Quick notes: Heliogen | Pilgrimage aid...

• Solar thermal breakthrough: Heliogen makes high-temperature industrial heat from sunlight, replacing fossil fuels in steel and other big-polluting industries.
  
  Heliogen employs computing power to keep the mirrors precisely aligned, thus generating even more heat. Using this approach, Heliogen says it's been able to achieve temperatures of more than 1,000 Celsius. And that was on its first try. The company believes it can produce temperatures above 1,500 Celsius--enough to split water molecules and produce hydrogen fuel.



• But wait, there is more! After pastor honourarium, Jagan govt hikes financial aid for Jerusalem pilgrims by whopping 50%

Chilukuru Balaji temple’s ‘pradhana archakaulu’ Sri Rangarajan garu on article 26.
Worth listening... pic.twitter.com/FU9wzlToIt

— Pawan Kalyan (@PawanKalyan) November 24, 2019




• Rules don't apply to MNCs: The Centre has prohibited the use of sachets for storing, packaging or selling gutkha, tobacco and pan masala under the plastic-ban-law but the packaging of chips, salted items and noodles by MNCs face no such ban. 



• Non-stop embezzlement: PSU banks report fraud of over Rs 95,000 cr in Apr-Sep 



• Chinese spy in Australian parliament: Beijing trying to infiltrate Canberra through donations and other means.



• China-Pakistan Economic Corridor: Chinese companies are importing materials and equipment from China rather than giving that business to Pakistani companies. bringing in Chinese workers amid rising unemployment in Pakistan. Chinese workers who earn money in Pakistan, take the wages back to China, leaving very little in the local economy.



• Tesla’s Cybertruck will have a solar option: Additional 15 miles of range from solar roof.



• Solar parks promote biodiversity: In addition to helping reverse soil erosion, it (ground-mounted PV systems) can also attract myriad insect and plants species, thus reintroducing natural genetic exchange, much of which has been wiped out with intensive agriculture practices. 



• Is India ready for solar waste mountain? Indian-made solar modules don’t last long and waste is already piling up thanks to defects and faulty installation.



• Airline Loyalty: The award for the world’s most bizarre airline loyalty program award chart goes to… Air India!

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 specifically compared Telugu-medium students with those studying in English-medium in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. They 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.
  
  
  Not only is it unscientific to force English-medium, Indian language education is particularly well-suited to the needs of the future. “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.”



• India's English-medium "advantage": World ranking of countries by their average IQ
  




• 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.



• Big tech: Thirsty for their next Trillion Dollars

AMZN has disrupted retail
FB /G - media
Walmart - grocery

Big tech has squeezed the juice from the media lemon & now needs to find a combined $1T market cap to take from somewhere else. So we get FB Pay, Google Pay, AMZN checking accts#sundaythoughtshttps://t.co/QMKLed3w0v

— Scott Galloway (@profgalloway) November 17, 2019




• Baltic Tribes - Last Pagans of Europe: "Every stone church here is built upon our ancestors' sacred burial grounds, just to insult and prevent us to connect to them without judeo beliefs".




• Hallelujah: The crusade is on

రాజా సింగ్ గారు...మీ అధినాయకత్వాన్ని ప్రశ్నించండి. ఎందుకు ఈ మతమార్పిడి మాఫియా కి అన్ని విదాలుగా సహకారం అందజేసి సియం స్థానంలో కూర్చోపెట్టారో pic.twitter.com/WJVa8D79v0

— Prk (@PK_9791) November 17, 2019

Quick notes: Robotics surveillance | Ground water...

• Robotics surveillance: Can robots help in fighting terror in Kashmir?



• Cow poop to electricity: World’s first commercial solution to generate electricity from dairy waste. The CalBio-Bloom Energy system also removes methane that would otherwise have been released into the atmosphere. Cow manure contains approximately 65% methane, which has a 25 times greater impact on global warming than CO2 emissions.



