ISRO's Space Docking Experiment (SPADEX)

 Yesterday's launch of the PSLV-C60 flight has successfully deployed a pair of satellites which will conduct an orbital rendezvous and docking in space:

medical earnings in the US: cartel

doctors have a cartel, and thus are obscenely well paid. but diabetes care doctors make half as much as plastic surgeons? something is wrong here. 

lack of this kind of cartelization (even nurses have one) is also the reason why engineers moan, eg in IEEE, about esp h1-b immigrants. that's right, engineers have not been able to create a cartel. that's why it's a boom and bust business. that's why after an aerospace bust in the 1970s, aerospace engineers were driving taxis. that's what I think will happen to AI engineers in the 2025-26 as the AI bubble bursts.

don't blame immigrants. it's your own fecklessness that causes your salaries to drop. I remember 20 years ago some guy (forgot his name) on IEEE email groups griping about the same thing. now it's groypers blaming h1-b.

what really happened to suchir Balaji?

 

indian IPOs take off

not sure if this is all that brilliant (valuations are too high in general), but yeah, beating hans feels good. 

Quick notes: Pak missile | Stock market cocaine...

• White House: Pakistan's ballistic missile programme emerging threat to US . . . Led by Russia & China, Pakistan eyes “Elite League” of group that can hit U.S with nuclear-armed missiles



• How Pakistan’s oil discovery could change global markets:




• Pakistan’s stealth move: To acquire 40 Chinese J-35A jets in 2 years amid IAF fleet woes



• Caliphate nextdoor: Pakistan may use Bangladesh as a corridor to send arms to India's northeast. Pakistani ships are now sailing into Bangladesh ports and the earlier orders to examine all cargo on these ships has been waived.



• Adani deal: Andhra Pradesh is likely to pay as much as 23 per cent over the price it agreed in the contract once the taxes and duties are included. Annual payments to Adani once the power supply is fully operational will be roughly equal to state spending on social security and nutrition programs for the previous fiscal year



• More Men Are Addicted to the ‘Crack Cocaine’ of the Stock Market: A new type of addict is showing up at Gamblers Anonymous meetings across the country: investors hooked on the market’s riskiest trades. . . problem worse in India.



• Narayana Murthy on Mass Migration To Bengaluru, Pune: These cities have become extremely challenging to live in, difficult to navigate, and have witnessed rising pollution levels. They are heading toward becoming unlivable



• "No Silicon Valley": Startup Founder Reveals Why He Left Bengaluru In Just 16 Months... "Bengaluru is a place that encourages companies to grow fast and fail fast. That kind of pressure didn't align with the needs of a healthcare business, which has no room for error and demands significant trust from people... I felt excluded because I didn't speak Hindi and I wasn't an alumnus of the IIT".



• AI reality check: The Next Great Leap in AI Is Behind Schedule and Crazy Expensive. Leading developers like OpenAI, Google and Anthropic are finding their models aren’t improving as dramatically as they once did and profitability remains elusive.




• Sino-Russian joint efforts in semiconductors? Russia plans EUV chipmaking tools that it says will be cheaper and easier to build than ASML's — country outlines new roadmap to smaller chips

the eclipse of bollywood

from the FT's new India newsletter.

no end to the AI excitement

will all this end well? by past experience, no. there will be another AI winter. from the FT.

obama the avenging angel. who failed.

I have long wondered if Obama was some sort of a kalki-figure destined to destroy america. sort of an avenging angel, of black and rop background. this essay, long and tortured as it is, says the same. and he failed, too. 

kudos to musk/twitter, and netanyahu. and trump, too.

and the Jews have finally figured out the destructive Dem anti-Jew nihilism.

https://www.tabletmag.com/feature/rapid-onset-political-enlightenment

why whistleblowing may be a bad idea

if you know something, just keep quiet about it. If you are a person of substance, take no risks, and be paranoid about your security. my substack:

https://open.substack.com/pub/rajeevsrinivasan/p/ep-148-comrade-kirillov-and-the-art?r=66qfh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Japanese carmakers in deep trouble

thanks to american hubris, climatism and electric vehicles. yet another industry snatched by Hans. 

