Time is up!

The internal haemorrhage that the Congress party is suffering once again came to the fore in the aftermath of the Galwan clash, in which twenty Indian soldiers were brutally killed by the Chinese.  Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi and Rahul, both expressed their grief and solidarity with the armed forces but did not show their solidarity with the government, the nation’s duly elected representative at present.

Rahul is demanding why the PM has not spoken to Sonia Gandhi personally, thinking that his mother and an interim president of the party could be someone too special in India and Indian politics. Rahul and his mother Sonia seem to be living in an imaginary world of their own, she the empress and her son the crown prince, his sycophant supporters their cherished non-existent cabinet members.

Rahul forgets that the legacy of Nehru and Gandhi’s ended with Indira Gandhi, who braved the faction of a syndicate within the party to breakaway and infuse a new life and energy in 1969. The party is tied with two deadweights on its neck, the mother and son duo, from which it cannot release itself. The purse strings of the party is still held tightly by Sonia, who knows any co-sharing of the treasures would end the monopoly of the Gandhi clan.

Congress party members have shown remarkable loyalty to the Gandhi family rarely seen anywhere in the world. The members have tolerated and rallied over most mediocre talents post-Indira, as neither Rajiv, Sonia, nor Rahul matched the intelligence of their elders in the family. As years pass by, instead of becoming more wiser, Rahul is increasingly becoming bizarre and quirky. There have been feeble attempts of dissent, which are ruthlessly silenced like in communist regimes.

BJP’s return to power in 2019 could not have been easy, but for Rahul’s idiocy and indiscretion, doubting the integrity of a politically invincible Modi. Rahul harped on Rafale deal until a strong rap over his knuckles by the judiciary; he doubted the Balakot strikes, without realizing the mood of the nation rejoicing the retaliation of our Airforce deep into POK. They have no grassroots support and not unexpectedly lost heavily in 2019 elections and are now left with a couple of states like Rajasthan or Punjab, neither in which the family has any contribution in the win.

BJP has metamorphosed into ruthless war machinery, battling with its cadre strength, supportive media, troll-brigades, and above all deep pockets. No corruption charges have stuck to the party’s face, Modi and his cabinet colleagues, regardless of attempts by Gandhi family and their overseas sympathizers. The latest has been the transparency of the PM Cares fund post COVID, Rahul again getting into the Rafale pitch. I guess the BJP is letting is playing him to release the details of the expenditures in time, to embarrass the Congress party.

Now comes the information of Congress party receiving funds in trusts managed by Sonia Gandhi from the Chinese Communist Party and even Zakir Naik, a terrorist in the guise of a religious preacher, now in hiding in Malaysia. The Sonia Gandhi managed trusts purportedly have been supported by the then UPA governments as well.

A nation must have a healthy opposition, daring to question and steer the nation ahead. The Congress party may still possess the elements but must dare to unshackle from the stranglehold of Gandhis for the Indian democracy’s sake.

The other option is to carry on and to strike the last one or two nails in the coffin and lay the party to its eternal rest.

Sampath Kumar

Intrépide Voix

pic courtesy: The Week

The Covid wonder drug from Patanjali!

India is an ancient land, where traditional health sciences flourished from time immemorial.  It is believed that the knowledge was passed on by the Gods to the sages and from them to the physicians. Sushruta, a sage, wrote in his Shusruta Samhita wrote that Dhanwantari, the Hindu God of Ayurveda incarnated as the King of Kashi to propagate the science of medicine. Ayurveda has survived and flourished over two millennia, and is especially popular in Kerala, the place where Sage Agasthya influenced the growth of the science.

Ayurveda has its flipside as well as it uses a lot of toxic metals in its formulations. The Vishagarvajrodhika tantra deals with the biomedical application of metals, the toxicology part of Ayurveda. The growth of yoga in the west, popularized by B.K. Iyengar and others also propelled the interest of Indian Ayurveda as many descended in Kerala for cure and recess.

