The lure of the exotic and esoteric

If “wonderful discoveries happening in biology” had acted as a trigger for Nobel Laureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan to switch from physics to chemistry, the nearly matured and well-established field of chemistry failed to enthuse Yoshinori Ohsumi, and he shifted to biology. Autophagy — a fundamental process for degrading and recycling cellular components — was known long before he ventured into the field, but it was his paradigm-shifting research that revealed the importance of this fundamental process that comes into play every other minute. His seminal work helped reveal that vacuoles in yeast and lysosomes in human cells are not just garbage bins but recyclers and fuel producers. Right from the stage of embryo development to countering the negative effects of ageing, autophagy plays an important role. As in the case of many Laureates, Dr. Ohsumi’s initial years were more than frustrating, but he prevailed. His approach to science is an antithesis to what is generally seen in today’s young researchers, and that precisely is what helped him break new ground and bag the Nobel Prize this year — only the third Laureate since 2010 to not share the Prize for Physiology or Medicine with others.

But lysosomes and other cellular bodies would be severely impacted if molecular machines in our body failed to work synchronously to carry materials around in a cell and for several other functions. Though not as elegant as the molecular machines at work inside us, the work done by Jean-Pierre Sauvage, J. Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L. Feringa, the winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, has set the ball rolling in the endeavour to realise Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman’s dream more than 50 years ago of building very small machines. Though very primitive at this point in time, science will see one of the biggest revolutions when the cogs and cranks of their work are finally put together to build machines on a nanoscale; nanomachines will find applications in diverse fields, from medicine to electronics. Much like the nanomachines of tomorrow, David J. Thouless, F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz’s theoretical explanations for exotic states of materials by using topological concepts will give birth to a completely different class of products. This year’s Nobel-winning physicists, they predicted the exotic behaviour that other scientists later found at the surface of materials and inside very thin layers, such as superconductivity and magnetism in extremely thin materials. Physicists are now looking beyond the ordinary to find new and exotic phases of matter that change in a stepwise fashion.

Leading the divided nations

The United Nations Security Council’s broad consensus in nominating António Guterres for the post of Secretary-General is an auspicious start to what could be a more assertive UN in wrestling with the many crises of the world. Last week, 13 of the 15 members of the Council, including the five veto-wielding permanent members, sent the name of the former Portugal Prime Minister to the General Assembly for final approval. If the Assembly passes his nomination, then as the UN’s ninth Secretary-General Mr. Guterres will have to expediently attend to a number of pressing issues, including the worsening international refugee crisis and the scourge of terrorism, both in part linked to the debilitating Syrian war. His experience as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees will come in handy as he goes about negotiating to find shelter for and rehabilitate refugees from Syria, who at last count numbered well above four million worldwide. At the UNHCR, Mr. Guterres is said to have focussed on organisational reform and innovation by taking funding out of the headquarters and pushing more money out to the field. It is clear that he is passionate about the cause of refugees; he has frequently appealed to the international community over the migrant crisis and has vowed to continue being their spokesman.

An equally challenging agenda point facing Mr. Guterres is to find creative ways to bridge the chasm between Western powers on the one hand and Russia and China on the other. Ironically, owing to his very commitment to address the refugee crises, he may be considered an “activist”. This could be a recipe for stasis, if not disaster, in any campaign to broker a peace deal in Syria. Mr. Guterres can ill afford such obstructionism. As an institution, the UN is frequently accused of being “bloated and bureaucratic”, and has come under fire over allegations of sexual abuse by its peacekeepers in the Central African Republic. Although he has a reputation for being an instinctive strategist, Mr. Guterres will have to hand-pick a capable team of advisers. But has he already struck bargains with China or Russia over who will get some key political posts? Will he stay true to his promise, made earlier, to ensure that the higher echelons of the UN have 50 per cent women employees? That goal, set 20 years ago by the UN, is far from being met. In fact, Mr. Guterres’ own candidacy came as a disappointment for some, given that there were no fewer than seven women in the race and not one of them even came close to winning.

