The Economist and its Spin-Doctors

The latest economist (15 Jan., 2022) makes makes a claim that seems absurd at many levels - "In an index of societal discrimination against minorities compiled by Bar Ilam University in Israel, India scores worse than Saudi Arabia, and no better than Iran".

Saudi Arabia and Iran are both self-proclaimed theocratic states with a population of 35 million and 84 million respectively, where religious minorities do no have the right to practice their religion openly; where proselytising by non-muslims is punishable by death...and these are the countries is being weighed against India!

This bit is part of a carefully crafted editorial note titled, "India - Stop Inciting Murder", which, in line with the Economist's long tradition of taking a condescending view of everything outside the Anglo-Saxon horizon, picks four recent instances of extremism displayed by one of the many lunatic fringes in India. This list includes news about the Hindu right-wing utterances and actions against muslims - the "religious parliament" of sadhus at Haridwar; "Sulli Deals" auction site 'selling' muslim women, and namaz in public areas of Gurgaon. Each of these incidents has attracted condemnation and discussion on the media.

A closer look also reveals that this is a carefully chosen list of one-sided reports from the English language media. There is, of course, no mention in the report of the legal action and arrests that have taken place in each of these instances. Perhaps presenting a balanced view would blunt the edge of their wordplay that seeks to paint the whole government as being inimical to 200 million muslim citizens of India.

It is true that the top leadership of NDA has been tardy in responding to reports of discrimination against minorities, especially Muslims. It is also true that there is a whole ecosystem of Modi-baiters, especially in the English language media that swings into coordinated action to blame the government for everything wrong under the sun. They only end up discrediting themselves.

What is interesting in this case is the attempt to build a case against India using a study conducted by an Israeli University. Even a cursory look at the actual study would show you that the "Index of societal discrimination" is itself based on a mathematical model that stands on shaky data. The study covered 771 minorities from 183 countries, and uses secondary and tertiary sources - government reports, academic articles, news reports, and reports from NGOs. The only mention of Saudi Arabia and Iran in this report is in a table tucked away in the annex. 

Strangely, even the data presented in the annex contradicts the claim being made by the Economist: 

According to this 'research', there has no record of "Targeting Minorities" in Iran and Saudi Arabia during the study period (24 years!). How on earth did the Economist editor deduce from these scores that "India scores worse than Saudi Arabia, and no better than Iran" ? 

I have always been a fan of the Economist, and will continue to be one. No other international magazine presents a world-view that you would find in its pages. Yet it is good to be reminded that the magazine's world-view is flawed, and that it often loses its own self-proclaimed goal - "...to participate in the severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress".

This just goes to prove that the Economist is as fallible as the leftist next door, with opinions coloured by preconceived notions, biases, lazy analysis, and plain stupidity.

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REFERENCES & LINKS

Article - https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/01/15/hindu-bigots-are-openly-urging-indians-to-murder-muslims

The Economist (15 Jan., 2022) - https://www.economist.com/weeklyedition/2022-01-15

Nutmeg & Mace

 

On the banks of Manimala river in Tiruvalla, Kerala, there is a place called Thottabhagom. Perhaps the area gets it name (~ 'garden areas') from its exceptionally fertile soil, enriched by the occasional flooding of the river. 

One of the common trees on these fertile river banks is the Jathi-ka Maram, better known as the Nutmeg tree (Myristica fragrans), the source of two important spices - Mace, and, of course, Nutmeg. During the summer months, hundreds of fruits can be found strewn under the tree, often hidden under tufts of grass and dried leaves. The ones that are found get carefully laid out on straw mats, its fleshy portions are cut away revealing a seed that looks like a piece of art, with its deep red pericarp delicately covering a large oval seed like a lace glove. 

As children we did not think much of this tree because there were others that offered instant gratification - mangos, guavas,  rose-apples, tamarind and mangosteens. It is only much later that we learnt just how much these spice seeds meant to people in far away places, of how thousands had been killed, and sold into slavery so that a few europeans could enjoy trade monopolies, and enrich their own cities.

The greed for nutmeg and mace brought the Dutch to the Banda Islands south the Malaccas in the 14th century. Here they first tried to get exclusive deals from the local traders, and when that failed, they decided to solve the problem with their won version of the "final solution" - by exterminating the entire population of these two islands. Then for about a century they ensured that all the nutmeg trees were uprooted and destroyed on the nearby islands. This ensured that they could enjoy profits of over 400 percent of the investments for each voyage.

