Pakistan, US seal trade deal

"Massive" Oil Partnership With Pak: The US struck a trade deal with Pakistan, hours after announcing 25% tariffs on imports from India.

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Fourth-largest oil and gas reserves in the world: This could be a potential game-changer in the region’s energy flows... Fictitious reserves?

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"India can take its dead economy down for all I care"

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China spared, India sanctioned: 6 Indian Companies Sanctioned By US Over Iran Petroleum Purchases

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Why Trump doesn't want Google, Microsoft to hire Indians: He wants a new "spirit of patriotism and national loyalty".

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From the archives: 'Abki Baar, Trump Sarkar': PM Modi gives tacit support for Trump's re-election in 2020

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Quick notes: Gigafactory, Oil addiction...

• 30 GWh: BHEL-led consortium may build India’s first Li-ion Gigafactory



• Costly addiction to oil: In 2019, India’s demand for crude oil will grow faster than China’s. In 2018, the rupee was Asia’s worst-performing currency as higher crude prices triggered a sharp depreciation



• One-way-street: Chinese online retailers doing brisk business in India

Under Trump administration pressure to cut its trade surplus, India has committed to buying $5 billion worth of U.S. oil and gas yearly and $18 billion worth of US arms. Does India exert such pressure on China, whose trade surplus with India is 225% higher than India's with U.S.?

— Brahma Chellaney (@Chellaney) January 16, 2019




• Local is key: Indian startups are taking baby steps towards a vernacular internet. . . Amazon spends record on lobbying in 2018.



• Is fasting the fountain of youth?: How fasting may help you live longer



• Shia leader: Madrasas producing IS supporters, ban them



• Core Right agenda for a modern India:




• Solitude: If we lose our capacity for solitude, we risk getting caught up in the crowd. We risk being ‘swept away’ by what everybody else does and believes in. Before we can keep company with others, we must learn to keep company with ourselves.



• Black lotus: When Ola's Bhavish Aggarwal was stumped by an Indian monk who sold his Porsche 



• Post-Work: The radical idea of a world without jobs

Quick notes: Jihadi counselling, Proselytizing padre...

• This is how we deal with potential hardcore terrorists: Hyderabad police foiled the bid by nearly six youth to join IS. In September, cops detained four engineering students from the Old City in Kolkata before they could travel to Syria via Bangladesh to join IS. The youth were handed over to their parents after counselling.  Police, however, did not register a case against them. Later, a former Google employee was held for having connections with the terrorist group. Police also claimed that 15 other youth were discouraged from being attracted towards IS.



• Conversion to Christianity is a low-key affair, ghar wapsi is shrill and blunt: At every home with an ailing member, a “father” would magically appear and promise a full recovery. In return, he would want the family to surrender to Jesus Christ. Medicines would be supplied and once the said recovery was achieved and the family converted, the charity visits would cease. Many converts said they got no help from the “father” during subsequent illnesses. Many other tribals converted through children studying in missionary schools.



• Possible Pak Puncture: Islamic State group reaches for Afghanistan and Pakistan.



• Five Layers of Fencing: Saudi Arabia Is Building A 600-Mile 'Great Wall' To Shield Itself From ISIS



• How will India respond? China’s earlier-than-expected test flight of the fifth-generation J-20 stealth fighter has caught the world defence establishment napping. 



• Advanced jammers to help Tejas evade enemy radars. The standard Tejas aircraft is equipped with an EW suite produced by Israeli firm Elisra, a unit of Elbit Systems.



• Stealth Drone: China May Have Just Unveiled A New Stealth Drone.... Indo-US joint drone?



• Falling oil: Senators call for federal gas tax hike


Quick Notes

UPA does the expected, favors RIL

In a major victory for Reliance Industries, the Union Cabinet approved doubling of natural gas prices to $8.4 per million BTUs from April, 2014. Steep hikes in Power tariffs and fertilizer prices to ensue.

Deccan Herald: Govt doubles natural gas price

North America To Turn Net Oil Exporter

A shale oil boom means the U.S. will overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's largest oil producer by 2020, a radical shift that could profoundly transform not just the world's energy supplies, but also its geopolitics, the International Energy Agency said Monday.

Some in the U.S. are already questioning the reasons for keeping U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf. "It's insane that we have the Fifth Fleet of the U.S. Navy tied up there to protect oil that ends up in China and Europe"...

WSJ: Shale Boom to Turn U.S. Into World's Largest Oil Producer

Petrobras: Brazil's Investment in the Future

In contrast to the Indian govt's empty showboating, the Brazilians have been forging ahead and down deep, in making deep investment's in their country's economic future through the exploitation of deep-ocean oil reserves.