Quick notes: 2021 resolution | Right to breathe...

• 2021 resolution: replace foreign products with local ones: “Think of things manufactured abroad that have permeated into our lives unknowingly, in a way, shackling us down. Let us find out their substitutes made in India and decide that henceforth we shall use products made with the hard work and sweat of the people of India. ”



• Amazon wins by ‘steamrolling’ smaller rivals: No competitor is too small to draw Amazon’s sights. It cloned a line of camera tripods that a small outside company sold on Amazon’s site, hurting the vendor’s sales so badly it is now a fraction of its original size, the little firm’s owner said. Amazon said it didn’t violate the company’s intellectual-property rights.
  
  Amazon set its sights on Allbirds Inc., the maker of popular shoes using natural and recycled materials, and last year launched a shoe called Galen that looks nearly identical to Allbirds’ bestseller—without the environmentally friendly materials and selling for less than half the price.
  
  Allbirds Co-CEO Joey Zwillinger commented on the situation stating: “You can’t help but look at a trillion-dollar company putting their muscle and their pockets and their machinations of their algorithms and reviewers and private-label machine all behind something that you’ve put your career against. You have this giant machine creating all these headwinds for us.”



• Right To Breathe: Children are more affected by pollution than adults because their lungs are not fully developed. Compare lung sizes of Indian and US children, you’ll know who air pollution affects most. Asthma among children has become commonplace and most households need inhalers and nebulisers for the young and elderly to get through the highly polluted winter months in northern India.



• Drones in farm sector: Agriculture scientists recommend application of insecticide at rootzone, which is very difficult, when the crop has grown to a certain height. However using drones, it is possible to effectively apply the insecticide at the root level. “When the drone is hovering above the crop, just like a helicopter producing wind while landing, there will be wind, which results in spreading effect in the crops, making it convenient for application of the insecticide at the root-level”. Most importantly, the dosage of the pesticide or insecticide can be reduced by 35 to 40 per cent



• Permaculture for Wastelands: Narsanna and Padma Koppula show the way




• Sialkot, Pakistan: Almost 70% of the world's soccer balls are made here



• China espionage cell in Kabul busted: Pakistan helped with the espionage project because it wants to strengthen its ties with China and shares Beijing’s view of the Uyghurs as a danger to regional security.



• Skill:

Riziy’s been putting in work. 😂 pic.twitter.com/GwWutnVw5c

— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) May 13, 2020

Quick notes: Export zones | Neo-pagans

• A case for e-commerce export zones: Making Indian products available to the international customer at the click of a button would be an effective push to ‘Make in India’ as ECEZs become the gateway to ‘Make for the World’.



• Islam cannot bind: Millions of Muslim migrants in Pakistan hope for path to citizenship



• Karima Mehrab Baloch: Missing human rights activist who had fled Pakistan found dead in Toronto. She was a vocal critic of human rights abuses in Pakistan and a supporter of autonomy for Balochistan. Earlier this year, Sajid Hussain, founder and chief editor of The Balochistan Post, was found dead in the Fyris River near Uppsala, Sweden.

Kidnap, torture, murder: the plight of Pakistan’s thousands of disappeared | Global development | The Guardian https://t.co/PFPjcqGw4x

— Karima Baloch (@KarimaBaloch) December 14, 2020




• Modern-Day Pagans Celebrate Ancient Gods: “As the Millennial generation enters adulthood, its members display much lower levels of religious affiliation, including less connection with Christian churches, than older generations.”.. Many are reacting to a childhood religion they found inadequate or oppressive. They avoid “churchy” language as much as possible because it “can be a very big turnoff for people . . . who were angry at their past religious affiliation.”



• US Congress passes landmark bill in support of Tibet: It will pave the way for the U.S. to issue economic and visa sanctions against any Chinese officials who interfere with the succession of the Dalai Lama, and will require China to allow Washington to establish a consulate in Lhasa — the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region – before Beijing can open any more consulates in the U.S.



