The lovely tale of Liquor
during Lockdown and before
At every stage, addiction is driven by one of the most powerful, mysterious, and
vital forces of human existence. What drives addiction is longing —
a longing not just of brain, belly, or loins but finally of the heart.
Cornelius Platinga
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The use of alcohol in India for drinking purposes dates back to somewhere between 3000 and 2000 BC. An alcoholic beverage called Sura which was distilled from the rice was popular at that time in India for common men to unwind at the end of a stressful day. . Yet the first mention of Alcohol appears in Rig Veda (1700BC). It mentions intoxicants like soma and prahamana. Although the soma plant might not exist today, it was famous for delivering a euphoric high. It was also recorded in the Samhita, the medical compendium of Sushruta that he who drinks soma will not age and will be impervious to fire, poison, or weapon attack. The sweet juice of Soma was also said to help establish a connection with the gods. Such was the popularity of alcohol. Initially used for medicinal purposes, with time it evolved and became the beverage that brought life to social gatherings, and eventually consuming alcohol has become a habit for many.
With such a rich history of not just humans but also of the gods,
what is a worldwide pandemic to stop anybody from drinking?
. . .
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According to a report released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2018, an average Indian drinks approximately 5.7 liters of alcohol every year. In a population of casual and excessive drinkers, with the shutters of liquor stores down, it must have been extremely difficult for “certain” people to survive lockdown. In the first two phases of lockdown, the desperation had quadrupled prices of alcohol in the Grey Market of India. Also, According to Google Trends, online searches for “how to make alcohol at home” peaked in India during the fourth week of March, which was the same when the lockdown was announced. As a consequence, a few people died drinking home-brewed liquor. People committed suicide due to alcohol withdrawal syndrome. Owing to the worsening situation and to reboot the economy, some states decided to open licensed liquor stores in the third phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic lockdown in India. This decision was the worst best decision the state governments could take. The kilometer-long queues in front of liquor stores were evidence that a pandemic can turn your life upside down yet your relationship with alcohol cannot move an inch.
The love in the hearts of those who are addicted was explicit. We might have seen addiction, we might have witnessed desperation but what happened in the month of May was madness, not just in terms of the way people pounced but also in the way the government earned. According to a report by Hindustan Times, on the first day of the third phase of Lockdown, the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh recorded a sale of over Rs 100 Crore from liquor. On the second day of the reopening of Liquor stores, Karnataka reported sales of 197 crores in a single day which was the largest ever. Eventually, the prices of Liquor were hiked to 100% to discourage people from drinking.
. . .
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There was a special corona fee that was imposed in Delhi by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. A 70% corona fee was imposed in Delhi, yet the sales did not drop. The entire situation was a disaster for the law enforcement officers, social distancing was easily abandoned and a basic code of conduct was happily violated. Despite the chaos created, the states continued to collect revenues. Home delivery of alcohol was allowed in Maharashtra and e-tokens were sold in Delhi.
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Demand for liquor is inelastic which means that
the sale of alcohol is not much responsive to change in prices.
In general, since alcohol policy is a state subject in India, revenue from Liquor is a cash cow for state governments. In 2018 and 2019, four states collectively collected about 20,000 crores in taxes from the sale of liquor. As much as the state earns from the sale of Liquor it is undoubtedly, a threat to the Economy. Consumption of alcohol has dire health consequences. When a person consumes an alcoholic beverage, there is a rise in BAC because of which there is a gradual and progressive loss of driving ability because of an increase in reaction time, overconfidence, degraded muscle coordination, impaired concentration, and decreased auditory and visual acuity. This is known as drunken driving. (V. M. Anantha Eashwar, 2020) Drunken driving is the third biggest cause of road accidents and over speeding in India. Road accidents are not it; alcoholism causes sleep problems, heart, and liver issues. Also, it is not about an individual’s life, it ruins the lives of all people concerned.
Addiction also causes economic loss. In 2000, Vivek Benegal and his team assessed 113 patients admitted to a special de-addiction service for alcohol dependence. They found that
the average individual earned a mean of ₹1,661 but
spent ₹1,938 per month on alcohol, incurring high debt.
