Quick notes: Red Sea hero | Job crisis...

• Indian Navy Flexes Its Muscles In Red Sea: India is deploying a growing number of warships to counter rebel attacks on commercial ships plying around the Middle East, while steering clear of joining the official U.S.-led force in the Red Sea, as it looks to protect its ties with Iran.



• A jobs crisis in India is driving workers to Israel: Government data shows a declining trend in joblessness. This is due to the inclusion of unpaid work as jobs in government data. "It's not that jobs are not happening. It's just that organised jobs are barely growing and at the same time, the number of young people looking for jobs is increasing".



• BJP rule under NaMo a dark age for the ASI: Archaeologist KK Muhammed: "The ASI has become a dead organisation and 10 years of BJP rule is a dark age of the organisation. I had undertaken the renovation of 80 temples that were destroyed in the earthquake in the Chambal area. We expected they (BJP) would be in the forefront of the renovation efforts. But not a single temple has been renovated in the last nine years".



• Chinese guy compares China and India: I'm Chinese, I've worked in India for a while, I've been to some of the cities and villages in India. Personally, I think the gap between India and China will only get bigger, not smaller, in the next 10 to 20 years.
  
  Foreign investment in India is aimed at capturing the domestic demand of India. Foreign investment in China, the purpose is not only to occupy the Chinese market, but to meet the needs of the world!
  
  Second, India may miss out on a fourth industrial revolution Many people call breakthroughs in high-speed communications, new energy, new materials, life sciences, artificial intelligence and other fields the fourth industrial revolution. But Indians are still keen on IT and have invested little in the fourth industrial revolution.
  
  Third, India's environmental crisis. As a Chinese, I have witnessed the destruction of China's environment by industrialization. It is easy to destroy the environment, but difficult to repair it. Today, the annual investment in environmental protection in China far exceeds the sum of education and military expenditure. But it will take generations to repair the environment, and some will never be. Unfortunately, I saw similar environmental damage in India, which has a higher population density and a lower environmental carrying capacity than China. India must solve its environmental problems, which may cause social instability and unrest.
  
  Fourth, India's education crisis. In particular, inequality in education. Personally, 20% of people in India get a good education, but the quality and environment of education for the other 80% is really bad. Inequality in education leads to inequality in life development.



• Undergrad textbooks in 12 Indian languages soon: The 12 Indian languages for which EoI has been invited are Hindi, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. NEP recommends teaching of Indian languages with English and other foreign languages. It envisages the promotion of Indian languages through regular use, preparation of pedagogical materials and training of teachers.



• When in Karnataka, learn to speak Kannada: Learning Kannada was a struggle, but inspired by my senior, I, as a non-Kannadiga then, decided to go to the hilt to learn the language. The ideal way to learn to speak a new language is to speak with the locals — shopkeepers, vendors, helpers and even strangers with whom you can strike up small conversations. Let them know you are learning Kannada, and making an effort at it. You will instantly get support. I am now fairly fluent and continuing to improve day after day…and loving it!



• Aanandaa Farms: Using permaculture to convert degraded land into a beautiful food forest.




• White man drooling: How Guyana's big oil boom turned it into the world's fastest-growing economy



• 'Know Your Customer' cloud computing requirements: Chinese companies to be stopped from using American clouds for AI training

Quick notes: Export controls | Walkable city...

• American sanctions hurt China's chip advance: Washington has used export controls to cut off China's access to advanced chips and chip-making tools that could fuel breakthroughs in AI and sophisticated computers for its military. It has also lobbied allies with key suppliers to adopt similar curbs.



• Anywhere but India: Nvidia reportedly eyeing Vietnam for future chip production as chipmakers look for China alternatives



• Wishing you the best: Infosys to acquire Bengaluru-based semiconductor design firm InSemi.



• Make it a walkable city: A walkable Bengaluru will yield proven benefits of better health and wellness, improved access to public transport, reduced traffic congestion, improved air quality, a more equitable society, and a vibrant economy.



• If Kannada is the tongue of locals, speak on: Immigrants make up almost half of Bengaluru. Bridging the linguistic divide will require work on both sides, with the onus slightly more on those coming in.



• Can India Create Multi Language AI Like Chat GPT? Each language in India has a nuance of its own, so creating a ChatGPT-like product is an ambitious challenge.
  
  ChatGPT took almost six years to be where it is today despite English language data being available in abundance. Such data in English is digitised and there are companies who help digitise text or offline data. That is not the case with Indian languages. However, recent efforts by the Indian government have created tools to get data in Indian languages.Bhashini and AI4Bharat have speech recognition and translation in 22 languages and both have text-to-speech capabilities.



• Resurrecting khadeen: The ancient water harvesting structure of Rajasthan