• Bengaluru sitting on groundwater time bomb: Groundwater supply in the IT city will decrease from 146 billion litres in 2018 to 36 billion litres in 2041 due to over-exploitation.



• Why fasting bolsters brain power: Fasting improves energy metabolism in neurons and stimulates the production of 'Neurotrophic factors'. Improves the number of mitochondria in your nerve cells. Ketones provide an alternative fuel that boost the energy levels of neurons.




• Cut the cutlery: Plastic with your home-delivered meal adds up to 22,000 tonnes waste every month. . . . . . . Where plastic outnumbers fish by seven to one



• Overseas universities are China's new front line: Confucius Institutes are just one example of how Western universities have increasingly relied on Chinese money. From tuition dollars to R&D partnerships with institutions on the mainland, Chinese financial support is increasingly important to cash-strapped universities.



• China's J-20 Stealth Fighter Has F-35 'DNA': Beijing has heavily invested in industrial and military espionage. In 2007, Chinese hackers stole technical documents related to the development of the F-35. The details on the hack, eventually revealed in documents leaked by Edward Snowden, are just one example of Chinese attempts to steal foreign aviation technology; as recently as 2017, Chinese hackers went after Australian F-35 defense contractors, nabbing even more info on the cutting-edge fighter.



• The worse he behaves, the greater his weight in Europe: Erdogan has been expanding Turkey beyond its borders – starting with Cyprus, the Greek Islands, Suakin Island (Sudan) and Syria. In Germany, Turkey controls 900 mosques out of a total of 2,400. Speaking with Turks in Germany, Erdogan urged the Turkish diaspora not to assimilate, and called the assimilation of migrants in Europe "a crime against humanity."  He has spies throughout Europe through a network of mosques, associations and cultural centers. By keeping migrants in Turkish refugee camps, he controls immigration to Europe.



• MNC overlords: 60 of America's biggest companies paid no federal income tax in 2018. Amazon won't pay a cent in federal income tax on $11.2 billion in profits in 2018. In fact, Amazon claimed a federal income tax rebate of $129 million.



• Brilliant law in the Philippines: Students have to plant at least 10 trees in order to graduate.

This law requires students to plant at least 10 trees in order to graduate. Brilliant law in the Philippines 🇵🇭! Other nations - please follow!

pic.twitter.com/CYw0vezADu

— Erik Solheim (@ErikSolheim) September 30, 2019




• Difference between Halloween and Christmas:

Q: Why can't programmers tell the difference between Halloween and Christmas?

A: Because oct 31 = dec 25.#oldiebutgoodie

— Computer Science (@CompSciFact) October 31, 2019

Quick notes: 491 years | Startup scene...

• US state department report: Nepal biggest operation hub for Indian Mujahideen.



• K Parasaran: Dharmo Rakshati Rakshitah!

The man who ensured victory to Hindus after 491 years says:

dharmo rakshati rakshitah!

Listen to the words of 92 year old K Parasaran pic.twitter.com/0NYjpiaC5s

— Mahesh Vikram Hegde (@mvmeet) November 10, 2019




• Isolate the innovators, move to small towns: Rajeev's insights into the Startup environment and Tech in India and how it can bloom.




• Really: Zomato made Rs 1001 Cr loss in FY19 on revenues of Rs 1,397 Crore



• Help the Kurds, not the Arabs: India is providing scholarships to 1,000 Syrian students to study in Indian universities, in undergraduate, post-graduate courses and even PhD



• Turkey Is Islamic State: For Syrian Kurds, and aid workers – the ‘safe zone’ is not so safe



• Su-30MKI: Russian designed, Indian built. Pakistan may well achieve near-parity over time if it receives J-10 fighters from China (as well as the J-31, the quasi-5th generation fighter now being developed by the Chinese). Such near-parity between the IAF and the PAF would be completely unprecedented.  The power balance with the Chinese Air Force is an even greater worry for India.



