Quick notes: Student visas, School admissions...

• To maintain its technological edge: US will limit visas for Chinese tech students



• Ireland takes on the Catholic Church: Under a school admissions bill that passed the lower house of the Irish parliament, Catholic elementary schools would be barred from discriminating in favor of children of their own “religious ethos.” ... when will secular India do this?



• New dimension: Chariot From Pre-Iron Age Found During Excavation in UP's Sanauli



• Ather Energy: The launch of this e-scooter is a moment of reckoning for India’s EV market. 



• Bike-friendly: Contributing to the larger movement of making Bengaluru roads friendly for cyclists, residents of Sanjaynagar plan to restrict motor vehicles to designated hours on certain days of every month.



• Ram Govind Hari: A treasure from Sant Kabir




• Reality check: Unlike the US and China which have hundreds of educational programmes in data science and AI, India has next-to-nothing. Only 4% of AI professionals in the country have worked on cutting-edge technologies like deep learning and neural networks. 



• Wipe out: Cumulative losses at public sector banks were large enough to wipe out almost all of the govt's capital injections of $13 billion in 2017-18



• Patanjali gets Yogi jolt: Rs 20 bn food park project not allowed in UP 

Quick notes: Chinese trap, Prosperity gospel...

• Avoiding Chinese Debt Trap: Nepal scraps hydropower deal with Chinese firm. This month, India began the construction of a 900 MW hydro-power project in east Nepal.... Some nations have begun to realize the futility of taking loans from China



• Silverpuram: In a village 3 Km from Sterlite plant, every other house has a cancer patient... From the archives of this blog: Taking away good, fertile, agricultural land for industrial gas-belchers is a bad idea



• "Ancient Indian Mathematics" by mathematician David H. Bailey:

Free article PDF on "Ancient Indian Mathematics" by mathematician David H. Bailey: https://t.co/hRLe4BD7BL pic.twitter.com/vLoUnwRYva

— Cliff Pickover (@pickover) May 19, 2018




• Prosperity Gospel: Padre with three planes wants followers to pay for a $54 million private jet




• How Japan dealt with the Christian Threat: When Christians were captured they would be made to renounce their faith and live their lives as Buddhists. The state “wants not martyrs, but apostates. Apostates better than martyrs attest the impotence of a religion, especially when those apostates had been apostles of the faith and priests.” After they renounced their faith, priests were forced to take wives as part of their new lives and were constantly monitored by the authorities. If renunciation was not forthcoming through torture, however, the final act would be execution.



• Unfair competition and predatory pricing: Indian trader group objects to Walmart-Flipkart deal 



• Ask for something in return:

For all the support Hindus gave to @BJP4India from 1990 till date, ask for something in return.

The repeal of Places of Worship Act and legislation giving Hindu devotees the right to administer their temples.#ReclaimTemples

— Reclaim Temples (@ReclaimTemples) May 19, 2018

Quick notes: China border, Tariff battle...

• India-China border: China is digging for gold right next to its disputed border with India. “Extensive power lines and communication networks have been established, while construction is under way on an airport that can handle passenger jets.” 



• Tariff battle: In a retaliatory move, India proposes to raise duties by up to 100% on 20 products such as almonds, apple and specific motorcycles imported from the US



• Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft: Tamil Nadu to build India’s next generation defence aircraft



• George Sudarshan: A Lifelong Pursuit Of Science And Vedanta. Even non-Hindus will come back to Vedanta if they are sincere in their quest for Truth.



• Punyakoti - First Sanskrit Animated Movie:




• Dear #googletranslate, please add Sanskrit:

Dear #googletranslate, you do 98 languages, including #Hawaiian which has only 2000 speakers but not #Sanskrit, which has vastly more speakers.

Sad @sundarpichai

Please Retweet if you agree.

— Subhash Kak (@subhashkak1) May 6, 2018

Quick notes: Horse domestication, Karnataka bungle...

• DNA Study Pokes Holes in Horse Domestication Theory:  “A lot of what we’ve published [on horse breeding and Eurasian population shifts] is probably going to be thrown out.”.



• In 're-education' program, China incarcerates thousands of Muslims: The program forces captives to renounce their religious and ethnic ties in favor of broad nationalism



• Karnataka bungle: “Once Modi and Shah left, the leaders here went into sleeping mode. The induction of former CM S M Krishna was not used for the benefit of the party. If the party had issued a ticket to Krishna’s daughter Shambhavi from Maddur, a better show would have been possible”.



• Caste math: A profile of the new Karnataka assembly



• Battery powered: Ola to add electric three-wheelers to fleet.... Honda may set up electric car battery plant in India.... Electric bicycle and motorcycle sales soar in Europe.



• NASA satellites reveal freshwater decline: In northern India, groundwater extraction for irrigation of crops such as wheat and rice have caused a rapid decline in available water, despite rainfall being normal throughout the period studied. The fact that extractions already exceed recharge during normal precipitation does not bode well for the availability of groundwater during future droughts.



• Diabetes type 2: Beans in diet could prevent high blood sugar.... Early time-restricted feeding improves blood sugar control and blood pressure.

Quick notes: Foreign rifles, Pashtun movement...

• Foreign rifles trump 'Make in India': Army closing indigenous high-tech project to save money for imported guns



• Pashtun movement: A new nonviolent mass movement has swept through Pakistan in recent months, demanding an end to Pakistan military’s oppression and extrajudicial killings of minority ethnic Pashtuns. This grassroots movement has rattled Pakistan’s deep state, primarily the notorious spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence.



• Flipkart deal: Is that really good news for India? For India as a country, the falling of Flipkart into foreign hands is a serious setback to Modi’s ‘Make in India’ dreams. The entire e-commerce battle is now America versus America.



• Indian trader, farmer groups decry Flipkart deal: Traders say they are most concerned about predatory pricing and steep discounting by e-commerce firms with deep pockets thanks to foreign funding that could edge out smaller rivals. . “Whoever is protesting also has a story to tell. If you look at our history as a country, there was a history of colonialism. And there is always a fear that you start with trade and then it becomes control”.



• We need a level playing field, say retailers: "While we have been telling that there is no level playing field, they are still not being taken care of. The real war is not about online and offline; our belief is that the real issue is about FDI in multi-brand retail is allowed or not".



• Santana Dharmahas always existed and will always exist:

"The Hindu Religion alone is Santana Dharma. The various creeds that you hear of nowadays have come into existence by the will of God & will disappear again thro His will.....The Hindu Region has always existed & will always exist" Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna date 20.10.1884 p642

— S Gurumurthy (@sgurumurthy) May 6, 2018

Quick notes: Flipkart, Wafer fabs...

• Walmart and Amazon duopoly: MNCs finally wrest control of Indian e-commerce sector.



• Home to the most polluted cities: As China cleans up its act, India’s cities named the world’s most polluted.... Most of these are concentrated in North India.... From the archives of this blog: The down side of "progress"



• Semiconductor Fabs: Does India need a wafer fab? The debate continues.



• Floating Rocks Of Ramappa Temple: Ancient Technology in India




• PDF link:  Indian contributions to science.



• Meat alternatives: The largest share of meat alternative consumers are people looking to reduce their meat intake and so-called flexitarians. There are growing health, ethical and sustainability concerns around animal farming and so every market forecast is highly optimistic that the market for meat substitutes will grow.