#New product development company in India

[marketxcel]

New Product Development companies in Delhi, Mumbai, & India

Elevate your New product development journey with Market Xcel, a distinguished Company in Bangalore, Mumbai, Gurgaon, Pune, Noida, Delhi, and across India. Our premier new product development services leverage a profound understanding of the Indian retail market, ensuring innovative solutions tailored for your business success.

[chemxpert]

Uncover Top API Manufacturing Trends in the Pharmaceutical Industry

The pharmaceutical industry is driven by stringent standards from bodies like the Food and Drug Administration. Key players in API manufacturing ensure the highest quality of active ingredients used globally. With Chemxpert Database, you can discover leading pharmaceutical companies near me, offering insights into cutting-edge pharma manufacturing practices. Stay ahead of the competition by accessing vital data on the latest industry developments and compliance standards, essential for business growth and innovation.

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

Last week, Johnson & Johnson agreed not to enforce their secondary patents on bedaquiline in most countries after a long public pressure campaign by TB activists around the world.

(A special shoutout to Nandita Venkatesan and Phumeza Tisilethe, the two women who led the charge to prevent the patent evergreening in India, which is the only reason generic bedaquiline is in production.)

But the problem of patent evergreening is everywhere--as this NYT story reports, Gilead intentionally denied people access to a drug they knew to be less toxic than alternatives because it wanted to extend its monopoly on HIV drugs for as long as possible.

Similarly, Johnson & Johnson has been intentionally denying people access to affordable bedaquiline, even though they knew they could make a profit even if they decreased the price by 65%.

What's especially galling is that both these companies benefit tremendously from public investment (bedaquiline research was funded primarily by the public), and so we end up paying for it twice--once to develop it, and once to have it available to the sick.

This is infuriating, and it is resulting in the real impoverishment and death of so many people. How does it end? With better governance and regulation. In this respect, India can be a model for us--their courts have done a much better job than U.S. ones of determining what really deserves to be patented and for how long. I'm hopeful that we can learn from the, but disgusted by this ongoing horror.

[fatehbaz]

Endangered Indian sandalwood. British war to control the forests. Tallying every single tree in the kingdom. European companies claim the ecosystem. Spices and fragrances. Failure of the plantation. Until the twentieth century, the Empire couldn't figure out how to cultivate sandalwood because they didn't understand that the plant is actually a partial root parasite. French perfumes and the creation of "the Sandalwood City".

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Selling at about $147,000 per metric ton, the aromatic heartwood of Indian sandalwood (S. album) is arguably [among] the most expensive wood in the world. Globally, 90 per cent of the world’s S. album comes from India [...]. And within India, around 70 per cent of S. album comes from the state of Karnataka [...] [and] the erstwhile Kingdom of Mysore. [...] [T]he species came to the brink of extinction. [...] [O]verexploitation led to the sandal tree's critical endangerment in 1974. [...]

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Francis Buchanan’s 1807 A Journey from Madras through the Countries of Mysore, Canara and Malabar is one of the few European sources to offer insight into pre-colonial forest utilisation in the region. [...] Buchanan records [...] [the] tradition of only harvesting sandalwood once every dozen years may have been an effective local pre-colonial conservation measure. [...] Starting in 1786, Tipu Sultan [ruler of Mysore] stopped trading pepper, sandalwood and cardamom with the British. As a result, trade prospects for the company [East India Company] were looking so bleak that by November 1788, Lord Cornwallis suggested abandoning Tellicherry on the Malabar Coast and reducing Bombay’s status from a presidency to a factory. [...] One way to understand these wars is [...] [that] [t]hey were about economic conquest as much as any other kind of expansion, and sandalwood was one of Mysore’s most prized commodities. In 1799, at the Battle of Srirangapatna, Tipu Sultan was defeated. The kingdom of Mysore became a princely state within British India [...]. [T]he East India Company also immediately started paying the [new rulers] for the right to trade sandalwood.

British control over South Asia’s natural resources was reaching its peak and a sophisticated new imperial forest administration was being developed that sought to solidify state control of the sandalwood trade. In 1864, the extraction and disposal of sandalwood came under the jurisdiction of the Forest Department. [...] Colonial anxiety to maximise profits from sandalwood meant that a government agency was established specifically to oversee the sandalwood trade [...] and so began the government sandalwood depot or koti system. [...]

From the 1860s the [British] government briefly experimented with a survey tallying every sandal tree standing in Mysore [...].

Instead, an intricate system of classification was developed in an effort to maximise profits. By 1898, an 18-tiered sandalwood classification system was instituted, up from a 10-tier system a decade earlier; it seems this led to much confusion and was eventually reduced back to 12 tiers [...].

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Meanwhile, private European companies also made significant inroads into Mysore territory at this time. By convincing the government to classify forests as ‘wastelands’, and arguing that Europeans would improves these tracts from their ‘semi-savage state’, starting in the 1860s vast areas were taken from local inhabitants and converted into private plantations for the ‘production of cardamom, pepper, coffee and sandalwood’.

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Yet attempts to cultivate sandalwood on both forest department and privately owned plantations proved to be a dismal failure. There were [...] major problems facing sandalwood supply in the period before the twentieth century besides overexploitation and European monopoly. [...] Before the first quarter of the twentieth century European foresters simply could not figure out how to grow sandalwood trees effectively.

