Quick notes: Shaksgam Valley | High protein diet...

• China Provokes India With 'Shaksgam Valley' Claim: If the Chinese and Pakistanis join hands, they have the resources to come down to Ladakh and into Leh. However, the presence of Indian troops in Siachen is a deterrent to China and Pakistan from joining hands in the Karakoram. Therefore, if that road is constructed to Aghil Pass and is connected to Khunjerab Pass, it will provide them access. China will connect as much of the Karakoram Pass as they can. They have also constructed a 170-kilometre artery from Gilgit to Siachen.
  
  Claude Arpi's insights on Shaksgam Valley.



• Artificial nation: Pakistan Should Actually Be 4 Different Countries.



• US Companies Face Anti-Indian Backlash: Indian American entrepreneurs who obtained loans from the government-backed Small Business Administration have been singled out for coordinated harassment.



• Why India-US Trade Deal Is Delayed: India has shown willingness to eliminate tariffs on nearly 95 per cent of US industrial exports and lower duties on products such as almonds, apples and avocados. Yet Washington continues to push for unrestricted access for dairy and genetically-modified crops, including corn and soybeans -- an issue deeply sensitive in India due to environmental, political and social concerns.



• On trade, DJT is CCP's biggest asset: Trump's protectionist trade policies allow China to swoop in. Canada allowing Chinese EVs is the latest.



• Transforming India Post into a Rural E-Commerce Powerhouse: Can India Post, a state-run entity with a massive presence and logistical network across India, reposition itself as a leading e-commerce player, not just a logistical support provider?
  
  The answer could lie in harnessing the power of its well-established network, employees, and extensive rural reach to create a transformative e-commerce platform catering specifically to rural markets. It will also enable India Post to have a good share of the emerging e-commerce era pie, in terms of volume of sales, turnover, and profitability, making it a brand like Amul.



• The Effects of High-Protein Diets on Kidney Health and Longevity: High-protein diets may be associated with a number of metabolic complications that may be detrimental to kidney health. . . Kidney disease death rate by country.




• India's State-Sponsored Sugar Addiction : Thanks to our policies, India produces way more sugar than it needs, using up precious water and financial resources; and as a result, Indians end up eating more sugar than is healthy.



• Madhav Gadgil, Kerala’s reluctant prophet: Gadgil was part of the scientific scrutiny that questioned the ecological wisdom of damming Silent Valley. That intervention helped reinforce an idea Kerala would never quite abandon, that development was not automatically virtuous and that expert knowledge could legitimately challenge state power.

Quick notes: Death by landslides | Power-hungry AI...

• Man-made catastrophe: Man-made Church-made disaster. 62 per cent of the green cover in Wayanad district disappeared between 1950 and 2018 while plantation cover rose by around 1,800 per cent. Around 85 per cent of the total area of Wayanad was under forest cover until the 1950s.



• Cardinal sin: Church organized agitations against restricting commercial activities in ecologically sensitive areas.

The truth is - The only voice that came out in support of Western Ghats was the RSS
The Kerala govt (be it Left or Congress) + Church vehemently opposed any recommendations to protect Western Ghats https://t.co/oTP0FzDnCs

— Viva Kermani🇮🇳🇮🇱 (@vivakermani) July 31, 2024




• Over-Tourism: Wayanad received more than 1 million domestic and foreign tourists last year, nearly triple the number in 2011 when a federal govt report warned against over-development. Kerala has witnessed nearly 60% of the landslides in India between 2015 and 2022 . . . . Experts panel locates 70,582 buildings in buffer zones; most number of structures in Wayanad



• Scientists May Have Discovered the Cause of Autism: Researchers investigated the link between polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) in umbilical cord blood samples and autism scores in 200 children. The study identified one particular compound in the umbilical cord blood acid, called diHETrE, that may have "strong implications" for ASD severity.



• "Muscular Nationalism": India-China military tensions persist even as their trade surges. India’s exports to China stood at $16 billion last year while imports were more than $100 billion.



• Why the Internet Is Running Out of Electricity: The massive power draw of Generative AI is overtaxing our grid.




• “Where” will the Energy for AI come from?: Google reveals 48% increase in greenhouse gas emissions from 2019, largely driven by data center energy demands.



• Generative AI patents: China beat the U.S. in generative AI patents by 6-to-1 for the past ten years — almost 10,000 Chinese patents filed last year alone



• AI superpower: Chinese AI built off open-source code matches American tech in chatbot benchmark tests.



• Google pulls Gemini AI ad from Olympics after backlash: "Why would anyone want to replace a child’s creativity and authentic expression with words written by a computer?"



• Vidushi Sangeeta Katti Kulkarni: Enna Paliso | Kannada Devotional

Quick notes: Muslim "brotherhood" | Millionaire exodus...

• Pakistan to start second phase of Afghan deportations: Beginning Sunday, authorities are likely to expel more than 800,000 Afghans from the country, after about 541,000 were forced to leave in the first phase in November last year
  
  The reality of "Muslim Brotherhood": Syrians in Turkey face deportation into an unknown future. "You could tell that Turkey wanted to get rid of us Syrians". "Turkey has always used Syrian refugees as a political pawn, whether through its EU-Turkey deal and the billions of euros associated with it, or to exert influence on the reorganization of Syria if the regime were to fall".



