Two die and more than 100 test positive in coronavirus outbreak among US diplomatic staff in India

There has been a major coronavirus outbreak among US diplomatic staff in India with two locally employed staff dying and more than 100 people testing positive in recent weeks. This comes as India struggles to cope with a dramatic surge in COVID-19 cases in recent weeks.

A US embassy spokesperson said necessary precautions were being taken to safeguard health of US diplomatic staff in India after two died of them and more than 100 tested positive for Covid-19 in the recent weeks. 

“We’re closely monitoring the situation & taking necessary measures to safeguard health & wellbeing of our employees, including offering vaccines to them. Due to privacy concerns, we’re unable to share additional information. We offer our deepest sympathy to the people of India who are suffering during this global pandemic," US Embassy spokesperson told ANI on Tuesday

The spokesperson also offered his sympathies to people of India "We offer our deepest sympathy to the people of India who are suffering during this global pandemic."  The US operates five consulates in different cities and an embassy in New Delhi.

According to CNN, US personnel, family members and locally employed staff in India only began receiving their COVID vaccines within the past two weeks, one of the sources said. Within the past six weeks -- even as India's case rates were ticking up and staff had not yet been vaccinated -- there were two high-level trips by Biden administration officials to the country.

A few days ago, US Secretary of State,  Antony Blinken tweeted

Our hearts go out to the Indian people in the midst of the horrific COVID-19 outbreak. We are working closely with our partners in the Indian government, and we will rapidly deploy additional support to the people of India and India's health care heroes.

— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) April 25, 2021

India has reported more than 360,000 covid-19 cases, a new global record Wednesday. According to Indian Ministry of Health, there are 2,978,709 active cases with 201,18 deaths. 

COVID 2.0 Crisis in India (April 2021) Is this the time for finger pointing over “failure of government" ? Not right now!

There is a tremendous amount of finger pointing over COVID-19 and the failure of government in the media.

Stop and think for a minute how all this finger pointing over the “failure of government” is utterly counter-productive... and it can be disheartening to government and frontline workers and policemen/women helping us battle the pandemic. 

Yes, it is heart-breaking to see thousands dying and millions being affected by a virus. Images of mass funerals bring tears to our eyes, but let’s step back and think how WE are helping battle this pandemic!

Image via NYT

About a year ago when the world was coming to grips with the virulent effects of COVID-19, the central government used all its political goodwill to impose three rounds of nationwide lockdowns.

• Stage 0: Jaan hai to jahan hai - Even during that stage, the media was quick to focus on the negative - the plight of migrant workers returning back. Did we once stop to question why the greedy factory owners and builder forced this on the workers by refusing to pay them during lockdowns? 
• Stage 1: Jaan Bhi Jahan Bhi - The same industrialists, commercial leaders and builders then used political pressure on the government to open up the economy. 
• Stage 2: Present-day crisis - After restrictions were lifted and people took it easy. This led to a free-for-all and a callous attitude towards the risk posed by a virulent pathogen. Why, we were blaming local officials and policemen who were enforcing mask-wearing rules!

Guess what? After restrictions were lifted, the pathogen mutated and came back with full vigor

I love it when folks like us sitting in front of computers are able to collate digital resources - “Reddit - Resources for Covid-19 - Beds, Plasma, Oxygen, Vaccines, Medicines, Grocery etc” Try to upvote and RT tweets that from folks who are trying to help, get oxygen, vaccinations etc. We should do more if we can and contribute to such efforts.

It is easy for armchair critics like us to sit back and criticize “the government” while thousands of central and state government officials, workers and contractors are helping us battle this pandemic. Just sitting back and forwarding articles and posts about “failure of government” is counter-productive at best.

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Remember, there is a time and place to criticize: make sure you reflect on all this when you get to the voting booth during the next general election. But till then, help contain this pandemic if you can.

Photo Essay - Coconut trees at home in Bengaluru - Labor of love in 2021

Most Bangaloreans would love to have a few shady trees in their house. But with the price of real-estate skyrocketing, an independent home with even a small garden or a few shrubs has turned out to be luxury that few can afford. 

After spending years globe-trotting, I returned to Bengaluru a few years ago and moved back to the house that my dad had built. The corner-property in North Bangalore also came with four coconut trees planted nearly three decades ago. 