The main reason for this is that sandal is what is now known as a semi-parasite or root parasite; besides a main taproot that absorbs nutrients from the earth, the sandal tree grows parasitical roots (or haustoria) that derive sustenance from neighbouring brush and trees. [...] Dietrich Brandis, the man often regaled as the father of Indian forestry, reported being unaware of the [sole significant English-language scientific paper on sandalwood root parasitism] when he worked at Kew Gardens in London on South Asian ‘forest flora’ in 1872–73. Thus it was not until 1902 that the issue started to receive attention in the scientific community, when C.A. Barber, a government botanist in Madras [...] himself pointed out, 'no one seems to be at all sure whether the sandalwood is or is not a true parasite'.

Well into the early decades of twentieth century, silviculture of sandal proved a complete failure. The problem was the typical monoculture approach of tree farming in which all other species were removed and so the tree could not survive. [...]

The long wait time until maturity of the tree must also be considered. Only sandal heartwood and roots develop fragrance, and trees only begin developing fragrance in significant quantities after about thirty years. Not only did traders, who were typically just sailing through, not have the botanical know-how to replant the tree, but they almost certainly would not be there to see a return on their investments if they did. [...]

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The main problem facing the sustainable harvest and continued survival of sandalwood in India [...] came from the advent of the sandalwood oil industry at the beginning of the twentieth century. During World War I, vast amounts of sandal were stockpiled in Mysore because perfumeries in France had stopped production and it had become illegal to export to German perfumeries. In 1915, a Government Sandalwood Oil Factory was built in Mysore. In 1917, it began distilling. [...] [S]andalwood production now ramped up immensely. It was at this time that Mysore came to be known as ‘the Sandalwood City’.

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Text above by: Ezra Rashkow. "Perfumed the axe that laid it low: The endangerment of sandalwood in southern India." Indian Economic and Social History Review 51, no. 1, pages 41-70. March 2014. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Italicized first paragraph/heading in this post added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[zvaigzdelasas]

Turkey has discreetly imposed a comprehensive ban on the export of weapons and defence-related items to India, one of the world’s leading arms importers, to show its support for Pakistan, India’s main rival in South Asia.[...]

“India, for example, is one of the world’s top five arms importers, a massive market, importing close to $100 billion. However, due to our political circumstances and our friendship with Pakistan, our Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not give us positive feedback on exporting any products to India, and consequently, we do not grant any permits to our companies in this regard,” he said.[...]

Turkey and India are at odds over a proposed initiative introduced by India, the United States and the European Union at the G20 leaders’ summit in New Delhi on September 9, 2023. The initiative seeks to establish a substantial economic corridor linking Europe with the Middle East and India via rail and sea routes. It aims to connect India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Jordan, Israel and the EU through strategically placed shipping ports and an extensive railway network.

Excluded from this corridor, Turkey openly expressed discomfort with the initiative, which it believes undermines its role as a trade hub and favors Greece and other regional competitors. Instead, Turkey supports China’s expansive Belt and Road projects.

Ankara is also advancing the realization of an alternative route, known as the Development Road, which aims to connect Europe and the Middle East through Turkey. “We say there can be no corridor without Turkey. The most suitable route for traffic from east to west must pass through Turkey,” said Erdogan on his return flight from India last year.

Erdogan said they are discussing a corridor that goes from Iraq, Qatar and Abu Dhabi through Turkey to Europe. The corridor is a 1,200-kilometer (745-mile) transportation route comprising railways, motorways and pipelines. It will stretch from Iraq’s Faw Port in Basra to the Turkish port of Mersin and is estimated to cost $20 billion.

Turkey’s anti-Indian policies have prompted New Delhi to seek alliances with countries where Turkey faces challenges in its neighborhood, such as Greece, Cyprus and Armenia, in order to send a message to Ankara that it is prepared to play hardball. As a result, security, military and intelligence cooperation among India, Greece, Cyprus and Armenia has been significantly enhanced in recent years.

18 Jul 24

[blackhistorystoryteller]

Black Americans should visit Ghana

To know more about black slave trade in Ghana

Monuments of shame

Cape Coast Castle - now a World Heritage Site - is one of about forty forts in Ghana where slaves from as far away as Burkina Faso and Niger were imprisoned. This former slave fortress could hold about 1,500 slaves at a time before they were loaded onto ships and sold into slavery in the New World in the Americas and the Caribbean.

Male captives who revolted or were deemed insubordinate ended up in the condemned cells - a pitch-black room where slaves were left to die in the oppressive heat without water, food or daylight.Rebellious women were beaten and chained to cannon balls in the courtyard

Built in 1482, Elmina Castle on Ghana's Cape coast is the earliest European structure erected in sub-Saharan Africa. Originally Portugese, it was later captured by the Dutch, who used it as a base for the Dutch slave trade with Brazil and the Caribbean. Under the flag of the Dutch West Indies Company, around 30,000 slaves a year passed through Elmina until 1814 when the Dutch abolished slavery.

The Portuguese position on the Gold Coast remained secure for almost a century. During that time, Lisbon leased the right to establish trading posts to individuals or companies that sought to align themselves with the local chiefs and to exchange trade goods both for rights to conduct commerce and for slaves whom the chiefs could provide. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, adventurers--first Dutch, and later English, Danish, and Swedish-- were granted licenses by their governments to trade overseas. On the Gold Coast, these European competitors built fortified trading stations and challenged the Portuguese. Sometimes they were also drawn into conflicts with local inhabitants as Europeans developed commercial alliances with local chiefs.

The principal early struggle was between the Dutch and the Portuguese. With the loss of Elmina in 1642 to the Dutch, the Portuguese left the Gold Coast permanently. The next 150 years saw kaleidoscopic change and uncertainty, marked by local conflicts and diplomatic maneuvers, during which various European powers struggled to establish or to maintain a position of dominance in the profitable trade of the Gold Coast littoral. Forts were built, abandoned, attacked, captured, sold, and exchanged, and many sites were selected at one time or another for fortified positions by contending European nations.

