China No.1 in Covid-19 vaccinations?

Those who praise China as No.! In vaccination should understand that the world has no means of verifying China's own figure for how many doses of the Covid-19 vaccine have been administered within the country. In terms of vaccine doses administered domestically, China had reached 2.2 billion on 6 October - compared with more than 923.5 million in India, 571.4 million administered in the EU, and 398.7 million in the US, according to BBC World in Data.

 Okay! Now remember the virus also was manufactured in China, and by mistake or design spread all over the world. When you make a deadly poison to kill others, generally you make the anti-dote simultaneously in order to protect yourself from unintended poisoning! China therefore could be also credited with manufacturing vaccines early on, on a large scale considering its huge population.

The data analytics company, Airfinity, has tracked global production and estimates that China has exported commercially 1.1 billion doses (as of 8 October) of its vaccines to 123 countries (as either bulk substances or finished doses). Of these, around 110 million have been purchased by the Covax global vaccine-sharing scheme to provide vaccines to lower-income countries.

In addition, according to UN data, China has so far delivered around 37 million doses as donations (as of 1 October) out of a total pledged of around 52 million.

Now those who belittle India’s achievement as they praise China see everything in terms of their political views. India is not Narendra Modi or RSS/BJP! India’s achievements are partly the achievements of the people of India and the system of administration. When team India wins a cricket match we feel India has won and it loses, we generally feel the team failed India. A possible reason for many countries including India lagging behind in vaccination is a lack of proper infrastructure, staffing constraints, and other issues which include vaccine hesitancy even in the First World countries, holding up the rollout of vaccinations.

India has done phenomenally well in vaccine manufacturing capability and the world over Indian vaccines have better acceptability than that of China, for some reason! India had exported about 66.4 million doses of its locally-made vaccines as of the end of May when exports were suspended.

Lastly, the tendency of normal human beings is to support their families, their dear ones, their state or country in all situations in which pride is a factor - “My brass is Gold”. In contemporary India, we do exactly the opposite! It is said that Civilizations die when they cease to believe in themselves! Indian intellectuals and Indian politicians who pretend away their Indian-ness, they pretend away their pride in themselves and wait for that eventual death..... 

 What ails the oil industry?

The oil and gas industry is one of the largest sectors in the world economy in terms of dollar value, generating an estimated US Dollars 3.5 trillion in revenue annually. Oil is crucial to the global economic framework, especially for its largest producers: the United States, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Canada, and China.

According to a report of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development,) in 2019, 35.23 percent of all oil consumed in the OECD was related to motor vehicle usage in the road transport sector. A little less than 20 percent is used for the generation of electricity. Roughly 14 percent is used in the petrochemical industry.

 

Different countries have different reasons for reducing their dependence on oil. For producers listed above the fear is of the kitty getting smaller year after year due to pumping the available underground deposits. The concerns of oil users, in general, is the pollution issue and the price fluctuations. Some users like India are heavily dependent on imported petroleum products, and the volatile prices and tight supply situations are major worries. Mankind has now realized that the advantages of fossil fuels come with a devastating downside. We now understand that the release of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is warming our planet faster than anything we have seen in the geological record. One of the greatest challenges facing humanity today is slowing this warming before it changes our world beyond recognition. The universal consensus, therefore, is to work on alternate, safe, and sustainable energy sources. The trend is clear: according to a report by Ember and Agora Energiewende, 38% of Europe’s energy in 2020 came from renewable sources. Fossil-fuel generation accounted for 37% and the remaining quarter came from Nuclear.

Europe, the world’s largest market, being powered by majority renewable sources, proves that renewable energy can scale and become the dominant source of energy in complex and energy-intensive economies! I think this shift is a signal to American and Asian markets to make the transition faster. The only relevant question, therefore, is whether the transition will keep it's current ‘fast, but not fast enough’ pace!

Let us go to where the shoe pinches: In the US, the transportation sector, (dominated by the use of the nation’s highways, for both freight and passengers) is almost solely dependent on petroleum, and produces about one-third of the country’s share of greenhouse gas emissions arising from energy us. The current trend is plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) that use electricity plus any of the conventional fuels on a large scale to have a significant effect on petroleum consumption. Longer-term, after 2030, major sales of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles (HFCVs) and battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) are considered possible.

I think India could follow the US example before rushing to Evs straight because otherwise, the country’s huge automobile sector would collapse creating a gaping hole in the employment sector.  Coal and biomass are in abundant supply in India, and they can be converted to liquid fuels for use in existing and future vehicles with internal combustion and hybrid engines. This may have to wait for a more potent carbon-capture technology than what is available today.

Biomass is a renewable resource that, if properly produced and converted, can yield biofuels with lower greenhouse gas emissions than petroleum-based gasoline yields. In the USA it is mandatory to blend 10% Ethanol in Petrol since 2000. Our Govt has decided so in June 2014 through an executive order. Now Ethanol blending in Diesel and Petrol is becoming less and less profitable day by day to our Oil Manufacturing companies including the PSUs, and they are quite unhappy about it!

Clean energy can be manufactured in many technologies including; wind, solar PV, solar thermal, hydro, and biomass. It may be good to know that our solar installed capacity was 44.3 GW as of 31 August 2021. Modi government had an initial target of 20 GW capacity for 2022, which was achieved four years ahead of schedule! Solar power for industries is quintessential for meeting the 100 GW solar mission of Modi Government. Please note, out of the total 1247 MW rooftop solar installations as of December 2016, 34% was for industrial establishments! Industrial Solar Power Systems are gaining popularity in India with major industries resorting to solar power for avoiding grid outage situations. With the provision of open access in most of the states, industrial solar power systems are increasingly used by textile, cement, paper, steel, chemical, dairy, and ceramic industries to cut down their electricity expenses. Heavy peak usage and large available area make solar a perfect energy solution for industries.

Another new technology being discussed for industrial use is with iron as a circular fuel – iron being yet another resource available in plenty form its ores now exported by India! Combusting finely ground iron powder adding oxygen produces heat and rust – the only emissions of the process. Then, using renewable energy the rust can be converted back into iron via electrolysis. Given the availability of renewable energy for electrolysis, the entire process is carbon-free.