They also found that 95% did not work for about 14 days in a month. They concluded that it led to a loss of ₹13,823 per person per year in terms of foregone productivity. A more recent study, Health Impact and Economic Burden of Alcohol Consumption in India, led by Gaurav Jyani, concluded that alcohol-attributable deaths would lead to a loss of 258 million life-years between 2011 and 2050. The study placed the economic burden on the health system at $48.11 billion, and the societal burden (including health costs, productivity loss, and so on) at $1,867 billion. “This amounts to an average loss of 1.45% of the gross domestic product (GDP) per year to the Indian economy,” the study said. (Mint, 2020)
Setho ka Gaon
With each passing day, the ‘curtain of separation’ weighs down on the women of Afghanistan, paving the way for tyranny to thrive.
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5 TRENDS DRIVING 2019
Kirti Krishna
Technological / Digital
Years after years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is progressing swiftly. From SIRI to Amazon Alexa,researchers and scientists are persistently seeking to bring an emotional quotient to the machines that would further complement its efficacy. Although complex and pricey in nature, AI is a revolution in providing digital assistance; not only because it is proficient in doing repetitive jobs with diligence but also due to its competency of carrying out some intricate medical applications, gaming, speech-vision recognition, etc with great accuracy. Some of the recent noteworthy developments in the digital intelligence world are Web 3.0 and Ubiquitous AI. Web 3.0 uses AI to make search smarter by filtering through irrelevant data and delivering a personal specific set of results. It is hence stated that 2019 is hoped to deliver an even better processing speed with 5G and an improved data storage solution.
Political
2019 celebrates the 40 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States of America and China. All this while, investment and trade between the two countries grew manifold. However, over the past few years trade tensions among them grew to an all time high. Theworst part of thistrade war persisting between the USA and China being that it has influenced the other economies as well. Like for instance, it caused depreciation of the domestic currency in our case.It is hence true to remark that the world is in speculation to see if the “trade war truce” is legitimate, or whether the imposition of tariffs stand for a long-term trade policy of the USA. However, what is still ambiguous about this whole affair is if what started as a Trade war would eventually trigger a military conflict or not.
Marketing Transition
Gone are the days when small-medium enterprises (SMEs) faced difficulty in finding sector-specific software products that suited their model best. Mounting innovations in the technology like the emergence of SaaS (Software as a Service) has enabled the entrepreneurs to have real time access to the required software anywhere just through a stable internet connection. Thus, in exchange of a nominal subscription fee, SaaS delivers and maintains their application over the internet as a service that can be accessed by multiple users at a time. Another marketing trend that has gathered customers’ attention is the phenomenon of mass personalization. Hence, it would not be inappropriate to say that developing the capabilities to realize what an individual customer wants will soon become a prerequisite to business success and so the organizations must realize that the real value lays in “market of one”.
Economic
Any nation is said to be economically stable if its’ GDP is high but that doesn’t implies that it has a safe and sound environment as well. Keeping the same thought in mind, Autonet has been designed. It is basically a sector of the internet dedicated to moving vehicles that has been designed to allow for collective awareness of everything that may be of concern to a vehicle. Instead of just being aware of its immediate surroundings; with Autonet, all of the sensors and processing capability of networked vehicles is integrated into an awareness data set and made available to anything on the net. This autonet connection will thus enable all the vehicles on a lane to act effectively as one. Besides, they will be able to drive at faster speeds while staying much closer together and still being far safer than they are today.
Manufacturing Transformation
A trend that is definitely going to dominate the manufacturing sector in 2019 is the concept of Strategic Automation which is basically a subtle different take on intelligent automation. To be precise, it is the combination of automation as well as artificial intelligence to mechanize business processes and drive the rate of production in organizations. Although, automation has always been perceived by the employees as an idea which might put them out of their jobs but in reality, it relieves humans from repetitive and mundane tasks. Thus, it rather saves time and allows the employees to focus on more meaningful work; because of which it is seen to be a feasible option since recent times.