Quick notes: Battery fires | Renewable power...

• Why are electric two-wheelers in India catching fire? Still blaming "inflammable Lithium" when the rest of the world mastered battery/thermal management.. "short circuits and fuses malfunctioning". . Sarkaar bleating
  
  Retrofitted EVs: Cheaper than buying a new EV but govt charges 5% GST on batteries that go into new EVs, but 18% on units sold separately.
  
  China leads: CATL to supply BMW with cylindrical battery cells.



• Coal comes at a "massive, massive cost to the Indian people": While power from domestic coal is being sold at 4-5 rupees/kwh, that goes up to 5-8 rupees/kwh for power from imported coal (and went up to as high as 12 rupees/kwh on the spot market one day last week). Power from wind and solar, in the meanwhile, is at 3 rupees and 2.5 rupees, respectively.
  
  “50-degree heat shows that infrastructure doesn’t work. Coal power plants can’t run above 50 degrees. They break just when you need them.”



• India's savage heat exacts heaviest toll on those working outdoors: “More than 20,000 people have died in last 20 years because of heat stroke and over half of them are men aged between 30 to 60 who are working outdoors. This is not just exhaustion or discomfort. It is actually killing people.”



• Bengaluru couple living the Amish lifestyle:




• Obesity spreading rapidly in India: Phoren diet and bingeing on Netflix.



• Opposite of what Gadkari is doing: Paris plans to remove two beltway lanes to cut pollution. It would transform the highway “from a grey belt to a green belt,” by reserving one lane in each direction for taxis, buses, car-pooling and emergency access. Overall, the highway would shrink to three fully accessible lanes in each direction, from a current norm of four.



• Huge blow for Visa, MasterCard:

Apple drops card payments, switches to @UPI_NPCI payments for subscriptions and App Store purchases in India! pic.twitter.com/ABWGYQU1o3

— Rajeev Mantri (@RMantri) May 19, 2022




• How about practising what you preach? Europe admits it'll have to burn more coal as it tries to wean itself off Russian energy



• Western propaganda: America "intervenes", Russia "invades".

harvard thinks india is not in asia, but the middle east

this is from the harvard business school. those east coast Dem types honestly think india is either in africa or in the middle east. asia? never! this is why biden finds it hard to accept india in the quad, and he goes around talking about aukus and jaukus. 

two brutal articles about american screwups

from tablet magazine

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/three-big-questions-american-establishment-got-wrong

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/wingnuts-vs-factions

frankly, these sound scary. in how much these guys are capable ot screwing themselves up, and the rest of the world as well

tablet mag has turned into a good read, with a solid jewish perspective

Quick notes: Tibet policy | Battle tank...

• India's Tibet policy: It is not that India did not have excellent strategic thinkers at the time, but Nehru decided not to use their competence. Tibet would never be discussed as a result. Today, one priority for Delhi is to have an in-depth discussion with Dharamsala as soon as possible.



• Russian weaponry: This war has revealed a major design flaw, for instance, in the T-72 main battle tank -- the wrong placement of the ammo storage compartment under the crew cupola, which tends to blow up with the first guided anti-tank munition hit midship.
  
  It is a matter of grave concern to the Indian armoured forces featuring the T-72. Maybe, this will finally convince the army headquarters to take ownership of the indigenous Arjun MBT (which handily beat the Russian T-90 and T-72 tanks in test trials). If the Ukraine crisis proves anything it is for the Indian military to 'Buy Indian'.



• Farm machinery exacting heavy toll on soil: In soil that has been squashed by heavy weight of farm machinery, air is forced out and the soil becomes compacted, leading to flooding and poor harvests. "Compaction can happen within a few seconds when we drive on the soil, but it can take decades for that soil to recover".



• Machine learning for farming applications: John Deere's autonomous tractor will usher in a new era of farming. Farmers are losing control of their machines and accuse John Deere of creating a monopoly in farm equipment manufacturing.



• Netflix losing its grip: Cancellations rise among long-standing subscribers



• Raag Jhinjhoti: Shashwati Mandal




• When Shiva appears, Chandala disappears: The disappearance of the Chandala therefore marks the disappearance of the whole ideas he represented. The ‘meaningful nonsense’ of the Chandala of the local myth is thus changed — while the former questions the caste system, the changed version makes such an illusion, but behind it, it in fact seeks to revitalise and legitimise caste.



• Recipe for disaster: English-medium in rural primary = recipe for complete destruction of Indian talent.

Absolutely. And this policy is being pushed when the data clearly shows that Telugu medium students outperform English-medium students at primary level, *despite* Engish apartheid set against them.

English-medium in rural primary=recipe for complete destruction of Indian talent. https://t.co/cfaYxsg7pK

— Sankrant Sanu सानु संक्रान्त ਸੰਕ੍ਰਾਂਤ ਸਾਨੁ (@sankrant) May 16, 2022




• Cities markedly warmer than the countryside: "Heat islands" in and near Delhi, with nighttime temps up to 102° (40°F hotter than nearby fields).