Microsoft, I bow to thee

the smartest, most ruthless, most innovative, most successful MNC since the vatican. 

 

regime-change as playbook

 https://open.substack.com/pub/rajeevsrinivasan/p/ep-147-the-depressing-regularity?r=66qfh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Mekong and tonle sap lake dying

the aftereffects of too many dams, esp in china. 

suchir balaji, whistleblower, Om Shanti.

Quick notes: Slowing AI development | Falling fertility...

• Google CEO: AI development is finally slowing down—'the low-hanging fruit is gone’



• India's crisis in Engineering and management studies: Manufacturing sector has struggled to grow due to increased dependence on imports from China. On the other hand, the service-sector firms are either solving last-mile delivery problems or offering basic services -- sectors that don’t really need higher-order engineering and management capability.



• BikAss ain't working: Why 7 crore new farmers in the last 7 years is bad news: The increase of people taking up farming in the last seven years is the highest in some of India’s poorest states, with usual suspect Uttar Pradesh leading from the front, along with compatriots Madhya Pradesh and Bihar.



• Mohan Bhagwat on falling fertility rate: 'Population below replacement rate risks extinction,' says RSS chief.
  
  
• Naidu & Stalin's push for more babies in AP & TN: A new population crisis with global implications



• Why most Indians choking on smog aren’t in Delhi: According to Swiss firm IQAir, eight of the 10 most polluted cities in the world last year were located in the Indo-Gangetic plains. Delhi receives significant attention due to its position as the capital of India



• Green Great Wall: China completes 3,000-km green belt around its biggest desert - 46-year campaign to encircle its largest desert with trees, part of national efforts to end desertification and curb the sandstorms that plague parts of the country during the spring



• Salmon back in Klamath river: After 100 years, salmon have returned to the Klamath River – following a historic dam removal project in California. "Seeing the videos of the salmon returning home brought me to tears of happiness and relief".



• Hans eating EU alive: German manufacturers warn of the sector's 'formidable crash'
  
  
• Chinese Carmakers Are Trouncing Once-Unbeatable Japanese Rivals: Foreign carmakers used to make combined net profit of $21b on average every year in China, but this fell by one-third in 2023 and then halved again in the first six months
  
  
• Significant edge in air combat: China’s 99% efficient afterburner tech could make it ‘unrivaled in air combat’



• Banning kids from social media: What countries do to regulate children's social media access




• Non-Christians be damned: Texas education board approves optional Bible-infused curriculum for elementary schools

ironic: see shooting of health insurance CEO in NYC

 BigMedicine ki jai

Goldman Sachs guardedly bullish on india

https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/articles/indias-economy-is-likely-to-stand-firm-in-an-uncertain-world

are your children better off than you?

this is a major question for any parent. given the general belief that India is a growing economic power, one would think that this is given in India. but I have observed in Kerala that many people are mired in a no-win situation, and that they do not progress from generation to generation. btw, raj chetty's research in the US implied the same in the US: social mobility there is much less what one believes, given the old Horatio Alger story etc. 

one set of people I have observed are the housemaids. we find large numbers of them coming daily from nearby rural areas to work in middle-class households (often traveling an hour each way by bus). 

the sad state of affairs is that every housemaid has the same story: a husband who is usually a day laborer, who brings very little money home, because he spends it all on booze and lottery tickets. he often beats the woman up as well. and it is up to the woman to scrimp and save on her income, which may be around 15,000 rupees a month, to bring up and educate her children. 

what is sad is that the children don't do any better. they end up depending on the mothers working into their late 60s to bring in money, and the sons end up the same way as their fathers. the daughters end up the same way as their mothers: either hand-to-mouth existence, or they become housemaids too. 

they are a single medical emergency away from bankruptcy. 

this is true also of those who have gone to the "gelf" from the lower middle classes. they may make money, but fritter it away on conspicuous consumption, with no long=term savings. 

