Quick notes: Crypto heist | Campus violence...

• Terror financing: Crypto worth around 4 crore transferred to Hamas, reveals Delhi Police probe



• Violence mars education: Violence has periodically marred Kerala's higher education system and the state is not a magnet for higher studies. Should politics be kicked out of campuses? . . . . . . . . . . . Bring NOTA to student elections. If NOTA wins, annul the elections that year.



• What India Needs In Ladakh: India has over 4,000 medium tanks, but not a single light tank. The advantage rests with the PLA, whose armoured units in Tibet are equipped with the new ZTQ-15 (or Type 15) light tank.



• E-bikes: The top-selling electric vehicles in the U.S. have two wheels. "Replace a car with a mode that contributes less to congestion and has a lighter carbon footprint".



• Thich Nhat Hanh: The first 8 exercises of Mindful Breathing




• 6G: Jio, Finland's University of Oulu ink JV on 6G technology



• Anti-Arab sentiment sweeps Turkey: Many Turks believe Syrian refugees have overstayed their welcome. Now, as the economic crisis in the country gets worse, attacks have begun to escalate, both rhetorically and physically. Some want all foreigners out of Turkey.



• China is beating the world on yet another greentech: As with other climate technologies like solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries, on hydrogen electrolyzers China is already eating the rest of the world’s lunch.



• Lithuania stands firm in its support for Taiwan: Taiwan’s $1 billion Lithuania fund is a high-stakes game of economic diplomacy. . . . "German companies bending to Beijing’s will", Lithuania says



• Has India lost its demographic sweet spot? "The country’s working age population growth rate which was more than 2 per cent till 2010 has dropped to 1.5 per cent. 75 per cent of the countries with economic growth of 6 per cent or more had a working age population growth in excess of 2 per cent. Most developed nations slowed down as their working age population dropped".
  
  We need to map skill requirements of the future and ensure that the education system is tuned to deliver them. Mere large scale investment in education, though needed, will not be enough.

Quick notes: ExMuslim day | Chinese enclave...

• Jan 9 is Kerala ExMuslim Day: ExMuslims of Kerala vows to protect rights of those who renounce religion.



• Targeting Sikhs and Chinese: Pakistan to offer permanent residency scheme for rich foreign nationals to boost weak economy



• Colombo Port City: A new Dubai or a Chinese enclave?
  
  Burdening poor countries with unsustainable debt.
  
  NBA star: "China uses money to buy silence and they just bought Elon".



• Silicon Valley: Led by physicist Robert Noyce, Fairchild Semiconductor began as a start-up company whose radical innovations would help make the United States a leader in both space exploration and the personal computer revolution, changing the way the world works, plays, and communicates.




• Green energy set to take off: Ambani is pouring more than $80 billion into renewable energy



• Lithium: China controls more than half of the world's lithium processing and refining capacity. More than 80% of the global lithium is currently sourced from Australia, Chile and China



• Cremation - A Greener Way to Die: Conserved corpses can go on display in caskets that, collectively, use tons of wood and steel, which we then bury in concrete containers. Instead of returning bodily nutrients, like potassium and calcium, to the ground, they slowly molder while shielded from the dirt. Lack of oxygen causes wasting flesh to release methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than the carbon dioxide we’d produce in open air.
  
  Meanwhile, embalming fluid can leak into soil and make its way into our groundwater, potentially at hazardous concentrations. Our final contribution to humankind: toxic ooze. Many countries favor an option lighter on chemicals: cremation. It’s also becoming popular in the U.S.



• Ellara Kannada: Has the influence of Sanskrit on Kannada created barriers for learning and usage? “When it comes to science terms, we have complicated words rooted in Sanskrit. We wanted to find simpler equivalents”.



• Be alive, every moment:
  
  

Quick notes: Good old common cold | Union activism...

• T cells induced by common cold protect against C-virus: Using such T-cells as the foundation for a vaccine could possibly be more effective than the current generation of vaccines, as the current crop focus on the spike protein, which sits on the outside of the cell, making it more prone to mutate within variants of the virus. “Such a vaccine would not need to be given as frequently because the memory T-cells last longer than the antibodies”.



• Slow the Spread? Speeding It May Be Safer : Viruses care more about propagating themselves than about killing the host: Most viruses evolve to become more infectious and less virulent. Policies designed to slow the spread of Omicron may end up creating a supervariant that is more infectious, more virulent and more resistant to vaccines. That would be a man-made disaster.
  
  To minimize that risk, policy makers must tolerate the rapid spread of milder variants. Will relaxing restrictions come at the cost of more hospitalizations and deaths as the next variant starts to spread? Perhaps, but it would reduce the risk of a worst-case scenario and greater loss of life in the long run.



• Socialism for thee, not for me: New York Times interfered with union activism, U.S. labor agency alleges



• On their knees: Sri Lankan begs China to restructure payments for the roughly $5 billion it borrowed under Belt and Road Initiative.



• Gandikota: The stunning Indian gorge that resembles the Grand Canyon



• First Telugu inscription dating back to 575 AD found.
  
  ‘Our inscription is a century older', claims Telangana.



• Ahead of India: Vietnam's VinFast reveals EVs, plans factories in US and Germany



• Begum Parveen Sultana sings tarana in Hamsadhwani.

Quick notes: Research funding | Hydraulic city...

• CAG report: IITs unable to generate sufficient internal receipts, remain dependent on govt for grants: . "IITs received very low levels of funding for research projects, sponsored from non-government sources. Thus, they remained dependent on the govt for funding of their research activities. There was also a large variance between the patents filed and obtained by all the eight IITs and no patents were obtained during the five-year period, indicating that the research activities could not bring out fruitful results".



• Angkor - Ancient Hydraulic City: As well as ensuring a year-round water supply in a monsoon climate to support the population, agriculture and livestock, the hydraulic system feeds the foundations that have kept the temples standing for centuries. The sandy soil alone is not enough to withstand the weight of the stones. However, master engineers discovered mixing sand and water creates stable foundations, so the moats that surround each temple were designed to provide a constant supply of groundwater. This has created foundations strong enough to keep the temples stable and prevent them from crumbling all these centuries later




• Char Dham Highway: With hill cutting being done in a vertical manner, basic norms of road construction have not been followed, thereby only serving to worsen the situation. Destabilising these slopes is only going to cause irreversible damage.



• China Replacing Soldiers with Robots in Tibet Due to Poor Performance: The PLA has moved 88 Sharp Claw unmanned ground vehicles into Tibet for reconnaissance, patrolling and transportation of weapons and logistical work in difficult terrain. Also in Tibet is the robotized Mule-200. It has a range of 50 km, can navigate difficult terrain and also, carry about 200 kg of ammunition, supplies or even weapons at a time. Remotely controlled by wireless, it can perform combat tasks if fitted out for fire-support activities.



• China Is Haunted by Its One-Child Policy : Decades of birth restrictions mean fewer women of childbearing age and a younger generation less eager to start a family.



• Apple sucking up to Xi: To cut costs and curry favor with Beijing, Apple is increasingly replacing Foxconn with Chinese manufacturers.



• Walled Garden: India orders antitrust investigation into Apple's business practices. Apple prevents app developers from using a third-party or their own payments system, making a significant dent in the revenues they generate.



• Russia to Require Netflix to Stream State TV Broadcasts: online streaming services with over 100,000 daily users are required to provide streams of 20 major Russian federal television channels.



• Hyundai stops developing IC engines: "Now, it is inevitable to convert into electrification".



• Technical post: The art of solving problems with Monte Carlo simulations