India, particularly after the win of BJP in 2014, saw the spectacular rise of yoga guru Ramdev Baba and his business enterprise “Patanjali Ashram.’ Like he could bend his body effortlessly into many yogic poses, Baba kneaded the dough of preudo-nationalism, Hindu-religionism and traditionalism to push his products to take head on all the MNCs. Baba was undeterred by the high-pitched publicity and deep pockets of the international companies and for a while all seemed to be going on the right path. The MNCs meekly trying to imitate his products, toothpaste with clove-oil or salt and such. The threat of an Indian elephant upsetting the western layout was palpable.

Baba made the first bad move, trying to launch a chat app, ‘Kimbho,’ which bit dust even before its launch. The second bad move was, Patanjali’s rash take on all the MNCs, portraying them as enemies of our nation and their products inferior to his.  The latter moved court and obtained a restraining order on Patanjali on misleading advertisements.

The restless Baba, who always wants to be on the news, and finds distanced by the present government now has unleashed his new potent weapon, Coronil, a cure against Covid 19, which is the world is eagerly waiting for. Patanjali made a glitzy launch of the product yesterday and announced 100% cure, which soon drew severe criticism on the social media as well as from the Ayush Ministry, which distanced itself from the claimed invention.

The Uttarakhand Government promptly issued a clarification that his drug was merely licensed as a cure for cough and cold and at no time Patanjali made a reference that it will be considered as a cure for Covid. The company made tests with the product, allegedly disregarding the test protocols and procedures. The government has stayed any publicity or sale of the product until it verifies the veracity of Baba’s claims.

Soon the country divided into two groups, some considering the questioning of the all-knowing Baba as an onslaught on Swadeshi spirits and playing to the tunes of the powerful Allopathic pharmaceutical companies, and the other calling the drug a hoax and the effort a humbug.

Ayurveda cannot be itself doubted as there are good and bad in every treatment. If the drug passes all the quality parameters in Covid, no one will be happier than me. However, I shall reserve my optimism, knowing Baba and his penchant for remaining in news.

Germany has rubbished Homoeopathy, calling it fake. That has not deterred a mad rush to buy Arsenic album 30 as a preventive against Covid 19 all over the world.

Business is often a misery for some and opportunity for others!

Sampath Kumar

Intrépide Voix

We must stand together!

China’s betrayal of Nehru’s Panchsheel is not an isolated incident. I agree we were stunned, and the reasons for our loss are historical as to how the polity too betrayed the forces. The Chinese thought we were still in 1962 stage and attempted to repeat a Tibet in Sikkim. They were firmly repulsed by the Indian army. Despite a Chinese admitted 300 casualties, 800 Chinese soldiers could have been killed in the battle.

China has been brooding ever since and has been wary of India’s economic growth. However, despite calling ourselves ‘Non-aligned,’ India was markedly under Russian influence, which kept the USA, UK and the west distant from India. Morarji Desai as the PM was the first leader who attempted to change the balance allowing the USA in our country’s political space. Pakistan, on the other hand, was consistent in its opposition to India and sided with whoever was opposed to India. It thus became a puppet of China.

The annexation of Tibet was a significant step by China that had altered our relations forever. The Chinese reneged on the Panchsheel agreement and brought in troops to our borders. The Chinese expansionist designs badly needed the POK regions of Gilgit, Baltistan for the OBOR route, leading to Gwadar Port. The road will usurp parts of Pakistan, parts or the whole of Nepal, Bhutan and of course can pose an eternal threat to India.

It is not therefore surprising that the Indian government refused to become a signatory to the OBOR initiative, which only furthered the expansionist designs of China. For China, India is the biggest hurdle in the game plan of becoming a global power.

