by the meltingpot: The drama behind the bird flu outbreak

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Indeed, what is at work in the recent return of realism is the revenge of geography in the most old-fashioned sense. In the 18th and 19th centuries, before the arrival of political science as an academic specialty, geography was an honored, if not always formalized, discipline in which politics, culture, and economics were often conceived of in reference to the relief map. Thus, in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, mountains and the men who grow out of them were the first order of reality; ideas, however uplifting, were only the second.
And yet, to embrace geography is not to accept it as an implacable force against which humankind is powerless. Rather, it serves to qualify human freedom and choice with a modest acceptance of fate. This is all the more important today, because rather than eliminating the relevance of geography, globalization is reinforcing it. Mass communications and economic integration are weakening many states, exposing a Hobbesian world of small, fractious regions. Within them, local, ethnic, and religious sources of identity are reasserting themselves, and because they are anchored to specific terrains, they are best explained by reference to geography. Like the faults that determine earthquakes, the political future will be defined by conflict and instability with a similar geographic logic. The upheaval spawned by the ongoing economic crisis is increasing the relevance of geography even further, by weakening social orders and other creations of humankind, leaving the natural frontiers of the globe as the only restraint.
So we, too, need to return to the map, and particularly to what I call the “shatter zones” of Eurasia. We need to reclaim those thinkers who knew the landscape best. And we need to update their theories for the revenge of geography in our time.
Here is the link for the whole write up.

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My view is that relations between countries in the coming decades are most likely to reflect their cultural commitments, their cultural ties and antagonism with other countries rather than other factors. Quite obviously, power will continue to play a central role in global politics, as it always does. But usually there is something else behind conflicts. In the 18th century in Europe, the issues to a large extent involved questions of monarchy versus the emerging republican movements, first in America and then in France. In the 19th century, it involved states identifying themselves through nationalism. In the 20th century, ideology came to the fore, largely, but not exclusively, as a result of the Russian Revolution. We had fascism, communism and liberal democracy competing with each other. Well, that’s pretty much over. Liberal democracy has come to be accepted, in theory at least, around the world, if not always in practice. So the question really is what will be the central focus of global politics in the coming decades? My argument remains that cultural identities, antagonisms and affiliations will not only play a role, but play a major role in relations between states. The full interview is here.

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Every citizen in the City of Richardson will be able to access 756 Kbps of internet connectivity for free, from anywhere in the city. They will be able to access the internet from their homes, schools, restaurants and parks using standard wi-fi connections which are now installed on almost every notebook computer. That is almost as fast as many so-called high speed broadband connections that one pays dearly for today, and several times faster than the various hotspots at your local coffee shops. And I should note that the tax-payers of the City of Richardson are not paying one penny for this, and in fact are going to see additional revenues as a benefit. ... At the beginning of this letter, I suggested that this would be one of the fastest worldwide rollouts of a technology ever seen. It was just 20 years ago that the first cellular systems were being built. The rollout for mesh wireless systems is going to make that look slow. There are several reasons I make this assertion. But they all center on the facts that installing mesh systems will be cheaper and easier than any previous system and the economics in both the developed and especially the developing world will be so radically compelling. Throw in the fact the any astute politician will want to be at the front of this parade (They will all want to say, "I was the man who helped bring free internet to everyone!") and the groundwork is laid for rapid deployment. In Richardson and elsewhere, MeshLinx is offering the basic infrastructure for free. This avoids all the time consuming, political budget battles in the cities. When a service is offered for free, much of the mandated competitive process is eliminated. Next is the low cost of installation of the system. As noted above, Richardson is a city of roughly 100,000 people living in 27.4 square miles. It will "only" cost about $2,000,000 today to lay the wireless blanket I mentioned above. It will cost a great deal less in the future, as MeshLinx is building the pods at a pace of 100 a month today. The maximum output of the US pilot assembly line is 500 a month. When the demand exceeds this (and it will in a very short time) discussions have been held to move volume production to China. Of course, the world will need tens of millions of pods. The cost for a pod will be a fraction of today's cost, with that installation number for a city like Richardson soon being half (or less) the cost of today. What does that $1 or 2 million get you? The infrastructure to be an internet connection, telephone, security, entertainment provider and a whole lot more company. As noted, it will get cheaper as the number of pods being made each month rises, thus lowering their costs dramatically. This technology does have scale. The cost of physically putting up a pod is not a large part of the equation, as you simply need to run a power line, attach a few bolts to a mount on the side of a building or light pole and then off to the next point. Think about the 40,000 homes and businesses in Richardson. If and (hopefully) over time when 10% decide to pay $50 a month for 10-20 Mbps high speed internet access you could see a revenue of $2.5 million a year just from internet access. Now add in all the other income possibilities (phone, entertainment, security and don't forget advertising revenue on the free service!). Think about your town or country. What would service like this be worth? If you are a small city that does not have high speed connections available, how many businesses that could bring jobs do not come your way because they need reliable communications for their work and their employees? If you are in a developing country, where internet access is difficult and expensive, it will open whole new vistas. Couple that with the various programs which want to give cheap laptops to kids in poor countries, and you could see significant social progress in a generation. Here is the link.

