Wednesday, March 30, 2022

Quick notes: Decoupling | Drone industry...

  • Decouple from western hegemony: Russia offers SWIFT alternative to India for rouble payments. Russia also wants India to link its UPI with their MIR payments system for seamless use of cards after Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. suspended operations

    Russia built parallel payments system that escaped Western sanctions: Crimea sanctions spurred Russia to build its own Mir payments network, taking the sting out of Visa, Mastercard exits


  • Indian drone industry: In rapid succession, India unveiled new tax incentives and subsidies for drone manufacturing and sales, banned imports of completed drones, and PM Modi presided over the dispatch of 100 locally made pesticides-spraying drones to different parts of the country. "More than 200 drone startups are currently working in the country and soon their numbers will increase to 1,000".


  • Chinese Chip Talent Poachers: Coordinated raids across several major Taiwanese cities to thwart "China's efforts to weaken Taiwan's core economic competitiveness."


  • China Demos First Domestic GPU: Chinese startup develops full featured GPU, with a multitude of modern supporting features and technologies


  • Manchurian candidate: Biden eliminates U.S. Tariffs on more than 350 China-made products


  • Rudra Veena: Ustad Bahauddin Dagar | Raag Kausi Kanada



  • Ahead of India in EVs? Vietnamese automaker Vinfast plans to build EVs in North Carolina starting in 2024


  • Digital Markets Act: Europe will soon attempt to tame the anti-competitive power of tech companies like Amazon, Google, and Facebook, which the act labels as “gatekeepers.”


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Tuesday, March 22, 2022

Quick notes: Lessons for India | Battery swapping...

  • Lessons for India:

    - Reduce dependency on institutions controlled by the West: We have grown accustomed to thinking of interbank communications (SWIFT) as a global utility; they’ve now been turned into a tool of Western foreign policy.

    - Reduce dependency on platforms controlled by MNCs : Russia bans Facebook... "calls for murder of Russian nationals and serving as a platform for organizing riots".

    - Prepare for every eventuality: How Ukraine is keeping its internet up and running, and what India can learn from it


  • The West won't condemn neo-Nazis: Mariupol is home to a Ukrainian militia unit called the Azov Brigade that contains far-right extremists, historically including neo-Nazis.


  • Battery swapping: 50 Rupees, 2-Minute Battery Change. The pivot to battery swapping was a centerpiece of Nirmala Sitharaman's budget speech.


  • Battery Packs: Excellent tech talk by Peter Rawlinson, CEO, Lucid Motors



  • Intel's view: Chinese chipmakers could become strong rivals by 2025


  • Govt subsidies for semiconductor fabs: Intel subsidies for Ohio, Magedeburg fabs measure in billions of dollars


  • The return of dumbphones: "It makes sense that some of us are now looking for simpler technologies and think that dumbphones might offer a return to simpler times. It might leave more time to fully concentrate on a single task and engage with it more purposefully. It might even calm people down. Studies have shown that too much choice can create unhappiness and agitation."


  • Jamaicans call for reparations as British royal couple arrives: “No reason to celebrate the Queen’s coronation because her leadership, and that of her predecessors, have perpetuated the greatest human rights tragedy in the history of humankind”. 


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Friday, March 11, 2022

Quick notes: Fueling the fire | Lessons for India...

  • Western media acting as cheerleaders for war: It is suddenly sexy to make improvised explosives – at least, if the media consider you white, European and "civilised".

    There were widespread, inciteful and entirely fictitious reports in the western media of Russian troops butchering a contingent of 13 Ukrainian soldiers on Snake Island. A fake audio tape was released of the Ukrainians supposedly cursing the Russian invaders. It was Russian media reports that turned out to be true. All Ukrainian soldiers had surrendered and were alive and well.


  • Shaping the narrative on Ukraine: Facebook okays calls for violence against Russians... Russia restricts Instagram after its parent Meta allows violent threats against Russian military


  • Lessons for India: How anti-tank missiles & Russian ‘mistakes’ worked to Ukraine’s advantage.. Infantry, tanks, and airpower have not been used simultaneously and cohesively to launch a comprehensive attack.

    Javelin missiles are programmed to attack the weakest part of an armoured vehicle — the top. Prior to impact, the missiles initiate a steep upward movement to ensure a downward strike on the roof of the vehicle.


  • Old Indian Strength exercises:



  • Atmanirbhar on turbine engines? India has built expertise in aeronautical design, flight dynamics and control laws, avionics and other skills needed for building modern combat aircraft. Yet, when it comes to providing an engine, India does not have the capability.