Both the Dutch and the British formed companies to advance their African ventures and to protect their coastal establishments. The Dutch West India Company operated throughout most of the eighteenth century. The British African Company of Merchants, founded in 1750, was the successor to several earlier organizations of this type. These enterprises built and manned new installations as the companies pursued their trading activities and defended their respective jurisdictions with varying degrees of government backing. There were short-lived ventures by the Swedes and the Prussians. The Danes remained until 1850, when they withdrew from the Gold Coast. The British gained possession of all Dutch coastal forts by the last quarter of the nineteenth century, thus making them the dominant European power on the Gold Coast.

During the heyday of early European competition, slavery was an accepted social institution, and the slave trade overshadowed all other commercial activities on the West African coast. To be sure, slavery and slave trading were already firmly entrenched in many African societies before their contact with Europe. In most situations, men as well as women captured in local warfare became slaves. In general, however, slaves in African communities were often treated as junior members of the society with specific rights, and many were ultimately absorbed into their masters' families as full members. Given traditional methods of agricultural production in Africa, slavery in Africa was quite different from that which existed in the commercial plantation environments of the New World.

Another aspect of the impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade on Africa concerns the role of African chiefs, Muslim traders, and merchant princes in the trade. Although there is no doubt that local rulers in West Africa engaged in slaving and received certain advantages from it, some scholars have challenged the premise that traditional chiefs in the vicinity of the Gold Coast engaged in wars of expansion for the sole purpose of acquiring slaves for the export market. In the case of Asante, for example, rulers of that kingdom are known to have supplied slaves to both Muslim traders in the north and to Europeans on the coast. Even so, the Asante waged war for purposes other than simply to secure slaves. They also fought to pacify territories that in theory were under Asante control, to exact tribute payments from subordinate kingdoms, and to secure access to trade routes--particularly those that connected the interior with the coast.

It is important to mention, however, that the supply of slaves to the Gold Coast was entirely in African hands. Although powerful traditional chiefs, such as the rulers of Asante, Fante, and Ahanta, were known to have engaged in the slave trade, individual African merchants such as John Kabes, John Konny, Thomas Ewusi, and a broker known only as Noi commanded large bands of armed men, many of them slaves, and engaged in various forms of commercial activities with the Europeans on the coast.

The volume of the slave trade in West Africa grew rapidly from its inception around 1500 to its peak in the eighteenth century. Philip Curtin, a leading authority on the African slave trade, estimates that roughly 6.3 million slaves were shipped from West Africa to North America and South America, about 4.5 million of that number between 1701 and 1810. Perhaps 5,000 a year were shipped from the Gold Coast alone. The demographic impact of the slave trade on West Africa was probably substantially greater than the number actually enslaved because a significant number of Africans perished during slaving raids or while in captivity awaiting transshipment. All nations with an interest in West Africa participated in the slave trade. Relations between the Europeans and the local populations were often strained, and distrust led to frequent clashes. Disease caused high losses among the Europeans engaged in the slave trade, but the profits realized from the trade continued to attract them.

The growth of anti-slavery sentiment among Europeans made slow progress against vested African and European interests that were reaping profits from the traffic. Although individual clergymen condemned the slave trade as early as the seventeenth century, major Christian denominations did little to further early efforts at abolition. The Quakers, however, publicly declared themselves against slavery as early as 1727. Later in the century, the Danes stopped trading in slaves; Sweden and the Netherlands soon followed.

The importation of slaves into the United States was outlawed in 1807. In the same year, Britain used its naval power and its diplomatic muscle to outlaw trade in slaves by its citizens and to begin a campaign to stop the international trade in slaves. These efforts, however, were not successful until the 1860s because of the continued demand for plantation labor in the New World.

Because it took decades to end the trade in slaves, some historians doubt that the humanitarian impulse inspired the abolitionist movement. According to historian Walter Rodney, for example, Europe abolished the trans-Atlantic slave trade only because its profitability was undermined by the Industrial Revolution. Rodney argues that mass unemployment caused by the new industrial machinery, the need for new raw materials, and European competition for markets for finished goods are the real factors that brought an end to the trade in human cargo and the beginning of competition for colonial territories in Africa. Other scholars, however, disagree with Rodney, arguing that humanitarian concerns as well as social and economic factors were instrumental in ending the African slave trade.

[solarpunkbusiness]

Italian company converts discarded fishing nets into chairs, car mats and Prada bags

Since 2009, Giulio Bonazzi, the son of a small textile producer in northern Italy, has been working on a solution: an efficient recycling process for nylon. As CEO and chairman of a company called Aquafil, Bonazzi is turning the fibers from fishing nets – and old carpets – into new threads for car mats, Adidas bikinis, environmentally friendly carpets and Prada bags.

For Bonazzi, shifting to recycled nylon was a question of survival for the family business. His parents founded a textile company in 1959 in a garage in Verona, Italy. Fifteen years later, they started Aquafil to produce nylon for making raincoats, an enterprise that led to factories on three continents. But before the turn of the century, cheap products from Asia flooded the market and destroyed Europe’s textile production. When Bonazzi had finished his business studies and prepared to take over the family company, he wondered how he could produce nylon, which is usually produced from petrochemicals, in a way that was both successful and ecologically sustainable.

The question led him on an intellectual journey as he read influential books by activists such as world-renowned marine biologist Sylvia Earle and got to know Michael Braungart, who helped develop the Cradle-to-Cradle ethos of a circular economy. But the challenges of applying these ideologies to his family business were steep. Although fishing nets have become a mainstay of environmental fashion ads—and giants like Dupont and BASF have made breakthroughs in recycling nylon—no one had been able to scale up these efforts.

