The Nvidia deal says something important about the relationship between business and government under President Trump. His regular intrusions into the boardroom—taking equity stakes, revenue slices or a “golden share”; prodding companies to lower prices or sell drugs through a federal website—are a sort of state capitalism, in which the state doesn’t necessarily own companies, but uses its substantial leverage to steer their behavior.
Trump's biggest gift to CCP yet: Trump’s decision to let China have Nvidia chips is dangerous. . . China can accelerate science and engineering with the H200 better than any of the newer hardware from Nvidia.
Denaturalisation: Some naturalised Americans likely to lose citizenship
"De-Indianise" Call: "1 H-1B Worker Equals 10 Illegal Aliens". . . Brown MAGAs go into hiding.
Hit hard by Trump: Tata, Infosys and Cognizant to bear brunt of Trump’s $100,000 H-1B fee
Worst fears coming true: China may have reverse engineered EUV lithography tool in covert lab, report claims — employees given fake IDs to avoid secret project being detected, prototypes expected in 2028
India needs its own 'Singapore' (outside India): As global scrutiny grows, Chinese firms look to call Singapore home. "The Singapore brand is trusted worldwide. Singapore is valued for its international flavour, neutrality, and is culturally easy for Chinese firms and their expats to adapt to,"
India's Nuclear Power Push: Big goals, slow build. Nuclear energy share in total installed capacity remains limited, fluctuating between 1.9 per cent and 2.9 per cent from FY10 to FY24.
'Thar Desert Will Reach Delhi Soon': Around 90 percent of the Aravalli hills is in the height of 30 to 80 metres. Now they are in danger of perishing. . . BikAss Gando Thayo Che
The US Marine Corps is testing a Low-Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (LUCAS) as a long range suicide drone. The US reverse engineered the Iranian Shahed-136 drones!
Too bad for Iran. Not only lost against Israel, got the nuclear sites hit, but also lost drone tech. #TWZpic.twitter.com/LntStsg8vG
Aravallis: With one legal stroke, over 90% of the Aravalli range was erased on paper, handing it over to mining mafias, real-estate sharks & profiteers.
#SaveTheAravallis | Over 1.8 billion years old, the Aravalli Hills form a natural barrier protecting North India from desertification and severe air pollution. A recent Supreme Court definition has altered how the range is identified, leaving nearly 90 per cent of the hills… pic.twitter.com/DYmPteIXCn
#SaveTheAravallis | By redefining what a "hill" is, a legal technicality has stripped protection from India’s oldest shield against desertification. Tonight’s debate asks the question – is environmental integrity being sacrificed for mining and sprawl?
The most effective way to turn back China’s export onslaught would be for the U.S. to coordinate with like-minded partners. Trump has to date shown no interest in such a united front.
Canada last year copied the U.S.’s 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs. Then Trump hit Canada with auto tariffs, and China retaliated against Canadian agriculture. Caught in a two-front trade war, Canada is reviewing its tariffs on China. . . . Trump is a blessing for CCP.
Deindustrializing Germany: Germany’s industrial might was built on equilibrium cheap Russian energy, Chinese technology partnerships, and an export-driven alliance with global markets. That balance has been obliterated.
Deindustrializing Germany: The Silent Coup of Brussels, Washington & the War Economy
Germany’s collapse is no longer a distant warning it is unfolding in real time on the factory floors of Wolfsburg. Volkswagen, the crown jewel of Europe’s manufacturing prowess, is preparing to…
Swami Vivekananda on China: ‘I see before me the body of an elephant. There is a foal within. But it is a lion-cub that comes out of it. It will grow in future, and China shall become great and powerful.’
Silicon Valley has spent mountains of money in pursuit of AI’s holy grail: AGI. Enthusiasts say it will give the U.S. insurmountable military advantages, help cure cancer and solve climate change, and eliminate the need for people to perform routine work such as accounting and customer service.
In China, by contrast, leader Xi Jinping has recently had little to say about AGI. Instead, he is pushing the country’s tech industry to be “strongly oriented toward applications”—building practical, low-cost tools that boost China’s efficiency and can be marketed easily.
