The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - Oct 2018)

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Gus
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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by Gus » Sat Jul 21, 2018 1:17 am

Suraj wrote:
Fri Jul 20, 2018 9:38 pm
I just looked at the video of The Hug. What kind of hug is that ? One person is sitting there without acknowledging or aware of the upcoming gesture, the other suddenly bends down and hugs him without warning and then turns around and walks off. Even Modi seemed to be asking 'WTF was that about, man ?' The guy seems to have no idea of how to conduct himself in public, much less within the hallowed halls of the Parliament :facepalm:
it looked stupid. nobody in india gives a crap about this love vs hate rhetoric that preceded that either. that won't go far.

and he made it even more stupid by winking at scindia.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by Sachin » Sat Jul 21, 2018 4:51 am

I am reminded of the end line of the old serial He-Man."This is not the end, cobra would be back..".
Supreme Court collegium stands by Justice Joseph again
Sabari Mala verdict, RJB case hearing and now the issue of Justice Joseph's elevation to SC. I think the coming months would see lots of "court dramas".
KL Dubey wrote:NaMo Sarkar wins confidence vote 325 to 126, i.e. a 72% majority.
The best part is that NDA got more votes than their actual seat share :lol:. And this is also when BJD folks walked out and Shiv Sena was to "abstain" from voting. So looks like a few votes from the "secular" camp has also flown into the "communal" camp.
Today's LS proceedings were absolutely hilarious.
Looks like it is only the Malayalam media who is spinning this defeat as a victory. Ra.Ga's performance is being portrayed as very tactically brilliant moves.
chetak wrote:“whenever anyone tried to look into their eyes — be it Subhas Chandra Bose, Morarji Desai, Jayaprakash Narayan, Chaudhary Charan Singh, Chandra Shekhar, HD Deve Gowda – see what happened to them "
Wow!! :eek: This is when humble farmer Sr.Gowdru was actually sitting in the Lok Sabha? I thought I did see him in the benches with his standard expression.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by chetak » Sat Jul 21, 2018 5:59 am

Sachin wrote:
Sat Jul 21, 2018 4:51 am
I am reminded of the end line of the old serial He-Man."This is not the end, cobra would be back..".
Supreme Court collegium stands by Justice Joseph again
Sabari Mala verdict, RJB case hearing and now the issue of Justice Joseph's elevation to SC. I think the coming months would see lots of "court dramas".
KL Dubey wrote:NaMo Sarkar wins confidence vote 325 to 126, i.e. a 72% majority.
The best part is that NDA got more votes than their actual seat share :lol:. And this is also when BJD folks walked out and Shiv Sena was to "abstain" from voting. So looks like a few votes from the "secular" camp has also flown into the "communal" camp.
Today's LS proceedings were absolutely hilarious.
Looks like it is only the Malayalam media who is spinning this defeat as a victory. Ra.Ga's performance is being portrayed as very tactically brilliant moves.
chetak wrote:“whenever anyone tried to look into their eyes — be it Subhas Chandra Bose, Morarji Desai, Jayaprakash Narayan, Chaudhary Charan Singh, Chandra Shekhar, HD Deve Gowda – see what happened to them "
Wow!! :eek: This is when humble farmer Sr.Gowdru was actually sitting in the Lok Sabha? I thought I did see him in the benches with his standard expression.
This ever sleepy "humble farmer" is desperately hoping that lightning does strike twice in the same place and he ascends the PM gaddi once again.

What's with all these geriatrically challenged PM candidates??.

There are many more of them in the body politic who harbor such lofty ambitions. Are they so severely short of other appropriately aged and more suitable candidates to challenge a tactically nimble, strategically innovative and a politically brilliant opponent??

or are these politically neutered but grasping personalities merely setting up to aseptically and unproductively climb into the pages of the history books, intent on benefitting none but their own pathetic dynasties??

No one can better NaMo's scorching pace at which he has bloomed on the international scene, the searing change of positive perception that he has managed for India and for himself too. Banditji comes far, far down the list.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by srikumar » Sat Jul 21, 2018 1:47 pm

We have to thank Rahu Gandhi for providing some comic relief at times....(hope this is not considered OT, :D it is politics afterall, this wink was administered in the Lok Sabha).

Image

Sometimes I feel sorry for Rahul Gandhi....he's trying hard for the famiglia and madre. But there are limits to what he can do. I dont know if anyone watched the last 20 seconds after the hug....Something along the lines of 'Even though you hate me, as a Hindu I love you back for your hate'..... So clearly staged and fake...his handlers dont realize how odd it would have looked. Who has -ever- said a thing like that? The speaker shut him up with 'Do you know the rules of the floor, you finished speaking, and now have to stop your bhaashan'.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by SSundar » Sat Jul 21, 2018 3:18 pm

SuSwamy says this might be an attempt at assassination. Interesting.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by SSundar » Sat Jul 21, 2018 3:23 pm

Call me old fashioned but when I see a 65-plus year old PM fall at the feet of 90+ year old brother of Abdul Kalam and driver of Netaji (both Muslims, but that is beside the point) while this 48+ year old son of an Italian asks the 65+ to stand up so he can hug him, that right there is a lifetime of proof that this wretched family is not fit to lead our civilization at all.

