Quick notes: Sinophile | Liveable cities...

• NITI Aayog loaded with Sinophiles: India's top think tank recommends easing investment rules for Chinese firms... My enemy is my savior
  
  
• Trump, the Sinophile: As Trump courts a more assertive Beijing, China hawks are losing out in a a dramatic reversal.
  
  In recent years, one of China's biggest requests of US officials has been that the US relax its strict controls on advanced AI chips, measures that were put in place to slow Beijing's technological and military gains. Last week, the Trump administration did just that, as it allowed Nvidia to sell its H20 chip to China... China won by calling Trump’s ‘bluff’
  
  
• Microsoft, the Sinophile: Microsoft using engineers in China to help maintain cloud computing systems for U.S. Department of Defense.



• What NITI Aayog doesn't want you to know: How China has been blocking India's UNSC actions since the 2000s



• From Evergrande to BYD: Is China’s EV dream crashing? . . . Don't you worry, NITI Aayog is there to rescue China.



• How can we make India's cities more liveable? Zoho's Sridhar Vembu has a suggestion . . let's focus less on GDP and more on quality of living.

I want to add that Singapore, one of the most advanced economies in the world and one of the most livable cities, relies extensively on public transport. Singapore also limits the number of private cars through the mechanism of open market trading of Certificate of Entitlement… https://t.co/ob7WjOiybJ

— Sridhar Vembu (@svembu) July 15, 2025




• How Indian Cities Failed Public Transport: Prioritize people over cars.

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"

 

Quick notes: Tibetan cause | Online hatred...

• The cause Hollywood forgot: “Any Hollywood blockbuster that wants to really bring in the money will need to appear in China. That requires compromises in the films but also careful consideration by the actors – do they really want to put their career at risk by talking about Tibet and China? Richard Gere continues to be a high-profile supporter of Tibet, but he has stated that his stance on Tibet has cost him work.
  
  “China has closed it off from the world, making it impossible to visit without a guide, and closely monitors Tibetans’s phone and internet activity so that as little information as possible gets out. Getting information out of Tibet is as tough as getting information out of North Korea these days, and if people don’t hear the stories, they won’t be engaged or keen to help.”




• Ratan Tata: Stop online hatred, support each other in 'year of challenges'. "I believe this year specially calls for all of us to be unified and helpful and is not the time to pull each other down".

Saw some army veterans hurling abuses at each other on Twitter.

During training at the NPA our Ustad would sometimes give example of the IMA- discipline, camaraderie and the bond it creates even beyond the service period. Ustad had no idea about poisons called TV & Social Media.

— Arun Bothra (@arunbothra) June 22, 2020




• Buying The Wrong Warplanes: The Mirage 2000 has been a more effective fighter in Indian service than the Su-30 has been. The Su-30 not only lacks the latest precision air-to-ground ordnance, it doesn’t perform well from the high-altitude air bases that support Indian operations along the LAC. The Rafale, the French-made successor to the Mirage, likewise is among India’s better fighters. But the country has ordered just 36 Rafales.



• No change in ground positions: China continues military build-up along LAC in eastern Ladakh amid talks.
  
  President of Tibetan govt in exile: After occupying Tibet, Chinese leaders said they'll go for Nepal, Ladakh, Bhutan



• What happened in 1962 in Galwan? By nightfall of July 10, more than 300 Chinese soldiers encircled the Gorkhas who held their ground under Naik Subedar Jung Bahadur Gurung. On July 13, orders were issued to the Gorkha regiment to fire if the Chinese crept ahead. Starting October 4, “The Gorkhas, having lived cheek by jowl with the Chinese for more than two months, were ferried out by returning Mi-4 helicopters over the next few days.”



• Superblocks: How Barcelona is taking city streets back from cars. . . . . . . Why Car-Free Streets may be here to stay


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Quick notes: Preferential status | Summer holidays...

• Access to Markets: India becomes Trump's latest trade target

India is caught between an unpredictable and transactional Trump administration and an overambitious and predatory China. In fact, Trump and Xi are birds of the same feather. Defiant unilateralism binds the U.S. and China. https://t.co/9mrhygLnc0

— Brahma Chellaney (@Chellaney) March 5, 2019




• Sad turn: Many schools curtailing summer holidays, some as low as 10 days. “Children have the right to relax and play and to join cultural, artistic and other recreational activities. With fewer holidays, there is little time for extracurricular activities”.



• Farmers in a hurry:

...cont'd

That stubble burning is estimated to cause India $30 billion in economic cost of exposure to pollution! That's a staggering ₹2,10,000,00,00,000 economic cost as farmers don't
want to wait for a few weeks to clear the old crop's remains manually or using machines.

— Kiran Kumar S (@KiranKS) March 5, 2019




• Auxiliary Battery Module: Rivian patent reveals removable battery for the truck bed.



• The promise of ultracapacitors: Why Elon Musk Spent $218 Million on Maxwell.