• VerSe: Indian TikTok copycat gets Google, Microsoft backing in $100 million fund raise. VerSe also owns news and content platform Dailyhunt, which offers content in multiple Indian languages.



• Castor Oil Benefits, Side Effects, Dose: It acts as tonic, laxative and helps in rejuvenation. It is also useful in relieving worm infestation, Abdominal colic, intermittent fever, skin diseases, Rheumatoid arthritis, hemorrhoids with hard stool problem and constipation.

Quick notes: Wistron workers | Quantumscape...

• 12-hour shifts, no overtime: Wistron's labor law violations in Indian iPhone assembly plant
  
  > "Wistron, Foxconn and Pegatron all have huge rounds of employee loss during Chinese new year as people go home and never come back due to dissatisfaction and my guess is they expected the same outside China instead of workers actually protesting"
  
   > "Amazing how much profit *doesn't* go to the actual employees"
  
  > Deniability: “It’s not our business; they’re not our employees. We will investigate.”
  
  > It’s bad enough that Apple is using slave labor in China, that will not be tolerated in a freer country like India. Beyond that the wages highlight just how low Apple will go to enhance margins.



• Jagdeep Singh, founder and CEO at QuantumScape: Electric car battery startup is on the cusp of changing the industry.



• Energy bonus: Tiny nuclear reactors yield a huge amount of clean hydrogen



• Kalmane Kamegowda: Indian shepherd combats water scarcity by building ponds. He spent at least $14,000 from his and his son’s earnings to dig a chain of 16 ponds on a picturesque hill near his village in Karnataka. During rainy season, these tanks get filled with water and serve as reservoirs for birds and other forest animals during the summer.
  



• A story of inappropriate technology: Excellent thread.

  A story of inappropriate technology: in the 1970s it was decided to modernize the rice farming of Sri Lanka, whose system that had not changed much for 3000 years. The goal was to replace the water buffalo with the modern tractor, but the attempt had disastrous consequences... pic.twitter.com/XIl5sUQf8k

  — Wrath Of Gnon (@wrathofgnon) December 13, 2020




• Death by fertilizers: India is the top urea producer in the world, accounts for 44.42% of the world's urea production.



• E-commerce scams: Chinese hackers targeted Indians with e-shopping scams. They created bogus links and asked internet users to click on them to participate in online contests and win prizes



• Bilateral swaps’ further China’s global footprint: The swap line encourages partners to increase reliance on Chinese goods and RMB loans to buy them, enhancing thereby its economic influence. It also furthers the goal of internationalising the RMB and establishing it as an alternative reserve currency.



• The Power of Now: The power for creating a better future is contained in the present moment: You create a good future by creating a good present.

"The power for creating a better future is contained in the present moment: You create a good future by creating a good present." -Eckhart Tolle

☀️#ZenYogaVibes

— Zen Yoga Vibes (@ZenYogaVibes) December 6, 2020

Quick notes: Winter warfare | M.B.A. -ization...

• Canada planned to train China’s military in cold weather tactics: One reason the Chinese might have been interested in winter tactics: PLA soldiers would later become involved in conflicts with Indian troops in the Himalayas.
  
  “It’s shocking that Canada would train a Communist dictatorship in winter warfare techniques that could theoretically be used against us — and will surely be used against our ally India, as well as against Chinese citizens in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong”.. Canada canceled the program, reluctantly, at the Trump administration’s request.



• Praveen Kumar Teotia: The commando who looked terrorists in the eye. "Crores are spent on Martyrs Day and on lighting candles, but people don't respect living soldiers who are heroes.. What are you if you can't respect a soldier?"



• Elon Musk Decries ‘M.B.A.-ization’ of America: “What Musk is pointing out here is rewarding doers rather than focusing on airy concepts such as management.. I’m in favor of a society that favors doing and action rather than pedigree”.. Peter Thiel, who started PayPal Holdings Inc. with Musk and others, once said: “Never ever hire an M.B.A.; they will ruin your company.”



