“Super Immunity” is a book reading which one is forced to raise her eyebrows in admiration, astonishment and apprehension – all in equal measure. Dr. Joel Fuhrman, a well renowned nutritionist and bestselling author, in his thought provoking work, argues as to why and how a combination of Greens, Beans, Onions, Mushrooms, Berries and Seeds (“GBOMBS”) not only bestow Super Immunity, but also ward off diseases from niggling infections to deadly cancers. Dr. Furhman also treads into contested and controversial territory by advocating for keeping vaccines at bay and non-consumption of folic acid during pregnancy. Lest I be accused of getting ahead of myself, let me first begin setting out the theme that forms the cornerstone of Dr. Fuhrman’s book.

• GBOMBS

Dr. Fuhrman exhorts us to make Greens, Beans, Onions, Mushrooms, Berries and Seeds an indispensable part of our everyday diet. Banking on empirical research, he states, “a review of more than 206 epidemiological studies shows that the consumption of green vegetables has the most consistent and powerful association with the reduction of cancer of all types, including stomach, pancreas, colon and breast.” Among the greens, Dr. Fuhrman places high emphasis on Cruciferous vegetables. Some of the vegetables coming under this category and getting a distinguished mention in Dr. Fuhrman’s work are:

• Arugula;
• Bok Choi;
• Broccoli;
• Brussels sprout;
• Cabbage;
• Kale; and
• Cauliflower

Dr. Fuhrman urges us to blend, chop and chew these vegetables with a view to freeing Sulphur compounds from the cell walls and thereby boosting immunity and keeping colon, stomach and other cancers at bay.

Waxing eloquent on the power of mushrooms, Dr. Fuhrman informs his readers that mushrooms are a repository of “lectins”, proteins that bind only to abnormal cells, before destroying such cells thereby making dangerous replications an impossibility. Again, banking on empirical research, he says, “in one recent study, women who ate at least 10 grams of mushrooms a day (equivalent to one small mushroom) had a 64 percent decrease in breast cancer.”

Dr. Fuhrman also waxes eloquent on the allium family of vegetables consisting of onions, garlic, leeks, shallots, chives and scallions. According to him, these add more than just flavour to one’s diet. They add anticancer, anti-inflammatory, and anti-oxidant compounds. Again research comes to the rescue. “Onion intake scrutinized in a case-control multi country study, the highest consumers of onions had less than half as many cancers compared to people who rarely consumed onions.”

• A database of Research

Dr. Fuhrman does not pull evidence and statistics out of thin air or try to pull rabbits out of a magic hat. He derives his findings as a result of painstaking statistics from various credible and reputed sources. One prominent go to source for Dr. Fuhrman seems to be the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR), a leading journal and database for systematic reviews in health care. CDSR includes Cochrane Reviews (systematic reviews) and protocols for Cochrane Reviews as well as editorials and supplements.

• Patient Testimony

Dr. Fuhrman’s book is interspersed with glowing testimonies from various patients who seemingly have come back from the brink of perdition to a life of miraculous recovery and contentment. These list of ailments from the clutch of which these patients have been liberated from includes autoimmune disorders of the likes of lupus and infections such as influenza etc.

• Recipes

The last sixty pages of Dr. Fuhrman’s book is devoted to a plethora of recipes using the various ingredients that are extolled throughout the book. Categorised into Breakfast recipes; Smoothies, Blended Salads and Other Drinks; Salads and Salad Dressings; Dips, Snacks and Condiments; Soups; Main Dishes; Pita/Wrap Stuffers; Desserts; and Recipes with Nonvegan Options, these recipes obtain a special mention from Dr. Fuhrman in so far as their nutritional virtues are concerned.

• Fuhrman’s Food Pyramid

The entire book can be encapsulated in an interesting food pyramid where unlike in a conventional pyramid the foods of importance are placed along the base, while the ones to be avoided at all costs are positioned at the apex. The idea behind this unconventional thinking, as expressed by Dr. Fuhrman being, “instead of considering adding protective fruits, vegetables, beans, seeds, and nuts to our disease causing diet, we must make these foods the main focus of the diet itself.”

“Super Immunity” is not with its fair share of controversial proclamations. Dr. Fuhrman rails against the administration of commonly used medication for the treatment of cold and flu. Targeted for their supposed lack of efficacy are cough suppressants such as Dextromethorphan and Codeine; antihistamines and decongestants; medications such as Ibuprofen (Motrin and Advil) and Aspirin; and Acetaminophen (Tylenol). Even traditional remedies such as Chicken soup, Steam inhalation, increased intake of fluids, Nasal Saline Irrigation and Vitamin C are not spared.

