India’s new Minister of External Affairs may be S. Jaishankar, once head of its bureaucracy, and hence an experienced hand in international diplomacy. A specialist on the United States, China and Japan, he has the required skills to keep India’s ties with Washington and Beijing on an even keel – separately defined, one from the other. The US belongs to a category better understood; China, on the other hand, fits Winston Churchill’s description of Russia in an earlier age, as a ‘riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.’ China’s political autism represents a challenge for India that is likely to extend well into the future.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the controller of Indian foreign policy, the guiding star of its initiatives . His first visits abroad were to the neighbourhood states of the Maldives and Sri Lanka, both emerging from existential domestic crises.
The Maldives survived a year-long Yameen dictatorship, which tilted heavily towards China and Pakistan. Relations with India were fraught, but New Delhi weathered the strain with admirable patience. The reward arrived when the Yameen government called fresh elections, confident of a further mandate in office. The result was its demolition as a new India-friendly regime swept to power. Prime Minister Modi spoke of India’s desire for a warm, equitable debt-free relationship with the Maldives – an oblique reference to the crippling debt the country had run up in free-wheeling Chinese infrastructure aid.
Mr Modi’s next stop was Sri Lanka, where his welcome was especially warm. The country had recently endured the shattering experience of Islamist bombings of Christian churches, masterminded by a local Muslim businessman, Zahran Hashim, whose factories manufactured the bombs. Some 258 innocent civilians perished in the blasts; foreign tourism – a source of valuable foreign exchange – was severely affected.
President Maitripala Sirisena, noted previously for his pro-China sympathies had pitted himself against Prime Minister Ranil Wickeringsinghe, who was more kindly disposed to India. The financial burden arising from Chinese infrastructure aid entered the public space. A divided administration took little heed of Indian intelligence warnings of a possible, looming disaster. Mr Modi visited the bombed churches, offering condolences and promising intensified Indian cooperation in combating Jihadi terrorism. The arrests of seven jihadi suspects in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, believed to be in league with the Sri Lankan bombers, underscored the need for a closer alignment between the two governments on national security.
Farther afield, India received a warm message of thanks from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for voting against UN observer status for a Palestinian group with proven Hamas links. Prime Minister Netanyahu assured Mr Modi of Israel’s fullest support to India in fighting jihadi terror. The door to India’s free lunches for the Arab League and the ritual condemnations of Indian policy on Kashmir by the Organization of Islamic Conference, has been slammed shut.
Finally, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) at Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, was inaugurated by host President Sooronbai Jeenbelov. Indian broadsheets gave pride of place to the meeting between Prime Minister Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping – a formal handshake, pleasant banalities on the Premier’s election victory, the need for closer Sino-Indian ties, including closure to their territorial dispute: all these easier said than done. China has the interests of its ‘all weather friend,’ Pakistan to consider, as well as it own on the broader chessboard of international relations, where India’s role is perceived by Beijing to be permanently subordinate to that of China.
Indian broadsheet reports were a melange of platitudes culled from press handouts, or from well thumbed filed clichés, incapable or unwilling to unable to break the mould of borrowed wisdom. Serious reading in history is a low premium undertaking.
The Hindu newspaper gave front-page coverage to Modi-Xi meeting, reams that were carried over to an inside page. The Hindu is the only English-language Indian newspaper to publish full-page Chinese advertising copy - the financial rewards apparently returned in its size of the Modi-Xi parleys.
Not a line was reserved for the Modi-Putin talks and its far-reaching outcomes, including a summit in Moscow, followed by an invitation to Mr Modi to be Chief Guest at the Vladivostok Economic Forum.
Where the Modi-Xi began and ended with a formal handshake, the Modi-Putin meeting opened with a long, warm bear hug. The camera rarely lies, but the message was lost on The Hindu, for which this was a non-event. When only money talks, what price is press freedom?
Cricket will unite people
One of the most important benefits of a cricket match is that it will unite people from different parts of the world. All cricket fans will gather at the ground and enjoy the game. It will create a comradeship among the fans. It will also be an outing for the families. Another important aspect is the financial reward. The organisers will be able to collect much needed funds which will be spent for the betterment of the game. Funds are needed for the upgradation of the game. The England and Wales Cricket Board is lately struggling to meet its expenses. The World Cup will boost its coffers and it will augur will for the future of the game. It will also imbibe sportsmanship among the people.
The Indian Captain Virat Kohli and his team are treating the clash against Pakistan in Manchester as just another game. In their mind or in their practice sessions, they're doing nothing out of the ordinary. According to him, the team has 'literally' not discussed anything different from what they have since arriving in England.
The Indian Captain explained that India will purely focus on their own game irrespective of the opposition. "As cricketers who have been selected to play for their country, our responsibility is to treat every game equally because you have to be committed to play for your country every game that you play regardless of the opposition," he said.
"We can't get too emotional or too over excited with any occasion that we play in. So obviously, the mindset of the player is always going to be different from that of the fans. You can't mix the two.
"You can't expect the fans to think in a professional manner, focusing on each ball. Our attention span has to be very precise on the field because we have that split second to make a decision.
"But from the fans' point of view, looking at the atmosphere and frenzy around the game, I wouldn't say it's easy to think like a player. For the players, it's very, very crucial to be absolutely professional and beat any team you're up against,” he concluded.
Indian-led US team Alzheimer cure
A team led by Dr Kiran Bhaskar, an Indian American scientist at the University of New Mexico, is reported to have made a key breakthrough in the drive to make a vaccine for the cure of the Alzheimer disease, a brain affliction that results in serious memory loss. Around 50 million of the world’s population are struck down by Alzheimer.
In a recent paper published in NPJ Vaccines, Dr Bhaskar, an Associate Professor at the university, and his team at the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, reported that it had engineered virus-like particles that eliminate the ‘tau tangles’ in mice, bred to develop symptoms similar to those affecting patients with Alzheimer. Dr Bhaskar and his team discovered that when they when the vaccine was administered to Alzheimer-stricken mice, they developed antibodies that eliminated the tau protein from their brains – the response lasting for months. MRI scans revealed that the vaccinated rodents had diminished brain shrinkage proving the vaccine had prevented the protective neurons from dying.
‘We’re excited by these findings, because they seem to suggest that we can use the body’s own immune system to make antibodies against the tangles, and that these antibodies actually bind and clear these tau tangles,’ said Nicole Maphis, a PhD candidate and member of the Bhaskar team.
However, Dr Kiran Bhaskar was cautious about the timeline for the vaccine to market. “We’ve got to make sure that we have a clinical version of the vaccine s that we can test in people,’ he said. At least there is the first glimmer of light at the end of this horrifically dark tunnel.
