Running Toward Mystery || Tenzin Priyadarshi, Zara Houshmand
At the age of six, The Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi began having visions of a mysterious mountain peak, and of men with shaved heads wearing robes of the color of sunset. At the age of ten, he ran away from boarding school to find this place which he saw in his visions.
Running Toward Mystery is the Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi’s profound account of his lifelong journey as a seeker. At its heart is a story of striving for enlightenment, the vital importance of mentors in that search, and of the many remarkable teachers he met along the way, among them the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Mother Teresa.
Here’s an excerpt from the book.
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I was six years old in 1985, when the dreams and visions had started. The very first time too, there was no question that I was wide awake. I was with a friend who lived in the same compound, at Evelyn Lodge, where our bungalow was. I had gone to his apartment to ask him to play and we were walking toward the cricket field when I saw what looked at first like streaks and patches of orange in the sky. Was it sun- set already? That would mean it was time to go home, but it couldn’t be. We hadn’t even started playing. Then the colors resolved into shapes and their outlines became clear. Men in robes of that saffron sunset color, with shaved heads, were milling about. There was a deer and a small hut. Some of the men went into the hut and came out again. It was as vivid as if I were watching a scene from life.
“Do you see that?”
My friend followed my gaze, squinting into the sky. “See what?” He swung the bat at nothing. I pinched myself. That was what you were supposed to do if you thought you were dreaming. It made no difference. Slowly, as we continued to walk, the scene faded into the sky and disappeared. Later, when I got home, I told my parents, but they said I must have imagined it.
I worried that there was something wrong with my eyes. But I had no trouble seeing the blackboard in class, or the ball when it was my turn to bat, or the mangoes hanging in the orchard, waiting for my arrows. And if it was my mind that wasn’t right? Well, it was right enough in all other depart- ments. My grades were excellent.
And so it was forgotten, no big deal, and the memory would have been lost in the jumbled closet of a child’s mind if I hadn’t seen the other things later. There was a place that I dreamt of again and again, but even when I was awake it ap- peared very clearly to my mind’s eye: A rocky peak loomed above a plain, wrapped in woods and scrub but with boulders and a cliff face exposed. I had a bird’s-eye view, but I could see no buildings, no human mark on the landscape, nothing to hint at where this place was or why it should rouse in me a lingering sweetness, a yearning. It was as perplexing as the man who kept visiting my dreams, and just as persistent. There were other people who appeared at times, some with shaved heads and some with dreadlocks, wearing different shades of yellow, orange, or red. But he was the one I saw most clearly.
I was old enough to know that dreams, however weird they might seem, are normally rooted in the workings of our own minds and that waking hallucinations are not normal. I didn’t have a theory—not even a half-baked hint—about what these intrusions in my mind might signify. They seemed to come from beyond me, beyond the world of logical sense, a genuine mystery that begged to be solved.
Now I lay there in the darkened room, listening to the random snuffles and snores of a hundred sleeping boys, and felt a mounting sense of urgency. I wasn’t going to get any closer to the answer by lying here wide awake until the morning bell.
To find it, I needed to go out and search for it. After all, mysteries are how adventures begin.
It was time. I crept out of bed slowly. There was just enough shadowy light spilling over from the foyer to see by. Moving as quietly as possible, I put some clothes into a small daypack. I sat on the edge of the bed, so I didn’t have to risk the noise of pulling out the desk chair, and wrote a note to my parents. Just a few words that revealed nothing so much as a ten-year- old’s hubris—that I was leaving on a spiritual quest and didn’t know where it would take me, but they shouldn’t worry. I slid the note under the wooden lid of the desk.
Bilal Siddiqi’s The Phoenix is a classic roller coaster of intrigue, vengeance and excitement. Read an extract here.
Mumbai
The Gateway of India was beautifully illuminated in honour of the victims of that fateful night of 26 November 2008. It had now been over a decade since the day those ten Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists swarmed in and carried out a series of attacks that brought the city to its knees. The coordinated massacre had lasted about four days, taking at least 170 lives and leaving some 300 injured. The city had been under siege, but the residents began to pick up the broken pieces soon after, resuming their everyday lives with their indomitable spirit.
The city was now paying homage to the martyrs of 26/11. Around 200 people had gathered at the Gateway of India, and the number was increasing with every passing minute. A popular actor had just taken to the stage and was addressing the crowd. It was a sombre moment for everyone present—some were reduced to tears as they lit their candles and uttered their prayers. Little did they know that there were plans for an unprecedented attack to be carried out that very night by a patriot who had repeatedly put his life on the line for his country.
The Indian flag fluttered proudly in the wind. People bowed their heads in respect. The actor’s voice from the stage broke the two-minute silence…
Aryaman’s eyes met those of a policeman. They nodded to each other, and Aryaman put on his hoodie. The policeman stepped back and turned off the metal detector as Aryaman went through. Aryaman read the policeman’s name as he moved past: Sanjay Rane.
Although he had switched off the security system to allow Aryaman to pass, Rane went slightly against Eymen’s plan and frisked Aryaman when he saw that a fellow constable was casually looking over at him. Aryaman felt Rane’s hand go over the concealed vest. The frisking done, Rane cleared Aryaman and gently pushed him in towards the venue.
Aryaman moved past the crowd, reluctantly walking towards the centre… His unsure steps were being watched through a sniper scope by Eymen, who had perched himself atop a nearby terrace.
Eymen’s instructions could be clearly heard through the earpiece that Aryaman was wearing: ‘Any funny business and a bullet ends you on the spot. And I don’t have to tell you what happens to your family after that.’
Aryaman didn’t bother responding. He was going to do it. There were no two ways about that. He stepped on a poster that had the faces of the deceased printed on it with the words ‘Gone But Not Forgotten’, and he pushed past a group of children as he reached the centre.
A middle-aged woman looked at him disapprovingly. She saw his bruised face, his glassy eyes, his salt-and-pepper stubble and his dishevelled, greying hair. And then she witnessed something she couldn’t decipher until it was too late…
There was mayhem—the kind Aryaman had rarely witnessed. People began to scream and run haphazardly. The actor, who until a few moments ago had been talking about how Mumbai had risen like a phoenix from the ashes after the 26/11 attacks, was now being whisked away by security personnel into an armoured car. Aryaman was jostled and pushed to the ground by the frenzied crowd.
