Quick notes: Digital colony, Reverse brain-drain...

• Is India becoming a digital colony? Unlike China which has its own internet platforms and controls its domestic data, India is a major user of US internet services. Indian citizens’ and govt data are vulnerable because they are hosted in USA. GOI does not understand the terrible consequences of such dependency on the economy and national security.




• China Mines Silicon Valley for Tech Talent: Alarmed that a brain drain to China may erode the U.S.’s technological edge and weaken national security, the Trump administration is trying to restrict Chinese ownership of some tech companies. 



• World's envy, but not anymore: Why are cancer rates so low in India? 



• Parking lots over fresh air: The decision to cut trees have sparked off much furore and public agitation in Delhi. Many areas witnessed reverberations of the Chipko Movement.



• Own goal: By imposing 43% tax on hybrid cars, govt has killed the Indian electric vehicle industry. India hurts itself even as China has become the world’s largest EV/hybrid car manufacturer

By imposing 43% tax on hybrid cars, govt has killed the Indian electric vehicle industry. Sales plunge to near zero. Another own goal by ⁦@FinMinIndia⁩. Read how India hurts itself even as China has become the world’s largest EV/hybrid car manufacturer pic.twitter.com/35XhbwEbzN

— Minhaz Merchant (@MinhazMerchant) June 18, 2018




• e-commerce policy: Walmart faces backlash in India; massive protests planned on July 2.



• Persian wonder: Alireza Beiranvand




• Not so global: Cricket has over one billion fans globally, with the Indian sub-continent alone constituting more than 90 per cent of them



• Why Swami Laxmanananda was killed: Noting that most of the cadre members and supporters in Orissa belonged to Christian community, Panda said, 'It is a fact that Christians are in majority in our organisation. Our supporters in Orissa's Rayagada, Gajapati and Kandhamal also belonged to Christian community.'

Quick notes: EV jobs, Benami properties...

• Germany fears massive job loss due to electric cars: The EV powertrain utilizes only about one-sixth of the components of an ICE powertrain. Battery production will require only a fifth of the workforce, when compared with an engine plant



• Curbing tech exports to China: Trump plans to bar many Chinese firms from investing in U.S. technology and by blocking more technology exports to Beijing. “Made in China 2025” is Beijing’s industrial plan to dominate high-tech industries including robotics, aerospace and computer chips.



• Wooden cycle: Coimbatore-based PK Murugesan has crafted a bicycle using Boiling Water Proof engineering plywood .



• Benami properties: Income-tax dept attaches over 1,500 unaccounted properties worth Rs 43 billion across the country. The benami legislation was reworked and made more stringent by the current govt from November 2016.



• Corporate loan defaults: First steel, now power sector - Indian banks stare at $38 billion hair-cut.



• IndLangs: “Startup's Skype classes aimed at bringing Indian languages to the fore”.



• Champion of flesh trade: American evangelicals back brother owner.



• Outcastes: Italy’s interior minister evokes a dark past by vowing to expel Roma people 



• Twitter effect:
  

Quick notes: Dust bowl, Gyro car...

• Reciprocal tariffs: India slaps tariffs on 29 items from the US. However, ‘motorcycles above 800cc’ dropped from the list.



• Dust Bowl: Rising temperatures, changing weather patterns, depleting groundwater, unsustainable agriculture and deforestation are turning large parts of North India into a Dust Bowl.



• Two-Wheeled Gyro Car: The two-wheeled electric car of the future is being tested in China: During a test drive, the gyrocar was quiet and stable, and more nimble than a traditional car when making turns.




• EVs in India: Kia to build electric cars in India by late 2019



• 111-Million-Ton Trash Problem: China, the world’s biggest waste importer is no longer buying... Data shows India increasing plastic scrap imports



• Vegan footed: As customers turn away from leather shoes, the beef industry is left with a glut of hides



• Water Purification: Scientist create cheap and effective water filtration medium from the Moringa Oleifera (drumsticks), a tree native to India. Kills microorganisms and reduces turbidity, adhering to particulate and organic matter. 



• Ye theeruga nanu:

Quick notes: Fugitive shelter, Groundwater economy...

• Rogues' gallery: List of Indian fugitives sheltered by the UK.



• Harmful profits: Philip Morris to target Indian smokers with pen-like iQOS device, aims to “win the hearts and minds” of people between 18 and 24.



• India is a groundwater economy: India must treat groundwater as a common resource, not private property 



• Invented at Duke, financed in China: After failing to win financial backers, hitech spy camera startup moves to China. The technology, never picked up by the US govt, is being used by Chinese police to identify people from nearly a football field away. Chinese emergence pioneering technologies.



• Trump Saves China's ZTE for some reason.... For Sale: U.S. Rule of Law: ZTE the first customer.... The bipartisan bashing of Trump’s ZTE deal



• Zuck's minting money: Facebook gave user data to the Chinese company at the heart of US-China tech tensions 



• Recipe Tutorial in Sanskrit:

Quick notes: Student visas, School admissions...

• To maintain its technological edge: US will limit visas for Chinese tech students



• Ireland takes on the Catholic Church: Under a school admissions bill that passed the lower house of the Irish parliament, Catholic elementary schools would be barred from discriminating in favor of children of their own “religious ethos.” ... when will secular India do this?



• New dimension: Chariot From Pre-Iron Age Found During Excavation in UP's Sanauli



• Ather Energy: The launch of this e-scooter is a moment of reckoning for India’s EV market. 



• Bike-friendly: Contributing to the larger movement of making Bengaluru roads friendly for cyclists, residents of Sanjaynagar plan to restrict motor vehicles to designated hours on certain days of every month.



• Ram Govind Hari: A treasure from Sant Kabir




• Reality check: Unlike the US and China which have hundreds of educational programmes in data science and AI, India has next-to-nothing. Only 4% of AI professionals in the country have worked on cutting-edge technologies like deep learning and neural networks. 



• Wipe out: Cumulative losses at public sector banks were large enough to wipe out almost all of the govt's capital injections of $13 billion in 2017-18



• Patanjali gets Yogi jolt: Rs 20 bn food park project not allowed in UP