it is true that other migrants have done well: for instance, nurses have ended up taking their husbands as well as siblings and even parents to Europe or the US as migrants (although that is getting harder and harder) and anyway they are able to send decent sums of money home as remittances. 

similarly, middle-class skilled migrant professionals to the middle east like doctors, engineers, accountants etc have also done quite well. 

but the fact remains that the lower-middle class migrants end up being (un)skilled labor in the middle east, or drivers, or other such hard occupations, and their health is ruined, and they are not able to return and earn a living for a long time in India. 

the case of Kerala might be unusual in that there really are no jobs at home: no agriculture, no industry, and nobody wants to do the hard labor kinds of work. so that makes it attractive for so-called Bengalis (who are mostly illegal alien Bangladeshis and rohingya) to come over and work in Kerala.

on the contrary, here is a paper from 2018 that seems to have a far more rosy picture of intergenerational mobility, and according to it, the south is stellar. 

https://barrett.dyson.cornell.edu/NEUDC/paper_560.pdf

you tell me, is this true, or is my observation of stasis more true?

kakistocracy: INDI alliance's hallmark

the nehruvian state, I thought, was the very picture of a kakistocracy: rule by the very worst possible people.

I stand corrected now: the INDI alliance is even worse. for example it has the DMK and now some maharashtrian partner that openly abuse Sanatana dharma. this is against the very constitutional provisions of equal rights and religious freedom.  these INDI people brandish the constitution as some sort of talisman, but they have no problem in positioning the appeasement of RoL and esp RoP as intrinsic to the constitution, at the cost of demonizing and reducing the space for Hinduism. 

here's their favorite magazine, the warmongerist, defining their style of management as its word of the year. 

https://www.economist.com/culture/2024/11/29/the-economists-word-of-the-year-for-2024?utm_content=ed-picks-image-link-1&etear=nl_special_1&utm_campaign=a.special-edition-newsletter&utm_medium=email.internal-newsletter.np&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=12/7/2024&utm_id=2020638

tsunami warning in people's republic of Berkeley?

were the feds trying to scare the woke lefties?

India enslaved by chatGPT and microsoft

 one of the ill effects of english.

Warmongers Laughing All the Way to the Bank

 

forget the useless degree mills!

 same thing needed in India. create people with skills ie builders, not people with degrees ie babus

reorient education towards vocational training, not humanities degrees!

Trump Threatens BRICS Nations With 100% Tariffs

Donald Trump threatens BRICS countries—including Russia, India—with 100% tariffs if they act to undermine US dollar

“We require a commitment from these countries that they will neither create a new BRICS currency, nor back any other currency to replace the mighty U.S. Dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs, and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful U.S. Economy.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the U.S. of “weaponizing” the dollar and described it as a “big mistake.”

Russia has specifically pushed for the creation of a new payment system that would offer an alternative to the global bank messaging network, SWIFT.

Trump threatens 100% tariff on the BRIC bloc of nations if they act to undermine US dollar

too much humanities, too little engineering?

tertiary education flaw in India? too many humanities people all looking for government jobs, too few engineers who can build things?

I think engineers need to know a little more of humanities, but that domain is so full of crazy DEI people from JNU type places that I despair for them. I have two nieces and a nephew who got addled at IIT madras by the humanities subjects there. 

 

EV out, hybrids in

I have been saying this makes sense for India, too. pure EV = slavery to china

 

notebookLM is a great tool

I think for pedagogical purposes. because listening to a podcast based on a few sources is more engaging (even though you eventually get a little deja vu feeling about the banter between the hosts) than reading the same stuff. and their summaries and notes are quite good.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/11/28/larry-magid-notebooklm-is-a-google-tool-for-fake-podcasts-real-research/?utm_email=E5D475A2D401C5868421448E24&lctg=E5D475A2D401C5868421448E24&active=no&utm_source=listrak&utm_medium=email&utm_term=https%3a%2f%2fwww.mercurynews.com%2f2024%2f11%2f28%2flarry-magid-notebooklm-is-a-google-tool-for-fake-podcasts-real-research%2f&utm_campaign=bang-mult-nl-good-morning-silicon-valley-nl&utm_content=manual

Quick notes: FTA | Pedestrian hell...