Among users, India ranks third after the US and China, though our consumption is roughly a fifth of the US and a third of that of China. The US, imports more than 50 percent of its fuel in spite of the so-called Shale Oil glut! India has around 80% import dependence on crude oil and 45% for natural gas/LNG. India’s crude oil import bill soared nearly threefold in the first quarter of the fiscal (Q1FY22) fuelled by a sharp rise in global oil prices to USD 24 billion, further raising concerns for policymakers. (Volume growth was, a modest 14.7% in the June quarter at 51.4 million tonnes.) Remember India’s total tax revenue is only USD138 billion! The total Excise duty collection from petrol and diesel is just about $40 billion. This is one of the main reasons for the urge to cut petroleum fuel by exploiting alternate energy sources.

India is not going ahead with strategies to cut down consumption of fossil fuels because of its concern with the environment! Damaging our economy is not certainly the way to deal with climate change as a member of the comity of nations. And in terms of oil, what will take its place? The world hasn’t found a good substitute for oil, in terms of its availability and fitness for purpose. Although the supply is finite, oil is plentiful and the technology to extract it continues to improve, making it ever-more economical to produce and use. The same is also largely true for natural gas.

Beyond the use as fuel, petroleum has significant growth potential. The current per capita consumption of petrochemicals products is low, but the demand for the same is growing. A wide range of chemicals like Urea, Caustic Soda, Soda Ash, Sulphuric Acid; Dyes, Dye Intermediates, , basic chemicals like Ethylene, Propylene, Benzene and Xylene; the intermediates like MEG, PAN and LAB etc fibre intermediates, synthetic fibre polymers, and elastomers and fine chemicals, speciality chemical... Per capita plastic consumption in India is still hovering at 7.0 kgs as compared to 46 kgs in China and 65 Kgs in Europe. This signifies huge potential for future growth going by the current global average per capital consumption.

Now about our cars: I have two beautiful cars running on petrol –Honda Accord and a CRV (my dream car) – and I am not ready to go for even a Tesla. But then, I am old and resistant to change! But I realize we are in the middle of the biggest revolution in motoring since Henry Ford's first production line started turning back in 1913! Many industry observers believe we have already passed the tipping point where sales of electric vehicles (EVs) will very rapidly overwhelm petrol and diesel cars.  The world’s big carmakers are getting ready for the change. Jaguar owned by Tatas plans to sell only electric cars from 2025. They have launched their electric compact car Nexon. Volvo from 2030 and the British sports car company Lotus says it would follow suit, selling only electric models from 2028. EVs the world over are able to travel farther than ever on a single charge, shaping the future and promoting smarter, cleaner transportation. Volkswagen, Hyundai, and Tesla were the top-selling electric car brands in Germany during the first quarter of 2021 while the VW Up was the favorite BEV in Q1. Just over a decade ago, Nissan became the first automaker to offer a mass-produced car – the hatchback Leaf- that ran on batteries alone. Mitsubishi i MiEV, was a pioneer, launched for fleet customers around the same time. But Japan, with its huge investment in gasoline-electric hybrids, has big reasons to proceed slowly. So the world ic changing! 

 In Defense of the US

Gross domestic product per capita is the fundamental measure of a society's material standard of living over time. Right now when people are making a lot of noise about China surging ahead with its economy, please note, the US economy is numero Uno still, and much higher than the next two economies put together! Though Europeans certainly live very well, and though both China and India are rapidly improving their citizens' standards of living, the United States remains indisputably ahead.

The MIT economist Robert Solow had in a paper substantiated that only about 12.5% of all growth in output per work-hour over a 40-year period he studies could be accounted for by increased use of capital; the remaining 87.5% was "attributable to technical change," or innovation. The US approach to achieving innovation has varied with the times, but it has generally demonstrated an almost ruthless pragmatism in implementing the core principles of free markets and strong property rights, overlaid with decisive government investments in infrastructure, human capital, and new technologies. I remember reading some time back that despite relatively small populations and lover scores across inputs like R&D, Switzerland and Sweden have produced many top global companies and at one point Switzerland ranked No.1, Sweden No.2, and the US was still ranked No.3.

For 100 years from 1870, the goals of conquering disease, educating the unschooled, and winning wars provided the strongest impetus for the US government's investments in innovation. This remains central to the American ethos, and in certain respects, the New Deal and later developmental interventions in Japan, and other countries during the post-World War II can be seen as extensions of this program, in which egalitarian ideas played an ever-increasing role.

It is so easy to give a backhanded compliment to the Americans saying “US industrial might and the blood of Russian soldiers that won the war”! Don’t forget the Soviet Union had signed a pact with Hitler ealier in the hope of dividing the world between them. But the Germans had other plans, and USSR had to be literally helped out in the war with Germany, and after the defeat of Germany, they swallowed the most industrialized part of Germany and colonized it for 43 years, while the Americans helped the defeated Germany to develop a decent democracy, quite independent of US influence though part of NATO!

Yes, the USA replaced the British Empire in politico-economic spheres without being an imperial power. It helped democracies and fought Communism which was antithetical to modern democracy.

You may remember it was an American President, a former General, Eisenhower who criticized the Military-Industrial complex. It can be seen that while military-to-commercial 'spin-offs' declined, gradually "commercial-to-military 'spin-ons' boomed. US military incursions and wars have been numbered but on analysis, it could be seen that the US spent huge resources in those wars with no economic benefit at allT Take the Iraq war, though critics said it was about exploiting Iraq’s considerable oil deposits, but the US didn’t touch it. In Syria, it was again a couple of trillion dollars spent with no benefit, except defeating the ISIL. In Afghanistan, they spent 3 trillion dollars trying to promote democracy for 20 years, and left the country abruptly without any benefit on either side!

The Leftists who worry about the huge corporate salaries, bonuses, etc however seem to be happy about billionaires like George Soros, Pierre Omidyar et all, who love taking pro-Left positions for it assuages their conscience for becoming billionaires through pure speculation or the sin of good luck!

