Miscellaneous News

Sardaukar20 said:

The best part is, Skydio can try to build an alternative supply chain outside of China, but it'll never be as competitive. They can speak proudly about the US defence industry needing to establish a new drone supply chain outside of China. But just for Skydio? There just isn't enough economies of scale there. So even if they setup a new supply chain for batteries from let's say Australia, all they way to India, it's still gonna be small, uncompetitive, and more expensive.

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Funny part is Skydio shut down their consumer facing division last year, they already gave up trying to compete with DJI on commercial market and their focus since has been entirely on BlueUAS i.e. "Made in USA" drone market, that and lobbying for DJI ban.

So all their struggle with being cut off by China isn't even with commercial competition, it's with providing US government with inferior Mavic clones that cost $20k because they were suppose to be "Made in USA"

This is probably happening in all the other "Made in USA" US defence contractors China sanctioned, they're just more discrete with their crying.

Sardaukar20 said:

Exactly. It's not like modern, air-conditioned trams were only just invented yesterday. And isn't India richer than the UK, France, or Italy? Why won't they have the budget to upgrade it to modern standards?

As for the nostalgia and historical heritage concerns. The authorities are planning to preserve one line to serve as a heritage line. So its not like it's gonna be gone for good. Obviously, this still didn't satisfy a number of Indians.

Indians have a strange selection for nostalgia. One the one hand, they retain nostalgia for the British-built buildings and infrastructure. But on the other hand, they were enthusiastic to tear down the centuries-old Babri Masjid, and replace it with the Ram Mandir Hindu temple.

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Reading the article, sounds like the government is just being cheap. They are clearly trying to destroy the service by reducing the number of trams, making it unreliable. This is similar to what GM, Firestone, and oil companies did in the 40's and 50's to make cars the dominant form of transportation.


However, while the main motivation for GM and those companies was obviously profit, the Kolkata government just seems to be lazy.

Sardaukar20 said:

Exactly. It's not like modern, air-conditioned trams were only just invented yesterday. And isn't India richer than the UK, France, or Italy? Why won't they have the budget to upgrade it to modern standards?

As for the nostalgia and historical heritage concerns. The authorities are planning to preserve one line to serve as a heritage line. So its not like it's gonna be gone for good. Obviously, this still didn't satisfy a number of Indians.

Indians have a strange selection for nostalgia. One the one hand, they retain nostalgia for the British-built buildings and infrastructure. But on the other hand, they were enthusiastic to tear down the centuries-old Babri Masjid, and replace it with the Ram Mandir Hindu temple.

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India is not the successor state of the Mughal Empire, Delhi Sultanate, Gupta Empire or Indus River Civilization.

That would be Pakistan.

India is the successor state to the British Empire.

The conflict between Pakistan and India is the conflict between the native people of Hindustan and imperialist invaders.

Phead128 said:

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The article reads like a schizophrenic:

China scared+weak while Russia-NK grow closer stronger (divide-and-conquer tactic, characterize China as weak)
China should exercise influence to stop NK/Russia or face Western consequences (Western lectures China, veiled threats)
AT THE END, they assert China actually super pro-Russia against West (monolithic China Bad axis-of-evil with Russia)

Whoever wrote this article completely ignored how US is trying to contain China's rise, so Russia-NK screwing over US/NATO is completely aligned with China's interest. Somehow they spin it as China is weak yet China bad for pro-Russia. Complete idiots.

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Hanlon's razor is getting so much use it needs new blades.

daifo said:

India decides to flex super powa status early. US officials don't seem to be screaming pivoting towards India too much these days.

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The next in the WaPo investigation series on India. This is two weeks old but has some gems which weren't posted before.

Canada alleges much wider campaign by Modi government against Sikhs​

Conversations and texts among Indian diplomats include references to “a senior official in India and a senior official in RAW” who have authorized the intelligence-gathering missions and attacks on Sikh separatists, the Canadian official said.
Canadian officials identified the senior official in India as Amit Shah, a member of Modi’s inner circle who serves as home affairs minister. Spokespeople in India’s Ministry for External Affairs and its Home Ministry, which oversees national security matters, did not respond to requests for comment about Shah’s alleged role.

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Canada had sought the meeting in an attempt to persuade Modi’s government to end an escalating campaign of violence in Canada, but also to warn that details exposing Indian involvement in attacks were likely to become public as prosecutors move forward next month with a planned trial of four suspects in Nijjar’s killing.
Instead, officials said Doval made clear that India “would deny any link to the Nijjar murder and any link to any other violence in Canada no matter what the evidence was,” a senior Canadian official said.

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Officials provided other details about the five-hour encounter with Doval, 79, a former spymaster who is seen as one of Modi’s closest confidants and has served as national security adviser for a decade.

Doval “did admit that India did use its diplomats to follow people, take pictures, et cetera, but denied any links to threats or violence,” an official said.

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When Canadian officials outlined evidence that India had enlisted Bishnoi’s gang networks in Canada to carry out the Nijjar killing and other attacks, Doval initially “pretended not to have any idea who the guy was,” a Canadian official said. Later, however, Doval began rattling off “facts, figures and anecdotes” about Bishnoi, acknowledging that he “was capable of orchestrating violence from wherever he is incarcerated” and “was known to be up to no good from his jail cell.”

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Doval ended the Saturday meeting by asking his counterparts to treat the discussion as if it “never took place” — meaning they should refrain from issuing any public statement or acknowledgment of the gathering.
By the time Drouin and Morrison had made it back to Ottawa, however, pro-Modi media reports had surfaced in India describing how Indian officials had taken a “strong stance” and lectured Canada that “it cannot make unsubstantiated charges.”

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Indian domestic media were heavily criticizing Canada for leaking "confidential" info about India's foreign intelligence to the US, it's almost as if they don't know WaPo is the CIA's mouthpiece the whole time. WaPo just shat all over India's national security advisor Ajit Doval in this article.

When news first broke about India's assassinations in the west, ppl made jokes about its similarities to the assassination of Henry Liu in the US by the ROC. That case ended Chiang's family rule over Taiwan by linking it to Chiang Ching-kuo's son and thus bringing in the biggest Hanjian Lee Teng-hui to rule over Taiwan. Similarly these assassinations cases against India are being used to remove Modi's potential successor Amit Shah.