For ten years, Bonazzi tinkered with ideas for a proprietary recycling process. “It’s incredibly difficult because these products are not made to be recycled,” Bonazzi says. One complication is the variety of materials used in older carpets. “They are made to be beautiful, to last, to be useful. We vastly underestimated the difficulty when we started.”

Soon it became clear to Bonazzi that he needed to change the entire production process. He found a way to disintegrate old fibers with heat and pull new strings from the discarded fishing nets and carpets. In 2022, his company Aquafil produced more than 45,000 tons of Econyl, which is 100% recycled nylon, from discarded waste.

More than half of Aquafil’s recyclate is from used goods. According to the company, the recycling saves 90 percent of the CO2 emissions compared to the production of conventional nylon. That amounts to saving 57,100 tons of CO2 equivalents for every 10,000 tons of Econyl produced.

Bonazzi collects fishing nets from all over the world, including Norway and Chile—which have the world’s largest salmon productions—in addition to the Mediterranean, Turkey, India, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, Pakistan, and New Zealand. He counts the government leadership of Seychelles as his most recent client; the island has prohibited ships from throwing away their fishing nets, creating the demand for a reliable recycler. With nearly 3,000 employees, Aquafil operates almost 40 collection and production sites in a dozen countries, including four collection sites for old carpets in the U.S., located in California and Arizona.

[rupalic]

Growth Strategies Adopted by Major Players in Turf Protection Market

In the dynamic landscape of the turf protection industry, key players like Syngenta Crop Protection AG (Switzerland), UPL Limited (India), Corteva Agriscience (US), Nufarm (US), Bayer AG (Germany), and BASF SE (Germany) are at the forefront of innovation and market expansion. These industry leaders are driving growth through strategic initiatives such as partnerships, acquisitions, and cutting-edge product developments, solidifying their positions as influential forces in shaping the future of the turf protection industry. Their efforts not only enhance their global presence but also set new benchmarks for industry standards and customer expectations. The global turf protection market size is estimated to reach $8.1 billion by 2028, growing at a 4.9% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). The market size was valued $6.4 billion in 2023.

Top Global Turf Protection Leaders to Watch in 2024

· Syngenta Crop Protection AG (Switzerland)

· UPL Limited (India)

· Corteva Agriscience (US)

· Nufarm (US)

· Bayer AG (Germany)

· BASF SE (Germany)

· SDS Biotech K.K. (Japan)

· AMVAC Chemical Corporation (US)

· Bioceres Crop Solutions (Argentina)

· Colin Campbell (Chemicals) Pty Ltd (Australia)

· ICL Group Ltd. (US)

Investments and Innovations: Key Strategies of Top Turf Protection Companies

🌱 Syngenta Crop Protection AG: Leading the Way in Integrated Pest Management

Syngenta Crop Protection AG, a global agribusiness based in Switzerland, operates prominently in the crop protection and seeds markets. The company offers a comprehensive range of herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, and seed treatments, helping growers worldwide enhance agricultural productivity and food quality. With a presence in over 90 countries, Syngenta’s reach is truly global. In October 2020, Syngenta further strengthened its position by acquiring Valagro, a leading biologicals company. Valagro’s strong presence in Europe, North America, Asia, and Latin America complements Syngenta’s existing crop protection chemicals. This acquisition allows Syngenta to offer more integrated pest management strategies that reduce reliance on synthetic chemicals, while Valagro’s expertise in plant nutrition promotes healthier turfgrass growth and improved soil health.

Know about the assumptions considered for the study

🌍 UPL Limited: Innovating Turf Management Solutions Globally

UPL Limited, formerly known as United Phosphorus Limited, is a global agrochemical company based in India, providing a wide range of agricultural solutions, including crop protection products, seeds, and post-harvest solutions. UPL is a key player in turf management, offering innovative solutions for golf courses, sports fields, and other turf areas. Their product portfolio includes herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, and plant growth regulators, all designed to enhance turf quality and health while effectively controlling pests and diseases. Operating in over 130 countries across North America, South America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, UPL has 28 manufacturing sites worldwide, solidifying its position as a leader in the global turf protection market.

🏆 Bayer AG: Streamlining for a Focused Future in Turf Protection

Bayer AG, a multinational pharmaceutical and life sciences company headquartered in Leverkusen, Germany, operates across three business segments: Pharmaceuticals, Consumer Health, and Crop Science. The company’s Crop Science division caters to the turf protection market, offering products such as herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides. With operations in over 90 countries, including regions like North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific, Bayer maintains a strong global presence. In March 2022, Bayer sold its Environmental Science Professional business, which includes turf protection products, to private equity firm Cinven for USD 2.6 billion. This strategic divestment is part of Bayer’s ongoing efforts to streamline its portfolio and concentrate on core businesses, ensuring a more focused approach to its future operations.

