Conspiracy theories

Anuradha Dutt

Globalisation's sinister spill-over was manifest in the speed with which panic, engendered by the World Health Organisation's declaration on March 11 this year of a corona virus pandemic originating in China's Wuhan, spread. Pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan was WHO's initial alert on December 31, 2019. On January 30, WHO declared a public health emergency of international concern. Relentless news concerning the disease brought normal life to a grinding halt amidst conspiracy theories about the outbreak.

The Chinese and Americans reportedly accused each other of bioengineering Covid-19 or Novel Corona virus in laboratories as a lethal leverage tool in the ongoing trade war between the two nations. The United States pushes the free market, human rights agenda; while the latter, adhering to the authoritarian communist module vigilantly protects its interests.
China's admission into World Trade Organisation on December 11, 2001 spurred its rise as a formidable economic power, with relatively inexpensive gadgets, electronic accessories and the like flooding

The spread of coronavirus in China has led to a massive quarantine markets around the world. China blocks the American Google, Facebook, YouTube and similar internet services for security reasons But its popular Tik Tok video-sharing app is accessed globally.
The American trade-linked grouse against China hinges primarily on "unfair trade practices" and "high tariffs", to its own detriment. Real estate tycoon Donald Trump coasted to victory in the presidential elections of the United States of America in November 2016 on his pledge to "make America great again".
His current run for reelection in November is bolstered by the slogan "Let America stay great". Whether the pandemic and related a l l e g a t i o n s c o m p r i s e another episode in the trade war or not, the hypothesis is that Covid-19 is a new variant of the old Corona virus which causes common cold, and is said to have spurred outbreak of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in China in 2002, and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) in Saudi Arabia in 2012.
This virus is also zoonotic, travelling from snakes, bats or exotic animals such as pangolins and civet cats to humans. The virus apparently spread from bats to civets and then humans in the case of the SARs outbreak; and to dromedary camels to spur the MERS spread. The wet animal markets in Wuhan where these creatures are sold and slaughtered was identified as the nurturing ground of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The US's use of the term 'Wuhan virus' triggered further sparring between the two nations, with China objecting to the prefix. Curiously, American Dean Koontz's 1981 thriller The Eyes of Darkness anticipated a lethal disease spread, unleashed by 'Gorki 400'. That was the time of the cold war between the US and Soviet Union. After the latter disintegrated, the 2008 edition of the book renamed the biological weapon 'Wuhan 400', oblique reference to the new super power.
The present scenario is a strange case of life replicating fiction. An excerpt – "They call the stuff 'Wuhan- 400' because it was developed at their RDNA labs outside of the city of Wuhan, and it was the four hundredth viable strain of man-made microorganisms created at that centre". Late psychic Sylvia Browne's 2008 book, "End of Days: Predictions and Prophecies About the End of the World" averred - ""In around 2020 a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and bronchial tubes resisting all known treatments. Almost more baffling than the illness itself will be the fact that it will suddenly vanish as quickly as it arrived, attack again ten years later, and then disappear completely".
Were these books merely prescient in anticipating future events? Or do some scenarios intimate covert strategising via fiction, cinema, news media and oracles in the struggle for one-upmanship by hidden forces, termed the 'deep state', well in advance? Hollywood films have explored the prospect of annihilation by disease or science gone wrong. The Andromeda Strain (1971), 12 Monkeys (1995), Outbreak (1995), Contagion

Late psychic Sylvia Browne's 2008 book, "End of Days: Predictions and Prophecies About the End of the World" averred - ""In around 2020 a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and bronchial tubes resisting all known treatments. Almost more baffling than the illness itself will be the fact that it will suddenly vanish as quickly as it arrived, attack again ten years later, and then disappear completely".