A security team of four, all in hazmat suits, rushed towards him. They handcuffed and dragged him along the ground towards an armoured vehicle.
Acclaimed tech reporter, Alex Kantrowitz, gives a fascinating insight into the inner workings of the Tech Titans —Amazon, Google and Facebook, playing with the Amazon mantra of ‘Day One’— code for inventing like a startup, with little regard for legacy and prioritizing reinvention over tradition and collaboration over ownership.
Through 130 interviews with insiders, from Mark Zuckerberg to hourly workers, Always Day One reveals the tech giants’ blueprint for success but also posits how the dystopian alternate reality of the popular series Black Mirror actually anticipates modern technology’s dark consequences.
Here are six quotes from Always Day One that illustrate how the Black Mirror is not far off – being slowly but surely shaped by Big Tech.
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The pervasiveness of technology is slowly ‘eroding meaning’ in our lives by altering our personal, financial and faith based equations.
In November 2018, Pew released a study looking at where Americans find meaning in their lives. The top three boil down to: (1) friends and family, (2) religion, and (3) work and money. Modern technology is weakening all three. The screen is warping our relationships with friends and family. We have more virtual friends than ever and fewer real ones, and a growing number of us have no friends at all.
The dystopian fantasy of a handful of AI- powered firms dominating the competition and controlling the economy is scarily similar to how big technological firms are operating even now.
“The dystopia is now,” Barry Lynn, director of the Open Markets Institute, told me. “The dystopia is not in the future.” To Lynn and the growing number of big- tech critics, the tech giants have already grown too big and powerful, and are causing real harm. While making this case in 2017, Lynn got himself, and his institute, ousted from the New America Foundation, which counts Google among its donors.
Always Day One || Alex Kantrowitz
Big Tech is shaping our worldview through their management of information enabled by their monopoly over the advertising revenue which funds news.
Advertising revenue declines have hit small and midsize papers especially hard, hollowing out local accountability reporting across the United States, a boon to local officials who would rather not be watched. Facebook and Google earned 60 percent of all dollars spent in US digital advertising in 2018, according to eMarketer, for a total of $65 billion.
Global dominance is empowering firms to shape the very nature of our reality with their monopoly over the products that are integral part of our lived experience.
Amazon has similarly used its platform power to hamper businesses that sell products through its systems, Lynn said. The company has built scores of its own “private label” brands that compete with its independent sellers, placing these sellers in a rough position: If they don’t work with Amazon, they’ll reach far fewer customers. If they do work with Amazon, the company might eventually displace their businesses.
Scientific research that shapes our future is controlled and shaped by big-tech, meaning that the futuristic dystopia of Black Mirror may be nearer than we think.
Tech companies are buying out not only entrepreneurs, but academics with artificial intelligence expertise as well. This practice is depleting the knowledge students will learn from before they head into the broader workforce. Over the past fifteen years, 153 artificial intelligence professors have left academia for private companies, according to a University of Rochester study.
If AI, which is the chief thrust of Big Tech wipes out a considerable number of jobs, the devastation could be destabilizing—and dystopian
Cowie, who’s spent his career studying how a changing economy is impacting workers, said that when people lose the ability to work and the hope to regain it, their lives are devastated. “If you look at these guys in the rust belt, where the jobs have left, nothing’s replaced them, they really have lost the narrative of their lives,” he said.
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Always Day One gives you a lot to learn about the Tech Titans and what makes them tick!
New technologies have always provoked panic about workers being replaced by machines. In A World Without Work, Daniel Susskind shows how these fears, that were hitherto misplaced, are very real now owing to advances in artificial intelligence.
A World Without Work || Daniel Susskind
As machines no longer need to reason like us in order to outperform us, eventually we must learn to thrive in a world with less work. The challenge will be to distribute prosperity fairly, constrain the burgeoning power of Big Tech, and provide meaning in a world where work is no longer the centre of our lives. In this visionary, pragmatic and ultimately hopeful book, Susskind shows us the way.
Read on for a peek into A World Without Work.
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A lot of people have assumed that, if a machine at the bottom of the mountain is to join us at the summit, it must go through apotheosis as well—not to become more like a god, but to become more like a human being. This is the purist view of AI. Once the machine gains ‘human intelligence’,peak capability is reached and its climb is over.
But as the pragmatist revolution has shown us, there are two problems with this assumption. The first is that there are other ways to climb in the Capability Mountains than to follow the particular path that human beings have taken. The purist route is just one way to make the ascent; technological progress has revealed a range of other promising paths as well. The second revelation is that there are other peaks in this mountain range alongside the one that humans proudly sit atop of. Many humans have become distracted by the view down from the summit: we spend our time looking down at the less capable machines below, or gazing at each other and marvelling at our own abilities. But if we looked up, rather than down or across, we would see other mountains towering above us.
For the moment, human beings may be the most capable machines in existence—but there are a great many other possible designs that machines could take. Imagine a cosmic warehouse that stores all those different combinations and iterations: it would be unimaginably big, perhaps infinitely so. Natural selection has searched one tiny corner of this vast expanse, spent its time browsing in one (albeit very long) aisle, and settled upon the human design. However, human beings, armed with new technologies, are now exploring others. Where evolution used time, we use computational power. And it is hard to see how, in the future, we will not stumble across different designs, entirely new ways of building machines, ones that will open up peaks in capability well beyond the reach of even the most competent human beings alive today.
If machines do not need to copy human intelligence to be highly capable, the vast gaps in science’s current understanding of intelligence matter far less than is commonly supposed. We do not need to solve the mysteries of how the brain and mind operate to build machines that can outperform human beings.
And if machines do not need to replicate human intelligence to be highly capable, there is no reason to think that what human beings are currently able to do represents a limit on what future machines might accomplish. Yet this is what is commonly supposed—that the intellectual prowess of human beings is as far as machines can ever reach. Quite simply, it is implausible in the extreme that this will be the case.
