LyrArc Article Gist
The campaign in German schools "Smart ohne phone" or "Smart without a phone"  for school children in 2025. One student at Dalton High School in Alsdorf, North Rhine Westphalia, Klara Ptak, is cited in this report by  Oliver Pieper in DW.com. Klara 17 years old says- "A total of 51 phones were seized — that's a fairly significant number considering we have 700 students. And you can really see a difference, especially in the younger kids. They used to stand around in a circle staring at their screens, and now they are playing football, badminton, or board games together. It's a dramatic shift." A survey by the Körber Foundation, and pollster Forsa, says that parents of children ages 12 to 18 complain that their children's time spent on social media is out of control and is their leading source of stress. The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina is for banning phones upto tenth grade, it wants to keep children under 13 away from the internet for social media completely. It is interesting to note that the younger student are fine with it and adapted quickly seeing the benefits. This shows that a new generation of student can be trained for a different lifestyle. Today in the Washington Post Linda McMahon and RFK Jr. team up on an article saying just this that time spent on screens lifestyles along with nutrition and food fail school children badly, reminding people about the saying in Latin since the 2nd Century by poet Juvenal -"a healthy mind in a healthy body." ( Latin -"mens sana in corpore sano").   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
US frustration with Russian intransigence on ending the war. By October 2025 DJT administration pushes for an end to the war with hopes for a Budapest summit. This is delayed and the US announces sanctions on Russian oil companies on October 22, 2025, when Russia shows no interest in ending the war except on its own terms.

LyrArc Article Gist
Chase bank investments in strategic companies of the US with the US government in a Jamie Dimon effort October 2025. Chase Bank CEO Jamie Dimon says- “It has become painfully clear that the United States has allowed itself to become too reliant on unreliable sources of critical minerals, products and manufacturing—all of which are essential for our national security." 

LyrArc Article Gist
Merkel tells Hungarian news portal Partizan that the Baltic States and Poland made efforts to reduce efforts for dialogue with Russia, and that this dialogue and meetings were also made difficult during the Covid pandemic. Merkel did not address other issues of EU and US relations with Russia over the decade when Russia was not integrated into European structures as a Northern European power. Britain and Netherlands also supported Poland and the Baltic States in efforts to keep NATO as a force and counterweight to Russia in Europe, something Merkel did not cover. Merkel appears to have been selective in covering only this issue in EU-Russian relations and not the larger issues that Merkel never addressed of ending the Cold War structure of NATO that Britain, Netherlands and Poland had favored. The result is that without German or US leadership the Cold War structure of NATO favored by Britain, Netherlands and Poland has been expanded to include Sweden and  Finland, and without a clear resolution of the Ukraine issue created a new situation. This situation is the return of the Cold War in another form with Russia and China, losing the opportunities presented to both sides to use trade and improvements in standards of living to create a durable peace for economic development and addressing the problems that have led to deindustrialization of US and European Union countries. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The high cost of living is making people earning $250,000 to $350,000 a year merely suburban upper middle class or middle class as they face soaring costs for education, child care and housing. WSJ looks at families facing cost pressures in this income range. Savings are much smaller for 50 year olds making this kind of salary with college tution for one child alone costing upward of $70,000, child care expensive, housing costs in states like California over $1 million to own, and higher overall costs.

LyrArc Article Gist
The speed with which GST revenues grow in India will determine the pace of industrial development, infrastructure building, and exports growth in India. It is the main source of government revenues and plays a role similar to what land sales played in China's rapid development over two decades.  States that generate the maximum GST reflect the industrial and commercial activity of the state in the overall context of India's growth. This is why Maharashtra with the commercial capital Mumbai plays an important role with Gujarat and its commercial capital Ahmedabad. Both states formed the industrial core of the country under the British Empire as one state called Bombay state. Maharashtra today makes up 15% of the country's GST revenue with Gujarat coming in close to Karnataka at third. Maharashtra at 2.7 lakh crores for 2022-2023, Gujarat at 1.1 lakh crores and Karnataka at 1.2 lakh crores. Karnataka has the IT capital of India in Bangalore now called Bengaluru. The compound annual growth rate of Maharashtra is 12.3% for the five years to 2022-2023 and for Gujarat 11.8%, Karnataka 11.7%. During the last year Maharashtra GST grew at 24%. National compound annual growth rate for GST tax collections is 11.3%. These states all have state and federal governments aligned for maximum effort in infrastructure and logistics development through allocation of capital, land, human resources, and other inputs. Tamilnadu comes next with 11% growth with the state capital of Madras or Chennai. These were the main commercial centres under the British. Bangalore emerged after independence in 1947 as the center for IT industries. To repeat the kind of development acceleration seen one after another in Japan, South Korea and China, and learning from their experience particularly the climate change and pollution negative aspects of the Chinese experience, India needs the accelerated growth at these rates for GST to finance growth in investments. It also needs to increase the quality of these investments by paying attention to negatives such as pollution and climate change through government regulation of activities that create these negative aspects.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Such shootings are rare in Austria with only 30 firearms for every 100 people compared to 120 in the US and 20 in Germany.