(2011) and Pandemic (2016) are films in this genre. Contagion follows a trajectory, very close to the present situation. A woman expires of a strange malady after returning to Minnesota from Hong Kong. The disease spreads quickly, spurring panic, quarantines, airports emptying and hasty search for a vaccine. The suspected nexus between Hollywood and the deep state has long been subject of surmise. The World Health Organisation, nodal international agency to track and control outbreak and spread of diseases, was charged by US President Donald Trump with projecting China's version of the pandemic. He stopped funding for the organisation, a big loss as the US was the biggest donor.
Meanwhile, China claimed to have curtailed the disease spread. The alert first issued from the WHO country office in China on December 31 last year. However, WHO failed to pressurise China to close its wet animal markets permanently, assuming that the virus originated there.
In 'Why I'm taking the Coronavirus hype with a pinch of salt', The Guardian, March 6, Simon Jenkins observes - "When hysteria is rife, we might try some history. In 1997 we were told that bird flu could kill millions worldwide. Thankfully, it did not. The first Sars outbreak of 2003 was reported by as having 'a 25% chance of killings tens of millions' and being 'worse than Aids'. In 2006, another bout of bird flu was declared 'the first pandemic of the 21st century', the scares in 2003, 2004 and 2005 having failed to meet their body counts.
Then, in 2009, pigs replaced birds. The BBC announced that swine flu 'could really explode'. The chief medical officer, Liam Donaldson, declared that '65,000 could die'. He spent £560m on a Tamiflu and Relenza stockpile, which soon deteriorated. The Council of Europe's health committee chairman described the hyping of the 2009 pandemic as 'one of the great medical scandals of the century'.
Should public life really be conducted on a worst-case basis"? Research in developing a vaccine to counter the virus is ongoing. BCG, an anti-TB vaccine that has been used since 80 years is being recommended to strengthen immunity. Other existing medicines are also being proposed: Remdesivir, effective against Ebola, SARS, MERS; antifever and painkiller paracetamol; anti-HIV combination Lopinavir and Ritonavir; Tami Flu tablets; and time-tested anti-malaria chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine. This recycling of old medicines for a new malady raises questions about the intrinsic nature of the disease, especially because persons above 60 and those with pre-existing ailments are said to be more at risk.
Under siege responses to the pandemic were determined by local contexts and followed different trajectories. • G20 comprises announced over $5 trillion to boost world economy and counter the pandemic. Some members were reported worst hit by the pandemic, notably China, India, US, UK, Canada, France, Italy and Spain. Chinese migrants in Italy and Spain, employed in the fashion sector and factories, were suspected of transposing the virus after visiting their motherland for Chinese new year observances. India was the first SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) nation to announce a grant, $10 million, for a Covid-19 emergency fund. Pakistan responded with a $3 million grant. Contrary to India's enforced immobility and home confinement, Prime Minister Imran Khan declared that a complete lockdown was unfeasible. "The chaos and panic is more dangerous than corona virus", he said. • Kosovo's government fell over its handling of the crisis. • In Hungary, a state of Emergency was imposed on March 11, to be extended indefinitely. Offenders faced a five-year jail term. • Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko mocked the pandemic as "psychosis, advising work on the fields, sports, vodka as remedies.
As nations went overnight into lockdown and leaders and royals into quarantine, some chose to play down fears. Three South American Presidents – Brazil's Jair Bolasaro, Mexico's Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega – were sceptical of the virus impact and 'social distancing' mandate laid down by health experts. • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, struggling to continue at the helm after his alliance failed to win a majority in the elections, went twice into quarantine. Opponents saw this as a dilatory tactic. Soon after Brexit, when

Should public life really be conducted on a worst-case basis"? Research in developing a vaccine to counter the virus is ongoing. BCG, an anti-TB vaccine that has been used since 80 years is being recommended to strengthen immunity.

