Skip to main content

Checkmate China

Want to have hakka noodles? Never. The world is seething with anger, at the sight and sound of anything 'Made in China' - a tag that defined life and living, until it spelt death!

By Namrata Kohli

The Ministry of Home Affairs just issued an advisory to stop the use of Zoom platform for video chat. The tik tok was previously (temporarily) banned. The world is waking up to a new movement and this time it is – "Anti-Made in China".
Once upon a time, anything and everything, from drugs, pharmaceuticals, to cheap smartphones and electronic equipment, plastics and metals, components and machines, apparels, vehicles, to even our Ganeshas and idols were China imported! That’s what defined our workplace, our households and to use the title of my favourite author Ellizabeth Gilbert we did “eat, pray, love” China products and may I add, live and finally die for (pun intended) coming a full circle!

Rely on someone and he will prove unreliable at some point. That is the big lesson we could learn from this historic episode, after what has unarguably been the biggest deception of the century. The question is can we harness our anger more constructively towards building a self sufficient India. Can our mantra now be to just "build, build and build". And here we must look at the Chinese ingenuity to erect a full hospital within days, not months or years, to cope up with sheer numbers of Covid 19 patients. That is the speed of response we need in today's world.
I am talking about indigenous capability – a "Make in India" at an unseen, unheard of, pace as well as scale. We are a nation of so many innovative builders, construction giants, techno-preneurs and can we work collaboratively to build a new India. Forget being constrained by mere niches, our current areas of interest and profitability, core competencies- can we look at stretching our capacities fully actualize self sufficiency. India should become self reliant and not be dependent on China for servicing its basic needs and wants. It may call for sometimes even sacrificing gains, but can we put the national gain over our personal gains with one guiding principle - Service to the Nation. 

The West is already looking at the East – Trump sought India’s help for anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine and India responded in time, and so favourably. But now is the time, to seize the time – the opportunity, like never before. China’s loss can be India’s gain. Can we work towards self-sufficiency where we don’t have to knock at anyone’s doors, any longer.

Let’s come to a point where we don’t have to look out for some one. Instead, the world looks out for us.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Telemedicine to the aid of home-bound patients in the time of Covid-19

Telemedicine in covid-19 times: You can get to the doctor almost anytime, anywhere, be it on your screen, via voice or plain text for a lower price than in-person consult Namrata Kohli   |   New Delhi Telehealth is bridging the gap between patient and physicians. The physician can now virtually visit the stay-at-home patient and heal from a distance Telemedicine in covid-19 times:  When 37-year-old Priyanka was down with fever and dry cough, she decided to consult a doctor over a WhatsApp call before giving her blood sample for an RT-PCR test. Based on her symptoms, the physician alerted her that it wasn't a mild Covid infection but a moderate one. His diagnosis was confirmed when the test report showed a viral load count of 20. “The massive benefits of telemedicine became evident during the pandemic,” says Priyanka’s doctor, New Delhi-based consultant physician Dr Arvind Kumar. “Everything is about time and if my patients have complications late at ni...
30 comments
Read more

Smartwatch: A timepiece, health monitor and fitness coach rolled into one

This small wearable device checks your blood pressure, heart rate and sleep quality, apart from monitoring your workouts Namrata Kohli   |   New Delhi Casio G-Shock’s G-Squad GBD-H1000 (Rs 39,995) has five sensors: optical heart rate, thermo, magnetic, blood pressure and acceleration, along with solar, USB charging, Bluetooth connectivity and GPS It might astound you to know that all it takes is just 30 seconds to download an ECG report that is acceptable in hospitals and clinics in India. That's the kind of experience 45-year-old Mumbaikar Aayush Vats had while checking his health parameters on an Apple  smartwatch  he recently bought. With the ongoing festive sale at e-commerce portals, he managed a handsome discount to acquire a Series 3 originally priced at Rs 20,900, for just Rs 16,900. Corona times have led to a spurt in health devices and  smartwatches  have found a new audience. Says Ali Rizvi, Director, Garmin India: “Earlier  smartwatche...
8 comments
Read more

Covid Cure: Is Plasma Therapy the big find of the Century

A new plasma therapy along with a negative ion therapy claims to have cured Covid 19 patients within a short span of forty-eight hours. How far are we from nailing the solution in India By Namrata Kohli It’s called the Hyperion Plasma Treatment and has been administered successfully to over three thousand patients across China, Germany and UAE. This new treatment is proving to be far more effective than the conventional plasma treatment and is invented by a team of scientists from European Medical Association (EMA), together with Redcliffe Lifesciences and Sapio Analytics. For some time now, doctors have been trying every anti-viral drug and antibiotic combination to treat the Coronavirus infected patients. They then moved towards a non-drug plasma therapy which simply put, uses the serum of plasma from a recovered individual which is then injected into the blood stream of an infected individual. Plasma therapy is nothing new, says Prof. Dr Amina Ather, part of the inventor team- ...
4 comments
Read more