World war C

This is war. Full on. No government might mention or accept it, but we are now at war. Against an enemy we can’t see or hear.  We are at war with the Coronavirus. And therefore, at each other.

You see, the only way the virus could have spread this far out into the world was my human-to-human contact. And governments world over have now started to advice social-distancing. Things have now come down to this, we now have to avoid each other ! Governments in Italy ,China, Spain have announced full lockdowns, restricting its people from even venturing out, whether they are infected or not. And other countries are following suit.

Australia, too panic-stricken to lead by example, is yet to call a nation-wide absolute lockdown. Worried more about its economy, which was already sliding before the pandemic, they only banned flights from China, and advised people to follow minimum protocols. Now with 290 confirmed cases and 3 deaths, there is a little more seriousness in the way their approach to the war. A few weeks back, the idiots down under lit up Australian national monuments in red and yellow, to show solidarity & remember the sacrifice of China; but it was more of a PR effort to retain the good relations with that country. It took the Aussies an additional week to announce the full ban against travellers from Italy, and the damage is now visible. The country had barely recovered from the disastrous bush fires, right into this pandemic. The fight for toilet paper is still on.

Things aren’t looking any better for India, who’s leaders took all their sweet time to draft and finalize a proper response. Kerala was the first Indian state to report an infection, but also the first to announce a fool-proof action plan to isolate and treat the patient. This was last month, showing exceptional knowledge & leadership in the matter. The rest of India at the time asked questions as to why is it always Kerala that is the epicenter of new, viral diseases, and religious bigots blamed the food habits and breakage of temple rituals for the initial spread. But now no-one is questioning the lack of leadership from the central government, now that there are 100 cases and 2 deaths.  Sanghis are resorting to drinking cow-urine and bathing in cow-dung to prevent an infection, becoming the laughing stock of the rest of the world.

And it is ironic that Italy and Iran , countries known to be too open and too closed to the outside world, are equally affected by COVID infections.

But no country was un-prepared for this pandemic than, wait for it….the US. The leader of the free world was caught with its pants down with s serious outbreak, when the nation was itself busy in the initial stages of its presidential election. The whitehouse, again more worried about the falling stock markets, continued to pelt lies and false propaganda, and struggled to lead a country which does not even have universal health care. The gaps in its preparedness and leadership is now as clear as night and day, with 45 deaths right in the state of Washington. If nothing else, this alone should be enough to wipe the country of its real infection, the virus sitting in the oval office, and hopefully, its citizens would vote for the democratic party, just to receive a generous medical insurance cover.

Scientists and leaders are shocked at the un-precented rapid spread of the viral pandemic, around the world, in just 3 months. At this moment, there are over 169,000 confirmed COVID cases, and 6,500 deaths. You could chart and sort the data however you want, but the fact remains that the world was too busy fighting oil wars and trade and tariff wars with each other, and no body had a plan or a prediction for a viral outbreak. Hollywood is good at making movies about viral epidemics, but for once, a horror movie is coming to life. In the initial days, virologists were trying to figure out the original source of this aberration, blaming bats, snakes and pangolins for being the host. But everyone has forgotten that branch of thought, the current host right now are human beings. The more we embrace and thank each other, the more we are passing on the virus.

This incident will change the world. Later generations, hopefully there are a few, will talk, discuss and study how grossly unprepared the world was. They will study how false news and hype caused more damage than the actual infection. And how leaders were focussed on economy and money, and were hesitant to focus on their greatest wealth and asset – human beings. Hopefully, we will emerge from this unscathed, with a fraction of the world population lost, but with lessons learnt from the mistakes we made.

This maybe the next big war we fight, as one. So please stay together in spirit, but ironically, remember to maintain your distance.

Why no protests ?

Its been months now, since the Indian media first started reporting of an apparent slowdown in the country's economy. After bigger media houses, economists and investors picked up and magnified the story, external rating agencies have downgraded the country's prospects. Nobel prize winning laureates double checked, and confirmed. Banks are shutting down, and companies are downsizing.

After all of this, the question that is troubling me is: why isn't anyone protesting ?

In a country known to protest the slightest increase in fuel prices, it is ironical that Indians have not put forward an organized effort to call the government's bluff. All those people now unemployed, where are their protests ? The industries affected, why are their stocks still up ?

The severe lack of protests in the world's largest democracy is chilling. There is no validation for the reported slowdown. Has this democracy lost its voice ?

