Quick notes: Reality check | Gig worker...

• Reality check: India's bid to match China's factory heft gets a reality check. Goods imports have surged 56% since the 2020 border clash while India's trade deficit with China has nearly doubled to $85 billion. China continues to be India's biggest source of goods and was the largest supplier of industrial products last year.



• "De minimis": Biden takes aim at Shein, Temu with trade crackdown. . . . Guess who comes to China's rescue? Ambani and Modi sarkar!... yay! hindi-chini-bhai-bhai!



• Decline: India losing out to countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam in manufacturing. Direct employment related to exports fell from 9.5 percent in 2012 to 6.5 percent in 2020. . . . India’s share in global FDI falls to 2.1% in 2023 from 6.5% in 2020.



• Irrational exuberance: $5.5 trillion and ticking: Beware! The pressure is building in India's stock markets



• Gig worker exploitation is rampant: "I worked as a food delivery boy in Bengaluru. Guess how much I earned in a week".




• AI’s massive thirst for energy: Mr ChatGPT and other AI power players are going to the White House to discuss AI’s massive thirst for energy. . . Oracle will use three small nuclear reactors to power new 1-gigawatt AI data center



• Nikah mut’ah: Sex tourism in Indonesia sells itself as Islamic temporary marriage. . . Taliban’s 'reforms' lead to 21,000 musical instruments destroyed in Afghanistan



• India leads the world in generating plastic waste: Producing 10.2 million tons a year (9.3 million metric tons), far more than double the next big-polluting nations, Nigeria and Indonesia. China, often villainized for pollution, ranks fourth but is making tremendous strides in reducing waste.



• China’s Megadams Create Power and Destroy Homes on the ‘Roof of the World’:




• The Once-Dominant Tank Is Getting Humbled on the Battlefield: The rise of drones has prompted armies to change tactics and add defenses to the powerful armored vehicles.

Facebook Ban Against OpIndia - How to Respond

Facebook is now banning anyone from sharing articles from OpIndia:

https://www.opindia.com/2024/09/facebook-bans-opindia-dossier-exposing-wikipedia/

This ban follows a concerted smear campaign against OpIndia by the Left:

https://www.wired.com/story/india-opindia-google-facebook-advertising/

We've seen the big furor Wikipedia has triggered in Indian courts by refusing court directives on ANI.

If ANI can move the courts on Wikipedia, then OpIndia should try doing the same against Facebook.

Or Alternatively:

Just as US authorities are now talking about divesting Tiktok from Chinese ownership so that it can function independently in America, likewise we Indians should talk about doing the exact same thing for Facebook, Wikipedia, etc in India.

If US can justify this, then we can too.

why is telegram being hounded right now? what is different about it?

is there a good reason why social media is under attack?

https://open.substack.com/pub/rajeevsrinivasan/p/ep-137-dr-abhishek-puri-on-the-telegram?r=66qfh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true 

bring on censorship of western media!

https://open.substack.com/pub/rajeevsrinivasan/p/ep-136-the-case-for-censorship-disinformation?r=66qfh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

what if china attacks through myanmar, northeast and bangladesh?

a doomsday scenario for india and an existential threat.

so taiwan could be a feint, and india the real front.

remember how xi insulted and humiliated hasina? he KNEW hasina would be out. how?

this may well be the chinese plan.

a win-win for all except india

1. china gets access to bay of bengal and truncates india

2. americans get to observe china's fighting capacity

3. pakistan gets revenge on india for balkanizing it

4. bangladesh gets revenge on india and reverts to being east pakistan

https://open.substack.com/pub/rajeevsrinivasan/p/ep-135-narayanan-komerath-on-the?r=66qfh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Netflix Series 'IC814' Shows Terrorists Sympathetically, Provoking Outrage

When Obama and his crony Susan Rice have been on the board of Netflix, it's not hard to see how it became a garbage factory:

Quick notes: Predatory MNCs | Thorium solved...

• E-commerce MNCs a threat to India: Amazon not doing India a favour by investing billions of dollars: Piyush Goyal.... “If you made ₹6,000 crore loss in one year, does that not smell of predatory pricing to any of you? Where did that loss come from?” The role of e-commerce in the Indian economy needs to be carefully evaluated and made citizen-centric to ensure there is no social disruption that may affect about 100 million small retailers across the country, the Minister said.




• Waqf through the ages: How Rs 1-lakh crore property owner board acquires land... Entire village's land snatched away overnight, shocking reality of Thiruchendurai



• Time To Shut Down Coaching Classes? Nobody wants to learn from the Chinese, but see how Xi Jinping addressed it in 2021. He demolished his entire tuition and coaching industry overnight. Reasons given: It was straining the finances of families, causing inequality, wasting families' time and taking young people away from more fun things. Everything, including coaching centres for China's famed UPSC equivalent, Gaokao, was banned. There was to be no tutoring for profit, no IPO listings, no share sales, limits on online learning, no mergers, acquisitions, foreign collaborations. End of story.



• Thorium solved?: China to launch world’s first thorium molten salt power station<. Moving away from the water cooling model, this design significantly reduces the chances of meltdowns. Further, thorium reactors generatw less toxic and short-lived radioactive waste than uranium-fueled ones, thereby easing long-term disposal. They offer several potential advantages over traditional uranium reactors, including increased safety, reduced waste and improved fuel efficiency.... Thorium MSRs are a type of advanced nuclear technology that use liquid fuels, typically molten salts, as both a fuel and a coolant.




• AI's insatiable energy demand: Amazon's purchase of a data center campus adjacent to a nuclear power facility speaks to a broader issue that Amazon and other tech giants are grappling with: the insatiable demand for energy from AI... not just power, AI is guzzling water too.



• Beijing increases its influence in Nepal: Tibetans in Nepal not free to celebrate Dalai Lama's birthday.



• Foxconn: Southern states look to outfox each other in hunt for a Foxconn ‘city’... 1. Land is all our politicans can think of. 2. And why no Hindi state or BJP ruled state in this race?



• Environmental concerns persist as Amaravati 'world city' rises: “Amaravati is likely to be an environmental disaster in making. There are a series of environmental issues involved, revolving around forests, water bodies, wetlands, floodplains and the riverbed. It is a flood-prone area. Flood mitigation measures are going to be expensive”.... Rains turn Vijayawada into a lake.

india has to up its game in bangladesh in view of the regime change

https://open.substack.com/pub/rajeevsrinivasan/p/ep-134-the-geo-political-fallout?r=66qfh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true