If this sounds a tad bit radical, be prepared for what comes next. Going against the grain of popular convention and received wisdom, Dr. Fuhrman astonishingly rallied against the use of folic acid by pregnant women. “Getting enough folate from natural foods can keep cancers from starting, by repairing errors in DNA, but folic acid appears to feed tumor development and promote carcinogenesis. In light of this research, I do not include folic acid in my multivitamin or prenatal vitamin. I do not recommend that pregnant women take a prenatal that contains folic acid.”

While pressing hard for the liberal use of cruciferous vegetables and seeds in abundance is one thing, a sensational call for abdicating flu vaccines and abhorring antibiotics even when one’s sputum is greenish yellow in colour is a totally different thing altogether. Such discomfiting philosophy, to me personally at least, seems akin to throwing the baby out along with the bath water.

“Super Immunity”, on the whole is a thought provoking book that while providing most answers, throws up an equal number of questions as well. But one thing is clear. In a world swamped by processed edibles, junk foods, carbonated drinks and unhealthy eating, Dr. Fuhrman’s book plays a key role in both acting as a wake-up call and pointing the right way forward in setting this dangerous imbalance right.

Waxing eloquent about China’s astonishingly grandiose Belt and Road Initiative, which is both colossal in its sweep and gargantuan in its wake, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, president of the Schiller Institute think tank in Germany, said, “the Belt and Road Initiative will continue to grow and become a true world land bridge. It not only brings economic prosperity to all participating countries, but also serves as a true basis for a peace order for the 21st century.”

Peter Frankopan, author of the bestselling book, “The Silk Roads – A New History of the World”, seeks to unwrap and dissect the Socio-cultural and political aspects that lie hidden behind one of the most (if not the most) ambitious projects ever embarked upon the history of mankind. The Belt and Road Initiative proposed by China and President Xi Jing Ping, audaciously attempts to not only bridge the past with the present, but also seeks to shape the future in a manner un-envisaged and unimaginable. While many expert political commentators feel that the initiative is a dangerous ploy to restore China’s ‘rightful’ place in the political and economic scheme of things, more liberal policy experts of the likes of Zepp-LaRouche opine that the mega project may usher in a new and peaceful world order. Mr. Frankopan also highlights the rapid shift in the balance of economic power from the West to the East. While many of the most reputed vineyards in Bordeaux are now the properties of influential and affluent Chinese – of the likes of Jack Ma and Zhao Wei – one of England’s most famous football clubs, Manchester City is owned by Mansour bin Zayed al Nayhan, the deputy Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates. Or take the case of Iranian businessman Mehrdad Safari. In February 2017, he so liked an apartment which he had rented in a tower in Istanbul, he “bought the entire block for $90 million (excluding VAT). The sands of prosperity are slowly but steadily scattering across the East.

But as Mr. Frankopan brings to his reader’s attention, a Brexit obsessed and Trump intoxicated world is too busy entangled and enmeshed in its own closeted affairs to pay attention to the paradigm if not tectonic shift that is characterizing the geo political landscape of the world. As an analogy for highlighting this ‘Eastward’ shift, Mr. Frankopan invokes the signature tune of the 1993 Disney film Aladdin, where Aladdin sings “A Whole New World”, to Jasmine. The continuing rise of countries such as India, South Korea and Taiwan, along with the behemoth China, signifies an inexorable tilt towards the tenet that “The Future is Asia.”

