Tuesday, July 29, 2025

Quick notes: Hiring Indians | Baloch and Israel...

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Sunday, July 20, 2025

Quick notes: Sinophile | Liveable cities...

  • NITI Aayog loaded with Sinophiles: India's top think tank recommends easing investment rules for Chinese firms. My enemy is my savior


  • Trump, the Sinophile: As Trump courts a more assertive Beijing, China hawks are losing out in a a dramatic reversal.

    In recent years, one of China's biggest requests of US officials has been that the US relax its strict controls on advanced AI chips, measures that were put in place to slow Beijing's technological and military gains. Last week, the Trump administration did just that, as it allowed Nvidia to sell its H20 chip to China... China won by calling Trump’s ‘bluff’


  • Microsoft, the Sinophile: Microsoft using engineers in China to help maintain cloud computing systems for the U.S. Department of Defense.


  • What NITI Aayog doesn't want you to know: How China Has Been Blocking India's UNSC Actions Since The 2000s


  • From Evergrande to BYD: Is China’s EV Dream Crashing? . . . Don't you worry, NITI Aayog is there to rescue China.


  • How can we make India's cities more liveable? Zoho's Sridhar Vembu has a suggestion . . let's focus less on GDP and more on quality of living.


  • How Indian Cities Failed Public Transport: Learn to prioritize people over cars.


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    Saturday, July 12, 2025

    Quick notes: Jane Street | Hydrofoil ferry...

    • Jane Street's cash machine came to an abrupt halt: Foreign funds and proprietary traders using algorithms made $7 billion in the 12 months to March 2024 alone. That bonanza may be coming to an end.

    • Manipulating Indian derivatives markets: How US-based Jane Street siphoned Rs 36,000 cr from Indian markets.

    • Indian casino is a train-wreck: Indian retail investor losses on derivative trades widened in 2024-25 by 41% to 1.06 trillion rupees. India is the world's largest derivatives market, accounting for nearly 60% of the equity derivatives traded globally in April.


    • Prada on backfoot: High Fashion's habit of 'borrowing' from India isn't new. Prada's Kolhapuri chappals are just the latest


    • How America's Debt Spiral Could Spark The Next Crisis: America's debt problem is no longer linear; it is exponential.


    • Ferries are making a comeback: Could the Electric Hydrofoil Ferry change the way we commute? “We see it as a blue superhighway that is still untapped”. Fast, sustainable mode of transit



    • Unicorn: India's Rapido is outpacing global giants like Uber and Ola in user growth, while also achieving profitability . . . A ride-hailing unicorn is gaining users faster than Uber, disrupting the San Francisco titan’s effort to conquer a key growth market  


    • AI's energy problem: Google’s carbon emissions went up again as its AI push continues


    • Distress in Hi-tech jobs: Salesforce CEO Claims Half of the Company’s Work Is Now Done by AI


    • One Way to Win Trump Over: Nominate Him for the Nobel Prize 


    • The ‘Trump Pump’: How crypto lobbying won over a President. For years, cryptocurrency companies had endured a sweeping crackdown in Washington — a cascade of lawsuits, regulatory attacks and prosecutions that threatened the industry’s survival. Mr. Trump wasn’t an obvious sympathizer. He had once dismissed Bitcoin as a “scam.”


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    Thursday, July 3, 2025

    Are we being hoodwinked?

    Is this the deal? India, Vietnam and China all get to pay the same 20%.


    What's the point of Quad if Trump equates India-Pakistan? If the only superpower, which calls India an ally, sees the region through an India-Pakistan prism, it is unacceptable. Rather than endorse India's sphere of influence, this undermines it.

    Trump Baffles With Sudden U-Turn on China Buying Iranian Oil: President Trump appeared to undermine years of US sanctions on Iran, giving its biggest customer China the green light to carry on buying its oil. . . . . India restricted from buying Iranian oil while China is free?

    Elon: America is going bankrupt quickly, but everyone is whistling past the graveyard.

    Old pal of Elon Musk has ominous warning for Trump: “I’ve had my share of blowouts with Elon over the years,” neuroscientist Philip Low told Politico. “Knowing Elon the way I know him, I do think he’s going to do everything to damage the president.”

