Quick notes: Trash mountains | De-dollarization...

• Kodagu forests filling up with waste from Kerala: Kodagu is a district in Karnataka known for its green expanses and fertile agricultural grounds. These lands are now under serious threat due to the illegal dumping of truckloads of waste from Kerala.



• Kochi city covered in toxic haze from waste dump fire: The towering Brahmapuram landfill in Kerala is the country’s latest trash mountain to catch fire, causing dangerous heat and methane emissions. India creates more methane from landfill sites than any other country



• De-dollarization: A flood of nations is trying to cut dependance on the dollar, fearing ‘weaponization’ by the US. From India to Argentina, Brazil to South Africa and the Middle East to Southeast Asia, nations and regions have accelerated efforts in recent months towards arrangements aimed at reducing their dependence on the dollar.
  
  At the heart of these de-dollarization initiatives is the fear in many capitals that the US could someday use the power of its currency to target them the way it has sanctioned Russia, according to political economists and sanctions experts.



• Dalits allege casteism at Trichy church: Only families belonging to the dominant community are considered members of the parish



• Turkey being Turkey:




• China Filed More Chip Patents Than US in 2022: Last year, Chinese companies filed over half of all semiconductor-related patents globally



• Stealing crown-jewels of tech: ASML says ex-employee in China stole chipmaking tool info. What is unclear is whether this can be used by China to build its own advanced deep ultraviolet (DUV) or extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography scanners.



• Why Silence is Power: Priceless Benefits of Being Silent




• Nalanda: The university that changed the world. The library's nine million handwritten, palm-leaf manuscripts was the richest repository of Buddhist wisdom in the world, and one of its three library buildings was described by Tibetan Buddhist scholar Taranatha as a nine-storey building "soaring into the clouds".
  
  Only a handful of those palm-leaf volumes and painted wooden folios survived the fire – carried away by fleeing monks. They can now can be found at Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the US and Yarlung Museum in Tibet.



• China's ChatGPT response: Baidu, Alibaba, JD.com and NetEase, some of China's biggest tech firms, have in the last week announced their plans for ChatGPT rivals.



• LFP, a different kind of Lithium ion: LFP cells use lithium iron phosphate as the cathode and graphite as the electrode. LFP cells aren’t dependent on nickel and cobalt, two materials that are expensive and supply-constrained. The technology, led by China’s BYD a decade ago, has advanced in its latest form in the BYD Blade battery, while CATL is also a leading producer.
  
  While less energy dense than Lithium ion, LFP cells are far less prone to the thermal runaway that might cause fires or degradation from overheating; a range of sources now also suggest they last significantly longer.