• Pakistani Reacts: Who is better, Sadhguru or Dr. Zakir Naik?

Quick notes: Navlekha, LinkedIn spies...

• Google sees gold in Indian languages: Launches Navlekha, a platform to help Indian language publishers get on the web. It will use AI to render any PDF containing Indian language content into editable text. It also added a new feature to Google Go, its search app, that now lets users listen to web pages in 28 Indian languages. In 2016, it launched the tap to translate programme that lets users translate an image or text to their own native language.



• Amazon India unveils Hindi website, app: None of India’s other leading e-commerce portals - Flipkart, Snapdeal or Paytm Mall - currently have a local language version of their apps or websites, and the move to launch a Hindi app and website could give Amazon access to tens of millions of new customers in India’s small towns and villages.



• How cars took over the roads: City streets used to be a public space. Then automakers invented the crime of jaywalking. "In the early days of the automobile, it was drivers' job to avoid you, not your job to avoid them. But under the new model, streets became a place for cars — and as a pedestrian, it's your fault if you get hit."






• Espionage: Chinese spy agencies are using fake LinkedIn accounts to try to recruit Americans with access to govt and commercial secrets



• China Wooing Eastern and Central Europe: Overseen by Premier Li Keqiang, the 16+1 platform convenes an annual summit between China and sixteen Central and Eastern European countries. The initiative will “split the continent” and preclude the EU from adopting a unified stance towards China.



• Coconut  oil:

Step 1: claim coconut oil is poison & kill market
Step 2: sell us some junk substitute
Step 3: patent coconut oil
Step 4: say oops, junk substitute is actually toxic
Step 5: sell us coconut oil

We've seen this kind of cycle before. Wiser now https://t.co/5cgCiPeIjh

— Smita Barooah (@smitabarooah) August 22, 2018




• Yoga for prostate health: Baddha Konasana, Supta Padangushtana I and II 



• Technology: Made in Israel

Quick notes: 5G cold war, Automotive liberation...

• A nationalized 5G network? Trump's national security team is looking at options to counter Chinese threat that include building a super-fast 5G wireless network. Beijing is pushing for a greater role in setting technical standards in the next-generation wireless arena. “What if China is so successful in a key 5G technology that the US military becomes reliant on it as a supplier?”.



• China's got a Railgun?: Looks like China just installed a railgun on a warship, beating the U.S. Navy to the punch



• High Net worth Individuals: 7,000 ultra-rich Indians shifted overseas in 2017



• The Automotive Liberation of Paris: The city has waged a remarkably successful effort to get cars off its streets and reclaim walkable space. Driving within Paris city limits has dropped about 45% since 1990. Meanwhile, the share of cyclists has increased tenfold over the same period. Transit’s share has risen by 30%.



• Arara: A battery-free magnetically powered bicycle light.




• Super Wood! Simple processes can make wood stronger than steel, able to stop a speeding bullet



• The battle against tech addiction: “Facebook appeals to your lizard brain”... “It has never been easier to run away from ourselves.”



• Church can be the 'Worst Place' to go for help: “Church is one of the least safe places to acknowledge abuse because the way it is counseled is, more often than not, damaging to the victim. There is an abhorrent lack of knowledge for the damage and devastation that sexual assault brings. It is with deep regret that I say the church is one of the worst places to go for help.”



• Appropriating Indian knowledge base: Do read this whole thread. 

Naturally, the Jesuits had no qualms about amassing any astronomical & mathematical knowledge from the pagan lands they went to proselytize in. India was no exception. They were very active in Kerala, where they gained access to Yuktibhasa, the seminal manuscript of Calculus.

— Joseph T Noony (@JoeAgneya) October 19, 2017

Driverless Tata Nano

Just so you don't feel that Google and Tesla are having all the fun with autonomous self-driving AI vehicles, a robotics researcher in Bangalore has modified a Tata Nano to turn it into a driverless vehicle:



Perhaps Ratan Tata should take a closer look at what this fellow has done. Maybe sponsor it for a cross-country self-driving road tour. It would at least be impressive for the trade shows. But "world's cheapest driverless car" also has a nice ring to it. Made in India!

Consider that if a large number of such cheap systems were to be put into operation, they could each be transmitting back information on various situations the vehicle encounters - just like your web browser sends information back each time it crashes. That accumulating pool of information could be continually analyzed to make the vehicle's AI smarter and more robust. The cheapest system would become the most widely deployed system would become the smartest and most robust system.

Given that companies like Uber are already clamouring for driverless cars to improve their business model, one of India's homegrown Uber-rivals might benefit from looking at this robo-Nano invention. The technology could also be adapted for defense applications and even space systems, after being stress-tested in the everyday world.

Maybe if any of Modi's "smart cities" take off, they'd be the ideal place to showcase such smart self-driving vehicles, and such cities could even be designed around facilitating them.