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: Malware attack | Secular BJP...

• Paki-North Korean connection? Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant's network was hacked, officials confirm... KKNPP said that the plant "and other Indian Nuclear Power Plants Control Systems are standalone and not connected to outside cyber network and Internet... Any Cyber attack on the Nuclear Power Plant Control System is not possible."



• Lessons from Maharashtra: Voters have not forgotten the state govt's proposal to set up a Muslim burial ground near the 11th century Shiv mandir in Ambernath and a Ganapati immersion ghat. At various times, the Fadnavis govt proved itself more 'secular' than the Congress-NCP.



• God save this nation: India keeps buying pig extract from China to make drugs despite swine flu in the dragon's belly.



• Bringing Cauvery Back: Efforts of local youth raise the hope of a bumper crop in Tamil Nadu’s Cauvery delta. “While some made fun of us, others tried to discourage us, saying we will not be able to go on with our initiative beyond a week, as only the PWD was best equipped to do the work,” says Nimal Raghavan, a techie by profession and a resident of the area.




• The economic value of birds: Seed Dispersal and Pollination, Pest Control, Scavengers and Sanitary Services



• Amazon: 11.2 BILLION in profit, $0.00 paid in federal tax.

#amazon's dominance in the US (from an article in the atlantic). the #BigTech most ready for antitrust breakup?

40% of ecommerce

50% of cloud computing

42% of books sold

1/3 of streaming market

11.2 BILLION in profit, paid $0.00 in federal tax

we need a local champion.

— राजीवः श्रीनिवासः (@RajeevSrinivasa) October 30, 2019




• Czechs get a taste of Han "friendship": "It was quite obvious that the only thing that the Beijing side was focused on was their propaganda, and not the political or cultural exchange we were interested in".



• There's Just Nothing: "There is no such thing as a person. The person merely appears to be, like the space within the pot appears to have the shape and volume and smell of the pot".




• Housing crisis and corporate responsibility: While Google is showing responsibility for the Bay Area housing crisis, Apple built its 175-acre “Spaceship” campus with no housing or access to major transit lines. Not everyone thinks Google is doing enough, but few housing experts have any kind words for Apple. “They have walled themselves inside their mini-Pentagon as if they don’t participate in community life here. So I welcome Apple to come to the table and be part of the community that they benefit from.” . . . . . . atleast Apple paid market rate for the land unlike Infosys in Karnataka.

Quick notes: Nuclear outage, Talcum powder...

• Bird poop caused nuclear reactor outage: Bird poop was the likely cause of a December shutdown at a nuclear power plant outside New York City



• Recipe for light: Salt water-run battery can power an LED lamp for 1,500 hours at a stretch.



• Talcum powder and cancer: Women who regularly used talc powder for feminine hygiene had higher than average rates of ovarian cancer



• Saving children from peanut allergies: Infants given peanuts frequently between the ages of four and 11 months are less likely to have allergies.



• "Allahu Akbar": Uzbek nanny beheads child in Moscow.



• Pastor snorting cocaine: "..molesting kids gets tiring after a while"

Quick notes: Toxic air, Kerala crops...

• Swachh Bharat: Bangalore second among Indian cities with highest air pollution levels (I am experiencing this first-hand these days). The Garden City has 14% of school-going children suffering because of air pollution. While New Delhi is at the first position at 21%, Mumbai is in the third place at 13% and Kolkata is in the fourth place with 9% of school-going children suffering due to air pollution.



• Agriculture in communist Kerala is at the brink of collapse: In 1960-61, Kerala contributed to nearly 70% of the country’s coconut production. In 2011-12, it was at 42%. It dropped further by 2.3% points the next year. In 1960-61 Kerala produced more than 10 lakh tons of rice. By 2012-13 rice production was down to 5.08 lakh tons. By 2012-13, in just a single year, area under rice cultivation had declined by 5.2%, and the production itself dropped by 10.2%.



• BHAVINI: India's first fast breeder reactor to generate power 2015-16



• Obama, Nobel Laureate: US arms Pakistan with combat aircraft, trainer jets



• Fear-mongering by foreign insurance cos?

What's with insurance obsession? India's social systems have been support unlike atomized societies. https://t.co/PiLtvfFnNs @sgurumurthy

— Sankrant Sanu सानु (@sankrant) May 8, 2015

Quick notes: Rushing to mullahs, nuclear dismantling...

• In-house opinion polling must have told Kejriwal that he was not getting sufficient traction in Muslim communities. This is the only rational explanation for his rush towards the nearest mullah.



• Dismantling begins in Fukushima: Engineers are preparing to extract the first of thousands of nuclear fuel rods.



• China's Universities increasingly popular among international students.



• Chinese hacking attacks resume: PLA Unit 61398 had stolen hundreds of terabytes of data from at least 141 organizations across a diverse set of industries. "They are still stealing the same type of data from the same industries".



• India has 13 of the 20 most polluted cities among big economies. Environmental degradation costs India nearly 6 per cent of GDP.



• Take a break:

 

Quick notes: Coal as charity, Tesla storms Europe...

• Kaangress Coal Charity: Supreme Court seeks details on power to allocate coal blocks.



• Japan switched off the last of its operating nuclear reactors and became 100% nuclear-free.



• Tesla takes on German auto giants. And this recent patent filing is making quite a buzz: Extended Range Hybrid Battery Pack System



• Software Defined Networking comes of age: Brocade Software Beats Cisco ASICs.



• French MNC Danone bribed hospitals to push baby milk powder. Other MNCs are also under probe for using money and sexual favors to bribe doctors and health officials to boost drug sales.



• If you are ready to commit "virtual identity suicide," delete your Facebook account, and say good-bye to social networking sites, you are not alone.  A social networking counter movement is emerging..

