"does india have a new strategic intent?" rajeev writes on pgurus

https://www.pgurus.com/is-there-a-new-strategic-intent-in-indias-foreign-policy/

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india and renewables

https://twitter.com/i/status/1199676747689742338

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Quick notes: Heliogen | Pilgrimage aid...

• Solar thermal breakthrough: Heliogen makes high-temperature industrial heat from sunlight, replacing fossil fuels in steel and other big-polluting industries.
  
  “The potential to humankind is enormous. The potential to business is unfathomable.”
  
  Heliogen employs computing power to keep the mirrors precisely aligned, thus generating even more heat. Using this approach, temperatures of more than 1,000 Celsius are achievable. And that was on its first try. The company believes it can produce temperatures above 1,500 Celsius--enough to split water molecules and produce hydrogen fuel.




• But wait, there is more! After pastor honourarium, Jagan govt hikes financial aid for Jerusalem pilgrims by whopping 50%

Chilukuru Balaji temple’s ‘pradhana archakaulu’ Sri Rangarajan garu on article 26.
Worth listening... pic.twitter.com/FU9wzlToIt

— Pawan Kalyan (@PawanKalyan) November 24, 2019




• Rules don't apply to MNCs: The Centre has prohibited the use of sachets for storing, packaging or selling gutkha, tobacco and pan masala under the plastic-ban-law but the packaging of chips, salted items and noodles by MNCs face no such ban. 



• Non-stop embezzlement: PSU banks report fraud of over Rs 95,000 cr in Apr-Sep 



• Chinese spy in Australian parliament: Beijing trying to infiltrate Canberra through donations and other means.



• China-Pakistan Economic Corridor: Chinese companies are importing materials and equipment from China rather than giving that business to Pakistani companies. They are bringing in Chinese workers amid rising unemployment in Pakistan. Chinese workers who earn money in Pakistan, take the wages back to China, leaving very little in the local economy.



• Tesla’s Cybertruck will have a solar option: Additional 15 miles of range from solar roof.



• Solar parks promote biodiversity: In addition to helping reverse soil erosion, ground-mounted PV systems can also attract myriad insect and plants species, thus reintroducing natural genetic exchange, much of which has been wiped out with intensive agriculture practices. 



• Is India ready for solar waste mountain? Indian-made solar modules don’t last long and waste is already piling up thanks to defects and faulty installation.



• Airline Loyalty: The award for the world’s most bizarre airline loyalty program award chart goes to… Air India!

why did india not go for RCEP? Rajeev Srinivasan speaks to @pgurus

next steps in #ayodhya

1. overturn 1991 places of worship act. 

2. set community governance model for hindu temples.

3. release all temples from govt oversight.

4. pass the member's bill by satyapal on item 3. 

in addition, do a major archeological dig, create a big museum with artifacts found. 

What next for the Ram Mandir?

Rajeev Srinivasan

Now that the initial euphoria about the Supreme Court judgment about the Ram Mandir has died down, it is time to take a more rational look at the way forward. There are several issues to consider, as I discussed with old friend and classmate Naras:

First, should the construction proceed with no thought to the artifacts beneath?

Second, should the design of the temple be revisited?

Third, what are the negatives in the court's decision? What's the small print?

Fourth, what is the governance model?

Design and Construction

The first and the second are closely related. There is a working design, and shilpis have been hard at work for decades, carving the stone pillars in anticipation of the judgment. 

There are two compelling arguments to proceed post-haste with the construction of the temple. 

The first is that is fulfills the dreams of thousands of bhaktas who have been waiting for this moment with bated breath; and that it honors the memory of the thousands of anonymous, ordinary Hindus who gave their lives for their ishta-devata. 

The second is that it is important to create 'facts on the ground'. Once the temple is built, it is hard to undo it. It is not out of the realm of possibility that the court will consider a review petition and do a significant U-turn. Best to create a fait accompli.

But there is a significant counter-argument, which is that we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to explore what's buried under the Rama Janmasthanam. After all, a little bit of archaeological digging by B B Lal and K K Mohammed led to the unearthing of a lot of history.

