Martin Luther King Jr once spoke of building "dykes of courage", a memorable sermon about forcing change on America's entrenched racially segregated system. But after the worst floods in the southern Indian state of Kerala in nearly a century, the issue is not about forcing change but dealing with it.
From India’s most urbanised state, with an enviable record of social, health and educational progress over many decades, Kerala now confronts a truly dreadful prospect of hardship, human suffering, loss, immense need and finite resources for at least the next few years.
The damage is extensive and that is even before the floodwaters have started to recede, the likely consequences of waterborne disease are factored in and a proper tally drawn up. Nearly two weeks of an unusually heavy monsoon have left tens of thousands of homes, 200 bridges and 6,000 miles of roads, including major highways, destroyed or badly damaged. More than 410 people have died. Over a million people are living in 3,200 relief camps, hastily set up in schools, colleges, community centres or anywhere that seems safe.
The Malayali diaspora, watching in agony from around the world, has been working overtime to keep Kerala's tragedy at the top of social media feeds. They have been doing a good job – often a necessary humanitarian one – pointing out from afar isolated communities in need of rescue from the rising waters, complete with GPS coordinates. The diaspora has also been mobilising aid and other resources. Indians at home and elsewhere have gratefully noted that humanity overrides politics and geographical divisions, with the Pakistan Association Dubai among those sending relief supplies.
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Read more:
Indian businessman Dr Shamsheer Vayalil pledges Dh26m to restore flood-hit Kerala
India's UAE ambassador calls for cash not supplies to aid flood-hit Kerala
From climate change to illegal mining, debate rages over the cause of the Kerala floods
Editorial: It is vital to help restore the dignity of Keralites who have lost everything
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So far, the publicity has been paying off and most people in Kerala don't seem to feel forgotten. India's federal government has sent in the military to save lives. Other Indian states have offered assistance – money, food and 100 doctors and paramedics from Maharashtra, for instance. In the dark humour of a cartoon in an Indian newspaper, two Malayali men atop a roof, with the waters rising all around, comfort each other with the words: "Good news is that the entire country is united in helping us."
That is all fine up to a point but public attention is fickle, lasting only as long as it takes for the news cycle to move on. In the circumstances, Kerala’s chief resource in dealing with an outlier like the floods of 2018 has to be resilience. These floods will probably end up doing more economic damage and taking a greater toll in terms of human suffering than anything else in Kerala since the great deluge of 1924.
As insurance companies around the world have acknowledged in the past few years, the cost of natural disasters is rising but in terms of money rather than lives. This is mostly because our more technologically advanced, better-informed world has succeeded in making natural disasters less deadly. But more of the world's population and economic activity is concentrated in places where disasters are likely. Kerala fits the bill. It is crisscrossed by 44 rivers and beset by illegal sand mining from those rivers in order to feed India’s appetite for a billion square yards a year of mostly concrete property development. Despite warnings in 2011, environmentally dangerous economic activity has also been allowed in parts of Kerala.
In any case, it is inevitable that the economic cost of these floods will be higher than in 1924. For a start, the state is more urbanised than the erstwhile Malabar, Travancore-Cochin, Kasargod and South Kanara, that merged to form Kerala in 1956. It also has a higher population.
The way forward clearly has to be recognition of the cost of rare, unpredictable events such as floods and for better development to mitigate their possible consequences. This might mean more stringent government action than before against sand-mining, ecologically harmful industrial activity and new building codes to make urban Kerala more resilient to floodwaters.
But perhaps it also calls for something else. For Kerala in particular, and India more generally, this disaster offers an opportunity to assess change-readiness. The concept was pioneered by consulting firm KPMG after Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake. As KPMG’s global chair of international development assistance services Timothy Stiles put it at the time: “There was a thought that, regardless of the amount of development money being poured into Haiti, they wouldn’t be able to use it as effectively as other nations might. We couldn’t put our finger on exactly why but that was the general sense from the people who had worked there.”
So KPMG created the global change readiness index to measure a country’s ability to adapt rapidly in response to disaster or opportunity. Until 2017, when Switzerland came out top, Singapore led the pack. Indeed, change-readiness must be in a country – and a people’s – cultural DNA if it is to adapt in response to good things and bad. The dykes Kerala needs are not physical constructs.
Results
ATP Dubai Championships on Monday (x indicates seed):
First round
Roger Federer (SUI x2) bt Philipp Kohlschreiber (GER) 6-4, 3-6, 6-1
Fernando Verdasco (ESP) bt Thomas Fabbiano (ITA) 3-6, 6-3, 6-2
Marton Fucsovics (HUN) bt Damir Dzumhur (BIH) 6-1, 7-6 (7/5)
Nikoloz Basilashvili (GEO) bt Karen Khachanov (RUS x4) 6-4, 6-1
Jan-Lennard Struff (GER) bt Milos Raonic (CAN x7) 6-4, 5-7, 6-4
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The specs
Engine: 3.8-litre twin-turbo flat-six
Power: 650hp at 6,750rpm
Torque: 800Nm from 2,500-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch auto
Fuel consumption: 11.12L/100km
Price: From Dh796,600
On sale: now
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UAE v Gibraltar
What: International friendly
When: 7pm kick off
Where: Rugby Park, Dubai Sports City
Admission: Free
Online: The match will be broadcast live on Dubai Exiles’ Facebook page
UAE squad: Lucas Waddington (Dubai Exiles), Gio Fourie (Exiles), Craig Nutt (Abu Dhabi Harlequins), Phil Brady (Harlequins), Daniel Perry (Dubai Hurricanes), Esekaia Dranibota (Harlequins), Matt Mills (Exiles), Jaen Botes (Exiles), Kristian Stinson (Exiles), Murray Reason (Abu Dhabi Saracens), Dave Knight (Hurricanes), Ross Samson (Jebel Ali Dragons), DuRandt Gerber (Exiles), Saki Naisau (Dragons), Andrew Powell (Hurricanes), Emosi Vacanau (Harlequins), Niko Volavola (Dragons), Matt Richards (Dragons), Luke Stevenson (Harlequins), Josh Ives (Dubai Sports City Eagles), Sean Stevens (Saracens), Thinus Steyn (Exiles)
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
If you go
Where to stay: Courtyard by Marriott Titusville Kennedy Space Centre has unparalleled views of the Indian River. Alligators can be spotted from hotel room balconies, as can several rocket launch sites. The hotel also boasts cool space-themed decor.
When to go: Florida is best experienced during the winter months, from November to May, before the humidity kicks in.
How to get there: Emirates currently flies from Dubai to Orlando five times a week.
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
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At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
RESULT
Bayern Munich 5 Eintrracht Frankfurt 2
Bayern: Goretzka (17'), Müller (41'), Lewandowski (46'), Davies (61'), Hinteregger (74' og)
Frankfurt: Hinteregger (52', 55')
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
MATCH INFO
Fixture: Thailand v UAE, Tuesday, 4pm (UAE)
TV: Abu Dhabi Sports
The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
Analysis
Members of Syria's Alawite minority community face threat in their heartland after one of the deadliest days in country’s recent history. Read more
