The Golden 80s

It will take months or even years for this road dug up during the pandemic to return to normalcy.  The hapless residents will have to put up with such constant degradation of road facilities.  

In the 70s and 80s, school principals used to instruct students to read English newspapers such as The Hindu for improving English skills. But the last three decades had seen an erosion in the perfection of sub-editing across English newspapers in India. One can see lots of grammar and spelling errors, poor sentence structures, misleading headlines, and heavily editorialized news.  In keeping with the highest traditions of professional journalism, The Hindu had issued a correction to an error that I pointed out on Twitter on Dec 1, 2020.   On its front page, a news story had an error about the end date of the current Assembly term in Karnataka. Instead of 2023, the news story mentioned the year as 2013. A silly mistake.  On Dec 2, The Hindu on page 4 published a correction.  But the same story on the newspaper's online edition  (accessed on Dec 2, 10: 50 am IST) had a different text. The edit made created a grammatically weak sentence at the end of the res...

In a paper, No evidence for increased transmissibility from recurrent mutations in SARS-CoV-2 , published in the Nature Communications journal, the authors state that none of mutations identified lead to the increase in the spread of Covid-19.  This definitely is good news.  The paper also lists three ways in which the SARS-CoV2 virus mutates in infected humans: Mistakes in copying errors during the replication (multiplication) of the virus. Interactions with other viruses in the affected human cells. Changes in the host RNA modification systems. The paper says that out of the identified total of 12,706 mutations, about 398 strongly supported recurrent mutations were observed. It also added that the genomic diversity of the virus remains low, but vigil should be maintained continuously.

If you think air pollution can be controlled by maintaining the status quo, then you are probably mistaken. Pollution is linked to our day-to-day activities. It is the stark reality. In Bengaluru, the primary reason behind air pollution is that there are lots of vehicles on the road, especially during peak hours. The more vehicles that you add to the existing number, then the air pollution will keep on increasing.  Air pollutants do not vanish overnight. They stay in the air and they will react with other chemicals to form toxic compounds that create eye irritation and respiratory issues. If night temperatures are less, the chemicals trapped in dense air will disappear next day only.  To reduce air pollution in Bengaluru, do the following: Reduce the number of vehicles This is the saddest and the most controversial solution that nobody will agree to. There are over 83 lakh registered vehicles in Bengaluru, says a report in the Deccan Herald newspaper. The city has to reduce i...

FSD stands for Full Self Driving . The term is famously associated with US-based electric vehicle company, Tesla. So, you have FSD software and FSD cars.  The Verge reported that Tesla released their FSD Beta software to a select number of users. The report says that the Beta release "...will enable drivers to access Autopilot’s partially automated driver assist system on city streets. The early access program is used as a testing platform to help iron out software bugs." Meanwhile Elon Musk had tweeted that he "Will be extremely slow & cautious, as it should."

 I am not a big fan of India's prime time debates, especially those by the so-called national media. I still scour the print media for news and editorial views and social media for comments (both valid and stupid).  To me, most of the prime time debates are just one-sided cacophony and in a democracy like India these unprofessional conduct should have been regulated and punished long back. It may be the case that as a trained journalist, I can research more on the fare dished out and check facts and fake news by all forms of news media.  Such a luxury may not be available to all viewers and they then become the primary victims of targeted propaganda through social media.  Against this background, I was not at all surprised at the belligerence in which the anchor at NDTV was shouted at by an 'expert'. The discussion was about the booming stock market amidst a tanked economy and a pandemic.  Stock markets are not the best indicators of an economy . So it is ridic...

News about the promising results from the vaccine against Covid-19 developed by Oxford university created some buzz in the India media. The news was flashed from July 20 evening after the university itself broke it.  The study was published by the medical journal Lancet . The vaccine - called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 The BBC said the vaccine produced antibodies and T-cells that can fight Coronavirus in the 1077 patients tested. It also added that the vaccine is made from a genetically engineered Chimpanzee virus that can cause infection similar to Coronavirus and can trigger antibodies and T-cells to counter the virus. The Times of India added an Indian perspective and reported that the "Serum Institute would seek regulatory approval for clinical trials of the vaccine in India.  The Indian Express as usual had an explainer that compared and listed the vaccines that were under development worldwide.  Overall the Indian press looked bullish about the prelimi...

