Arvind’s Newsletter

1.India's highways construction slows, but govt aims for a final push

Construction of new highways in India slowed in the first nine months of 2024-25 (April-December 2024) with the government more occupied in maintaining existing roads and launching complex projects, per government officials and new data.

The highways ministry, however, is expected to pick up pace in the remaining two months of this financial year and may even seek more funds than budgeted, a government official said.

Construction of highways fell 5.8% to 5,853 km in April-December from 6,216 km of infrastructure created in the first nine months of 2023-24, show data from the ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH).

Government awards for the construction of new highways also slowed, to 3,100 km between April and December, as against 3,111 km over the corresponding year-earlier period, which itself was a disappointing pace.

2.Maharashtra sets up panel to explore phasing out petrol and diesel vehicles in Mumbai

The Maharashtra government has a set up a seven-member committee to study the possibility of imposing a ban on petrol and diesel vehicles in the Mumbai Metropolitan Area, in view of the city’s worsening air quality.

The committee, headed by retired IAS officer Sudhir Kumar Shrivastava, will study and submit a report with its recommendations within three months, as per government resolution (GR) dated January 22.

Maharashtra's transport commissioner, Mumbai's joint police commissioner (traffic), managing director of the Mahanagar Gas Limited, project manager of the Maharashtra State Power Distribution Company Limited (Mahavitaran), president of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), and joint transport commissioner (enforcement-1) as member secretary are the other panelists.

The committee has given powers to include experts in the field as fellow members and get feedback from them, as per the GR.

3.OpenAI has accused DeepSeek of using its AI models to train R1 : Financial Times

OpenAI says it has found evidence that Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek used the US company’s proprietary models to train its own open-source competitor, as concerns grow over a potential breach of intellectual property.

The San Francisco-based ChatGPT maker told the Financial Times it had seen some evidence of “distillation”, which it suspects to be from DeepSeek. The technique is used by developers to obtain better performance on smaller models by using outputs from larger, more capable ones, allowing them to achieve similar results on specific tasks at a much lower cost.

Distillation is a common practice in the industry but the concern was that DeepSeek may be doing it to build its own rival model, which is a breach of OpenAI’s terms of service.

4.Supersonic commercial flights could be staging a comeback:New Scientist

More than two decades after Concorde ceased operation.

The experimental XB-1 aircraft, made by US company Boom Supersonic, flew faster than the speed of sound on 28 January. The achievement is the first time any civil aircraft has gone supersonic over the continental US – and another step toward the possible return of supersonic commercial aviation.

“This jet really does have a lot of the enabling technologies that are going to enable us to build a supersonic airliner for the masses,” said Greg Krauland, former chief engineer for Boom Supersonic, during a live stream of the test flight.

5.First Large-scale Cannabis Study Findings

The largest study on cannabis and its impact on brain function suggests the use of the substance has a statistically significant (negative) effect on working memory, per findings released yesterday.  

Researchers examined 1,003 individuals ages 22 to 36 using brain imaging technology. Participants were categorised based on their lifetime usage: Heavy users had used cannabis more than 1,000 times, moderate users had used it between 10 and 999 times, and nonusers had used it fewer than 10 times.

Results showed 63% of heavy lifetime cannabis users and 68% of recent users experienced reduced brain activity when performing working memory tasks. Working memory allows individuals to retain and manipulate short-term information, such as memorising directions or solving math problems mentally. 

The study further found heavy cannabis use negatively impacted brain regions responsible for decision-making, memory, attention, and emotional processing.

6.The future of food is bacteria and algae: Undark

As a teenager growing up in Nigeria, Helen Onyeaka was obsessed with microorganisms. The tiny lifeforms, which include bacteria and yeast, can be grown quickly and in huge quantities. Onyeaka wondered if that abundance could be harnessed to feed people in conflict zones where children were suffering from malnutrition, their distended stomachs a clear sign of protein deficiency. “I used to dream microbes as food,” she recently recalled.

Today, Onyeaka is an industrial microbiologist and a deputy director of the Birmingham Institute for Sustainability and Climate Action, at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. In her lab, she is testing her decades-old hypothesis, trying to identify microorganisms that could one day serve as an alternative protein source while using a fraction of the land, water, and industrial fertilizer needed to support traditional crops and livestock.

She’s not the only person studying what are sometimes called single-cell proteins or edible microorganisms. While human diets have long included relatively small quantities of microbes — think of the live bacteria in yogurt, or the oven-killed yeast in bread — researchers at universities and dozens of startups across the globe are now investigating whether some microbes could serve as a caloric substitute for a wide range of foods and ingredients, including eggs, milk, meat, and flour.

Some products have already been cleared for sale in the U.S.

7.The US stock market suffers from “concentration risk,” analysts warned. 

Shares have been buoyant in large part because of the performance of a cluster of major firms known as the Magnificent 7. The market cap of Magnificent Seven stocks accounted for 35% of the S&P500. But “ a market this dependent on a few stocks is a bad sign,” a Bloomberg columnist warned.

The co-chief investment officer of Bridgewater, an asset manager, said in a newsletter that she would spread risk more evenly this year, because “the world ahead is likely to reward diversification.”

8.21% is the year-on-year increase in air-source heat pump sales in the US, which now outsell gas furnaces

Heat pumps — which are cheaper to run and more efficient than traditional furnaces for heating homes, albeit bulky — are now the most popular heating appliance, selling 37% more units than gas furnaces in US.

That stat should be interpreted cautiously, as many houses need more than one heat pump but could use a single furnace. Nonetheless, demand is rising rapidly, according to CleanTechnica. Heating and cooling buildings accounts for 35% of US emissions.

9.There is an 37% increase in Arctic shipping over the past decade.

Climate change has thawed ice around the North Pole, opening new trading routes which can significantly cut travel time for vessels. That in turn has led to a scramble among several nations — notably China, Russia, and the US — to control the valuable sea lanes.

Rising temperatures have also opened new areas for mining exploration, including in northern Greenland, driving US President Donald Trump’s stated ambition to acquire the self-governing island. “The greater territorial stability of the post-war era is an anomaly that is now set to end,”Michael Albertus, a Professor at the University of Chicago wrote in the Financial Times.