COVID-19 - status quo change

This pandemic is now two months old and we are still not out of the woods. It will take some time for the world to rid itself of this scourge.  The problem is our patience does not count for anything. The virus has its own timetable and it will go away when it is good and ready.  The world had no inkling as to the scale or speed with which virus spread across the world.  It was no doubt helped initially due to the lack of transparency shown by the Chinese government by pressurizing WHO to water down its report on the lethality of the virus.  The world did not take the initial guidelines seriously and the results are there for all to see.  An unprecedented lock down across the globe and all economic and trade activity coming to a halt has resulted in the world stopping in its tracks.  While there is no denying the favorable environmental impact due to the stopping of world trade and transport, it has caused a lot of hardship and its effects will be felt for a long time to come.

Of late there has been a realization that this could have been avoided. If China had been more forthcoming on sharing data on the corona virus disease. But due the penchant of a dictatorial regime for showing that the government can do no wrong, the communist party published false data on the disease, letting it spread in the whole world. In hindsight the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) must be regretting its initial secrecy that it advocated regarding the disease because the world is now coming to realize the extent of the damage done and the real price it will have to pay. Whether the virus was spread by accident or design, the Chinese government now knows that it has done something wrong as there is a perceptible backlash against it the world over. It revised the Wuhan death figure by fifty percent almost twenty days after freezing it. This shows that controlling the narrative on the pandemic is more important to the CCP than saving lives.

 The world opinion now has a distinct tone which suggests that it does not approve of Chinese actions since the start of the pandemic. There is a marked shift in the foreign investment policies of major economies. Any strategic investment by China will now be scrutinized by the host government before being approved. Against the backdrop of the Huawei controversy, this had to come sometime and the COVID-19 pandemic has provided the trigger. Another realization is that the world has put all its eggs in one basket. Low manufacturing cost and favorable supply chain logistics made China the workshop of the world. But the pandemic dried up a lot of supplies of essential goods due to the lock downs imposed in the Wuhan area. China now has a monopoly on most medical supplies. But there is talk of diversifying the supply chain through more countries to avoid bottlenecks in emergencies.

Unconfirmed reports of a second outbreak in China are now being published, also, there are other conspiracy theories which suggest that the corona virus leaked from a Wuhan chemical lab experimenting in biological weapons. How this pans out in the near future remains to be seen, but it is now obvious that the world is seeing China in a new light. 

The Corona Shift

When I wrote my last article on the corona outbreak, little did the world realize that it will suffer a pandemic at a scale which is unprecedented, will bring everything to a stop and kill thousands. It started in the Wuhan province in China and now has spread across the globe in no time. 

Since the beginning of modern times mankind has never had a chance to look back and take stock of where it was headed. The so called progress kept on happening and man just went along with the flow because all seemed to be hunky dory.

Progress in Scientific, economic, sports, business, technology spheres have accrued a lot of gains and we started to take the world for granted. Never in our wildest imagination did we ever expect that the world as we know it will come to an end. That actually has happened. Investment plans going forward months and years have come to a naught overnight. The stock market, the economy, the epidemic situation all are crying out for solutions which are just not forthcoming. There is no precedent. It seems nature has called a halt to the breakneck pace at which mankind was traveling.

Even at the best of times man on this planet hardly knew where he was going. The analogy of a car traveling at night at high speed with weak headlights comes to mind.  Suddenly a pandemic has come into view and now there is panic braking all over the globe. Markets tumbling, washing away billions of dollars overnight. Businesses coming to a grinding halt, supply chains getting disrupted. Humans never have experienced such a situation in recent history. No person alive can remember such a calamity in their lifetime.

As a race on this planet we were so used to having our way that it is extremely frustrating to see that we are not able to go about living our normal lives. As mankind progressed the pace of innovation increased, which added fuel to the fire of economic progress. This exponential growth in world economy and the inherent confidence in our ability to solve all our problems using technology, lulled mankind into a sense of false security. This confidence has now been shattered. Perhaps nature has called a halt to the entire madness that was happening. The breakneck pace has been slowed. 