No sane Indic will ever speak positively about this family ever again.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by KL Dubey » Sat Jul 21, 2018 3:51 pm

http://5forty3.in/gaze_articles.php?articalid=215

Lots of good stuff in this piece, but here is one important observation:
After a long time, this year is likely to be a normal monsoon year across India. What this means is a potentially bumper Kharif season followed by an even more successful Rabi season because of increased ground water due to excess rainfall in many parts of India. Back-to-back bumper farm produce combined with virtual doubling of MSP would mean a year of unlimited happiness in Indian villages which can create a massive positive energy for Modi in the summer of 2019. Therefore, preponing of elections to November should not even be considered as an option.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by srikumar » Sat Jul 21, 2018 3:55 pm

SSundar wrote:
Sat Jul 21, 2018 3:18 pm
SuSwamy says this might be an attempt at assassination. Interesting.
I am not sure what SuSwa is talking about ....but clearly something like this has already happened.
In the Patna rally leading up to the 2014 elections, several bombs went off in the crowd and the police later found explosives below the pandal (if i recall right). They have tried it once before. The stakes now are higher and all parties know this election is different.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by KL Dubey » Sat Jul 21, 2018 3:59 pm

SSundar wrote:
Sat Jul 21, 2018 3:23 pm
Call me old fashioned but when I see a 65-plus year old PM fall at the feet of 90+ year old brother of Abdul Kalam and driver of Netaji (both Muslims, but that is beside the point) while this 48+ year old son of an Italian asks the 65+ to stand up so he can hug him, that right there is a lifetime of proof that this wretched family is not fit to lead our civilization at all.

No sane Indic will ever speak positively about this family ever again.
Not old fashioned at all. This is part of our timeless culture and tradition which these morons do not understand and in fact detest to the core. As Govind Khanna declares in one of those old Matrix calling card ads: "bhai Indian culture bhi koi cheez hoti hai!" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHCmB0rh6CU)

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by RamaY » Sat Jul 21, 2018 4:12 pm

sbajwa wrote:
Fri Jul 20, 2018 6:08 pm
KL Dubey wrote:
Fri Jul 20, 2018 5:42 pm
NaMo Sarkar wins confidence vote 325 to 126, i.e. a 72% majority.
If he gets a 67% majority in parliament he can amend constitution (Article 370) and do many other things that are currently not being done.
The two are different issues. We cannot translate 325 votes for any/every legislation. More over, the abstainers will come back and vote against him.

If NaMo puts a bill for to abolish A370 or any constitutional amendment, he wont get 325 votes. Even some BJP MPs will not vote.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by darshhan » Sat Jul 21, 2018 4:13 pm

SSundar wrote:
Sat Jul 21, 2018 3:18 pm
SuSwamy says this might be an attempt at assassination. Interesting.
Some kind of biological weapon use with Raga as a vector. This thought did strike me. We know that he has been meeting with chinese on the sidelines. Just have a look at the article below.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... na/309147/
This is how the future arrived. It began innocuously, in the early 2000s, when businesses started to realize that highly skilled jobs formerly performed in-house, by a single employee, could more efficiently be crowd-sourced to a larger group of people via the Internet. Initially, we crowd-sourced the design of T‑shirts (Threadless.com) and the writing of encyclopedias (Wikipedia.com), but before long the trend started making inroads into the harder sciences. Pretty soon, the hunt for extraterrestrial life, the development of self-driving cars, and the folding of enzymes into novel proteins were being done this way. With the fundamental tools of genetic manipulation—tools that had cost millions of dollars not 10 years earlier—dropping precipitously in price, the crowd-sourced design of biological agents was just the next logical step.

In 2008, casual DNA-design competitions with small prizes arose; then in 2011, with the launch of GE’s $100 million breast-cancer challenge, the field moved on to serious contests. By early 2015, as personalized gene therapies for end-stage cancer became medicine’s cutting edge, virus-design Web sites began appearing, where people could upload information about their disease and virologists could post designs for a customized cure. Medically speaking, it all made perfect sense: Nature had done eons of excellent design work on viruses. With some retooling, they were ideal vehicles for gene delivery.

Soon enough, these sites were flooded with requests that went far beyond cancer. Diagnostic agents, vaccines, antimicrobials, even designer psychoactive drugs—all appeared on the menu. What people did with these bio-designs was anybody’s guess. No international body had yet been created to watch over them.

So, in November of 2016, when a first-time visitor with the handle Cap’n Capsid posted a challenge on the viral-design site 99Virions, no alarms sounded; his was just one of the 100 or so design requests submitted that day. Cap’n Capsid might have been some consultant to the pharmaceutical industry, and his challenge just another attempt to understand the radically shifting R&D landscape—really, he could have been anyone—but the problem was interesting nonetheless. Plus, Capsid was offering $500 for the winning design, not a bad sum for a few hours’ work.

Later, 99Virions’ log files would show that Cap’n Capsid’s IP address originated in Panama, although this was likely a fake. The design specification itself raised no red flags. Written in SBOL, an open-source language popular with the synthetic-biology crowd, it seemed like a standard vaccine request. So people just got to work, as did the automated computer programs that had been written to “auto-evolve” new designs. These algorithms were getting quite good, now winning nearly a third of the challenges.

Within 12 hours, 243 designs were submitted, most by these computerized expert systems. But this time the winner, GeneGenie27, was actually human—a 20-year-old Columbia University undergrad with a knack for virology. His design was quickly forwarded to a thriving Shanghai-based online bio-marketplace. Less than a minute later, an Icelandic synthesis start‑up won the contract to turn the 5,984-base-pair blueprint into actual genetic material. Three days after that, a package of 10‑milligram, fast-dissolving microtablets was dropped in a FedEx envelope and handed to a courier.

Two days later, Samantha, a sophomore majoring in government at Harvard University, received the package. Thinking it contained a new synthetic psychedelic she had ordered online, she slipped a tablet into her left nostril that evening, then walked over to her closet. By the time Samantha finished dressing, the tab had started to dissolve, and a few strands of foreign genetic material had entered the cells of her nasal mucosa.