The ground beneath our feet

India needs a different approach to grow its economy and must remove bottlenecks so that foreign investors can operate in the country just as its own corporates expand their global footprint, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said during his India visit last week. His remarks may appear out of sync with the official discourse on India’s recent economic performance, especially the liberalisation of foreign direct investment and record inflows clocked since the Modi government was sworn in. Mr. Lee’s concerns, however, don’t stem from FDI policy per se, but two intertwined reform showpieces of the NDA — one abandoned after hot pursuit in its first year and another that remains a work in progress. These are amendments to the land acquisition law and improvements in the ease of doing business, respectively. Indian officials told business leaders accompanying the Singapore Prime Minister that they are free to invest in India if they can, on their own, acquire the land to set up shop on. As Mr. Lee pointed out, that makes investing in India virtually impossible — industrial parks that Singapore had proposed in the past remain non-starters. The Centre may not be used to such public plain-speaking, even from Western leaders with longer reform wish lists, but it must take the Prime Minister’s cue for introspection and course correction.

Modernising India’s land laws was high on the government’s agenda in 2014-15; an ordinance was promulgated thrice to effect necessary changes till Parliament could pass a law. Global investors were assured that land acquired under the ordinance would be safe from any subsequent changes to the law. But the Centre wilted in the face of Opposition resistance. A model land-leasing law formulated by the Niti Aayog was mooted for States to adopt instead, but a billion-dollar plant is unlikely to come up on leased foundations. Since then, a proposed nuclear plant has moved out from Gujarat owing to land acquisition problems, India’s largest FDI proposal from South Korea’s Posco is all but off, and job creation has hit a five-year low. India moved up 12 places in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business index last year and may rise further. But the index is only based on speed of paperwork in Mumbai and Delhi, where there is little space for big new industries; such rankings don’t directly translate into more FDI. The Prime Minister has set a target for India to reach the top 50 ranks in the index, but getting a construction permit online is no good if large tracts of land cannot be provided job-creating investment. If the idea to bury the land reform was to secure farmers’ votes and, in the process, alternative jobs are not created for the young and those who want to move out of agriculture, castles in the air are all that will be built.

A Nobel push for peace in Colombia

In a long year of war and strife, it is a silver lining that the Nobel Committee in Oslo was spoilt for choice in deciding upon the recipient of the 2016 Peace Prize. A landmark nuclear deal brought a peaceful closure to Iran’s purported nuclear weapon ambitions and paved the way for better relations between Tehran and the West, making the key negotiators leading contenders for the Prize. The yeoman efforts of the White Helmets of Syria, a group of local volunteers in Aleppo In a long year of war and strife, it is a silver lining that the Nobel Committee in Oslo was spoilt for choice in deciding upon the recipient of the 2016 Peace Prize. A landmark nuclear deal brought a peaceful closure to Iran’s purported nuclear weapon ambitions and paved the way for better relations between Tehran and the West, making the key negotiators leading contenders for the Prize. The yeoman efforts of the White Helmets of Syria, a group of local volunteers in Aleppo and other parts of war-ravaged Syria who help rescue people injured or stranded in bomb attacks in war zones, merited recognition. But the ending of one of the longest-running civil wars was the achievement that got the highest recognition by the Committee. The Nobel Peace Prize for 2016 has beenawarded to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos after his government painstakingly concluded negotiations by signing an accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), winding down hostilities in a 52-year-old civil war. The accord, signed on September 26, 2016, provided for the disbanding of FARC militants and for the rebels to join the political process as a routine political party, besides conceding demands by FARC to address inequities in Colombia’s rural areas through development programmes and land distribution. FARC also agreed to dismantle drug production facilities in areas in its control which had helped finance the war against the Colombian government. This was a landmark accord that provided an opportunity not just for peace but also for better prospects in the war against drug production and trade in Colombia.