 Mankind was obsessed with trade, commerce, margins, profits and stock indices. Its onslaught on nature is a known fact. Issues like greenhouse gasses, pollution were discussed and debated but no drastic steps have yet been taken to prevent potential natural disasters related to pollution. Mankind was not ready to take a hit to conserve nature.
This outbreak has caused a lot of economic/financial hardship. We have finally taken a hit, inadvertently. Perhaps this will bring to the worlds attention the bigger and urgent problems that it faces regarding the environment and make it realize that the world will have to sacrifice its profits, and incomes if we are to really make any progress in tackling the environmental issues.
Amidst all the chaos there are some bright spots. Nature seems to be claiming some of its spaces from our civilization. Dolphins were seen very close to the Mumbai coast as well as in Venetian canals which is not in anyone’s memory today. Air pollution in several cities across the globe has gone down due to lock downs. Though the world will take a big financial hit, nature will get a bonus. One other thing is becoming obvious. Contrary to the received wisdom, it seems the earth can heal itself. This was not unknown to scientists, but it is now becoming clear that all man has to do to clean up the earth is stop all his activities.When mankind retreats, nature takes over and starts the process of healing. Man need not spend billions of dollars in research to heal the earth. 
There have been some upsets in the conventional hierarchies in the economy. All the high rollers of the economy like actors, business community, high profile sportsmen like footballers, cricket players have taken the back seat. They are remembered remotely. Those who have taken the center stage, are the run of the mill people. Sanitation workers, healthcare staff, and those engaged in work which keep big cities running in lock downs. They are the new celebrities. 

The lesson to be learnt from this outbreak is that man cannot forget that nature is all powerful and it will assert itself in no uncertain measure if it does not get the due attention and respect. This cognizance will have to be at the back of our mind as we pick up the pieces and move on. 

The Corona Shift

The Afghan Peace Deal

The Afghan Peace Deal

It is now time again to write about the US–Afghan(Taliban) deal. This time the signatures have been made after the aborted first attempt. The deal has come out of the US compulsion to get out of disputes the world over. Wherever America is involved in a dispute, it inevitably bogs down. The Americans are known to go in with full commitment, pump in a lot of money for a number of years and even if it is a wholehearted effort, it  is generally lacking a thorough understanding of the ground realities. This results in a long drawn operation, military and civilian combined, which achieves nothing, and eventually a withdrawal of troops with no tangible solution. Many a times the Americans leave with far greater problems for the region than what existed on ground before they came to the place.

Whether the Afghanistan peace deal will go the same way will be hard to predict at the moment. The irony is that the Americans went into Afghanistan to fight the Taliban. The Taliban were the enemy number one. Today the Americans gave negotiated with the Taliban and according to many, have left the Afghan people in the lurch. This deal is compared to the Vietnam peace deal where the Americans left the South Vietnamese to deal with the North as domestic public opinion began to go against the war in Vietnam. The ultimate withdrawal from Saigon was definitely not a feather in the US cap. Where ever the Americans go they have an abysmal record of negotiating a successful peace deal. After 9/11 the Americans went into Saddam Hussein’s Iraq on the pretext of finding their (Weapons of Mass Destruction) WMDs. They never found any. Saddam was removed from power and a political vaccum was left, which go filled with the ISIS. Today the region is in turmoil with consequences being felt in Europe. The refugee influx has caused a lot of social and political turmoil.

Looking at this record it does not give any studied observer confidence that this deal will bring any lasting peace for the Afghan people. Already cracks are beginning to show even as the ink is still drying on the accord. A big glitch in the peace deal is that the Afghan government has been kept out of it. This deal is essentially signed between the US and the Taliban with the aim that the Taliban does not target the US and its allies. The allies are probably defied in secret.  The US probably thinks that the current Afghan government is expendable.   President Ashraf Ghani has said that there will be no exchange of prisoners with the Taliban, which is actually an important clause in the deal. He says the US does not have the jurisdiction to decide on the release of Taliban prisoners with the Afghan government. Also other terrorist groups like the ISIS and the Jaish-e-Mohammed would get the wrong signals. Any terrorist group worth its salt will now think of becoming a legitimate political entity. Whether they will be committed to peace or not is another matter.

Probably this deal is not about peace at all. It has a lot of secret clauses. One could surmise from this, that it is a agreement between the USA and Taliban to let American troops withdraw from that region with some semblence of dignity. It is not known what the Deal promises and to whom. One will have to wait and see if the people of Afghanistan get their lasting peace. The certain thing is that this accord has caused a question mark to be put on the stability of the region, which would entail another write-up on the subject.