The comments about Donald Trump are totally unreasonable. That man had good education, he had a good running business, and he came into politics just to show what a decent gentleman do in a democratic polity. Before the “China Virus” invaded the world, Donald Trump built the world’s most prosperous economy. America gained 7 million new jobs – more than three times experts’ projections. the unemployment rate reaching 3.5 percent, the lowest in a half-century. Jobless claims hit a nearly 50-year low the number of people claiming unemployment insurance as a share of the population hit its lowest on record. Yes, he could be called names for his slogan MAGA, but he did bring jobs, factories, and industries back to the USA. Trump’s policies provided the average American household an extra $3,100 every year. He negotiated with Japan, arm twisted a recalcitrant China, and so on to establish fairer and reciprocal trade.

Trump’s prospects for re-election were dragged down by a pandemic. He declared a National Emergency on early in March 2020 when there were less than 2000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the US, and fewer than deaths when Europe is now the "epicenter" of what was later to be a global pandemic.  The media criticized him; the Democratic called him when he stopped flights from China, ad implemented shutdowns and social distancing across almost every US state which succeeded in stopping the exponential spread of the virus. In hard-hit states like New York, Michigan, and Louisiana, the pandemic's growth curve bent downward soon. What was once a runaway crisis in these hotspots has been controlled. Yet in an election year, the Democrats and the media controlled by them could run a campaign against Trump and fail the country! He was a victim of propaganda and a ganging up the riff-raff flowing as illegal immigrants into the country. They created a nationwide uprising over ‘systemic racism’ which was a big lie. (Black Democrat and Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson had written as early as in the early 1990s: "The sociological truths are that America, while still flawed in its race relations and its stubborn refusal to institute a rational, universal welfare system, is now the least racist white-majority society in the world; has a better record of legal protection of minorities than any other society, white or Black; offers more opportunities to a greater number of Black persons than any other society, including all those of Africa.) Even in defeat, Trump won millions more votes than he did four years ago. It was hardly the abject repudiation of Trump’s ideas and methods!

Joe Biden of whom ex-US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, he “has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades” is POTUS46! I believe the decline of America your friend writes has started with Joe Biden Presidency. I saw it as he took a victory lap over a botched, haphazard evacuation calling it a “success” when so many American citizens and those who helped the U.S. war effort were been left behind in Afghanistan! Biden turned a twenty-year victory at the cost of $3trillion over Islamic barbarism in the country that attacked the US on 9/11 into a massive defeat, abandoned massive airbases, and $90 billion in advanced weaponry without a fight! That is the beginning of American decline for you.

Biden’s soft socialism would extend federal entitlements to an additional 21 million – the largest expansion of the welfare state since LBJ’s Great Society. More than half of working-age households would be on the dole, in one form or another. This includes 80% of single parents and 57% of couples with children. New programs will include free community college tuition for families earning 1.5 times the median income, all day-care expenses above 7% of family income for children under 5, a cap on rents based on income, and let’s not forget Medicaid for All. Is that increasing wealth or increasing dependence?

In education, employment, everywhere the vote bak politics is making grades. The “diversity rationale,” decides the selection of students and faculty in Universities, which in turn has given rise to a vast, lucrative “diversity industry.” This industry is now firmly established, at many mid-level universities like UC Davis, and its machinations reach the level of high art as you approach the very top of the ladder - not only at colleges like Harvard but also at crème-de-la-crème enterprises of all kinds, from the New York Times to Goldman Sachs to Google, where the job of diversity experts is to provide exactly the right amount and the right type of “diversity” to suit those institutions’ essentially - indeed, fiercely - exclusionary subcultures. There are diversity consultants to mix in just enough of a token sprinkling of underqualified blacks and Latinos to keep these places from looking like apartheid-era Sun City, South Africa, as well as to make the privileged white core look open-minded.

But Asians? Among the competing victimhoods of Blacks, Hispanics and other, Asians, who come to the US for higher education, research, etc, and rise are as undesirable as the Whites! Kenny Xu records in his definitive new book ‘An Inconvenient Minority: The Attack on Asian American Excellence and the Fight for Meritocracy’, an Asian student wanting to get into Harvard in 2009 (and the injustice certainly hasn’t disappeared since then) “had to score an astounding 450 points higher on a 1600-point SAT test than a Black student to have the same chance of admission.” I forget it now, they have even a new description for Asians linking them to the White oppressors!

 Vinod Dua get a pass

The Sedition law is clear: The Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code states: “Whoever, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards, the Government established by law in India shall be punished…” Did the Journalist’s several outbursts on the air and in print attracts the IPC 124A? He did, for sure! But the Supreme Court Bench of Justices UU Lalit and Vineet Saran (who are the final authority, not infallible angels!) rules now that “every journalist is entitled to the protection under the Kedar Nath Singh judgment(which defined the ambit of the offense of sedition under Section 124A IPC, quoting an earlier (1962) judgment of the SC -Kedar Nath Singh vs the State of Bihar) which read down Section 124A IPC and held that the application of the provision should be limited to "acts involving intention or tendency to create disorder or disturbance of law and order; or incitement to violence." How would their Lordships measure the “intension” or “tendency”? I suppose they would wait for the results when the executive will find it difficult, as well as expensive to contain the disorder, rebellion or riots!

I think these days one can notice a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity in the Courtroom; certain judicial arrogance to thwart the executive for the fun of it, encroaching on even the legislative prerogative of people’s representatives without going into the Constitutional provisions of judicial powers and the separation of powers between the legislature, executive, and the judiciary!

Free Speech, works only if nobody gets a waiver. The Courts have often sided with the Left-liberal ecosystem stretching their definition of FoE to sedition have no moral standing in denying others the freedom to express their patriotic feelings!

The Supreme Court’s attitude n Vinod Dua case shows that it would rather jeopardize the safety of and security of India than the liberty of those of the wo/men who continuously spread canards against the legally established Government of India and the sneering disrespect for legal authority and democratic processes. The Judges of the highest Court ignores the fact that newspapers and news tv channels are the most important sources of news for the public. If they resort to freely disbursing fake news and disruptive ideologies to attack the elected government spread disaffection, and destroy the unity and integrity of the government, eventually the peace of the realm is destroyed, and the people suffer; the nation suffers!

