Wuhan Scientists Identify Deadlier Coronavirus

Identified in 2012, the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) was transferred to humans through infected dromedary camels through zoonosis. Since its identification, MERS-CoV has infected over 2000 people, specifically in several countries in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. The case fatality rate for MERS is estimated by WHO to be 35%, but the number may be overestimated since disease surveillance systems could have missed milder cases of MERS-CoV.

NeoCoV is a bat coronavirus that was first identified in 2011. It was identified in a species of bats known as Neoromicia, which is where the name NeoCoV was derived from. Commonly known as aloe bats, this species is distributed in the Afro-Malagasy region. NeoCoV shares an 85% similarity to MERS-CoV in the genome sequence, making it the closest known relative of MERS-CoV. 

It is important to note that inherently, NeoCoV cannot interact with human receptors, implying that in its current form the virus cannot infect humans. NeoCoV does not infect humans yet and has thus not caused any deaths. However, there is the possibility that it may mutate into a human-infectious form.

Quick notes: Crypto heist | Campus violence...

• Terror financing: Crypto worth around 4 crore transferred to Hamas, reveals Delhi Police probe



• Violence mars education: Violence has periodically marred Kerala's higher education system and the state is not a magnet for higher studies. Should politics be kicked out of campuses? . . . . . . . . . . . Bring NOTA to student elections. If 'NOTA wins', annul the elections that year.



• What India Needs In Ladakh: India has over 4,000 medium tanks, but not a single light tank. The advantage rests with the PLA, whose armoured units in Tibet are equipped with the new ZTQ-15 (or Type 15) light tank.



• Whoever gets there first, wins: A bizarre race against time is under way for the US Navy to reach its downed F35-C fighter jet - before the Chinese get there first. The prize? All the secrets behind this very expensive, leading-edge fighting force.



• E-bikes: The top-selling electric vehicles in the U.S. have two wheels. "Replace a car with a mode that contributes less to congestion and has a lighter carbon footprint".



• Thich Nhat Hanh: The first 8 exercises of Mindful Breathing




• 6G: Jio, Finland's University of Oulu ink JV on 6G technology



• Anti-Arab sentiment sweeps Turkey: Many Turks believe Syrian refugees have overstayed their welcome. Now, as the economic crisis in the country gets worse, attacks have begun to escalate, both rhetorically and physically. Some want all foreigners out of Turkey.



• China is beating the world on yet another greentech: As with other climate technologies like solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries, on hydrogen electrolyzers China is already eating the rest of the world’s lunch.



• Lithuania stands firm in its support for Taiwan: Taiwan’s $1 billion Lithuania fund is a high-stakes game of economic diplomacy. . . . "German companies bending to Beijing’s will"



• Has India lost its demographic sweet spot? "The country’s working age population growth rate which was more than 2 per cent till 2010 has dropped to 1.5 per cent. 75 per cent of the countries with economic growth of 6 per cent or more had a working age population growth in excess of 2 per cent. Most developed nations slowed down as their working age population dropped".
  
  We need to map skill requirements of the future and ensure that the education system is tuned to deliver them. Mere large scale investment in education, though needed, will not be enough.

Biden Isn't the Only One with 'shady' China Ties: Peter Schweizer

Will India Be Forced to Choose Sides Over Ukraine Conflict?

When US & Moscow had a serious showdown over the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, China used their mutual distraction as an opportunity to attack India, resulting in the 1962 Sino-Indian War. Indian govt needs to be wary of another repeat and take steps to deter it, by carrying out a Pokhran-3 thermonuclear test. Whichever side condemns/sanctions India more will determine which way India leans.

China Is the Certain Winner from US-Russia Conflict

Ties Between Beijing & American Elites

California State University Puts Caste in its Anti-Discrimination Policy

 Note that they won't single out any other ethnic group for this kind of policing:

https://www.news18.com/news/india/faculty-members-oppose-inclusion-of-caste-in-cal-state-universitys-non-discriminatory-policy-4690889.html

the pope didn't punish padres for sexual abuse? i'm shocked, SHOCKED!!

franco mulakkal and robin must be nodding their heads in agreement. 

the pope and india's judiciary think alike. 

gates warns of much bigger pandemic to come and wants more vaccines; "cherry" gangandeep agrees

https://www.ft.com/content/c1ab6cee-4f84-4a85-9c53-9f5f444359d4 

sure, more vaccines. presumably of the pfizer kind.

and "cherry" gagandeep kang agrees. so it must be true. (anybody remember "susan" arundhati roy and her antics also on behalf of certain interests?)

so what's CEPI and where does its funding come from?

and now they want to bully and cajole the world's governments to give them more money.

who was it who said, memorably, "follow the money"?