[diabolus1exmachina]

Innocenti C coupé 

Born in Piscaia, Tuscany in 1891, Ferdinandi Innocenti started his business career by establishing a hardware store in Rome. The business grew, and in 1920 Ferdinandi established a factory in northern Italy in Milan, in the Lambrate district. The factory produced everything from soccer stands to railways, and the reconstruction boom in Rome in particular boosted demand.The factories suffered in the Second World War, but Innocenti had kept them up and running productively for wartime needs even through difficult times. After the war, the factories also started producing for the vehicle industry, inspired by military motorcycles. Enrico Piaggio had introduced the Vespa in 1946, and Innocenti introduced their first scooter, Lambro River by Lambretta, just a year later. The scooters became a huge success and were manufactured under license in Spain, India, Argentina, Germany, France and Brazil.At the end of the 1950s, another economic boom followed in Italy, and the working class could for the first time get their own car, such as the Fiat 500. Ferdinando's son Luigi had taken over as vice president of the company and began to explore the possibilities of manufacturing passenger cars. A cooperation partner was first found in Germany, and a small Iseria passenger car was born in cooperation with Goggomobil. However, production was very marginal until the early 1960s when Innocenti entered into a cooperation agreement with the British BMC and began to produce Innocenti Austins and Mini Minors under license.Innocent's first in-house model followed just a year later when it introduced the Austin-Healey Sprite-based 950 Spider. Encouraged by Innocenti’s first sports model, the collaboration with Ferrari also began, and two 186 GT prototypes equipped with the V6 from Maranello were completed, until Ferrari decided to bury the project in 1966.

Innocenti was not discouraged, and developed their own small Coupé model, which was presented later in the same year. Ghia used the earlier Spider model as the basis for the design, and Sergio Sartorelli, who has made a name for himself with models like the Karmann Ghia Type 34 and the Fiat 2300 S, was given the main responsibility for the design. The wheelbase was extended and the rear of the car was completely redesigned. Special attention was paid to the quality of the materials in the interior, and the GT spirit was also exuded by dashboard including five gauges, the oil pressure gauge was straight from the Ferrari 250 GTE. New Innocenti C was powered by BMC's A-series 1098cc engine, producing 58bhp with two SU carburettors – enough for a coupe with a curb weight of just 695kg.

[beguines]

In recent years, there has been an increased awareness among grassroots activists, organizations, academics, and journalists about the close relations between India and Israel and what it portends. In January 2020, BDS India, the Indian news sites News Click and the People's Dispatch released a report detailing the extent of the India-Israel military relationship. The report, titled: "Israel-India Military Relations: Ideological Paradigms of Security" argued that Israel's military ideology, methodology, and technology was sustained by the billion-dollar arms trade and collaboration with India. It described the import of these Israeli methods as "ominous" and "a threat to democracy and human rights wherever it is implemented." Affixed to the report, a warning: "The significant role of Israel in this steadily growing military-industrial complex in India should be cause of serious concern for our civil society." And this is not without precedent.

Israeli weapons, developed and field tested on Palestinians, have periodically found their way to some of the most autocratic and dangerous countries in the world. These include the genocides in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Myanmar. The Israeli arms industry therefore is not merely an introduction to technology, it is an invitation to Israeli governance and surveillance. Increasingly, anti-war activists, socialists, and those fighting for native and indigenous rights across the globe, be it in Hawaii or Ferguson, are recognizing the extent to which the Israeli occupation of Palestinians has served as a model for others to, if not emulate, then replicate in ways that help surmount the will of not just their own respective colonial or occupied territories, but also, increasingly, their citizens. It is here where the consequences of this relationship between India and Israel becomes clear: they are the blueprint and serve as a model for authoritarian regimes around the world.

Consider Elbit Systems, Israel's biggest arms manufacturer. It describes itself as "an international electronics defense company," which is to say it's in the business of producing products to repress at the behest of its clients. It builds several deadly weapons used by the Israeli military, including the Hermes 900, used since 2014 to survey and conduct airstrikes in the Gaza Strip. Elbit provides much of the technology for the apartheid barrier and the illegal checkpoints in Palestine. Most importantly for this discussion, Elbit's aspiration for market dominance is to shut down the competition by buying them out. "Elbit buys companies in quick succession, and each new market that opens to the firm through a new acquisition means it is involved in another conflict," Shir Hever writes. In other words, the expansion of war and conflict is its primary business. It is unsurprising that Elbit has its products in more than a dozen countries, including Colombia, Rwanda, Cameroon, Azerbaijan, and India.

Azad Essa, Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel

[eretzyisrael]

Hamas didn’t invade Israel on Oct. 7 for its amusement. The barbaric sneak attack is a part of the pogrom intended to wipe out the Jewish state. It was a crime against humanity, and not just because of its savagery. We would all be worse off if Israel ceased to exist. The same cannot be said for Islamic terrorists.

Israel’s contributions to the modern world are momentous. When not dodging bullets, rockets, and homicide bombers, Israelis have since 1948 developed:

Copaxone and Rebif, drugs that treat multiple sclerosis, and Exelon, which treats mild to moderate dementia in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s patients.

The PillCam, “a minimally invasive ingestible camera in a capsule that allows visualization of the small bowel.”

The water desalination process.

The Sniffphone, “that can actually ‘sniff out’ diseases.”

And SpineAssist, “​​the first-ever spine robot” that has the “ability to provide real-time intraoperative navigation.”

The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, responsible for some of the inventions listed above, has also produced diabetes and flu vaccines, is using T-cells to treat damaged spines, and is a pioneer in industrial — and medical — uses nano materials. 

Other impactful Israeli products include drip irrigation, a revolutionary microprocessor called the 8088, the ​​NIR heart stent, voice-over-internet protocol, the ​​USB flash drive, the Waze navigation app, ReWalk, “a commercial bionic walking assistance system,” and “the first commercially viable firewall software.” 

Our own security has benefited from Israel’s labor and work ethic.