Mr. Frankopan in a measured and admirably informed manner, endeavours to demonstrate to his readers both the advantages and perils dotting the BRI landscape. As Mr. Frankopan points out, “Over 80 countries are now part of the initiative, ”.. This accounts for greater than 63% of the world’s population and 29% of its global economic output. As Mr. Frankopan points out, the projects envisaged by a mutual co-operation amongst the participation nations is eye-popping in both size and scale. The Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (“TANAP”) links the Shah Deniz II gas field in Azerbaijan with south-eastern Europe. “A new ‘International North-South transport corridor’ proposing to connect South East Asia and Northern Europe, is expected to net a whopping $2 billion in transit fees alone to Iran. A spanking new sixteen-lane expressway costing a cool $2.4 billion is expected to link Ashgabat with Turkmenabat. But as Mr. Frankopan warns, not everything about the Belt Road Initiative is hunky dory. The projects littering the pathway of the BRI have been mired in conspiracy and murkiness. Countries have come dangerously close to being wrapped in a nefarious debt trap leading to a situation of neo-colonisation. Following a humongous and mind numbing scandal involving a sovereign wealth fund – and one that caused a Prime Minister both his job and reputation – Malaysia terminated an original contract awarded to China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) for working on the East Coast Railway Link (ECRL). The Government also sought to halve the estimated project cost of S$27 billion $13 billion. Or take the case of Sri Lanka. In December 2017, Sri Lanka formally handed control of Hambantota port to China in exchange for writing down the country’s debt. Under a $1.1 billion deal, Chinese firms now have a 70 percent stake in the port along with a 99-year lease agreement to operate it. But as Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen says: “Other countries have lots of ideas but no money. But for China, when it comes with an idea, it also comes with the money.” In 2017, Starbucks announced that it would open 2,000 stores in China by 2021 – this means a new Starbucks outlet every 15 hours.

Yet China denies that it is out to either destabilize or interfere with the internal affairs of the countries it professes to partner with in its imperial initiative. As Mr. Frankopan points out, “Xi has insisted that China’s investments in sub-Saharan Africa are guided by a policy of “no interference in African countries’ internal affairs; no imposition of our will on African countries; no attachment of political strings to assistance to Africa; and no seeking of selfish political gains””.  But it was precisely with a determined and avowed objective of laying their hands upon the resources in a country that the British Empire embarked upon their untrammeled march across each of their colonies.

Mr. Frankopan does not pull any punches either in holding forth over the lamentable human rights records of China. The “re-education camps” into which a greater number of 100,000 Uighur Muslims in the western provinces have ‘disappeared’ gets a somber mention, as does the overt and covert role played by Russia in the civil conflict ravaging Syria.

The Asian environment that is agog with optimism is not without reason. As Mr. Frankopan asserts, “some 65 to 70% of proven oil and gas reserves, half of global wheat production, nearly 85% of global rice production; some three-fourths of silicon and rare earths, plus a lion’s share of opium poppy production.”

Mr. Frankopan’s “The New Silk Roads” provides more than just a glimpse into the future that is at once appealing as well as apprehensive, in equal measure.

Milton Friedman once observed, ““I think the government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem and very often makes the problem worse.” Frenzied advocates of the free market breed pounced on this pronouncement in the same vein a believer entrenches within himself what he perceives to be a gospel. As regulations were systematically relegated to the apex of irrelevancies and the economy, ‘unshackled’, the dark side of capitalism took over the stage and in a macabre dance, decimated in a systematic manner the orderly workings of global markets, gifting to the world the second greatest recession post the Great Depression of 1929. By the time the dust had settled on the endemic practices, real gross domestic product (GDP as adjusted for inflation or deflation, in the United States—declined by 4.3 percent, and unemployment increased from 5 percent to 9.5 percent, peaking at 10 percent in October 2009. Spain, Greece, Ireland, Italy, and Portugal suffered sovereign debt crises that required intervention by the European Union, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and resulted in the imposition of painful austerity measures. The entire financial system of tiny Iceland was almost wiped out and the three largest banks of the country had to be nationalized.

In his brilliant book, “The Economist’s Hour: How The False Prophets of Free Markets Fractured Our Society”, Binyamin Appelbaum dissects in a surgical fashion the events leading to the proliferation of free market tenets and their unintended consequences. The hotbed of the transition from regulated markets to free markets was the Chicago Business School. Luminaries such as Friedman, George Stigler, a friend of Friedman who exclaimed that “competition is a tough weed, not a delicate flower”, and Friedman’s brother-in-law, Aaron Director, took to the pulpit at the University arguing that the only Mantra worth its incantation was economic efficiency. Working overtime, they more than just succeeded in turning legislations such as antitrust mere relics, thereby embellishing corporate concentration and market power. Further, boosting their enthusiasm was works such as ‘The Road to Serfdom’ by Friedrich Hayek, an economist nursing a preternatural revulsion towards any role played by the Government in an economy.