Cities are often markedly warmer than the countryside, and that's critical in a heat wave. This image, taken by @NASA's ECOSTRESS instrument on the @Space_Station, shows "heat islands" in and near Delhi, India, with nighttime temps up to 102° F (40° hotter than nearby fields). pic.twitter.com/yjzkdjDYev

— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) May 12, 2022




• But wait, there's a solution: Shade from street trees reduced surface temperatures by an average of 12°C. Concrete surfaces shaded permanently by a bank of trees were cooled by up to 20°C in the summer.

What if I told you there was a single intervention we could deliver in our cities that would cool them during heatwaves, reduce flooding, scrub pollutants from the air, boost biodiversity, improve public health, and even reduce crime? You wouldn't believe me. But it's true. pic.twitter.com/W1KWm6RHFk

— Jon Burke FRSA 🌍 (@jonburkeUK) May 28, 2021

interesting and explosive attack on US human rights failings

this is like the chinese bully americans whenever they talk about human rights, by loudly shouting from the rooftops about US failings. 

not a very polished document (it's got everything and kitchen sink it it), but it's a good start in terms of making allegations and assertions supported by case history and statistics. this forces the interlocutors to play on your playing field. 

https://www.cdphr.org/USA%20Report.pdf

what next at gyanvapi and other ancient monuments?

https://rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com/p/ep-68-gyanvapi-discoveries-the-places?s=w#details

Musk Calls Out US Democrat Left As Haters, Vows to Vote Republican

 Musk is now openly repudiating America's Left-wing Democratic Party, saying that he plans to vote Republican:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1526997132858822658

In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party.

But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican.

Now, watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold … 🍿

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 18, 2022

 https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/05/18/elon-musk-tweets-hell-vote-republican-and-slams-democrats-as-party-of-division--hate/

Twitter insider

“Twitter does not believe in free speech”...
Employees at Twitter are ‘Commie as F**k’...

BREAKING: @Twitter Sr. Engineer Tells Undercover Journalist That “Twitter Does Not Believe in Free Speech”; Confesses Employees at Tech Giant are “Commie as F**k”; Admits Left Wing Employees “Hate” @ElonMusk “Capitalist” Takeover Attempt#TwitterExposed pic.twitter.com/15PgulS8wj

— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) May 16, 2022

Quick notes: Google translate | Turboprop...

• Google Translate adds 24 new languages: Sanskrit, Assamese, Konkani, Manipuri, Maithili, Bhojpuri, Dogri...



• India among potential partners for Embraer turboprop: New turboprop aircraft would seek to penetrate a market dominated by Franco-Italian ATR



• Forest bathing: In 1982, the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries created the term shinrin-yoku, which translates to “forest bathing” or “absorbing the forest atmosphere.”
  
  The practice encourages people to simply spend time in nature — no actual bathing required. It’s also very low impact, which means you don’t have to go for intense trail runs or hikes. The goal of forest bathing is to live in the present moment while immersing your senses in the sights and sounds of a natural setting.



• Intermittent Fasting May Have Cognitive Benefits: Eating less often can improve focus and brain health



• Rules: How to play Pickleball




• From MIPS to RISC-V: MIPS Technologies pivots to RISC-V ISA. Upcoming chips to have up to 512 cores & 1024 threads



• Open Source EDA Software - Democratizing Hardware Design: In 2018, DARPA announced that the United States will invest $100 million in new open source tools and silicon blocks to create SOCs and circuit boards.
  
  The OpenROAD initiative seeks to make it easy to go from RTL to a final manufacturable layout for SoCs and circuit boards in 24 hours. Since the 2018 launch, the project has progressed quickly - with the 1.0 integrating some twenty tools into a single app. . . . . this can be a boon for India



• Google’s Surveillance Capitalism: Each time you open an app on your phone or browse the web, an auction for your eyeballs is taking place behind the scenes thanks to a thriving market for personal data. Ad platforms transmit the location data and browsing habits of Americans and Europeans about 178 trillion times each year.
  
  By way of online activity and location, a person in the U.S. is exposed 747 times each day to real-time bidding. (The figure doesn’t include personal data transmitted by Meta Platform Inc.’s Facebook or Amazon.com Inc.’s ad networks, meaning the true measure of all broadcast data is probably much larger.) Google’s parent, Alphabet Inc. made $68 billion in revenue from the quarter ending March 31, 2022. Out of this, about $54 billion came from advertising.



• Early Christians were the original groomers: Isolate the child from their parents and guardians, make tempting promises and exploit their fear of parental authority/punishment.