A house in Bangalore with four coconut trees 

The trees have now grown to be over 55 feet tall with a lovely canopy shading our property

A few years ago, my mom asked if we could have the trees chopped off since it was a bit of a hassle to maintain. After all, finding specialized labor (climber) to climb the tall trees to prune, clean the leaves and harvest the nuts isn't that easy in urban Bengaluru. I disagreed and decided I would help maintain the trees. 

What a labor of love it has turned out to be.

The trees frequently shed dried leaves that can span nearly 10 feet and can weigh 10-15 kilos. They shed more in summer than in winter. 

Every 3-4 months, I call Jagdeesh, the local tree climber who services trees in our neighborhood. He generally comes early in the morning with a helper and gets to work. Jagdeesh charges about ₹ 400 per tree to climb, clean and harvest the coconuts.

My job is to make sure folks who have parked cars and vehicles near our compound remove them and to guide the flow of traffic to avoid falling leaves and coconuts. 

The stem of coconut leaves, when dried, can be bundled into brooms ! 

By morning when the leaves have been gathered, the local sweepers and corporation workers congregate to 'harvest' and reuse the leaves. The beauty of coconut tree is that all its parts can be reused, if one has the time and labor. 

After the stems of leaves are  'harvested'  by the workers, they discard the dried stem that can accumulate on the footpath. 

I then give a call to the local corporation's dry-leaf collection service; and the guys take a few days to schedule a compactor truck to come and gather the dry-waste. 

We 'harvest' about 100-150 dried coconut from the four trees that we distribute among neighbors and also save some for our use. The dried coconuts need to be de-husked 

And, did I mention the fruit of labor is that we are hardly ever out of stock when it comes to fresh coconuts?! 

Review of TiLT Red Wine in a Can from Fratelli’s - My2Cents

During a recent visit to a local wine shop in Bengaluru, I came across cans of TiLT wines stacked attractively. The shelf had a couple of varieties - Rose, Bubbly and Red laid out on the shelf. 

Not surprisingly, I hadn't heard of the brand. This being India, liquor and wine advertising is highly restricted and a few brands that are advertised are camouflaged as mineral water or the like when advertised. The colorful cans of TiLT looked appealing enough for me to do a double take, and I decided to check them out.

During the years spent in the US and Europe, I had cultivated a taste for Red wines, with a strong preference for Cabernet Sauvignon. It also happens to be the world's most widely recognized red wine grape varieties and is grown in major wine producing countries. Cabernet Sauvignon typically exhibits strong fruit flavors of black cherries and plum and go well with Indian snacks and savories. 

Being value-driven-budget-conscious, I would explore bottles priced under $20, of which there were a number of great brands and vintages to choose from. Although I was partial to bottled wines, I would occasionally buy single serve ones packaged in plastic bottles or tetra-pack of which there are several varieties available in American shelves. Attractively priced between $3-6 per bottle/pack, these are favored by those looking for a quick glass before dinner.

After moving back to India a couple of years ago, I gave up my passion for wines, preferring the good-old Kingfisher. Trusty and reliable brand that is easily available in local stores. I didn't prefer exploring local wines and would stock up on a few wine bottles during my trips abroad. 

COVID-19 and ensuing lockdowns put a hold on my travels and wine tasting adventures. At least until recently. 

When I spotted the attractive and colorful cans of TiLT Red Wine in that showroom, I was intrigued. Priced at about  ₹ 180 for a 250 ml can, it looked like an attractive alternative to a cans of Kingfisher that I was out there for. 

Review - Slightly fizzy and metallic taste

As the wine came in a colorful, beer-like l can, I decided to pop it open and take a sip directly from the can. After the first sip, I was underwhelmed. The wine tasted a bit carbonated and fizzy with a distinct metallic flavor. Perhaps it was the fact that I was sipping from a can and not a wine glass? 

I decided to switch tactics by pouring the contents from the can to a wine glass. Needless to say, it was the same-old wine in a new container. Even after a couple of sips, the distinct metallic flavor overpowered any lingering aroma of the red wine. After polishing off rest of the glass, the 11% alcohol gave me a slight buzz.

After this experience, I was left scratching my head over the audience for this Indian wine-in-a-can. Folks like me who have sampled other wines during their travels are likely to give it a pass. Indian youngsters looking for just an alcohol-buzz may find cheaper alternatives - a can of beer holds more fizz and alcohol per rupee. 

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References

• TiLT from FRATELLI WINES 
• Would you drink wine from a can? Packaging wine in a can alters the perception of it—it's a nod to the carefree, casual culture that beer represents
• Wine in cans is edging out corks and glass bottles, and the global trend is now in India

What do you think of an AI chatbot that can help you ‘talk’ to a Dead loved one?