What lies in the levels below? Undoubtedly, since it has been a point of singular significance for Hindus for several thousand years, it is entirely possible that there are many treasures of our history and our faith buried deep underground.

Wouldn't it make sense to take this opportunity to dig deeper before construction? Heinrich Schliemann's digs at Troy revealed nine layers of earlier inhabitation. If you dig up the Purana Qila in Delhi, the seven ancient cities beneath it, going all the way to Indraprastha, will be unearthed.

I, for one, would dearly love to know what is there in Ayodhya. The inevitable effects of gravity -- stone sinks slowly -- mean that ancient structures would have disappeared further and further underground over time. 

Since the entire written history of northern India was lost when invaders burned the libraries at Nalanda and other universities, there is a giant gap in our knowledge of the past. Imperialists and communists later filled this vacuum with utter garbage. 

As we know, it is not the Muslims who objected to the Ram Mandir, it was the communists who chivvied them on to take a hard-line stance, assuring them that a Congress government would be in power and would always favor Muslims. 

Occasional archaeological digs have brought welcome news that overturns some of this 'conventional wisdom'. For instance, the discovery of a 4000-year old solid-wheel war chariot in Sanauli, UP, suggests that they, and horses to draw them, were known in India. 

We have no idea what even a limited dig at Ayodhya for six months might bring. But the time has to be now. 

Yes, it is true that recent advances in airborne laser scanning and ground-penetrating radar may help map out subterranean features. 

The new technology helped archaeologists discover a metropolis in the vicinity of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, now covered with dense jungle, dangerous because of landmines. 

But that would still be a vicarious pleasure. There's nothing like unearthing history, and then having them on display, as the Chinese have done with their terra-cotta warriors in Xian. 

With ground-penetrating radar, I doubt if we'd have the resolution and granularity to make 3-d virtual models or holograms of these long-forgotten artifacts, assuming they exist. 

Therefore, while it's important to have the emphatic fact on the ground of the temple as soon as possible, it may be sensible to do a quick dig with the best available technology and deadlines.

The question of the design of the temple is a related issue. To be honest, I am not impressed by the artists' impressions of the mandir planned. I would have imagined a truly grand structure, in my humble opinion a bit like Brahadeeswara or Akshardham. This is more modest. 

It is going to attract a tsunami of pilgrims, so it better be very large and planned for smooth foot traffic. It's desirable to design it from scratch to facilitate a good experience. I have experienced the crowds at Sabarimala and Guruvayur, which have exceeded their carrying capacity. 

Furthermore, there is 67 acres of land now available, including the core 2.7 acres of the actual janmasthan. 

Hidden dangers in the verdict

Then there is the small print. I have not ploughed through all 1,000 pages of the verdict, but let's recognize a ground reality: 303. This ruling comes in the aftermath of Narendra Modi's thumping victory. Judges are human too, and they are influenced by public sentiment. 

To put it bluntly, these are judges appointed by the Congress, and they are largely relatives of earlier Congress appointed judges or Congress politicians. How sympathetic are they to Hindu causes? 

The fact that they did not stay their appalling order on Sabarimala, despite the very strong statement by devout Hindu women, suggests: not very. 

Also remember how Congressman Kapil Sibal virtually ordered the SC to delay judgment till after the May 2019 elections? 

Therefore, what are the landmines they have left in the verdict? What happens if Congress comes back? Remember how they instantly re-toxified textbooks upon gaining power? The Congress returning is a Black Swan event: the probability may be low, but it's not zero. 

Call me a professional realist. But remember Andy Grove: only the paranoid survive. 

Ashok Row Kavi, who did read the 1,000 pages, put out a tweetstorm that was disturbing. Among other things, he said (I am quoting him without verification) the judgment:

• Ignores the continued centuries-long insistence of Hindus that this was indeed Ramjanmabhoomi. After all, faith is the belief of millions

• Suggested that this is the end; no Kashi, no Mathura, no other temples

• Based itself on the visit of Guru Nanak and of Nihang Sikhs offering havan in the 1870s 

Governance

What exactly is going to be the governance model of the Ram Mandir? I believe the Nirmohi Akhara, which had quite a good claim to manage it, has been totally sidelined by the judgment. 