Nuclear: Consider the Cost of Waste Storage

According to the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change, “nuclear legacy” issues cost £2.5 billion, roughly 42% of the total budget. 

The Hindu: Protests against move to dump nuclear waste in Kolar Gold Fields

Blind To Fukushima

One study compared the health status of the inhabitants of five villages within 10 km of the Rajasthan atomic power station and four other villages more than 50 km away. It observed statistically significant increases in several indices including the rates of congenital deformities, spontaneous abortions, still births, and solid tumours in the villages closer to the reactor. 
It is unclear whether the industry itself believes its safety claims. The manufacturer of the Kudankulam plant, Atomstroyexport, is protected by an intergovernmental agreement between India and Russia, which completely absolves it of any responsibility in the event of a disaster. If anything, the risk of a nuclear accident in India is likely to be higher than elsewhere because of weaknesses in the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board.

The Hindu: Where the mind is full of fear

Indian Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor to Start in 2013

India's Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor will start operation in 2013. This 500 MW reactor will be the largest of its kind, and will put India into Phase-2 of its 3-Phase thorium program. The third and final phase will be when India has enough thorium-bred fuel to achieve full energy independence.

Meanwhile, other countries are also moving to do their own cutting-edge research projects relating to thorium energy, anticipating that it could solve the world's energy problems.

Australia Backflips on Uranium to India

Prime Minister Julia Gillard to seek support from her party to end the ban on exports of uranium to India.
The argument was that it did not make any sense to export the yellow cake to authoritarian China, a signatory of the NPT but whose proliferation record remains doubtful.

India can thank Uncle Sam for Julia Gillard’s uranium backflip

GE Masters Laser Enrichment Technology

GE is about to build its first laser enrichment facility for nuclear fuel, after having mastered the technique in the lab. It seems to be ready for primetime.

This is definitely a technology that India should also look to develop. Remember, not only can it be used for enrichment of initial fuel, but it could also be useful for reprocessing of spent fuel.

Massive Uranium Find in Andhra Pradesh

One of the world's largest uranium deposits may have been found in Andhra Pradesh, according to an announcement by the Indian govt.

Accelerator-Driven Thorium Reactor

A smaller and cheaper type of particle accelerator is being planned, which could finally enable the development of an accelerator-driven thorium reactor, which is a holy grail among thorium power supporters. Such a reactor could operate sub-critically, and would require no fissile seed material.

Pakistan: A failed state or a clever gambler?

BBC looks at whether Pakistan is merely a failing state, or rather a very clever gambler:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13318673

A few days after the Pakistani tests a government minister explained one of the reasons that decision was taken.

"We are a now nuclear state," he said. "So no-one can let us go bust. We may have turned down billions of dollars. But many more billions will follow."

How right he was.

Our irredentist Pakistani former masters show that they really know how to wield power, and understand what raw power is all about. Only those with a true Conquistador past like theirs can have that mentality.

Hybrid Fission-Fusion Reactors

Here's a small piece in the NYT on the need for research into hybrid fission-fusion reactors, which could provide a safer alternative to conventional nuclear reactor designs.

Indians have narrowly been only looking at using plutonium as the neutron source to breed thorium into fissile uranium fuel. But the fact is that fusion reactors, even if they can't produce net power output, can similarly emit neutrons as plutonium does, in order to perform the same thorium breeding conversion.

So hybrid fission-fusion reactors could also be used by India to accelerate the pace of the thorium breeding phase of its indigenous nuclear power program. Even if the Nuclear Suppliers Group could cut off all Indian access to foreign fuel, nobody can prevent India from building tokamaks for thorium breeding, as neither are they dependent upon uraniam nor are they fission devices anyway.

Fukushima 50, Yamato-Damashii, Thermopylae, Thorium

It goes without saying that the the workers who continue to struggle to stave off a meltdown at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant are heroes. Like the warriors of Thermopylae, the Fukushima Fifty are able to rise to the occasion, sacrificing themselves to protect their society. In India, whenever you hear about a truck accident or a train accident in the news, it's inevitably reported that the driver or conductor ran away. Japanese culture seems to have enough strength in instilling its dharma into the minds of the common people, so that even the ordinary person is able to maintain strength of character in such trying times. Note that this disciplined strength of character is in contrast to the wild, hateful and vindictive jihadi suicide mentality.

Meanwhile, Indian officials continue to issue reassurances on the safety of Indian reactors. To be fair, Indian reactors have incorporated more reliable features like passive cooling, which the Fukushima plant doesn't have. It's mainly the really old reactors like Tarapur which might give greater cause for concern, although it too has been given some overhauls.

But consider that India's thorium program might offer not just itself but also the wider world a safer approach to abundant nuclear energy.

WikiLeaks: NKorea Helping Burma Build N-Sites?

Is North Korea helping Burma to build nuclear and missile installations? According to the WikiLeaks documents, this may be happening.

US Diplomatic Cables Expose Pak Nuclear Problem

As a result of the Wikileaks disclosures, deficiencies in the US-Pakistan relationship over nuclear technology are being brought to light. Pakistan refuses to allow nuclear material to be removed by the US, claiming that such moves would be seen by the public as capitulation.

NYT Writes Spin Piece to Help China

NYT, in the Atlanticist tradition of always sticking up for China, claims that Beijing is doing all it can to rein in its troublesome neighbor. What rubbish. NYT could teach Niira Radia a lesson in how to rent journalists for puff pieces.

North Korea's Nuke Expansion Courtesy of China

North Korea has suddenly revealed its much expanded nuclear program, which has caught the world off guard. This could never have happened without China, as Forbes writes.

America's so-called "allies" have made fools of everyone. Their "ally" in the war on terror is a supporter of the terrorists, while their "ally" in non-proliferation is the chief proliferator.