Quick notes: Three Gorges dam | Tech innovation...

• Boondoggle Record floods raise questions about China's Three Gorges Dam. “One of the major justifications for the Three Gorges Dam was flood control, but less than 20 years after its completion we have the highest floodwater in recorded history”. . . . . Dikes collapse




• Tibetan Government-in-Exile: The US has for the first time directly provided funds to the Tibetan Government-in-Exile based in India, a move likely to rile up China.



• Rajeev on Chinese overreach: 'If the economy begins to flounder, the empire may fall apart sooner than we think... The fatal mistake for the USSR was the invasion of Afghanistan. Quite possibly the fatal mistake for the Chinese empire is the assault on Ladakh'.



• The big secret of tech innovation: Although this may sound strange, copying is good for innovation. This is how Chinese technology companies got started — by adapting Silicon Valley’s technologies for Chinese use and improving on them. The Chinese routinely monitor what app is achieving success elsewhere, and duplicate it before they start adding features and innovating; they learn from the best and improve.
  
  Steve Jobs built the Macintosh by copying the windowing interface from the Palo Alto Research Center. As he admitted in 1994, “Picasso had a saying, ‘Good artists copy, great artists steal’; and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.” Almost every Apple product has features that were first developed by others. Mark Zuckerberg also built Facebook by copying from MySpace and Friendster, and he continues to copy products.



• Chinese firm among bidders for Vande Bharat trains: The emergence of a Chinese company for these train sets being promoted as indigenous products comes after a violent face-off between India and China



• Fail: India’s top exports to China remain in the raw materials category. “China has been very effectively using non-tariff barriers to curb imports that it wants to avoid. On the other hand, it also uses these restrictions as a political tool to control bilateral relations”. A contingency plan, prepared by the govt bats for increasing duties on the top 100 imports from China.



• Delete Facebook: Delete FB account or quit army: Delhi High Court to officer



• Cycling could become the new normal: "Cycling for short distances can result in an annual benefit of Rs 1.8 trillion to the Indian economy and it also has the potential of increasing personal fuel savings by over Rs 27 billion. Investment in cycling infrastructure has economic benefits up to 5.5 times the initial amount pumped in," says a communique from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.



• Superstrata's carbon fiber e-bike: True unibody construction with no seams or welding. “This piece comes out as a single piece from our machines”.