DailyOh! Two entities BJP says are worried due to Covid vaccine, to where is Jack Ma

Everyone knows the vaccine is here to fight the virus that originated in China but nobody knows where is Chinese businessman Jack Ma, who decided to fight China.

Alibaba founder and billionaire Ma in October criticised Chinese financial regulators and state-owned banks for ‘stifling innovation’ and compared global banking rules to an ‘old man’s club’. You may say that is an ageist comment to make. But we would refrain from getting into a debate over any ‘ist’ or ‘ism’ here. The task at hand is to find 56-year-old Ma.

Now, Ma was supposed to make an appearance on his own talent show Africa’s Business Heroes in November but did not. Ma was replaced by an Alibaba executive. And then, Ma’s photos were pulled down from the show’s website and he was found missing from a promotional video for the show. He has been missing since then. Some say Chinese authorities could have arrested him to teach him a lesson. Such an arrest is never declared and when a person comes out of such an arrest, she never declares she was arrested ‘having learnt her lesson well’. It is also possible Ma has taken a temporary break from the world.

We will update you when we have more news on him.

What we have news on today is that the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) has approved Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin for children above 12 years and Serum Institute of India’s Covishield for those above 18 years. The DCGI had on Sunday approved Covaxin and Covishield for emergency use in the country.

The BJP, meanwhile, has said that two entities are really worried with the arrival of the vaccine – coronavirus and Congress. Addressing the media, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said that coronavirus is troubled because its days are numbered but Congress should answer why Congress is troubled.

The row, which has been rowing since yesterday, erupted when Bihar Congress leader Ajit Sharma said that PM Narendra Modi should take the vaccine first so that doubts regarding the vaccine are cleared. Modi hasn’t spoken on it. But Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan has said he won’t take it for now because it should first be given to those most in need. Fair enough.

To those willing to take it, both vaccines will be given in two shots – a shot and a booster shot. SII will sell Covishield to the government for Rs 200 per dose and to private buyers for Rs 1,000. The price of Covaxin is yet to be declared but ‘sources’ say it would cost about Rs 350 per dose.

There has been so much talk about the vaccine that there has been little about much else. So, we want to shift focus elsewhere. Do you know what day is today? Yes it is January 4 and Monday but which ‘Day’ out of the world’s long list of Days like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, this day, and that day?

It happens to be a rather important day – World Braille Day. Braille Day is observed on the day Louis Braille was born. Who was Louis Braille? The man who gave the visually impaired people Braille, a language to read and write in.

Louis Braille gave the world Braille because he most needed it. Let us tell you his story today.

Louis was three and was playing in his father’s harness shop at the village of Coupvray in France. The father was busy attending to things that needed attention without realising what three-year-old Louis was up to. The kid picked up a sharp tool and ended up injuring his eyes so bad that he lost his eyesight.

The father was distraught but there was nothing he could do. He carved a small wooden cane for Louis to help him walk and not tumble. When Louis turned six, a new priest came to the town and began teaching him at home. But the boy wanted to go to school and be with other children. A classmate began to take Louis to school every day and then drop him back. Louis would listen and memorise things. This went on for three years. He was a bright student so the priest and principal at the village school suggested Louis be sent to a blind school. The school was in faraway Paris and the parents were reluctant but eventually agreed.

In Paris, the boy wanted to read but there were very few books for the blind and were printed on heavy wax paper. Wax was spread on papers and the letters embossed on them. A sentence could take the entire page. Meanwhile, a French army captain visited the school and showed a system he had developed for soldiers to send messages to each other at night. This needed neither light, nor involved talking. The system was designed to escape enemy attention. The captain basically punched dots and dashes into paper with a pointed tool. Students found the system too tedious. But Louis had seen an opportunity and spent most of his time improving on the system and developed a code in two years.

He took it to the director of the school and to test the system, the director read a newspaper article aloud. Louis punched the styulus into paper to write. He then read back what he had punched to the director. The system was later named Braille in Louis Braille's honour.

Stories don’t teach; they are just stories. But we are free to draw are lessons from them. Draw your lesson from Louis Braille’s story and since it is World Braille Day, you can use the day to watch Rani Mukerji’s Black (2005). The movie is said to be inspired from the life of Helen Keller, whose autobiography The Story of My Life is also highly recommended. Choose one, choose both, or choose none. The choice is yours.

The choice of how to end the prayer to the opening of 117th Congress has caused quite a flutter.

The prayer to open the 117th Congress ended with “Amen” and “Awoman” ???????????? pic.twitter.com/iqkr9PIIRD

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) January 3, 2021

Democrat representative Emanuel Cleaver caused the flutter after he ended his congressional prayer with the words ‘amen and awoman’. This came after a committee recommended that all genders be honoured in the house. But the problem, many pointed out, was that amen did not refer to any gender. It just means ‘so be it’. Saying ‘a men’ would also be a dishonour to grammar even if you believe in the right of languages to evolve and not be held hostage to rules. Awoman, our Word Of The Day, sounds grammatically correct (if a space was inserted between a and woman) but makes no sense in ending a prayer. Does it attain gender equality? Well, if amen isn’t a gendered word, how can awoman be its equal? Also, there are genders beyond man and woman so how to do justice to them? Sometimes the best thing to do is to do nothing at all.

If you can’t sit still without doing anything, watch the trailer of Tandav before you watch the series on January 15.

Farmers are holding talks with the government before they intensify their protest – if the talks fail, that is. If the talks succeed, farmers will go back to their villages and the farms in the villages.

We will update you when that happens.

For now, it is bye from us.

See you tomorrow.

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Also Read: How Covid-19, 2020’s Newsmaker, reshaped our lives