    India caught in the middle: Rare earth curbs to hit EV, RE, defence sectors

    Time for Swadeshi platforms: Congressional staff members were informed that WhatsApp can no longer be used on their government-issued smartphones or other devices.

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    Tuesday, July 1, 2025

    No favours from Trump

    After chickening out to China, Trump wants to "open up" India: The White House’s demands to “open up India” as it seeks a major trade victory — have made it that much harder for Modi’s govt to sell the deal to a domestic audience.

    “Nothing riles Indians more than the idea that their govt was bullied by a foreign leader”


    India gets no favours from Trump: Efforts to strike a trade “mini-deal” are dragging on. The Trump administration is asking India to lower its trade barriers, while only offering to give up some of its newly-imposed tariffs, in return.

    “Whatever the government [in India] does, it will be seen as they basically capitulated to Trump’s demand. So they are in a no-win situation.”

    The president has complicated matters by repeatedly taking credit for brokering peace between India and Pakistan this spring.

    “The more he repeats his claim, the more a prospective U.S.-India trade agreement smells like coercion, not cooperation.”

    Threat of more tariffs hangs over trade partners: These governments have been hesitant to strike a deal with the Trump administration, worried that they only will be hit by more levies down the road. For some foreign governments, these national security tariffs are potentially more concerning than the reciprocal tariffs Trump is threatening to apply to all their US exports.

    Maybe India can learn from EU: EU to accept Trump's universal tariff but seeks key exemptions. Everyone knows Trump will eventually break his own deals, so keep it small.

    GMO junk: Trade deal hits hurdle between India and USA over US demand of low duties on agricultural, genetically modified food
    Trump looking at deporting Musk

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    Saturday, June 21, 2025

    Quick notes: Ivy league | Urban highways...

    • Can India create its own Ivy League? The country is home to around a fifth of the world’s university-age population. Why are they going abroad? India has been losing academic talent to America for decades.


    • China and Europe luring American scientists: Dr. Patapoutian’s federal grant to develop new approaches to treating pain has been frozen. Within hours, he had an email from China, offering to move his lab to “any city, any university I want,” he said, with a guarantee of funding for the next 20 years.


    • Saver of Pakistan: Trump to be nominated for Nobel Peace Prize by Pakistan. . . . Trump is in awe of strongmen, alpha leaders, who stand up to him. Recall how Kim Jong-un of North Korea tamed him, and Putin has him on a leash.


    • Expanding in India: The Trump Organization Has expanded globally since the 2024 election. And India leads, sigh.

    • Securing its world-domination: China-backed militia secures control of new rare earth mines in Myanmar. China has a near-monopoly over the processing of heavy rare earths into magnets that power critical goods like wind turbines, medical devices and electric vehicles. But Beijing is heavily reliant on Myanmar for the rare earth metals and oxides needed to produce them.

      Morgan Stanley: China Is Maneuvering US “Into Weakness” When It Comes To Making Advanced Robots.

      Rare earth inventories may run dry by mid-July: China is the source of nearly 85 per cent of India’s rare earth magnet imports.


    • Urban Highways Suck: "Cars and highways are great. But neither of them belong in cities". . . From Atanu Dey's blog.

      Car economy leaves India's middle class fuming: India has more than twice as many kilometers of roads per square kilometer of land as the US. China, which has built a lot of highways but chosen highspeed trains as the focal point of transport, has a much lower density.For intercity travel, India’s template ought to have been 21st-century China, not 20th-century America.

      The fastest train journey between Chennai and Bengaluru takes over four hours. In that time, one could go from Beijing to Shanghai, a distance nearly four times greater. Within cities, subways are coming up even in places where they aren’t a practical option.

      A death every three minutes: Why India's roads are among the world's deadliest


    • The I Am: Nisagardatta Maharaj.



    • Bicycling tied to reduced dementia risk and greater hippocampal volume retention: Of all the transportation modes older people can use to get from one place to another, bicycling appears to offer the most benefit in potentially reducing the chances of developing dementia.


    • ‘Even a freeway is redeemable’: World’s largest wildlife crossing takes shape in Los Angeles


    • Blazing India: Extreme heat forces India’s farmers to pick between low pay and heatstroke


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