Moral and political standards, it would appear, bear an uncanny resemblance to a volatile stock market: up one day, down the next. Recently, the International War Criminal Court sentenced a Congolese tribal leader to a long prison sentence for his and his army’s horrific roles in the rape, plunder and killings in a cruel civil war. The punishment clearly fitted their crime. What is unusual is that during its existence the people brought to trial for grave crimes and misdemeanours have been reserved exclusively for Africa. Universal human rights, the rule of law and other such pieties drummed into the skulls of recalcitrant unbelievers with verbal chain-saws from on high, leaving the denizens of the Third World – ‘the lesser breeds without the law’- puzzled and suitably aggrieved. Western civilisation, Western values, held up as panaceas for disorders of the spirit and flesh, are opiates, pain killers designed to dull an active conscience.
The American record of carpet bombing and chemical defoliation resulting in deaths of millions in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia is a devastating indictment, as is the desolation of the American military presence in the Greater Middle East and North Africa, and the thousands of displaced, impoverished humanity braving the deep in cockle shells in a bid to escape the inferno and reach European shores, compounded by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki crimes beyond rational comprehension.
Twaddle about Western or European values against this shaming canvas of tragedy and cynicism is surely a page from hell itself. But contrition from the vain and boastful perpetrators is futile. The pillaging and destruction of an Asian adversary echoes Adolf Hitler, for whom Asia meant Russia, which he pilloried as ‘Asiatic Bolshevik, Jewish,’ and hence to be razed, its mainly Slav population shacked as slave labour, their lands to be colonised by the Teutonic knights of German Nazism. The intensifying demonization of Russia in the United States and its European allies carries dangers well recognized by the indomitable US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. Present-day Russia is a military superpower, its arsenal on alert against any surprise assault from the West, unlike that of the German invasion of June 1941. Then, at the cost of millions dead and maimed, the Red Army fought back from the gates of Moscow, Stalingrad and Leningrad stormed Berlin, reducing the vaunted Thousand Year Reich to rubble. Russia is no banana republic. According to Forbes business magazine, the country’s foreign exchange reserves are near $550 billion, its gold reserves another $550 billion. US sanctions far from crippling the Russian economy, has strengthened it, forcing the government to take critical economic counter measures. Considering Russia was socially and economically crippled, debt-ridden to foreign lenders, its revival since 2000, when Vladimir took of the reins has been spectacular. President Putin is a giant; the abuse and vilification of his country, and himself, by the American and Western media are the blind envy and exasperated vanity of disappointed humanity.
John Bolton, the Trump administration’s former National Security Adviser, let the cat out of the bag by stating unequivocally that neither the United States nor its European allies would ever submit to the jurisdiction the International Criminal Court, however damning the evidence. Mr Bolton, not one for niceties. prefers shooting from the hip, as did sheriffs in numberless Hollywood Westerns - the white ‘law man’ establishing his writ over the stubbornly savage ‘Red man’.
A respected elderly political Democrat with lifetime experience of public life in his native Ohio and Washington told the popular Larry King, talk show host, of his deep misgiving about the fissures dividing America by his party’s ill-advised impeachment proceedings against President Trump; of disastrous American meddling in Syria and kindred other places, even as the country needed urgent attention on its endemic social, environmental, educational and infrastructural problems.
US foreign policy is a bundle of contradictions: the popular uprising in Bolivia at the ousting by the country’s military of a democratically elected President Evo Moralis is rousingly welcomed by the Trump administration as an affirmation of democracy, but demonstrations and violence in Chile at spiralling price rises and 27 dead on the streets of Santiago from police firing receive no censure in Washington. One must fervently hope that these quick sands of capricious unpredictability do not lead to Armageddon.
India engineering, research, design powerhouse
It was January. German upmarket carmaker Mercedes Benz unveiled an Artificial Intelligence [AI] enabled entertainments system at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, USA, the world’s largest consumer technology event. The AI system – which responds to the driver’s hand gestures - was synonymous with the famed German penchant for engineering excellence. However, the showcased technology on view was conceived and designed, not in Germany, but in faraway Bangaluru, India, at the Mercedes research centre.
India is fast becoming an engineering research and design powerhouse, both for itself and for a host of high tech foreign companies who have set up base in the city. Indian engineers are building parts for Boeing, the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer; they are making robots that weld offshore pipelines, and creating patents for image recognition and autonomous design in the research hubs of global companies and third party providers in Bengaluru.
“We think engineering research and development is the next big thing and it has the potential to rival IT services in terms of revenue opportunity and employment,’”said Manu Saale, CEO, Mercedes Benz Research and Development, India. “The mood is upbeat.” The National Association of Software and Services Companies says that Engineering R&D could be worth as much as $100 billion by 2025.
Indian companies are sparing no effort to raise their game to compete in engineering research and development in the global market. ‘We have talked about Make-in-India as a way of improving the country, but Create-in-India and Design-in-India could provide ten times the benefit,’ said Kar Natarajan, Head– Engineering, IOT and Enterprise Mobility at Tech Mahindra.
“We have this critical mass of people who know how to manage end-to-end product cycles and project managers and everything you would need to know about this,” says Natarajan. The Engineering Research and Development space already employs around 700,000 people and around 40 Research & Development of the Indian hubs of a global company were set up last year. Mercedes Benz and Boeing are in India with standalone Research & Development companies such as the publicly listed L&T Technology Services are an unfolding reality.
Kolkata: Pink city extraordinary
India’s first day-night Test match was an extravaganza to savour. A cast of thousands thronged the fabled Eden Gardens, including multitudes from neighbouring Bangladesh, whose Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina flew in from Dhaka for the opening day to a warmly welcoming West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Indian cricket board President Sourav Ganguly, himself Bengali and former Indian Test captain in a team of legends who, together with stars of an earlier generation, were paraded around the ground to loud applause from the stands. India prevailed by an innings and 46 runs, withstanding the vagaries of the pink ball more comfortably than their less experienced opponents, their slip catching awesome, their pace bowling relentlessly penetrative. The talismanic Virat Kohli, cynosure of all eyes, gave a batting master class, pink ball and all, scoring 136 runs, his 27th Test century and a record sequence of Test wins as captain. What might he achieve as batsman and captain in the coming years are secrets which only the gods can reveal.