• Why RICH people will leave India: a. Quality of living b. Crony capitalism c. Stockholm syndrome-- people adjust to everything -- gas chamber pollution, pot holes, traffic snarls..




• Union Budget is not corporate India’s wishlist: Tax breaks can’t solely drive profit



• Anna University to rope in int’l faculty: “Our faculty members are working with many international faculties in various universities as part of their research collaborations. We will try to bring in some of these international faculty members for a period of one to two years”.



• The dark side of light: Light exposure at night may raise the risk of type 2 diabetes. Reducing light exposure in the evening and maintaining a dark environment could be a cheap and easy way to prevent or delay the development of diabetes, even for those who are high risk.



• Night owl behavior could hurt mental health, sleep study finds. Morning larks who rose with the sun tended to have the best mental health of all, to no one's surprise.



• China's Peru megaport rattles USA: China's Megaport In South America Could Spark Resource War With US



• Chinese C919 jet hopes to challenge Boeing, Airbus: China is marketing its commercial jet to the international market.



• Meera Bhajan - Aryya Banik




• A single modern AI GPU consumes up to 3.7 MWh of power per year: GPUs sold last year alone consumed more power than 1.3 million homes



• 'BJP Did Hit Wicket With 400 Paar': India Shining 2.0.

Quick notes: Semi-success | Cancer treatment...

• Semi-success: India approves three chip plants with over $15 billion in investments to realize semiconductor ambitions. Tata Electronics will partner Taiwan's Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp and will focus on 28-nanometer technology.
  
  Tata Semiconductor Assembly and Test Pvt Ltd will set up the second plant in Morigaon, Assam with focus on packaging technologies.
  
  CG Power, in partnership with Japan's Renesas Electronics Corporation and Thailand's Stars Microelectronics will set up the third factory in Sanand, Gujarat. All three factories will start construction within next 100 days.



• India makes progress with US$21bn chip proposals: The Indian government, after years of watching from the sidelines of the chips race, now has to evaluate US$21 billion of semiconductor proposals and divvy up taxpayer support between foreign chipmakers, local champions or some combination of the two.
  
  Both Tower and Tata’s facilities would produce so-called mature chips — using 40-nanometer or older technology — that are very widely used in consumer electronics, automobiles, defense systems and aircrafts, the people said.
  
  The Tata Group is also planning to build a 250-billion-rupee (US$3 billion) chip-packaging plant in eastern India that would assemble and export chips.



• Masterclass: Ashwini Vaishnav's masterclass on India's semiconductor ecosystem




• Taiwan's PSMC says chip engineer shortage top challenge in Japan: Taiwan's PSMC and SBI are jointly investing $5.3B to build a new semiconductor fab, but PSMC's Japan head says the biggest problem is a lack of engineers. Recruiting engineers from countries like India or the U.S. could be in the cards.



• Toy design? India’s homebrew RISC-V CPU goes on sale in new development board. The CPU is 32-bit and operates at up to 100 MHz, using only 256 KB of SRAM. This doesn't come close to competing with modern Raspberry Pi solutions



• The Magic of R+Cu: Tata Institute Claims Success In Cancer Treatment - With "Rs 100 Tablet". The 'R+Cu' when taken orally, generate Oxygen radicals in the stomach which are quickly absorbed to enter blood circulation. The oxygen radicals destroy cfChPs released in circulation and prevent 'Metastases' - The movement of cancer cells from one part of the body to another. The researchers claimed that R+Cu prevents Chemotherapy toxicity.



• Indigenous CAR-T Therapy Cures Patient Of Cancer: In simple language, the therapy includes genetically reprogramming a patient's immune system to fight cancer.



• Magnificent 7 profits now exceed almost every country in the world: The meteoric rise in the profits and market capitalizations of the Magnificent 7 U.S. tech behemoths — Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla — outstrip those of all listed companies in almost every G20 country. Only China and Japan have greater profits when their listed companies are combined.



• America sees surge of Chinese illegal migrants: Chinese migrants often take special “VIP” routes across the jungle that are led by guides working for the Gulf Clan, Colombia’s largest drug cartel, and are quicker and less strenuous for higher prices than the most basic routes.



• #southtaxmovement: Why south Indian states have started a tax movement

Quick notes: Capitulation on LAC | Thorium hope...

• ‘Abject capitulation’ by Indian govt: Military veterans fear that the creation of non-militarised “buffer zones" inside the India-claimed lines at multiple transgression points in eastern Ladakh may help the Chinese Army to force India to agree to its reinterpretation of the LAC.



• Pradip Shivaji Mohite: The Class 9 Dropout Who Is Building Helicopters



• Thorium hope: New Fuel Powers Up India's Green Nuclear Future




• Phone Addicts: Indians spend more time on their smartphones daily than the rest of the world. More than 881 million Indians are 'always on' -- those who can't do without their phones.