These were the renowned usual suspects. As Mr. Appelbaum illustrates in an adroit manner, there were other brilliant ‘converts’ to the Friedman cause, who did their best to espouse the glories of the invisible hand. For example, Walter Oi a mercurial economist who also was suffering from a serious visual impairment, calculated the economic cost to the nation of removing the labor of would-be workers from national output during their terms of service. Then there was Richard Posner. A scholar and federal jurist Posner postulated in 2001, that, other than the economic approach, there was no longer any other perspective—political or legal—taken seriously in antitrust policy. Mr. Appelbaum citing Posner: “antitrust is dead, isn’t it?”

Mr. Appelbaum also describes in startling detail the brazen conflict of interest in the form of a ‘Revolving Door’ scenario where some economists seem to be pursuing personal causes rather than enhancing the prospects of society. Stellar protagonists such as Alan Greenspan and Lawrence Summers enjoying implicit and back door financial support and hefty consultancies from parties peddling their own interest assisted in no small deal in pushing, or rather bulldozing through, policies characterized by more than just a taint of self-preservation.

As Mr. Appelbaum details in a tragi-comic fashion, the demolition wreaked by the free market mavens was not restricted to the United States alone. A band of economists, popularly termed the “Chicago Boys” (by virtue of their academic affiliation), extrapolated them polices and passion overseas with an overzealous attitude. Chile, Paraguay, Iceland and Taiwan were all experimental terrains where these much vaunted economists could ride rough shod.

As Mr. Appelbaum clinically illustrates, this egregious market mind-set has not only gone awry, but led to situations that are absolutely unenviable. Inequality has exponentially increased in the developed world and millions of jobs lost under an austerity squeeze as countries struggle to maintain a balanced budget. From 1980 to 2010, life expectancy for poor Americans perilously declined, even as the rich lived longer. Meanwhile, the primacy of economics has not generated faster economic growth. From 1990 until the eve of the financial crisis, U.S. real GDP per person grew by a little under 2 percent a year, less than the 2.5 percent a year in the oil-shocked 1970s.

Mr. Appelbaum’ s book is also made memorable, courtesy some extraordinary anecdotes and the description of some lively and singularly peculiar characters. For example, in describing Phil Gramm, a Professor of Economics at the Texas A&M University, and also a Republican Senator, Mark McKinnon remarked, “he looks like a turtle and he sounds like a rooster.” But, “he has an uncanny ability to sense the public mood before anyone else does.” Also a quote by Paul Samuelson on Milton Friedman, “To keep the fish that they carried on long journeys lively and fresh, sea captains used to introduce an eel into the barrel. In the economics profession, Milton Friedman is that eel.” But the last word on anecdotes, sans any semblance of doubt has been accorded by Mr. Appelbaum to the acerbic and irascible George Stigler. “When a reporter observed to Stigler that he had written one hundred papers while another economist, Harry Johnson, had written some five hundred, Stigler replied, ‘mine are all different.’ Stigler, who was tall, observed of the liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith, also tall, and of Friedman, who was not, ‘all great economists are tall. There are two exceptions: John Kenneth Galbraith and Milton Friedman.’”

As Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz once remarked to Foreign Policy: “Obviously, the costs [of globalization] would be borne by particular communities, particular places—and manufacturing had located [to] places where wages were low, suggesting that these were places where adjustment costs were likely large.” In his work, Mr. Appelbaum brings to bear those very same adjustments which while bestowing untold wealth upon a small concentration of people, has brought wanton grief to a majority of the world population, who are at the time of this writing suffering the impact of a medley of causes with which they had nothing to associate themselves with.

India is a land renowned not just for its myriad and spell binding diversity, but also for its mind numbing economic policies and extraordinarily convoluted statues. Mystical at best, and macabre at worst, India’s socio economic policies post-Independence have evoked reverence and revulsion in equal measure. Populist, Pedantic, Pithy and Pragmatic, India’s trajectory towards becoming the second fasted economy in the world, – suffering an existential Balance Of Payments (BOP) crisis along the way – makes for some riveting analysis. While all the tomes in the world would not do justice to such an endeavor, it is essential that every Indian connected in some way or the other with policy making or pursuing her profession in the field of Economics, or even nursing a curiosity to understand the progress of her nation, acquire a fundamental grasp of the nation’s progressive journey thus far.

