At some point in late 2019, an outbreak of a novel SARS-like coronavirus was detected in Wuhan and reached the level of a global contagion. Where did it come from?
Did it spill over naturally from a bat to humans? Did it originate in a wet market in Wuhan? Or is there any truth in the “conspiracy theory” that the virus slipped out of a laboratory in Wuhan where active research on SARS-like coronavirus was being conducted? Or, the thorniest question of all, could it have been genetically modified or tinkered with? In recent months, the debate has been reignited.
What really happened? At this stage it seems that nobody knows for sure. Very little is known about the beginnings of the pandemic, but everything indicates that the first outbreak of the virus appeared in Wuhan. The trillion-dollar question is: how did it get to Wuhan?
There are multiple paths it could have taken, and to explain the turn of events, two theories have emerged. One school of thought assumes it is a natural zoonotic event. The other school of thought assumes that it escaped from a nearby research laboratory that studies and works with exactly this kind of coronavirus. (Some opine that it was a bioweapon, and purposefully released—but I don’t think that any reasonable person espouses this belief. Equally absurd is China’s favourite theory that the virus SARS-CoV-2 reached China on frozen goods from abroad.)
As for the first theory, there are a range of possibilities including a zoonotic jump from bats to humans, either directly or via an intermediate host. This is not beyond the realm of possibility. This is what happened with SARS and MERS. However, with SARS and MERS, scientists were able to determine rather quickly which animal species had carried the virus from bats to humans.
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William Dalrymple goes further back
Indian readers have long known William Dalrymple as the chronicler nonpareil of India in the early years of the British raj. His latest book, The Golden Road, is a striking departure, since it takes him to a period from about the third century BC to the 12th-13th centuries CE.
The bleat from the street
What with all the apps delivering straight to one’s doorstep, the supermarkets, the food halls and even the occasional (super-expensive) pop-up thela (cart) offering the woke from field-to-fork option, the good old veggie-market/mandi has fallen off my regular beat.
Courage and conviction
Justice A.M. Ahmadi's biography by his granddaughter brings out behind-the-scenes tension in the Supreme Court as it dealt with the Babri Masjid demolition case
EPIC ENTERPRISE
Gowri Ramnarayan's translation of Ponniyin Selvan brings a fresh perspective to her grandfather's magnum opus
Upgrade your jeans
If you don’t live in the top four-five northern states of India, winter means little else than a pair of jeans. I live in Mumbai, where only mad people wear jeans throughout the year. High temperatures and extreme levels of humidity ensure we go to work in mulmul salwars, cotton pants, or, if you are lucky like me, wear shorts every day.
Garden by the sea
When Kozhikode beach became a fertile ground for ideas with Manorama Hortus
RECRUITERS SPEAK
Industry requirements and selection criteria of management graduates
MORAL COMPASS
The need to infuse ethics into India's MBA landscape
B-SCHOOLS SHOULD UNDERSTAND THAT INDIAN ECONOMY IS GOING TO WITNESS A TREMENDOUS GROWTH
INTERVIEW - Prof DEBASHIS CHATTERJEE, director, Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode
COURSE CORRECTION
India's best b-schools are navigating tumultuous times. Hurdles include lower salaries offered to their graduates and students misusing AI
