The Three Wars in Ukraine and How We Might all Lose

THE war in Ukraine is now part of three interlocking wars: the physical war, the information war and the economic war. If we want to know what today’s hybrid war looks like, this is it. This is what the US has been preparing for and is now executing, with its control over the world’s biggest digital platforms and weaponising the dollar.

IPCC Sixth Assessment Report Vol-2: Impacts and Adaptation

THE Report of Working Group 2 (WG2) of the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), or IPCC/AR6/WG2, on Impacts, Vulnerability and Adaptation was released earlier this week. This is the second volume in the series of reports from the sixth cycle of assessments by the IPCC, normally taken up every six or so years.

Breathing Life Back into the Iran Nuclear Deal Possible but not Easy

THE possibility of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – or the Iran nuclear deal –being revived, though difficult, has brightened. This could have been accomplished much earlier except for the Biden administration’s attempts to extract concessions from Iran that went far beyond the original deal. The premise of Trump’s pulling out of the 2015 Iran deal, was that he could get a better deal than what Obama had negotiated.

TekFog – BJP Automating Hate

AN online news portal The Wire has recently published a three part investigative report on a sophisticated secret app called TekFog. This is used by BJYM’s (the youth-wing of the BJP) IT Cell to automate its online hate campaigns. According to the investigation, the app can “hijack” WhatsApp accounts of people without their knowledge or consent, and use these accounts in automated campaigns.

Modi Government: Converting Bose to a Hologram and Forgetting his Vision

EVERY year, this is the time that the Modi government and the BJP has a serious problem. Its claims of being the nationalist party founders against the brutal reality of almost having no leader of any stature that stood up to the British in India's freedom struggle. That is why its attempt to appropriate any leader of stature, even if they belong to the other political streams.

Weaponising Hate Apps: Sulli Deals and Bulli Bai

THE recent Sulli Deals and Bulli Bai cases targeting Muslim women show the deep anti-women and communal mindset combined with the use of tech tools and social media platforms. Perhaps not so surprising is that the police authorities appear to have been very casual in their investigations when the Sulli Deals had emerged last year targeting about 100 Muslim women. It only reacted after Sulli Deals reappeared as Bulli Bai in early January this year. After widespread criticism and adverse international coverage, the police finally woke up to their responsibilities.

Recent Covid Control Measures: How Much Science?

FROM the very beginning when the Covid-19 pandemic struck India in early 2020, many questions have arisen about decision-making by the union government on Covid control measures, especially about the extent to which measures instituted have been based on science or other evidence. The importance of these issues is underlined by the fact that serious questions have been raised by science- or health-oriented civil society organisations and also from leading scientists, including members of duly constituted decision-making committees, for instance on imposing lockdowns.

Elizabeth Holmes Verdict: Lying to Consumers is OK in the US but not to Investors

THE verdict on Elizabeth Holmes, the CEO of Theranos, who was tried for fraud, was guilty. Theranos was a company set up by Holmes and her former partner Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani and had promised to revolutionise testing. Their advanced biotech equipment—they claimed—would provide results for a whole battery of tests with just a few drops of blood.In its heyday, Theranos was worth $9 billion, and Elizabeth Holmes was looked upon as the Steve Jobs of the coming Silicon Valley's biotech revolution.

Spiralling Gas and Electricity Prices in Europe are Lessons for India

THE current crisis in Europe of spiralling gas prices, coupled with a cold snap, brings out that the transition of any part of the world to green energy is not going to be easy. It also brings out the complexity in such a transition, that energy is not simply choosing the right technology, but that it has economic and geopolitical dimensions as well.The European Union has made its problem of a green transition worse by choosing a completely market-based approach for gas pricing.

Covid-19: Runaway Omicron Wave Overtakes Delta

OMICRON, a new SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern, has rapidly overtaken all other variants in the new waves of Covid-19 cases that are emerging in South Africa, the UK, the European Union and the US. More worrying is that Omicron is able to infect those who have received two vaccine doses or already had Covid earlier. This is supported by laboratory evidence though they are still very preliminary results. The good news, if it can be called good news, is that most of those who have been vaccinated do not seem to progress to a critical stage.

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