Can I Show My New Heart Rate?

06 A VIEWPOINT HYDERABAD, Saturday, December 16, 2023 The relationship (with China in 2024) will face continued challenges. We seek not to resolve all our disagreements nor avoid all shocks. But we aim to make our communication resilient JANET YELLEN Treasury Secretary Deal on fossil fuels T he just-concluded United Nations Climate summit — Conference of the Parties 28 (COP 28) — in Dubai has finally addressed the elephant in the room: fossil fuels. Despite aggressive lobbying by oil and natural gas-producing countries and multinational companies, the gathering of world leaders, policymakers and climate scientists finalised a deal to transition away from greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal by 2050 to keep the temperature rise within the 1.5 degrees Celsius mark above the pre-industrial level. This hard-fought agreement is truly historic. It is for the first time in its 28 years of climate negotiations that the Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) pledged to transition away from fossil fuels, which included oil and gas. No doubt, it is a tough goal and will test the commitment of the nations to walk the talk. The changeover necessitates a redesigning of policies, subsidies and regulations by countries worldwide. COP 26 at Glasgow had issued a call to ‘phase down’ coal but the issue remained contentious because of divisions among nations over eliminating all fossil fuels. In the run-up to COP 28, it became increasingly clear that the issue of oil and gas cannot Transitioning be put on the back burner. away from Another issue that warfossil fuels is a ranted urgent attention was tough goal and the unfulfilled promises will test the made by the rich and develcommitment of oped nations to support the nations to poor countries in dealing with climate disasters. The walk the talk commitment of $100 billion per year made over a decade ago by developed nations is minuscule, given the scale of the needs. Even that commitment has not been fulfilled so far. Though the ‘Loss and Damage Fund’ was established at the climate summit in Egypt last year, there has been no agreement as yet on the obligations of the historic emitters and no substantial flow of cash. While fighting climate change is everyone’s job, the rich and developed countries must bear the bulk of that responsibility, not just because they have caused most of the emissions but also because they have greater resources and capacity to act. Along with technological support for carbon capture and renewable energy adaptation, investment worth billions of dollars is necessary for ‘transitioning away’ in a just and equitable manner for the developing world. But even as COP 28 saw the Green Climate Fund pledged by rich nations rise to a record $12.8 billion, it remains to be seen if they would deliver on their promises or the Global South would be again left high and dry by unkept promises of aid. Achieving net-zero by mid-century entails a drastic overhaul of the way businesses are powered and electricity produced and consumed. For, despite all efforts towards switching to renewable and other green energy sources in recent decades, over three-fourths of the global energy is still produced from coal, oil and gas. Letters to the Editor Tough task This refers to the Edit: ‘BSP’s dynasty card’. Since Mayawati has not groomed any second-rung leader, it was obvious that she would give her party’s rein to her family members only. Till 2012, she was a force to reckon with in UP but since then, her aura and political capital have been diminishing fast. Now it remains a two-party fight between the BJP and the Samajwadi Party in UP so Akash Anand will have to rejuvenate the party cadre gradually. But the biggest challenge for him is going to be emerging from the shadows of Mayawati. Being young, he should try to catch young Dalits and other caste voters too with a systematic approach. Preparation for 2027 has to start from now. BAL GOVIND, Noida It is just as important that Ukraine has means to continue the war and rebuild its country. Nobody wants Europe to be seen as untrustworthy. Or as unable to take decisions it prepared itself ALEXANDER DE CROO Prime Minister of Belgium There is no contradiction between saying the fight against Hamas is going to take months and also saying that different phases will take place at different times over those months JAKE SULLIVAN US National Security Adviser Can I show my new heart rate? body as self-regulating and self-contained because a machine thinks on behalf of the body. As everyday cyborgisation with smart and smarter devices proceeds, the possibility should be considered where the body literally disappears beneath the machine. In the age of smart wearables, a rehumanisation of the human is underway with a new form of intimacy with machines emerging PRAMOD K NAYAR Professor of English and UNESCO Chair in Vulnerability Studies at the University of Hyderabad. Also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and The English Association, UK I n 1991, in an updated version of her earlier essay, the history of consciousness