The Victory Project || Saurabh Mukherjea, Anupam Gupta
The Victory Project is the ultimate guide to surviving and thriving in the professional and social domains, which are increasingly becoming tough, competitive, often cutthroat and deeply political. It delves into a treasure trove of material from global gurus as well as from highly successful Indian and American professionals, and it draws on the authors’ own careers to show how readers can apply these principles to the fields of business and investment, even to life itself.
Here’s an insightful Q/A session with Saurabh Mukherjea and Anupam Gupta, the authors of The Victory Project. Saurabh Mukherjea is the founder of Marcellus Investment Managers and a bestselling author and Anupam Gupta is a chartered accountant, investment research consultant and podcast host.
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Questions we asked Saurabh
What has been your greatest learning while writing The Victory Project?
Saurabh: Every single expert we interviewed for the book spent 1-3 hours with us. During that time period, these experts gave us their undivided attention. For example, we have spoken to Mark Mobius several times over the last couple of years. In some instances our discussions have extended beyond 90 minutes. Not once has Dr Mobius interrupted the meetings to take phone calls or read his Whatsapp messages. In fact, the longer the meeting goes on, the greater the powers of concentration of this 83 year old investment legend who did much to build the asset class that is today called Emerging Market Equities.
When we met Prof Sanjay Bakshi, the managing partner at Value Quest Capital, in Delhi at the Lodhi Hotel to interview him for the book, the meeting lasted for over two hours. Prof Bakshi is a big believer in the idea of intense focus and cutting off all distractions to spend quality time on a single idea. He showed his phone, which had a blank home screen and no notifications. Throughout our meeting, his phone did not beep or light up or ring even once. In those two hours he gave us some of the deepest insights into fierce focus that I have received in my career. Chapter 3 of The Victory Project contains these insights.
Similarly when we interviewed Sanjiv Bikhchandani of Infoedge – arguably amongst the most successful VC investors in contemporary India – for The Victory Project, the meeting lasted for over 90 minutes. During that time, he did not once look at his mobile phone or entertain other visitors.
Do you think there’s an increased acknowledgement of the negative impact of highly stressful professional environments in the present times? What do you think has prompted this awareness?
Saurabh: As we discuss in the Prologue to The Victory Project, divorce and depression rates in our large cities have risen sharply over the past decade. Most Indian professionals can now clearly see that their peers and their friends are at the receiving end of these stressors. Corporate captains can also see that this has an adverse impact on employee productivity. The question is what should be done about it. The superficial corporate response is to organise a helpline for employees wherein they can speak to a counsellor. As our interview with Dr Sharmila Banwat, a psychologist in Mumbai indicates, what is required is a much deeper rethink by employees and employers around how hard working, ambitious professionals can hit peak potential without burning themselves out. This issue is the key focus in The Victory Project and hence the subtitle of the book is ‘Six Steps to Peak Potential’.
How do you relax and recharge after a hectic work day?
Saurabh: My unwind routine is a hot shower followed by dinner with the family which in turn is followed by telling the kids their bedtime story. I usually doze off during the narration of the bedtime story!
How successful have you been in applying the principle of ‘decluttering’ to your own life?
Saurabh: I have had modest success in this regard. I don’t have social media apps on my phone. I make it difficult for people to reach me and for me to reach other people. Other than books, I typically don’t buy anything else for myself. I avoid parties and networking events. It helps that I enjoy sitting by myself and reading for hours on end. The only challenge is that I enjoy writing so much that every other year I end up committing to write another book for Penguin!
Questions we asked Anupam
What changes do you think organisations can introduce at their level to reduce stress at the workplace?
Anupam: The Simplicity Paradigm in our book can work as a guide for organizations as well. If organizations can, for example, find ways to a) help employees towards their specialization b) put them in teams that collaborate cohesively c) encourage creativity among employees – all of this can go a long way in employees and teams working towards common goals and, as a result, reduce stress. Spirituality also plays a vital part here and meditation, as we’ve detailed in our book, can also help in reducing stress and improving productivity.
What role do you think support systems like families, friends, partners, play in ensuring an individual’s professional success?
Anupam: Support systems play an important role within the overall Simplicity Paradigm and hence for an individual’s success. In our book, we’ve written about mentorship as part of honing your skills. Similarly, colleagues and bosses play an important role in collaboration. Friends with whom you can talk on a diverse set of topics can inspire creativity.
What has been your biggest takeaway from writing The Victory Project?
Anupam: Meeting the diverse set of experts has been an inspiration on the power of the Simplicity Paradigm construct. While the books we read for preparing The Victory Project gave us great background material, watching these experts embody the steps of the Simplicity Paradigm and achieve outsized success was truly the biggest takeaway.
Please recommend some of your favourite books to us.
Anupam: I’m a big fan of corporate history so all the books on great companies (mentioned in The Victory Project) are my favourites:
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the age of Amazon by Brad Stone
Ambani & Sons by Hamish McDonald
Disrupt and Conquer by T.T. Jagannathan and Sandhya Mendonca
Written by Dr Swapneil Parikh, Maherra Desai and Dr Rajesh Parikh, The Coronavirus is an immense resource that comes to us at a time when accuracy of information is just as immediate and necessary as sound medical infrastructure. Dedicated to the health professionals who have been risking their lives at the frontlines of this erratic pandemic, the book dissects the disease from every possible angle in the most accessible and comprehensive way, and is a must-read for anyone trying to understand the past, present and possible future of not only the Coronavirus itself but the turning of the world at large. We bring you a few of the many predictions and speculations the authors get absolutely right.
The Coronavirus||Dr Swapneil Parikh, Maherra Desai, Dr Rajesh Parikh
As China lifted its restrictions, many feared the virus would spread again.
So it has. China confirmed around 1300 new cases mostly from Wuhan, Jilin and Shulan. Mid-May onwards, Wuhan managed to test every single person in its 11 million population over a ten-day period.
There is fear that cases are going undetected in some countries, especially those with weak healthcare systems. In an interview in July, Professor Brahmar Mukherjee, a leading epidemiologist, said India possibly had 30 million undetected COVID-19 cases at that time, going up to a 100 million in just six weeks.
Researching flight data of outward-bound flights from Wuhan for January 2020, many models predict that the virus should have had a wider spread than reported in many countries.