• Tower proposes $8B Indian wafer fab: Israeli foundry Tower Semiconductor has submitted a proposal to the Indian government to build a 65/40nm wafer fab in India at a cost of US$8 billion



• A Curious Business Model: India will pay 70% of cost but Micron will own 100% of plant.. Micron will hold 100% ownership of a plant that costs $2.75 billion after having invested only $0.825 billion!
  
  If chip-making is India’s goal, the Micron deal won’t deliver it. What we are getting—assembling and testing chips made elsewhere—is the lowest end of the chip-making technology. We are not competing with the US, China, South Korea, or Japan on chip-making but with, for example, Malaysia, which is already streets ahead of us in this sector



• Germany’s Days as an Industrial Superpower Are Coming to an End: China is becoming a bigger rival and is no longer an insatiable buyer of German goods. The US is drifting away from Europe and is seeking to compete with its transatlantic allies for climate investment. The final blow for some heavy manufacturers was the end of huge volumes of cheap Russian natural gas.



• Most charitable person: Jamsetji Tata, the founder of Tata Group, has been recognized as the most charitable person of the past century, having donated a staggering Rs 829,734 crore. This surpasses contributions from other global philanthropists, including Bill Gates, who secured the second position.



• Stay in touch with the earth: How walking barefoot improves your health. For spiritual seekers, the time around new moon is particularly significant to stay in touch with the earth.




• How China Miscalculated Its Way to a Baby Bust: China’s baby bust is happening faster than many expected, raising fears of a demographic collapse. And coping with the fallout may now be complicated by miscalculations made more than 40 years ago. A Moscow-trained missile scientist led the push for China’s policy, based on tables of calculations that applied mathematical models used to calculate rocket trajectories to population growth.

Quick notes: Nvidia | Resistant starch...

• "Nvidia armed China single handedly": "If you think about Chinese AI capabilities, Nvidia gave them extraordinary amounts of Nvidia GPUs. There's no other way to look at it. It was legal, but that doesn't mean it doesn't carry a moral responsibility."



• Microsoft wants to be less dependent on Nvidia: Microsoft unveils its first custom-designed AI, cloud chips. . . . . Why no chips from India, the "design powerhouse"? Waiting for domestic 28nm fabs to come online? By then, leading-edge tech will go past 2nm.



• China’s 7nm Breakthrough: How Far Can China Push its Technology?




• Game-changer, as long as we limit this to STEM: Keep woke poison out.

Serious issues nobody discusses:
1. How many billions spent by the 2,68,000 Indian students annually in USA & would it be better spent improving Indian universities
2. Impact on brainwashing them with Breaking India narrative.https://t.co/VpgbBvKieM

— Rajiv Malhotra (@RajivMessage) November 13, 2023




• Pasta and Rice May Be Healthier as Leftovers: Cooking and cooling causes the food’s starch molecules to become “resistant,” meaning its sugar molecules aren’t as easily broken apart and absorbed into your bloodstream as they normally would be. Because resistant starches aren’t easily digested, they don’t spike your blood sugar as much as regular starch does. Instead, it continues on in your intestines, where it can feed the good microbes in your gut.



• Eye drops recalled by Indian maker: Tainted eyedrops came from a company in Navi Mumbai called Kilitch Healthcare India Ltd.



• Traffic Acquisition Costs: Alphabet pays Apple 36% of Safari search revenue, Sundar Pichai confirms. Google spent nearly $49 billion in Traffic Acquisition Costs in 2022. Google’s TAC costs include all of Google’s payments to companies like Apple and Samsung to place its search engine in front of users.



• SriLanka redux: Nepal Is Investigating New Airport Made by China. Nepal’s $216 million international airport in Pokhara, the country’s second-biggest city, opened in January. The airport has failed to attract any regular international flights, raising concerns about whether it will generate enough revenue to repay loans to its Chinese lenders. Nepali officials have asked Beijing to change the loans into a grant to ease the financial burden, but China has not agreed to do so.

Quick notes: Donor revolt | Search engine...

• Put a billion-dollar hole in the University’s books: Wall Street titans help to fuel Ivy League donor revolt. Billionaires plan to stop donating to their preferred universities to protest how they have responded to the war.



• Law Firms Warn Universities About Antisemitism on Campus: “We look to you to ensure your students who hope to join our firms after graduation are prepared to be an active part of workplace communities that have zero tolerance policies for any form of discrimination or harassment, much less the kind that has been taking place on some law school campuses,” the firms wrote.

Some of the largest law firms in the country have a message for the deans of law schools who have tolerated Antisemitic activities conducted by their students:

If you want your graduates to get good jobs in our law firms, stop producing Antisemites. pic.twitter.com/JBrmJdslPa

— Joel M. Petlin (@Joelmpetlin) November 2, 2023




• $26.3 Billion: Google spent a staggering $26.3 Billion to maintain default search engine status on browsers and phones in 2021 according to a slide made public in a federal antitrust trial. Bernstein previously estimated Google could pay Apple as much as $19 billion this year for the out-of-the-box default placement on Apple devices.



• How Erode-native KP Ramasamy walked into the exclusive club of India’s richest: A visit to his native village Kalliyampudur will, however, lay bare endearing anecdotes of his philanthropy stitched across decades.