and feminist studies academic Donna Haraway argued that the cybernetic organism — abbreviation: cyborg — as a hybrid of human and machine, human and animal, was a much-to-be-sought-after form of life. The cyborg, she said, was a wholly different order of existence and subject, being connected with other forms of life and the non-living, partial, and with fluid boundaries. Haraway’s pioneering essay blazed proverbial new trails — Arnie had done his steel-arms-and-camera-eye bit with Terminator by then — with this argument that struck at the very foundations of belief in the coherent, self-contained and autonomous human. Everyday Cyborg Haraway was in fact stating in the language of academia things that were becoming commonplace in medicine: prostheses, technological implants like pace-makers, body-machine interfaces like dialysis machines, body modifications, genetic alterations, etc. If we exclude serious body modifications and genetic alterations, cyborgisation was an everyday feature. The 1990s and after revealed that many bodies lived in close conjunction with and dependent upon machines and machinic interventions. Accompanying philosophical writings also pointed out that our entire vital and organic being relied on inanimate and inorganic matter such as chemicals, in the form of the DNA or the elemental enzymes and matter ranging from sero- tonin to insulin. Animation, it seems, relies on the inanimate. Fitbit and wearable devices resulted in a further cyborgisation as humans medicalised the everyday and the mundane, measuring various bodily parameters. The everyday cyborg was one who literally saw her/his vitals on a screen, whether this was oxygen levels, heartbeats or sugar levels. In other words, the everyday cyborg was one who could, without complicated scans and probes in the hospital setting, see her/his body’s chemical processes in understandable numbers. The vitals in the age of the everyday cyborg produced a new form of entertainment as they scroll across one’s screen, as data which can also be shared (‘can I show you my latest heart rate?’ can be a literal techno-cultural rendering of a famous Kishore Kumar song from Rajesh Khanna’s Daag), including with healthcare providers. Intimate Techno-sites Everyday cyborgisation adds an additional layer and new depths. Literally. A new order of the human inside is now evident. Intimate techno-sites, as one may term the organ/region/site of implant(s), marks a whole new topography of the interior, one that was first revealed by the anatomy lesson and the dissection. ‘Intimate’ from the Latin intimus means ‘inmost, innermost, deepest’, the term is also used to speak of affections and feelings, and to describe relationships: and this captures the state of the insides perfectly. The device is one of the most intimate items of our lives because it is deep below the surface. It is also, over time, one with Undermining sovereignty Ceasefire in Gaza This is about the suspension of opposition MPs in Parliament while they were questioning the government over the security lapse, which endangered the lives of the lawmakers and undermined the sovereignty of Parliament. (14 MPs suspended. 15 December). Certainly, this act of unilateral and undemocratic suspension of the opposition MPs has raised deep concern about freedom of expression and the functioning of the healthy democratic system in Parliament. Hope wisdom prevails in the legislative bodies to strike a balance between maintaining order and allowing peaceful protest in the larger interest of Indian democracy. The surprise choices made by the Bharatiya Janata Party high command for the chief ministerial posts in the three States where it recently won elections — Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan — make it clear that it is the writ of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that now runs in the party. Our Constitution has declared India to be a secular state; it prohibits discrimination on the grounds of caste, colour, creed or religion. However, recent political moves appear to go against the spirit of a secular state. The decisions are aimed at garnering SC, ST and OBC votes, rather than focusing on the welfare of the people. It is gratifying to learn that India has voted for the United Nations General Assembly resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza. The resolution has an important impact. Our Ministry of External Affairs has maintained a good balance. First India condemned the action of Hamas on the citizens of Israel, then sent material aid for the people in the war-torn region and now has called for a ceasefire. Only those badly affected, especially the Palestinians, can understand the gory tragedy that had befallen them through the aggressive designs of Israel. The US, which had sided with Israel, at present is not inclined to support Israel. President Biden has taken a good step. Enough is enough. The Palestinians have received support from 57 Muslim countries but no such country is ready to accommodate them in their countries. Since long, the hapless Palestinians have had no homeland of their own despite promises