“Many Israeli innovations are present in upgrades to U.S. Air Force fighters and Army equipment,” says the international law firm Smith, Gambrell & Russell. One important advance in particular is the helmet-mounted display system for the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

So we have a country of 9.23 million, mostly desert, that is only 75 years old, is “surrounded by enemies” and in a constant state of war, which has “no natural resources,” yet “produces more start-up companies on a per capita basis than large, peaceful, and stable nations and regions like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and all of Europe.” It is the only nation outside of the U.S. that Warren Buffet invests in.

Have the Palestinians or Hamas, currently at war with Israel, done anything that compares to what the Israelis have achieved? More broadly, beyond the Allahista terrorist groups, what has Islam contributed to the modern world?

Not much.

Since 1901, Jews, who total 0.2% of the world’s population, have won 189 Nobel prizes for physics, medicine, chemistry and economics. Over that same period, Muslims, who make up nearly a quarter of the global population, have won four.

If it seems as Islamic groups, Hamas and Hezbollah prominent among them, are more interested in spreading nihilism, committing atrocities, and destroying civilization than making the world a better place, well, then there’s a good reason for it. That is exactly what the heroes of an increasingly large number foolish Westerners are aiming for.

Meanwhile, Israelis see themselves “as having a role in the world to repair the world,” says Chemi Peres, managing partner and co-founder of the venture capital firm Pitango, chairman of the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation, and son of the late Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres.

“We call it tikkun olam, and here at the Peres Center we have a mission statement, which is to introduce innovation and new ideas and new technologies, not only for ourselves but to solve the problems of the world.”

Islam is part of that world, but too many of its adherents live to do just the opposite. 

— Written by the I&I Editorial Board

[wilsonaccount]

Science is a rigorous, systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world.[1][2] Modern science is typically divided into three major branches:[3] the natural sciences (e.g., physics, chemistry, and biology), which study the physical world; the social sciences (e.g., economics, psychology, and sociology), which study individuals and societies;[4][5] and the formal sciences (e.g., logic, mathematics, and theoretical computer science), which study formal systems, governed by axioms and rules.[6][7] There is disagreement whether the formal sciences are science disciplines,[8][9][10] because they do not rely on empirical evidence.[11][9] Applied sciences are disciplines that use scientific knowledge for practical purposes, such as in engineering and medicine.[12][13][14]

The history of science spans the majority of the historical record, with the earliest written records of identifiable predecessors to modern science dating to Bronze Age Egypt and Mesopotamia from around 3000 to 1200 BCE. Their contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine entered and shaped the Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity, whereby formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes, while further advancements, including the introduction of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, were made during the Golden Age of India.[15]: 12 [16][17][18] Scientific research deteriorated in these regions after the fall of the Western Roman Empire during the early middle ages (400 to 1000 CE), but in the Medieval renaissances (Carolingian Renaissance, Ottonian Renaissance and the Renaissance of the 12th century) scholarship flourished again. Some Greek manuscripts lost in Western Europe were preserved and expanded upon in the Middle East during the Islamic Golden Age[19] and later by the efforts of Byzantine Greek scholars who brought Greek manuscripts from the dying Byzantine Empire to Western Europe in the Renaissance.

The recovery and assimilation of Greek works and Islamic inquiries into Western Europe from the 10th to 13th century revived "natural philosophy",[20][21][22] which was later transformed by the Scientific Revolution that began in the 16th century[23] as new ideas and discoveries departed from previous Greek conceptions and traditions.[24][25] The scientific method soon played a greater role in knowledge creation and it was not until the 19th century that many of the institutional and professional features of science began to take shape,[26][27] along with the changing of "natural philosophy" to "natural science".[28]

New knowledge in science is advanced by research from scientists who are motivated by curiosity about the world and a desire to solve problems.[29][30] Contemporary scientific research is highly collaborative and is usually done by teams in academic and research institutions,[31] government agencies, and companies.[32][33] The practical impact of their work has led to the emergence of science policies that seek to influence the scientific enterprise by prioritizing the ethical and moral development of commercial products, armaments, health care, public infrastructure, and environmental protection.

[thoughtlessarse]

Hempcrete is a bio-based building material helping to power the drive to net-zero, but how can a product developed a millennia ago help tackle today's environmental challenges? Euronews Culture gets down and dirty with a material that has Europe’s eco-conscious architects high with excitement. It really doesn’t look like much, but hempcrete is the green building material that’s got eco-savvy homeowners and architects excited by its potential to be a sustainable alternative to environmentally expensive bricks and concrete. It is made using a carefully calibrated mixture of hemp shiv – the dried inner core of the hemp plant – mixed with lime and water. But although hempcrete seems like a very modern building material, it has a history stretching back over 1,500 years. Hemp plaster from the sixth century still lines the walls of the UNESCO-designated Ellora Caves in India, and hemp mortar has been discovered in ancient Merovingian bridge abutments in France – which is fitting, as France was at the forefront of the 1980s drive to modernise hempcrete and introduce it to a new generation. [...] Impeccable environmental credentials Despite the challenges, hempcrete’s undeniable environmental credentials have meant it was a case of when, rather than if, it would muscle its way into the mainstream building trade. Liam Donohoe, chief operating officer at UK Hempcrete – a Derbyshire-based company designing and supplying materials to building projects using hempcrete – tells Euronews Culture that sustainability plays a part in every area of the product’s development. “Hemp, unlike conventional crops, doesn’t require a lot of fertilisers or pesticides to protect it as it grows. The type of fibrous hemp usually used in construction is a tall plant that grows quickly and so can be cropped and planted quite close together, naturally suppressing weeds," he says. “I’m not saying it takes no energy to produce hempcrete, it does. But when you compare it to man-made insulation and wall infills, it has an unlimited life span and the primary ingredient is a renewable crop that costs a lot less energy and carbon to produce.”