Merely a week after the accord, the government received a setback as its attempt to get the accord ratified through a referendum failed. About 50.23 per cent of the voters who turned out (the turnout was less than 40 per cent) voted against the peace agreement. Both the government and FARC have ruled out a return to war despite this setback, and even the advocates of the “no” vote, including former President Álvaro Uribe, have sought fresh negotiations for what they deem to be a better accord. The Nobel committee recognises that despite the setback there is the need for a broad-based dialogue to further the peace process. In doing so, it has provided Mr. Santos the persuasive pulpit he had lost following the referendum. The award should enable his government to seek a renewed accord that does not militate against the previous one and seals a durable peace. The Peace Prize is a testimonial to the patience required to bring about closure to complex, long-running conflicts. In this case at least, it is well-deserved. other parts of war-ravaged Syria who help rescue people injured or stranded in bomb attacks in war zones, merited recognition. But the ending of one of the longest-running civil wars was the achievement that got the highest recognition by the Committee. The Nobel Peace Prize for 2016 has been awarded to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos after his government painstakingly concluded negotiations by signing an accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), winding down hostilities in a 52-year-old civil war. The accord, signed on September 26, 2016, provided for the disbanding of FARC militants and for the rebels to join the political process as a routine political party, besides conceding demands by FARC to address inequities in Colombia’s rural areas through development programmes and land distribution. FARC also agreed to dismantle drug production facilities in areas in its control which had helped finance the war against the Colombian government. This was a landmark accord that provided an opportunity not just for peace but also for better prospects in the war against drug production and trade in Colombia.

Merely a week after the accord, the government received a setback as its attempt to get the accord ratified through a referendum failed. About 50.23 per cent of the voters who turned out (the turnout was less than 40 per cent) voted against the peace agreement. Both the government and FARC have ruled out a return to war despite this setback, and even the advocates of the “no” vote, including former President Álvaro Uribe, have sought fresh negotiations for what they deem to be a better accord. The Nobel committee recognises that despite the setback there is the need for a broad-based dialogue to further the peace process. In doing so, it has provided Mr. Santos the persuasive pulpit he had lost following the referendum. The award should enable his government to seek a renewed accord that does not militate against the previous one and seals a durable peace. The Peace Prize is a testimonial to the patience required to bring about closure to complex, long-running conflicts. In this case at least, it is well-deserved.

If “wonderful discoveries happening in biology” had acted as a trigger for Nobel Laureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan to switch from physics to chemistry, the nearly matured and well-established field of chemistry failed to enthuse Yoshinori Ohsumi, and he shifted to biology. Autophagy — a fundamental process for degrading and recycling cellular components — was known long before he ventured into the field, but it was his paradigm-shifting research that revealed the importance of this fundamental process that comes into play every other minute. His seminal work helped reveal that vacuoles in yeast and lysosomes in human cells are not just garbage bins but recyclers and fuel producers. Right from the stage of embryo development to countering the negative effects of ageing, autophagy plays an important role. As in the case of many Laureates, Dr. Ohsumi’s initial years were more than frustrating, but he prevailed. His approach to science is an antithesis to what is generally seen in today’s young researchers, and that precisely is what helped him break new ground and bag the Nobel Prize this year — only the third Laureate since 2010 to not share the Prize for Physiology or Medicine with others.

But lysosomes and other cellular bodies would be severely impacted if molecular machines in our body failed to work synchronously to carry materials around in a cell and for several other functions. Though not as elegant as the molecular machines at work inside us, the work done by Jean-Pierre Sauvage, J. Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L. Feringa, the winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, has set the ball rolling in the endeavour to realise Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman’s dream more than 50 years ago of building very small machines. Though very primitive at this point in time, science will see one of the biggest revolutions when the cogs and cranks of their work are finally put together to build machines on a nanoscale; nanomachines will find applications in diverse fields, from medicine to electronics. Much like the nanomachines of tomorrow, David J. Thouless, F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz’s theoretical explanations for exotic states of materials by using topological concepts will give birth to a completely different class of products.This year’s Nobel-winning physicists, they predicted the exotic behaviour that other scientists later found at the surface of materials and inside very thin layers, such as superconductivity and magnetism in extremely thin materials. Physicists are now looking beyond the ordinary to find new and exotic phases of matter that change in a stepwise fashion.

