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No other nation has such an amazing diviersity of languages, and equally amazing is the vitality of the free press in 11 major languages- Punjabi, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Assamese, Oriya, in the north, and Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Karnataki in the south.

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Dutch New Amsterdam with 1500 inhabitants become British New York in 1664. It is later retaken by the Dutch and exchanged for Suriname in the West Indies. From a neglected outpost for the Dutch it becomes a center for trade under the growing British Empire. The city inherits the Dutch spirit of tolerance, diversity and aggressive free trading.

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This Guardian series explains what genetic diversity is and why it is so important in nature and important to feed the planet. It takes the simple banana and shows large plantations and companies produce the Cavendish banana and have let the thousands of other genetic varieties of bananas in Asia and Central America disappear. This is now affected by the Panama disease. In avocados the big farm companies have chosen the Haas and limited farming of other genetic varieties. The same is true of many of the vegetables and fruits one sees inthe supermarkets.  When it comes to foodgrains there were hundreds of foodgrains in nature over long periods of history but big agriculture companies have limited foodgrains to corn, wheat, rice and a few species only. Nature does not operate in this way as it operates with tremendous genetic varieties of  fruits or vegetables, and many species for foodgrains, so that if one is subject to disease or damaged, another more resilient one takes its place. To ensure that there is no food scarcity we have to embrace this kind of genetic diversity says this report in The Guardian. ...

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The 100th radio talk by Mr. Modi will be broadcast on Sunday April 30, 2023. Mann Ki Baat -or What is on my mind and in my heart- is all about women, upward mobility, diversity, about the development story in the everyday lives of ordinary Indians. It is also a documentary on a nation on the move, about a billion and a half people on the move, from small towns and villages to cities across the country. 

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India celebrates its 74th Republic Day with its achievements in upward mobility, respecting diversity, inclusiveness for women, and promotion of millets, drug free India goals, renewable energy, all on display. It also showed the achievements in saving funds for investment in essential infrastructure by developing its own defense capabilities in manufacturing. The Nari Shakti or women in the armed forces was also on display integrating women into leadership roles in the Navy, Air Force and the Army. 

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Olaf Scholz of Germany has to balance the need for continuing trade with China with the effort to diversify its supply chain and increase manufacturing in Germany as he visits China. Germany is entering a new phase in its trade relations in Asia, one very different from the Merkel era.

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Why the Arc of Taste, an international catalogue of at risk foods put together by Italian journalists, is a question put to this author of Eating to Extinction, about the lack of biodiversity in foods. Basically it is about the enormous variety in nature that has been taken away from us by supermarkets and large fruit and vegetable companies that have limited everything to a few varieties in a supermarket for the sake of efficiency in commerce. You may find it amazing, as Saladino says, Victorians may have eaten a apple a day for four years and never eaten the same one twice. So the first thing is to increase the awareness of people of how much diversity really exists in nature if it is allowed to reassert itself over simply food that meets the needs of commerce. Looking clearly at what is lost, Saladino tells The Guardian in this interview, he is reminded of his childhood in Ribera, Sicily, where in the 70's there were so many varieties of oranges and so much color in the food compared to the blandness and limited variety of today's commerce based supermarkets. These small farms have disappeared, and now the varieties that came with them are also in danger unless this biodiversity is restored. ...

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Indian finance minister Sitharaman says this is a good time for India's manufacturing companies to invest and "work out strategies for drawing western manufacturers to India." WSJ reports that Apple and its contract manufacturer in China are looking to diversify and build a  manufacturing base for the iPhone in India.

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Salvador Illa of the Socialist party, ally of prime minister Pedro Sanchez of Spain, wins 28% of the vote. with 42 seats his party is the largest in Catalan assembly. He will need 68 votes to form a majority government. It opens a new chapter in Catalonia after efforts to form an independent Catalonia by some parties. Socialist party PSC campaigned for amnesty for parties connected to Mr. Puigdemont and for investment in public services to improve the lives of all Catalans within Spain with respect for diversity of opinion.

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In a country where respect for multiculturalism has developed over its long postwar history and from the British Commonwealth of nations, this diversity as held up in the face of the riots in the UK in 2024. This followed stabbing incident at a children's party in Southport which was alleged to be the work of a migrant. This spread to many communities including Leeds and Manchester. Decades of falling living standards in towns such as Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, and Rotherham, added to these riots.