galore. Any Israeli affirmative action will enhance the Jewish country. We have to understand that Israel’s security and sovereignty have to be respected. Israel must accept ceasefire as guns and wars settle nothing for the better. KARAN SINGH, Chennai PARTHASARATHY SEN, New Delhi PH HEMA SAGAR, Secunderabad Secular state? Write to us at letters@telanganatoday.com which the body begins to have an intimate relationship: the body learns to trust it, adjust to it, work with it. The intimate techno-site is marked by an alien intelligence which is now a part of the body. The implants are increasingly ‘smart’, in the sense they are responsive to the state of organic matter around them — whether this is blood, bone or tissue. The devices work with a feedback loop and recalibrate their functions based on the surroundings, whether this is minor electrical impulses being sent out or release of chemicals. That is, the device responds to the body’s conditions and reorganises — speeds up, slows down, injects — its functions accordingly. For humans with Implantable Cardiac Defibrillators (ICDs), for instance, their heart rate speeding up is detected by the ICD and electrical charges set off to control the life-threatening rhythm. This means the integrity of the human body, if there ever was one, has been breached because the machine begins to think on behalf of the body, responding to it, feeding it, cutting it off, giving directions, etc. The body’s physiological functions merge with that of the device, and it is no longer possible to view the It is no longer possible to view the body as self-regulating and self-contained because a machine thinks on behalf of the body Cyborg Vulnerabilities Nelly Oudshoorn, the science and technology studies scholar, has argued that cyborgisation of the body produces a new form of vulnerability. She writes in an essay tellingly titled ‘The Vulnerability of Cyborgs’: [H]AVING A MACHINE INSIDE YOUR BODY WITHOUT KNOWING WHEN OR WHERE IT MAY JOLT YOU INDUCES FEELINGS OF DISBELIEF AND ANXIETY… AS AN INTERNAL RATHER THAN AN EXTERNAL THREAT AND AS HARM YOU MAY TRY TO ANTICIPATE BUT CAN NEVER ESCAPE. First, the device inside you makes you conscious that your life depends on it. This is a departure from the standard everyday where, until things go wrong, the human does not wake up every morning recognising that her/his life depends on several parameters and organs working well and in sync. Having spent years ignoring the body and the body’s metaphoric disappearance since we are not conscious of it, the insertion of a device causes us to take note of the body, especially all the points at which something could go wrong. Everyday cyborgisation causes us to recognise the machinic means and modes of existence. Second, a new form of acculturation and adaptation becomes essential: this time, with matter inside us. Just as humans seek to adapt to hot and cold conditions, cuisine or material settings such as crowds, the everyday cyborg adapts to matter inside the body: whether this is a cable, a device or a meter. Third, the presence of the device alerts the human to emergent conditions of vulnerability — through and within the device itself. This means, one becomes aware of and pays attention to intimate techno-sites and services such as the regular servicing of the devices, the monitoring of its health and the constant update of data about it. The device then is the source of emergent and potential conditions of vulnerability. A rehumanisation of the human is underway in the age of smart wearable, incorporable devices and processes. New forms of intimacy with machines also emerge. We become everyday cyborgs, and our intimate techno-sites assure us, keep us safe. But they also tell us: new forms of cyborgisation will produce new vulnerabilities. To be human is to be vulnerable. To be human+machine is to be vulnerable too. Vulnerability, it appears, is inevitable. India in the hotspot CNN AI cameras are sending out tiger alerts in real time Silently padding through the jungle, the tiger slinks between tree trunks and hanging vines, her stripes a seamless veil among the dappled shadows on the forest floor. Hard to spot for a human — harder still if you’re a deer — but not so difficult for artificial intelligence. Washington Post In India, educated housewives are in demand Indian women have been attending schools and universities like never before. Yet their percentage in the workforce has decreased. “The question is, if you aren’t getting returns in the labor market for women’s education, why do people educate their daughters?” asked Sonalde Desai, a Univ of Maryland professor. Kathmandu Post Onions tear-inducingly pricey after India’s ban Deepti Bhatta, a housewife from Kalanki, was shocked after she inquired about the price of onion. The price nearly doubled to Rs 200 a kg in retail following India’s export curb last week. “I bought a kilo and half of onion last week at Rs120 a kg. Today, it reached Rs200 per kg,” Bhatta said. Printed and Published by Damodar Rao Divakonda, on behalf of Telangana Publications Pvt. 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