UK quit European Union on January 31, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was quarantined and sent into intensive case. This spurred conjectures about succession. He soon emerged from the ICU. • The event is almost a replay of the past.
In 1918, weeks before the end of World War I, British Prime Minister Lloyd George was similarly afflicted during the Spanish Flu pandemic and placed on a ventilator. He recovered.
US President Donald Trump and his delegation returned in late February to the US from India where communal riots and protests on roads in Delhi by opponents of Citizenship Amendment Act and impending population update was a huge embarrassment for the BJP-led ruling alliance. Dismissing the corona outbreak as a "hoax" geared to sabotage the presidential polls, slated for November 3, he soon diluted his stance amid mounting pressure. Safety measures were implemented in vulnerable areas. Saudi Arabia called a ceasefire in the five-year war in Yemen. • South Korea went ahead with holding elections. • Here, as flights curtailed, traffic went off roads, and train services limited to transporting goods, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made sombre television appearances, advising vigilance. On March 22, 5 pm, Indians, following his counsel, beat metal plates and blew shankh in a bid to scare away the virus.. • Following the prolonged lockdown, beginning March 24, work places, factories and construction sites shut down: and shrines across India closed. Marriages and festivities were put off, schools and colleges shut, examinations were suspended. Washing hands frequently and "social distancing" were drummed into the collective psyche via telecast directives and word by mouth. Sales of face masks and sanitisers escalated.
Labs and insurance companies expanded their services to cover the new disease. • The huge jobless and homeless migrant work force flocked to states' borders in a desperate effort to cross over and return home. Mr Modi apologised via his audio broadcast 'Mann ki Baat' on March 29 for the hardship suffered by the multitude, left to the vagaries of fate.
Temporary shelters and community kitchens proliferated even as police patrolling to prevent migrants from breaching borders intensified. • At the prime minister's behest on April 5, at 9.9 pm, electric lights were switched off and candles, oil lamps and the like dispelled the darkness for nine minutes across India. This act was seen to invoke unseen forces.
Astrological undercurrents enhanced the mystery. • Migrant inflow was stalled by the closing of borders by the US, Europe and India where inter-state borders too were sealed. Operations to unearth 'virusinfected' categories honed into Tablighi Jamaat clerics and even gurdwara inmates clustering together. It was an unprecedented crisis that blurred the line between real and hidden dangers.

Quarantine or detention

Kapil Sibal From Carona to Maulana Congress leader Kapil Sibal stirred up a hornet's nest via his reported comment equating corona quarantine centres with d e t e n t i o n centres. As 'hot spots' that posed 'virus infection' risks were sealed off and hundreds were 'quarantined', s t a t e g o v e r nme n t s intensified their search for virus carriers. Those prone to read between the lines saw the thrust of the exercise as quite different. Several hundred clerics, many from abroad, who had congregated at Tablighi Jamaat's Markaz in Delhi's Nizamuddin West for a religious event on

Maulana Saad Kandhalv March 22 were taken away for testing after the area was cordoned off. Results showed some to be infected. Maulana Saad Kandhalv heads the Delhi faction of Tablighi Jamaat, a revanchist organisation that engages in conversions, and has millions of adherents. His audio message claimed that he was in "self-quarantine". Tablighi Jamaat, blamed here for increase in cases, is facing flak in Malaysia and Pakistan too for the disease spread. On April 7, Assam MLA and India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) leader Aminul Islam was arrested for giving a communal twist to testing and quarantine of virus suspects.