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

The drama behind the bird flu outbreak

The drama started some 4/5 months ago.

The scene unfolded on a piece of land near an orchid farm run by the State Government near porompat. A group of people was attempting to grab the said land from the possession of the State Government.

With this intent, they simply formed a self-help group and put up some rickety structure and boundary fencing in the name of the group on the above mentioned piece of land. Then, they installed a Nepali guy with his wife and 2 kids to look after the ‘property’.

To give some works to the Nepali family and if possible, to get some income, they purchased some 300 chicks from the Govt-run hatchery at Mantripukhri and put them under the care of the family.

So far so good. Everything seemed to be going on as planned. But one fateful day the wife of the Nepali guy ran away with the chowkidar of the Govt-run orchid farm, which is the neighbouring establishment to the ‘property’.

The ‘Meira Paibis’ came in to arbitrate the case of the ‘run-away wife’. But she told the gathering of the concerned parties, citizen of the locality (which was organized by the ‘Meira Paibis’) that she had decided to abandon her husband and 2 kids to become the wife of the orchid farm chowkidar.

Hearing his wife saying that openly in front of the gathering , the Nepali guy just packed up his belongings and left in a huff with his 2 kids.

The ‘property’ was left without a caretaker. The members of the self-help group tried to look after it by attending to it during day times.

More important to our story, 300 chickens were not properly attended to. This was continued for nearly 3 months. During this period, more than half the flock perished. During the last week of June, one of the members of the self-help group transported the remaining birds numbering about 120 to his home and housed them in a rarely-used bamboo shed, which at that time had about 12 birds inside its floor. The house of the particular member of the self-help group is near the place where the Capitol Project is presently under construction, dot on the border of Tahngmeiband and Chingmeirong.

As it happened the mortality of the flock continued unabated. On the 7th July they sent one bird for post mortem in the lab run by the Vety deptt at Sanjenthing. But the deptt official said the date was 10th, not 7th and they sent a doctor with the samples from the bird to Bhopal the following day.

The sample was to be found tested positive for H5N1 strain.

On the 15th, Mr Negi, the joint commissioner(vety) of the Govt of India arrived in Imphal.

On the 16th, Mr Negi together with officials from the State vety deptt went to the remaining 12 birds, took samples, slaughtered and buried and then, burnt down the bamboo shed.

Out of the 7 samples from the 12 birds, 6 was to be later found tested positive for the H5N1 strain.

So, let’s come to the conclusion. We can see that there were actually two flocks of birds—120 and the original 12. As was to be found later, the flock of the 120 birds was infected with the bird flu virus.

But the original flock of the 12 birds was kept intermingled with the infected for at least 2 weeks, long enough to get the virus, which they actually got into themselves, as proven by the test results later.

But here comes to the intriguing question. Why the flock of 12 birds, after infecting with the virus for several weeks, did not suffer a single mortality?

Normally, the incubation period of H5N1 is only 1 week and the mortality rate is 90%. And, we have remember here that not a single sample, other than those 7, is tested positive so far.

The question so foxed the MLA of the Oinam Assembly Constituency that he took the trouble to call up doctors at the Bhopal lab. The doctors at the Bhopal lab were also reported to be amazed at this inconsistency. The MLA in question is himself a doctor and recently retired from the State Health services, before getting himself elected as a MLA.

by the meltingpot

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