 

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Neom, infrastructure development the size of Massachusetts in Saudi Arabia, is a futuristic vision of the Saudi prince Mohammad bin Salman. It includes a75 mile long Mirror line project that is shown here in the WSJ. The cost of the project is about 1 trillion dollars. The Saudi prince sees this as away to diversify the economy away from oil using oil revenues that are high at today's prices.

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This photo gallery in The Indian Express shows 32 pictures of how International Yoga Day happened in all parts of India from the capital New Delhi to Alfred School in Rajkot where Mohandas Gandhi went to school. It links past to present across India's huge diversity and many states.

PM Modi put Yoga in this way- "The whole universe starts from our own body and soul. The universe starts from us. And Yoga makes us conscious of everything within us, and builds a sense of awareness." India's development in the next decades to come will be driven by a profound sense of what Yoga is and what it is to be a Yogi.

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These days even the Lincoln Center is changing. Diversity can represent excellence, says Darren Walker of Ford Foundation, of the changes under Henry Timms breaking the walls that separate Lincoln Center from the neighborhood. The neighborhood under what was San Juan Hill changed with the building of the Lincoln Center, and Lincoln Center stayed aloof from the community around it. Timms was born in Exeter, England and went to school at Durham University, in 2008 he headed programming at the 92nd street Y. David Geffen Hall built to house the New York Philharmonic opened last year in $500 million renovation. Timms is changing the way New Yorkers approach their cultural institution and making it one for the community.

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Andy Kessler looks at the prospects for China's effort to dominate the market for advanced chips used in everyday devices, just as it did in solar panels and electric vehicle batteries.  He says Apple leaves US manufacturing technologies at a disadvantage by securing its M1 processor chip from Taiwan's TSMC. Intel has fallen behind in 10 nanometer chips and will need a few years says Kessler.  Kessler says Chinese threat to invade Taiwan which has made the US and the EU take a firmer stand on Ukraine poses a danger to TSMC which has 5 fabs or factories in just 1 science Park- Hsinchu Science Park. This poses a question is it safe to concentrate about 92% of the world's semiconductor production in one place Taiwan so close to the mainland of China? And knowing sit tight taking no action? Google's last chairman Eric Schmidt asks this question in the WSJ and calls for a new investments in the US to manufacture advanced semiconductors and other semiconductors for everyday use so that the US national security is protected. Even the $50 billion that is in Congressional legislation has yet to be approved by the US Congress, says Schmidt, showing that US Congress is not moving quickly to address this problem. South Korea and Taiwan including TSMC need to be told to make a large part of the semiconductors in the US and other locations such as India to diversify production. 92% of world semiconductors made in Taiwan that could be taken out with a few missiles, is no way to diversify manufacturing, when manufacturing can be done in India or other parts of the world with lower costs and with needed engineering manpower. ...

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President Murmu addresses the first session at the new parliament building in New Delhi, India. In the tradition of British parliamentary democracy followed by India the opening speech of parliament is done by the president outlining the government's plans for the coming years. Murmu describes the achievements in providing basic infrastructure, water, cooking gas, rail and transport, food, healthcare to over 1 billion people in the last ten years, and controlling the cost of living. Making new investments in digital and other technologies, in infrastructure development to build an advanced economy under Vikshit Bharat by 2047, the 100th anniversary of independence from British rule. It also reflects women's empowerment and diversity in a democracy in Asia as Murmu was a schoolteacher in Orissa in the northeast and the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is a woman from the Chennai area in the south.

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On the 77th Independence Day prime minister Narendra Modi takes the long view of history and presents an India that is putting behind the past and looks to the future. Actions taken a thousand years past brought us to this point even seemingly insignificant actions that shaped history, now India looks to the future thousand years hence because of actions taken today. Demography, Democracy and Diversity are turned into engines that drive the modernization of India in Modi's vision, with rapid implementation of projects every step of the way, a new way discovered by India. In this way pm Modi put today into a new context. Powering India's future is youth from towns and cities across the country, women, and the 135 million added from poverty to the middle class in the last 5 years. 

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Kate Bingham, head of the Vaccine Task Force in Britain is commended for her intelligent approach in placing bets on vaccines in different technologies, "four buckets" as she calls them. This includes the Moderna and Pfizer in the mRNA technology and the viral vector Astra Zeneca, J&J vaccines. This approach made the British vaccination drive effective by being supported by a resilient supply system.

The Indian government has supported the effort to get several companies to make the Sputnik Russian vaccine in India in an effort to diversify supplies. Reddy Labs is one of the major manufacturers working on the Sputnik vaccine in 2021.