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India is a founding member and lead chair of Global Partnership on AI. At the GPAI Summit at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, December 11, 2023, prime minister Narendra Modi talks about India's potential  for cutting edge research and also about the risks and dangers of AI. "AI is transformative. Yet its transparency is essential, data and algorithms have to be transparent, and free from bias, for its right beginning, to be useful to humanity." Modi describes the useful aspects of AI for India's health sector and for other sectors, and India's UN Sustainability Goals. The safe and ethical use of AI and its democratization with AI for All a focus in India.

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Mr. Ghosn former CEO of Nissan and Renault left Japan for his home country of Lebanon. He was on trial for financial wrongdoing in Japan. Lebanon had put his image on a postage stamp and does not allow extradition of its citizens. Ghosn was required to stay in Japan pending the trial. It is not known how he left the country, some sources say he arrived through Turkey.

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The 1.4% decline on an annualized basis for the US economy in the first quarter of 2022 masks evidence of a recovery that is basically strong, says this report in the NYT. Consumer spending was up by 0.7 in the first quarter of 2022, even thought the omicron wave hit, and gas prices were high. This NYT report says the decline resulted mostly from the way inventories and trade figure in the calculation.

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The difficulties of unwinding war stimulus that has increased jobs and wages in poorer regions of Russia, and the problems with unwinding a war economy, are discussed here by experts from Russia, the US and Germany. Other aspects include what to do with hundreds of thousands of new recruited soldiers who would be unemployed during a period when the economy's growth has slowed and wage growth is slowing. In 2024 new recruits were given 1 years bonus and were being attracted in large numbers. JD Vance mentioned this to the new Pope in discussions, and this report says even Putin does not know how best to unwind this war economy. Vance told Pope Leo XIV -“I’m not sure that Vladimir Putin himself has a strategy for how to unwind the war.” This is the view also from an expert at the Free University of Berlin, as rapidly demobilizing a large army poses its own problems. Russia could export the arms from new arms factories and keep people employed. This option is difficult as many African countries buy on credit and Asian other buyers may seek the latest technologies, others face financial difficulties or like India are diversifying and shifting to local manufacturing. ...

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With stricter border control asylum seekers have dropped to 3500 a day at the US border with Mexico and the new government of Mexico under Caludia Sheinbaum is likely to cooperate with Biden to take back people of other nationalities. President Biden is about to pass an executive order that effectively closes the border with Mexico. Once daily crossings reach 2500 the border will be closed. The legal basis of the action is Immigration and Nationality Act clause 212F which says the president can take this action when he sees that "the entry of aliens or any class of aliens to the United States would be detrimental." This lowers the threshold from 4000 in the Senate bill negotiated by the president with Republican Senator Lankford to 2500 daily crossings. Mr. Trump had the Republican Speaker of the House not bring the Senate bill to a vote in the House. At the time Republicans in Congress said Biden should use his executive authority to do this and lower the threshold. The former president Trump also issued this kind of executive order in 2018 which was blocked in a federal court on grounds of humanitarian protection no matter how immigrants entered the country. This time there is a sense that the Congress, the president and public opinion supports this action and the president's authority. Mexican president Sheinbaum's support will also ease its implementation in 2024 and cut down border crossings from asylum seekers to lows below 2500 till a new Senate bill is taken up and passed with bipartisan support that exists in US Congress. ...

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Argentine coach Mauricio Pochettino from small town Murphy in Santa Fe province, Argentina, leads the US team into the World Cup 2026. He has managed Espanyol the Barcelona team for many years, and recently managed Chelsea and PSG. He has both Argentine and Spanish citizenship. Pochettino leads the US team with younger players none of whom are well known, and hopes he can bring something extra to the team to win games in competition with other better known soccer nations.

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Chinese spacecraft land on the Moon's South Pole on June 1, 2024.

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US inflation actually declines in February 2025 to 2.8% from 3% in January 2025.

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Kamala Harris made remarkable progress in her handling of Central America (Guatemala, San Salvador and Nicaragua) during her assignment of tackling the problems in this region that were leading to high migration. A drought had hit agricultural regions in Guatemala adding to the surge at the time.  Here is how Harris tackled the problems of the economy, food, poverty, lack of jobs and migration from Guatemala. Harris increased investment in the region getting private and government sources in the US to invest $5 billion in the region. 250,000 jobs were created from this effort with loans from IDFC and US AID and State Department. Northern Central America was facing a hunger crisis and it was Harris who pulled together $300 million in emergency humanitarian assistance. Harris held corrupt leaders to account. Anti-corruption candidate Arevalo was elected president of Guatemala in 2023 through her efforts to ensure the rule of law and democracy are respected after the chaos of the Trump years. Joint taskforce Alpha was set up combining efforts of 3 US agencies to conduct countersmuggling operations.    ...