Early christians were the original groomers. Isolate the child from their parents and guardians, make tempting promises and exploit their fear of parental authority/punishment. pic.twitter.com/hCK4qiN6SV

— Heliotroph (@Heliotrophy) April 27, 2022

biden tries for a pyrrhic victory over putin. real winner? china

https://rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com/p/ep-67-pyrrhic-victory-even-if-biden?sd=fs

How Semiconductor Manufacturing In India Gets A Boost With Karnataka's ISMC Bid

China Wants to Form Its Own Military Alliance

Quick notes: ONDC | EV power suit...

• Open Network for Digital Commerce: ONDC plans to level the playing field between small retailers and e-commerce behemoths such as Amazon and Flipkart.



• Dr Jayan Thomas: Spearheading research on 'EV power suit'-- vehicle shells with built-in super-capacitors for storing energy



• Selling EVs without batteries: The draft battery-swapping policy spoke about the Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) model that will allow users to buy EVs without batteries and then sign up for battery subscription services. This will reduce EV costs as batteries account for 40-50 per cent of their price tags.



• Does time really exist? Investigations on 'time' yield lots of surprising and counterintuitive lessons. Time is relative, not absolute. Time always marches forward, not backward, but we still lack an explanation for the arrow of time.



• Regional, official and national: There is a persistent push from the Centre to steer a pro-Hindi course in non-Hindi states. Karnataka is more prone to this problem than many other states, because it is -- and has been -- governed mostly by national parties.



• Subhashita 5: Factors behind the real prosperity of nations.




• Brain drain to China: Taiwan cracks down on China poaching tech talent. Targets Chinese investing and hiring.
  
  “There is a very big fear that if top engineers are being lured away to China, they will take some trade secrets with them and that could damage the competitiveness of the Taiwanese economy.”



• Atmanirbhar China: China orders govt, state firms to dump foreign PCs



• How to Tell Google to Forget Your Data: Simply follow this link and click on the button stating “Start removal request.”



• Millets for global food security: Millets require little by way of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and can boost soil quality through intercropping with other plants. State intervention currently favors rice and wheat.



• Organizational behavior:

is america losing the "war by other means"?

we are seeing a war 'by other means'. i'm afraid #biden is losing it. sad, and has big impact on india. RIP, quad!

https://www.firstpost.com/world/why-america-is-losing-the-war-by-other-means-despite-big-tech-hollywood-and-soft-power-10626721.html

Quick notes: AI colonialism | Pickleball...

• India feels the heat: Country reels from unusually early heatwave.... Heat wave scorches India’s wheat crop and hinders export plans



• AI Colonialism: AI is impoverishing the communities and countries that don’t have a say in its development—the same communities and countries already impoverished by former colonial empires. The AI industry does not seek to capture land, but the same desire for profit drives it to expand its reach.



• Combination of racket and paddle sports: Pickleball is the fastest growing sport in America with nearly 5 million Americans already playing the game. “The greatest thing I have found about pickleball is the socialization. Pickleball players seem to be... just really nice people. You meet the nicest people playing pickleball.”



• Mo ko kahaan dhoondhe re bande: Ustad Shujaat Hussain Khan




• Muddling history, language: Sheldon Pollock, a scholar of Sanskrit, noted that India was “well on its way to losing its memory”, thanks to perverted language politics and an education system that fails to value scholars. “If classical scholars in India or elsewhere cede control of memory, it will be left to the delusions and ravings of the anti-historians.”
  
  "The problem is that unlike in Tamil Nadu, many politicians in Karnataka do not recognise the links between language, culture and identity. As a result, we do not see much work beyond sloganeering. At present, we don’t have much to show as achievement".



• Funding the war: Germany paid Russia €9 Billion for energy since invasion. The largest importers in order were Germany (€9.1 billion), Italy (€6.9 billion), China (€6.7 billion), Netherlands (€5.6 billion), Turkey (€4.1 billion) and France (€3.8 billion).



• Danish Kaneria: Pakistan team was unfair to this cricketer because he was a Hindu. . . who knew!!



• "Tibet has never been part of China": "India's position is that India has to abide by the one China policy, then China also has to abide by one India policy regarding Kashmir" -- Penpa Tsering, president of the Tibetan govt in exile.



• Micromobility: Over the past decade, the number of multinational research and development centers in Tel Aviv has tripled. With this growth has come a flood of highly educated, environmentally conscious young people who are increasingly opting for e-scooters and bicycles over cars. Tel Aviv intends to more than double its bike paths to cover 350 km by 2025.

our good friend george t on the german reaction to ukraine

is biden's pointless war likely to harm europe or germany more than russia?

here's the detailed insights from long-term resident of germany: how is german energy security and strategic perspective being affected, and should the rest of us worry about the massive re-arming to the tune of $100billion? 

https://rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com/p/ep-66-an-in-depth-interview-of-george?r=66qfh&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web