The case also exhibits the limitless judicial arrogance in rejecting the plea to direct the State Governments to constitute preliminary inquiry before FIRs are registered against “senior journalists” (hierarchy!) observing that it “would amount to encroachment upon the field reserved for the legislature”. Look who’s talking! Precisely in this context, I would like to introduce that strange phenomenon, a former Supreme Court Judge and former Chairman for the Press Council of India, Justice Markandey Katju! He has announced that he would depose as a witness for absconding diamond merchant Nirav Modi, prime accused along with his uncle Mehul Choksi in the INR 14,000 crores ($2 billion) Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam. This paragon of all judicial knowledge and human virtues of head and hear hs emphatically said that he would not be commenting on the merits of the case; but   would only say that his client ‘Nirav’ would not get JUSTICE in India. I dare say if Vinod Dua gets a pass, Nirav Modi also should! He only stole some money. Corrupting the minds of people with pathetically negative, inaccurate, and unreliable, and fake stories in an orgy of schadenfreude and hypocrisy, belying the trust in ‘independent’ media, is far worse than that!  

 

 

 

 

Who wants to save Lakshadweep?

I was initially amused to see a campaign to ‘save Lakshadweep’! It came to my notice when a young and popular actor in Malayalam movies gave the first shot with a letter on Facebook and on Twitter. He was against the new developments planned by the Lakshadweep administration because it would “destroy the local culture”! I knew that one of his movies was shot there and when the Island’s 96% Muslim population’s ‘leaders’ opposed it, he approached the Minister of State in MEA who is from Kerala, and sought help to have the movie shot there. Afterward, he gave a Television interview, regretting the state of affairs in that heavenly place- lack of any decent infrastructure in a beautiful place with such a great tourism potential, lack of hotels, lack of restaurants, not a single movie theatre there...

My amusement became consternation when the entire House of People’s Representatives in Kerala passed a Resolution seeking recall of Lakshadweep Administrator Praful Khoda Patel and requesting the immediate intervention of the Centre “to protect the lives and the livelihood of the islanders”! That was indeed a long leap from the interest in protecting “local culture”! Not that I am alarmed by the possibility of a Kerala Assembly Resolution doing anything significant enough to hurt Lakshadeep or its administrator engaged in a lot of significant work for the Holistic Development of Islands Program under the Island Development Agency constituted by the Union Government on 1st June 2017 for the development of islands. (The history of Kerala Assembly Resolutions  tell us what wasteful exercises they have been in the past – in 2008 against George W Bush; in 2009 asking for the release of terror-accused Madhani; in 2013 against Iaraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; in 2016 against Demonetisation; and in 2019 demanding scrapping of an Act of Parliament – the CAA!)

For the first time in the country, under the guidance of IDA, an initiative of sustainable development in the identified Islands within scientifically assessed carrying capacity has been taken up. These development plans have a focus on the creation of jobs for the islanders through tourism promotion as well as the export of seafood and coconut-based products made in the Islands. They have been prepared for 16 islands in Andaman and Nicobar Islands and 10 in Lakshadweep aiming at sustainable development in the identified Islands within scientifically assessed carrying capacity. The first phase has taken up five islands of Lakshadweep and in four islands of Andaman & Nicobar. The second phase of IDA programs will focus on suitable areas in 12 more islands of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and 5 islands in Lakshadweep have been covered.

Some of these development programs have brought about administrative reforms involving changes from the past ways ‘of doing things'. It had obviously hurt certain vested interests in landholding and business operations. They have raised the issue of ‘culture’ first, and now are expanding the concern to other areas such as “life and livelihood”! The Lakshadweep Collector Asker Ali IAS had given a press conference in Cochin a few days back explaining how the administrative reforms and unprecedented development efforts led by the Administrator Praful Khoda Patel were subjected to a ‘misleading campaign’. Though some 500Km from the shores of Kerla, many of us have contacts with the people of the Islands where they have 4G mobile connections of BSNL and AIRTEL. We know there is no tension on the Islands, and that the entire campaign does not represent the sentiments of the people. The administration is proactively considering certain reforms for the larger public interest of the people of Lakshadweep. But since almost 95 percent of the 80000 or so Islanders belong to the Muslim Community, a communal color is being given to work up their sentiments.

For India, this group of Islands is like Macao for China, Bali for Indonesia, or Phuket for Thailand, an unbelievably beautiful place that can be made a tourism hub with better tourist inflow than the Maldives! More importantly, with the threat of China looming large over India, with our hostile neighbor’s activities in Sri Lanka, the geographic position of this island offers the Indian Navy a better outreach in terms of naval patrolling and surveillance across the Western Indian Ocean. The strategic location of Lakshadweep islands, an archipelago in the Arabian sea, 200 to 440 km off the southwestern Malabar coast of India has to be stressed. The Lakshadweep consists of 36 islands. But currently, there are 35 islands, as one island is submerged in water due to sea erosion. The islands form the smallest union territory of India and their total surface area is only 32 km. It is a Union Territory without its own legislature, but with a single Member of Parliament.

Strategically these islands are of immense importance to India. The spread of these islands has bestowed upon India 20,000 sq. km. of territorial waters and approximately 400,000 sq. km. of Exclusive Economic Zone. But what should be rattling the Indian Defence Ministry is the recent Chinese ingress into Sri Lanka. China has acquired a controlling stake in the Hambantota Port Project, and the Colombo Port City special economic zone. Historically China had conducted much of the trade with the Arabs using Calicut port as a base. The Chinese take pride in their History, except for the period of the Opium Wars, when the combined British-Indian forces devastated them using the might of the Opium poppy plant. The constantly expanding Chinese footprint in Sri Lanka and Maldives is deeply inspired by History. President Xi Jinping harbors grandiose ambitions of extending the Chinese territory far and wide, unopposed by any nation. He is known to be planning a big offensive naval arc, extending from the Bay of Bengal-Indian Ocean-Arabian sea. India has a lot of homework to do. But, what needs immediate attention is to trace the drug-recipient groups operating in Lakshadweep.