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Anti Immigration sentiment is not new - it has just changed racial stereotypes from arguing against southern and eastern Europeans and barring Asians for "quality" in 1890-1970 to today's heated debates about Latin American nationalities.  Pew Research ( and the adjoining MPI) show highly relevant US Immigration history. Pew Research shows the foreign born share of the American population is at 13.8 percent. It reached 14.8% percent by 1890,  brought down in the interwar period by 1970 to 5 percent. It has gone back up- the wave of immigration blocked from successive Acts keeping out Chinese (1882), Japanese (1924) and all Asians(1924) has changed to include Asian migration under policies of John F. Kennedy. Pew Research shows in 2022  10.6 million immigrants living in the US were born in Mexico, making up 23% of all immigrants. This is 3.2% of the US population of 335 million in 2024 according to the Census Bureau. The promise of president Harris to sign the legislation negotiated with Republicans in Congress (Senator Lankford) in March to close the Border would remove this distraction from cost of living, housing, and climate challenges. ...

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A key takeaway from the UN Population report in 2023 is the youthfulness of India's population. India has 1.428 billion people in 2023. 26% of this is in the 10-24 year age group. As much as 68% is in the 15-64 years age group. The fertility rate now at 2.0 is less than the replacement rate of 2.1. This is the number of children each woman has in her lifetime.

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Estimates show one in five new mothers or about 800,000 mothers in America are experiencing anxiety disorders during the pregnancy or a year after giving birth. Mental health disorders are now the leading cause of maternal death, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The US is the only high income nation in the world without paid maternity leave and this increases risks of mental health. About one in four women return to work within 4 weeks of giving birth. This report shows the work done by the University of North Carolina Chapel Hills's Center for Women Mood Disorders, one of only 3 inpatient facilities for mental health in the US. 

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Pictures from the lockdown in Paris, France, which has been tightened to reduce new infections in the pandemic. Unlike other countries with lax controls in lockdowns people in Paris are required to carry a document showing authorization to go outside, the place where a person is going, and show it to police on the street. 

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"Trees not Warehouses" read signs protesting the building of more warehouse space in the US as residents protest the bringing of more noise, pollution and heavy duty trucks to their neighborhoods.Companies added over 1.5 billion square feet of new industrial space across the US from 2017, says this report in WSJ. A similar wave of building industrial space is taking place in Europe for warehouses. Communities from Pittsburgh to Madison, Wisconsin and neighborhoods in expanding logistics regions in Southern California and eastern Pennsylvania. Many say their communities are under siege. To get goods to people faster companies are still planning but have not made the shift to bringing construction back home or closer to home so that this kind of huge warehousing space is no longer needed. Much of this warehousing space may no longer be needed as more sustainable, more reliable,  shorter supply chains take the place of current ones that have concentrated all manufacturing in one country, China, at the hidden costs to local communities and companies. Through many hidden costs that have not been fully quantified in terms of quality of living in communities, loss of jobs and infrastructure through loss of tax revenues, carbon footprint of products shipped over thousands of miles, hidden logistics costs, rampant inflation in logistics costs, and significant loss of manufacturing knowhow that cannot be easily replaced. This is a result of decades of building such supply chains that no longer fit the needs of today. ...

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Hospitals in Europe are filling up quickly in the second wave of coronavirus. Coronavirus patients had to be transferred by helicopter to Germany from the Netherlands because of overburdened Dutch intensive care units. National Guard troops were flown in from the U.S. to the Czech Republic to help. In France as cases approach cumulative 1 million about 2000 patients are admitted to hospital for coronavirus every day on October 29. At some point French hospitals could be overwhelmed this winter, and doctors having to choose which patients to save, says president Macron. In the Czech Republic a collapse of the health system is expected by mid-November says the prime minister. No one expected this to be this severe, he says.  About 40,000 patients are hospitalized for coronavirus in the U.S. During the last week the case are increasing by over 40% in the U.S. and increase in hospitalizations are expected. Recovery rate is improving from the first wave. At NYU Langone hospital system in New York with 5000 coronavirus patients hospitalized recovery rate is improving from 25% in March to 7% in October. Better handling of cases and knowledge gained by doctors is a big part of this. ...

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Juan Carlos of Spain in his memoir in 2025- says about moving away from Spain to the UAE that it was to "help his son, and so that journalists cannot find me." The king remains popular with the Partido Popular and its support in the Madrid region, less popular in other parts of Spain, in the fractious nature of Spanish politics. There is a sharp contrast to how he was perceived in the years of transition to the EU in 1981 and the decade after that and today. The problems of the British royal family and Charles are seen in the perceptions of the Spanish royal family, the only two major monarchies in Europe.

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Wuhan has announced  only 3 new confirmed cases since March 18. Restrictions on travel were lifted after a 77 day lockdown on the city, allowing inbound and outbound travel. Some restrictions on housing complexes have been tightened after reports of dozens of asymptomatic cases. The number of asymptomatic cases remains unknown. There is a fear of a second outbreak and authorites are staying vigilant, as it is feared that the first outbreak was worse than previously thought. Epidemiologists, intelligence agencies, and health experts believe the number of cases reported in Wuhan and China are undercounted. This could be they say a result of local officials wanting to present a better picture, of not enough testing in the early stages, not counting people who died at home, and including people who died of pneumonia under pneumonia instead of coronavirus. Dr Birx, head of the U.S. response effort,  says the U.S. lists people who died of pneumonia in New York as coronavirus deaths because of how widespread it is there, hitting seven people in a thousand. In addition there is a problem for all countries in counting people without symptoms. No one even knows how big that is, and Dr Birx in the U.S. says it is important to find out. ...