China considers all of Arunachal. Parts of Assam as theirs and are itching to take them from us. It has engaged in creating a string of pearls surrounding India, in Myanmar, Chittagong, Maldives, Seychelles, Pakistan, Oman Djibouti, Kenya and Tanzania. However, the Chinese may have erred in their attempt to become the third global power at the wrong time. They not only have now to tackle India, but also the US, Japan, Australia and South Korea, which has complicated the scenario further. I cannot but compliment India’s present aggressive foreign policy endeavours under PM Modi. Most countries, save Pakistan and Nepal, have not spoken against India in our current standoff with China.

China must back off from Galwan valley as it did grudgingly from Doklam. If it does, India would have scored yet again a tactical victory against the belligerence of China, like it did in Doklam. Our neighbours like Nepal or Pakistan cannot miss the point and might decide to discipline themselves for the present.

There are Indians, believing that our unarmed soldiers were pushed down the slope to be slaughtered by the Chinese. They also believe that no Chinese soldier died. The difference between India and China is, in our country, we tolerate such betrayers and anti-nationals, who have utter disregard for our nation, our pride and above all our armed forces. In China, on the contrary, such people are neither seen and silenced forever.

It is the Indian traitors that I’m concerned, than China, which our army can tackle today in conventional warfare.

Jai Hind

Sampath Kumar

Intrépide Voix

 

 

 

 

No to treachery!

I talked to a political leader, who is often critical of Prime Minister Modi. He felt that the Galwan clash between the Indian army and the Chinese forces is merely Modi’s desperate attempt to divert attention from the government’s failure to control Covid crisis, the migrant problems and the economy.

I tried to explain the difference between Modi and the nation, but it was in vain. I stepped aside as I usually do when idiots wobble. He is reading and if brave enough, will identify and continue to debate in an open forum.

We have become a nation with many zombies let loose, badmouthing the Prime Minister for every treacherous attack from internal or external forces. The successive attempts by China to encircle India must not be missed by any Indian. They influenced Seychelles into cancelling an Indian Naval yard in their tiny nation. The Chinese influenced the Maldives and installed a puppet president. They have done it in Nepal and rescinded the Hindu tag from the nation. They have influenced Bhutan, from their neutral stand to a pro-China tilt. They have Pakistan as their tail-wagging dog. The Chinese are influencing Bangladesh to set up a submarine yard. They already have a submarine facility in Myanmar.

These may be inconsequential to the influence they have with the Gandhi family and the Congress party, with which they have an overt relationship. Besides, they have the Left, who have an umbilical connection with China and can shout from any rooftop, “China’s chairman is our chairman!”

It is these kinds of collaborators who pose a danger to the nation. They control the media, unleash their gang of thugs who troll, intimidate and abuse every voice to the contrary on the social networks. For them, the goal is just one, shame Modi, even if it is at the cost of shame to the nation.

Today, the PM had called an all-party meeting to explain the Chinese attacks. The usual acerbic Mamata Banerjee and a consistent bête noire of Modi showed her solidarity with the Prime Minister and the government in his endeavour to check the Chinese manifestations. Sharad Pawar, another tall leader from Maharashtra, reprimanded the Congress scion, Rahul Gandhi over his earlier unfounded comments on ‘unarmed soldiers’ exposed at the borders.

The Congress acting President, Sonia Gandhi, characteristic of their party lines that the nation would have stood together with the government, but that was not to be as they (the Congress party) were still dark even at this late stage. The Galwan standoff with the Chinese, the most serious attack since the 1967 attack in Nathula. Modi and XI had met impromptu at Mahabalipuram a few months ago radiating a bonhomie and comradery, raising hope of an Asian 21st Century.

Xi, characteristic of the Chinese treachery and reminiscent of the 1962 Nehru’s backstabbing by Chou en Lai, reneged the agreements on honouring the LAC at Ladakh. Would the Congress party cancel their MOU with the Chinese Communist Party and stand with India? A Congress leader Zakir Hussain was arrested today for lauding the Chinese for the Galwan standoff. India wants to hear loud and clear India, ‘we are with the government,’ besides the sympathies for the dead. Traitors must be shown their place when it comes to national security.