• When in Karnataka, speak like a Kannadiga: Online tuitions to make learning Kannada easy for non-native speakers. For details, visit kannadaonlinetuitions. Experienced moderators make learning easy, adding a personal touch, and improving fluency in no time.



• 1.7 million: Afghans forced to flee as Pakistan cracks down on refugees



• The Left-Islamist coalition: Yasmine Mohammed author of Unveiled




• Alcohol Might Be Ruining Your Orgasm: “It does make you think, ‘Oh, I feel hornier!’. But the irony is that, in fact, it’s a central nervous system depressant.” While it may contribute to relaxation and inhibition reduction initially, it can hinder the brain’s ability to process sexual stimuli and coordinate muscle contractions, which are central to the orgasmic response



• AI for Chip Design: Nvidia has unveiled ChipNeMo, a specialized large language model with 43 billion parameters aimed at bolstering chip design productivity. The tool promises to streamline various aspects of chip design by answering questions, condensing bug reports, and crafting scripts for electronic design automation (EDA) tools.



• Chinese tech: Chinese Phytium's New CPU Claimed To Rival Arm's Neoverse N2

Quick notes: Airlift | Harvard backlash...

• Tax payer funded PR stunt: Charter flights to facilitate return of Indian citizens stranded in Israel. Those who are returning will not be paying any fare and the tax-payer is bearing the cost of their return. Why? "Students were a little bit panicked". . . . . . . . 'Indians don't want to leave Israel'




• Schools urge parents to delete Instagram, TikTok: Concern over Islamists' barbaric videos on social media. The warnings are circulating not just in Israel but also in the US, UK - with some singling out TikTok, Instagram.



• Harvard cancelled over support for Hamas: Harvard silent after its students issue pro-Hamas declaration. A dozen CEOs back Bill Ackman’s call to not hire Harvard students who blamed Israel for Hamas attack

I have been asked by a number of CEOs if @harvard would release a list of the members of each of the Harvard organizations that have issued the letter assigning sole responsibility for Hamas’ heinous acts to Israel, so as to insure that none of us inadvertently hire any of their… https://t.co/7kzGOAGwp9

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) October 10, 2023




• Defund The BBC: Too woke to label Hamas as ‘terrorists’.



• After Yezidis, Islamists target the Kalash: Pakistan's pagan Kalash tribe targeted by Taliban. The Kalash are Pakistan's last polytheistic community, who have avoided mass Islamisation.



• One cure for diabetes, obesity, kidney disease? Ozempic shows promise treating kidney failure in blow to dialysis firms



• Babus don't walk: They care only about ritzy airports.




• Chinese EV Suppliers Plan Side Doors Into U.S. Market: Chinese battery companies critical to electric vehicles are pursuing deals with US free-trade partners South Korea and Morocco, seeking to tap growing demand in America and bypass rules aimed at shutting them out of the market.



• Help from China? Russia aims to mass produce 28nm chips by 2027, 14nm by 2030... if China is helping, what are they getting in return? Wide-body aircraft?



• Papaji: It's Here. Let it unfold and reveal itself.

Quick notes: Tone it down | Addicted kids...

• Tone it down on Khalistan: To be sure, there is no longer an active Khalistan insurgency in India, and Sikh extremist violence is rare now. One can ask what is gained by focusing so much attention on a relatively small group of people thousands of miles away who are committed to a cause that has essentially petered out in India itself.



• Kids Addicted: Majority of Indian parents say their kids addicted to social media, OTT. "Gadget addiction by children between ages 9-18 has become the new reality. The addiction, in some children, is leading to emotional, mental and physical disturbances".



• 'Coaching industry is toxic': It is unnatural to study without any purpose day and night. Your personality gets stunted. "Many of my engineering friends who are following the typical definition of success, have an elevated 'unhappiness level'. Many who have cracked these exams are now planning to go into business. They are realizing this much later after having run too far into this race. They join the corporate world and some feel burnt out".
  
  The coaching industry is the byproduct of a third world country. Since there are so many unemployed, it creates a competition among the unemployed. The institutes make you feel that if you clear the entrance exam you are very special.



• NYT features Anand Malligavad: India’s ‘Lake Man’ relies on ancient methods to ease a water crisis... After Anand Malligavad tumbled into a lake, he thought he might die. Not from drowning, but the stench. Like hundreds of other lakes in Bengaluru, the one Mr. Malligavad suddenly found himself in was a receptacle for sewage, plastic debris and construction waste.



• Millets for all: The pitfalls of growing too much wheat and rice can no longer be denied. The dominant varieties of these staples require large quantities of fertilizer, chemicals and water. They have been linked to lifestyle diseases. Meanwhile, the natural resource economy and nutritional benefits of millets are beyond dispute.



• Earthing Experiment with Dr Christy Westen: Power of Grounding




• Science with a spoonful of humor: Sabine Hossenfelder got famous on YouTube. Now it helps fund her research in quantum gravity



• Layered AI: Huawei vows to build 'Computing Backbone' for China's AI ambitions. . . . China stimulates investments in chips with massive R&D incentives . . . . . CHIPS Act tries to keep Quantum away from China. . . . China's third Exascale supercomputer reportedly comes online. Meanwhile, the US currently only has two exascale machines, Frontier and Aurora, in operation.