This has been confirmed. medRxiv has shown that the passengers travelling outside China two weeks before Wuhan’s lockdown were headed for Asia, Europe, the US and Australia, all of which showed unprecedented jumps in confirmed cases in the months that followed.
Information coming from China about COVID-19 related statistics has been under scrutiny for tampering. In fact, when the US started to investigate the accuracy of the Chinese data, China immediately announced an additional 1300 fatalities due to COVID-19 that had been misreported earlier. This translated to a 50% increase in total number of deaths reported from Wuhan. The authors of the book ask if China was simply sanitizing its narrative rather than doing due diligence. Turns out, it was the former.
In India, some experts continued to claim there was no community transmission, facetiously portraying the low number of confirmed daily cases as a low number of daily new infections. With few daily tests, the writers suspect that India had far more daily new infections than new daily confirmed cases. Despite the government repeatedly denying community transmission in India, the Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on July 17 confirmed that there were cases of community transmission in Kerala. In fact, when on July 19 the Indian Medical Association confirmed community transmission in the country, Dr Arvind Kumar, Chairman of the Centre for Chest Surgery, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital said that this mode of transmission had been rampant in the country for quite some time.
Many countries may already have more cases than South Korea, but unless testing is significantly scaled up, several new cases will go undetected. This was proven true to the letter in India, US, Russia, Brazil, countries that soon surpassed every other nation after a surge of cases.
The book predicted that by mid-April, there will be thousands of COVID-19 cases detected in India, and several thousand more will go undetected.
By mid-April, India had indeed crossed the 1000 mark of COVID-19 cases. On April 13, there were 1243 new cases and the 7-day average had hit 811.
Perhaps human social contact patterns will change drastically with changing weather (unlikely), or an unprecedented successful social distancing strategy might be implemented (possible) or the virus itself could change for better or worse (possible). Any or all of these factors could affect the eventual number infected and dead. The movement of the pandemic and related statistics has unfolded as predicted. With increased testing, the number of active cases has also increased because there is more extensive documentation of cases.
The writers of The Coronavirus wrote that millions of tests worldwide are needed, and we must prepare for an eventuality where we need billions. This has now been acknowledged by both WHO & CDC.
The book also states that the pandemic is far from over in China which was successful at disrupting transmission by essentially shutting down the country and economy. Beijing saw a recurrence as late as June 11, 2020 where a 52-year-old man tested positive for the virus.
It is important to state that containment and mitigation are not mutually exclusive; we must do both, but somecontainment strategies are devastating to the world economy and stigmatize the sick. While we must continue containment strategies that are effective, we must aggressively try to mitigate the destruction that COVID-19 leaves in its wake. Many countries have adopted policies that are more tempered, attempting to strike a balance between restricting inessential movement and safely opening up the sectors which impact the economy greatly.
The book calls for a readiness to significantly change our daily lives. With a surge in cases, various countries including India are implementing drastic social distancing measures, including closure of schools, cancellation of mass gatherings, work from home, voluntary home isolation for mild cases and aggressive exposure avoidance for high-risk individuals. Our lives have become compartmentalised into ‘pre-pandemic’ and ‘post-pandemic’. In fact, it is becoming increasingly unclear if we will ever fully return to the former.
The strategies come at a huge cost. The economic, social, developmental and mental health cost must be justified by aggressive increases in testing, tracing and treatment capacities. Social distancing strategies are never meant to be permanent; they can buy us a few weeks or months to scale up our health infrastructure. We need to use that time wisely.
This is also a widely adopted and acknowledged strategy now, with more investments being made in testing kits and ventilators.
A pandemic cannot be stopped by spending billions in North America and just a few millions in Africa. A pandemic does not respect geographical boundaries or military arsenals. There needs to be an agreement between the private sector and governments of the world that during a pandemic, medical supplies will go not to the highest bidder but will be distributed strategically to save lives. A Californian company is now using drones to deliver medical supplies in Rwanda and Ghana, a delivery strategy that was also used in China and Chile. India has also sent medical supplies to 13 African nations.
Infections that spread via droplets are strictly speaking not airborne but can be said to be borne by air. Some nuance can be lost in the oversimplified false dichotomy of airborne versus droplet transmission; they are not mutually exclusive. The book cited the 1934 paper on the Wells evaporation-falling curve and postulated airborne transmission long before the paper was revisited and then widely accepted.
The book states thatjust one sick passenger can cause an outbreak all over the world. “If a sick passenger coughed or sneezed on his hands, the virus would get deposited onto his hands. If he took out a magazine during the flight, the infectious viruses would rub off onto the magazine, and the magazine becomes a ‘fomite’”. Having now been proved as a fact, extensive measures and restrictions have been implemented regarding travel, especially air travel.
The increase in infections isn’t because of a change in the virus but because of a change in human behaviour. While the book anticipated this, it is now a fact accepted by all including ICMR. Recognizing the impact of human behaviour on the pandemic, news outlets have criticised gathering, inessential travel and hoarding essentials among other things. Instances like ‘COVID parties’ in the US have been severely disparaged because they end up creating coronavirus hotspots. The Outbreak Communications Planning Guide by the (WHO) states that behaviour changes can reduce the spread by as much as 80%.
However, with a new virus like SARS-CoV-2 the weather is unlikely to significantly affect transmission because the entire human population is susceptible. Across the globe, various regions experience different seasons and temperatures at one point in time. A steady increase in infected cases globally dampens hope that the weather will affect transmission.
No correlation has been established between seasonal conditions and transmission. Initial claims that tropical regions would withstand the spread better have been voided as the virus has seen an exponential surge over the hottest months in India.
What is so special about children that they seem protected? Maybe children are just healthier because they get good nutrition, plenty of exercise, regenerate better and have been exposed to lower cumulative doses of environmental pollution. Children are far less likely to smoke or to have diseases like diabetes, and their lungs have much less background inflammation. Research has indicated that children have less ACE2 and these levels increase with ageing. A child’s angiotensin system might be immature and therefore less susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Acquired data from antibody blood tests suggests that children under the age of 12 in particular are less likely to catch the virus than adults. Scientists are also positive that children are more likely to remain asymptomatic.