US-Russia Confrontation Over Ukraine Intensifies

India should remember how the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis confrontation between Washington & Moscow was exploited by China to wage its 1962 war on India. As renewed confrontation grows between Washington & Moscow over Ukraine, India needs to maintain vigilance and not be caught off guard again, from either of its major border fronts.

Chamath Palihapitiya Says 'Nobody Cares' About Uighurs

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60045076

Not a good look for an NRI

Quick notes: Fourth Dose | Paki greencard...

• Fourth Pfizer shot not enough to prevent Omicron: Fourth dose insufficient to ward off omicron infections. . . . . . . . . . . only helps Pfizer bottomline



• Targeting Sikhs and Chinese: Pakistan to offer permanent residency scheme for rich foreign nationals to boost weak economy



• Jan 9 is Kerala ExMuslim Day: ExMuslims of Kerala vows to protect rights of those who renounce religion.



• Colombo Port City: A new Dubai or a Chinese enclave?
  
  Burdening poor countries with unsustainable debt.
  
  NBA star: "China uses money to buy silence and they just bought Elon".



• Silicon Valley: Led by physicist Robert Noyce, Fairchild Semiconductor began as a start-up company whose radical innovations would help make the United States a leader in both space exploration and the personal computer revolution, changing the way the world works, plays, and communicates.




• Green energy set to take off: Ambani is pouring more than $80 billion into renewable energy



• Lithium: China controls more than half of the world's lithium processing and refining capacity. 80% of the global lithium is currently sourced from Australia, Chile and China



• Ellara Kannada: Has the influence of Sanskrit on Kannada created barriers for learning and usage? “When it comes to science terms, we have complicated words rooted in Sanskrit. We wanted to find simpler equivalents”.



• Cremation - A Greener Way to Die: Conserved corpses can go on display in caskets that, collectively, use tons of wood and steel, which we then bury in concrete containers. Instead of returning bodily nutrients, like potassium and calcium, to the ground, they slowly molder while shielded from the dirt. Lack of oxygen causes wasting flesh to release methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than the carbon dioxide we’d produce in open air.
  
  Meanwhile, embalming fluid can leak into soil and make its way into our groundwater, potentially at hazardous concentrations. Our final contribution to humankind: toxic ooze. Many countries favor an option lighter on chemicals: cremation. It’s also becoming popular in the U.S.



• Be alive, every moment:

do not be taken in by yet another pakistani 'peace offering'

this is so bogus! 'peace with neighbors'? after having overrun afghan, fought with iran? oh, i get it, THAT kind of peace!

https://www.indiatoday.in/programme/india-first/video/pakistan-s-new-security-policy-focuses-on-peace-with-neighbours-1899835-2022-01-13

we have seen this movie several times already.

here's my reaction to a previous version of it under another ruler.

https://www.rediff.com/news/2001/jun/18rajeev.htm

Quick notes: Common cold | Union activism...

• Frequent Boosters Spur Warning on Immune Response: "Excessive boosters could weaken the immune response and tire out people".



• T cells induced by common cold protect against C-virus: Using such T-cells as the foundation for a vaccine could possibly be more effective than the current generation of vaccines, as the current crop focus on the spike protein, which sits on the outside of the cell, making it more prone to mutate within variants of the virus. “Such a vaccine would not need to be given as frequently because the memory T-cells last longer than the antibodies”.



• Slow the Spread? Speeding It May Be Safer : Viruses care more about propagating themselves than about killing the host: Most viruses evolve to become more infectious and less virulent. Policies designed to slow the spread of Omicron may end up creating a supervariant that is more infectious, more virulent and more resistant to vaccines. That would be a man-made disaster.
  
  To minimize that risk, policy makers must tolerate the rapid spread of milder variants. Will relaxing restrictions come at the cost of more hospitalizations and deaths as the next variant starts to spread? Perhaps, but it would reduce the risk of a worst-case scenario and greater loss of life in the long run.



• Socialism for thee, not for me: New York Times interfered with union activism, U.S. labor agency alleges



• On their knees: Sri Lankan begs China to restructure payments for the roughly $5 billion it borrowed under Belt and Road Initiative.



• Gandikota: The stunning Indian gorge that resembles the Grand Canyon



• First Telugu inscription dating back to 575 AD found.
  
  ‘Our inscription is a century older', claims Telangana.



• Ahead of India: Vietnam's VinFast reveals EVs, plans factories in US and Germany



• Begum Parveen Sultana sings tarana in Hamsadhwani.

shilling for mRNA, again, as the data shows it does little

The word is #covaxin, Gagandeep. Heard of it? Pfizer's marketing manager in India with side gig in CMC Vellore writes 1000 words of drivel, but key words: "absolutely stunning efficacy from mRNA, confused results from Astra Zeneca". She cancelled covaxin . Poor man's pbmehta.

https://twitter.com/RachesElla/status/1479815807207047169?s=20

and what is the result? see nice correlation between mRNA vaccination and omicron hotspots. 