The great Indian taxpayer is an elusive creature

There is a very elusive species of creature in India. It works very hard everyday, day and night,sometimes more than 14 hours a day for its food and family. Everyday is a work day, hardly any rest. It also suffers most of modern lifestyle induced sickness. The country, draws significant growth from the hard work of this little species, and ultimately rewards it almost nothing in return.

This species is called the great Indian bustard tax-payer.

I have always known of the hard life this species lives. It does not live, it simply survives. But the data to correlate and breakdown its sad state was buried undred thousand page reports prepared from half informed forms. But recently, there was a nice article summarising its pitiful state.

The salaried income tax payer in India often feels cheated. “What are my taxes being used for," he often asks himself. The roads continue to have potholes. The traffic never ends. The public transport system never seems to expand fast enough. The healthcare system is non-existent. The legal system takes years to give a judgement. The police are corrupt, and so on.

Read on, and pass further into depression.

A few jaw droppers from this piece:

A small portion of India’s salaried population pays the bulk of its individual income tax, which gets redistributed to others and doesn’t benefit the taxpayers that much. In the process, it drives them away from the Indian state. At least, that’s the feeling going around.

“If the state’s role is predominantly redistribution, the middle class will seek—in professor Albert Hirschman’s famous terminology—to exit from the state. They will avoid or minimize paying taxes; they will cocoon themselves in gated communities; they will use diesel generators to obtain power; they will go to private hospitals and send their children to private education institutions."

About 4% of citizens who vote pay taxes, the percentage should be about 23

This last line is truly a clincher. It means the majority of people pariticipate in this democracy do not actually contribute to the country, but instead, feed on the little benefits it is able to pay out.

Individuals paying an income tax of greater than ₹1.5 lakh accounted for nearly 79% of the total tax.

If you happen to belong to this group, you might really feel that you have a good portion of the burden of the nation on your shoulders. Of course, this is good enough reason for the government to start taxing agricultural income over a certain level. Given that the bulk of the tax is paid by a small proportion of the population, there is always talk going around about doing away with the income tax at lower income levels.

But the question is can the government really afford to do this?

The 2 hour, engineered marathon.

After being lost in international trade wars, and ongoing wars on borders, a different kind of news was trending this week. And that is a good thing. On October 12, a marathon runner from Kenya, Eliud Kipchoge, completed the marathon distance in under 2 hours.

At first, I didn't understand what the fuss was about. 2 hours seems like a lot of time to do some running. What is so big about finishing the distance; my being out of touch with most sports failed to inform me that it was considered impossible to complete a full marathon in that much time. Kipchoge achieved something impossible, he is the first person on the planet to have run a distance of more than 26 kms in under this 2 hour time limit. One hour and 59 minutes is fast in a way that’s difficult to comprehend. Despite the formidable distance, Kipchoge ripped through each mile of his run in about four and a half minutes.

Truly commendable. One for the record books.

Not quite. Mind blowing as it is, Kipchoge did not break the record for the fastest marathon completed. Because he did not run in a marathon. He ran in an marathon specially engineered for him. And the more you read about the actual race condition and its orchestration, the more it surprises.

Everything about this race was controlled, right down to the weather, and the pacing. This race was designed more to showcase how technology can (and has) help modern athletes achieve the impossible.

The planning that went into the event was a fantasy of perfectionism. The organizers scouted out a six-mile circuit along the Danube River in Vienna that was flat, straight, and close to sea level. Parts of the road were marked with the fastest possible route, and an electric car guided the runners by projecting its own disco-like laser in front of them to show the correct pace. The pacesetters, a murderers’ row of Olympians and other distance stars, ran seven-at-a-time in a wind-blocking formation devised by an expert of aerodynamics. There were 7 pacers at any point of time, and a total of 41 pacers ! Kipchoge himself came equipped with an updated, still-unreleased version of Nike’s controversial Vaporfly shoes, which, research appears to confirm, lower marathoners’ times. He had unfettered access to his favorite carbohydrate-rich drink, courtesy of a cyclist who rode alongside the group. The bottle was measured to ensure Kipchoge was under the right hydration. And the event’s start time was scheduled within an eight-day window to ensure the best possible weather. The whole thing was as close as you can get to a mobile marathon spa treatment.