Coronaviruses can also cause Antibody-Dependent Enhancement (ADE). High concentrations of antibodies prevented SARS-CoV from infecting the cells but low concentrations of antibodies caused ADE. This has been found to be the case for COVID-19.
It is possible that varying levels of antibodies against common cold coronaviruses may be causing ADE of SARS-CoV-2 infection, but the evidence of this so far borders on speculation. High concentrations of partially cross-reactive antibodies in children may overwhelm the virus and neutralize it but low antibody levels in the elderly may cause ADE and severe infection. This was verified for COVID-19.
When the Th1 and Th2 cells are in balance, the immune system functions properly. However, when there is an imbalance between these cells, the immune system may either be predisposed to severe infections or it may attack its own tissues. Research found it true for COVID-19.
RT-LAMP (Reverse Transcription Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification) test, which is faster and easier to perform, has been combined with CRISPR, an innovation that can make it simpler, cheaper and quicker to test. The testing process can be done with minimal training and this offers tremendous promise for low resource settings. RT-LAMP based COVID-19 diagnostic kits are in use, and Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has said that the test is quick, accurate and cost effective that has very low and easily manageable infrastructural needs and does not require any special expertise.
Antigen tests are rapid tests that give results in minutes. While these tests hold promise because of their low cost, quick results and simplicity, in the past similar tests have not been very sensitive. Nevertheless, there are several such tests in research and development for SARS-CoV-2 and if scientists perfect this technology, they could be combined with rapid antibody tests. These combined rapid tests, if accurate, would be powerful tools in the pandemic. This claim has also materialised. The developed rapid test kits are easy to use, can test patients with and without symptoms, and most importantly can be deployed in COVID hotspots.
A study published in The Lancet used mathematical predictive models to test the preparedness and vulnerability of developing nations, especially African countries. Considering strong economic ties between China and many African nations, and the flight data available for travel following the outbreak and before the lockdown in China, Egypt, Algeria and South Africa had the highest chances of acquiring COVID-19, with a moderate to high capacity to manage the outbreak. This was also proved to the very last detail. In March, out of the 1300 confirmed coronavirus cases in the African continent, Egypt, South Africa and Algeria alone accounted for over 58% of the cases.
While it is premature to gauge to what extent AI will affect the COVID-19 outbreak, AI will probably play a role in containing this outbreak and even more so in future outbreaks. In fact, Artificial Intelligence start-ups like Closedloop, Clevy.io and Mantle Labs have been extremely active in identifying the virus and communicating related information.
To You, With Love is the story of Sahil and Ayra who are very different from each other, right from childhood. While Sahil is careless, carefree, ‘new money’ and ‘the brat’, Ayra is sensitive, reserved, shy and not easy to talk to. And that is probably what attracts Sahil to her. Their story progresses slowly and delicately, and things gradually take on a love-tinged hue between them.
Today, we are looking at six moments from the book that are sure to make you wish you too had a love story like Sahil and Ayra’s.
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When Sahil talked about love at first sight and we couldn’t help but nod our heads in agreement
People tell you that love happens in one moment, at ‘one sight’, and the truth is that it actually does! Whether that moment is going to be the first moment when you see her or the hundredth, it cannot be predicted by anyone, but it will happen in one single moment.
When Sahil made us realise that the best love stories start from friendships and we couldn’t help but blush
I realized how we were each other’s first friends, and first friendships are deeper than most bonds in the world.
When Sahil showed us that flaws make us human and loveable
She has her flaws and yet she is the most beautiful person to me, because she is like art—she makes me feel alive whenever I look at her.
When we were reminded that true love isn’t about volatile emotions but a feeling of tranquility
The way she looked at me as she spoke, I felt a calmness sweep over me. The image of her beautiful face was imprinted somewhere deep in my heart.
When Sahil perfectly summed up the feeling of finding the right one
Her entry in my life made something click, like when a key clicks inside a lock and you know that you have found the right one.
And finally,
When we found out the content of Ayra’s heart-breaking love note to Sahil that left us a weepy mess
Life means many things to many people and so does love—neither life nor love can be lived in a way where there is nothing new to add or nothing old to remove. Definitions change with time, place and the people who define it, yet the essence remains the same.
Events and epochs in history have, in many ways, shaped our world the way we know it today. History is full of rich stories, inspiring figures and still-relevant lessons, which is why we believe that the past matters.
We are inviting you along today to take a journey through space and time to revisit some memorable, unforgettable stories that still present us with crucial lessons to take away.
Train to Pakistan
Khushwant Singh
Train to Pakistan || Khushwant Singh
It is the summer of 1947. But Partition does not mean much to the Sikhs and Muslims of Mano Majra, a village on the border of India and Pakistan. Then, a local money-lender is murdered, and suspicion falls upon Juggut Singh, the village gangster who is in love with a Muslim girl. When a train arrives, carrying the bodies of dead Sikhs, the village is transformed into a battlefield.
First published in 1956, Train to Pakistan is a classic of modern Indian fiction.
The Rise of Goliath
A.K. Bhattacharya
The Rise of Goliath || A.K. Bhattacharya
What can best illustrate India’s journey in the last seven decades? Disruptions.
Almost every decade of India’s history since Independence has been marked by major disruptions.
If the Emergency in 1975 shook the foundations of India’s democracy, the unprecedented balance-of-payments crisis of 1990 turned India towards a path of economic reforms. Just as the reservation of jobs for backward castes changed the idiom of India’s politics, the movement for building a temple for Ram drove India closer to becoming a majoritarian state.
This is the story of twelve disruptions that changed India.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Yuval Noah Harari
Sapiens | Yuval Noah Harari
What makes us brilliant? What makes us deadly? What makes us Sapiens?
Earth is 4.5 billion years old. In just a fraction of that time, one species among countless others has conquered it: us.
In this bold and provocative book, Yuval Noah Harari explores who we are, how we got here and where we’re going.
A Short History of Nearly Everything Bill Bryson
A Short History of Nearly Everything | Bill Bryson
Bill Bryson describes himself as a reluctant traveller, but even when he stays safely at home he can’t contain his curiosity about the world around him. A Short History of Nearly Everything is his quest to understand everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization – how we got from there, being nothing at all, to here, being us.
