Quick notes: Bad loans | RCEP sequel...

• Indian banks wrote off Rs 2 trillion in bad loans in 2018-19: Even if the loan recovery rate were to improve to 50% in coming years, India’s banks would still never be able to recover Rs 5 trillion from various errant corporate borrowers.



• Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train: Not a priority, says Shiv Sena 



• A swadeshi success story: 640 coaches of Train 18 to be manufactured in coming years



• RCEP: Japan won’t sign China-backed RCEP if India doesn’t join. . . .  Tokyo indicates efforts are on to address India’s concerns on RCEP



• Get a house that lasts three lifetimes in just 3 days: Light gauge steel, said to be rust-free and stronger than regular steel, is used to build the house frame.  The frame is then filled with thermoforming, following which concrete is sprayed from the inside as well as the outside to make six-inch-thick walls. These buildings are environmentally-friendly, as there is no burning of bricks.



• Resurrection of Bateshwar Temples: KK Muhammed, the anti-Ghazni




• Throwing my garbage into your home: Bengaluru sends truckloads of trash – full of maggots, flies and dengue-bearing mosquitoes – to the landfills in villages around us, filling the air with stench, polluting their water, ruining their fertile lands, poisoning their cattle, and destroying their health. The trash dumps are conveniently located (for us, not for them) – far from the city, so we don’t have to see where our trash goes.



• VikAss: India's sacred groves are disappearing, taking biodiversity and culture with them. Over the last 60 years, the number of sacred groves in Kerala has shrunk from more than 10,000 to less than 1,500.



• UP govt's love for booze: The state govt requires sugar mills to provide fixed amount of molasses to alcoholic drinks manufacturers at rates well below market levels



• Ferry Operators Switching From Diesel to Batteries: “This is a good idea because it quiets the boats while obviously removing tons of diesel fuel emissions. It saves millions of dollars annually.”



• Nuclear capable Agni-III missile fails in maiden night trial: “Suddenly it started behaving abnormally. It could be possibly due to metallurgical defects”.

Quick notes: Train-18 | Game changers...

• Train-18 success story: The real importance of Train 18 lies in the lessons it holds for frugal engineering, project management and empowering managers who dare to dream big.. General manager S Mani conceptualised the project and tenaciously followed up for getting the Railway Board to approve for the ICF to build two prototype train-sets.  With just about 18 months left for his superannuation, Mani put together a key team at the ICF with a remit to “design and manufacture the best train ever made in India,” matching world standards.



• Taking baby steps: Apple starts selling 'Assembled in India' iPhone XR model



• Kanwal Sibal: “China did not play by WTO rules, so will it play by RCEP rules?”
  
  RCEP will bypass WTO and offload excess agricultural produce from China, like grains, seeds and milk, into the Indian markets freely. Shifting our balance of payment and food sovereignty into the hands of China will be detrimental to the nation.



• Indian tech needs State-Capitalism: Within Banglore there must be enough knowledge to build what Huawei has. But they all sit in US cos.

Within Banglore there must be enough knowledge to build what Huawei has. But they all sit in US cos. India is a huge market but we haven't used our market power. China doesn't buy anything from US without insisting that they want 10 % IP in the product in 3 years.
Prof Paul Raj

— Nilesh Shah (@NileshShah68) October 22, 2019




• Game Changers: Netflix documentary aims to convert body-builders and athletes to plant-based diets




• Reject Halal food:

People across the world are rejecting Halal food. Here are the reasons. pic.twitter.com/btLle3HO2s

— Upword (@upword_) October 21, 2019




• Car-free cities are picking up speed . . . . . Car ownership is a trap that can be prevented.
  



• Someone talking sense: Install solar power panels on rooftops, not in large farms or power plants. The main advantage of solar is that they can be installed at a micro level even on the rooftop, but the govt is more focussed on larger plants.



• Uighur Gulag: Did a Muslim slave make your Chinese shirt?



• China is developing 'Magnetized Plasma Artillery': The magnetized plasma layer protects the gun barrel from wear and heat, and allow the projectile to achieve a higher launch velocity.



• Egg on their face: Exit polls way off mark

Biggest lesson for BJP.

When people have great expectations from you, if you fall short, they punish you a lot more than they would someone from whom they expect nothing.

Modi has raised expectations to an unprecedented high....state leaders have to measure up.

— विनोद शर्मा 🇮🇳 (@vinod_sharma) October 24, 2019




• Inequality For All: Something skewed about India's "growth story"

Quick notes: Indian surrender, TVR Shenoy...

• Accepting defeat: India has sought China's assistance to speed up Bengaluru-Chennai railway corridor besides redevelopment of Agra and Jhansi railway stations.



