INDIA: 2021           In India politics seems to be divorced from economy. (While in USA, the primary  focus is " it's the economy stupid"). Indians, mostly, do not vote on the basis of  economic  issues. Caste, cultural ideology and hero worship play a much greater role. This is ironical since the economic upliftment of poor and lower middle class people, who are the majority,  should be the most primary focus of the policy makers in India, in my opinion, especially after the  worst negative economic growth year, 2020, after independence.            It is my educated guess that about 20% of Indian adults are staunch communal Hindus and  additional 20 % are of soft Hindutva frame of mind. (Interestingly as a parallel...

                                                                                                                                       FACTFULN ESS              [Extracts from Hans Rosling's book with the same title (2018)]                     Our historical knowledge is rosy and pink. As a matter of fact, step by step,  the world  is improving, in general. Child deaths per thousand dropped from 242 to 35 in just 33 years  (by 1995). In 1800 average life expectancy around the world was roughly 30 years. That  was what it had been through our history...

                                                             LAB MEAT                                                  This article ioan 1 month old Singapore’s approval of chicken cells grown in bioreactors is seen as landmark moment. Cultured meat, produced in bioreactors without the slaughter of an animal, has been approved for sale by a regulatory authority for the first time. The development has been hailed as a landmark moment across the meat industry. The “chicken bites”, produced by the US company Eat Just, have passed a safety review by the Singapore  Food  Agency and the approval could open the door to a future when all meat is produced without the killing of livestock, the company said. Doze...