• Free-Trade-Agreements never benefited us: India-UK FTA negotiations to restart in early 2025
  
  
• India should not be pushed into joining trade blocs: It must assess existing FTAs, and should build a larger team of expert negotiators



• Trump unpredictable, Modi dependable? On trade, it’s just the opposite.




• Stranglehold on market, breach of Antitrust Laws: Zomato and Swiggy coerced restaurants into entering exclusive agreements that would deny them space to shift elsewhere if they wanted to join competing platforms.



• China is bombarding tech talent with job offers: And the West is freaking out. Chinese companies are trying to poach engineers in high-tech Western industries by offering to triple their salaries as Beijing seeks to catch up with Silicon Valley in the battle for tech supremacy.
  
  Executives at Zeiss SMT, which makes indispensable components to build the world’s most powerful semiconductors, got some troubling news last fall. Staff with access to sensitive Zeiss know-how received LinkedIn messages, emails and calls from Huawei representatives, offering them up to three times their salaries to join the Chinese company.
  
  
• Huawei trying to poach TSMC employees with 3X salary: Desperate times call for desperate measures
  
  
• China's CATL open to building US battery plant if Trump allows: In an August interview Trump was open to Chinese firms building cars in the US
  
  
• CATL electric bus batteries set for 1M miles, megawatt charging: New-gen LFP bus batteries last 15 years, CATL claims—20% longer. CATL claims a 22% boost in energy density by volume, and 175 Wh/kg by weight



• Anywhere but India: Chip makers expand in Vietnam — companies move to Southeast Asia as US-China tensions simmer



• Why it is so difficult to walk in Indian cities: The main problem is that too much focus is given to solving the problem of car congestion on roads. "To improve the flow of traffic, authorities often narrow down footpaths or eliminate them entirely. It might seem counter-intuitive, but allowing the congestion to persist and focussing on improving infrastructure for pedestrians will help solve the traffic problem in the long run". Cities can also implement their own Non-Motorised Transport Policy (NMTP) to create better infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians.



• The families fleeing Delhi to escape deadly smog... Also fighting "walking pneumonia" cases this season.... Why and what will fix it.... Why Indian capital lags behind Beijing in the battle to breathe..




• ED raids e-commerce sellers linked to Amazon, Flipkart: The livelihoods of small shopkeepers are at stake due to anti-competitive practices, particularly from quick-commerce companies.



• Australia approves social media ban on under-16s.. lessons for India.

the assault on manipur

https://organiser.org/2024/11/25/266850/bharat/manipur/manipur-nia-unearths-larger-agenda-learns-about-the-plan-to-take-the-whole-of-northeast-back-to-dark-ages/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

balkanization

Russia uses ICBM: ww3 is here

this time without a nuclear payload. next they'll drop a tactical nuke on ATACMS and HIMARS missile launchers. 

obama must be super happy.

as I predicted, martial law will be imposed on the US ("emergency" in indian terms), the transfer of power to trump will be postponed/canceled, Biden will step down, and Kamala will be POTUS. 

what a deal! 

Adani 'corruption' = toolkit by deepstate + INC

it's not as if the US is pure as the driven snow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_bribery_scandals

and the alacrity with which the warmongerist's leo Morani jumped on this story suggests there is a toolkit. 

Raoul and jairam Ramesh were also ready in a flash despite the fun fact that ALL the accused state governments were congress!

Five eyes becomes Six eyes

India is again excluded. Biden downgraded quad, and came up with the insane AUKUS. deepstate 2, India 0.

now 5 Eyes is to include Japan. deepstate 3, India 0.

Biden exits stage left. metaphor

https://x.com/LibertyWatchHQ/status/1858238038507237464

humiliation for america. again. sigh.

islamophobia? california?

at UC Berkeley? startling.