Those of us scanning the tech landscape continue to be intrigued by the barrage of applications of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Last week I came across an interesting post on ubergizmo that talks about a recent patent granted to Microsoft for a chatbot that could talk like a person you know, including a dead loved one.

According to the patent document (link), "In aspects, social data (e.g., images, voice data, social media posts, electronic messages, written letters, etc.) about the specific person may be accessed. The social data may be used to create or modify a special index in the theme of the specific person’s personality."

This comes at an interesting post-pandemic digital era when the world is struggling with the lack of in-person social engagements.  Human-like chatbots filling the void experienced by lonely people has been explored in Hollywood flicks like Her. In that movie, Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) becomes fascinated with a new operating system that develops into an intuitive and unique entity in its own right. 

The idea of a bot filling void in lonely hearts is not too farfetched. In China, Xiaoice a sassy Chatbot is stealing millions of men’s hearts while recording their most intimate desires and emotions. According to Xiaoice’s creators, the bot has reached over 600 million users. (sixthtone).

Technology for the grieving 

People grieve the loss of loved ones in their unique ways. Some like the Mughal emperor Shah Jahān dedicate the resources of an entire kingdom to build mausoleums in memory of their beloved, that stands tall among the 7-wonders of the world centuries later. 

A few like the Bangalore businessman Shrinivas Gupta dedicate their resources to commission silicone replica to memorialize their beloved (link). Many others take to digitizing old photographs, videos and recordings in an attempt to recreate and recall fond memories of years gone by. 

Years ago, while consulting with the largest American funeral and cemetery property and services company, I was intrigued by their digital roadmap. Their clients were increasingly asking to digitize the services and memorials by including virtual and augmented projections and holographic eulogies. 

One can imagine how an AI/ML enabled Chatbot could 'learn' some of the traits of the departed by ingesting photographs, video and audio recordings, blogs, emails and correspondences. When the survivor begins interacting with the Bot, it could mimic a response that the beloved could/would have given by using similar phrases, idioms and customized tone of the response.

Just let Time be the natural Healer?

"Time's a great healer" is an oft quoted phrase one hears while grieving; it is a concept that has a grain of truth to it. Those of us who have lost a beloved know how emotionally vulnerable we can be while grieving. However, it is unclear if such a bot will help with the grieving process or end up amplifying the sorrow and anguish. Bots like this take us into an uncharted realm of the ethics and morality of technology adoption.

Bottomline: it is unclear how or when Microsoft will develop chatbots described in the patent. But the idea of reincarnating the dead as a chatbot raises questions around privacy, consent and the ability to opt-out: Who controls your digital Avatar after you are gone? 

(Reposted from LinkedIn)

When the cloud goes dark: Amazon’s Cloud Servers goes down and people complaint they can't use their doorbell or Vacuums

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon’s cloud service is the backbone of many websites and apps across the globe. And when it encountered a multi-hour outage this week, it sent the digirati and media buzzing. 

The multi-hour outage on Wednesday before Thanksgiving impacted many popular services like Adobe Cloud Software, 1Password, Flickr  that tweeted about AWS outage impacting their services - - 1Password, Acorns, Adobe_Spark, Anchor, Autodesk, Capital_Gazette, Coinbase, DataCamp, Getaround, Glassdoor, Flickr, iRobot, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Pocket, RadioLab, Roku, RSS Podcasting, Tampa Bay Times, Vonage.

An Amazon AWS outage is currently impacting Adobe Spark so you may be having issues accessing/editing your projects. We are actively working with AWS and will report when the issue has subsided. https://t.co/uoHPf44HjL for current Spark status. We apologize for any inconvenience!

— Adobe Spark (@AdobeSpark) November 25, 2020

An Amazon AWS outage is currently impacting our iRobot Home App. Please know that our team is aware and monitoring the situation and hope to get the App back online soon. Thank you for your understanding and patience.

— iRobot (@iRobot) November 25, 2020

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AWS' brief outage highlights the risk of IOT dependent services

Internet of Things (IOT) describes the network of physical objects - "things" - that are embedded with sensors, software, and other technologies for the purpose of connecting and exchanging data with other devices and systems over the Internet. Many of our modern devices, gadgets and Smart Homes are IOT enabled by sensors and software and are dependent on access to the internet. 