The European Court of Justice's order yesterday striking down the EU-US Data Protection Shield in the Schrems II case is a big win for European privacy activists. The court, according to Techcrunch , ruled that the US surveillance laws and data protection supposed to be provided in the EU-US Data Protection Shield"...interference with the fundamental rights of persons whose data are transferred to that third country”. The portal also states that because of this ruling "more companies (may) switch to regional data processing for European users". Austrian privacy activist and lawyer, Max Schrems, had approached the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) to suspend Facebook’s use of standard contractual clauses SCCs . The data regulator took him to court and later Irish judges referred the case to Europe’s Court of Justice, which delivered this order. CNN reported that around "5000 US companies rely on for transferring information across borders" and t...

I searched Facebook posts also when I heard that the Twitter accounts of several blue-ticked celebrities and the rich were hacked. BBC reported that the Twitter accounts of "Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are among many prominent US figures targeted by hackers in an apparent Bitcoin scam". A message was also posted seeking Cryptocurrency donations to these accounts. In an explainer, The Indian Express reported that "the Bitcoin wallet promoted in the tweets received over $100,000 via at least 300 transactions." The Hacker News carried a speculation that "that hackers grabbed control of a Twitter employee's administrative access to take over a prominent account and tweet on their behalf". If this the method used, then it is a very disturbing news. And it also raises questions about at whose all behest can an employee 'take over' another account. Can authorized company personnel do it on the company's behalf or can a stat...

A day after Google announced its big five-year plan to invest Rs 75,000 crore in India, most of the newspapers splashed stories on the latest suit against the search giant. Google faces lawsuit over tracking in apps even when users opted out, was the headline in Indian Express . Its story talked about the latest data privacy violation suit slapped by the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner, against data collection even after users had turned off “Web & App Activity” tracking and when in Incognito mode. Looks like the same Reuters copy was published in leading news sites such as News18, Livemint and Times of India also. Add caption Interestingly, a piece in The Print  tried to lay out why the tech giants are turning to India. From self-reliance to helping the battered banking sector and the ready mobile payments ecosystem, this piece provided hints on where the proposed investments may end up or prove beneficial. Let us keep our fingers crossed. But it does not ponder...

Google's plan to invest $10 billion in India has created lots of buzz in the tech, government, and industry sectors. The Times of India says that Google will work in areas as diverse as 'affordable access to information in local languages', 'building products', 'digitizing businesses', and applying 'tech and AI' areas like 'health, education and agriculture'. Livemint says the proposed fund will be raised through a 'mix of equity investments, partnerships, operations, infrastructure and ecosystem investments'. The announced projects include tie-ups with CBSE, Prasar Bharti and a 1 million grant to Kaivalya Foundation. The Indian Express added that the proposed investments will also be made through projects such as Internet Saathi and the AI-based flood forecasting system. A Techcrunch report details the education projects Google already have in India. Overall, the reporting was bullish about the proposed investment by the...

A missing vowel, O, creates a new virus in Times of India, Bengaluru, story titled Disinfection: Businessmen in Bengaluru make killing amid scare .

A report in Bengaluru's Deccan Herald today says that "...Air pollution in Bengaluru dropped by an average 28% during the Covid-19 lockdown".The report cites a study on PM 2.5 levels that decreased during the lockdown as an indicator of air quality improvement. It is not scientific to conclude that a decrease in one air quality indicator (AQI) results in overall air quality improvement or reduction in air pollution. This is because PM2.5 is just one AQI parameter used to measure the air quality level in India. Other pollutant levels need to be tracked to know whether their levels have decreased or not. This include Ozone, oxides of Nitrogen, Sulphur Dioxide, PM 10, and Ammonia.  A report by the Centre for Science and Environment says that Ozone levels saw a spike in many cities that were supposedly clean during the lockdown. The same report states that Bengaluru had an average PM2.5 level of 45% during the lockdown and NOx level have increased by 38%. This furth...

It’s is yet another World Environment Day and the world is in lockdown because of Covid-19. While all of us care about the environment, there are three issues that are worth pondering over today. Governance : Some say that the main beneficiary of Covid-19 pandemic has been the environment. During the period of complete lockdown in India, the air quality was better and the noise levels were less. Social media users posted pictures of how they could see faraway mountains from their terraces, as the thick brown haze disappeared from the skies. But still things are not that rosy. We are still unhappy that despite nearly 30 years after the famous Rio Summit, our rivers remain polluted, forests are being destroyed, wild animals are being killed, and life in cities and villages are becoming difficult. Why is this so? What we are missing is strong and scientific Environmental Governance. Just like the anti-corruption charade, environmental protection has now become annual one-day affair...

Kerala's schools reopened with much glee as the classes were to be conducted online. On June 2, the newspapers reported this: A class 10 student of Irumbiliyam GHSS, Devika took her life by setting herself ablaze, according to her parents, said a Mathrubhumi report. The student's death created a huge furore. Kerala police registered a case on offensive remarks in social media platforms against the teachers who led online classes. This is another instance of the deep-rooted misogyny in Kerala society.

