The Indian budget every year has always been an eagerly awaited event. For many decades, the best minds in economics, finance, tax, business and industry throng the media house to analyze the provisions shared by the Financial Minister.
Sometimes major events completely disconnected may be data points for the plans of the different powers around the world. The challenge is to discern what purpose they serve? More critically, what are we moving towards?
When the US Ambassador threatened India's "Strategic Autonomy" policy over India's friendship with Russia - much more than meets the eye was at stake. Let us unpack how the Ukraine war has fundamentally changed the US and the world. And why are we here anyway?
Bouquet #15: Eclectic Mind Food (Medieval Urine Exam, Space Station, Music Industry, Spinsters, Africa's Oil)
This week's bouquet brings discussion on Medieval Urine Exam, futuristic Space Station, collapse of the Music Industry, Spinsters revolution, and Africa's Oil
“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” ― Aldous Huxley, Music at Night and Other Essays
1. Urine Test - deciphering the body
A UK based historian looks at the prctice of Uroscopy or examining urine to check on the diseases. Physicians in medieval Europe would get sexual history, disease, and impending death by studying the body's liquid excretions
In Ayurveda, it was called Tailabindu pariksha. It is is a diagnostic tool of urine examination in Ayurvedic texts. It is part of the Asthavidha Pariksha or eight-fold examination. It is critical technique of diagnosis via a series of examinations in Ayurveda. Objective is to identify the various causes behind diseases. You can read about it here - Applied aspect of Ashtasthana Pariksha w.s.r. to tools used in current era
Most of such techniques are now lost and eveerytime you go to a doctor you are sent to undergo scores of tests - many of them meaningless. The ability to "know the body" is now gone.
2. Futuristic Space Station model for International Space Station
Airbus has unveiled plans for a three-deck space station, named LOOP, that is more spacious than existing stations. It could be launched within the next decade and is designed for a crew of four. The module features a habitation deck and a science deck, connected by a central tunnel. The final floor is a centrifuge that creates Earth-like gravitational conditions, reducing the impact of weightlessness on the human body. The centre of the station's structure is a three-storey column acting as a greenhouse for growing crops.
After years of great evolution of recorded music via vinyl records and tapes, the industry was turned upside down by a small toy.
The iPod allowed users to carry "1,000 songs in their pocket", as Jobs promised. It helped save the music industry from piracy by providing access to legally purchased music through iTunes. Additionally, the iPod allowed users to listen to music beyond the limitations of their home stereo system. They could connect it to their headphones, car radio, computer at work, or hi-fi system at home. Suddenly music was everywhere.
In the new millennia, women prefer to remain unencumbered. Lure of marriages is dropping rapidly.
The Office for National Statistics shows that women not living in a couple, who have never married, is rising in every age range under 70. In the decade-and-a-half between 2002 and 2018, the figure for those aged 40 to 70 rose by half a million. The percentage of never- married singletons in their 40s doubled.
And thi is not just a West phenomenon. From China’s sheng nu or the “Leftover Women” or women in Japan known as “Christmas cake” (because they were past their sell-by date) or the "Old miss" in South Korea.
A Canadian company is currently drilling exploratory wells in Namibia. The project has the potential to uncover a major oil and gas reserve. However, there are concerns from local residents and conservationists that the drilling may use up limited water resources and cause ecological damage downstream to the Okavango Delta, which is a world-renowned area for its natural beauty.
One of the last Wild places left, Okavango River Delta is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is on northern edge of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana - a place with some of he oldest rocks on the planet.
The I.N.D.I.A alliance has clearly expressed its election plank - annihilation of Sanatan Dharma or Hinduism. In order to dismantle the Modi government. It is not an electoral battle anymore but a civilizational battle now.
Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven wrote about disruptive militant protests in 1966. Movements like Occupy, Woke protests were its offsprings. Even in India, anti-Modi government protests bear its imprint. An analysis.
'The Vaccine War' is a beautiful story of very complex times. Vivek Agnihotri has weaved together a masterpiece dealing with a subject very few would have touched. The pandemic and the triumph of India.
Chandrayaan-3 landing on South side of moon was not just the triumph of scientists at ISRO today but a tradition and history of science that looks at exploration as a spiritual path. It is a story of a battle against all odds and challenges!
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