LyrArc Article Gist
India will allow automobile imports at 10% duty instead of 110%, allowing 250,000 EU automobiles into the Indian market, as part of the deal that benefits Germany. Tariff on European wines will go down from 150% to 20-40%. Duties on olive oil and processed food such as pasta and chocolates will go down to zero, which will benefit Italy, and Switzerland. A labor mobility agreement will let professional workers and seasonal workers from India into EU and EU to India. New talks will bring India into the EU's Horizon Research Programme.

It will double EU exports to India by 2032 over 6 years when it is implemented starting in 2027. An astonishing 97% of traded goods are included for cutting or eliminating tariffs. It will save EU 4 billion euros in duties, says the EU. Tariffs are cut on a vast arrayof industrial products- iron and steel (India benefits) chemicals, plastics, pharmaceuticals (India benefits) and machinery (Germany benefits).

LyrArc Article Gist
China's loans and projects in Latin America and the unwinding of projects in 2026. China had shifted policy to collecting back $10 billion of loans to Venezuela in meetings of its envoy with Maduro the day the US acted to remove Maduro, says this report in WSJ. China is shifting to reduce losses in the region from loans. Over last 2 decades China has loaned Venezuela $100 billion in exchange for oil shipments. As its oil industry production declined without US assistance Venezuela went deeper in debt. This is another aspect of the problems that this type of model of development brings to finance building of rail and transport, seen across the world from Venezuela down to small countries like Sri Lanka and Zambia. For China this could amount to hundreds of billions of dollars in loans that lack transparency and are opaque to Africa and Latin America, when its construction industry debt and local government debt has led to problems. Other solutions and alternatives are needed.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Japan has 254 days of oil reserves says PM Takaichi Sanae with daily consumption of 3.1 million b/d. China has 100 days. India has 74 days of oil in government and privately held reserves with daily use at 5.6 million b/d.  In addition 100 million barrels of oil have accumulated on tankers parked on the oceans because of sanctioned oil waiting to be delivered.

LyrArc Article Gist
The political scene at St. Anselm College, Manchester, New Hampshire, during the U.S. primary election season. Jon Huntsman and Newt Gingrich participated in the Lincoln-Douglas debates at St. Anselm College.

LyrArc Article Gist
A group backing Hillary Clinton Priorities USA Action is a super PAC that has $11.8 million raised in March and with $44.7 million in cash on hand. It is already reserving in April 2016 $125 million in television and digital advertising time for the general election.

LyrArc Article Gist
Response to question whether this $100 a barrel oil is possible is yes, if something big happens in the oil flows from middle east or if there is a Katrina style hurricane. Reason being that oil demand has not slackened up either from Asia or from the U.S. automobiles. How would this impact the USA, Europe, Asia? The impact on Japan and Europe would be less because of the high efficiency in use energy use. This could slowdown the U.S. economy considerably as gasoline approaches $5 a barrel. India would be hurt with a drop in GDP growth from 8% to 6% according to an estimate by Crisil, Mumbai. It would affect Chinese growth also but the main impact would be indirect through a decline in the U.S. market for Chinese made products. Russia would gain and economic growth there could accelerate further from 6% to 9% according to estimate by MDM Bank, Moscow.

LyrArc Article Gist
About 100 million barrels in storage on the sea accessible in Iran War during March 2026.