The ultimate eye-opening journey through time and space, A Short History of Nearly Everything reveals the world in a way most of us have never seen it before.
Makers of Modern India Ramachandra Guha
Makers of Modern India || Ramachandra Guha
Ramachandra Guha profiles nineteen Indians whose ideas had a defining impact on the formation and evolution of our republic and presents rare and compelling excerpts from their writings and speeches. These men and women were not only influential political activists – they also wrote with eloquence, authority and deliberation as they reflected on what Guha describes in his illuminating prologue as ‘the most contentious times in the most interesting country in the world’.
Their writings take us from the subcontinent’s first engagement with modernity in the nineteenth century, through the successive phases of the freedom movement, on through the decades after Independence.
The Modern Monk Hindol Sengupta
The Modern Monk || Hindol Sengupta
He loved French cookbooks, invented a new way of making khichdi, was interested in the engineering behind ship-building and the technology that makes ammunition. More than 100 years after his death, do we really know or understand the bewildering, fascinating, complex man Swami Vivekananda was?
From his speech in Chicago that mesmerised America to his voluminous writings and speeches that redefined the idea of India, Vivekananda was much more than a monk. His work sweeps through Indian politics, economics, sociology, arts and culture, and of course religion. So ubiquitous are his sayings that they pop everywhere from the speeches of politicians to t-shirts and mugs.
Origin Story: A Big History of Everything David Christian
Origin Story | David Christian
How did we get from the Big Bang to today’s staggering complexity, in which seven billion humans are connected into networks powerful enough to transform the planet? And why, in comparison, are our closest primate relatives reduced to near-extinction?
David Christian brings us the epic story of the universe and our place in it, from 13.8 billion years ago to the remote future!
The History Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained
The History Book
From the dawn of civilization to the lightning-paced culture of today, take a fascinating journey through the most significant events in history and the big ideas behind each one. Bring history to life as you explore the Law Code of Hammurabi, the Renaissance, the American Revolution, World War II, and much more.
As part of DK’s award-winning Big Ideas Simply Explained series, The History Book uses infographics and images to explain key ideas and themes, making the last 4000 years of history engaging and accessible.
Nationalism Rabindranath Tagore
Nationalism || Rabindranath Tagore
Nationalism is based on Rabindranath Tagore’s lectures delivered during the First World War. While the nations of Europe were doing battle, Tagore urged his audiences in Japan and the United States to eschew political aggressiveness and cultural arrogance. His mission, one might say, was to synthesize East and West, tradition and modernity. The lectures were not always well received at the time, but were chillingly prophetic.
As Ramachandra Guha shows in his brilliant and erudite Introduction, it was by reading and speaking to Tagore that those founders of modern India, Gandhi and Nehru, developed a theory of nationalism that was inclusive rather than exclusive.
Republic of Rhetoric: Free Speech and the Constitution of India Abhinav Chandrachud
Republic of Rhetoric | Abhinav Chandrachud
Exploring socio-political as well as legal history of India, from the British period to the present, this book brings to light the idea of ‘free speech’ or what is popularly known as the freedom expression in the country. Analysing the present law relating to obscenity and free speech, this book will evaluate whether the enactment of the Constitution made a significant difference to the right to free speech in India.
Guns, Germs and Steel: A short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years Jared Diamond
Guns Germs & Steel | Jared Diamond
Jared Diamond puts the case that geography and biogeography, not race, moulded the contrasting fates of Europeans, Asians, Native Americans, sub-Saharan Africans, and aboriginal Australians.
An ambitious synthesis of history, biology, ecology and linguistics, Guns, Germs and Steel is a ground-breaking and humane work of popular science that can provide expert insight into our modern world.
India’s Struggle for Independence Bipan Chandra
India’s Struggle for Independence || Bipan Chandra
India’s Struggle for Independence is the first and most reliable study of India’s epic struggle for freedom. This classic work begins with the abortive revolt against the British in 1857 and culminates in Indian Independence in 1947. Based on years of research as well as personal interviews with hundreds of freedom fighters, it presents a lucid and enduring view of the history of the period.
My Seditious Heart: Collected Non-fiction Arundhati Roy
My Seditious Heart || Arundhati Roy
My Seditious Heart collects the work of a two-decade period when Arundhati Roy devoted herself to the political essay as a way of opening up space for justice, rights and freedoms in an increasingly hostile environment. Taken together, these essays trace her twenty year journey from the Booker Prize-winning The God of Small Things to the extraordinary The Ministry of Utmost Happiness: a journey marked by compassion, clarity and courage.
Radical and readable, they speak always in defence of the collective, of the individual and of the land, in the face of the destructive logic of financial, social, religious, military and governmental elites.
The Man Who Saved India Hindol Sengupta
The Man Who Saved India || Sardar Patel
There is perhaps no political figure in modern history who did more to secure and protect the Indian nation than Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. But, ironically, seventy years after Patel brought together piece by piece the map of India by fusing the princely states with British India to create a new democratic, independent nation, little is understood or appreciated about Patel’s enormous contribution to the making of India. Caricatured in political debate, all the nuances of Patel’s difficult life and the daring choices he made are often lost, or worse, used as mere polemic.
The Man Who Saved India is a sweeping, magisterial retelling of Sardar Patel’s story.
Sixteen Stormy Days Tripurdaman Singh
Sixteen Stormy Days || Tripurdaman Singh
Sixteen Stormy Days narrates the riveting story of the First Amendment to the Constitution of India-one of the pivotal events in Indian political and constitutional history, and its first great battle of ideas.
Passed in June 1951 in the face of tremendous opposition within and outside Parliament, the subject of some of independent India’s fiercest parliamentary debates, the First Amendment drastically curbed freedom of speech; enabled caste-based reservation by restricting freedom against discrimination; circumscribed the right to property and validated abolition of the zamindari system; and fashioned a special schedule of unconstitutional laws immune to judicial challenge.