Jai Hind!

Sampath Kumar

Intrépide Voix

India 2020 is not India 1962!

India 2020 is not India 1962!The Galwan valley violent attacks between Indian and Chinese soldiers have left 17 soldiers dead, including Col Santosh Babu, the Commanding officer of the Indian Army’s 16 Bihar Regiment. It is stated that no bullets were fired, and no guns used in the bloody scuffle, which was with iron-rods and clubs. Many soldiers were pushed into the cold river with sub-zero temperatures.

Galwan was not wholly unexpected, where India and China were staring eyeball to eyeball, similar to their confrontation in Doklam. The 73 days Doklam standoff ended with a status quo ante bellum. Both sides withdrew their troops from Doklam as China halted its road construction.

Ladakh is the territory in which the present confrontation took place, which the Chinese forcibly occupied after a battle India conceded with barely a fight in 1962. Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India, dismissed the defeat claiming, ‘not even a blade of grass grows in the regions occupied by the Chinese.” India always had misgivings over the Chinese expansionist and hegemonistic motives. However, India has been cautious due to its slow economic growth and long sanctions over its nuclear tests.

Ladakh was in the close focus of China, as it bordered Tibet, which China invaded in 1950. India offered refuge to many Tibetans, including Dalai Lama, their spiritual Guru, which provoked the Chinese. Buoyed by its decisive victory over Pakistan in 1972, India admitted Sikkim on 16th January 1975. China missed a plan to invade India from Sikkim side but did not stop causing disturbances through various Gorkha fronts and Communist elements in the region. For China, India is the only force to reckon with, as the pacific rim nations and China’s South Eastern neighbours all have fallen in line bowing to the trade might of China. 

India in 1971 war had only Russia as its friend and the Soviet Leader  Leonid Brezhnev promptly sending in their submarine fleet to counter the US Seventh fleet, ensuring our winning march in the war of Bangladesh liberation with Pakistan. Since then India’s foreign policy has undergone a steep change, tilting towards the US and the West. China is offended by India’s participation in Quad, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue an informal strategic dialogue between the United States, Japan, Australia and India to counter China’s dominance in the strategic South-China Seas.

The disturbance in Galwan will end soon, but the nuisance of a mighty neighbour annoying us has to be contained once and for all. India cannot afford to be dismissive, as earlier witnessed in events like Capt. Saurabh Kalia’s mutilation and killing by a much weaker Pakistan. Non-repulsive action will only embolden all our enemies to raise their heads like a hydra.

Strange that a few opposition leaders are unable to distinguish the difference between the treacherous and pre-planned attack by a national concern, but are rejoicing over the pressure on the Prime Minister of India. I am now seeing more reference disparagingly to PM Modi’s reference to his 56″ chest. Do we at all have something called national pride?

Rahul Gandhi asks, “Why is the PM silent? Why is he hiding? Enough is enough. We need to know what happened. How dare China kill our soldiers? How dare they take our land?” I would like to say,”Please dig your family archives and the role of Jawaharlal Nehru for the whole mess.”

Jai Hind.

Sampath Kumar

Intrépide Voix

The Chinese checkers!

On the 5th August 2019, India changed the constitutional status of Jammu & Kashmir, making them Union Territories, while creating a separate Ladakh region administered by a Lt. Governor alone, by revoking the special status granted to them under Article 370.

China all along viewed India with growing concern, despite its winning the 1962 war, which India conceded due to strategy lapses. Militarily, India had strengthened well, is a nuclear power and have won all the wars decisively after the Indo-China war between India and Pakistan in 1965, 1971 and 1999.

China has been wooing India’s neighbouring countries, which is being thwarted and neutralised by Indian diplomacy. The latest  Nepal actions, of passing a bill to include itself areas purportedly belonging to India are but a Chinese provoked proxy war, similar to what it did with the help of Abdulla Yameen, a pro-China Maldives President, who was ousted later. Nepal’s juvenile and sledgehammer action will fade out soon, and it’s Prime Minister Oli moving out.

