Africa Archives - My Writings

According to Fortune Magazine. Many of these are the personalities belonging to different fields which rendered unique contribution in fight against Covid-19.

1. Jacinda Ardern:

Prime Minister of Newzealand. She tops the list for the role she played to tackle COVID-19 from spreading in New Zealand. In a nation of 5 million only 2700 cases and 26 deaths. For 6 months she and her cabinet took 20% pay cut.

2. mRNA Pioneers:

COVID-19 vaccines which are largely administered today rely on mRNA. Although mRNA was discovered in 1960, it was in mid 2000 that researchers figured out how to modify the building blocks of those molecules for therapeutic purposes so that mRNA strands could safely interact with the body. Moderna and BioNTech, collaborated with the mRNA Pioneers made it to the list.

3. Daniel H Schulman:

He is an American business executive and president and CEO of PayPal. He was named the third Greatest Leader on the list. He saw to it that his employees get at least 20% more than their earnings after paying all the taxes. Only few employers think so much about their employees.

4.Dr John Nkengasong:

He currently serves as the first Director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). He is a leading virologist with nearly 30 years of work experience in public health. Fortune praised him for his role in his fight against spread of COVID-19 in African countries.

John Nkengasong, Africa’s Director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)

5. NBA Rescuers:

Adam Silver NBA commissioner; Michele Roberts, executive director of the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA); and Chris Paul, a longtime star point guard and the president of the NBPA, were the key players who saved the NBA. They created a bubble plan to successfully conduct 172 games without a single player contracting the disease.

6. Jessica Tan:

She is the co-CEO of the Chinese finance insurance giant. During COVID-19, among the Chinese private sector it was the technology companies that were able to cushion the blow faced by China and none was better positioned to help than Ping An Group, an insurance giant whose “technology plus finance” strategy reflects the vision of co-CEO Jessica Tan. Ping An Good Doctor company’s telehealth app which received 1.11 billion visits at the peak of the pandemic, serving as a vital first line of defense.

7. Justin Welby:

Since 2013, he is the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury and the most senior bishop in the Church of England. He is quite outspoken and supports causes that are critical to society. He is an former oil executive. He has encouraged Church’s investment arm to push major emitters on their emission policies.

8. Stacey Abrams:

She is an American politician, lawyer, and voting rights activist. A member of the Democratic Party, Abrams founded Fair Fight Action, an organisation to address voter suppression in 2018.

9. Reshorna Fitzpatrick:

She is the founder and Pastor of Proceeding Word Church in Chicago, Illinois. She had been feeding the hunger in her Chicago neighborhood for years. Three years ago, she helped start a community garden in a vacant lot near the North Lawndale church on the city’s West Side. During pandemic, when many people lost their livelihoods, she along with her community would prepare hot meals every Monday for anyone who stopped by.

10. Adar Poonawalla:

He is recognised for taking the task of bringing an end to the global pandemic by supplying COVID-19 vaccines. Poonawalla heads the Serum Institute of India (SII) which is the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer. Poonawalla’s company has been providing global vaccine equity, providing low-cost vaccines to fight diseases like influenza, measles, and tetanus. Now, the SII has pledged to deliver up to 2 billion vaccine doses in the coming years to COVAX, a global initiative to provide vaccines to lower- and middle-income countries.

Innumerable plants grow on the earth. The very diversity is mind boggling. We did not even know the names of plants growing around us. In fact, most of us never bother to even look around. These become just the backdrop of landscape we dwell in. I don’t think that even God, the creator, has given them names. It is us mortals, who in order to make our life easier document the things. We give nomenclature to everything living in the nature. We have classified them into different kingdoms for our convenience and harmony in the views of different individuals.

I always has the curiosity to know the names of plants around us, the plants which give us hope, clean the atmosphere and provide oxygen for us humans to breathe, give beauty to the surroundings. I admit I don’t know the names of most of them.

In this effort, while searching and searching for days, I chanced upon a website about the flowering trees of India. This site is treasure trove of information about the plants and trees. Thanks to this website, I have been identify some of the plants and trees growing in my colony. Here is a start.

Agave:

It is also called century plant. It is native of Mexico. In India it has different names like Kamal Cactus, Gwarpatha, Kantala. Its scientific name is agave Americana.

Snake Plant

Also known as Mother in law’s tongue plant. Its botanical name is Sansevieria trifasciata. It belongs to Agavaceae (agave family). It originally belongs to Africa and is best suited for potting. It is sturdy plant and requires minimal care.

Cashew Nut Tree

Cashew nut is a nut every Indian is aware of. It is amongst the famous dry fruits like almonds and other nuts. Following are two pictures of this tree. The nut is used in many sweets as well as in culinary preparations. The tree is known by many names like Kaju in Hindi, Kaju in Marathi. In Goa where it grows in abundance, a wine is made by fermenting the fruit. The wine is called Feni.

