Quick notes: RISC-V laptop | Idol thief...

• The first laptop with a RISC-V processor is coming: The “Roma” laptop comes from a collaboration between China’s DeepComputing and Xcalibyte. It’s expected to begin shipping toward the end of the fourth quarter of 2022.



• The Idol Thief: Nehru’s aide who turned into an art dealer in the US. Sadly, we see many Hindu murthis from “Jaipaul galleries” still coming up in auctions, though all of them have dubious provenances. . . . India Pride Project.



• Behind the ‘Largest Art Theft in History’: How stolen art made its way out of the jungle to foreign collections and top museums. From Cambodia to the collectors.
  
  One of the sculptures, about three and a half feet tall, depicted Shiva, his lips in a hint of a smile, sitting cross-legged across from Skanda, who was rendered as a small boy extending his hands upward to clasp his father’s. Another statue of about the same height showed Skanda in his adult role as a god of war, sitting astride Paravani, a thick-bodied peacock, carved in such detail that each feather was distinct.
  
  Toek Tik and his men were probably the first people in centuries to lay eyes on these works. “For us it’s the heritage of a thousand years of ancestors. We see that material and also a spirit”. While Angkor Wat and its environs were eventually secured, few other temples were, and thieves secreted thousands of Khmer objects out of the country, leaving shattered pedestals and empty alcoves.



• Professor E Balagurusamy: "As a person who has studied in a village in Tamil Nadu in Tamil medium, I can confidently say that rural students are on par with or better than students from the urban areas. I will go on to say that rural students are more motivated to excel than urban students. What the state government has to do is, improve the government schools instead of blaming entrance examinations".



• Using drones for reforestation: DroneSeed uses seeds as well as seedlings, or young plants, from its own nurseries. It then uses heavy-lift drone swarms to spread them across the scorched land. The drones drop the seeds in contained vessels, called pucks, where they then root and begin to grow into seedlings. These pucks are made out of plant fiber and contain nontoxic elements, such as spicy pepper, to deter rodents and other mammals.



• Bird apartment: Pinjara Pol Goshala builds 6-storey ‘bird apartment’ in Jaipur




• Father Sebastian Keezheth: Kerala Catholic priest sends sleazy video to WhatsApp group of women and nuns; faces music



• India orders investigation into Tata Motors EV fire incident: The incident follows a spate of e-scooter fires. Initial findings of the federal probe into three e-scooter makers found faulty battery cells and modules to be the leading cause of fires
  
  - Ola Electric slips to 4th spot as EV registrations fall amid fire fears



• ONDC is inevitable, to democratise ecommerce: The smallest Kirana store can be discovered and it will be worthwhile for many to enable such digitisation. Enablement and democratization is happening. . . . ONDC can become next UPI



• High Enzyme Foods: Your intestines and pancreas create many kinds of enzymes, but many foods also contain enzymes or the bacteria that produces them. However, because the modern diet is primarily made up of cooked and processed foods, we don’t reap much of the potential benefits of dietary enzymes. This is because when you cook food (above 118 degrees), process or pasteurize it, you destroy its natural digestive enzymes.
  
  We must therefore rely on our bodies to produce most of the enzymes we need to help us break down and utilize the food we eat. This is why adding raw, non-pasteurized, unprocessed and high-enzyme foods to your diet can be advantageous in the quest for optimal health.