India’s US tilt is more pronounced now than ever during the last six years of Modi’s regime. India and US have several military alliances struck between them. India also has stitched up military relations with Vietnam, Australia and Japan, while furthering its closeness with Israel. It has kept Russia also in good humour buying their lethal S-400 surface-to-air missile delivery system, pooh-poohing the threat of US sanctions.

China has been licking its wound inflicted by Trump regime over trade disputes and now finds internationally an outcast over its non-disclosure of crucial Covid related data. Its macho image seemed dented badly than ever before.  China has also been after recapturing Taiwan, the latter rejecting the offers with disdain. It has territorial disputes with India, Vietnam, Philippines, Japan and Indonesia.

The standoff at Doklam was a test case to judge India’s tenacity, and the Indian army did not budge an inch, with the Chinese forced to back off. While India was busy fighting Covid and was in a total lockdown, the Chinese surreptitiously advanced into Ladakh and faced the Indian army. Modi and President Xi, during their Mahabalipuram tête-à- tête agreed to respect the LAC, which was given a go by the Chinese.

China is facing a severe challenge within as well in Hong Kong, where protests have been on for the last eight months. Boris Johnson, the UK PM, has offered citizenship to the 3 million residents of Hong Kong if they face any persecution by China. The other major challenge for China is the US Congress tabling a bill for the Independence of Tibet, which China has forcibly occupied.

India is now the Board’s Chair of WHO and is returning to the UNSC as a non-permanent member. India is one of the signatories to initiate an investigation into the origin of the Coronavirus, which China is not comfortable to face. These have riled China.

To blunt India’s rise as a parallel power is pertinent to China’s ambitious re-emergence as the dominant and undisputed world power. Therefore, China does not want to withdraw its position from the Galwan Valley that overlooks a new Indian highway built to supply New Delhi’s most forward military base at Daulat Beg Oldi, or the Pangong Lake vicinity. By hitting out at India, China’s OBOR dream rolls on, its investments in South East Asia, Africa and East Europe secure and its hegemony wider than ever.

US and NATO must move their focus from Russia to China and India must not lose its vigil on the crafty manifestation of its eastern neighbour. 

It’s time to strengthen our industry too, to respond to lesser dependence on Chinese merchandise to hit them in every way. Nepal’s brazen attempts will fizzle out soon!

Despite the fury and the fire, it is inconvenient time for the Chinese to venture into any misadventure right now, but it seems they are in a hurry to redeem their prestige and power.

Jai Hind.

Sampath Kumar

Intrépide Voix

Indian healthcare!

Healthcare is a right for every Indian. Indian had the highest allocation of Rs.69000 crores in the 2019-20 budget. With a 130 crores population, it works out to Rs.530 per head or Rs. 1.45 per person per day. No wonder, we have more quacks and fake doctors abounding rural India, taking the gullible villagers for a ride. Thankfully, the villagers get less sick than the townsfolks, prone to pollution and stressful living styles.

Covid19 is the first pandemic that is impacting India and revealing the hopeless inadequacies in its health infrastructure. It includes woefully inadequate beds, healthcare professionals and equipment.

Even without the Covid, the government-run hospitals are a scare, with poor hygiene, many patients sharing a single bed and untrained persons attending to severe cases.
We come across news of sweepers or other menial staff even stitching up post-operative cases, rates nibbling away children and dogs carrying newborns.

Successive governments merely criticize the previous ones for failing to rise to the needs of our countrymen, and the earlier governments dodging the attacks claiming mitigating hunger as the then priority. Thus, we have covered 73 years after our attaining independence and might cross a few more decades to enjoy equal healthcare for all Indians.

The entry of private insurance into health sector has queered the pitch further. I have seen the hospitals squeezing every paise of the insurance limits of the patients admitted on one pretext or other. I have witnessed consulting doctors in private hospitals and nursing homes pressurized for generating revenue. The nexus between the pathology labs and the doctors are no secret either.