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India says China carefully prepared an attack on Indian soldiers in the Galwan Valley mountain ridges, at Ladakh's border with China. 20 Indian soldiers were killed and 76 injured. This report in the Guardian shows satellite images of the Galwan Valley taken by Planet Labs, an imaging company. The images show that days before the clash there was increased activity on the Chinese side, including the damming of a river and the movement of troops and machinery close to the disputed and poorly demarcated border. Australian Strategic Policy Institute says its analysis of satellite images shows PLA Chinese forces regularly crossing into Indian territory temporarily on routine patrol routes. Indian officials also say commanders from both sides met on 13 June and agreed to each retreat back 2 kilometres in the Galwan Valley and Pangong Lake area. For unknown reasons Chinese troops instead of retreating as agreed erected a tent on disputed territory close to Patrolling Point 14. India's 16 Bihar Regiment led by Col Santosh Babu, dismantled the structure in an attempt to push back the PLA troops. According to accounts given to the Hindu newspaper cited here in the Guardian, Babu and his troops later went to the Chinese side to challenge the refusal to retreat, they were ambushed by Chinese forces on the steep mountain precipice. Chinese PLA troops allegedly unblocked the dammed river, releasing a rush of water to destabilise Indian soldiers, and attacked with stones and makeshift spiked weapons. ...

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Indoor air quality particularly in office buildings and other indoor spaces is essential after covid. This BBC report looks at how this can be done and the need to do this, to put aside resources and funds for this task. Treat this like contaminated water in British cities in the 1800's it says.

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The Kamo river, the Heian shrine, and the Kiyomizu Temple, best places to see cherry blossoms and feel the tranquillity in the ancient city of Kyoto, Japan. And the Kodaiji Temple, the Sanzen-in Temple, are other locations to feel the serenity of the landscape in this ancient city with centuries of Buddhist culture and religion.

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A lawsuit was filed against the Indian Government in the state of Karnataka on July 5 challenging the removal of tweets on Twitter social media site that could disturb the social fabric in India. Does a foreign company know what is best for a country of 1.4 billion people with 22 languages in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India? Or is it merely a pretension brought out by the chaotic spread of technology in the US and in the world without regulation of any sort leading to many egregious faults and damage to society.  Even the Indian government has to think hard and make much effort to find what is best in the culture and traditions of India's best leaders, and its long history back to the period of Lord Buddha and the Vedanta in 653 BC, what India should take forward. To combine this with the best that India has learned from Britain and Europe in science and technology, and the best environment for science and technology to be nurtured. The following languages are in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India- Assamese, Bengali, Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Nepali, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telegu, Urdu, Bodo, Santhali, Maithili, Dogri. Most Indians cannot even list these languages and never heard of some of them. Most Indians are still learning about the depth and history of their country and what has held it together culturally and as a people. Forget about Twitter being able to list them much less know about where India should be headed in the 21st century. Or is it a pretension so called tech companies make these days without reflecting on what this means. It took India and Indians hundreds of years just to get to the point where they can reflect on the history of India. The struggles shown on The Residency park at Lucknow (1857), and at Dandi Salt March (1930) led by Mohandas Gandhi, are merely the more recent, with ones before that, and before that into the mists of time.  Even after colonization India is unique, seeking after the leadership of Mohandas Gandhi to find the best that it can learn from other countries in Europe and the US to shape its future, and fulfill the aspirations of its people for a better life. Hundreds of millions without water or cooking gas in their homes, their aspirations, and the aspirations for decent housing, for a Clean India with the infrastructure that Europe and America take for granted. That is the burden shouldered by the leaders and the government responsible to society of 1.4 billion people that speaks in 22 languages. And shared in a larger sense by 1.8 billion people in Asia all the way up to the Indonesian islands that also share these aspirations for a better life.   ...

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India's development of the India Middle East Corridor with rail and infrastructure links is a plan that is pursued with cooperation of Saudis, UAE, Kuwait and Gulf region. This is an economic development plan that seeks to invest in the entire South and West Asian region. Just as Europe after 2 wars has emerged from that with the French, Germans, Spain, Italy and Eastern Europe forming  the European Economic Community that later became the European Union, the Gulf states and India which faces the Gulf states across the Arabian Sea are seen as one region that can trade with the European bloc and the US on better terms. A lot of the investments that were wasted in wars are now being channelled into infrastructure development and regional development with resources of manpower from India and with assistance from the US. Le Monde should say that it is good for all- geopolitics and socialist or religious ideologies led to so many wars in the Middle East. Modi is from Gujarat where priorities are not religion- priorities are trade and the economy since the overseas trade from the 14th century. ...

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US adds 22,000 jobs in August 2025 with losses of jobs in manufacturing and construction, and gains in healthcare.