• Tied to next Indian elections: Is Biden using Trudeau to get back at Modi?



• Radical gender ideology: Trudeau accuses parents protesting grooming of manifesting ‘hate’

Quick notes: Super bugs | Earthing...

• Risk of 'Superbug' infections at Kumbh Mela: Clinics at Kumbh Mela have prescribed an excessive amount of antibiotics to the tens of thousands of pilgrims, primarily arriving with respiratory tract infections.
  
  Antibiotics disrupt gut bacteria: Every course of antibiotics disrupts our gut bacteria because antibiotics aren't targeted enough to only kill the pathogenic bacteria causing the infection. Instead, they go after all bacteria in our guts - 'Collateral impact'.



• The 'go barefoot' movement: Your shoes could be harming you... "Earthing is your birthright because you live on the earth".




• New Mystery 7nm Chip from Chinese Fab: Teardown of Huawei's new phone shows China's chip breakthrough. . . . . . . . China to launch $40 billion state fund to boost chip industry

In China, this vlogger took apart a Huawei Mate 60 Pro #smartphone, and all components are 100% developed/made by China (from #Kirin9000S chip to the camera)! This is proof that US tech blockade against Huawei failed! #China #HuaweiMate60Pro#Huawei @DongshengNews #TechNews pic.twitter.com/Ozw0fF5Smh

— China4Tech (@China4Tech) September 5, 2023




• Apple switches to USB-C: ALex Agius Saliba took on Apple and won in his battle for a universal charger policy that forced Apple to adopt USB-C.



• US takes on Google in landmark antitrust trial: The stakes for Google are enormous if Judge Amit P. Mehta upholds any or all of the US govt’s arguments. Remedial action could involve a break up of Google’s far flung business or an order to revamp the way it operates. The company has faced major legal action in Europe, where it was fined more than 8.2 billion euros for various antitrust violations, although those decisions are under appeal.



• Tech treat: How a Kalman filter works, in pictures



• Ban on Muslim robes: Dozens of schoolgirls sent home for flouting France's new ban on Muslim abayas



• Cyber Crime: Every day, around 20,000 Indians fall victim to cyber criminals, who also scam more than 140 Americans daily.

Quick notes: AI scraping | R Thyagarajan...

• AI Scraping: Big Tech wants to "digest" copyrighted works. Google is training its bots on millions of copyrighted works without permission. The company wants to change copyright laws so that it can grab any content it wants from the Internet, use it as training data for its AI products, and argue “fair use” if anyone objects to its plagiarism.



• The Economic Losers in the New World Order: Giant subsidies and rising protectionism are upending decades of free trade. The world’s biggest economies are offering huge subsidies in a cutthroat race to win the industries of the future. The losers: all the countries that can’t pay up. Smaller countries, from the U.K. to Singapore, are getting left behind



• India is a rising force in Southeast Asia: India is taking major strides to expand its influence in Southeast Asia, a move that will allow countries to counter China’s dominance in the region. “Since China hasn’t budged on the border issue, India now feels there has been no real return for its cautious attitude towards Southeast Asia”.



• Jumpstarting India's start-up dream: Tech is not mere real-estate play.



• R Thyagarajan: Indian tycoon gave away $750 million. He doesn't even own a mobile phone. RT founded the Shriram group in Chennai in 1974



• English Note: Prince Rama Varma




• When will UK return its loot? US returns haul of stolen artefacts to Italy



• What alcohol does to a woman’s body: For a variety of reasons, women can’t metabolize alcohol as fast as men, meaning they have more of the toxic substance in their systems for longer.
  
  Women have lower amounts of the enzyme, alcohol dehydrogenase, needed to break their drinks down, so they are left with higher levels of a substance that is toxic to organs like the liver. Moreover, women have less body water to dilute the alcohol they’ve consumed — the end result is that alcohol in their systems becomes more concentrated



• Toxic pharma exports from India: A cold medication made in India and sold in Iraq is tainted with toxic chemicals. The Cold Out label indicates it was made by Fourrts (India) Pvt. Ltd., a Chennai-based exporter of medicines.
  
  It’s the fifth time in a year that testing has found an Indian exporter’s drugs to contain excessive levels of ethylene glycol. Cases of Indian-made tainted cold syrups have been reported in Indonesia, Gambia, Uzbekistan and Cameroon, and have killed about 300 children in the past year.



• India’s English-medium craze stunts brains: The more highly developed the first language skills, the better the results in the second language.

English-medium education leaves students worse off not just in overall learning but even in English skills.

This is because a base of mother-tongue education is best for brain development.

India’s English-medium craze stunts brains.@SubramanianKri writes in TOI. pic.twitter.com/a195HxPiYg

— Sankrant Sanu सानु संक्रान्त ਸੰਕ੍ਰਾਂਤ ਸਾਨੁ (@sankrant) August 11, 2023




• Decouple: India bars makers of military drones from using Chinese parts. India relies on foreign manufacturers for both parts and entire systems as it lacks the know-how to make certain types of drones. "There has to be coherent national strategy to fill the technology gaps" to deliver commercially viable products.



