Quick notes: Plural India | Lucid Air...

• I speak Kannada, and I’m no less Indian: I was a proud Hindi-speaking Indian then, though Kannada was my mother tongue! After all, we had to speak Hindi to be called Indian, in the Hindi nation, didn’t we? “Hindi hain hum?”
  
  It was only after I got to understand India and the idea of India that I realised that I don’t need Hindi to prove my Indianness. It’s absolutely okay for a Kannadiga to not know Hindi. It doesn’t make him a lesser Indian. This needs to be echoed time and again. Only then can we build a plural India.
  
  When I looked around, it dawned on me gradually that my mother tongue, Kannada, was being pushed to a corner in its own abode. It’s high time we implemented a two-language education policy in Karnataka to save our children from the excessive burden of learning Hindi. That would be the first right step in the right direction. Let’s hope no Kannada child in Karnataka, in the future, spends his childhood in a Hindi environment and starts looking down on his own language!
  
  "For North Indians, there is no Telugu, Tamil, Kannada or Malayali—it’s all Madrasi; all South Indian food is idli sambar; all people south of the Vindhyas speak as if they are gargling with stones, never mind Punjabi was not even a word when the Cholas were ruling large parts of Southern Asia".



• China increasingly rejects English: Elementary schools cannot conduct English tests. . . . . . . . . . So unlike Macaulayists here



• EV range leader: Lucid Air 520-mile range ousts Tesla from top spot.
  
  China leaping ahead in EVs: Xpeng P5 electric sedan starts around $25,000, leads in driver-assistance tech, aims for Europe
  
  Elon Musk praises Chinese automakers: "I have a great deal of respect for the many Chinese automakers for driving these (EV) technologies".



• Manavendra Singh Shekhawat: Traditional water wisdom.




• Imbalance: In one year, Himachal Pradesh loses 18.52% of snow cover



• 5000 saplings in 48 hours: Meet the cyclist brothers working to make a greener TN a reality



• Life at 50C: How to cool a megacity
• Side-effects: Boys more at risk from Pfizer jab side-effect than Covid



• Kerala could become another Afghanistan:“There has been so much Talibanization happening in Kerala in the past 25 years. In the next 5-10 years Kerala could become another Afghanistan" - K.J. Alphons