 

booth capturing California style

US being humiliated

this is on you, Democrats. poor Biden, lame duck and senile. 

1st martyr to weightloss drugs?

I am not saying she died because of the new snake oil, but can you say for sure she didn't die because of this new class of drugs? 

last stand, 13 kumaon, 18 Nov 1962, rezangla

 my 2002 column. I bow to the brave men of c company. https://www.rediff.com/news/2002/nov/19rajeev.htm

column on US immigration under trump

 https://www.deccanherald.com//opinion/border-closing-the-trumpian-shift-is-here-3279841 will trump push out long-suffering H1-B indians? shouldn't India welcome this reverse brain drain?

US election analysis 6 Nov

it's in malayalam on doordarshan. a sedate, in-depth analysis of what happened. 

https://www.youtube.com/live/-AKgZFt-8tk

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-AKgZFt-8tk?si=vpOt70Db631pJzhL" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

warmongerist pleased with "our man" yunus

what pogroms and genocides of Hindus? who cares? #deepstate ki Jai and deepstate embedded assets ki jai. let's give him another Nobel peace prize! yeah, same one we gave Obama for starting several wars.

btw, Yunus old chap, Tulsi gabbard may want a word with you. 

warmongerist podcast on India place names

honestly, this is in a recent podcast from the warmongerist. he was moaning that eg mughalsarai became pandit deen Dayal upadhyaya Nagar. 

my response: cope. so what if we change place names? invader needs need to be junked. from Connaught Place to Ahmedabad.

this fellow Leo morani (no, no spelling mistake there) sounds like a desi putting on a white accent. another unwashed, callow youth pretending to be an old guy. (this is a warmongerist trademark).

to be fair, 'the intelligence' is a pretty good podcast in general, thanks to the anchor, a fellow named Jason Palmer: bluff, good voice, asks good questions. of course he has to toe the warmongerist line. he's almost as good as the AI-generated podcast host on notebookLM 😂

china pivots from iphones to EVs

I personally think EVs will crash and burn (no, pun intended). India should #justsaynotoEVs. I think they are ripe for disruption by hydrogen or other tech where china doesn't have a stranglehold.

but kudos to the Hans for having figured out how to monopolize the supply chain for strategic minerals etc. good learnings possible for india's babus (if only they can get their heads out of scholarships to Harvard for their kids).

also, nice pivot. good industrial policy. 

but I do believe china is at an inflection point, and is doomed to decline for other reasons: debt trap, property bubble, demographic collapse, etc. 

CNN gaslighting re Tulsi and Kamala

no, CNN, on the contrary, Tulsi wiped the floor with kamala in that debate. kamala sat there gaping, doing a fair imitation of Raoul and dan Quayle (you know, "deer caught in the headlights"). in 2 minutes flat, Tulsi ended kamala's 2020 presidential campaign. that was a preview of how Kamala would have 'negotiated' with Putin, xi etc al. thank God it was only a debate. 

disappointing trump choices?

vivek Ramaswamy is going to be musk's understudy in DOGE.

tusli gabbard got director of national intelligence, which means CIA reports to her, so that's not bad, though I thought she deserved secretary of defense. 

other indians/Hindus (eg Kash patel, whom I had admittedly heard nothing about before) got nothing. 

so we will have to waiting and see.

Khalistani Terrorist Pannun Threatens to Attack India’s Ram Mandir in Ayodhya

Here's my theory:

Pannu is flunky of Deep State, which just lost the landmark US elections to Trump. That's why he's now suddenly fled USA to go hide in Canada.

Having only few months before totally losing power when Trump takes office on January 20, Deep State is desperate to mobilize all its puppets to cause as much chaos as possible. They also don't want that IMEC thing to take off. Deep State likes to work through clandestine means like "regime change" operations (eg. Bangladesh) where they destabilize countries to replace their leaders.

Deep State hopes to use Pannu to cause 1984 Riots type of situation, to use as a springboard for mass chaos/instability in India, which can be used to replace Modi's govt as part of a regime change operation.