• Despite sanctions, Chinese tech continues to thrive: China builds Exascale supercomputer with 19.2 Million cores.

Quick notes: China's loss | Drone ships...

• China's loss in India could be Elon Musk's gain: Chinese automakers face heat. Tesla has had a red-carpet welcome from India for its proposal to invest in the country, while its largest rival in electric vehicles, China's BYD, has been stopped cold by increased scrutiny from New Delhi.



• Explained: How India has clamped down on Chinese products, investment



• India Restricts PC, Laptop, and Server Imports: The aim is to curtail Chinese imports of popular tech products. IT security concerns might have also influenced this. . . . Delays restrictions.



• Drone ships: A new form of drone tech has been gaining momentum in the Black Sea.



• Child deaths due to Indian cough syrup: Riemann Labs, which operates out of Indore, has been banned from manufacturing medicines following an inspection by drug regulators. A batch of cough and cold syrup sold in Cameroon under the brand name Naturcold contained extremely high levels of a toxic ingredient.
  
  Earlier, the licenses of three cough syrup manufacturers – Maiden Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Marion Biotech and QP Pharmachem – were suspended and their exports were stopped after two of the firms were linked to the deaths of at least 70 children in Gambia and 19 in Uzbekistan last year.



• Horse gram: Best drink to burn cholesterol naturally and effectively




• Woke priorities: New York Times dedicates massive amount of time to reviewing vibrators. Refers to women as “people with vulvas.”



• White man is a burden: The UK will drill for more North Sea oil and gas.



• Chinese Firm's lithography breakthrough: Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group (SMEE) is on track to reveal its first scanner capable of producing chips on a 28nm process technology by the end of 2023



• Raag Jhinjhoti - Jhala: Michael Griska - Surbahar

Quick notes: Minority status | Best engineers...

• Minority status for Hindus: Delhi was the only govt that openly backed granting minority status to Hindus in any form at the state or UT level.
  
  Delhi said, "The central govt may declare the 'migrated minority status to the followers of Hinduism who are the religious minority in their origin state (i.e. J&K, Laddakh etc) and residing in Delhi after migration from their home state." . . . . . . Why are BJP states opposing this?



• U.S. vs. China: The race to develop the most advanced chips. After working for years to catch up on U.S. technology, China has developed a chip that can rival Nvidia’s powerful A100.




• 12 Countries That Produce the Best Engineers in the World:
   12. Singapore
   11. Israel
   10. France
   9. Sweden
   8. South Korea
   7. The Netherlands
   6. Japan
   5. Switzerland
   4. United Kingdom
   3. Germany
   2. China
   1. United States
  
  China has quickly emerged as one of the best producers of some of the top engineers in the world. It spent 2.40% of its huge GDP in 2020 for the purposes of R&D. Its Chinese Academy of Sciences and Tsinghua University are two of the top go-to universities in terms of quality engineering education. 



• Industrial espionage: How China sneaks out America's technology secrets



• TSMC Might Cut 3nm Prices to Lure AMD, Nvidia: N3 is an expensive technology to use. N3 extensively uses extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography for up to 25 layers and each EUV scanner now costs $150 million - $200 million, depending on configuration. Increased costs mean lower profits for companies such as AMD, Broadcom, MediaTek, Nvidia, and Qualcomm. . . . TSMC's 3nm Journey: Slow Ramp, Huge Investments, Big Future



• India joins lithium hunt: Not only Argentina, India is also eyeing lithium reserves in Chile and Bolivia. The Andean Plains straddling Argentina, Chile and Bolivia – collectively called ‘Lithium Triangle’ – have about 56 per cent of the world’s total identified reserve of Lithium.



• Dr. Jason Fung: Author of The Cancer Code: A Revolutionary New Understanding of a Medical Mystery.




• Why is alcohol so harmful? The main way alcohol causes health problems is by damaging DNA. When you drink alcohol, your body metabolizes it into acetaldehyde, a chemical that is toxic to cells. Acetaldehyde both “damages your DNA and prevents your body from repairing the damage. Once your DNA is damaged, then a cell can grow out of control and create a cancer tumor.”
  
  Even a little alcohol can harm your health, research shows. Alcohol also creates oxidative stress, another form of DNA damage that can be particularly harmful to the cells that line blood vessels. Oxidative stress can lead to stiffened arteries, resulting in higher blood pressure and coronary artery disease. “It fundamentally affects DNA, and that’s why it affects so many organ systems.”



• Nepo (nepotism) babies: Those who use their parents' wealth and popularity to build their own careers. "I don't know anybody who becomes anything if they're just handed money".
  
  Warren Buffett wrote in 2021 that "after much observation of super-wealthy families, here's my recommendation: Leave the children enough so that they can do anything but not enough that they can do nothing".

Virus export

Chinese tourists can spread dangerous new variants: 1000% travel spike forces Japan and India to require negative coronavirus tests and brief quarantine periods from Chinese travelers.

Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio said China’s “lack of information-sharing and transparency” about the coronavirus, and the “huge discrepancies” between tallies of infections and fatalities from various sources, compelled Japan to take steps to “prevent the rapid increase of infections in this country.”

Risk of new variants: The lack of transparent data from China—particularly about viral genomic sequencing—is making it “increasingly difficult for public health officials to ensure that they will be able to identify any potential new variants and take prompt measures to reduce the spread”.

Quick notes: Trade deal | Muslim refugees...

• Is it India's job to rescue her colonial masters? The UK economy is in shambles. India's economy is expected to double in GDP in the decade. India-UK trade deal - one-way street?
  
  The report of the House of Lords International Agreements Committee is replete with sermonising text. It observes, “India has a notoriously difficult business environment— corruption levels are high, business permits are difficult to obtain, tax and customs processes are complex, levels of contract enforcement are low, and IP protections are limited.”
  
  It also points out that the UK Government “has not been specific about the importance it will give to human, environmental and other rights and protections, nor (in most cases) about its red lines.”


.@RajivMessage explains the shortcomings of exporting India's manpower to help build foreign technology companies. He also emphasizes the need for #atmanirbhar in #research & #development as well. #aiandpower @NITIAayog
Watch the full conversation here- https://t.co/O0Y4HjKPKf pic.twitter.com/pSdZzh1N7W

— Infinity Foundation (@InfinityMessage) August 4, 2021





• Muslim refugees unwelcome in the Caliphate: Turkey deports hundreds of Syrian refugees. 'Taken to the border and forced to cross at gunpoint.'



• Cyber Jihad: Turkey secretly helped Pakistan in setting up a cyber army to shape public opinion and influence the views of Muslims



• Pope Francis: "Even nuns watch porn". He advised the group to "delete this from your phone, so you will not have temptation in hand".



• Drug manufacturing in India: Unregulated, out of control. Unlike other regulators like the TRAI and Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) does not have any statutory backing.



• Ubuntu on RISC-V, under $20 computer: At the heart is a 1 GHz Allwinner D1 XuanTie C906 single-core processor based on RISC-V architecture



• Why You Should Avoid Vegetable Oils We were told to use more vegetable, seed and bean oils (like soybean, corn, safflower, canola). Now we know this advice was completely wrong.




• Tennis is mad at Pickleball mania: Pickleball is more accessible and fun than tennis. An 'addictive' game that won't stop growing

Quick notes: Toxic remedies | Quantum entanglement...

• Poisonous prescriptions: The dark side of Indian pharma comes out with Africa's cough syrup deaths.. . . . India's lax drug regulatory mechanism under spotlight after 69 killed in Gambia.

  Drug regulation in India beggars the imagination. The black hole that exists is not a racket, it’s a crime against humanity. It directly affects you, your children, your loved ones.
  
  This book is a full inventory of this massive abomination. @d_s_thakur @Preddy85 pic.twitter.com/bObmBvFJpB

  — Ambarish Satwik (@AmbarishSatwik) October 11, 2022

  
  Drug regulation: Missing files and no accountability



• The Chips Act Shows How to Invest in Education: The Chips Act makes large-scale federal investment in innovative research and manufacturing of microchips. It has already stimulated private-sector investment designed to revive American microchip industry. Micron and IBM have announced investments of roughly $120 billion while Intel alone will invest $100 billion.
  
  But what many don’t know about the Chips Act is that its significant federal spending goes beyond manufacturing, innovation, and incentives for research and development. The act provides $13.2 billion focused on R&D and workforce development with a specific investment in education and in science, technology, engineering, and math skills. It will offer a real pipeline from schools, to college, to career for many students.



• The Universe Is Not Locally Real: And the Physics Nobel Prize winners proved it. One of the more unsettling discoveries in the past half century is that the universe is not locally real. “Real,” meaning that objects have definite properties independent of observation—an apple can be red even when no one is looking; “local” means objects can only be influenced by their surroundings.





• Daily Digital Detox: Village in Maharashtra declares "independence" from two modern-day addictions - television and mobile internet. At least, for a couple of hours every day.



• With 5G here, data is the new alcohol: The heady alcohol of the superspeed connectivity that the future generation of consumers will live in and take for granted in the future.



• What about other Indian languages? Amit Shah-headed panel wants Hindi replace English in IITs, courts in north India



• Stop poking at us with Hindi rod: All four southern states carry the same message: Leave us alone, we are happy with our own culture and language. Imposing a new language and a new culture would be a farce.



• Told you so: Rishi Sunak has earned some vindication, having made it clear he was ardently against fairytale economics of cutting taxes
  
  UK PM Truss U-turn on mini budget, raises corporate tax.
  
  62% of Conservatives feel they made the wrong choice between Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, compared with 15% who said they had got it right.



• Indians trying to enter the US via Mexico: More than 16,290 Indians were taken into custody by the CBP between October 2021 and August 2022.

Quick notes: Overtreating | Mantra meditation...

• “Doctor, is this really necessary?”: Prevent unnecessary medical care — by asking your Doctor these 4 questions first: "Is this really necessary? What are the risks? Are there other options? What happens if I don’t do anything?"



