Arvind's Newsletter

1.Asia will use half of global electricity by 2025.The 1.International Energy Agency predicts China will use more electricity than the EU, US, and India combined by mid-decade.
The IEA’s annual report predicts that nuclear power and renewables such as wind and solar will account for much of the growth in global electricity supply over the coming three years. This will prevent a significant rise in greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector, it said.

US Green energy transition: Record amounts of solar and battery storage will be built in the United States in 2023, while almost all the power plants due to retire are fossil-fuel-driven. U.S. data showed that of the nearly 16 gigawatts of electricity capacity shutting down this year, 58% will be coal, and almost all the rest gas and petroleum. Meanwhile, more than half the new capacity being added — enough to power millions of homes — will be solar, double the previous record. Battery storage capacity is expected to double, from 8.8GW to 18.2GW. This time next year the U.S. will have more, cheaper electricity for less carbon cost.

2.Design thinking was supposed to fix the world. Where did it go wrong?
In the 1990s, a six-step methodology for innovation called design thinking started to grow in popularity. Key to design thinking’s spread was its replicable aesthetic, represented by the Post-it note: a humble square that anyone can use in infinite ways.
But in recent years, for a number of reasons, the shine of design thinking has been wearing off. Critics have argued that its short-term focus on novel and naive ideas has resulted in unrealistic and ungrounded recommendations.
Today, some groups are working to reform both design thinking’s principles and its methodologies. These new efforts seek a set of design tools capable of equitably serving diverse communities and solving diverse problems well into the future. It’s a much more daunting—and crucial—task than design thinking’s original remit. Read full story below.

3.UAE grants Russian lender rare banking licence as it emerges as a financial haven for Russians

The United Arab Emirates has approved a licence for Russia’s MTS Bank, a move that risks exacerbating concerns among western nations over the emergence of the Gulf state as a potential financial haven for Moscow, reports the Financial Times. Excerpts from this report :

“Tens of thousands of Russians have settled in the UAE, mainly in Dubai, in the 12 months since the Ukraine invasion to escape financial restrictions in Europe or avoid the military draft back home. Many have complained of difficulty in opening bank accounts, especially corporate facilities, at those lenders already operating in the country.

The Russian lender is the first foreign bank in several years to receive a licence in the UAE. The US and European nations have become concerned about the UAE’s financial interaction with Russia since sanctions were ramped up after the invasion.”

“Brian Nelson, US Treasury under-secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, raised the issue of the Russian bank’s licence on a visit to Abu Dhabi last week. “[He] conveyed broad concerns about financial connectivity with Russia, even via non-sanctioned banks,” said a person familiar with the discussions.”

The presence of assets, such as yachts, belonging to sanctioned Russian oligarchs have raised concerns about deeper illicit financial links between the UAE and Russia. Abu Dhabi officials have rejected these concerns, saying it endeavours to halt financial flows from sanctioned Russian entities while refusing to discriminate against non-sanctioned companies and individuals.

4.Whats next with regard to AI chatbots ? Replika is an AI chatbot that can offer romantic companionship to its users. Replika is backed by Y Combinator, which was once run by OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman. OpenAI created ChatGPT. Insider spoke to a user who said he has real feelings for his companion. Remember Ex-Machina. Read on.

5.Pakistan seeks IMF bailout to stave off economic collapse reports the Economist.

“A surge in voltage at a power station in southern Sindh province on January 23, led to almost the entire country of 230m people losing power for most of the day. Factories, hospitals and mobile-phone networks shut down in many areas. In Lahore, the evening’s trading and promenading—a time when Pakistan’s second-largest city feels most exhilaratingly alive—was conducted in darkness and a pale glow of mobile phones. Only at midnight did some streetlights come on.

The blackout is indicative of an economic crisis severe even by the standards of a country well-known for them. Pakistan is still suffering the devastating effects of monsoon flooding last summer that displaced 8m people and cost the country an estimated $30 bn in damage and lost output. Tens of thousands remain homeless. Rocketing inflation, fuelled by global factors and economic mismanagement, is making their situation harder. Annual inflation reached 27.6% in January, the highest level since 1975. The rupee is crashing. It traded at an all-time low of 275 to the dollar this week, down from 230 in mid-January and 175 a year ago. With foreign exchange reserves dwindling, the country faces its worst balance of payments crisis in peacetime.

Many heavily-indebted emerging markets have faced similar problems over the past year, related to post-pandemic supply glitches and the war in Ukraine. Pakistan, which imports much of its food and fuel, looks a lot like Sri Lanka last spring, before it defaulted on its debt and its president was chased from the country by protesters. Yet Pakistan is uniquely troubling. It is the world’s fifth biggest country by population, perennially unstable, beset by extremists and nuclear-armed.

The Taliban’s return to power in neighbouring Afghanistan in 2021 has launched a third terrible blight—of terrorism and insurgency, mainly in the north-west of the country. Last week a suicide-bomber killed 84 people, mostly members of the security forces, in a mosque in Peshawar, a north-western city. Political dysfunction, which is as ubiquitous as corruption in Pakistan, is inevitably stymying the government’s response to these disasters.

These political, economic and environmental crises are mutually reinforcing. Payments from the bail-out programme agreed in 2019 were suspended a year ago after Mr Khan, facing a growing prospect of parliamentary defeat and ejection from office, reintroduced fuel subsidies.

Mr Sharif’s government vowed to fulfil the fund’s conditions but backtracked in September when, panicked by the floods, it sacked Miftah Ismail, its pragmatic finance minister. His successor reversed some of his policies, prompting another suspension of payouts. “If the floods hadn’t happened I might have kept the job and we might have been OK,” Mr Ismail says.

Now,Mr Sharif’s government seems to be bowing to the inevitable. In late January it stopped trying to prop up the rupee and raised fuel prices, as the IMF had requested. If the current negotiations in Islamabad unlock the bail-out funds, it might encourage other external creditors to extend credit lines or defer payments on existing loans. Unlike Sri Lanka, which owed a higher percentage of its debt to foreign creditors, Pakistan may be able to stabilise its position without its creditors being forced to accept a “haircut”. “ Let us watch this space.

And another article from BBC news (which is not behind a paywall)