SCIENCE & DEVELOPMENT

Maritime Emissions Agreement: A Big Deal

TWO sectors, namely international aviation and international shipping, each representing around 3 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, have remained outside the purview of international negotiations and treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UNFCCC, as well as negotiations and emissions control regimes under it, regulate actions by government parties as the only entities that can be held accountable under international treaties.

Trump’s Tariff War: After Me, the Deluge

THERE are many dimensions of Trump's trade war launched against all countries beginning of April, from the biggest countries, such as China, EU, Japan, and India, to the smallest, including Lesotho, one of the poorest countries in the world. Lesotho exports diamonds to the US, has a per capita income of approximately $3.3, and is in no position to buy US goods. The US imposed an import duty on Lesotho of 50 per cent, the highest tariff on any country. This is before China and US reciprocal tariffs tit for tat action reached minimum China’s tariff to 145 per cent.

Laws of Gravity Catching Up with Tesla

WE are not talking here about Nikolai Tesla, the genius who invented the AC motor and whose design is the basis for almost all electric motors today, including electric vehicles (EVs). This article is about Tesla, the car company that has become synonymous with Elon Musk. Tesla's share price, which defied the laws of gravity for years, is now on a steep downward trajectory in the last three months, losing about half its market value over the last three months. Statista notes that it has lost the title of being the world's leader in producing EVs to BYD, the Chinese EV maker.

Advancing the Boundaries of Science: From Oparin, Haldane, Bernal to Today

ONE of the arguments in favour of a divine power – or god – is that life could not have arisen naturally and needed a touch of the divine to come into being. While Oparin, Haldane and Bernal had argued how organic life forms can arise naturally, experimental proof that this is indeed the case was lacking, though the Urey-Miller experiments in 1953 came quite close to it.

Musk Enters India’s Telecom Market: A Shake-up or a Shake Down?

THE announcements of Musk's SpaceX-Starlink's tie-up with Jio Reliance (Jio is a trademark of Reliance Industries) and Bharti Airtel, the two dominant players, raise a number of questions. The two key questions are: i) Will it mean a greater monopolisation in telecom services? ii) Will satellite spectrum be given to Starlink without auction? It also raises questions about whether such satellite spectrum, a country's critical resource, should be given out for commercial operations in this way.Top 4 Telecom Companies Market Share

Trump 2.0: Tech Oligarchy driven US Revivalism

TRUMP 2.0 has got off to a tumultuous start. The early days of Donald Trump’s second term as US president have been marked by a whirlwind of policy shifts, diplomatic upheavals, and economic manoeuvres, leaving both domestic and international observers struggling to keep pace. While Trump has always been erratic and almost deliberately unpredictable, the scope and magnitude of changes being ushered in this Trump 2.0 administration is qualitatively different.

Exaggeration of Forest Cover in India

INDIA'S forest cover is on the decline. But government agencies consistently present data that support a false narrative of the country’s forests doing well with regard to both carbon sequestration and forest cover. Forest Survey of India (FSI) has the responsibility of publishing ‘India State of Forest Report (ISFR)’ every alternate year. The ISFR 2023 reported a 1,445 square kilometres (sq. kms) increase in total forest and tree cover compared to 2021, with 156 sq. kms attributed to natural forest cover and the remainder to tree cover outside forests.

Why is India Going Back to Failed US Nuclear Suppliers

THE finance minister's recent budget discussed a significant focus on nuclear energy, particularly the use of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and the need to amend India's nuclear liability law: The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010. Though this has been a demand of the US nuclear industry for a long time, it has been on the back burner as the US nuclear industry has iteself been in a crisis for quite some time. Westinghouse emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection only in 2018 and commissioned the Vogtle nuclear plant in Georgia, US, in 2023.

DeepSeek's Deep Shock to the US AI Behemoths

THE tech world was shocked when a little-known Chinese company released an AI model called DeepSeek that appears to match the Open AI's most advanced models while spending a small fraction of its cost. The tech world has been buzzing for the last month with leading the US tech investors first following Nvidia's performance with bated breath and then bemoaning that the AI's Sputnik moment – DeepSeek's AI models – had wiped nearly a trillion dollars of leading tech companies.

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