So are we going to end up with another sarkari-run temple, with babus making the decisions? If so, then we have lost. #LetMyTemplesGo is a big cause, even, some might say, bigger than the Ram Mandir itself. 

We have seen how Devaswom Boards, HRCE and state governments have treated temples as entities for them to steal money from and grab land from. 

There has to be a precedent set with the Ram Mandir. The deity is a legal person, the court has held. As such, the deity has the right to own the temple property, and to ensure that it is not alienated. A corollary is that the government has no rights whatsoever over the temple.

That principle has to be upheld in full, so that the stranglehold of politicians over Hindu temples, and only Hindu temples -- a perversion of the apartheid Constitution -- is broken forever.

Then who runs the temple? Why, let's take a leaf from the churches and mosques that are left to their own devices, with the community of believers running them. Guidelines must be drawn up for representatives of the faithful to be chosen, who will have certain freedoms. 

Then and only then, will we have pushback on the millennium-old attacks on Hindu temples. 

1300 words, 14 Nov 2019

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the appeal of chinese platforms

remarkable story on how china has created a total platform (on top of android and ios). this is what facebook was hoping to do with its acquisitions of whatsapp and instagram, but by coming from the payments angle, wechat has managed to do it. now watch paytm try to do the same in india. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/13/magazine/internet-china-wechat.html 

india has a payment platform, UPI with BHIM. it's very good, but the one-stop shop idea gets customer lock-in

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Watch "Rajeev Srinivasan on the Cyber Security break-ins" on YouTube

https://youtu.be/8YIJaacXa7c

#replug. deconstructing #romilathapar, an example of #jnu 'excellence'

https://www.deccanchronicle.com/360-degree/080919/fuss-over-emeritus-who-is-shilling-for-thapar.html

this is the kind of 'teacher' who teaches 'history' at JNU. 

i have long felt the place should be hit with a neutron bomb. the buildings will be standing, but, well,... a shame about the commies. 

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Quick notes: English-medium | Thorium reactors...

• Land of Yesu + Macaulay: Soon AP will have no more Telugu medium govt schools.
  
  Research conducted by the Indian School of Business found that Telugu-medium students performed “significantly better” in math and science than English-medium students, despite the fact that the English-medium students often came from a more affluent background. Since math scores are a good proxy for cognitive development, essentially students educated in Telugu-medium had better brain development than those who study in English-medium. This is consistent with research from across the world where mother tongue education leads to better outcomes.
  
  
  “One of the highlights of my childhood education was discovering the system of *chhandas* in Telugu poetry, which has absorbed many of these ideas from Sanskrit, and has associated with it many computational aspects such as binary notation, use of error codes and even investigated, for possibly the first time, an algebraic structure such as a de Bruin sequence. The current education system seems to have taken these out of current syllabus to the impoverishment of Indian minds.”



• Andhra govt grants: Robbing Ram to pay Robert and Rahim
  
  1. New church construction: Upto Rs.1,00,000
  2. Church Repair: Upto Rs. 30,000
  3. Christian Hospital: Upto Rs. 10,00,000
  4. Christian School Building: Upto Rs. 5,00,000
  5. Christian Orphanage: Upto Rs. 5,00,000
  6. Christian Old Age Home: Upto Rs. 5,00,000
  7. Christian Community Hall cum youth resource centre: Upto Rs. 5,00,000



• Hacker attack on Kudankulam nuclear plant: North Koreans were eyeing information on thorium-based reactors.