An outage like this can disrupt the functioning of IOT and internet dependent devices and services. Not surprisingly, consumer tweets didn't mince words, highlight the sign of our times and how dependent we are on uninterrupted internet services:  

My fucking doorbell doesn't work because AWS us-east-1 is having issues 🤦🏿‍♂️

— SJP (ಠ_ಠ) (@SJP1804) November 25, 2020

Anyone else unable to turn on their Christmas lights because of the AWS outage?

— Brian Ragazzi (@brianragazzi) November 25, 2020

Comments on social media sites like Reddit were equally pithy

yoloman0805 posted "The future is here. Can't wait for smart toilet paper dispenser which connects to to the internet." and  CaptainFunktastic added "Our houses could be filled to the brim with all kinds of stupid things wired and connected in such a way that they do everything we think a chip in our brain could do, but somehow having vaccine crosses the line." 

Butwinsky posted

Public: The government wants to put chips in our brains!
Amazon: oh no! Anyways, here's our new Alexa enabled literally everything
Public: Shut up and take my money!

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As of 4:18AM ET on Thursday morning (26th Nov) , Amazon announced that the service has been restored. AWS Service Health Dashboard posted an update: 

“We have restored all traffic to Kinesis Data Streams via all endpoints and it is now operating normally. We have also resolved the error rates invoking CloudWatch APIs. We continue to work towards full recovery for IoT SiteWise and details of the service status is below. All other services are operating normally. We have identified the root cause of the Kinesis Data Streams event, and have completed immediate actions to prevent recurrence.” 

What is the main cause of corruption in India? Here is a recent story that explains one reason

The main cause of corruption in India? Ambitious people who want to desperately get their way; at any cost.

Let me explain with the following news article I came across a few days ago - “Retired Bangalore University professor kills himself”

According to the article, A 64-year-old retired professor from Bangalore University and former registrar of Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) committed suicide by hanging himself from the ceiling of his residence at KAS Officers’ Colony, Mico Layout on Sunday morning.

NS Ashok Kumar, who was serving as registrar of Garden City University for the last two years, was earlier a professor at departments of communication and later electronic media at BU. Police said the incident came to light on Sunday morning after his family members entered his bedroom around 6.30am. The jurisdictional police were informed around 8.30am. Mico Layout police found a note, in which Kumar stated that he alone is responsible for his death and no one is behind it.

Prof. NS Ashok Kumar

This was followed up by another article (link) that described a few more details:

Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president D K Shivakumar on Monday demanded a judicial inquiry into the death of retired Bangalore University professor NS Ashok Kumar. Shivakumar claimed that Kumar (64), who was found hanging at his Mico Layout home on November 8, had paid Rs 2.5 crore to “influential people” in exchange to get appointed as vice-chancellor to four new universities.

On November 7, a day before Kumar was found dead, the state government appointed vice-chancellors to four new universities - Gomathi Devi L (Maharani Cluster University), Harish Ramaswamy (Raichur University), Shrinivas S Balli (Nrupathunga University) and Puttaraju (Mandya University). “Kumar was told that there was some problem with his file and his money wasn’t returned,” Shivakumar said.

He borrowed loans and was made to wait 5-6 months. But, he did not get the position. Therefore, he took the extreme step. This is what’s being discussed widely,” Shivakumar told reporters.

“The appointment of vice-chancellors is mired in corruption. In every university, the staff and students talk that the V-C’s post is for sale. People go to Vidhana Soudha and ministers’ homes for this,” he said.

After retiring from Bangalore University where he headed the department of electronic media, Kumar was the registrar of Garden City University at the time of his death. He was also registrar (evaluation) of the state-run Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences and his tenure there was marred by alleged tampering of marks cards.

Here are a few thoughts

While the media may or may not follow up on the true cause of Prof. Kumar’s suicide, these articles highlight the sad state of affairs in modern India:

• Appointment to top public offices and positions are mired in cronyism and corruption
• If Sivakumar’s allegations are to be believed, Prof. Kumar borrowed Rs 2.5 crore (about $330,000) to bribe decision makers for a position he didn’t get.
• Prof. Kumar had seemingly reached the pinnacle of his career as the head of department of electronic media at BU. It seems like his ambition at a late-career got better of his judgment, and he took on substantial debt to bribe his way for a post he couldn’t attain

This is just one story of an extreme step by a person whose attempt at bribing his way to a top public appointment failed. There are millions of such cases of people trying to get ahead of their fellow countrymen, even if it means bribing their way, and millions who are willing to facilitate them in the effort!