitive blood tests and new medicines that have helped save millions of lives.

The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to American Louise Gluck for her unmissable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal. Her debut novel was in 1968, and the most recent one was ‘American Originality: Essays on Poetry in 2017. She wasn’t the Firstborn, nor living in The House on Marshland but this October she triumphed over The Triumph of Achilles to win the Nobel.

The Nobel Peace Prize went peacefully to the World Food Programme (WFP) for its efforts to combat hunger, preventing the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict and for bettering conditions for peace in conflict -affected areas. In 2019, the WFP provided assistance to close to 100 million people in 88 Countries who were victims of acute food insecurity and hunger. ‘The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach’, is a much ‘tasted’ old saying. Still works!

Melange

I got this information off Uber Facts: A single bat can eat up to 1,200 mosquito-sized insects in an hour. Bats eat an average of 6,000 to 8,000 insects every night. Despite the connection with the ‘best 2020 newsmaker, the coronavirus and its effect, the COVID-19, I think we should be best friends with Bats – only, mind the gap!

Hummingbirds, those tiny birds found mostly in the Americas and Europe – there are over 360 species of them – are the only birds that can fly backwards. Quiz your little kids on these facts.

I will be back next week, with more stories.

Kumar Govindan's Words

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!

PEACE

UNITED KINGDOM: TERROR

INDIA: A KILLER STAMPEDE

JANE GOODALL

LAST WORD

Everywhere

Israel Eliminates Hamas’ Head

Indian Railways: Right or Wrong Track?

Nobel Prizes 2024

India-Canada Row

Mumbai Gangsters

India’s Lady Justice

Tennis

Everywhere

Israel Under Attack

Afghanistan’s Earthquake

Noble Prizes

Sports

Asian Games

ICC Cricket World Cup 2023

Everywhere

Crushing Football in Indonesia

Close Presidential Elections in Brazil

Super-fast 5G in India

India’s Blue Thunder

Rewards for Path-Breaking Work – The Nobel Prizes

Everywhere

Everywhere

The Armenia – Azerbaijan War.

Local: India

Games

Serious Stuff

Melange

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