Dr G Shreekumar Menon, IRS, (Rtd) PhD (Narcotics) is Former Director-General, National Academy of Customs Indirect Taxes and Narcotics, & Multi-Disciplinary School Of Economic Intelligence India has revealed in detail how the drug trail fortunately established by Indian Coast Guards as well as Customs point to a well-planned strategy to destabilize India’s security using the Lakshadweep Archipelago. The value of the drugs seized just during the period November 2020 to March 31st 2021 is a whopping Rs.5000 crores! Compare this figure with the annual Budget allocation for 2021-22 for Lakshadweep which is Rs.1349.71 crores. Almost three times the annual budget is the value of drug trafficking for a period of just 5 months. Within a limited surface area of around 32 km, the drug trafficking turnover is around Rs.5000 crores. Add to this the value and quantum of firearms seized; everything adds up to an astronomical figure. With this kind of hush-hush money being generated, Hawala and money laundering should also be happening on a large scale.  The hitherto cocooned archipelago is suddenly in the spotlight, as its dark underbelly is exposed. No wonder that an orchestrated campaign has been quickly set in motion to ‘save Lakshadweep’. Twitter has also chipped in with ‘Let India Breathe’ campaign, critical about the development plans for the island. There is no problem if Maldives, Seychelles, Bali islands are developed to attract tourists, but Lakshadweep embarking on tourist development activities is to be vehemently opposed. Mercifully, speculation is also rife in some sections of the media that this instantly organized campaign is a red herring – meant to deflect attention from the sheer magnitude of the drugs and guns seizure.

The threatening, new Chinese presence is barely 290 km from the southernmost tip of the Indian peninsula – Kanya Kumari, and we hear the news of this massive drugs and guns trafficking into Lakshadw As such, it can be used to great advantage to enhance the IN's power-projection capabilities. There have been several instances of our Coast Guard capturing boats with contraband heroin. The latest was with 300Kg heroin worth Rs.3000 crore in the international market and 5 AK47 assault rifles and 1000 round live ammunition! In this context, the Lakshadweep Archipelago has become more important for the Government of India which is considering along with the Southern Naval Command in Kochi, could be converted into a Tri-Command facility.

Dr. Shreekumar Menon sees a clear geographical shift in the drug trafficking route into India. Sri Lankan boats ferrying drugs and guns into remote Lakshadweep is going to be a great challenge for Indian enforcement agencies. The greater challenge will be to trace how these drugs and guns have possibly found their way into the Indian mainland, and how much of this bounty has bee received by Organized Crime Groups, and how much the Drug Trafficking Organizations have participated in these scary deals. More importantly, how much money has been generated, and has been unobtrusively integrated into the nation’s financial system? According to Dr.Shreekumar Menon, to investigate and unravel this transnational crime, identify, disrupt, and dismantle the drug traffickers, arms traffickers, and money launderers, India will have to employ an intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach. Indian Coast Guard has become the front-line defense of our nation in this onerous task.

Those who have any misgivings about the fearful scenario painted above may look into what happened to a small archipelagic state in the Indian Ocean, comprising of 1192 islands endowed with similarly exquisite natural beauty, and a tourists' paradise in 1988 when coup d'état attempt was made by a group of Maldivians led by businessman Abdullah Luthufi and assisted by armed mercenaries of a Tamil secessionist organization from Sri Lanka PLOTE, the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam, to overthrow the government in the island republic ruled by then President Gayoom. At the request of President Gayoom, India militarily intervened in a swift ‘Operation Cactus’ with India Naval Ships also helping the Indian Army para brigade that landed at the airport on Hulule island, adjacent to Male Harbor. The cou leaders had taken hostages that included a Maldivian cabinet minister and his Swiss mother-in-law, in a hijacked ship. RajivG was the PM then and President Gayoom had personally requested that the rebels be captured and brought back to Male to face trial. Indian defense forces achieved that fairly difficult task and could report “Hostages rescued safely and rebels captured” almost 1000Km from Indian mainland! If the Government of India India waits long enough, it could be an operation against a mighty power, China which has a navy with a fleet strength of 777 with 2 aircraft carriers, 74 submarines, 36 destroyers, 52 frigates, 50 corvettes, 29 mine warfare ships and 220 coastal patrol ships, against India’s fleet strength of 285 including 1 aircraft carrier, 16 submarines, 10 destroyers, 13 frigates, 19 corvettes, 3 mine warfare ships and 139 coastal patrol ships. The Air Forces and Armies are equally mismatched.

The Government of India has for the first time since Independence showing greater interest in the overall development of Lakshadweep mainly for the reasons given above. Being a part of India it is also necessary not to keep this Archipelago as a museum-piece, but to bring into the mainstream of the national political, economic and cultural life as an integral part of India; offering its people better living standards, and a better future.

One criticism is about the proposal to bring change in panchayat regulation not allowing people with more than two children to participate in the election, - a move to push for family planning and to empower women in the Islands, offering them 50% seats. The ‘two children rule’ will not apply to people who already have more than two children!

Another contentious reform is the draft Lakshadweep Prevention of Anti-Social Activities Regulation 2021, which is opposed, questioning why such a law should be implemented in a place that is known for some of the lowest crime rates in the country! The Collector clarifies that such a law is being implemented considering the ‘future’ of Lakshadweep! “Till now, Lakshadweep is a peaceful place. But in the next 10 years, the situation may worsen, considering emerging conditions” clarified the Collector! It is worth remembering that there have been 40 drug-related cases on the islands during the last two years!

The move to ban beef in the islands through the draft law in the name of ‘animal preservation’ which will ban slaughter, transportation, and selling or buying beef products is taken up as a matter of life and death! This is a place where they had rejected the setting up of a statue of the Father of the Nation, and you expect his idea of anti-cow slaughter written into the Constitution of India as a Directive Principle to be accepted without any opposition? Fish is the staple food of the people in the Islands. The soil appears to be infertile for growing vegetables and fruits. Import of more vegetables and fruits from other Indian shores is considered more important than bringing beef. The government’s introduction of Amul milk and milk product sale outlets are also opposed God knows why!

