Quick notes: Arms lobby, Mandal 2.0...

• How a US arms lobby group played both India and Pakistan on F-16: In February 2016, the state department and the department of defense announced that they were approving a sale of eight more F-16s to Pakistan, clearly a victory for Lockheed Martin. Under the terms of this new deal the sale of these additional F-16s was to be subsidized by the US govt.
  
  India’s leaders recognized the jets for what they were: a nuclear capable force projection that could be used against them.



• Mandal 2.0 to redistribute OBC quota benefits:. “The economic and social angle in reservation will be considered a criteria. This will further help settle the reservation issues with the Jats, Marathas and Patels,”



• Car ownership: In the future, owning a car could cost twice as much as taking driverless taxis everywhere. UBS forecasts that taking “robotaxis”—i.e., self-driving taxis—will be half as expensive per kilometer as owning a car in the future.



• Anti-pollution drive: China to tolerate slower growth as a result of its pollution curbs... Flashback: Water turns poison in Punjab villages



• Paris holds a city-wide 'car-free' day: Paris just held a third "Day Without Cars" that forbade nearly all private transport across the complete core of the city -- about 40 square miles of it.



• Global shift: Maruti Suzuki plans electric car.



• Aruna Sairam: Kalinga Narthana Thillana