		EDITOR'S MAIL EDITOR'S COMMENT PANDEMIC EFFECTS FRANKLY SPEAKING NEW PANDEMIC REALPOLITIK PANDEMIC EFFECTS NEW PANDEMIC NEW PANDEMIC SECURITY SCENE KERALA MADHYA PRADESH J&K SCENE PAKISTAN WATCH SIGNS OF THE TIMES WATER CONSERVATION OPEC CHANDIGARH DIARY HITS & MISSES PANDEMIC EMERGENCY MEDIA SPACE ENGINEERING OUR CONSTITUTION ESSENCE OF THE GITA ART OF LIVING Issue:May' 2020 Subscribe Now	NEW PANDEMIC Conspiracy theories Anuradha Dutt Globalisation's sinister spill-over was manifest in the speed with which panic, engendered by the World Health Organisation's declaration on March 11 this year of a corona virus pandemic originating in China's Wuhan, spread. Pneumonia of unknown cause in Wuhan was WHO's initial alert on December 31, 2019. On January 30, WHO declared a public health emergency of international concern. Relentless news concerning the disease brought normal life to a grinding halt amidst conspiracy theories about the outbreak. The Chinese and Americans reportedly accused each other of bioengineering Covid-19 or Novel Corona virus in laboratories as a lethal leverage tool in the ongoing trade war between the two nations. The United States pushes the free market, human rights agenda; while the latter, adhering to the authoritarian communist module vigilantly protects its interests. China's admission into World Trade Organisation on December 11, 2001 spurred its rise as a formidable economic power, with relatively inexpensive gadgets, electronic accessories and the like flooding The spread of coronavirus in China has led to a massive quarantine markets around the world. China blocks the American Google, Facebook, YouTube and similar internet services for security reasons But its popular Tik Tok video-sharing app is accessed globally. The American trade-linked grouse against China hinges primarily on "unfair trade practices" and "high tariffs", to its own detriment. Real estate tycoon Donald Trump coasted to victory in the presidential elections of the United States of America in November 2016 on his pledge to "make America great again". His current run for reelection in November is bolstered by the slogan "Let America stay great". Whether the pandemic and related a l l e g a t i o n s c o m p r i s e another episode in the trade war or not, the hypothesis is that Covid-19 is a new variant of the old Corona virus which causes common cold, and is said to have spurred outbreak of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in China in 2002, and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) in Saudi Arabia in 2012. This virus is also zoonotic, travelling from snakes, bats or exotic animals such as pangolins and civet cats to humans. The virus apparently spread from bats to civets and then humans in the case of the SARs outbreak; and to dromedary camels to spur the MERS spread. The wet animal markets in Wuhan where these creatures are sold and slaughtered was identified as the nurturing ground of the Covid-19 pandemic. The US's use of the term 'Wuhan virus' triggered further sparring between the two nations, with China objecting to the prefix. Curiously, American Dean Koontz's 1981 thriller The Eyes of Darkness anticipated a lethal disease spread, unleashed by 'Gorki 400'. That was the time of the cold war between the US and Soviet Union. After the latter disintegrated, the 2008 edition of the book renamed the biological weapon 'Wuhan 400', oblique reference to the new super power. The present scenario is a strange case of life replicating fiction. An excerpt – "They call the stuff 'Wuhan- 400' because it was developed at their RDNA labs outside of the city of Wuhan, and it was the four hundredth viable strain of man-made microorganisms created at that centre". Late psychic Sylvia Browne's 2008 book, "End of Days: Predictions and Prophecies About the End of the World" averred - ""In around 2020 a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and bronchial tubes resisting all known treatments. Almost more baffling than the illness itself will be the fact that it will suddenly vanish as quickly as it arrived, attack again ten years later, and then disappear completely". Were these books merely prescient in anticipating future events? Or do some scenarios intimate covert strategising via fiction, cinema, news media and oracles in the struggle for one-upmanship by hidden forces, termed the 'deep state', well in advance? Hollywood films have explored the prospect of annihilation by disease or science gone wrong. The Andromeda Strain (1971), 12 Monkeys (1995), Outbreak (1995), Contagion Late psychic Sylvia Browne's 2008 book, "End of Days: Predictions and Prophecies About the End of the World" averred - ""In around 2020 a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and bronchial tubes resisting all