I believe there are no liquor bars in Lakshadweep (illegal liquor is available for Rs.3000plus per bottle according to my information), and two bar-attached restaurants are considered in the interest of tourism. Yet another contentious draft proposal is the Lakshadweep Development Authority Act which aims to widen roads, map, and earmark zones for construction, mining, commercial or residential activity, among other things. It also allows for authorities to evict encroachers on the selected land. Vested interests are raising the issue of Lakshadweep being an ecologically sensitive area to oppose such developments.

There is an English expression: ”laying on with a trowel and piling up thick” the propagandists out to “Save Lakshadweep” are adding one more allegation, that the Covid-19 management in the Centrally administered territory is far from satisfactory. Those who raise this are from a state which is on top of the chart in infections, positivity, and death statistics and furious manipulations are on to bring them down! In the ‘first wave’ of the pandemic in 2020, Lakshadweep Islands had zero COVID-19 cases, which experts credited to strict quarantine measures and testing. Meanwhile, since the supplies come mostly from Kerala and Karnataka (Mangalore port) the pandemic traveled to the islands and 26 people have died of COVID-19, but 23 of them from co-morbidities. They have a strict Standard Operating Procedure that bars easy entry of people to the island now. As in the case of people with serious ailments, COVID-19 patients requiring emergency treatment are routinely air evacuated and admitted to INHS Sanjivani, the Naval hospital at Kochi. Navy ships under Southern Naval Command are operating mission ‘Oxygen Express’ rendering support to Lakshadweep Administration. The Centre is building two Oxygen plants in the Islands to make them self-sufficient.

The last point is the genesis of the entire campaign. The Opposition has been jumping from one non-issue to another - a surfeit of political posturing and scaremongering about the CAA, then the Farm Laws, and having exhausted their energies in the earlier ones, using the Muslim vote bank for a politics of hatred and division is back here in the far-off archipelago. Unable to defeat Modi fair and square at the ballot box, they are out to bullshit about him after having wound up far below the electoral threshold in most parts of the country. The important rallying point against Modi in the Lakshadweep is his former colleague in Gujarat as Home Minister of Gujarat when Modiji was the CM - Prafful Khoda Patel, calling him as "anti-people" and demanding an immediate withdrawal of the "draconian and authoritarian" orders drafted by him! His offense? Trying to destroy (!) Lakshadweep’s pristine natural beauty and its unique confluence of cultures… Who makes the allegation, an intellectually-challenged person whose family had spent 10 days there with pork, and a variety of other meat and liquor flowing, when his father then Prime Minister of India spent a vacation there with 1700 servants and other retinues, 20 private guests including unknown foreign nationals other than his wife’s family, and an Indian Navy’s only Aircraft Carrier, 7 escort ships, aircraft, boats spending hundreds of crores per day at the cost of the country! The Island's were blocked for other people, including its occupants considering their security!

Accusations that Modi Government has been working against the “indigenous culture” of Lakshadweep have flown freely, from Islamic fundamentalists,  seasoned Congress and Left politicians and Kerala ministers to people wading into the issue for the first time on social media. I would argue that the views expressed by a cabal of tuppenny actors, sundry politicians with their own axes to grind, the front organizations led by Leftist “intellectuals”, and the ‘performing artists’ of a sold media are least important, and relevant in the context of all I have described above. In fact, their views are cringe-worthy. I feel irrepressible anger remembering the fact that these conscientiously awakened intelligent persons who got worked up over the ‘culture” of Lakshadweep islanders never passed any resolution or wrote any articles or poems about the 500000 Hindu Pundits were driven away from Kashmir just for being Hindus and not fitting in the cultural particularity of the Muslims majority there; or about the gruesome massacre of the 4000-plus Sikhs in 1984... These are the very same  people seen deliberately and publicly inciting Muslim Indians to violence over the CAA exploiting sensitive unwarranted Muslim sentiment about the authenticity of their citizenship! They had spawned vaccine hesitancy first by raising doubts regarding the efficacy of vaccines made in India calling it Modi Vaccine. They were also doing flip-flops on the vaccination drive, demanding autonomy for states when the vaccination drive was centralized and when the Centre decentralized the process, they demanded centralized procurement of vaccines! I am only worried about the divisive, polarizing tone of the rhetoric spewn out on this issue cleaving a widening gulf between Hindus and Muslims, not between the mainland and the islands...

 

THE OXYGEN IMBROGLIO

Shortages of Oxygen has been a hot topic in India during the last several weeks. It started with a few Opposition-run State Governments blaming that India had exported the largest quantity of Oxygen from the country when the requirement was mounting in the country due to the Covid-10 pandemic. The Government and Industry clarified that it was Industrial oxygen that was exported and not medical oxygen. The Union Government pointed out that earlier this year, the PM-CARES Fund had allocated Rs 201.58 crores for the installation of an additional 162 PSA Medical Oxygen Generation Plants inside public health facilities and many states had not done the job. This is the context of this blog.

The mainstay of treatment for patients with COVID-19 is ‘supportive care’. Rather than treating the underlying viral infection, supportive care aims to maintain the function of the body’s vital organs to keep the individual alive while the disease progresses and eventually resolves. Severe bilateral pneumonia is the main feature of severe COVID-19. Supplemental oxygen is a first essential step for the treatment of severe COVID-19 patients with hypoxemia and should be a primary focus. Infected and damaged lungs are less effective at allowing oxygen to pass from the environment to the bloodstream.

The main reason for being admitted to a hospital with COVID-19 is to receive supplemental oxygen, to increase the amount of oxygen in the lungs and blood, which will be sufficient treatment before recovery in most cases. This can be administered in a number of ways, including into the nose using plastic tubing, or via a loose-fitting face mask: 1) Nasal cannula-based oxygen therapy for those with 2-5 litre requirement of oxygen per minute. 2) Mask-based for those with 6-15 litre requirement. 3) High-frequency nasal cannula oxygen therapy for those with 15-50 litres and ventilator support above that. AIIMS director Randeep Guleria said that ’20 percent of the patients need oxygen therapy and five percent need ventilation.