• Why China loves "Free Trade": Non-Tariff-Barriers, unique to communist nations

#GlobalEcon: Conventional economists still don't understand that a Communist Party ruled country, whether its #China or Vietnam, or any nom-communist Dictatorship has acesss to dozens of Non Tariff Barriers(#NTBs), which are unthinkable in a genuine Democracy like #India. https://t.co/95Lwdkp81O

— Dr Arvind Virmani (@dravirmani) November 18, 2019




• Labour Party in damage control mode: British Hindus have increasingly supported the Conservative Party. While 30% of the Hindu vote went to the Conservative Party in the 2010 general election, 40% of it did in 2017.



• Baltic Tribes - Last Pagans of Europe: "Every stonechurch here is built upon our ancestors' sacred burial grounds, just to insult and prevent us to connect to them without judeo beliefs".




• India's English-medium "advantage": World ranking of countries by their average IQ
  
  
  

Quick notes: Robotics surveillance | Cow manure...

• Robotics surveillance: Can robots help in fighting terror in Kashmir?



• Cow poop to electricity: World’s first commercial solution to generate electricity from dairy waste. The CalBio-Bloom Energy system also removes methane that would otherwise have been released into the atmosphere. Cow manure contains approximately 65% methane, which has a 25 times greater impact on global warming than CO2 emissions.



• Bengaluru sitting on groundwater time bomb: Groundwater supply in the IT city will decrease from 146 billion litres in 2018 to 36 billion litres in 2041 due to over-exploitation.



• Why fasting bolsters brain power: Fasting improves energy metabolism in neurons and stimulates the production of 'Neurotrophic factors'. Improves the number of mitochondria in your nerve cells. Ketones provide an alternative fuel that boost the energy levels of neurons.




• Cut the cutlery: Plastic with your home-delivered meal adds up to 22,000 tonnes waste every month. . . . . . . Where plastic outnumbers fish by seven to one



• MNC overlords: 60 of America's biggest companies paid no federal income tax in 2018. Amazon didn't pay a cent in federal income tax on $11.2 billion in profits in 2018. In fact, Amazon claimed a federal income tax rebate of $129 million.



• China's J-20 Stealth Fighter Has F-35 'DNA': Beijing has heavily invested in industrial and military espionage. In 2007, Chinese hackers stole technical documents related to the development of the F-35. The details on the hack, eventually revealed in documents leaked by Edward Snowden, are just one example of Chinese attempts to steal foreign aviation technology; as recently as 2017, Chinese hackers went after Australian F-35 defense contractors, nabbing even more info on the cutting-edge fighter.



• The worse he behaves, the greater his weight in Europe: Erdogan has been expanding Turkey beyond its borders – starting with Cyprus, the Greek Islands, Suakin Island (Sudan) and Syria. In Germany, Turkey controls 900 mosques out of a total of 2,400. Speaking with Turks in Germany, Erdogan urged the Turkish diaspora not to assimilate, and called the assimilation of migrants in Europe "a crime against humanity."  He has spies throughout Europe through a network of mosques, associations and cultural centers.



• Brilliant law in the Philippines: Students have to plant at least 10 trees in order to graduate.

This law requires students to plant at least 10 trees in order to graduate. Brilliant law in the Philippines 🇵🇭! Other nations - please follow!

pic.twitter.com/CYw0vezADu

— Erik Solheim (@ErikSolheim) September 30, 2019

Quick notes: 491 years | Startup scene...

• K Parasaran: Dharmo Rakshati Rakshitah!

The man who ensured victory to Hindus after 491 years says:

dharmo rakshati rakshitah!

Listen to the words of 92 year old K Parasaran pic.twitter.com/0NYjpiaC5s

— Mahesh Vikram Hegde (@mvmeet) November 10, 2019




• US state department report: Nepal biggest operation hub for Indian Mujahideen.



• Isolate the innovation teams, move to small towns: Rajeev's insights into the Startup environment and Tech in India and how it can bloom.