known treatments. Almost more baffling than the illness itself will be the fact that it will suddenly vanish as quickly as it arrived, attack again ten years later, and then disappear completely". (2011) and Pandemic (2016) are films in this genre. Contagion follows a trajectory, very close to the present situation. A woman expires of a strange malady after returning to Minnesota from Hong Kong. The disease spreads quickly, spurring panic, quarantines, airports emptying and hasty search for a vaccine. The suspected nexus between Hollywood and the deep state has long been subject of surmise. The World Health Organisation, nodal international agency to track and control outbreak and spread of diseases, was charged by US President Donald Trump with projecting China's version of the pandemic. He stopped funding for the organisation, a big loss as the US was the biggest donor. Meanwhile, China claimed to have curtailed the disease spread. The alert first issued from the WHO country office in China on December 31 last year. However, WHO failed to pressurise China to close its wet animal markets permanently, assuming that the virus originated there. In 'Why I'm taking the Coronavirus hype with a pinch of salt', The Guardian, March 6, Simon Jenkins observes - "When hysteria is rife, we might try some history. In 1997 we were told that bird flu could kill millions worldwide. Thankfully, it did not. The first Sars outbreak of 2003 was reported by as having 'a 25% chance of killings tens of millions' and being 'worse than Aids'. In 2006, another bout of bird flu was declared 'the first pandemic of the 21st century', the scares in 2003, 2004 and 2005 having failed to meet their body counts. Then, in 2009, pigs replaced birds. The BBC announced that swine flu 'could really explode'. The chief medical officer, Liam Donaldson, declared that '65,000 could die'. He spent £560m on a Tamiflu and Relenza stockpile, which soon deteriorated. The Council of Europe's health committee chairman described the hyping of the 2009 pandemic as 'one of the great medical scandals of the century'. Should public life really be conducted on a worst-case basis"? Research in developing a vaccine to counter the virus is ongoing. BCG, an anti-TB vaccine that has been used since 80 years is being recommended to strengthen immunity. Other existing medicines are also being proposed: Remdesivir, effective against Ebola, SARS, MERS; antifever and painkiller paracetamol; anti-HIV combination Lopinavir and Ritonavir; Tami Flu tablets; and time-tested anti-malaria chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine. This recycling of old medicines for a new malady raises questions about the intrinsic nature of the disease, especially because persons above 60 and those with pre-existing ailments are said to be more at risk. Under siege responses to the pandemic were determined by local contexts and followed different trajectories. • G20 comprises announced over $5 trillion to boost world economy and counter the pandemic. Some members were reported worst hit by the pandemic, notably China, India, US, UK, Canada, France, Italy and Spain. Chinese migrants in Italy and Spain, employed in the fashion sector and factories, were suspected of transposing the virus after visiting their motherland for Chinese new year observances. India was the first SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) nation to announce a grant, $10 million, for a Covid-19 emergency fund. Pakistan responded with a $3 million grant. Contrary to India's enforced immobility and home confinement, Prime Minister Imran Khan declared that a complete lockdown was unfeasible. "The chaos and panic is more dangerous than corona virus", he said. • Kosovo's government fell over its handling of the crisis. • In Hungary, a state of Emergency was imposed on March 11, to be extended indefinitely. Offenders faced a five-year jail term. • Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko mocked the pandemic as "psychosis, advising work on the fields, sports, vodka as remedies. As nations went overnight into lockdown and leaders and royals into quarantine, some chose to play down fears. Three South American Presidents – Brazil's Jair Bolasaro, Mexico's Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega – were sceptical of the virus impact and 'social distancing' mandate laid down by health experts. • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, struggling to continue at the helm after his alliance failed to win a majority in the elections, went twice into quarantine. Opponents saw this as a dilatory tactic. Soon after Brexit, when Should public life really be conducted on a worst-case basis"? Research in developing a vaccine to counter the virus is ongoing. BCG, an anti-TB vaccine that has