Every Saturday, I publish this series called Learning by Proxy. It is a capsule of some of the stuff that I found interesting over the week along with some context to it. I hope you enjoy it.

I have changed the format this time to try and follow a thread across many stories. I hope people like it. Let me know.

Follow Up

Both parties – India and China are reported to be stepping back at the border. The satellite pictures don’t seem like that at all! Link

The USA, in the meantime, does not wish to lose access to the South China Sea. They sent a couple of destroyers into the South China Sea knowing fully well that the Chinese fleets were present in the area conducting exercises.

The carriers — the Ronald Reagan and the Nimitz — deployed “in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific,” according to a statement by the Navy’s Seventh Fleet. It said that the ships, which were accompanied by warships and aircraft, were conducting exercises to improve air defence and long-range missile strikes in “a rapidly evolving area of operations.”

Source: NYTimes

Playing with matches.

On COVID

COVID causes upper respiratory problems. But why? SARS-CoV-2 attaches itself to cells in the human body called ACE2 receptors. It happens to be present in abundance in the lungs. Hence the respiratory condition. ACE2 is also present in all other organs including the stomach, kidney, heart, and brain. Many patients suffer from diarrhoea and stomach upsets only to later discover that they are infected. The loss of the sense of smell is also because of the presence of ACE2 in the nose. Now, it turns out that many people infected by COVID-19 suffer from brain damage as well. ACE2?

Doctors may be missing signs of serious and potentially fatal brain disorders triggered by the coronavirus, as they emerge in mildly affected or recovering patients, scientists have warned.

Neurologists are on Wednesday publishing details of more than 40 UK Covid-19 patients whose complications ranged from brain inflammation and delirium to nerve damage and stroke. In some cases, the neurological problem was the patient’s first and main symptom.

Source: The Guardian

If these were the people who voted for Brexit, I suppose the damage might have been from before COVID.

The virus also seems to like men more than women and nobody knows why.

Energy

An achievement in power

The Indian Railways is an organisation that was created by the British to loot India more efficiently. Since then, India has made the railways an asset like none other. 59 years ago, the Indian railways embarked on an ambitious program to electrify the railways in the country. Today close to 99% of the railway lines are electrified and it has helped us shift away from Diesel to Coal.

Every once in a while a government organisation will do something in India that will make your chest swell with pride. A couple of years back Kochi became the first airport in the world to be 100% powered by solar energy. And now it is the turn of the railways!

According to details shared by Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, the pilot project of a 1.7-megawatt solar power plant has been set up by Indian Railways in collaboration with Bharat Heavy Electrical Limited (BHEL) on railway land. The solar power plant project has been set up at Bina Traction Sub Station. The 1.7-megawatt solar power plant can produce around 25 lakh units of energy annually and save about an amount of Rs 1.37 crore for Indian Railways every year.

According to the Railway Board Chairman, Indian Railways is planning to install solar power plants with a total capacity of 3 gigawatts, in the coming years. The power generated by these solar plants will directly feed the traction power for locomotives, he said. The tenders have already been invited for this project, however, it will take around two to three years to complete this project, he further stated.

Source: Financial Express

And immediately after achieving this milestone, another ministry decided to sabotage this plan. How will they get to 3GW, with Indian solar panels?

Shot in the foot

Also, India has moved in big ways towards solar power over the past decade. This was made possible in no small way by cheap Chinese Imports. Things got so bad for Indian manufacturers went begging to the government to do something about it, a few years ago. Now, thanks to the spat at the border, the Power Ministry has decided to ban all imports of power equipment from China.

It is not immediately clear if the Indian power producers who have already tied up with Chinese equipment suppliers will get a waiver or a carve-out from the latest decision. As much as 9,570 MW of the currently under-construction power plants — all from the private sector — have contracted with Chinese companies for supplying boilers, turbines and generators. Total under- construction capacity is 15,861 MW, of which 12,245 MW is in the private sector.

Source: Financial Express

This kind of thoughtless policy announcement has been the landmark of the Modi government.

Space

Satellite Market

One of the big expectations that drove the space entrepreneurs to take massive risks with other people’s money was the fact that several smaller countries will need satellites in space. Without the resources to develop their space program, they will hire private companies to launch. African countries have been launching satellites for weather prediction as well as resource mapping. Now, it is the turn of the Middle East – not to study earth, but Mars!

Sarah bint Yousif Al-Amiri knows what it’s like to build a spacecraft, but she’s never launched one to Mars—or during a global pandemic. As the deputy project manager for the United Arab Emirates’ first interplanetary mission—and the country’s minister of state for advanced sciences—the 33-year-old engineer has spent the past few years bouncing between Dubai and Boulder, Colorado, where a team of Emirati scientists have been busy building a robotic satellite meteorologist called Hope. These days, Al-Amiri is quarantining near the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan, where Hope is expected to depart on a seven-month journey to the Red Planet next week.

Source: Wired

Connecting the World

The Internet can change the fortunes of any place. Imagine not having access to the internet. There are several places in the world where it is not economically viable to provide internet. Alphabet, the parent company of Google has been experimenting with Project Loon for close to a decade now. The idea is to have stratospheric air balloons beam internet down onto the planet. The first deployment took place in Kenya.