• Really? Zomato made Rs 1001 Cr loss in FY19 on revenues of Rs 1,397 Crore



• Help the Kurds, not the Arabs: India is providing scholarships to 1,000 Syrian students to study in Indian universities, in undergraduate, post-graduate courses and even PhD



• Turkey Is Islamic State: For Syrian Kurds, and aid workers – the ‘safe zone’ is not so safe



• Su-30MKI: Russian designed, Indian built. . . . Pakistan may well achieve near-parity over time if it receives J-10 fighters from China (as well as the J-31, the quasi-5th generation fighter now being developed by the Chinese). Such near-parity between the IAF and the PAF would be completely unprecedented.  The power balance with the Chinese Air Force is an even greater worry for India.



• Walkability upgrade: Bengaluru's suburban rail network, finally on track?



• Clean-air hope: Electric bus manufacturing unit coming up near Pune

Ayodhya Verdict Grants Ram Mandir to Hindus

The Real Reason Hillary Clinton is Attacking Tulsi Gabbard

Quick notes: Free-trade champions | Paki exports...

• Beware of Hans bearing Free-Trade gifts: Data show that China itself imposes the largest number of non-tariff measures (NTMs) on India, more than any other country.



• FTA hit on direct taxes: The point often missed is that the govt of the importing country tends to lose that much revenue by way of lost direct taxes (corporate tax on profits, personal/corporate income taxes on salaries, interest and rent) which it could have gathered had these goods been manufactured within India. The govt should levy a withholding tax on imports equivalent to the loss in domestic direct taxes such imports cause.



• China enables Pakistan to become a defense exporter: Myanmar Air Force released pictures of four JF-17s that it had purchased from Pakistan. The deal was facilitated by China, which gave the country credit to eventually acquire 16 JF-17s.. Pakistan discussed future sales to Malaysia and Azerbaijan as well as sales of additional fighters to Nigeria, which now has three JF-17s.



• Drone Swarms: The high-tech future of war. A large number of cheap drones could be very useful for fighter planes.



• The warrior in us: Guru Gobind Singh conceived and implemented the idea of the militant order of the Khalsa—as a brotherhood of soldier-saints, pledged to invoke the name of the almighty, protect the weak, engage in charity and fight oppression. The distinct identity and appearance of the Khalsa ensured that they stood and fought, rather than take the easy way out. This moral binding added to the constant persecution by the Mughals and the experience gained in minor conflicts made the Sikh soldier what he became in the latter half of the 18th century—a war-winning force. For the next century, he was to remain in a state of relentless war, resulting in the Sikhs carving out an empire of their own.
  
  The martyrdom of Banda Singh Bahadur, Guru Gobind Singh’s political and military successor, in 1716 added the proverbial fuel to the fire, further fanning the Sikh ‘warrior’ passions. The warrior spirit sustained and continued to grow. They were able to strike at will, not only at the Mughal armies but also at new invaders from Central Asia.



• Something’s burning: The extensive cultivation of paddy in Punjab and Haryana is central to the problem. Being a water intensive crop (1 kilogram of rice consumes 3,000-5,000 kg of water), the two States have sought to reduce groundwater drawals in the dry April-May period by mandating that paddy cultivation can only begin around mid-June.  This has pushed the harvest date by six weeks to October when it is almost time to plant the rabi crop. The fields need to be cleared in a hurry, and stubble and straw burning is simply the fastest and cheapest way to do it



• Life-threatening 'Vikas': Air pollution has cut short lives of Indo-Gangetic plain residents by seven years. There has been a 72% increase in pollution from 1998 to 2016 in the region. . . . . . . .  PM 2.5 pollutants are toxic and so small that these beat the body's defences and settle deep into lungs from where these spread to the bloodstream and other organs causing inflammation and are linked to asthmatic attacks, strokes, heart attacks, even dementia.



• Desis Leave New Jersey Streets Dirty:

Ashamed to be called an Indian

Last Night on Indian Street near Journal Square New Jersey

Hats off to NJ Police handling the mess Very professionally 👏👏 pic.twitter.com/39nVmGaejO

— sANDhya (@DhooDala) October 28, 2019




• Energy storage without batteries: Pumped hydro storage, Power-to-hydrogen, Thermal storage...