• Doctor's dependency on Big Pharma: The medical industry spends a great deal on marketing to physicians directly, with the majority of the “physician-focused marketing budget” spent on “detailing.” Detailing is when “pharmaceutical representatives talk directly to physicians to ‘promote and market their companies’ drugs.’


• Fastest-charging EV: China's Xpeng G9 SUV claimed to be world's fastest-charging mass-produced EV



• Self-driving tractor: Foxconn to make self-driving electric tractor in Ohio



• Chinese Exascale Supercomputer: OceanLight, operated by the University of Science and Technology of China, races neck and neck with crowning jewels of Western supercomputing achievement such as Frontier and Summit, as well as Japan's Arm-based Fugaku.



• The science behind Mantra meditation:




• Alcohol is a neurotoxin: Stop drinking, keep reading, look after your hearing: A neurologist’s tips for fighting memory loss and Alzheimer’s. “Alcohol is a very, very weak neurotoxin – it’s not good for nerve cells.”



• Afghanistan exit looks even worse a year later: Taliban 2.0 was a mirage, and the Taliban today is Taliban 1.0 with one major difference; they are far better armed than the Taliban that ruled over most of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. Now they ride into battle with American armored vehicles and M-16 rifles that were left behind as the US military rushed for the exits last summer. The Taliban today also face a far weaker opposition movement in Afghanistan than was the case for the pre-9/11 Taliban.



• Bride trafficking along the China-Pakistan economic corridor: Cases of fraudulent marriage between Pakistani women and girls — many of them from marginalized backgrounds and Christian families — and Chinese men who had travelled to Pakistan. The victims were lured with payments to the family and promises of a good life in China, but reported abuse, difficult living conditions, forced pregnancy, or forced prostitution once they reached China.

Quick notes: RISC-V laptop | Idol thief...

• The first laptop with a RISC-V processor is coming: The “Roma” laptop comes from a collaboration between China’s DeepComputing and Xcalibyte. It’s expected to begin shipping toward the end of 2022.



• The Idol Thief: Nehru’s aide who turned into an art dealer in the US.. We see many murthis from “Jaipaul galleries” still coming up in auctions, though all of them have dubious provenances. . . . India Pride Project.



• Behind the ‘Largest Art Theft in History’: How stolen art made its way out of the jungle to foreign collections and top museums. From Cambodia to the collectors.
  
  One of the sculptures, about three and a half feet tall, depicted Shiva, his lips in a hint of a smile, sitting cross-legged across from Skanda, who was rendered as a small boy extending his hands upward to clasp his father’s. Another statue of about the same height showed Skanda in his adult role as a god of war, sitting astride Paravani, a thick-bodied peacock, carved in such detail that each feather was distinct.
  
  Toek Tik and his men were probably the first people in centuries to lay eyes on these works. “For us it’s the heritage of a thousand years of ancestors. We see that material and also a spirit”. While Angkor Wat and its environs were eventually secured, few other temples were, and thieves secreted thousands of Khmer objects out of the country, leaving shattered pedestals and empty alcoves.



• ONDC to democratise ecommerce: The smallest Kirana store can be discovered and it will be worthwhile for many to enable such digitisation. Enablement and democratization is happening. . . . ONDC can become next UPI



• Professor E Balagurusamy: "As a person who has studied in a village in Tamil Nadu in Tamil medium, I can confidently say that rural students are on par with or better than students from the urban areas. I will go on to say that rural students are more motivated to excel than urban students. What the state government has to do is, improve the government schools instead of blaming entrance examinations".



• India orders investigation into Tata Motors EV fire incident: The incident follows a spate of e-scooter fires. Initial findings of the federal probe into three e-scooter makers found faulty battery cells and modules to be the leading cause of fires
  
  - Ola Electric slips to 4th spot as EV registrations fall amid fire fears



• Bird apartment: Pinjara Pol Goshala builds 6-storey ‘bird apartment’ in Jaipur




• Using drones for reforestation: DroneSeed uses seeds as well as seedlings, or young plants, from its own nurseries. It then uses heavy-lift drone swarms to spread them across the scorched land. The drones drop the seeds in contained vessels, called pucks, where they then root and begin to grow into seedlings. These pucks are made out of plant fiber and contain nontoxic elements, such as spicy pepper, to deter rodents and other mammals.



• Father Sebastian Keezheth: Kerala Catholic priest sends sleazy video to WhatsApp group of women and nuns; faces music



• High Enzyme Foods: Your intestines and pancreas create many kinds of enzymes, but many foods also contain enzymes or the bacteria that produces them. However, because the modern diet is primarily made up of cooked and processed foods, we don’t reap much of the potential benefits of dietary enzymes. This is because when you cook food (above 118 degrees), process or pasteurize it, you destroy its natural digestive enzymes.
  
  We must therefore rely on our bodies to produce most of the enzymes we need to help us break down and utilize the food we eat. This is why adding raw, non-pasteurized, unprocessed and high-enzyme foods to your diet can be advantageous in the quest for optimal health.