• Walkability upgrade: Bengaluru's suburban rail network, finally on track?



• Clean air hope: Electric bus manufacturing unit coming up near Pune

Quick notes: FTA hit | Paki exports...

• Beware of Hans preaching free-trade: Data show that China itself imposes the largest number of non-tariff measures (NTMs) on India, more than any other country.



• FTA hit on direct taxes: No doubt, exporters pay the direct taxes imposed by the host country in the country of manufacture and hence there is generally no discrimination, under the MFN principle. But the point often missed is that the govt of the importing country tends to lose that much revenue by way of lost direct taxes (corporate tax on profits, personal/corporate income taxes on salaries, interest and rent) which it could have gathered had the goods under import been manufactured within India.



• China enables Pakistan to become a defense exporter: Myanmar Air Force released pictures of four JF-17s that it had purchased from Pakistan. The deal was facilitated by China, which gave the country credit to eventually acquire 16 JF-17s. Pakistan discussed future sales to Malaysia and Azerbaijan as well as sales of additional fighters to Nigeria, which now has three JF-17s.



• Drone Swarms: The high-tech future of war. A large number of cheap drones could be very useful for fighter planes.



• The warrior in us: Guru Gobind Singh conceived and implemented the idea of the militant order of the Khalsa—as a brotherhood of soldier-saints, pledged to invoke the name of the almighty, protect the weak, engage in charity and fight oppression. The distinct identity and appearance of the Khalsa ensured that they stood and fought, rather than take the easy way out. This moral binding added to the constant persecution by the Mughals and the experience gained in minor conflicts made the Sikh soldier what he became in the latter half of the 18th century—a war-winning force. For the next century, he was to remain in a state of relentless war, resulting in the Sikhs carving out an empire of their own. The martyrdom of Banda Singh Bahadur, Guru Gobind Singh’s political and military successor, in 1716 added the proverbial fuel to the fire, further fanning the Sikh ‘warrior’ passions. The warrior spirit sustained and continued to grow. They were able to strike at will, not only at the Mughal armies but also at new invaders from Central Asia.



• Something’s burning: The extensive cultivation of paddy in Punjab and Haryana is central to the problem. Being a water intensive crop (1 kilogram of rice consumes 3,000-5,000 kg of water), the two States have sought to reduce groundwater drawals in the dry April-May period by mandating that paddy cultivation can only begin around mid-June.  This has pushed the harvest date by six weeks to October when it is almost time to plant the rabi crop. The fields need to be cleared in a hurry, and stubble and straw burning is simply the fastest and cheapest way to do it



• Life-threatening 'Vikas': Air pollution has cut short lives of Indo-Gangetic plain residents by seven years. There has been a 72% increase in pollution from 1998 to 2016 in the region. . . . . . . .  PM 2.5 pollutants are toxic and so small that these beat the body's defences and settle deep into lungs from where these spread to the bloodstream and other organs causing inflammation and are linked to asthmatic attacks, strokes, heart attacks, even dementia.



• Desis Leave New Jersey Streets Dirty:

Ashamed to be called an Indian

Last Night on Indian Street near Journal Square New Jersey

Hats off to NJ Police handling the mess Very professionally 👏👏 pic.twitter.com/39nVmGaejO

— sANDhya (@DhooDala) October 28, 2019




• Energy storage without batteries: Pumped hydro storage, Power-to-hydrogen, Thermal storage...



• Loudspeaker menace:

  So.. for Indian mosques, plz note that we in Saudi Arabia, the land of Islam DO NOT keep our mosques speakers super loud, I was in Kannur 2016 & even in Eid night it was super loud from 10pm till 6am continues that me in the Ayurvedic hospital couldnt sleep the whole night! https://t.co/ZGbgn33Vli

  — Nouf Almarwaai نوف المروعي 🇸🇦 (@NoufMarwaai) April 10, 2019