Medical experts were increasingly preferring non-invasive oxygen therapy over ventilation as doubts over the effectiveness of ventilator increased after an overwhelming majority of Covid-19 patients on the ventilator were dying in India and abroad. It was thought that ventilators were worsening the lung damage caused by Covid-19. Doctors have stopped using ventilators for management of COVID-19 (except very late) as early ventilation was said to increase the chances of death. Many people stay at home till late and approach hospitals for admission at a stage when oxygen demand is pretty high (five-six fold) as compared to the low flow stage. Late presentation (low presentation baseline oxygen saturation) can exponentially increase the risk of death. Hence medical community suggests early care and therapy (oxygen/steroid/heparin) in the pulmonary phase (90-95 percent saturation).

Cryogenic separation is most effective when any of the three criteria need to be met: high purity oxygen is required (>99.5%), high volumes of oxygen are required (≥10to the power of 2  tons of oxygen/day), or high-pressure oxygen is required. Cryogenic air separators take more than an hour to start up. Additionally, since cryogenics can produce such a high purity of oxygen, the waste nitrogen stream is of usable quality.

Pressure swing adsorbers (PSA) are a much newer technology as compared to cryogenic ASU. PSA devices are best suited for processes that do not require extremely high purities of oxygen (<95%). While PSAs can achieve as high as 99.9%, the cost associated with going above 99.5% in a PSA device rises tremendously. Furthermore, PSA devices are best suited for small volumes of oxygen production, typically on the order of 10 to the power of 1 ton/day. Since the output of oxygen is largely controlled by the bed size in the PSA systems, costs rise linearly when higher volumes of oxygen are required. PSA devices take only a few minutes for start-up.

Membrane Technology: Conventional membrane technology involves passing air over a membrane filter. The filter will allow fast gasses to pass and slow gasses will stay. Oxygen is considered a fast gas and nitrogen and argon are considered slow gasses. Varying levels of purity can be achieved by varying the time that the gas spends undergoing filtration. Previous membrane technology could only produce purity levels of less than 50%. But the recent The ion transport membrane (ITM) was developed by Air Products and Chemicals, in conjunction with the United States Department of Energy and Ceramatec can produce greater than 99% purity and high volume (equivalent to volumetric flow of cryogenic separation systems) Oxygen at much lower costs than cryogenic separation!

MEDICAL OXYGEN: The air we breathe is a mix of several gases, such as oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen. The term ‘medical oxygen’ means high-purity oxygen, which is used for medical treatments and developed for use in the human body. Oxygen is also used in industries for combustion, oxidation, cutting, and chemical reactions. The difference is that purity levels of industrial oxygen are not appropriate for human use. There can be impurities, which can make people ill. Medical oxygen cylinders should also be free of contaminants.

Years ago, gas supply vendors typically maintained two separate storage facilities for oxygen: "welding or industrial or technical" (a non-USP, or illegal to sell for human consumption label) variety and gas intended for human use in respirators or medical procedures (a USP label). Since most gas supply vendors have decided that it is simply not cost-effective to store separate grades of medical gases, almost all oxygen sold in the US is a USP grade- the United States Pharmacopoeia- (meets USP requirements for human consumption). However, there are distinct differences in how the cylinders are filled. Most vendors in the US are now filling all cylinders with USP gas. If the vendor fill station operator sees that a cylinder is labeled as a medical or emergency oxygen cylinder, or intended for human respiration, then the cylinder is evacuated and filled with USP/Medical oxygen. But most welding or Industrial grade oxygen cylinders are filled with USP oxygen without an evacuation-between-fills step. Grade 4.5 oxygen is USP oxygen that has a purity greater than 99.995 % oxygen Grade 5 (or "five nines") oxygen is USP oxygen that is certified 99.999 % pure. It is sometimes called research grade.  This is the highest purity of oxygen manufactured in the US and is typically found only in top-end chemical research facilities. Its non-research use is associated with specialty welding of titanium and titanium alloys for the nuclear or aerospace industry.

It is heartening to note that the Government of India has taken up the responsibility of supplying Oxygen to the states, and have requested/instructed industries to chip in producing medical oxygen stopping the production of industrial oxygen to the minimum. The Prime Minister's Office has approved funds for the installation of 551 dedicated Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) Medical Oxygen Generation Plants in public health facilities in the country.  The Indian Railways have done a great job of running Oxygen Expresses delivering as on today 9^th May 4500 MT oxygen across the country.

Countries like the United States, Russia, Ireland, Thailand, France, Italy, Germany, have been contributing to India’s medical requirement by building oxygen plants, sending ventilators, oxygen concentrators, rapid testing kits, and medicines. The Oxygen imbroglio has almost come to an end!

 

 

 

COVID  VACCINATION – FEARS and OBJECTIONS

It is a common fear more than an actual complaint that people  suffer common side effects of COVID-19 vaccinations like fever, experience fatigue (tiredness) and headache, feel nauseous, in addition to pain or swelling in the arm where the shot was administered. But statistically, in trials, most people didn’t have side effects. A little over 50% didn’t experience any side effects as monitored by hospitals after the vaccination drive began all over the world. I am 74, and I didn’t have any side effects after the first or the second dose. The nurse who administered the vaccine injection asked everyone to rotate their arms after the shots. I too did it, and the next morning did some digging in the garden without feeling any discomfort.

There are people who feel that the side effects mean the vaccine is doing its job. When the vaccine enters the muscles, the cells start making a spike protein, which makes our body think our muscle cells are infected with the coronavirus, and it tries to fight off the simulated infection in the cells, causing some inflammation that people experience.

