My Musings

Musings....... Present day Communism and Neoliberalism Neo-liberalism is the idea associated with laissez-faire economic liberalism and free market capitalism.  It includes policies of economic liberalisation including privatisation, deregulation, free trade, austerity and reductions in government spending so as to increase the role of the private sector in the economy and society.  Neoliberalism was a huge shift from the post World War Keynesian consensus (1945-1980) which advocated a managed market economy- predominantly private sector, but with an active role for government intervention during recessions and depressions. The twin tools of Keynesian economics are fiscal policy and monetary policy which we know is still being followed in India.  The term Neoliberalism became common usage after the Augusto Pinochet’s economic reforms in Chile in 1980s and later got global recognition after the passage of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) in 1...

Musings....... It was with a kind of satisfaction that I had gotten to sleep yesterday night.  The reason was of course that an experimental COVID19 vaccine, being developed by the University of Oxford, was safe and produced an immune response in early- stage clinical trials in healthy volunteers. The Vaccine called AZD1222  ( ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 ) did not prompt any serious side effects and elicited antibody and T-cell immune responses, according to trial result published by the Lancet medical journal. The vaccine is being developed by the Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and scientists at Britain’s University of Oxford. More research would be required to confirm the efficacy of the vaccine and to know for how long any protection lasts. According to reports, AstraZeneca has signed agreements with governments around the world to supply the vaccine should it prove effective and gain regulatory approval. The company has said it will not seek to profit from the vaccine d...

Musings....... The World Economic Forum (WEF) has reported that there will be a $9 trillion dollar loss for the World economy over two years due to the Coronavirus Pandemic. The United Nations (UN) says that, to prevent the next pandemic, we the human race must change its relationship with nature. If not more viruses like COVID-19 would jump from animals to humans. Human activity is a key driver of zoonotic epidemics - - [ ] Destruction of nature - pushing different species into close proximity with humans, where viruses intermingle. - [ ] Growing demand for meat - which is the reason for many animal diseases reaching humans. A CDC report states that around 60% of new infectious diseases comes from animals !! Even before COVID19, zoonotic diseases were killing 2 million people every year ! So these zoonotic diseases comes at a heavy price. So both health wise and economy wise, it would be prudent to invest in preventing future pandemics. This is where the UN recommend...

Musings....... Pandemic that changed life as we know it  Dr. Micheal Ryan, the WHO Emergencies Chief gave a significant    statement recently - “ This virus may never go away”    , referring to the Coronavirus pandemic which may become Endemic as for example the Chickenpox virus or the HIV. The Centre for Infectious Disease Research and Policy report of University of Minnesota says the the virus may last 2 years !  According to a research paper from California University, the virus has the propensity to travel upto 20 meters !  Cold climate and moisture can increase the virility threefold !  I had not given serious thought to the word “novel” in n-Cov up until now.    That no human has immunity against this virus makes this a very serious problem.  The IMF reports that the Global GDP growth would reduce from 2.9% to 1.6% in 2020. It has to be noted that there was falling growth since 2018-19 period.  ...

Musings....... The Covid-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-19 virus has shackled the bubble that humans the world over have been living in, wherin aided by alpha male Hollywood flicks the human race always survives. A popular WhatsApp forward was how the US could win only in movies and not in real life. It is at this juncture that we hear of the sudden aggression at the border along Line of Actual Control (LAC), in the Galwan valley in particular leading to deaths of Indian soldiers, at that part of the border in a very long time. This warrants a reality check on the Foreign policy of the Modi Government.  Questions have been raised on how well the situation have been handled and whether deaths could have been avoided. Let us look at India’s foreign policy within the prism of its neighbours. China- Salami Slice strategy. There is a clear shift in China’s foreign policy post COVID19 outbreak. This is seen with its behaviour with the US, Taiwan, Naval incidents in the ...