Quick notes: Reality check | Plastic waste...

• Reality check: India's bid to match China's factory heft gets a reality check. Goods imports have surged 56% since the 2020 border clash while India's trade deficit with China has nearly doubled to $85 billion. China continues to be India's biggest source of goods and was the largest supplier of industrial products last year.



• Lagging: India’s share in global FDI falls to 2.1% in 2023 from 6.5% in 2020: Limited success in attracting FDI in manufacturing sector.



• Decline: India losing out to countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam in manufacturing. India's share in global exports of apparel, leather, textiles, and footwear has declined from 4.5 percent in 2013 to 3.5 percent in 2022. Direct employment related to exports fell from a peak of 9.5 percent of total domestic employment in 2012 to 6.5 percent in 2020.



• Speculator's haven: $5.5 trillion and ticking: Beware! The pressure is building in India's stock markets



• "Exploitation is rampant: I worked as a food delivery boy in Bengaluru. Guess how much I earned in a week




• AI’s massive thirst for energy: Mr ChatGPT and other AI power players are going to the White House to discuss AI’s massive thirst for energy. . . Oracle will use three small nuclear reactors to power new 1-gigawatt AI data center



• Nikah mut’ah: Sex tourism in Indonesia sells itself as Islamic temporary marriage. . . Taliban’s 'reforms' lead to 21,000 musical instruments destroyed in Afghanistan



• India leads the world in generating plastic waste: Producing 10.2 million tons a year (9.3 million metric tons), far more than double the next big-polluting nations, Nigeria and Indonesia. China, often villainized for pollution, ranks fourth but is making tremendous strides in reducing waste.



• China’s Megadams Create Power and Destroy Homes on the ‘Roof of the World’:




• The Once-Dominant Tank Is Getting Humbled on the Battlefield: The rise of drones has prompted armies to change tactics and add defenses to the powerful armored vehicles.

Quick notes: Predactory MNCs | Thorium+Molten salt...

• E-commerce MNCs a threat to India: Amazon not doing India a favour by investing billions of dollars: Piyush Goyal.... “If you made ₹6,000 crore loss in one year, does that not smell of predatory pricing to any of you? Where did that loss come from?” The role of e-commerce in the Indian economy needs to be carefully evaluated and made citizen-centric to ensure there is no social disruption that may affect about 100 million small retailers across the country, the Minister said.




• Waqf through the ages: How Rs 1-lakh crore property owner board acquires land... Entire village's land snatched away overnight, shocking reality of Thiruchendurai



• Time To Shut Down Coaching Classes? Nobody wants to learn from the Chinese, but see how Xi Jinping addressed it in 2021. He demolished his entire tuition and coaching industry overnight. Reasons given: It was straining the finances of families, causing inequality, wasting families' time and taking young people away from more fun things. Everything, including coaching centres for China's famed UPSC equivalent, Gaokao, was banned. There was to be no tutoring for profit, no IPO listings, no share sales, limits on online learning, no mergers, acquisitions, foreign collaborations. End of story.



• China to launch world’s first thorium molten salt power station: Moving away from the water cooling model, this design significantly reduces the chances of meltdowns. Further, thorium reactors generatw less toxic and short-lived radioactive waste than uranium-fueled ones, thereby easing long-term disposal.




• AI's insatiable energy demand: Amazon's purchase of a data center campus adjacent to a nuclear power facility speaks to a broader issue that Amazon and other tech giants are grappling with: the insatiable demand for energy from AI... not just power, AI is guzzling water too.



• Beijing increases its influence in Nepal: Tibetans in Nepal not free to celebrate Dalai Lama's birthday.



• Foxconn: Southern states look to outfox each other in hunt for a Foxconn ‘city’



• Environmental concerns persist as Amaravati 'world city' rises: “Amaravati is likely to be an environmental disaster in making. There are a series of environmental issues involved, revolving around forests, water bodies, wetlands, floodplains and the riverbed. It is a flood-prone area. Flood mitigation measures are going to be expensive,”

Quick notes: Tech jobs | Hockey legend...

