Thamie's pages...

     Growing up in a small town in south India, I used to walk past street vendors selling different items on the footpath (read as roadside as there wasn't a footpath).Among them, the one who always attracted my attention was the middle aged man who sold rings embeded with colourful stones which he claims as semi-precious lucky stones but were actually glass pieces.     Unlike other vendors who were selling essential commodities, the luck vendor was never busy with many buyers. However, occasionally he had customers who are to be first convinced about the 'quality' of the product and then about the 'positive' impact of the product.      I always pondered, "if wearing those rings, stones are sure to bring luck and prosperity, why was he not wearing them and becoming rich to live a better life away from this roadside?" and " what's so compelling for him to make others rich?"      As years passed, my visit to the place lessened from daily to

WOULD YOU COMFORTABLY TAKE VACCINES MANUFACTURED IN CHINA? I am coming across this question too often on social media by the “patriotic” Indians. *Chinese vaccines(Sinopharm, Sinovac and others) are approved by WHO and being used in more than 50 countries including UAE, Bahrain, Vietnam, The Philippines, Hungary, Indonesia with the approval of their local health authorities. *Millions of people in those countries are already vaccinated with the Chinese vaccines and that includes hundreds of thousands of Indian expatriate workers, permanent residents living in those countries. *India manufactures only 1 brand of Covid vaccine - Covaxin by Bharat Biotech and until now, Covaxin’s WHO Emergency Use Listing approval is pending – meaning, those vaccinated with Covaxin may be considered as non-vaccinated during international travel until WHO approves it. *Remember, Covishield is not an Indian vaccine. It’s a vaccine developed by Astra Zeneca (Oxford Univ., UK) and produced at an Indian pharma