"the dog it was that died". from 'elegy on the death of a mad dog'. 

was it really a plot to assassinate the PM? my substack and podcast

https://rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com/p/ep-53-was-it-a-plot-to-assassinate?r=66qfh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

please read and pass on to others if you like it. 

"Doctor shortages, surging cases and mixed messaging". and two blows to pfizer.

this is the headline from the NYT, and here's the detail.

schadenfreude, wishing us ill, and pushing the pfizer line. yet again.

however, Pfizer should worry. CCP will out market them. 😀 https://twitter.com/FinancialTimes/status/1478963979431161859?t=OlV1fYLHhYCZ0BHRtk8GMw&s=08 and another blow to Pfizer. this non mRNA stuff may actually work and no ka ching to big pharma. 😢 https://twitter.com/DrPSVRao1/status/1478968812284252163?t=OxW2VH0hyMEoBLUGKI5PwA&s=08

they mean first WHITE woman

as though nalanda, takshashila etc had no female graduates.

the euro-centeredness of the NYT is legendary. but this is how most white people think. 

Quick notes: Research funding | Hydraulic city...

• CAG report: IITs unable to generate sufficient internal receipts, remain dependent on govt for grants: . "IITs received very low levels of funding for research projects, sponsored from non-government sources. Thus, they remained dependent on the govt for funding of their research activities. There was also a large variance between the patents filed and obtained by all the eight IITs and no patents were obtained during the five-year period, indicating that the research activities could not bring out fruitful results".



• Angkor - Ancient Hydraulic City: As well as ensuring a year-round water supply in a monsoon climate to support the population, agriculture and livestock, the hydraulic system feeds the foundations that have kept the temples standing for centuries. The sandy soil alone is not enough to withstand the weight of the stones. However, master engineers discovered mixing sand and water creates stable foundations, so the moats that surround each temple were designed to provide a constant supply of groundwater. This has created foundations strong enough to keep the temples stable and prevent them from crumbling all these centuries later




• Char Dham Highway: With hill cutting being done in a vertical manner, basic norms of road construction have not been followed, thereby only serving to worsen the situation. Destabilising these slopes is only going to cause irreversible damage.



• China Replacing Soldiers with Robots in Tibet Due to Poor Performance: The PLA has moved 88 Sharp Claw unmanned ground vehicles into Tibet for reconnaissance, patrolling and transportation of weapons and logistical work in difficult terrain. Also in Tibet is the robotized Mule-200. It has a range of 50 km, can navigate difficult terrain and also, carry about 200 kg of ammunition, supplies or even weapons at a time. Remotely controlled by wireless, it can perform combat tasks if fitted out for fire-support activities.



• China Is Haunted by Its One-Child Policy : Decades of birth restrictions mean fewer women of childbearing age and a younger generation less eager to start a family. . . . . . . . lesson for India



• Apple sucking up to Xi: To cut costs and curry favor with Beijing, Apple is increasingly replacing Foxconn with Chinese manufacturers.



• Walled Garden: India orders antitrust investigation into Apple's business practices. Apple prevents app developers from using a third-party or their own payments system, making a significant dent in the revenues they generate.



• Russia to Require Netflix to Stream State TV Broadcasts: online streaming services with over 100,000 daily users are required to provide streams of 20 major Russian federal television channels.



• Hyundai stops developing IC engines: "Now, it is inevitable to convert into electrification".



• Technical post: The art of solving problems with Monte Carlo simulations

just coincidence? apple plans in chennai and kolar, sterlite,...

i don't think so.

china is actively resisting the movement of manufacturing from its shores. who best to help than a) leftie unions, b) the church?

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/12/worker-protests-mass-illness-lead-apple-to-put-iphone-plant-on-probation/?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=biz&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_mailing=thematic_business_010322&utm_medium=email&bxid=5cc9e3122ddf9c1a7ae03a81&cndid=55280215&sourcecode=thematic_suitesheet&hasha=16719e56ee91f8da2df1655b2262edff&hashb=bcb9853431d0ef272255f9357a89c47a83d2e980&hashc=b5d0ef3b66783c85ff4b5fb18c088b5e05d820dcb1d32112e3c4234ea5a798fd&utm_term=Thematic_Business

is the punjab problem religious, political, or economic?

i think it's a mixture of all of the above, and it is going to damage the state badly if cooler heads do not prevail.

https://rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com/p/ep-52-punjab-phenomenon-is-devastating?r=66qfh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

WSJ nails the media-political nexus that has brought the US to its knees

we could have told them a thing or two about the same diseases in india with the 'liberals'.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/media-conformity-wuhan-covid-russia-crime-11640805471?st=amev8h8bqrnp75n&reflink=share_mobilewebshare