• AI Is Coming for India’s Famous Tech Hub: AI might accelerate trends that have already made the industry less labor-intensive. About a decade ago, companies needed about 27 employees to earn $1 million in annual revenue. That number has now fallen to 21 employees ..The industry added 60,000 jobs in the year ended in March, the lowest annual increase in more than a decade.



• China Expert: “India must copy this from China to stay ahead!” Manoj Kewalramani -- MUST WATCH!




• China's explosive rise in EVs: How BYD, Nio and other Chinese EVs compare to Tesla



• Loitering munitions: India Unveils Lethal 'Swadeshi' Kamikaze Drones With 1,000 Km Range. . . Ukraine war fuels rise of killer AI robots



• Japan's chipmaking revival? Rapidus to use AI and robots to automate back end chipmaking processes.. claims automation can slash delivery times by 66% versus TSMC and Samsung.



• The Wall of India - PR Sreejesh: The hockey legend who stood tall in cricket-mad India . . . A traditional Kerala meal for Sreejesh



• More white elephants? "India's dream to host Olympics 2036, we are preparing"... Is it to foster sporting culture, or to leverage national pride that borders on jingoism?.... Hosting Olympics is NOT a great investment:




• The world is but a show, glittering and empty. It is, and yet is not. It is there as long as I want to see it and take part in it. When I cease caring, it dissolves, It has no cause and serves no purpose. It just happens when we are absent-minded. It appears exactly as it looks, but there is no depth in it, nor meaning. Only the onlooker is real, call him Self or Atma. To the Self the world is but a colourful show, which he enjoys as long as it lasts and forgets when it is over. Whatever happens on the stage makes him shudder in terror or roll with laughter, yet all the time he is aware that it is but a show. Without desire or fear he enjoys it, as it happens.
  I am a dream that can wake you up.

Quick notes: Death by landslides | Power-hungry AI...

• Man-made catastrophe: Man-made Church-made disaster. 62 per cent of the green cover in Wayanad district disappeared between 1950 and 2018 while plantation cover rose by around 1,800 per cent. Around 85 per cent of the total area of Wayanad was under forest cover until the 1950s.



• Cardinal sin: Church organized agitations against restricting commercial activities in ecologically sensitive areas.

The truth is - The only voice that came out in support of Western Ghats was the RSS
The Kerala govt (be it Left or Congress) + Church vehemently opposed any recommendations to protect Western Ghats https://t.co/oTP0FzDnCs

— Viva Kermani🇮🇳🇮🇱 (@vivakermani) July 31, 2024




• Over-Tourism: Wayanad received more than 1 million domestic and foreign tourists last year, nearly triple the number in 2011 when a federal govt report warned against over-development. Kerala has witnessed nearly 60% of the landslides in India between 2015 and 2022 . . . . Experts panel locates 70,582 buildings in buffer zones; most number of structures in Wayanad



• Scientists May Have Discovered the Cause of Autism: researchers from the University of Fukui investigated the link between polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) in umbilical cord blood samples and autism scores in 200 children. The study identified one particular compound in the umbilical cord blood acid, called diHETrE, that may have "strong implications" for ASD severity.



• "Muscular Nationalism": India-China military tensions persist even as their trade surges. India’s exports to China stood at $16 billion last year while imports were more than $100 billion.



• Why the Internet Is Running Out of Electricity: The massive power draw of Generative AI is overtaxing our grid.




• “Where” will the Energy for AI come from?: Google reveals 48% increase in greenhouse gas emissions from 2019, largely driven by data center energy demands.



• Generative AI patents: China beat the U.S. in generative AI patents by 6-to-1 for the past ten years — almost 10,000 Chinese patents filed last year alone



• AI superpower: Chinese AI built off open-source code matches American tech in chatbot benchmark tests.



• Google pulls Gemini AI ad from Olympics after backlash: "Why would anyone want to replace a child’s creativity and authentic expression with words written by a computer?"



• Vidushi Sangeeta Katti Kulkarni: Enna Paliso | Kannada Devotional

Quick notes: Muslim "brotherhood" | Millionaire exodus...

• Pakistan to start second phase of Afghan deportations: Beginning Sunday, authorities are likely to expel more than 800,000 Afghans from the country, after about 541,000 were forced to leave in the first phase in November last year
  
  The reality of "Muslim Brotherhood": Syrians in Turkey face deportation into an unknown future. "You could tell that Turkey wanted to get rid of us Syrians". "Turkey has always used Syrian refugees as a political pawn, whether through its EU-Turkey deal and the billions of euros associated with it, or to exert influence on the reorganization of Syria if the regime were to fall".