Some party drug—all she got, it seemed, was the flu. Later that night, Samantha had a slight fever and was shedding billions of virus particles. These particles would spread around campus in an exponentially growing chain reaction that was—other than the mild fever and some sneezing—absolutely harmless. This would change when the virus crossed paths with cells containing a very specific DNA sequence, a sequence that would act as a molecular key to unlock secondary functions that were not so benign. This secondary sequence would trigger a fast-acting neuro-destructive disease that produced memory loss and, eventually, death. The only person in the world with this DNA sequence was the president of the United States, who was scheduled to speak at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government later that week. Sure, thousands of people on campus would be sniffling, but the Secret Service probably wouldn’t think anything was amiss.



It was December, after all—cold-and-flu season.

The scenario we’ve just sketched may sound like nothing but science fiction—and, indeed, it does contain a few futuristic leaps. Many members of the scientific community would say our time line is too fast. But consider that since the beginning of this century, rapidly accelerating technology has shown a distinct tendency to turn the impossible into the everyday in no time at all. Last year, IBM’s Watson, an artificial intelligence, understood natural language well enough to whip the human champion Ken Jennings on Jeopardy. As we write this, soldiers with bionic limbs are returning to active duty, and autonomous cars are driving down our streets. Yet most of these advances are small in comparison with the great leap forward currently under way in the biosciences—a leap with consequences we’ve only begun to imagine.

More to the point, consider that the DNA of world leaders is already a subject of intrigue. According to Ronald Kessler, the author of the 2009 book In the President’s Secret Service, Navy stewards gather bedsheets, drinking glasses, and other objects the president has touched—they are later sanitized or destroyed—in an effort to keep would‑be malefactors from obtaining his genetic material. (The Secret Service would neither confirm nor deny this practice, nor would it comment on any other aspect of this article.) And according to a 2010 release of secret cables by WikiLeaks, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton directed our embassies to surreptitiously collect DNA samples from foreign heads of state and senior United Nations officials. Clearly, the U.S. sees strategic advantage in knowing the specific biology of world leaders; it would be surprising if other nations didn’t feel the same.

While no use of an advanced, genetically targeted bio-weapon has been reported, the authors of this piece—including an expert in genetics and microbiology (Andrew Hessel) and one in global security and law enforcement (Marc Goodman)—are convinced we are drawing close to this possibility. Most of the enabling technologies are in place, already serving the needs of academic R&D groups and commercial biotech organizations. And these technologies are becoming exponentially more powerful, particularly those that allow for the easy manipulation of DNA.

The evolution of cancer treatment provides one window into what’s happening. Most cancer drugs kill cells. Today’s chemotherapies are offshoots of chemical-warfare agents: we’ve turned weapons into cancer medicines, albeit crude ones—and as with carpet bombing, collateral damage is a given. But now, thanks to advances in genetics, we know that each cancer is unique, and research is shifting to the development of personalized medicines—designer therapies that can exterminate specific cancerous cells in a specific way, in a specific person; therapies focused like lasers.



To be sure, around the turn of the millennium, significant fanfare surrounded personalized medicine, especially in the field of genetics. A lot of that is now gone. The prevailing wisdom is that the tech has not lived up to the talk, but this isn’t surprising. Gartner, an information-technology research-and-advisory firm, has coined the term hype cycle to describe exactly this sort of phenomenon: a new technology is introduced with enthusiasm, only to be followed by an emotional low when it fails to immediately deliver on its promise. But Gartner also discovered that the cycle doesn’t typically end in what the firm calls “the trough of disillusionment.” Rising from those ashes is a “slope of enlightenment”—meaning that when viewed from a longer-term historical perspective, the majority of these much-hyped groundbreaking developments do, eventually, break plenty of new ground.

As George Church, a geneticist at Harvard, explains, this is what is now happening in personalized medicine. “The fields of gene therapies, viral delivery, and other personalized therapies are progressing rapidly,” Church says, “with several clinical trials succeeding into Phase 2 and 3,” when the therapies are tried on progressively larger numbers of test subjects. “Many of these treatments target cells that differ in only one—rare—genetic variation relative to surrounding cells or individuals.” The Finnish start-up Oncos Therapeutics has already treated close to 300 cancer patients using a scaled-down form of this kind of targeted technology.

These developments are, for the most part, positive—promising better treatment, new cures, and, eventually, longer life. But it wouldn’t take much to subvert such therapies and come full circle, turning personalized medicines into personalized bioweapons. “Right now,” says Jimmy Lin, a genomics researcher at Washington University in St. Louis and the founder of Rare Genomics, a nonprofit organization that designs treatments for rare childhood diseases based on individual genetic analysis, “we have drugs that target specific cancer mutations. Examples include Gleevec, Zelboraf, and Xalkori. Vertex,” a pharmaceutical company based in Massachusetts, “has famously made a drug for cystic-fibrosis patients with a particular mutation. The genetic targeting of individuals is a little farther out. But a state-sponsored program of the Stuxnet variety might be able to accomplish this in a few years. Of course, this work isn’t very well known, so if you tell most people about this, they say that the time frame sounds like science fiction. But when you’re familiar with the research, it’s really feasible that a well-funded group could pull this off.” We would do well to begin planning for that possibility sooner rather than later.

If you really want to understand what’s happening in the biosciences, then you need to understand the rate at which information technology is accelerating. In 1965, Gordon Moore famously realized that the number of integrated-circuit components on a computer chip had been doubling roughly every year since the invention of the integrated circuit in the late 1950s. Moore, who would go on to co-found Intel, predicted that the trend would continue “for at least 10 years.” He was right. The trend did continue for 10 years, and 10 more after that. All told, his observation has remained accurate for five decades, becoming so durable that it’s now known as “Moore’s Law” and used by the semi-conductor industry as a guide for future planning.