Medical is no more a noble profession, but a horrendous linkage between pharma companies, nursing homes and labs, where the patients become voiceless guinea pigs. The noble doctors, a few close friends of mine included, find themselves outcast or fighting a losing battle against systemic attacks and end up as recluses and depressed.

Covid has once again exposed the fangs of the healthcare criminals, who are refusing patients or demanding unthinkable sums as an advance for providing a bed. There are cases where critical patients are denied admission in many hospitals, and the patients breathing their last.

With upwards of Rs.5 lacs as the minimum upfront, non-returnable sum to be paid at the admission, where is India heading? Covid is not akin to cancer, acquired by smoking or drinking but is thrust on some hapless ones, cursed I can say. How could they have many lacs to pay up for treatment?

The problem lies elsewhere. The population of 370 million at the time of independence, adding 350% has to be curbed. We can’t just produce like rabbits and seek the best of healthcare and facilities. No government has the guts to ask people to control the size of their families for the benefits of votes. More than two children are now discouraged by very few states and with the limited threat of denial of jobs in the government. The disincentives have to be better than that, as we should incentivize smaller families.

It’s now or never!

Sampath Kumar
Intrépide Voix

Can we boycott China?

India had a bitter experience losing the 1962 war with China, the painful wounds still raw and suddenly hurting ever since the India-China standoff at Doklam in 2017 and now in Ladakh. A belligerent and cash-rich China has been encircling India, wooing our neighbours like Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nepal, Myanmar and Bangladesh with critical infrastructures like sea and airports with civil and military uses in mind. The OBOR road, which is built right through POK territory is a direct challenge to our country’s safety and integrity.

The Ladakh standoff is one of the latest hardline postures by China, and high-level diplomatic moves, as well as military-level negotiations, are underway to push the Chinese back to the LOC.

There is a substantial nationalistic and patriotist cry to boycott Chinese products and hit them where it hurts. Our economy is under severe strain for the last two years, and the Covid 19 has further damaged the prospects of a revival of business fortunes any soon. The scenario is further aggravated by the return of millions of maltreated migrants to their homes. The industries in urban cities will suffer for quite a while with a shortage of labour force, and it could take more than sweet words to woo them back to work any time soon.

We have to tread carefully to the question if India can sustain a boycott of Chinese products, and if so in what categories. India imports steel, chemical and pharma intermediates and raw materials, hardware for mobile phones, electronics and computers etc. where we are not geared up to replace China. Business people from Korea or Japan are not philanthropists and would draw their pound of flesh in every deal, pushing costs higher.

We have to draw a clear line, on items that India can produce, even if with marginally higher costs and products for which there are no alternatives other than Chinese. Chinese exports are 2.5 Trillion US$, of which our purchases are US$ 75 Bn, which is less than 3% of their total exports. On the contrary, our exports of $ 17 Bn is 5.3% of our total exports. It will not hurt China much if India stops importing any goods from China. On the other hand, India could burn itself with a total trade boycott.

Therefore, rather than rhetoric, we must ask ourselves what we wish to do, whether to hurt China, or whether to hurt India. Battles are won, with proper planning and adequate back-ups, the lack of the latter cost us our 1962 war. A trade war is no different. We need to strengthen our industry, make it competitive and learn to honour timely deliveries and compliances.

Mixing nationalism and trade may help in the exposure of various shortcomings in our infrastructure and system but cannot resolve them. A total revamps and revival of selected sectors to take on the Chinese can be achieved only with the adoption of the latest technologies. India must relook into our entire imports from China, protecting indigenous industry, and alternative sources from wherever so as not to be taken off-guard.

Atmanirbhar Bharat, a self-reliant India is every Indian’s dream, as is mine too!