We need to stay ahead of their game and ensure no chaos can be triggered.

Pannu is emphasizing anniversary of 1984 Riots, in order to heighten tensions among Sikhs.

Pannu is threatening to hit Ram temple in Ayodhya to heighten tensions among Hindus.

His goal in heightening tensions among both communities is to maximize chance of wider clashes and fratricide.

chellaney on biden's assault on india

Biden really screwed up. see https://openthemagazine.com/essay/return-of-the-brotherhood/

 

another brilliant line from the economist Nov 10

 but I was there first: see my tweet from Nov 6 below this.

famous last words from the economist

these guys are totally into propaganda. I am 12-1 against them in election predictions. the one they won is 2020 US, which now turns out to have been probably a fraud. 

huawei builds an operating system

if Huawei can build a mobile operating system, why can't India? this sort of self-reliance is absolutely needed so that US Big Tech is prevented from dominating India. the recent flap over the Uber deals by the armed forces shows how indians are totally unaware of the ramifications of data capture (especially in light of the way Israelis were able to assassinate or harm hezbollah and Hamas people, including the famous pager blasts).

India needs to focus on building software PRODUCTS, not offer services. 

Kerala school of mathematics

a very under-rated school with outstanding discoveries.

https://historyunderyourfeet.wordpress.com/2020/06/13/nilkantha-somayaji/

now FT wants my opinion

shall I tell them honestly: "you suck"?

funny thing is the economist also sent me a survey a couple of months ago. I forgot about it. maybe i'll go back and tell them also that they suck, big time. 

bloody British media. they're done for, now that trump won, and x is the newspaper of choice for many of us. 

NITIayog CEO say crazy things

WHAT???? India should join china-controlled FTAs? this is nuts. 

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/foreign-trade/india-should-join-china-backed-asian-trade-bloc-it-rejected-years-back-niti-aayog-ceo-says/articleshow/115046521.cms?from=mdr

WIRED ranting about twitter

without comment

what will trump do for hindus and India?

it's time to cash in the chips. using the fact that tulsi and Vivek are outspoken Hindus (and I bet they had a role in the trump statement on Bangladesh) it's time to start letting the deep state know that even though they have 2 more months in the white house that they better not damage indian and Hindu interests any more. the ongoing pogroms and genocide of Hindus in Bangladesh has to stop. deep state has to rein in their asset Yunus. 

"so what have you done lately for me, trump?". he can relate to that transactional question. 

As Modi Lays Down The Line, Supporters Rally For Hindus In Canada

reposting: why I prefer trump. now better deliver!

     https://rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com/p/ep-145-why-i-prefer-trump

rationale for Harris loss

if #trump actually wins (which I still doubt, as #Dems are resourceful with their ballot stuffing), then I have the perfect rationale for it: "Kamala #Harris lost because America is not yet ready to elect a #woman #president, especially a black woman. shame on the #patriarchy. racist anti-feminists." here it is, gratis. please feel free to use it.

some Hindus like trump? ok.

so what? the warmongerist is amazed. why? after all, some christians like him, some Jews like him, ok maybe not that many rop or khalistanis. or #deepstate flunkeys. 

welcome to reality, warmongerist. you endorsed Harris. that doesn't mean everybody has to toe your line. 

India stock market correction

yes, P/E has been a bit high, and earnings lately have taken a hit. plus there is the siren song of Chinese stimulus. and uncertainty over what the US elections might bring. not a big problem though long term. 

euro car industry decimated by china

chinese have come from nowhere to take an 11% market share in Norway, which ironically enough makes most of its money from oil and gas sales. 

extrapolate, and other industries are going to be hollowed out by china. Europe is dying, and if the US doesn't watch out, it will also die. that's one more reason to vote for trump. fight! fight! "rage, rage against the dying of the light"

 

is India producing too many humanities grads?

 

if true, this would explain a lot of things in India. the JNUfication of education is leading to the Californication of society. see this thread: https://x.com/paulnovosad/status/1852703453178659291