Stamping down on prejudice

The revival of the HIV and AIDS (Prevention and Control) Bill, 2014, and the Union Cabinet’s approval for provisions that make discrimination against people living with the virus punishable, are positive steps. Such laws, however, can only deliver benefits within the overall constraints imposed by an underfunded public health system. Where the legislation can make some difference, with active monitoring by HIV/AIDS support groups, is in ensuring that acquiring the infection does not mean an end to education, employment, access to housing and healthcare due to discrimination. The success of the anti-discrimination aspects hinges on the readiness of governments to accept the inquiry findings of ombudsmen, to be appointed under the law, and provide relief. Since the new law is intended to both stop the spread of the disease and help those who have become infected get antiretroviral therapy as well as equal opportunity, it will take a high degree of commitment to provide effective drugs to all those in need. In August, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare put the number of people getting free treatment nationally at 9,65,000, of which 53,400 are children. This must be viewed against the most recent estimate last year, that 2.1 million people live with HIV in India, of whom 7,90,000 are women. Regional variations in access to diagnosis and treatment must be addressed.

The legislation and the structure of complaints redress that it proposes should provide some relief to thousands of families that face discrimination in admitting children to school, an infected individual getting a job, or treatment in hospital. Unlike many other diseases, however, HIV/AIDS has received global attention and funding, thus building up pressure on governments to come up with supportive policies. Communities will now have the opportunity to ensure that the strongest element of the prospective law, assuring confidentiality of HIV status, is enforced. A breach could invite imprisonment and a fine. Yet, the proposals approved by the Cabinet fail on one important count: the insurance industry is allowed to use actuarial calculations to limit access to products to people with HIV. The Centre’s initiative is palpably weak, since a universal system would not discriminate against people with any form of illness, and would fully embrace the goal of health and welfare for all. National AIDS Control Organisation data for 2015 indicate that while there is an overall decline in HIV prevalence among visitors to antenatal clinics, there was a rise in nine States. The government must get down to business and close such gaps.

Chief Minister in a hurry

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will clearly leave no stone unturned in giving his prohibition policy a legislative punch. Within days of the Patna High Courtstriking a blow to the “total prohibition” regime in the State, the government notified the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016, and approached the Supreme Court to challenge the High Court order. The haste throws some light on Mr. Kumar’s political strategy, which is aimed at distinguishing himself in a crowded landscape. Prohibition was his main campaign outreach to women voters in the 2015 Assembly elections. Having won the votes of women in earlier elections on schemes such as bicycles for schoolgirls, prohibition gave his Janata Dal (United) an added moral aura — he was fighting a no-holds-barred election against his former ally, the BJP, and he was fighting in alliance with Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal. In the event, he was returned to the Chief Minister’s post, but with the RJD getting a greater number of MLAs than the JD(U). Mr. Kumar’s natural claim to the big post draws from his personal credibility, seen to be more potent than his party’s. This connect with a wide cross-section of the public, as a politician empathetic to aspirations for a dignified, socially and educationally empowered life, had him in the fray for a larger national role during his BJP-allied days, and so too in his current anti-BJP politics.

The prohibition plank, with its Gandhian overtones and empathetic message to women, gives Mr. Kumar a chance to arrogate to himself the mantle of a moral campaigner nationally. In the immediate term, it allows him to set himself apart from the RJD’s rougher politics, and change the subject soon after his government found itself emitting the wrong message on law and order, particularly when Mohammad Shahabuddin was briefly out on bail. By attempting to overcome the High Court order, Mr. Kumar may have underlined his assertiveness, but he has, in the process, missed the opportunity the court gave him to reconsider the harsh punishments outlined in the previous law, with all the questions they pose for civil liberties, as well as the very architecture of the legislation. The prohibition regime forces the deployment of the police to seal the State’s border, and away from more mindful policing within, which was the change Mr. Kumar’s long chief ministership promised. The punishment worked into the current law gives the police greater opportunity for rent-seeking. This may alienate the very constituencies that keep him in the running for a role larger than his party’s electoral footprint.