Sunday, February 18, 2024

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.