It must have been introduced here by Portuguese who brought it from Brazil. They called it Caju.

Fishtail Palm

This tree stands in the ground behind hospital in our colony. It looks very majestic. Those beaded threads hanging in a huge bunch like the beard of an saint.

Common names around India are Fishtail Palm, Jaggery Palm, Toddy Palm, Wine Palm. Its botanical name is Caryota urens. And it belongs to Palm family.

When these palms grow to reach a height of about 20 feet, they start producing flowers at the top of the trunk with subsequent flowers produced lower and lower on the trunk. When the lowest flower blooms, the tree dies. Flowers are long plait like bunches hanging down.

Barringtonia

These are the trees which bear very beautiful flowers. These flowers hang on the tree branches like garlands. The flowers has a very short life: only one night. By the morning, the branches which were laden with flowers begin to shed the flowers which plop like rain on the surface. Whole ground beneath the trees become a carpet of red color, which nature seems to have rolled out to welcome the passersby.

Common names are Barringtonia, Freshwater Mangrove, Indian Oak, Indian Putat.

Traveler’s Palm

This plant is growing in the lawn in front of our office lawn. Its botanical name is Ravenala madagascariensis and belongs Strelitziaceae (Bird of Paradise) family.

The tree is native of Madagascar. It is not a palm in true sense. Part it looks like Banana and part as a palm.

A lot of rain water collects in the tree frond brackets. Travelers are said to be make use of this water in a forest. That is the reason it got its name.

Kadam Tree

The tree has many names in Indian languages as in Hindi it is called Kadamb. Its botanical name is Neolamarckia cadamba.

Kadam was the favourite tree of Krishna and is held in great esteem in Hindu mythology. A postal stamp was issued by the Indian Postal Department to commemorate this tree

Remember Bob Marley with a special hairdo. He was called a Rasta because he practiced Rastafarian religion which began in Jamaica in 1930. Most followers were poor people of African descent brought by the British in West Indies as labours. It is both a religion and a social movement. They were oppressed and it was a reaction to this oppression.

Rastafarians believe that their God is Jah who is in fact Haile Sellassie, the king of Ethiopia. They believe that Christ was black. The religion is not strictly religion but a way of life. It says that in every living being, a part of Jah lives and love and compassion for every human being.

Their prefer to eat the food is almost organic vegetarian self grown. They smoke the cannabis like many Sadhus in India and consider it as a very pious substance. It calms the mind and helps the smoker to introspect the self.

Call it Jacobin Cuckoo or Pied Cuckoo or Pied Crested Cuckoo, it is a summer visitor to Indian subcontinent. It comes here all the way from Africa. The bird is called harbinger of rains because timing of its coming here is just few weeks prior to the arrival of monsoon in India. Monsoons bring a relief from the sweltering heat in the Indian states. Parched earth is rejuvenated with torrents of water from rains. Thus this bird is a welcome sign here. It is aptly called Rain Bird also.

It is generally confused with Papiha which in reality is brain fever bird. One can spit this bird in this area. I have taken many pictures of it.

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Amancio Ortega: $77.8 billion, fashion,real estate, investment… Europe
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The different parts of many plants have been used since ancient times for medicinal purposes. History records many such observations.

The first plant is

Caesalpinia pulcherrima plant. It is commonly seen in India. The studies note, contains compounds that have powerful antiviral benefits, especially effective against human herpes viruses and adenoviruses,
which cause the common cold. Caesalpinia pulcherrima prevents these viruses from replicating. Other recent studies demonstrate that extracts from the flower, stem, leaf, fruit, root, and seed of Caesalpinia pulcherrima are also effective against wheezing, bronchitis, malarial infection, tuberculosis, other bacteria, fungi, and some parasites.’ (Counter, 2006)

It is still used widely in traditional Chinese and Indian medicine and is being studied for its antiviral and antibacterial medicinal qualities.

Second plant is Flos pavonis. Some of its parts were used by the slave women to induce abortion. The Indian slave women are very badly treated by their white enslavers and do not wish to bear children who must live under equally horrible conditions. The black slave women, imported mainly from Guinea and Angola, also try to avoid pregnancy with their white enslavers and actually seldom beget children. They often use the root of this plant to commit suicide in the hope of returning to their native land through reincarnation, so that they may live in freedom with their relatives and loved ones in Africa while their bodies die here in slavery, as they have told me themselves.’ (Merian, quoted in Counter, 2006)

Tag: Africa

Top 10 World Leaders 2021 according to Fortune Mag