• Trade deficit with China doubles in a decade. “Chinese exports mostly manufactured items while India’s exports to China are mostly primary products like ores, slag and ash, cotton etc”



• Unhealthy state: Share of exports in GDP at 14-year low of 19.4%



• Corporate debt to equity is at all-time high: The biggest ever fire sale of Indian corporate assets has begun, to tide over bad loans crisis



• Corporates make 73% of bad loans: Rs 4.70 lakh crore worth of public sector bank bad loans were due to loans extended to industry.



• TVR Shenoy: India's first 'Sangh journalist'... Editor who saw the future.
  
  
  



• Next East India Company: Amazon's India bet is paying off big time



• China is winning the 5G race: “When you control telco networks, you can control everything”.



• Grasshopper: A learn-to-code app from Google’s Area-120 incubator



• Water From the Sun: Solar-powered water pumps offer farmers a way out of poverty



• Language route to tackle Maoist issue: The govt can't talk in tribal languages and doesn't understand what's the largely Gondi-speaking sons and daughters of the soil wished to convey. The tribes on the other hand consider Hindi as a language of the upper caste. Because of the language divide, welfare schemes don't percolate to them in forests.

Quick notes: Nepal vote, Loss of night...

• Nepal vote set to favor China over India: The communist alliance has prioritized rail and road networks with China and has already vowed to revive the Budhi Gandaki Hydropower Project if they gain power. Harder stance against India, softer towards China.



• Naxals using kids as shields: "I was in Class 5 at an ashram in Sameep village. Once, I had to stay home because of fever. The local militia commander Ramlal took me away,"



• ‘Loss of Night’: Serious effects on the Earth’s ecology as artificial light is depriving the planet of its nights.



• Parking fees  and congestion charges: Chandigarh looks for radical solutions to fix traffic woes.



• Semi-high speed project: Delhi-Chandigarh 200-kmph rail corridor to cost Rs 11,000 crore. Total travel time will be 2 hours



• Tesla’s Newest Promises Break the Laws of Batteries:  Elon Musk touted ranges and charging times that don’t compute with the current physics and economics of batteries. 



• Nirvana Shatkam:




• Good old stories: Chandamama available online in Telugu, Hindi and English. More languages coming.



• Words of Wisdom: The best "Make in India" product is our people; we export these aplenty.

The best "make in India" product is our people; we export these aplenty? https://t.co/JNGgaQGhj2

— Makarand R Paranjape (@MakrandParanspe) November 23, 2017




• Extreme Heat: Los Angeles is painting its streets white. To lower the temperature by 3 degrees over the next 20 years. Black pavement absorbs heat from the sun... Read more.

Quick notes: Unsafe tracks, Diabetes reversal...

• Bibek Debroy: For 95% commuters, Bullet train means nothing.



• Financial viability: An IIM Ahmedabad study estimated the bullet train would have to ferry 88,000-118,000 passengers a day for the railways to keep it financially viable.



• Not made in India:

2/n Most countries that introduced BulletTrains did after developing own know-how to prove they'd arrived.Only India importing &yet boastful

— MadhuPurnima Kishwar (@madhukishwar) September 14, 2017




• Diabetes reversal hope: Reversal of diabetes is now "clearly attainable" for some, possibly many, but most patients and doctors remain oblivious to these developments



• Centre makes Rs 1.6 trillion (Rs 1.6 lakh crore) more on fuel: Additional excise duty imposed by the NDA government on petrol and diesel after coming to power.



• Preventing oil addiction: The Jaggi lists 10 reasons why high oil taxes are good for India.



• Is BJP losing support? RSS alerts the BJP to credible signs of a shift in the public mood over govt's failures -- economic slowdown, job losses and dismal job creation, the failure of demonetisation to throw up immediate results and unrest among farmers.



• Who funds anti-BJP newspapers? The BJP, who else.



• The Han solution: Man sentenced in China for teaching Quran online



• They understand hacking, they do it all the time: China Reportedly Has a Secure Quantum Communication Network

Quick notes: Yoga for bone health, Holiday lights...

• 12 Minutes of Yoga for Bone Health: Yoga builds bone mineral density after menopause, a multi-year study at Columbia University shows. Unlike allopathic remedies for osteoporosis, yoga’s side effects include “better posture, improved balance, enhanced coordination, greater range of motion, higher strength, reduced levels of anxiety and better gait.”



• Santa stupidity: US holiday lights burn more electricity than a developing world country does in a year.



• Lalu fires off at bullet train: "PM should explain the viability of Bullet train project".



• Syed Imad Hasan: Techie held in Hyderabad for illegally confining female colleague



• Unhinged: 50 percent of survey respondents – Democrats and Republicans alike – say they would be embarrassed to have Trump as president, compared with 35 percent who say Clinton would be an embarrassment as president.

Quick notes: Top ranked university, Minority institutions...

• Top ranked university: Highest Number of Sexual Harassment Cases in JNU



• A nation controlled by minorities? "The number of educational institutions granted minority status by the NCMEI has increased from 21 in 2005 to 11,384 during the last ten years".