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[fatehbaz]

The rise of the European empires [...] required new forms of social organization, not least the exploitation of millions of people whose labor powered the growth of European expansion [...]. These workers suffered various forms of coercion ranging from outright slavery through to indentured or convict labor, as well as military conscription, land theft, and poverty. [...] [W]ide-ranging case studies [examining the period from 1600 to 1850] [...] show the variety of working conditions and environments found in the early modern period and the many ways workers found to subvert and escape from them. [...] A web of regulation and laws were constructed to control these workers [...]. This system of control was continually contested by the workers themselves [...]

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Timothy Coates [...] focuses on three locations in the Portuguese empire and the workers who fled from them. The first was the sugar plantations of São Tomé in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The slaves who ran away to form free communities in the interior of the island were an important reason why sugar production eventually shifted to Brazil. Secondly, Coates describes working conditions in the trading posts around the Indian Ocean and the communities of runaways which formed in the Bay of Bengal. The final section focuses on convicts and sinners in Portugal itself, where many managed to escape from forced labor in salt mines.

Johan Heinsen examines convict labor in the Danish colony of Saint Thomas in the Virgin Islands. Denmark awarded the Danish West Indies and Guinea Company the right to transport prisoners to the colony in 1672. The chapter illustrates the social dynamics of the short-lived colony by recounting the story of two convicts who hatched the escape plan, recruited others to the group, including two soldiers, and planned to steal a boat and escape from the island. The plan was discovered and the two convicts sentenced to death. One was forced to execute the other in order to save his own life. The two soldiers involved were also punished but managed to talk their way out of the fate of the convicts. Detailed court records are used to show both the collective nature of the plot and the methods the authorities used to divide and defeat the detainees.

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James F. Dator reveals how workers in seventeenth-century St. Kitts Island took advantage of conflict between France and Britain to advance their own interests and plan collective escapes. The two rival powers had divided the island between them, but workers, indigenous people, and slaves cooperated across the borders, developing their own knowledge of geography, boundaries, and imperial rivalries [...].

Nicole Ulrich writes about the distinct traditions of mass desertions that evolved in the Dutch East India Company colony in South Africa. Court records reveal that soldiers, sailors, slaves, convicts, and servants all took part in individual and collective desertion attempts. [...] Mattias von Rossum also writes about the Dutch East India Company [...]. He [...] provides an overview of labor practices of the company [...] and the methods the company used to control and punish workers [...].

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In the early nineteenth century, a total of 73,000 British convicts were sentenced to be transported to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania). There, the majority were rented out as laborers to private employers, and all were subjected to surveillance and detailed record keeping. These records allow Hamish Maxwell-Stewart and Michael Quinlan to provide a detailed statistical analysis of desertion rates in different parts of the colonial economy [...].

When Britain abolished the international slave trade, new forms of indentured labor were created in order to provide British capitalism with the labor it required. Anita Rupprecht investigates the very specific culture of resistance that developed on the island of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands between 1808 and 1828. More than 1,300 Africans were rescued from slavery and sent to Tortola, where officials had to decide how to deal with them. Many were put to work in various forms of indentured labor on the island, and this led to resistance and rebellion. Rupprecht uncovers details about these protests from the documents of a royal commission that investigated [...].

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All text above by: Mark Dunick. "Review of Rediker, Marcus; Chakraborty, Titas; Rossum, Matthias van, eds. A Global History of Runaways: Workers, Mobility, and Capitalism 1600-1850". H-Socialisms, H-Net Reviews. April 2024. Published at: h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=58852 [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[mariacallous]

This month the World Trade Organization threw in the towel on COVID-19. Medicines like Paxlovid have been plentiful in the U.S. and Europe, but because of insufficient supplies and high prices, hardly anyone in Africa, Asia, and Latin America has had access. After more than three years of debate, the WTO declared on Feb. 13 that it was unable to reach agreement on waiving global patent rules for COVID-19 treatment to ease the way for expanded production.

Those confused about why the WTO is even still debating COVID-19 nearly a year after the public health emergency was declared over by the World Health Organization can be forgiven. Not only is this slow speed not what the world needs in a pandemic, it is also not how the World Trade Organization is supposed to work, and begs questions on WTO’s relevance in a multi-crisis world. It also makes clear that responsibility for the global governance of pandemic-related technology and intellectual property cannot remain with the WTO.

As negotiations have reconvened this week in Geneva over a new Pandemic Treaty, the question of which organizations should manage the response is a live question. Some negotiators are pushing for a role for the world’s health ministers and the World Health Organization on intellectual property, but the U.S. negotiator and others say these questions should stay with the WTO. The WTO’s failure, though, make this an increasingly untenable position: If the WTO cannot act in a pandemic to remove patents barriers and promote sharing of technology so the world can produce enough medicines and vaccines, then the WHO must be empowered to do so.

When the World Trade Organization was created in 1995, it marked a fundamental change to international trade law. Where the international system it replaced had primarily dealt with flow of goods across borders, WTO rules expanded the definition of “trade” to include the intangible—including patents on pharmaceuticals. All members were required to enforce 20-year monopolies over making new medicines. As the late scholar Susan Sell described it, this was a remarkable act of “forum shifting.” Before that, patents (effectively government-granted monopolies) were not part of “free” trade. Into the 1970s, many rich countries such as Italy and Japan did not allow patents on medicines, and many developing countries like India, Brazil, and Mexico had continued to exclude medicines from patent monopolies into the 1990s. But they were convinced to expand intellectual property in the new WTO agreement with a promise of “technology transfer” and a requirement that wealthy countries incentivize their companies to share with least-developed countries. This has not gone as promised.