Amidst the stress of juggling high expectations in a highly competitive work environment, how does our generation, achieve our goals while leading fulfilling lives? Saurabh Mukherjea and Anupam Gupta attempt to answer this question by using the principles of Simplicity, Specialization, Creativity and Collaboration. They delve into a treasure trove of material from global gurus and successful business professionals while and drawing on their own careers to show how readers can apply these principles to the fields of business and investment, even to life itself. The Victory Project is the ultimate guide to surviving and thriving in the professional and social domains.
The Victory Project || Saurabh Mukherjea, Anupam Gupta
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Things were not like this, our parents told us. But our parents lived in simpler times in a world of closed economies, government jobs, cocooned from the rest of the world, happy with 10 per cent increments and one-month bonuses. Their biggest dreams were to send their kids abroad and enjoy a retired life on government pensions in government colonies. T.V. Mohandas Pai, the former chief financial officer (CFO) of Infosys and current chairman of Manipal Global Education, tells us: ‘When I was growing up, we had a very simple life. We were happy with whatever we had—from a radio to a cycle to a company-owned car. We’d go to the library, read a book or read a comic. There was not much growth for us and no impetus to change. We had lower incomes and we didn’t know what more we could do as opportunities were scarce. The economy grew slowly! There wasn’t even a television to show us the world outside.’ Nearly thirty years after India opened up its economy to the world, our lifestyles—and those of youngsters after us—have seen a sea change that makes our lives almost unrecognizable to our parents. The plus side is the immense wealth created and enjoyed as new sectors and new careers propelled us forwards. The minus side is the price we have paid in physical and mental health. India’s weak infrastructure, unable to cope with decades of rapid economic growth, has only added to the pressures. Our aspirations might be on par with developed countries, but we are trying to fulfil those aspirations with gridlocked traffic, overflowing local trains and decrepit bridges. Pai says, ‘China invested in human capital to export to the world. They took the surpluses from that and put the money into improving infrastructure, improving the school and college networks. They incentivized heavy industry and so they went to a commanding position. We never put enough money into infrastructure. Now in India, human capital hasn’t grown much. The economy can grow at 8 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for a long time but employees simply can’t grow at that pace in their jobs and be more productive, and the infrastructure simply can’t keep up with the economy. As a result, the stress on their managers, on the C-Suite has gone up . . . All these things have resulted in the increased stress of urban living in India.’ When our ambitions get shackled by the limitations of the world around us, we seek help to cope. And the Internet is at our service. In all probability, while you are reading this book, you have notifications for twelve unread emails, fifteen WhatsApp pings and sundry other alerts on your mobile clamouring for your attention. And then there is infotainment—everything from TED Talks to National Geographic documentaries, books on pop psychology and behavioural finance to podcasts on history, science and politics. Thanks to the Internet, we have easy access to enormous amounts of wisdom and—remarkably enough—most of it can be accessed for free or at a nominal charge. And yet this cornucopia of knowledge flatters to deceive. As we show in the next chapter, psychologists and cognitive and behavioural scientists are now moving towards a view that our brains are experts at fooling us. How does this cluttered mind affect us? For one, we lose focus and our attention span suffers. There is also the small matter that this diversity of material does not seem to be making us wiser or happier or less stressed. In fact, stress levels in India are: (a) higher compared to other countries; and (b) rising ever higher for the employed workforce.
Teachers’ Day is a beloved event for the entire nation. While it creates the space for children to connect with their teachers beyond the formality of a classroom setup and express their gratitude in different ways, it is also a gentle reminder for us to ponder upon the immensity of the degree to which we owe our educators. As we grapple with online learning systems and disproportionately increased screen times in this unfamiliar, pandemic-ridden territory, teachers who have had to adapt their entire modus operandi deserve more than simply our appreciation and understanding. They work tirelessly and thanklessly while shaping our minds and futures. This Teachers’ Day, join us as we celebrate books that have marked our learning indelibly, and that we find ourselves returning to time and again. Here are some memorable books to pick up, especially for those of us who will read to or with our young and budding readers:
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In Custody
Anita Desai
In Custody || Anita Desai
Anita Desai’s novel is a documentation not only of the erosion of a language and its cultural coordinates but also of the formation of small intimacies and unexpected relationships in the midst of loss. This poignant tale takes you along Deven’s journey, a Hindi teacher, as he forms a bond where he learns more about his own language than he ever has in a classroom.
Code Name God
Mani Bhaumik
Code Name God || Mani Bhaumik
Mani Bhaumik’s meditations dismantle the synthetic binary of science and faith, proposing a spiritual completeness that is achieved only when one learns to navigate both belief systems with equal respect. Code Name God is an eye-opening read, following his fame as a pioneer of LASIK surgery and his yearning for a spiritual self-realisation. It comes with the very important lesson that if we succumb to dichotomies, we can never live a fulfilled and conscious life.
Siyasi Muslims: A Story of Political Islam in India
Hilal Ahmed
Siyasi Muslims || Hilal Ahmed
In Siyasi Muslims, Hilal Ahmed navigates difficult questions around the Muslim identity through the portraiture of the quotidian realities of Muslims in India. This is a thought-provoking rendering of important issues, and leaves readers with much to learn and think about. In other words, it is a perfect teachers’ day read.
The Vedas
Roshen Dalal
The Vedas || Roshen Dalal
Historian Roshen Dalal brings us an accessible yet exhaustive introduction to the texts at the cornerstone of Hinduism – The Vedas. Founded on diligent research, this is a work that appreciates not only the philosophical and cultural core of the texts but also the poetic tinge that colours its lines.
In Service of The Republic : The Art and Science of Economic Policy Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah
In Service of the Republic || Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah
Writing from the nexus of political economics and administrative policy, economists and former civil servants Kelkar and Shah shed a unique light on the economic structures and machinations of our country. This work is an immense resource for anyone hoping to understand policy and economics with more clarity. Teachers’ Day marks a wonderful occasion to learn from In Service of the Republic.
The Penguin History of Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300 Romila Thapar
The Penguin History of Early India || Romila Thapar
Romila Thapar brings us an exhaustive, researched and immensely detailed rewriting of her extremely popular work History of India – Volume One, thirty-four years after it was published for the first time. Once again, Professor Thapar gives us a work that is richer than any classroom, and brings us her brilliant work as a redoubtable educator.
