WHO Report on Covid-19 Excess Deaths: Modi Govt’s Attempt to Shoot the Messenger

THE Indian government’s refusal to consider the World Health Organisation estimates of excess deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic years and insisting that only India’s Civil Registration System should be used for Covid-19 deaths, makes strange reading. WHO’s estimates of excess deaths have been used across the board for all countries. Even in countries with stronger birth and death registration systems than India such as the UK, US, WHO’s report shows that excess deaths have been much larger than the registered Covid-19 deaths.

IPCC Sixth Assessment Report: On Mitigation

RESPONSE of the media and the public to the series of reports together forming the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC/AR6) has been surprising, yet telling, in important ways.IPCC’s Assessment Reports are written and released roughly at intervals of six years and, as reports based on extensive peer-reviewed information and data, written up by leading scientists and experts from other disciplines with many rounds of consultations, are widely regarded as the broadest updated consensus of the scientific community on the issue of climate change.

On Coal Shortages and Power Cuts

EVEN before we reached peak summer, power cuts have started in many states. With power demand reaching 201 GW on April 26, we had a shortfall of 8.2 GW or 4 per cent. This shortfall is even before we have reached the peak of summer when the demand is expected to rise to about 220 GW. The current shortfall is not because we do not have enough generating capacity. We currently have an installed capacity of 400 GW, against a peak demand of about half that.

Building a Nation with a Scientific Vision

INDIA'S struggle for independence was not simply to free India from British rule but also to build a nation that would deliver development to its people. The fruits of freedom would be bitter if independence did not lift its people out of the abject poverty that resulted from two centuries of colonial rule.

Corbevax Approval and Rollout: More Opaque Decision-Making

THE government is persisting with its arbitrary and non-transparent decision-making on approval and deployment of Covid vaccines and medicines, playing ducks and drakes with official regulatory procedures and even with its own government-appointed expert groups set up specifically to tackle the pandemic.

Ukraine and the Global Economic War: Barbarism or Civilisation?

DOES the Ukraine war and the action of the US, EU, and the UK spell the end of the dollar as the world's reserve currency? Even if the peace talks between Russia and Ukraine reach a 15-point peace plan, as Financial Times has reported, the fallout for the dollar still remains. For the first time, a major nuclear power and major economy were treated as a vassal state. Its $300 billion foreign exchange reserves lying with the US, EU and the UK were seized.The threat to the dollar hegemony is only one part of the fallout.

Misfired Missile

AN alarming, strange and implausible incident took place on Wednesday, March 9 this year when a missile, stated to be undergoing routine maintenance in Sirsa, Haryana, was unexpectedly and unintentionally fired, and landed in Mian Channu village, district Khanewal, Punjab, in Pakistan, thankfully without casualty or serious damage. The episode was, however, acknowledged only a day later by Pakistan and by India a further day afterwards on Friday, March 11, both sides especially Pakistan appearing not to want to escalate the incident even though it afforded plenty of opportunity.

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.

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