Gautam Chikermane, Vice President at Observer Research Foundation and a renowned author, in his book, “70 7POLICIES THAT SHAPED INDIA -1947 to 2017, Independence to $2.5 Trillion” provides an exhilarating and whirlwind tour of the genesis, impact and ramifications of the barrage of policies instituted by the Indian Government since Independence. Using a marvelously ‘condensed’ approach – a self-limiting 350 words per policy – Mr. Chikermane breezes through 70 path breaking policies that both made and almost marred India. However, supplementing this precise narration is a plethora of endnotes that allow the reader to traipse and trawl through the intricacies and nuances embedded in each such policy. Commencing with the archaic Controller of Capital Issues Act and concluding with the most talked about Goods and Service Tax Act, 2017, Mr. Chikermane takes us along a path, both draconian and delectable.

Mr. Chikermane illustrates in startling detail, the futility of instituting a slew of bureaucratic committees when the actual crying need of the hour was a firm push to initiate structural reforms that would address systemic issues. For example, to unearth the ails plaguing Asia’s first Free Trade Zone, the Kandla Free Trade Zone in just six years, between 1978 and 1984, there were seven attempts to fix the problem: a committee to look into the problem hindering the growth of KAFTZ (1978); Alexander Committee on Import & Export Policies (1978); Review Committee on Electronics (1979); Dagli Committee on Controls and Subsidies (1979); Tondon Committee on Export Strategy (1980); Committee on FTZs and 100 percent EOUs (1982); and Abid Hussain Committee on Trade policy (1984).

In a frenzied bout of nationalization, a primary natural resource such as coal was targeted and the government nationalised 937 mines: 226 coking coal mines and 711 non-coking coal mines. As Mr. Chikermane states, “Because nationalisation was done in a piecemeal manner, by the time it reached non-coking coal mines, many mines were reported to have been stripped of their plant and equipment. In terms of outcomes, the first decade of coal nationalisation saw “political patronage of mafia activities” and bureaucratic corruption.”

The quirky implementation and execution of some laws, as Mr. Chikermane exposes, test the very ingenuity of foolhardy imagination. For example, in exercise of the powers bestowed upon an ‘inspector’ under the Standards of Weights and Measures Act, 1976, entrepreneurs were criminally charged and sentenced to be imprisoned for two years for using “M.R.P.” instead of “Maximum Retail Price”. This absurdity, was in the general interests of both business and commonsense set aside, courtesy a 29 July 1997 order of the Andhra High Court in the Lucas Indian Service Ltd and Others vs. the State of Andhra Pradesh.

Mr. Chikermane also informs his reader about the internecine squabble between the executive, judiciary and the legislature that acts as a spanner in the works even when an avowed objective is a furtherance of egalitarian measures. With a view to abolishing the insidious ‘Zamindari’ system it was proposed to reduce the right of property from a fundamental right to a legal one. Thus was enacted the Abolishment of the Right to Property Act, 1978. However, between 1951 through 1976, seven amendments—1st (1951), 4th (1955), 17th (1964), 25th 273 274 275 (1971), 39th (1975), 40th (1976), and 42nd (1976)—were brought in, all of which were struck down by the Supreme Court.

While of these policies have been epochal in nature, few others can best be described as ill conceived. The Statement on Industrial Policy, 1991 is undoubtedly a torch bearer for the former category. Pioneered by the late Prime Minister P.V.Narasimha Rao and executed by the Prime Minister in waiting, Dr. Manmohan Singh, the policy ushered in an era of industrialization and set India on a path leading to territories unchartered and opportunities unexplored. As Mr. Chikermane asserts, “in the economic history of India, 24 July 1991 will be remembered as the date when five major initiatives were unleashed.” These initiatives included:

• Abolishing 329 industrial licenses in addition to automatic clearances for projects;
• Flexibility in FDI approvals, and the formation of a Special Empowered Board;
• Foreign technology agreements, under which automatic permissions would be given in “high-priority” industries;
• A review of the public sector portfolio through a de-reservation and, referring sick public sector enterprises to the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction;
• An amendment of the MRTPC Act to remove threshold limits of assets, with emphasis on controlling and regulating monopolistic, restrictive and unfair trade practices

The book is structured into 8 chapters with each Chapter denoting a decade. Key policies ushered in each decade under consideration is elucidated in a manner that is simple, easily understandable and thought provoking. However, the greatest attribute of this work is its altruistic motive. The book is absolutely free and can be downloaded from the Observer Research Foundation website. The link for the download is:

https://www.orfonline.org/research/70-policies-that-shaped-india-1947-to-2017-independence-to-2-5-trillion/

From first-hand experience, I would urge everyone having a penchant towards economic reforms and policy making to download their copy. Rest assured they would come out curious, if not wiser.