A fleet of high-altitude balloons started delivering internet service to Kenya on Tuesday, extending online access to tens of thousands of people in the first-ever commercial deployment of the technology.

The balloons, which hover about 12 miles up in the stratosphere — well above commercial aeroplanes — will initially provide a 4G LTE network connection to a nearly 31,000-square-mile area across central and western Kenya, including the capital, Nairobi.

Source: NYTimes

Airtel in Space

Since we are on the topic of internet, space seems to be the frontier for delivering low latency high-speed internet. With Jio busy photocopying every app known to mankind, Airtel is beginning to look towards space. The company will be splurging a Billion dollars to buy a satellite constellation. Must seem like spending some pocket change given the liability the Supreme Court piled onto the company as spectrum charges last year. But visionary indeed.

Twenty years after launching mobile telephone services in India, Sunil Mittal took a giant leap to connect the next billion users through a constellation of satellites, possibly gaining a head-start in Indian telecom’s race towards 5G mobile networks. A consortium led by Bharti Enterprises has won 45% stake the bid for OneWeb, a bankrupt firm that makes satellites in the UK and the US. Bharti had bid jointly with the UK government for the auction. They would invest around $500 million each to acquire OneWeb, which had declared bankruptcy earlier this year.

Source: Inc42

Xenophobia

Who is a Kuwaiti?

There is a movie about the rescue missions that had to be attempted to bring Indians back when the Gulf War broke out. Many from India have made gulf home especially those from the southern state of Kerala. What happens when a country realises that 33% of its population are ex-pats from ONE single country?

The Indian community constitutes the largest ex-pat community in Kuwait, totalling 1.45 million, the report added. Over 8 lakh Indians could be forced out of Kuwait if a new bill on ex-pats is enacted into law, the Gulf News reported. The legal and legislative committee of Kuwait’s National Assembly has approved the draft ex-pat quota bill, according to which Indians should not exceed 15% of the population.

Source: Indian Express

To keep the population essentially Kuwaiti, they need to chase out people from other countries. How will they execute this plan?

Stupidity thy name is Trump Administration

With the surge in COVID cases, any remaining hope that the Universities could open in fall were dashed. That did not keep their audacity at bay. All Universities will deliver classes online – at the same tuition fee of ~ USD 50,000. I suppose they do realise the very same courses are available on Coursera for USD 39 – 79 a month. The Trump administration joined the party. After banning H1B for till the end of this year – because waiters gonna code; they announced that all students must go back if their courses are online!

The over 250,000 Indian students enrolled in US universities now run the risk of being sent packing. Some of these students have parents living in the US on H1B! Where do they go back?

The Donald Trump administration on July 6 tweaked an exemption that allowed foreign students to stay in the US even when most of their classes are being held online amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Source: Quartz

Students are free money. Their parents are rich and expatriating foreign exchange to ensure their kids can get a great education. Not only that students are a huge source of consumption. They eat a lot, buy a lot and experience a lot. At a time when the economy is undergoing a slump, to chase them away, especially when your economy hardly adds any value to them – is just stupid. Not to mention – this will destroy the ability of the universities to attract overseas students in the coming years.

Promptly – Harvard and MIT sued.

“By threatening to force many F-1 students to withdraw from Harvard and MIT, Defendants have put both schools to an impossible choice: lose numerous students who bring immense benefits to the school or take steps to retain those students through in-person classes, even when those steps contradict each school’s judgment about how best to protect the health of the students, faculty, staff, and the entire university community.”

Source: Indian Express

When you can’t offer perks

Companies are well known for making it as easy as possible for parents to come in and slog 16 hour days. Provide foosball tables and the likes that you would not be able to use at all, unless you were going to stay at work till 11 P.M. While there was a sinister side to the childcare and other support of that nature offered, they were still perks. This helped bring some of the best talents to the organisation. When your employee is sitting at home, what perk can you offer? Fewer working days!

Data from jobs marketplace ZipRecruiter shows that in 2020, so far, the share of company job postings offering four-day workweeks is 69 for every 10,000 job postings. It’s a tiny number to be sure, but it’s up from 40 in 2019. Between 2015 and 2018, the share was fewer than 18 in 10,000 postings each year.

Pre-pandemic, companies offered condensed schedules largely to attract and retain talent that prized flexibility. In the current climate, a shorter workweek is one way for companies to cut costs without resorting to layoffs.

Source: Quartz

Finally…

Sue spammers as a service

Startups are in the business of turning tough human work into simple products. We all get spammed every day. Spam is unwanted; in some cases meant to cause harm. These companies should be sued. But I am sure, not a single person has the time to sue them. Now, a UK based startup – DoNotPay – has launched a service that will automatically unsubscribe you from Spam while at the same time going after the spammers. The company bills itself to be the world’s first robot lawyer.

If you use a mainstream email provider, it likely catches most of the obviously useless and potentially malicious spam you receive, like scammy prescription drug offers and unsolicited sex tips. But when it comes to the endless promo emails from retailers and newsletters you don’t remember signing up for, you’re mostly on your own. Now a new tool from DoNotPay, a suite of consumer advocacy services, offers a lifeline that will make it easier to unsubscribe from email lists in a privacy-conscious way. It’ll also try to earn you some cash along the way.

Source: Wired

Signing off…