• Question of viability: Mumbai-Ahmedabad route already has strong air connectivity, rail connectivity and a first class expressway.



• More questions on viability: Assuming that 100,000 tickets are sold every day (.. really!! ..), the cost of capital, including depreciation, interest etc, would work out to Rs 3200 a ticket, excluding operating cost. Clearly, without a massive subsidy, this venture would be broke beyond repair.



• Misguided: The Indian railway has many more infrastructural needs of much higher priority, and Rs 98,000 crores should not be spent in trying to shift some passengers from Mumbai-Ahmedabad flights to the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train. 



• Elite Club? At what cost? The Bullet train is a childish desire of the government to join an elite club at the cost of 99.9 per cent of rail passengers.



• Temsutula Imsong:

I have been shortlisted in the "Hygiene and Sanitation" Category .. Do check out and vote if you find me deserving https://t.co/4o5iaN4Y2c

— Temsutula Imsong (@temsutulaimsong) December 18, 2015

What else but a white elephant?

The cost of connecting Mumbai to Ahmedabad will be Rs 98,000 crore. Really? Am I reading this right? Someone is looking to splurge Rs 98,000Cr on 500KM out of Indian Railways' network of 115,000 KM? The same rulers who are hesitating to buy the seven squadrons of MMRCA that the Indian Air Force asked for?

In 2011, the Indian Railways decided against this outrageously costly project and opted for a much more viable alternative:

"We believe semi-high speed rail corridors are a better option compared to the more ambitious highspeed and bullet train proposals which are outrageously costly, and will take far longer to build".

Here is a good analysis on this issue: Nowhere in the world do bullet trains make money:

Laying a bullet-train corridor can cost up to Rs 100 crore a kilometre. With signals, rolling stock, etc, the cost can rise up to Rs 115 crore a km. A 500-km line, like the first one proposed between Gandhinagar and Mumbai, will set the government back by over Rs 55,000 crore.

Quick notes: Oil imports, Bride search...

• Import dependence rising fast: India is now the 3rd-largest oil importer in the world. Energy imports bill may spike to $230 bn by 2023.
  
  “Diesel demand is being driven by a marked shift towards more manufacturing activity, away from the service sector, under the current government”.
  
  And the outlook for Rupee...?



• Where are the engineers? Only a third of IIT students go on to pursue technology.



• Coming south in search of a bride:  The strange case of how women from Kerala are wedding men from Haryana in what often turn out to be disastrous marriages.



• Too Much Pesticide In Your Veggies: 80 per cent of Kerala's vegetables, which come from Tamil Nadu, are highly contaminated, with levels crossing the permissible limit by almost three to five times.



• Name defaulting companies: The RBI should provide readily accessible summary information on its website about all corporate debt defaulters and the amounts involved.



• Indian Railways may be running many premium trains on loss.  Eight of the sixteen Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duronto express trains are incurring operational losses per trip



• Vaidyo Narayano Hari: : What a fall for the medical profession!

India's posh hospitals are money-making rackets. They will and must face the wrath of the public & patients. https://t.co/B9j13lLGHV

— Chitra Subramaniam (@chitraSD) June 16, 2015

Missed opportunities for national development

1) Roads: We have mastered the art of making "perfect roads"; great on paper and absolutely pathetic in execution. Technically, the cost of road construction (where prices are dictated by the lowest tender) are as:

a) Cost of land acquistion by the Government; usually palming off the peasants by intimidation, below market cost and illegal detentions.

b) The public money used to award contracts and tenders inclusive of the cost of kickbacks feeding from the lowly peon to the corporator and the "party funds".

c) Finally, the "inferior quality material" used by "engineers and contractors" and exploitation of the poor labor.

2) Railways: Huge behemoth. Multiple proliferating unions feeding on like leeches to the public funds. In 50 plus years has not been able to channelize the freight and passenger fares. The maximum speed (in certain stretches) is 160 kmph (for India's fastest trains) and is near bankruptcy because it has been allowed to slowly rot away under populism.

3) Refer to point number 1 for why railways are allowed to bleed dry. The Government has come up with an ingenious way of "Build Operate and Transfer model" where a private contractor is allowed to "collect toll" till 30+ years (by the time, the old files would have rotted away). There is double taxation; what you have paid in your road taxes and other "infrastructure cess" on petrol/diesel, you pay again while passing through these toll barriers. Brilliant.

4) No waterways: What could have been used to interlink the national rivers of India to develop indigenous waterways has been allowed to squander away. By creating a huge bogus claim of an "environmental disaster". No one knows the impact because it has not been allowed to develop. Now precious funds are being withered away to import Oil and pay the masters for their opulent life styles in Saudi and Middle East.

Is it even surprising that all of this spawns from the "Nehruvian model of development"? Or the huge socialist structures that have been unleashed on us by ensuring perpetual slavery to the Government of India?

Of course, no one argues about it because it has become our way of life here.