Moore’s Law originally stated that every 12 months (it is now 24 months), the number of transistors on an integrated circuit will double—an example of a pattern known as “exponential growth.” While linear growth is a slow, sequential proposition (1 becomes 2 becomes 3 becomes 4, etc.), exponential growth is an explosive doubling (1 becomes 2 becomes 4 becomes 8, etc.) with a transformational effect. In the 1970s, the most powerful supercomputer in the world was a Cray. It required a small room to hold it and cost roughly $8 million. Today, the iPhone in your pocket is more than 100 times faster and more than 12,000 times cheaper than a Cray. This is exponential growth at work.

In the years since Moore’s observation, scientists have discovered that the pattern of exponential growth occurs in many other industries and technologies. The amount of Internet data traffic in a year, the number of bytes of computer data storage available per dollar, the number of digital-camera pixels per dollar, and the amount of data transferable over optical fiber are among the dozens of measures of technological progress that follow this pattern. In fact, so prevalent is exponential growth that researchers now suspect it is found in all information-based technology—that is, any technology used to input, store, process, retrieve, or transmit digital information.

Over the past few decades, scientists have also come to see that the four letters of the genetic alphabet—A (adenine), C (cytosine), G (guanine), and T (thymine)—can be transformed into the ones and zeroes of binary code, allowing for the easy, electronic manipulation of genetic information. With this development, biology has turned a corner, morphing into an information-based science and advancing exponentially. As a result, the fundamental tools of genetic engineering, tools designed for the manipulation of life—tools that could easily be co-opted for destructive purposes—are now radically falling in cost and rising in power. Today, anyone with a knack for science, a decent Internet connection, and enough cash to buy a used car has what it takes to try his hand at bio-hacking.

These developments greatly increase several dangers. The most nightmarish involve bad actors creating weapons of mass destruction, or careless scientists unleashing accidental plagues—very real concerns that urgently need more attention. Personalized bioweapons, the focus of this story, are a subtler and less catastrophic threat, and perhaps for that reason, society has barely begun to consider them. Yet once available, they will, we believe, be put into use much more readily than bioweapons of mass destruction. For starters, while most criminals might think twice about mass slaughter, murder is downright commonplace. In the future, politicians, celebrities, leaders of industry—just about anyone, really—could be vulnerable to attack-by-disease. Even if fatal, many such attacks could go undetected, mistaken for death by natural causes; many others would be difficult to pin on a suspect, especially given the passage of time between exposure and the appearance of symptoms.

Moreover—as we’ll explore in greater detail—these same scientific developments will pave the way, eventually, for an entirely new kind of personal warfare. Imagine inducing extreme paranoia in the CEO of a large corporation so as to gain a business advantage, for example; or—further out in the future—infecting shoppers with the urge to impulse-buy.

We have chosen to focus this investigation mostly on the president’s bio-security, because the president’s personal welfare is paramount to national security—and because a discussion of the challenges faced by those charged with his protection will illuminate just how difficult (and different) “security” will be, as biotechnology continues to advance.

A direct assault against the president’s genome requires first being able to decode genomes. Until recently, this was no simple matter. In 1990, when the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health announced their intention to sequence the 3 billion base pairs of the human genome over the next 15 years, it was considered the most ambitious life-sciences project ever undertaken. Despite a budget of $3 billion, progress did not come quickly. Even after years of hard work, many experts doubted that the time and money budgeted would be enough to complete the job.

This started to change in 1998, when the entrepreneurial biologist J. Craig Venter and his company, Celera, got into the race. Taking advantage of the exponential growth in biotechnology, Venter relied on a new generation of gene sequencers and a novel, computer-intensive approach called shotgun sequencing to deliver a draft human genome (his own) in less than two years, for $300 million.

Venter’s achievement was stunning; it was also just the beginning. By 2007, just seven years later, a human genome could be sequenced for less than $1 million. In 2008, some labs would do it for $60,000, and in 2009, $5,000. This year, the $1,000 barrier looks likely to fall. At the current rate of decline, within five years, the cost will be less than $100. In the history of the world, perhaps no other technology has dropped in price and increased in performance so dramatically.

Still, it would take more than just a gene sequencer to build a personally targeted bioweapon. To begin with, prospective attackers would have to collect and grow live cells from the target (more on this later), so cell-culturing tools would be a necessity. Next, a molecular profile of the cells would need to be generated, involving gene sequencers, micro-array scanners, mass spectrometers, and more. Once a detailed genetic blueprint had been built, the attacker could begin to design, build, and test a pathogen, which starts with genetic databases and software and ends with virus and cell-culture work. Gathering the equipment required to do all of this isn’t trivial, and yet, as researchers have upgraded to new tools, as large companies have merged and consolidated operations, and as smaller shops have run out of money and failed, plenty of used lab equipment has been dumped onto the resale market. New, the requisite gear would cost well over $1 million. On eBay, it can be had for as little as $10,000. Strip out the analysis equipment—since those processes can now be outsourced—and a basic cell-culture rig can be cobbled together for less than $1,000. Chemicals and lab supplies have never been easier to buy; hundreds of Web resellers take credit cards and ship almost anywhere.

Biological knowledge, too, is becoming increasingly democratized. Web sites like JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments) provide thousands of how-to videos on the techniques of bioscience. MIT offers online courses. Many journals are going open-access, making the latest research, complete with detailed sections on materials and methods, freely available. If you wanted a more hands-on approach to learning, you could just immerse yourself in any of the dozens of do-it-yourself-biology organizations, such as Genspace and BioCurious, that have lately sprung up to make genetic engineering into something of a hobbyist’s pursuit. Bill Gates, in a recent interview, told a reporter that if he were a kid today, forget about hacking computers: he’d be hacking biology. And for those with neither the lab nor the learning, dozens of Contract Research and Manufacturing Services (known as CRAMS) are willing to do much of the serious science for a fee.