Sampath Kumar

Intrépide Voix

Environment day

The environment day, 5th June, was two days ago, I waited for the many tree plantation posts, or laments over the indifference of humans towards the protection of the environment.

Covid took away two lac people but sealed the 1.5 million square miles of the ozone hole in our atmosphere as well. Covid also reversed a part of the damage humanity has done to nature. The Himalayas is now visible from places where it was never seen before and waters from the rivers drinkable and pure where it was unfit for even bathing. The historical pollution levels in most metros fell drastically, as it did especially in Delhi.

In the meanwhile, the Cyclone Amphan felled more than 5500 trees in Kolkata alone, while damaging hundreds of thousands of hectares of standing crops. Bunds were breached in many places, inundating several villages in Bengal and Odisha.

The environment is not merely to do with webinars, tree plantations and photo-ops. The need to respect nature must be taught from the toddler stage, in the schools, and the colleges. Trees are one of the essential parts, as is the preservation of rivers and water bodies. The water bodies are the worst impacted due to an increase in the value of the land. The ponds and lakes are filled for construction activities with the criminal nexus of promoters and lawmakers, which must end.

People will have to be discerning while electing their political representatives. If you have leaders who will not bat an eyelid to demand a withdrawal of say, a Ramsar label to the East Kolkata wetlands, which are the lungs of the city, we should dare and show them the door. We should show the door to leaders who wantonly destroy forests in the name of mining or otherwise. 

An area equivalent to three football fields of forests is destroyed every minute in this world.

The environment is not complete without safeguarding the animals, birds and insects like bees. We are witnessing the harm that we have done, annihilating species after species, upsetting the food chain and forcing the changes in the ocean currents and the consequent ravaging cyclones. We have to work hard to undo it.

None admits to the high population the earth suffers to support. With depleting glaciers, rivers are in danger of drying up, which could cause a problem of unthinkable magnitude to riverine civilizations. The business of votes must end when it comes to the preservation of the environment and natural resources.

Industrialization cannot be at the cost of detriment to nature. We must ensure to strike a balance to adopt sustainable technologies, whether it is for agriculture or manufacturing. Newer bio-degradable plastics, more unique textiles consuming lesser water and lasting longer, higher per acreage yield of food, lesser use of private vehicles and more reliance on public transport could be an immediate wish list, which could be longer if we do have to make earth calmer and beautiful.

The challenges could be thrilling!

Sampath Kumar

Intrépide Voix

No place for vandalism!

America continues to burn, curfew declared in as many as 40 cities, all emanating from the brutal killing of George Floyd, by a Minneapolis cop. The US President could have averted the mayhems had he climbed down from the high pedestal of the presidency and became a human being like anyone else. There is no substitute for the kneeling-down cops as a mark of showing empathy, which touched everyone’s hearts.

The angst of a harried society, with the double whammy of job losses from Covid, increased the speedy spread of the protests pan America. It was perfect timing for criminal elements to break into stores and loot, torch vehicles and take on other police officers.

The killing is a cold-blooded horror, not permissible in any civilized country, be it in India or the US. I had to mention India because there are pathetic cursed souls in our country, who think what the cop did under the circumstances could have been right. I had no option to steer away from such unacceptable thoughts and people.

Criminal elements, as opposed to democracy and the rule of law, have hijacked the genuine and spontaneous protests. Looting and scooting have no place in any society. There could be enemies of the US, promoting the arsonous acts and enjoying the agony of the USA. They must not get a foothold in accentuating the crisis.

If any amends have to be done for the murder, the country must prevent their cops behaving like wild-west cowboys. Inclusivity, merely a part of the constitution must be fiercely promoted in its real sense into all realms of the US society.

I hope and pray that the POTUS refrains again from tweeting anything remotely furthering the inflammation. India’s relations with the US have entered a crucial phase, and our trade and security may have an adverse implication with the US on the boil. Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela can never be more relevant than today.

Let us hope for peace and health returns to the US.

Sampath Kumar
Intrépide Voix