The first effective medicines in the AIDS pandemic arrived just as the WTO came into being. It quickly became clear this debate about globally enforceable intellectual property was life-or-death as patents proved a major barrier to access. Twelve million Africans died between 1997 and 2007 with AIDS medicines too expensive and pharmaceutical companies blocking affordable generic versions. Eventually manufacturers in India, Brazil, South Africa, and elsewhere overcame barriers and made the drugs at a 99 percent lower cost. Today 30 million people are on treatment and cutting-edge medicines costs less than $50 per year.

Did drug companies voluntarily relent? Unfortunately, no. Dozens of low- and middle-income country governments issued “compulsory licenses” forcing drug companies to allow local producers to make HIV medicines. Activists pressured companies to drop their price and share their technology. The WTO eventually agreed on the “Doha Declaration” clarifying WTO rules allowing countries “flexibilities” to make affordable medicines and special consideration during emergencies. It took over a decade, but eventually the Medicines Patent Pool was created to facilitate voluntary sharing of technology—though companies only joined because compulsory alternatives left them little choice.

When the pandemic hit, these structures to transfer technology were all available, but world leaders decided to only use the voluntary elements—an approach that failed spectacularly. Scientists delivered vaccines in record time. Highly effective mRNA vaccines were developed in under a year and treatments followed. Paxlovid proved among the most effective—a long-standing HIV drug combined with a new drug similar to HIV antiretrovirals. Costa Rica and the WHO proposed a mechanism to pool technology and patents even before medicines were developed and approved. Over 100 different drug and vaccine manufacturers around the world were prepared to make them, several even showing they could reverse engineer mRNA vaccines. But no drug company agreed to share its technology, and none of the governments where companies were based compelled them to.

With neither a relaxation of WTO rules nor enough voluntary sharing to enable factories in Africa, Asia, and Latin America to expand supply, global leaders backed a set of voluntary efforts for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). COVAX, the international effort to procure and equitably distribute vaccines, tried to secure vaccines from companies like Pfizer and Moderna. Predictably, however, COVAX quickly discovered high-income countries were locking up global supplies by using economic and political power to secure preferential access from companies. By the end of the first year, less than 1 percent of all vaccines had gone to low-income countries. Medicines fared no better. One analysis showed need for Paxlovid exceeded supply in LMICs by 8 million doses—leaving 90 percent without access. The lowest reported price was $250—200 percent of the average per capita spending on all health in lower middle-income countries.

These shortages had consequences. Analyses show as many as 27 million lives lost to the pandemic, many of which were preventable. Beyond the direct effect, dangerous coronavirus variants swept the world from contexts of high transmission and low vaccinated immunity. The pandemic has been longer and more damaging because of an artificially limited global supply of countermeasures.

Throughout this time the WTO was locked in debate. South Africa and India proposed a temporary waiver of WTO rules on all COVID-19 products during the pandemic. Pharmaceutical industry lobbyists cast this as a dangerous idea, launching a campaign against it claiming “voiding patents” would undermine innovation for pandemic products. In reality, a waiver does not take away IP rights. It simply suspends global rules temporarily, giving policymaking authority back to national governments to decide whether to enforce patents on pandemic-products during the pandemic without threat of WTO-linked sanctions. A waiver alone would not have solved the pandemic supply problem, which also required shared know-how and expanded manufacturing. But it would have removed threats of lawsuits for companies making financial and infrastructure investments in production lines and threat of sanctions from powerful states for governments allowing local production.

The WTO is supposed to be able to use mechanisms like waivers to respond to crises in a matter of weeks, not years. The Marrakesh Agreement explicitly includes a provision on waivers, stating the General Council must act within 90 days on a waiver request, assuming consensus, but falling back to a vote of three-fourths of members. Every year multiple WTO waivers are granted on issues from pharmaceuticals to diamonds to preferential trade for neighbors. But since 2020, the WTO’s efforts to pass a waiver in the middle of a world-changing event hit institutional and ideological roadblocks. Even as heads of state weighed in and wide swaths of the global economy depended on stopping the coronavirus, the institutional structure encouraged gridlock. Despite seemingly supportive law, the WTO’s structures encourage narrow interest-group politics, excluding actors with a broader public interest and economic agenda.

Narrowly-focused intellectual property negotiators framed the COVID-19 issue in ways that insulated negotiators, focused on footnotes and eligibility instead of stopping the pandemic, and gave an effective veto to trade negotiators from a few states with strong pharmaceutical lobbies. By the time the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference rolled around in June 2022, a simple pandemic-long waiver proposed two years earlier had morphed into a complicated mechanism that several developing countries declared unworkable. It only covered vaccines, pushing treatments to further negotiations. Eight months of more negotiations yielded no further progress, leading to the WTO’s declaration of no agreement last week.

It is time for a new forum shift. Negotiations over a new Pandemic Treaty are intensifying as negotiators hope for a May conclusion. The draft agreement includes a commitment to waive intellectual property during a pandemic and to use WTO flexibilities to produce pandemic-fighting products. These are the minimum steps to make the whole world safer. President Joe Biden already supported a patent waiver during the pandemic and is using these flexibilities at home, including “march-in” rights to limit patent monopolies on high-priced drugs in the U.S. The U.S. negotiator’s opposition suggests misaligned foreign policy.

But the agreement should go further. Given the WTO’s repeated failure, the new agreement should shift authority to waive patent rules to the World Health Assembly. And it should include a binding agreement to share publicly funded technologies for global production. States delegated authority to the WTO, which has proved a barrier rather than an asset in pandemics. Taking it back is just good governance.