But with great optimization comes great controversy. Looked at one way, the INEOS 1:59 Challenge is a straightforward testament to how money can buy anything, including a branded sub-two-hour marathon. And yet, and yet—the most compelling counterpoint to a cynical view of the performance is Eliud Kipchoge himself. Among a pack of mostly Kenyan runners who have recently pushed marathoning into a golden age, Kipchoge stands head and shoulders above the rest. He is the distance’s Michael Jordan, an era-defining and Kelly Clarkson–loving talent whose credentials—which include an Olympic gold medal and multiple big-city-marathon titles, on top of the official marathon world record—were secure.

After all the engineering, it still takes a human to do the impossible.

Ebola and Chernobyl

Cannot believe what's trending on TV now. After the finales of Big bang theory and Game of thrones (two big loads of bullshit), some of the other smaller TV programmes are finally getting airtime, and attention. For some reason, people now enjoy watching past disasters.

One of the recommendations I got was to watch 'The Hot Zone', a 6 part fictional telling of  what was supposed to be a real Ebola outbreak on the US East Coast in 1989. This even was not well covered by media, not because the outbreak was contained in time, but because the strain of Ebola involved was not harmful to humans. But that has not stopped the makers of the show to exxagerate events, and add a layer of cheap horror movie thrills and sounds to what was supposedly a highly scientific operation.

The other TV event of the year is the simply named Chernobyl. Airing on HBO, it re-enacts the events immediately after the 1986 explosion at the doomed Soviet nuclear power plant. The show is now the highest rated TV show, scoring points for its authenticity in story and its sets. The attention to detail to the people, places and things is so high, it confused people from that era. It’s still debated how many people died due to radiation and long-term health effects as a result of the nuclear accident, with estimates ranging from 4000 to a whopping 90,000.

It truly baffles me why the audience loves to watch stories on these past disasters. These are important events of reckoning, no doubt, and humanity has learned from this mishaps. But when the story moves to the TV format, it suffers the hollywood treatment. Times are compressed, multiple people are merged, and there is always the one person who saves the day. In reality, the mistakes are made as a team, and the world is saved as a team. There have been multiple documentaires on events like these, but none of them get the attention they deserve. Its one of those unfortunte cases where fiction triumps facts.

Why Sri Lanka ?

Sri Lanka was a soft target.

An in-depth opinion-piece (not news) article on why Sri Lanka was probably chosen for the Easter attacks.

Reads like fiction : The oracle executive who changed his identity to escape law.

 

I had the habit of reading detective fiction, and espionage novels during high school and college. But later the hobby died a gradual death as I got busy with work. Now I just read the news. But gone are the days of simple, straightforward news. Now the crimes being reported are stranger than fiction.

This week I read this bizarre news of this murderer who changed his identity from a Malayali to a Gujarathi to escape law for 15 years. He was finally caughtcaught because he was still in touch with his loving mother, of all people.

On Thursday, Pravin Bhateley, a senior manager working with Oracle Private Limited on Bannerghatta Road in Bengaluru, was arrested by the Ahmedabad police. But strangely, Kiran Chowdhury, the inspector dressed as an employee of the IT company who came to arrest Pravin, said, "Hello Tarun, it's over... Let's go."

 

Read TNM’s excellent coverage of the news.

 

Oracle ! Seems like a right fit for him.

 

 

 

The world’s fastest growing economy has the world’s most toxic air

 

Not surprised.

 

 

Goodbye , Professor Hawking.

 

 

 

  This news hit us from nowhere today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

His own quote can sum up his great life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quite a day, March 14th.

It's Pi day.

Einstein's birthday.

And the day we lost Stephen Hawking.

 

 

 

 

 

I found it intriguing that Prof Tyson used the words RIP. Prof Hawking was not a Christian. And didn’t believe in any god. But he spent his entire life trying to unravel the secrets of the cosmos.

Now he can sleep.

It is time now for the next generation to carry forward his scientific temper.

Communal chaos in South Asia

 

Communal chaos is brewing in South Asia. After centuries of ‘peace’ and ‘co-existence’, religion is now coming in the way of peaceful governance. India has always had it, like the 1992 Bombay riots.  Pakistan had it. Then out of nowhere, Myanmar’s Rohingya crisis got world attention. And then, just when everyone thought things cannot get any worse, Sri Lanka has declared an emergency due to communal clashes.

 

If anything, this is proof that there is no God. Only religion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The truth is out. No cash = no development

This was today’s big news.

HCL wants to create its own zombie engineers

 

I was shocked to read this , HCL is going to train high school graduates into low paying programmer jobs, and these people will never be able to leave their company, because they do not have an engineering degree.

Also they salary the new high schoolers will start with, will be lesser than what entree level engineers currently earn at HCL.