been used since 80 years is being recommended to strengthen immunity. UK quit European Union on January 31, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was quarantined and sent into intensive case. This spurred conjectures about succession. He soon emerged from the ICU. • The event is almost a replay of the past. In 1918, weeks before the end of World War I, British Prime Minister Lloyd George was similarly afflicted during the Spanish Flu pandemic and placed on a ventilator. He recovered. US President Donald Trump and his delegation returned in late February to the US from India where communal riots and protests on roads in Delhi by opponents of Citizenship Amendment Act and impending population update was a huge embarrassment for the BJP-led ruling alliance. Dismissing the corona outbreak as a "hoax" geared to sabotage the presidential polls, slated for November 3, he soon diluted his stance amid mounting pressure. Safety measures were implemented in vulnerable areas. Saudi Arabia called a ceasefire in the five-year war in Yemen. • South Korea went ahead with holding elections. • Here, as flights curtailed, traffic went off roads, and train services limited to transporting goods, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made sombre television appearances, advising vigilance. On March 22, 5 pm, Indians, following his counsel, beat metal plates and blew shankh in a bid to scare away the virus.. • Following the prolonged lockdown, beginning March 24, work places, factories and construction sites shut down: and shrines across India closed. Marriages and festivities were put off, schools and colleges shut, examinations were suspended. Washing hands frequently and "social distancing" were drummed into the collective psyche via telecast directives and word by mouth. Sales of face masks and sanitisers escalated. Labs and insurance companies expanded their services to cover the new disease. • The huge jobless and homeless migrant work force flocked to states' borders in a desperate effort to cross over and return home. Mr Modi apologised via his audio broadcast 'Mann ki Baat' on March 29 for the hardship suffered by the multitude, left to the vagaries of fate. Temporary shelters and community kitchens proliferated even as police patrolling to prevent migrants from breaching borders intensified. • At the prime minister's behest on April 5, at 9.9 pm, electric lights were switched off and candles, oil lamps and the like dispelled the darkness for nine minutes across India. This act was seen to invoke unseen forces. Astrological undercurrents enhanced the mystery. • Migrant inflow was stalled by the closing of borders by the US, Europe and India where inter-state borders too were sealed. Operations to unearth 'virusinfected' categories honed into Tablighi Jamaat clerics and even gurdwara inmates clustering together. It was an unprecedented crisis that blurred the line between real and hidden dangers. Quarantine or detention Kapil Sibal From Carona to Maulana Congress leader Kapil Sibal stirred up a hornet's nest via his reported comment equating corona quarantine centres with d e t e n t i o n centres. As 'hot spots' that posed 'virus infection' risks were sealed off and hundreds were 'quarantined', s t a t e g o v e r nme n t s intensified their search for virus carriers. Those prone to read between the lines saw the thrust of the exercise as quite different. Several hundred clerics, many from abroad, who had congregated at Tablighi Jamaat's Markaz in Delhi's Nizamuddin West for a religious event on Kapil Sibal From Carona to Maulana Congress leader Kapil Sibal stirred up a hornet's nest via his reported comment equating corona quarantine centres with d e t e n t i o n centres. As 'hot spots' that posed 'virus infection' risks were sealed off and hundreds were 'quarantined', s t a t e g o v e r nme n t s intensified their search for virus carriers. Those prone to read between the lines saw the thrust of the exercise as quite different. Several hundred clerics, many from abroad, who had congregated at Tablighi Jamaat's Markaz in Delhi's Nizamuddin West for a religious event on Maulana Saad Kandhalv March 22 were taken away for testing after the area was cordoned off. Results showed some to be infected. Maulana Saad Kandhalv heads the Delhi faction of Tablighi Jamaat, a revanchist organisation that engages in conversions, and has millions of adherents. His audio message claimed that he was in "self-quarantine". Tablighi Jamaat, blamed here for increase in cases, is facing flak in Malaysia and Pakistan too for the disease spread. On April 7, Assam MLA and India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) leader Aminul Islam was arrested for giving a communal twist to testing and quarantine of virus suspects.