From the invention of genetic engineering in 1972 until very recently, the high cost of equipment, and the high cost of education to use that equipment effectively, kept most people with ill intentions away from these technologies. Those barriers to entry are now almost gone. “Unfortunately,” Secretary Clinton said in a December 7, 2011, speech to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention Review Conference, “the ability of terrorists and other non-state actors to develop and use these weapons is growing. And therefore, this must be a renewed focus of our efforts … because there are warning signs, and they are too serious to ignore.”

The radical expansion of biology’s frontier raises an uncomfortable question: How do you guard against threats that don’t yet exist? Genetic engineering sits at the edge of a new era. The old era belonged to DNA sequencing, which is simply the act of reading genetic code—identifying and extracting meaning from the ordering of the four chemicals that make up DNA. But now we’re learning how to write DNA, and this creates possibilities both grand and terrifying.

Again, Craig Venter helped to usher in this shift. In the mid‑1990s, just before he began his work to read the human genome, he began wondering what it would take to write one. He wanted to know what the minimal genome required for life looked like. It was a good question. Back then, DNA-synthesis technology was too crude and expensive for anyone to consider writing a minimal genome for life or, more to our point, constructing a sophisticated bioweapon. And gene-splicing techniques, which involve the tricky work of using enzymes to cut up existing DNA from one or more organisms and stitch it back together, were too unwieldy for the task.

Exponential advances in biotechnology have greatly diminished these problems. The latest technology—known as synthetic biology, or “synbio”—moves the work from the molecular to the digital. Genetic code is manipulated using the equivalent of a word processor. With the press of a button, code representing DNA can be cut and pasted, effortlessly imported from one species into another. It can be reused and repurposed. DNA bases can be swapped in and out with precision. And once the code looks right? Simply hit Send. A dozen different DNA print shops can now turn these bits into biology.

In May 2010, with the help of these new tools, Venter answered his own question by creating the world’s first synthetic self-replicating chromosome. To pull this off, he used a computer to design a novel bacterial genome (of more than 1 million base pairs in total). Once the design was complete, the code was e‑mailed to Blue Heron Biotechnology, a Seattle-area company that specializes in synthesizing DNA from digital blueprints. Blue Heron took Venter’s A’s, T’s, C’s, and G’s and returned multiple vials filled with frozen plasmid DNA. Just as one might load an operating system into a computer, Venter then inserted the synthetic DNA into a host bacterial cell that had been emptied of its own DNA. The cell soon began generating proteins, or, to use the computer term popular with today’s biologists, it “booted up”: it started to metabolize, grow, and, most important, divide, based entirely on the code of the injected DNA. One cell became two, two became four, four became eight. And each new cell carried only Venter’s synthetic instructions. For all practical purposes, it was an altogether new life form, created virtually from scratch. Venter called it “the first self-replicating species that we’ve had on the planet whose parent is a computer.”

But Venter merely grazed the surface. Plummeting costs and increasing technical simplicity are allowing synthetic biologists to tinker with life in ways never before feasible. In 2006, for example, Jay D. Keasling, a biochemical engineer at the University of California at Berkeley, stitched together 10 synthetic genes made from the genetic blueprints of three different organisms to create a novel yeast that can manufacture the precursor to the antimalarial drug artemisinin, artemisinic acid, natural supplies of which fluctuate greatly. Meanwhile, Venter’s company Synthetic Genomics is working in partnership with ExxonMobil on a designer algae that consumes carbon dioxide and excretes biofuel; his spin-off company Synthetic Genomics Vaccines is trying to develop flu-fighting vaccines that can be made in hours or days instead of the six-plus months now required. Solazyme, a synbio company based in San Francisco, is making biodiesel with engineered micro-algae. Material scientists are also getting in on the action: DuPont and Tate & Lyle, for instance, have jointly designed a highly efficient and environmentally friendly organism that ingests corn sugar and excretes propanediol, a substance used in a wide range of consumer goods, from cosmetics to cleaning products.

Other synthetic biologists are playing with more-fundamental cellular mechanisms. The Florida-based Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution has added two bases (Z and P) to DNA’s traditional four, augmenting the old genetic alphabet. At Harvard, George Church has supercharged evolution with his Multiplex Automated Genome Engineering process, which randomly swaps multiple genes at once. Instead of creating novel genomes one at a time, MAGE creates billions of variants in a matter of days.



Finally, because synbio makes DNA design, synthesis, and assembly easier, we’re already moving from the tweaking of existing genetic designs to the construction of new organisms—species that have never before been seen on Earth, species birthed entirely by our imagination. Since we can control the environments these organisms will live in—adjusting things like temperature, pressure, and food sources while eliminating competitors and other stresses—we could soon be generating creatures capable of feats impossible in the “natural” world. Imagine organisms that can thrive on the surface of Mars, or enzymes able to change simple carbon into diamonds or nanotubes. The ultimate limits to synthetic biology are hard to discern.

All of this means that our interactions with biology, already complicated, are about to get a lot more troublesome. Mixing together code from multiple species or creating novel organisms could have unintended consequences. And even in labs with high safety standards, accidents happen. If those accidents involve a containment breach, what is today a harmless laboratory bacterium could tomorrow become an ecological catastrophe. A 2010 synbio report by the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues said as much: “Unmanaged release could, in theory, lead to undesired cross-breeding with other organisms, uncontrolled proliferation, crowding out of existing species, and threats to biodiversity.”

Just as worrisome as bio-error is the threat of bioterror. Although the bacterium Venter created is essentially harmless to humans, the same techniques could be used to construct a known pathogenic virus or bacterium or, worse, to engineer a much deadlier version of one. Viruses are particularly easy to synthetically engineer, a fact made apparent in 2002, when Eckard Wimmer, a Stony Brook University virologist, chemically synthesized the polio genome using mail-order DNA. At the time, the 7,500-nucleotide synthesis cost about $300,000 and took several years to complete. Today, a similar synthesis would take just weeks and cost a few thousand dollars. By 2020, if trends continue, it will take a few minutes and cost roughly $3. Governments the world over have spent billions trying to eradicate polio; imagine the damage terrorists could do with a $3 pathogen.

