- Arvind's Newsletter
- Posts
- New Post
New Post
arvind mahajan
November 29, 2023
1.Semiconductor giant AMD has inaugurated its largest global design centre in Bengaluru which will employ about 3000 engineers, reports Economic Times
After American semiconductor company Micron announced setting up an assembly, testing and packaging plant at Sanand in Gujarat a few months ago, now another American semiconductor company, AMD, has inaugurated in Bengaluru its largest global design centre.
Micron and AMD plants are at the opposite ends of the semiconductor chips manufacturing value chain. The AMD plant puts India on track to the top of the global semiconductor value chain while it is just starting out on its chip-making journey.
As the chip war between the US and China hots up, with the US restricting access of Chinese companies to American technology, India hopes to enter an industry which has become even more crucial than oil because all digital instruments run on chips.
2.How rat miners rescued workers from Indian tunnel after 17 days
All 41 Indian labourers have been rescued after a gruelling 17 days trapped in a collapsed tunnel in the Himalayan mountains.
The workers were pulled out through an escape pipe on Tuesday night after the last stretch of rubble had been manually drilled by a specialist team of “rat-hole mining” experts who had been flown in to help after the mechanical drill broke down.
Rat hole mining – a primitive method of extracting coal through very small tunnels – is outlawed in India due to its high risk, but the practice remains common in some states.
At first, the rescuers tried to reach the trapped workers — all poor migrant laborers from across the country — by drilling horizontally through the debris, in a straight line, using excavators and drilling machines. But the drilling machine broke down multiple times, frustrating the efforts of the rescuers who were working 24-hour shifts.
They went on digging horizontally by replacing the machine, and 10 days into the mission, a small camera was sent through a narrow pipe that captured initial images of the workers stuck in the tunnel. All were doing OK and hopes for their rescue grew.
The rescuers saw their hopes dashed on the thirteenth day of the operation, when their drilling machine broke down beyond repair. They had less than 20 meters (66 feet) to go in the digging.
The rescuers put an alternate plan in motion and began drilling from the top of the mountain — a path that required digging nearly twice the distance of the horizontal shaft.
The trapped workers, who were in the meantime being supplied with food and oxygen through a narrower pipe, were at the risk of falling sick. Officials who kept watch near the tunnel, and even local residents, began offering prayers at a small makeshift Hindu temple in the area, seeking divine help.
The clock was ticking and the engineers realized they could not give up on the horizontal drilling path, even as the vertical drilling began.
On Monday, they called in a team of miners to dig by hand the final stretch of the path and clear the way for a passageway to be made of welded metal pipes. Once the pipes were in place, rescuers pushed through the dirt and rocks.
The "softly, softly" approach to drilling escape holes, and gauging the auger's impact on the already fragile and "still moving" mountainside, were key to freeing the 41 men trapped beneath the collapsed Silkyara tunnel in Uttarakhand, tunnelling expert Arnold Dix told NDTV Wednesday, hours after a precise 17-day rescue operation came to a successful conclusion.
3.Charles Munger, the alter ego, sidekick and foil to Warren Buffett’s “Oracle of Omaha,” has died at the age of 99.
Over 60 years, the two men transformed Berkshire Hathaway from a failing textile maker into an empire. A lawyer by training, Munger helped Buffett—seven years his junior—craft a philosophy of investing in companies for the long term. Under their management, Berkshire averaged an annual gain of 20.1% from 1965 through 2021—almost twice the pace of the S&P 500 Index. “Berkshire Hathaway could not have been built to its present status without Charlie’s inspiration, wisdom and participation,” Buffett said.
It was his influence that pushed Buffett away from “cigar butt” deals — buying mediocre companies cheaply. Instead of “buying fair businesses at wonderful prices,” Buffett said, Munger taught him to “buy wonderful businesses at fair prices.” He was well-known for his blunt, homespun wisdom: “It’s so simple,” he said of making money. “You spend less than you earn. Invest shrewdly, and avoid toxic people and toxic activities, and try and keep learning all your life.”
4.Walmart shifts to India from China for cheaper imports as it cut costs, reported Reuters.
Walmart is importing more goods to the United States from India and reducing its reliance upon China as it looks to cut costs and diversify its supply chain, data seen by Reuters shows.
The world's largest retailer shipped one quarter of its U.S. imports from India between January and August this year, according to bill of lading figures shared with Reuters by data firm Import Yeti. That compared with just 2% in 2018.
Only 60% of its shipments came from China during the same period, down from 80% in 2018, the same data shows. To be sure, China is still Walmart's biggest country for importing goods.
5.London’s famous black cabs will be available via Uber next year.
The ride-hailing app has had a difficult relationship with London over the years: The British capital’s transport authority tried to ban it in 2017, and London’s black-cab drivers — required to pass a grueling test where they must memorize all of the city’s streets before being allowed to ply their trade — have been vocal in their resistance to Uber, whose drivers have a much less stringent sign-up process.
Still, it may be that not many black-cab drivers sign up: A spokesman for a taxi trade group said its members weren’t interested in “sullying the name of London’s iconic black cab trade” with the deal, TechCrunch reported