Poor Economics Esther Duflo and Abhijit V. Banerjee
Poor Economics || Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo
Nobel Laureates Esther Duflo and Abhijit V. Banerjee bring us a work based on models of economic impact from the very grassroots. Through the Poverty Action Lab, the duo’s use of randomized control trials has changed the landscape of developmental economics. Undoing the binary between theory and praxis, Poor Economics follows not only the money but also its differential impact, and Teachers’ Day is the ideal occasion to read a work which is an endless resource of learning.
Makers of Modern India Ramachandra Guha
Makers of Modern India || Ramachandra Guha
Ramachandra Guha, “Indian democracy’s pre-eminent chronicler” according to Time magazine, complies selections from the writings and speeches of nineteen Indians whose ideas range across nationalism, gender, caste, democracy and economics. Spanning the development of Indian modernism, Guha gives us unique insights into unique thinkers, from Rabindranath Tagore to Hamid Dalwai, and takes our learning curve on a steady increase.
Ignited Minds A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
Ignited Minds || A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
This teachers’ day, share the spark of endless possibilities with your children. This book will not chart out the path to success or provide readymade formulas; there is no list of hacks or a blueprint for that. Instead, Dr. Kalam dives into various aspects with detailed research and a deep understanding of everything that plagues us as a nation. Narrated with his hallmark humility and profundity, Ignited Minds is a book to return to again and again.
Shiksha: My Experiments as an Education Minister Manish Sisodia
Shiksha || Manish Sisodia
Shiksha is Manish Sisodia’s detailed articulation of the massive changes he brought to the public education sector in Delhi. As an unyielding believer in the power of education, Sisodia altered the fabric of the education system through his focus on bettering institutions and their capacity to impact lives in myriad positive ways. This Teachers’ Day, discover the immensity of what a sound educational structure can achieve, and share the importance of this discovery with your children as they navigate this structure on a daily basis.
India Since Independence
Bipan Chandra, Mridula Mukherjee, Aditya Mukherjee
India Since Independence || Bipan Chandra
Beginning with the framing of the constitution, formulations of foreign policy and anti-caste politics, this tome covers a panorama of the pedestals on which India was founded after independence and the anti-colonial struggle. A brilliant outline of the formation and growth of the nation, India Since Independence is a literary masterclass in post-independence history.
India’s Struggle for Independence || Bipan Chandra
Right from the mutiny of 1857, India’s nascent struggle of anti-British revolt, Bipan Chandra charts the long anti-colonial fight through personal interviews and an astonishing breadth of research. History comes alive through his writing in an incredible learning experience.
The Penguin Gandhi Reader Rudrangshu Mukherjee
The Penguin Gandhi Reader || Rudrangshu Mukherjee
The freedom fighter we revere is explored here through careful selections of his own writings. Mukherjee compiles this reader centring it on the core philosophies of Gandhi’s theories and praxes, and Bapu comes alive for us in his own words mediated through the editorial lens of Mukherjee.
Super 30 Anand Kumar
Super 30 || Anand Kumar
Anand Kumar set up an innovative school in 2002 that uses creative and unconventional learning methods, changing the lives of underprivileged children by preparing them for the IIT JEE. Stirring and inspiring, Super 30 is a story that turns Kumar’s own tribulations and sacrifices into the furnace where the futures of these children are forged, enabling them to rise above the chains of their circumstances.
What Can I Give? Srijan Pal Singh
What Can I Give? || Srijan Pal Singh
Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s student, Srijan Pal Singh, asks the question that we should think about, irrespective of whether or not it is Teachers’ Day – what can we give back to the teachers who change our lives? Documenting moments from Dr. Kalam’s life and the time Singh spent with him, this is a loving memoir dedicated to one of the brightest minds and most visionary thinkers of the country.
My Experiments with Truth M.K. Gandhi
My Experiments with Truth || M.K. Gandhi
This autobiography chronicles Gandhi’s odyssey, from his childhood in Porbandar and Rajkot, his school days and marriage, to his journeys to England and South Africa, mapping the movement of a shy young boy to a man who would one day become one of the pioneers of the anti-colonial struggle, and a source of great fear for the British Empire.
IIMA – Day to Day Economics Satish Y. Deodhar
Day to Day Economics || Satish Y. Deodhar
Satish Y. Deodhar, a professor of Economics at IIM Ahmedabad brings us this book to make economics and its intricacies accessible and easily understandable. A great contribution to making academic concepts fun and interesting, Day to day Economics goes a long way in laying out the details of a field that impacts us all at every level.
Master on Masters Ustad Amjad Ali Khan
Master of Masters || Amjad Ali Khan
In this affectionate and warm book, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan unpacks for us the greatest figures in Indian Classical Music. Anecdotal and personal, Khan manages to present artists of mystical stature in a way that is endearing, awe-inspiring and relatable all at once.
~ Don’t forget to invite some young readers along for these ones, or to simply (re)connect with your own younger selves!
Coming Round the Mountain Ruskin Bond
Coming Round the Mountain || Ruskin Bond
Like every other work by Ruskin Bond, this one is difficult to put down. Walking his readership through the years of a young Bond eating jalebis, reading, goal-keeping, and growing up, what makes this book subtly complex is its setting – the year 1947, and the impending partition. A joy for both children and adults, this book is even more rewarding when shared with the young readers in your life.
My India A.P.J Abdul Kalam
My India || A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
Dr. Kalam’s last book for children is a wave of inspiration and energy, a lesson on resilience and determination that we all could learn from. Drawing excerpts from his speeches, this book collates his ideations on science, compassion and nation-building to name a few, and delivers a figment of his genius to us, expressed with his trademark humility and earnestness. This is a work that both you and your children will enjoy, especially if you read it with them!
Gautama Buddha (Junior Lives) Sonia Mehta
Gautama Buddha || Sonia Mehta
This is the fourth in a series of beautifully illustrated books, aimed at making great people and their stories accessible to our young readers. The gorgeous visuals take us through the unique life of Prince Siddhartha as he becomes the enlightened Buddha. Share this wonderful confluence of art and storytelling with the young readers you love!