• Chinese vaccine: 47 Chinese workers test positive for coronavirus in Uganda despite receiving Chinese vaccine. Sinopharm earlier boasted that none of its vaccine recipients who went abroad had been infected.



• Sadhguru: “The whole effort of the spiritual process is to break the boundaries you have drawn for yourself and experience the immensity that you are. The aim is to unshackle yourself from the limited identity you have forged."

  “The whole effort of the spiritual process is to break the boundaries you have drawn for yourself and experience the immensity that you are. The aim is to unshackle yourself from the limited identity you have forged."
  ― Sadhguru#Yoga ☀️ pic.twitter.com/35qpjPYsaf

  — Zen Yoga Vibes (@ZenYogaVibes) December 11, 2020





• Healing Himalayas:

I refuse to give up, yes it’s been tough
but I am holding my grounds in the toughest battle field #himalayas

Help me influence I seek in every lifestyle because if we are in it together I see the light at the end of the tunnel

Help me ☘️ pic.twitter.com/EZ2j6UPJSX

— Pradeep Sangwan (@iPradeepSangwan) December 4, 2020

Quick notes: Brain scans | Sonic attack...

• Scientists turning away from brain scans: Brain scan research doesn’t seem to hold up. Researchers demonstrated that imaging scans — without the proper statistical corrections — could detect brain activity in a dead Atlantic salmon. 



• Pulse Energy Attack: The mysterious head injuries suffered by US diplomatic staff in China and Cuba that had been described as "sonic attacks" are consistent with the use of directed microwave energy, according to a report published by the National Academy of Sciences.



• Increase internship duration for engineering students: The current internship of four weeks is too short and there is a proposal to increase it to three to six months. This was also suggested by NASSCOM and CII representatives



• Gitanjali Rao, inventor and scientist: TIME's first ever "Kid of the Year," 15-year-old Gitanjali Rao, created a device to detect lead in drinking water.
  




• China wants to weaponize its currency: China wants to break the US dollar's stranglehold on the global financial system and gain greater control over how people spend their money. It's hoping a digital currency could deliver both.



• The World Is Your Reflection: Find peace within and you will see this inner peace reflected everywhere else.

“If there is peace in your mind you will find peace with everybody. If your mind is agitated, you will find agitation everywhere. So first find peace within and you will see this inner peace reflected everywhere else. You are this peace!” – Papaji#Yoga pic.twitter.com/Z2gCV70G8A

— Zen Yoga Vibes (@ZenYogaVibes) December 7, 2020

Quick notes: Rocket launching drone | Woke Culture...

• Fully autonomous orbital rocket launching drone: Launching things to space doesn’t have to mean firing a large rocket vertically using massive amounts of rocket-fuel-powered thrust — space startup Aevum breaks the mould in multiple ways, with an innovative launch vehicle design that combines uncrewed aircraft with horizontal take-off and landing capabilities, with a secondary stage that deploys at high altitude and can take small payloads the rest of the way to space.
  



• Janan Ganesh in FT: What is woke culture if not the howl of a generation of underemployed humanities graduates? But the problem may be the raw numbers of students, not the precise flavour of their indoctrination. There are only so many jobs for them in publishing and the news media. There are only so many seats in Congress. If postmodern theories vanished from campus, would this surplus of frustrated graduates really just go about their lives as room-temperature liberals?



• Quantum Supremacy? Chinese scientists claim to have built a quantum computer that is able to perform certain computations nearly 100 trillion times faster than the world’s most advanced supercomputer, representing the first milestone in the country’s efforts to develop the technology. China is building a $10 billion National Laboratory for Quantum Information Sciences as part of a big push in the field. 