This story, and its wider ecological and economic impact has been brought out in the latest book written by Amitav Ghosh - "The Nutmeg's Curse - Parables for a Planet in Crisis". As with Ghosh's earlier books this too weaves a narrative based on extensive research of the origins of global trade in these spices, the depredations of the colonial period, of how it shaped capitalism as we know it today which sees the earth as a resource to be exploited at will.

The fruit itself becomes a metaphor for the larger picture - 

...Taking the nutmeg out of its fruit is like unearthing a tiny planet...Like  a planet, the nutmeg is encased within a series of expanding spheres. There is, first of all, the fruit's matt-brown skin, a kind of exosphere. Then there is the pale, perfumed flesh, growing denser towards the core, like a planet's outer atmosphere. And when all the flesh is stripped away, you have in your hand a ball wrapped in what could be a stratosphere of fiery, crimson clouds..."

One question that this books leaves unanswered is on the Dutch monopoly. For a tree that grew widely in South India, with records in the Sanskrit texts going back at least to the 6th century, how could the Dutch establish a monopoly in the first place?  

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REFERENCES & LINKS

* https://penguin.co.in/book/the-nutmegs-curse/

* https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/the-wonders-of-nutmeg-fruit/article19369859.ece

* WebMD - https://www.webmd.com/vitamins/ai/ingredientmono-788/nutmeg-and-mace

Covid-19: Winds of Change

 How things change in one year!

At the beginning of 2021 everybody seemed perplexed that the much anticipated first wave of Covid-19 had somehow swept past India without causing much damage. 'The virus cannot survive the pollution levels here!', sniggered the wags and carried on with their lives. 

People were just beginning to take it easy when the second wave - the Delta variant - blindsided us in March 2021. Suddenly all the hospitals were struggling to cope with a deluge of patients and distraught families. Just about everybody seemed to be desperately looking for oxygen cylinders, medicines, oxygen concentrators and reliable test kits. By July, nearly half a million people had died on the official records with speculation rife on the scale of unreported deaths.

When Delta gave way to Omicron there was much talk on how the healthcare system had been geared up to meet the challenge. Skeptical as always, I thought this was bluster - just the sort of pep-talk expected from politicians to keep a lid on panic levels. It took a first-hand experience for me to realise how wrong I was!

We started 2022 on a positive note from our RTPCR test labs. It had started with a throat irritation and telltale signs of a fever. When a number of friends who attended a Christmas party started testing Covid-positive, we knew that ours was not the winter usual viral. The tests only confirmed this but what surprised me is the way in which the healthcare system had actually been geared up to cope with this new wave.

Within an hour of calling a private testing lab (SRL), a sample collector was at our doorstep (~INR 900 / ~USD 12 per test). The RTPCR reports arrived online a day later, on a Saturday. It is mandatory for the private labs to send a copy of the reports to the state health department also gone to the UP government health department, and we were pleasantly surprised to see how the SoPs clicked into place. 

On Monday morning a young government doctor visited us to collect first-hand data, to check if home-isolation was being strictly followed, and to hand over free kits of medicines. A team was sent across to spray and disinfect the apartment tower and, for the next week, we got at least one call a day from the 'Central Covid Control Room' to check if the infection had aggravated in any way. Thankfully, it did not. The infection was as mild as it could be - fever for a day, a sore-throat for two.

As per the new guidelines, at the end of a seven-day isolation period, it is no longer mandatory to take another RTPCR test but we  got tests done anyway using the new Rapid Antigen Tests that were now easily available on Amazon. Interestingly, these tests were no longer being imported from Germany, South Korea or China but made locally by a company called MyLab and sold for just INR 250 (~ USD 3.5) each. Clearly a lot of thought has gone into the design and production of these kits, each of which contains a sterile swab, a pre-filled extraction tube, test-card, instruction manual (English/Hindi) and a disposal pouch. 

One of these days I hope to understand more about the kind of technology and production systems that it takes to prototype and scale up production of these kits ("with immunochromatographic nitrocellulose assay...which uses highly sensitive antibodies to detect Covid-19 nucleocapsid proteins.."), to the current levels of 10 million sets per week!

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REFERENCES & LINKS

* https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/23/coronavirus-how-india-is-doing-now-after-delta-variant-spread.html

* MyLab - wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mylab_Discovery_Solutions#cite_note-1

* Pune start-up makes affordable, accessible Covid-19 test kit (March 2020) - https://www.financialexpress.com/lifestyle/health/pune-start-up-makes-affordable-accessible-covid-19-test-kit/1908524/

* Producing 10 million kits per week - https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/indias-mylab-can-ramp-up-covid-19-test-production-100-mln-units-per-week-ceo-2021-05-21/