During the 1990s, the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo, infamous for its deadly 1995 sarin-gas attack on the Tokyo subway system, maintained an active and extremely well-funded bioweapons program, which included anthrax in its arsenal. When police officers eventually raided its facilities, they found proof of a years-long research effort costing an estimated $30 million—demonstrating, among other things, that terrorists clearly see value in pursuing bioweaponry. Although Aum did manage to cause considerable harm, it failed in its attempts to unleash a bioweapon of mass destruction. In a 2001 article for Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, William Rosenau, a terrorism expert then at the Rand Corporation, explained:

Aum’s failure suggests that it may, in fact, be far more difficult to carry out a deadly bioterrorism attack than has sometimes been portrayed by government officials and the press. Despite its significant financial resources, dedicated personnel, motivation, and freedom from the scrutiny of the Japanese authorities, Aum was unable to achieve its objectives.

That was then; this is now. Today, two trends are changing the game. The first began in 2004, when the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition was launched at MIT. In this competition, teams of high-school and college students build simple biological systems from standardized, interchangeable parts. These standardized parts, now known as BioBricks, are chunks of DNA code, with clearly defined structures and functions, that can be easily linked together in new combinations, a little like a set of genetic Lego bricks. iGEM collects these designs in the Registry of Standard Biological Parts, an open-source database of downloadable BioBricks accessible to anyone.

.............
Read it all. The best part is that this article was written in 2012. Only God knows how much progress has been made in waging this kind of warfare.

So I wouldnt be surprised if something nefarious was planned by gandhi family in concert with other enemies of this nation.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by chetak » Sat Jul 21, 2018 4:15 pm

advice to our fake news media

Image

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by Supratik » Sat Jul 21, 2018 4:30 pm

First death penalty under RJ tough new child rape law. MP also has similar law.

http://zeenews.india.com/india/19-year- ... 26527.html

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by crams » Sat Jul 21, 2018 5:28 pm

Meanwhile the Pappu euphoria amoung his slaves continues. As her headline, "Rahul Gandhi, My, Oh My ...", indicates, pretty sure this bimbo was using a dildo and going ecstatic thinking of herself and Pappu alone in a hotel room as she wrote this: https://www.ndtv.com/opinion/rahul-gand ... di-1886367. Came across this op-ed from Shefali VaidyaJi's twitter feed on why Pappu's slaves don't understand the reasons for him not cutting a chord with the people

http://www.opindia.com/2018/07/media-pi ... oples-man/

While there are some good arguments there, I have some points to the contrary. To me there are roughly 3 ways of looking at Pappu:

1. Those, like me, who detest Pappu for his free loading while the rest of us have to struggle against fierce competition for everything we get in life: education, jobs etc, while that dumb ass is such a free loading scum bag with not a single achievement in life worth talking about.

2. Tons of Lutyen elite and the journalists mostly of the low IQ variety who represent them simply adore Pappu and his mummy for their Italian/European origins and simply loath with contempt and disdain anything Hindu or indigenous (these are the kind of people who think India is a global superpower because Nick Jonas is nowadays going under the sheets with Prinyanka Chopra). These people think of themselves as enlightened counterparts to white colonialists and have a chip on their shoulders thinking of themselves as morally Superior and more civilized when compared to those they disparagingly call "bhakts"

3. A huge chunk of India's citizens: Muslims, Dalits, OBCs etc who see in European/Christian Pappu and his white mummy as messiahs who can give them justice from the oppressive grip of Brahmin and other 'upper caste' Hindus. In fact, I can bet my last penny, that even those Congoons who have a problem with Pappu go along with Pappu worship despite knowing he is a clown simply because of this reason: deep down they know this vote bank is for the taking and in Pappu, they will vote and worship Pappu.

So while the opindia article is correct, it only applies to those in category #1. Categories #2 and 3 are wild cards, and BJP needs to work on them, especially #3.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by Supratik » Sat Jul 21, 2018 5:40 pm

Pak media claiming free Balochistan office opened in Delhi. No report in Indian media.

https://dailytimes.com.pk/270282/openin ... esigns-fo/

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by RajaRaja » Sat Jul 21, 2018 7:06 pm


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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by Indrad » Sat Jul 21, 2018 8:11 pm

https://thewire.in/books/narendra-modi- ... -interview

a new book of karan thapar is out and he wants to sell it by creating unnecessary controversy and dragging (who else) namo into it...

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by crams » Sat Jul 21, 2018 11:09 pm

^^^ And the prick's self-righteous victim hood and sense of entitlement is astounding. Why is anyone from BJP beholden to give him an interview after he pukes bile, vitriol, and propaganda against BJP in every breath he utters? Even in his book, the slime ball cannot honestly proclaim that he has a certain ideology, a pro Cong, pro Paki, pro Islamist bent-of-mind, and he essentially feels more western and Brit than Indian and Hindu. He is entitled to all that, but why would he be surprised if his very nemesis chooses to ignore him. Does he think he is so important that BJP will prostrate before him and go through the torture of perverted, loaded questions designed to humiliate and embarrass them?

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by srikumar » Sat Jul 21, 2018 11:45 pm

crams wrote:
Sat Jul 21, 2018 5:28 pm
While there are some good arguments there, I have some points to the contrary. To me there are roughly 3 ways of looking at Pappu:

1. Those, like me, who detest Pappu for his free loading while the rest of us have to struggle against fierce competition for everything we get in life: education, jobs etc, while that dumb ass is such a free loading scum bag with not a single achievement in life worth talking about.
There's a 4th way of looking at Rahul Gandhi. He is the projected heir-apparent to lead a country, put forth by a national and very respected party that has now become the personal property of one single family. He is the Rajkumar of a dynasty that has been entrenched in Indian polity for 60+ years now.