• The World's Most Important Technology Race: Not only will quantum computing offer significant scientific advances, but it will also alter warfighting. If China gains a substantial military quantum advantage over the United States, it could neutralize many of America's defensive and offensive technologies.



• China is greatest threat to freedom: "China believes that a global order without it at the top is a historical aberration. It aims to change that and reverse the spread of liberty around the world."



• Vinisha Umashankar: 14-year-old Tamil Nadu girl wins Children's Climate Prize for designing solar-powered ironing cart
  




• Words of Wisdom:

To successfully compete with China, Europe & America, Indian education administrators must realize that language of learning need not be the same as the language of communication.

The current English-based system puts 95% of the population at a disadvantage.@sankrant

— Subhash Kak ☀️ (@subhash_kak) December 5, 2020

Quick notes: RTE magic | Toxic Punjab...

• RTE magic: The alarming rise in education costs in new India. Not just the poor but even middle classes are effectively squeezed out of education beyond secondary schooling. . . . . Art. 30, perpetual burden on Hindus



• Baby steps: Centre sets up task force to suggest ways of imparting technical education in mother tongue



• How did Punjab turn toxic? Punjab utilises the highest amount of chemical fertilisers in India. Many of the pesticides sprayed on the state’s crops are classified as Class I by the World Health Organization because of their acute toxicity and are banned in places around the world. A range of studies have shown that the overuse of chemicals has found its way into Punjab’s food, water and soil and had a devastating impact on public health. “Farmers are poisoning their bodies and their land”



• Military lessons from Nagorno-Karabakh: What happened can be likened to a revolution in military affairs. Turkey has perfected new, deadly way to wage war, using militarized ‘drone swarms’. It’s not that the Armenian soldiers were not brave, or well-trained and equipped – they were. It was that they were fighting a kind of war which had been overtaken by technology.



• Dance of greed: China has one powerful friend left in the U.S: Wall Street!



• India plots smartphone dominance: With no original ideas nor research




• How Jio is building its 5G story brick-by-brick: The genesis of O-RAN (Open Radio Access Network) can be traced back to Japanese telecom operator Rakuten Mobile. As the story goes, the company was purchasing branded routers from large companies for $1,000 apiece. The same router would cost a household consumer $50 apiece. The company asked engineers to compare enterprise and consumer-grade routers, and found out that there was hardly any difference. Rakuten thought that it can buy components and develop routers with its own specifications. Then it started thinking on a bigger scale - how to build telecom networks where they have control over everything - costs, components, maintenance, etc.
  
  Today, the telco has developed a platform - Rakuten Communications Platform, a first of its kind - which has the secret recipe on how to integrate all parts of an open network together, and it is licensing this platform to other operators. "The entire network is transitioning from maximum hardware to more software. In 5G, base station has just antenna.The data processing (how to connect, how much speed to allot, how to hand over call from one tower to another) is entirely done in the cloud. It's not done in the equipments at the tower. With the power of cloudification, SDN (software-defined networking) and virtualisation, the role of hardware is going to be minimal. Telcos don't have to get locked in to multi-year contracts with Nokias, Ericssons or Huaweis of the world. Instead, they can do mix and match, and buy the best in the market to build own network.
  
  Jio's self-built 5G solutions could bring down network rollout cost by 10-15% as compared to legacy networks, and open up $10 billion export opportunities for the telco. 



• China to build a super dam on its part of Brahmaputra river: The state media report indicated that the dam could come up in the Medog county of Tibet. The new dam’s ability to generate hydropower could be three times that of central China’s Three Gorges Dam, which has the largest installed hydropower capacity in the world.



• Some Christian Siddis convert to Hinduism: Members of the Siddi community trace their origins back to an African tribe, who sailed to India on board Portuguese ships. However, they escaped from their masters, making the thick forests of Yellapur and Haliyal in Uttara Kannada district their new home. Minority assistance programs have encouraged Siddis to convert to religions other than Hinduism to maintain their minority status and continue receiving federal aid.