• Why RICH people will leave India: a. Quality of living b. Crony capitalism c. Stockholm syndrome-- people adjust to everything -- gas chamber pollution, pot holes, deforestation..




• Union Budget is not corporate India’s wishlist: Tax breaks can’t solely drive profit



• Anna University to rope in int’l faculty: “Our faculty members are working with many international faculties in various universities as part of their research collaborations. We will try to bring in some of these international faculty members for a period of one to two years”.



• The dark side of light: Light exposure at night may raise the risk of type 2 diabetes. Reducing light exposure in the evening and maintaining a dark environment could be a cheap and easy way to prevent or delay the development of diabetes, even for those who are high risk.



• Night owl behavior could hurt mental health, sleep study finds. Morning larks who rose with the sun tended to have the best mental health of all, to no one's surprise.



• China's Peru megaport rattles USA: China's Megaport In South America Could Spark Resource War With US



• Chinese C919 jet hopes to challenge Boeing, Airbus: China is marketing its commercial jet to the international market.



• Meera Bhajan - Aryya Banik




• A single modern AI GPU consumes up to 3.7 MWh of power per year: GPUs sold last year alone consumed more power than 1.3 million homes



• 'BJP Did Hit Wicket With 400 Paar': India Shining 2.0.

Quick notes: Bubble territory | Domestic chips...

• Indian stocks overvalued? Squirreling away a portion of one’s income for a rainy day would typically be considered prudent behavior. Yet, in India, it’s helping make stocks overvalued.
  
  Systematic Investment Plans (SIPs) were introduced to help investors periodically put aside money in a disciplined manner. SIPs deduct cash every month from an investor’s bank account and invest the proceeds into selected mutual funds. As more money is directed toward these funds monthly, the portfolio managers are forced to buy stocks even when their valuations might not be as attractive.
  
  For instance, of the nearly 4,900 actively traded India-listed stocks, 300 stocks had a fall in revenue in the last two consecutive financial years. Yet, 216 of these stocks rose over the past 12 months. In fact, small-cap companies such as food packaging carton manufacturer Rollatainers and Tantia Constructions, an infrastructure company, have had three years of falling growth. Yet, their stock has risen more than 300% over the past 12 months.



• Chip news:
  14-nanometer: Tata Electronics prepares ground for high-end chips
  
  Zoho into chips? India's Zoho plans $700 million foray into chipmaking
  
  Rising star: Alibaba's Yitian 710 is the fastest Arm-based CPU for cloud servers, study claims
  
  Decoupling: Huawei brings sanctions-busting Kirin 9000C CPU to desktop PCs to replace banned Intel Alder Lake chips
  
  RISC-V laptop: Chinese startup unveils the first RISC-V based AI CPU, powers the K1 domestic laptop
  
  Tech independence: Chinese govt pushes Huawei's HarmonyOS hard, sets adoption targets to beat Windows, Android, and iOS
  
  Defying sanctions: Blacklisted China chipmaker SMIC becomes the world's second-largest pure-play foundry by revenue.



• Stranglehold on clean energy: China already makes as many batteries as the entire world wants




• No juice for EVs: Amid growing demand, America is running out of power.



• Energy transition: Coal share in India’s electricity mix drops below 50% for the first time since 1966



• Cow dung's key role in India's energy industry: Asia's biggest compressed biogas plant is in Lehragaga, Punjab. It can turn 300 tonnes of paddy straw into 33 tonnes of biogas every day.



• Begum Parveen Sultana: Raag Puriya Dhanashree




• Vegetarians, watch this: The Science of Vitamin B12



• Feeling hot, hot, hot? How India's cities can keep the mercury at bay



• Protein Supplements: Top medical body's advisory urges people to avoid protein supplements



• AI tramples on copyrights: Eight newspaper publishers sue Microsoft and OpenAI over copyright infringement. “The current GPT-4 LLM will output near-verbatim copies of significant portions of the publishers’ works when prompted to do so,”