| | | Good morning! | | I have been thinking a lot about the Dongmen wet market, in China's Guangdong province. In 2003, samples taken from there showed palm civets carrying the coronavirus that caused Sars, the first big pandemic of this century, although it would be another decade before researchers would conclusively prove the link between horseshoe bats (the original hosts of the virus), palm civets, and people. The reason I have been thinking about Dongmen is because, like many others, I've started worrying about zoonotic diseases after Covid-19 (caused by another coronavirus, Sars-CoV-2; Sars was caused by Sars-CoV), and recent reports of law enforcement agencies seizing exotic species of wildlife being smuggled into India from Myanmar have filled me with dread. It's possible the trade in exotic pets is behind this. HT's Joydeep Thakur was among the first to write about this — when some kangaroos were seized in Assam. Then came the seizure of some Siamangs in Manipur. And the most recent was the seizure of reptiles, a wild cat (it looks like a Cerval), and two-toed sloths (reports said three-toed, but the animals actually look more like the two-toed variety). I've picked these species to give some idea of the spread. These are animals native, respectively, to Australia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Central and South America. Coincidentally, Joydeep's special story (it appeared in HT's Pick of The Day section) on the illegal wildlife trade (all these are species on which trade is not allowed, unless it is between zoos, and there was the very peculiar involvement of the Indore zoo in the case of the kangaroos) appeared on Monday, two days before the Cerval, sloths, and many reptiles, were seized in Mizoram. As anyone who has read David Quammen's Spillover and the chapter from that he grew into a separate book, The Chimp & the River (on the origin of AIDS) knows, all it takes for zoonoses (the transfer of viruses from host animals to humans) is one encounter. The ministries of home, environment, and health would do well to work together to get to the bottom of the issue. We've been warned. Illegal wildlife trade, wet markets, and diets built around bushmeat are not the only causes of zoonoses. This newsletter wrote about the iceberg study in Nature, showing how the climate crisis would increase encounters between species that had never met before. It's almost as if everything is finely balanced (or imbalanced) — and that anything out of the ordinary will result in chaos. And by anything, I mean just that — anything. For instance, it is increasingly becoming clear that the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its impact on energy prices will affect India's transition plans to green energy. The country's plan was to use gas as a bridging fuel as it moved away from coal — only, with gas prices being where they are, that isn't going to be possible. | | THINK  (Click to expand) The sharp increase in commodity prices, largely on account of what's happening in Europe, has resulted in runaway inflation in India, and over the past week, the government has launched an offensive against that — which is expected to work, albeit with a lag. | | THINK MORE The Narendra Modi government's battle against inflation comes even as it completes eight years in office. HT reviewed the performance of India's second National Democratic Alliance government through four essays — penned by Prashant Jha, Roshan Kishore, and Dhrubo Jyoti. Politics and policy: The eight years have changed how elections are fought (and won); "how political power is exercised"; and how this has "transformed political and social realities on the ground". Economy: The big challenge for the government isn't about reforms — but about rebooting a flagging economy. Welfare: No government has been as focused on efficient welfare delivery, or as smart in leveraging welfarism for electoral returns, than the NDA-II. Foreign policy: Three principles — "national security, India's domestic economic transformation, and the security of Indian citizens" — and three relationships — with the US, China, and Pakistan, have characterised India's foreign policy push over the past eight years. | | KNOW If you're from the generation for which the phrase "Turn on, tune in, drop out" has meaning — I am — then this week's Scientifically Speaking column by Anirban Mahapatra should have struck a chord (or, to stay true to the context, sparked a flashback). "Can magic mushrooms treat persistent depression?" That's the question Mahapatra asks — and goes on to answer. | | LEARN Unit-level readings of the National Family Health Survey-5 became available this month, and HT's data team scoured it for insights, and tried to answer some questions. 1. India has a big inequality problem — bigger, perhaps, than indicated by NFHS. 2. Don't be misled by the headlines — the number and proportion of meat eaters in India is increasing. 3. How to read India's falling fertility rate? 4. Did the pandemic affect employment in India? 5. Are Indian women truly empowered? | | | | READ MORE The Quad is a validation of Narendra Modi's India-first approach, writes S Jaishankar. Stockbroker, film director, real-estate agent, husband — the conman and the many women he swindled. The piles medicine with a hush-hush formula — and how it led to murder. Investing in women's sport will close the pay gap between genders (in sport) says Snehal Pradhan. A faulty bio-toilet on the Rajdhani — and the (unresolved) corruption controversy behind it. | | OUTSIDE How to get better at Wordle? Simple, says this article in Quanta: remember the principles of information theory. Such as the one that says a wrong (but unobvious) guess should be able to provide more information than an obvious guess. As the article explains, if the first guess is BLOAT, and the A and T turn yellow (right letter, wrong place), and the second (and inspired guess) WATCH, and A, T,C, and H turn green, then guessing CHIMP is a better move than guessing MATCH because in the first case, the player will definitely get the word on the next try, while in the second, it is possible for the player to not get the correct word at all before chances run out. And CHIMP is just what information theory would suggest. | | WHAT I'M READING  (Click to expand) My friend Dr Rajat Chauhan's Movemint Medicine (co-authored with Dr Darren Player). Rajat is one of the clearest thinkers I've met when it comes to exercise (and running), and this book builds on many of the ideas he has shared in our conversations and the columns and podcasts he did for Mint when I used to work there (that's how we first met). Over the years, I've met many people who have benefited from his knowledge — which has helped them overcome their mental challenges (the physical ones are not as difficult) to exercise (or simply, movement). | | WHAT I'M LISTENING TO A cult classic — and a not very-well-known one at that, Gene Clark's No Other. Few albums I've heard are as musically rich as this one, with the sheer diversity of instrumentation (and sound) making it a great LP to test new systems on. Clark's work on The Byrds is better known (and he was the moving force behind that band in its good years), and his songwriting skills were admired by Bob Dylan himself, but it is this solo album (released in 1974), trashed initially by the record label (they hated it so much, they didn't even issue a CD once that format became popular) and critics, and rediscovered in the last decade, that is his masterpiece. | Please share your feedback with us What do you think about this newsletter? | | Were you forwarded this email? Did you stumble upon it online? Sign up here. | | | | | | Get the Hindustan Times app and read premium stories | | | | | | View in Browser | Privacy Policy | Contact us You received this email because you signed up for HT Newsletters or because it is included in your subscription. Copyright © HT Digital Streams. All Rights Reserved | | | | |
