Geography Archives: Asia

DeepSeek, a Chinese AI company, released an AI model called R1 that is comparable in ability to the best models from companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta, but was trained at a radically lower cost and using less than state-of-the art GPU chips.

Writer and journalist Karan Madhok’s book ‘Ananda’ is a deep-dive into the cannabis plant–what it is, what it does, and how Indian society looks at and reacts to it.

The buzz around Xiaohongshu and then DeepSeek has had an unusually high volume of westerners speaking positively about China for the last couple of weeks, which of course means we’re also seeing many westerners falling all over themselves to say “Well actually China is actually quite bad actually” in response.

China’s DeepSeek AI has just dropped a bombshell in the tech world.

China’s technological progress is far more vulnerable to a more “friendly” US. rather than a more “hostile” one.

When the platform came back online, U.S. users were greeted with a message crediting its return to Trump: “As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!”

A CHORUS of “establishment” voices, from consultancy firms to the financial press, has been demanding a boost to domestic consumption as a means of reviving the flagging growth rate of the Indian economy. The latest to join this chorus is the Reserve Bank of India which in its latest Bulletin has asked for a boost to consumption to “rekindle the animal spirits” of the “entrepreneurs” in the economy.

On Jan. 17, the Supreme Court launched a sweeping, unanimous assault on the First Amendment.

There are at least three basic differences between European nationalism as it developed in the seventeenth century and the anti-colonial third world nationalism of the twentieth century.

The NIA claimed before the Bombay HC that it would ‘expedite the trial’ in the case in which charges are yet to be framed.

The primary cause of the rupee’s depreciation is the preference of the Indian rich to hold their wealth in the form of U.S. dollars rather than in Indian rupees.

China alleges that the U.S. approach to Taiwan is guided by “cold war zero sum mentality” which violates its own declared commitments to the “one-China policy” and agreements of non-interference in internal matters.

As China grows and prospers many in the U.S. want us to believe that China will follow the same path that the U.S. itself pursued–global military aggression, the overthrow of numerous governments around the world and persecution of minorities at home. (A repost from February 2023.)

Several obituaries of Amiya Kumar Bagchi have appeared since his death on November 28, covering his remarkable achievements.

Equipment such as radiators and engines were sent to the Caribbean island to promote energy transition.

Both the U.S. and Philippines have refused to withdraw the U.S. Typhon missile system deployed in April near Chinese borders despite earlier claiming it to be a temporary move.

The aim of all fascistic governments is to disempower the people; and the Modi government is no exception.

Maurice Coakley, in an important assessment of capitalist interstate rivalry, analyses the changing and contradictory nature of imperialism and its impact on revolt against the system.

The sentiment that the West is an unreliable trade partner in now common in Russia. In an interview with GUANCHA.CN, Russian consumer market expert Dmitry Reva noted that Western corps left the Russian market after the war broke out, leaving a vacuum. Following this, China-Russian trade has enhanced, with prospects for deeper cooperation in agriculture, Far East development, and other fields.

Opposition lawmakers are alleging the full scope of President Yoon’s coup involved a months-long plot to trigger a “limited war” with North Korea.