The cells that have replicated the COVID-19 spike protein (RNA) generate antibodies specific for SARS-CoV2 When our innate immune system locates an infection and attacks it. That’s what can cause sore arms, fevers or muscle aches. These symptoms reveal that your immune system has been activated! Data from each clinical trial show younger patients tend to have more systemic reactions than older patients do. That is because, as a person ages, the ability of his/her immune system to recognize and quickly create antibodies and aggressively attack the intruder (infection), starts to get weaker. But those who are vaccinated are protected whether or not they have developed side effects. That is, you don’t have to feel terrible to prove that you’re protected from COVID-19!

In Johnson & Johnson’s clinical trial, more than 60% of younger patients had systemic reactions compared to about 45% of patients over age 60. Pfizer and Moderna’s studies show similar numbers, but not as large of a difference. The number of reactions increases with the second shot. Data also shows more women having a reaction to the shot than men. Details regarding COVISHIELD and Covaxin are not available at the moment.

Fear and anxiety about the vaccines can also create a reaction by making our body release adrenaline. Some might confuse that feeling with vaccine response. Adrenaline rush may increase the heart rate, and lead to a feeling of the heart racing, and redirect blood toward the muscles and a change in temperature as a result of the blood redirection, sweating as a reaction to stress, and feeling lightheaded due to changes in blood and oxygen supply. No harm in any or all these, it may be noted!

WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER IS THAT THE REACTIONS ARE NOTHING COMPARED TO ACTUALLY GETTING SICK WITH COVID!

Caste-based Reservations

(Reply to a friend)

I have serious objection to the Reservation policy which on the giver’s side is a sop or lollypop not to upset the vote bank already created in the pre-independence period and on the taker’s side mere entitlement psychology welling from the power of the block-votes.

Now let us look at those “right questions” the learned judges of the Supreme Court were expected to ask:

“When will caste-based discrimination come to an end? Why are the backward classes not represented in the higher positions of state services, including the judiciary? Why is reservation not being implemented in its letter and spirit? Why backlog vacancies of these classes are not filled in? What is the sanctity of economically weaker sections reservation when economic backwardness was not accepted as a stand-alone ground for providing reservation in Indra Sawhney (1992)? How can the Union government recruit directly to higher positions in civil services through lateral entry, bypassing the constitutional provisions? Why are public enterprises being privatized on such a large scale? Why is there no reservation in the private sector?”

These are notable for their shrillness just as much for their shallowness. The proponents of the caste-based reservation cannot swallow the ground reality that the poor Brahmin is as deprived as the poor Dalit. Likewise, there are no special difficulties for the poor Muslim or the poor Christan which the poor Hindu does not suffer. This is my view even as I agree that India does need welfare policies such as Reservations and quotas as there are millions in the bottom of the pyramid for not much fault of theirs. As Warren Buffett put it, they just did not win the ovarian lottery. So, affirmative action policies are needed.

I think a deprivation-based system should be applied for all reservations and the upper limit should be 50% and affirmative action such as good schooling, scholarships, financial growth, and hostels should be stepped up and eventually reservation should be gradually tapered off.

Now, though the caste system which is prevalent to date has been a fundamental part of Indian culture for time immemorial, I maintain after going through the literature on Caste system that it was the 1881 Census conducted by the British India Government which for the first time enumerated castes and arranged them in a hierarchy. To my knowledge India does not record a single caste war in its written history of 2000 years, or in its literature!

The philosophy of caste system had actually disappeared following the preachings of Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, and Dayananda Saraswati among others and only the morphology remained. As that too was crumbling, when the modern movements apparently rooted in progressive ideals have brought back the castes, (particularly recasting ‘Harijans’ as the oppressed classes-Dalits) into political toys through an attractive and addictive reverse discrimination. We now see clans and communities aspiring for ‘backward’ tag for reservations and other short-term benefits. These benefits have brought a special sense of competitive entitlement into the social system, making caste animosities deeper and more aggressive! “Jaathichoadippin” (ask for the caste) has come up as a slogan in the identity politics of recent years as against oft-quoted words of Shree Narayana Guru “Ask not, say not, think not caste”!

Unfortunately among the various identities an individual caries in India, the caste identity is the most potent one. On the positive side it facilitates group identity and helps in group activities. Many ignore its influence in business relationships in the Indian economy which is still predominantly “relationship-based”, not a “contract” or “value” based. It secures jobs and in many parts of Indiafacilititates initial capital formation and credit for doing business and also risk mitigation. Caste elders consider failure a part of the process of learning and don’t frown upon it.

Reservations for the SC/ST categories was a Constitutional provision that was "purposefully discriminatory". In law, it is a form of affirmative action whereby a percentage of seats are reserved in the public sector units, union, and state civil services, union, and state government departments and in all public and private educational institutions, except in the religious/ linguistic minority edu­cational institutions, for the socially and educationally backward communities and the Scheduled Castes and Tribes who are inadequately represented in these services and institutions. Parliament routinely extended reservation for SC/ST fixed at 10 years first, without any free and fair revisions. Later, reservations were introduced for other sections as well.

MISUSE OF 9^th SCHEDULE: The original intent behind creating the ninth schedule was to ensure that land reforms were not thwarted by judicial pronouncements in favor of the right to property, which would only have benefited landlords. But thanks to the desire of politicians to do everything without the judiciary having the right to review bad laws, governments have not only put land laws in this schedule, but an entire bunch of laws, including one to overturn a Supreme Court-mandated 49 percent limit on the reservation. Some states of the Union like Rajasthan have implemented a 68% reservation that includes a 14% reservation for forward castes in services and education, and Tamil Nadu made it 69%. These Reservations pose a systemic risk and they benefit more often the better-off among the lower strata!

In the modern context this unique institution – caste-  has been in use for political mobilization. Those social reformists and social engineers who argued for a “casteless society” fell on the wayside. They have perhaps been helpful in reforming the caste system, but not in abolishing it. Interestingly, the one-man-one-vote system of representative democracy has led to the integration of many sub-castes into a larger cast identity. The best example is Nairs! The caste system in its present form has become therefore a valuable social capital that gives a cushion from the shocks in dealing with the larger society, and more so in the interaction with the State for families and individuals! Everywhere else in the world, the individual is alone in the society with his constitutional/legal rights!