THE union government recently approved a new, poorly conceived Rs11,040 crore National Mission on Edible Oils-Oil Palm (NMEO-OP) with an ecologically damaging focus on oil palm plantations in the North-East and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, presumably due to the favourable rainfall and temperature conditions in these regions.

WITH the US imposing technology sanctions on China, the world’s electronics industry is facing turbulent times. After the sanctions, Huawei has slipped from its number one slot as a mobile phone supplier (2nd quarter 2020) to number seven currently. Commenting on this slide, the Huawei chairman has said that right now, Huawei’s battle is for survival. On that count, Huawei is not only surviving but doing pretty well.

MORE than 12 years have passed since the India US nuclear deal was signed. Pranab Mukherjee, then India's External Affairs Minister, and Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, signed the U.S.-India Civilian Nuclear Cooperation Agreement in October 2008. The deal was sold to the Indian people as a magic wand to meet India's energy needs, and end India's recurring power cuts. Those who wear made-in-America blinkers refuse to recognise that the success of the India US nuclear deal has to be tested against the benchmark of whether it met any of India's energy needs.

THE space race was once between the Soviet Union and the United States. It is now – on the surface – between the three billionaires, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson. Two of them rode their sub-orbital flights, meaning that they cannot be considered as space flights as they did not reach a stable orbit around the earth. Branson’s ambitions are limited, more for a market for developing the exotica of space tourism. Elon Musk and his SpaceX have been playing for the long haul, with a series of rockets and launches including to the International Space Station.

THE winged horse of the Greek fable Pegasus is haunting the Modi government once again. 17 news organisations including The Wire, Washington Post, The Guardian along with two NGO's – Amnesty International and Forbidden Stories – have spent months examining a possible list of 50,000 phone numbers from 45-50 countries. They have found out who could indeed be possible targets of cyber attacks in these countries. They then forensically examined the phones on the target list of some of the people who were willing to have their phones tested.