  • Feeding your enemy: China’s share in India’s imports: Electrical & Electronic Equipments: 50% | Capital Goods: 55% | Drugs APIs: 68%

  • Bayraktar TB-2: Turkish drone manufacturer reports booming business from Ukraine war


  • When a missile misfires: "For a cruise missile, you have to give target coordinates when fired from the ground, and after that she is on her own. There are also some missiles for which the coordinates can be updated in flight.

    First thing could be that the coordinates are not correct. But in this particular case, the missile has gone in a particular direction, and then turned. Normally it will only turn in the last stages. So, the type of turn she has taken, that means the coordinates could not have had been wrong.

    She had flown straight, then turned, then flown straight. She has not done any funny manoeuvres. Considering that, if she has not done any fancy manoeuvres, has sometime during flight the destination got corrupted?”


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Friday, March 4, 2022

Quick notes: Racist pit | Phoren degree...

  • Is Ukraine the most racist among nations?

    - November 2015: Ukraine to play home game behind closed doors as part of a UEFA punishment for racist behaviour by fans at European Championship qualifier against Spain.

    - November 2019: Brazilian player sent off in Ukraine for reaction to racism. Ukraine has a history of far-right involvement in its fan base.

    - March 2022: Indian and African students fleeing Ukraine say they face segregation, racism at border.

    - 'Open the door or we die': Africans report racism and hostility trying to flee Ukraine... He and his friends were quickly kicked off the train, with officials telling them “Ukrainians only.” “I said: ‘You say Ukrainians only, but I don’t see you checking passports. I see you picking white people only.’ The train was not filled before they left, but they never picked us.”


  • 90% Indians who study MBBS abroad fail to clear qualifiers: Only 10% of them clear the FMGE qualifiers exams in India to pass the license to practice Medicine in india.

    - Why Indians Study Medicine In Ukraine: Modi's statement without promise of appropriate reforms is of no value for stemming student migration to other countries.


  • This is where India and China differ: The Thousand Talents Plan is part of China’s long quest to become the global scientific leader.

    - PLA partners: Bill Gates developed nuclear reactors that help China overtake the U.S. Military.

    - Microsoft created research lab to work on AI for Chinese Military


  • The purge: Russia blocks Facebook, passes 'fake news' law


  • Indian company transforming palm leaves into tableware: Valued at $65 million, with funding from investors including industrialist Ratan Tata, Bollant Industries operates seven manufacturing plants, producing hundreds of tons of products each month, ranging from tableware to packaging.


  • Bio-Salt: Making of Bio-Salt using Okra Slime


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Tuesday, March 1, 2022

Quick notes: Inflaming conflict | Next gen weapons...

  • What happened to Russia's Air Force? Military experts have seen evidence of a lack of Russian air force coordination with ground troop formations, with multiple Russian columns of troops sent forward beyond the reach of their own air defense cover. That leaves Russian soldiers vulnerable to attack from Ukrainian forces, including those newly equipped with Turkish drones and U.S. and British anti-tank missiles.

    Biden supplied city-destroying weapons: Biden supplied powerful city-destroying heavy weapons to the ill-disciplined and Nazi-infected Ukrainian army. The temptation to start using them was irresistible and Kiev’s armed forces foolishly attempted to advance into and occupy Donbass.

    Inspired by Pakistan: NATO countries pour weapons into Ukraine, inflaming conflict. “On NATO territory, we should be the Pakistan,” he said, supplying the Ukrainians as Pakistan supplied the Taliban in Afghanistan.


  • The weapons that are making a difference: Ukrainian troops have destroyed dozens of columns of Russian vehicles with anti-armor Javelin missiles and simpler Next Generation Light anti-tank weapons (NLAW). The Javelin and NLAW anti-tank weapons have become critical in a war that has seen fighting in both urban and rural areas.

    Bayraktar TB2: Turkish drones playing key role in Ukraine.

    India's national interest takes backseat to divisive politics and near-constant elections:


  • NATO’s dangerous expansion: In hints, in pleas, in public speeches and private approaches, Russia has begged us for years to show it the most basic respect. Our response has been to react with mistrust and abuse, and with blatant attempts to worsen the situation in Ukraine and Georgia, two incredibly dangerous flashpoints where real war might all too easily begin.

    As George Kennan put it, Nato expansion was an insult to Russian democrats. 'We are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime.' He asked why East-West relations should 'become centred on the question of who would be allied with whom – and by implication against whom – in some fanciful, totally unforeseeable and most improbable future military conflict'.



  • China was right: China's distrust of western Big Tech is justified.


  • Wildlife has first right of way:


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