It is offensive to me that a national party can claim that the only person capable of leading a nation of 1 billion has to be from their family, whether it is Rahul or Priyanka.

This is a stain on Indian polity and the sooner India gets rid of it (in any party) the better for the country. For this reason alone, I am against Rahul Gandhi's candidature for PM-ship, and this holds good even if he had shown himself to be a smart/capable person. Priyanka is more capable and carries herself better than Rahul, but I dont support her either. For the same reason, I will not support other people that INC might put forth even if they are better than Rahul G. e.g. a Scindhia, or a Pilot or Maken etc. This sort of thing is in their party DNA now and Congress-mukt bharat is the only way out. Similarly, BJP would do well to keep Varun Gandhi at arm's length.

By the way, though I dont read NDTV articles starting witH 'O my my...', I did read this one. Check the comments. They take Swati C. to the cleaners, and question her journalism, objectivity and even sanity. :D

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by chetak » Sun Jul 22, 2018 2:53 am

he is another version of that ex civil servant yeshwant sinha who ran to Modi to stake his claim to be the head of the BRICS bank and demanded that he be appointed immediately.

uncle mitra also did a similar thing but he had his ambitious eyes set on heading the Indian high commission in the UK.

Both miserably failed to explain what their singular qualifications were, for the high offices sought, but merely wanted to ensconce themselves in high office with the loaves and fishes attached therein.

Beware the mediocre man with ambition.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by RajaRaja » Sun Jul 22, 2018 3:46 am

chetak wrote:
Sun Jul 22, 2018 2:53 am
he is another version of that ex civil servant yeshwant sinha who ran to Modi to stake his claim to be the head of the BRICS bank and demanded that he be appointed immediately.

uncle mitra also did a similar thing but he had his ambitious eyes set on heading the Indian high commission in the UK.

Both miserably failed to explain what their singular qualifications were, for the high offices sought, but merely wanted to ensconce themselves in high office with the loaves and fishes attached therein.

Beware the mediocre man with ambition.
Not sure about Chandan Mitra's qualification, but Yashwant Sinha, 3 time finance minister, 1 time external affairs minister, seems amply qualified, more qualified than most of the jokers in the govt.

Read more here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yashwant_Sinha

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by chetak » Sun Jul 22, 2018 4:33 am

naidu forgets who he is dealing with.

Modi and AS are neither forgiving nor forgetful of his extreme treachery during the ABA dispensation where he blackmailed the govt and forced his way on many contentious issues.

His well known unreliability, extremely selfish interests, dynastic politics and overarching ambition is his downfall.

During the seat distribution, he tried to sabotage the BJP and gain maximum advantage for himself so as to regain his blackmailing position and role that he had with ABA. He was shocked when the results came out and he found to his horror that the BJP had no need of him. His treachery however was not forgotten.

He keeps harping on his "seniority" vis-a-vis Modi. This exaggerated, self serving and self styled opinion of himself has caused him, on many occasions, to treat Modi with contempt. naidu may be proud of his "impeccable" political lineage and his social position as opposed to Modi's very humble beginnings. It is a major and disastrous mistake to believe all the hype about Modi, especially the humble beginnings marketing pitch and not see the huge alpha lion behind that pitch.

Howsoever humble be Modi's beginnings, his talent, tenacity and political sagacity brought him, very early in the game, the most powerful political backers in India, the RSS.
No-trust loss dents naidu’s prospects

S. Rama Krishna
July 21, 2018,



Naidu was baffled by PM Modi’s scathing rebuttal of him and non-cooperation from prospective third front allies.


Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s aggressive line on the no-trust motion moved by the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in Lok Sabha on Friday baffled its leadership. TDP president and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu was taken aback by the frontal attack by the PM on the issue of special category status to the state.

Naidu who marshalled his MPs to launch a scathing attack against the NDA government through the no-confidence motion for the last two days closely monitored the debate in the Lok Sabha on Friday. He sat before a giant TV screen at his office in Amaravati since morning and sent notes to his MPs in the parliament throughout the day.

Initial indications Naidu received were that the PM was likely to ignore the special category issue raised by the TDP and might only attack the Congress in order to launch the theme of his campaign for the general election due next year. Naidu even prepared a note suggesting to his MPs that they should ridicule the PM that he ran away from the issues raised by them.

However, PM Modi directly mentioned the special category demand in the latter part of his speech and pointed to Naidu’s inconsistent approach on the issue for the last two years. The PM said: “I admit that we have promised to give special status to Andhra as the bifurcation of the combined state was flawed. I remember my speeches too during the 2014 election to this effect”.

“But we were restrained by the report of the 14th Finance Commission to give special status to Andhra. However, in November-December 2016, we prepared a special package which was more than the benefits of the special status to Andhra Pradesh and the same was accepted and lauded by Chandrababu Naidu. He even thanked the Finance Minister for the special economic package,” said the PM.

“But he (Naidu) took a U-turn on this and again raised the demand basically due to domestic compulsions of his state. When TDP left the NDA three months ago, I called Chandrababu Naidu and told him that he had fallen into the trap of YSR Congress (which has been demanding the special status), so the battle is there in Andhra, and nothing to do with us (Centre),” said the PM.

PM Modi’s blunt and aggressive words on CM Naidu’s demand for special category issue took the latter by shock, according to senior party leaders who were present with the CM Friday night. “We didn’t imagine that the PM would be so blunt and pointed in his attack against us,” said a TDP MLA from Krishna district while talking to this newspaper over the phone.