"We learnt a lot from the very first prototype in India": Placing solar panels over the 4,000 miles of California’s open canals could save up to 63 billion gallons of water annually — enough to meet the needs of 2 million people.
This is also how ISRO succeeded -- you can't import a satellite launch vehicle.
In such segments, DRDO and ISRO come out looking very good.
Take for instance, the ring laser gyroscope developed by DRDO under the Integrated Guided Missile Programme.
Older missiles used mechanical gyroscopes; the new laser gyroscope is far more accurate.
Nobody would give that to us, so DRDO developed it indigenously.
However, in areas where an import option exists -- like fighter jets, main battle tanks, or towed artillery guns -- the moment DRDO gets close to a solution, someone shows up offering to sell it.
The sellers also have an interest in undermining DRDO.
There are also numerous critical subsystems developed that aren't as visible.
For example, the heat shield technology for re-entry vehicles was first mastered in DRDO for the Agni missile.
This is why the Americans were so opposed to Agni in the 1980s, unlike other missiles -- it was a re-entry vehicle.
We also had to master the technology of mounting printed circuit boards in these missiles that can withstand extreme shock, vibration, and temperature.
The US had a far better ecosystem for spinning off military technology for civilian use --Teflon came from the space programme.
DRDO could have done this, but it was stifled by financial and ideological hurdles.
For example, armour-penetrating explosives could have had mining and other civilian applications. Similarly the laser gyro, heat shield etc.
The commercialisation never took off because our finance people were scared to make decisions.
I don't necessarily blame them; they fear audit objections. The whole system is messed up.
This is also why government startup funds often go unspent -- no one wants to take the risk inherent in venture capitalism, where you expect many failures for one big success.
This culture of audit objections stifles innovation, and no government, including the present one, has shown the willingness to truly understand and fix this problem.
Our biggest success was the control law for the LCA.
It started around 1992. Girish Deodhare, who just retired as DG of ADA, was my PhD student at Waterloo and joined CAIR.
Dr Kota Harinarayana was the programme director of ADA.
Initially, Martin Marietta was supposed to design the control software. They would talk big but belittle Indian capabilities and refused to share design documents, only giving final numbers.
Dr Kalam, who took over as DG in July '92, called a meeting -- on a Sunday -- and appointed Prof Roddam Narasimha FRS, to head a committee to decide if we could build the control law indigenously. We all said we could.
These foreign companies weren't impressive technically and weren't offering a knowledge transfer.
We decided to go for a state-of-the-art digital fly-by-wire control with a 32-bit floating-point processor, which was advanced for the time.
Prof Narasimha recommended we do it ourselves, and Dr Kalam agreed. He appointed Professor I G Sharma of IISc as an independent assessor to report to the ADA governing council every three months.
We designed the first cut of the control law in about two years.
A major hurdle was computing power. Due to international restrictions, we couldn't get powerful computers in India.
We rented time on a British Aerospace flight simulator in the UK.
Our team would go there with the software on tapes, and our test pilots would fly the LCA control law on that simulator.
Interestingly, the BAE guys, who were also working on the Eurofighter, invited our pilots to try their simulator.
Our pilots later reported that they found the LCA's handling qualities to be better!
Professor M Vidyasagar, FRS, is a Distinguished Professor at IIT Hyderabad. He earned his BS, MS, and PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin.
Blue skies are a luxury in India: It’s the same endless blue dome that stretches over America, Europe, and India alike. But it’s not blue anymore in most Indian cities. The saddest part? We got used to it.
Ram mandir needs trees and water bodies to be the model temple of the maryada purushothaman
I feel a tad bit sad every time I go outside the country. In Vietnam now. Lots of parks, used by the elderly for exercise and socializing. Lots of bicycles on the roads. We could have all this and more if only we could root out corruption and develop civic sense in India. https://t.co/Lb0rNBVSzfpic.twitter.com/ggQVOWAxYT
— Vishnu Sreekumar (@vishnusreekumar@masto.ai) (@vishnusreekr) October 24, 2025