It did rattle all of us on a hot afternoon on May 20. There was a loud sound, like a thunder, and the doors rattled. I was waiting it to repeat, but nothing happened after the first boom. On checking, there were messages galore on Twitter. I was sceptical of posting a tweet, but then I retweeted one of them that reported the mysterious boom 16-20 km away. It was later confirmed by IAF that there was a sonic boom. It was caused by a routine IAF Test Flight involving a supersonic aircarft, said NDTV . "The sonic boom was probably heard while the aircraft was decelerating from supersonic to subsonic speed between 36,000 and 40000 feet altitude", said the NDTV report. After months of political row, Kerala government cancelled the agreement with US-based firm Sprinklr for collection and analytics of Covid-19 patient data, including those quarantined in the state. According to a report , the state government, through an affidavit submitted to the Kerala high court, sai...

Pangolins tolerate and survive a coronavirs infection, as they lack two key genes that detect the entry of viruses and then activate a series of immune responses to such an attack. According to a recent study,  published in Frontiers in Immunology ,  Pangolins lack (IFIH1), also known as MDA5, which is a intracellular RNA sensor. It also lacks Z-DNA-binding protein (ZBP1), This essentially means mammals like Pangolins can tolerate viral infections, instead of resisting or mounting a hyper immune response to such infections. At times. such responses affect the host's survival. The way Pangolins can tolerate viral infections can also explain why mammals like bats can carry or host a number of viruses without themselves getting affected seriously. But these animals can pass on the infections to human beings. The study concludes that "...pharmaceutical suppression of IFIH1/MDA5 and ZBP1-dependent signaling may be beneficial for human patients with overreactions to vir...

Analyte : In the blood or fluid samples collected and tested in the lab, this is the chemical that is used to identify the Covid-19 virus. See Assay also. Assay : A test conducted in a laboratory to diagnose the presence of an analyte. See Analyte also. Asymptomatic cases : Refers to people who are infected with Covid-19 virus, but do not show any symptoms of the infection. It is reported that asymptomatic people can transmit the disease to others even before being tested positive. See Symptomatic also. Case Fatality Rate (CFR) : This is the proportion of people from among the positive cases who will die from Covid-19 infection. Community Spread : Merriam Webster dictionary defines it as “the spread of a contagious disease to individuals in a particular geographic location who have no known contact with other infected individuals or who have not recently traveled to an area where the disease has any documented cases. Contact Tracing : WHO defines contact tracing as “…the...

Along with Covid-19 virus, there is no end to the misinformation circulating around about the virus, immunity, and how the virus can be stopped. The following content is just an attempt to write basic content about viruses, Covid-19, and immunity. A virus is a microorganism that requires another biological system to survive. These biological systems are plants, animals or bacteria. Viruses use DNA or RNA to replicate inside another biological system called Host. DNA replication is a process by which a daughter strand of the double helix is formed from the parent strand. Coronaviruses are RNA viruses (retrovirus) that use the biological machinery in a host cell to replicate or create more copies of itself. This is very important because of something called the central dogma of genetics or molecular biology: DNA > messenger RNA (mRNA) > Proteins. Retroviruses use an enzyme called reverse transcriptase (RT) to convert RNA to DNA in host cells and get latched on to the DNA ...

I've seen several ways in which people write the word, iPad. This is but very innovative. This is from an English news channel based in Bengaluru. Another indication of murdering English on a daily basis. 

It is the hope of a better home that drives migration, said acclaimed poet and writer, Ruth Padel, in an evening session on Poetry, Nature and a Changing World , at the Bangalore International Centre, Bengaluru. It was such an enthralling evening when the poet, who is the great-great-grandchild of Charles Darwin, talked about poetry, migration, conservation, climate change, Darwin, and so on. She also read a few selected poems, old and new. And I manged to get a few books signed by the distinguished poet.  The evening started with the poet reading an excerpt from her book, Where the Serpent Lives , and then the conversation went to Tiger conservation. On her many trips to forests in India, the poet said, that in a forest, we see so many things like leaves, squirrels, otters; but they are all related to the Tiger in one way or the other. And the Tiger is the meaning or at the heart of a forest.  In a similar vein, whether it is a book or a poem, we see and r...

Yet another typo on LinkedIn's pages. I do notice such mistakes daily on newspapers, emails and websites. But when it is on Linkedin, I can't stop writing a blog post.  On such an topical conversation, this was pure laziness. So, there goes my first post of 2020. Let it be a nice year!