Naidu who wanted to corner the PM and the BJP leadership on the issue of special status to Andhra had been planning a no confidence motion against the NDA government ever since he left it this April. Entire Budget session of the Parliament was washed out due to the din created by TDP MPs in both the Houses and the party expected the same to be repeated in the monsoon session that commenced on 18 July.

Contrary to that, the BJP leadership not only accepted the no-confidence motion challenge on the very first day of the session and fixed a date for the debate on 20 July and launched a clever frontal attack on its former ally. Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s comments that “Naidu is still our friend” and Modi’s no-holds barred attack against the CM confused the TDP leadership.

Opposition YSR Congress leader Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy quickly grabbed the opportunity and told a media conference at Kakinada on Saturday that the comments of both the HM and the PM reflected the double standards of CM Naidu. “Rajnath Singh says Naidu is still their friend, and the PM had rightly exposed the changing stands of the CM,” said Jagan.

The BJP leaders in Andhra are jubilant with the pro-active line taken by the PM in the Lok Sabha on the special status issue. “We are happy that the PM had set the tone for our election campaign and we will follow the same,” said BJP’s Andhra unit president Kanna Lakshminarayana. The BJP would tell the people of AP that the Centre had done much more than what a special status could give them.

Politically, too, Naidu hasn’t gained much through the no-confidence motion on Friday. He wanted to emerge a key player in national politics through this motion though he knew well that it would be defeated at the end of the day. The refusal of Shiv Sena to back the motion and antagonistic stand of TRS, which is ruling neighbouring Telangana, and the snub by AIADMK MPs disappointed Naidu.

Naidu rushed to New Delhi on Saturday morning apparently to undo the damage done by the lukewarm response of these parties to the no-confidence motion. Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu said Naidu landed in New Delhi basically to thank all those who supported the no-confidence motion and mentioned the status issue.

Naidu wanted to give his reply to the PM’s scathing attack against him through a media conference and the same would be circulated among people in the coming days. The CM chalked out a strategy for his MPs to raise the issue in the remaining part of the monsoon session. There is also a view among the CM’s aides that the party might not be able to raise the issue again after the no-trust vote.

Jagan has called for an Anhdra bandh on Tuesday to protest against the PM’s refusal to grant special status to the state. Jagan, who is currently on a Padayatra in East Godavari district, urged people to back the bandh. Jagan also asked Naidu to get his 20 MPs to resign from the Lok Sabha so that the Centre would be forced to give special status to AP. YSR Congress’ five MPs have already resigned.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by chetak » Sun Jul 22, 2018 4:52 am

Haldiram wrote:
Sun Jul 22, 2018 3:46 am
chetak wrote:
Sun Jul 22, 2018 2:53 am
he is another version of that ex civil servant yeshwant sinha who ran to Modi to stake his claim to be the head of the BRICS bank and demanded that he be appointed immediately.

uncle mitra also did a similar thing but he had his ambitious eyes set on heading the Indian high commission in the UK.

Both miserably failed to explain what their singular qualifications were, for the high offices sought, but merely wanted to ensconce themselves in high office with the loaves and fishes attached therein.

Beware the mediocre man with ambition.
Not sure about Chandan Mitra's qualification, but Yashwant Sinha, 3 time finance minister, 1 time external affairs minister, seems amply qualified, more qualified than most of the jokers in the govt.

Read more here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yashwant_Sinha
A life long banker and a political has been are not in the same league.

Modi reached out to KV Kamat, ex Chairman of the Board of Directors of ICICI Bank, and then serving Chairman of Infosys Limited.

BRICS bank did not need someone who was essentially a baboo(n), it needed someone with a very specific domain expertise, professionally sound, credible and also economically weighty, with a sound reputation to represent India.

kamat has banking and corporate exposure, both needed at the BRICS bank and sinha has neither except perhaps, needless ambition.

If sinha had been sent it would have been seen as political cronyism and it would have also been a very bad move to make, especially with china. Kamat is 70 years old and sinha is 80.

Kamat is the right fit and Modi was spot on in choosing him.

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by dinesh_kumar » Sun Jul 22, 2018 5:44 am

I accept critisism from the respected posters here, but my mood remains unchanged.

The Mod on BRF , Indranil has captured the mood beautifully in another post, by using the word,
" squandered" while describing the Modi sarkar.


Modi was the first leader in 30 years given a popular mandate and a majority to undertake major reform.

The 2014 election plank fought was on :

1.muscular national security (China centric focus captures the imagination, not musical chairs like 3 defence ministers like Jaitley, MP and NS, RFI for aasult rifle, etc. Muscular response like surgical strike and Doklam are accepted, and Rafale procurement.)

2. Acche din ( bijli , sadak, pani and naukri)

3. Fight corruption (enough black money returned to Govt. Coffers to have a significant impact, arrest of major players like Robert Vadra, Chidambaram, all customer handling tasks in govt offices and queues abolished, everything made online, etc.).

I request srikumar, a true defender of our civilization, to give a befitting reply to above three points pls, instead of filing away my " category" for future reference and not attacking the root cause.


Also, is the new Bajwa doctrine summed up as" any criticism can be equated as coming from Rahul Mehta."?

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Re: The Great Indian Political Drama - 2 (Mar 2018 - )

Post by dinesh_kumar » Sun Jul 22, 2018 6:04 am

Also, according to the newspaper, which though biased and partisan, I continue to read everyday as I have been doing for many years now, the ED and CBI offensive against Chidu began last week.

Well.....let me see. The Sarkar was sworn in on March 2014.

So according to my partisan newspaper, time it took to file cases against him was 4.5 years.

I really admire Sonia, who, with neither a mandate nor a majority, pushed thru stuff like RTE without much delay.

Locked