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Sunday, February 01, 2026

1: India

Who Wins the AI Race?

Full Guide: How to start a profitable one-person business (in 2026)

Two Features That Could Make Beehiiv Unstoppable

Lessons From 2 Billion Agentic Workflows

A Wealth Tax That Will Work! Two likely contenders for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination have taken opposite sides on California’s proposed wealth tax. One of them is dead wrong................ Governor Gavin Newsom opposes the wealth tax. Ro Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley in the U.S. House, favors it. ................ The wealth tax is a good idea and should be replicated across the country. ................ If the wealth tax measure qualifies for the November 2026 ballot and is enacted by California voters, it would levy a 5 percent tax on the wealth of the state’s roughly 200 billionaires. It would direct 90 percent of those funds to California’s Medicaid recipients and the institutions that serve them (with the remaining 10 percent going to the state’s K-12 schools). ................ when Massachusetts passed a “millionaires tax” in 2023, conservatives claimed the rich would flee. But two years later, they hadn’t — and Massachusetts had collected $5.7 billion for infrastructure and public education. ............... the California proposal is a one-time-only tax and would be levied exclusively on billionaires’ net worth in 2025. So even if they decide to move to the Virgin Islands, they’ll still be liable for 5 percent of their wealth in 2025. (They can stretch out their payments over the next five years, but their payments will still be based just on their net worth in 2025.) .................... The sums they’ll owe are readily calculable, since about 72 percent of billionaires’ wealth is in their ownership of publicly traded stock. As they do with their payment of income taxes, billionaires would file their wealth taxes themselves in 2027 (assuming the measure had been enacted the previous November) based on their net worth in 2025. The state can audit those returns if its estimates of their fortunes are significantly at variance with those filings. ...................... The politics of this couldn’t be better, given that 15 million Californians on Medi-Cal (the state’s version of Medicaid) are losing much if not all of their health insurance because of cutbacks imposed by Trump and congressional Republicans — who, again, redirected those funds to massive tax cuts for the rich. ................. Californians have until June to collect the required number of valid signatures — roughly 874,000 — to place it on the November 2026 ballot. ...................... The wealth tax isn’t the final answer to America’s disgraceful inequalities of wealth and income, of course, but it’s a start — and any start is better than no start at all. ........... It may open the way to further reforms to rein in the obscenely rich — raising inheritance taxes, raising capital gains taxes, taxing rich people when they borrow against their assets (without ever selling them) to pay for their living expenses, and closing giant loopholes like the step-up basis (which allows people to pass on to their heirs their capital gains and never be taxed on them). ............... These efforts are essential not only to funding what most Americans need but also to preserving our democracy. Huge wealth at the top poisons our politics, as Elon Musk continues to demonstrate. ...................... concentrated wealth is inseparable from concentrated power .......... as the rich have become richer, their campaign contributions, public-relations hacks, and “think tanks” have resulted in changes in laws governing taxes, monopolies, labor unions, fraud, insider trading, and much else that has enabled them to become far richer. .......... Efforts such as this also offer powerful reminders that even with Trump lording over America like a giant slug, positive change can and will still happen at the state (and city) level.

Cursor used a swarm of AI agents powered by OpenAI to build and run a web browser for a week—with no human help. Here’s why developers are buzzing

Another murder in Minneapolis Trump's domestic army continues its rampage. We must fight back. .......... This is the third shooting involving federal agents in the city this month, including the murder of Renee Good, 37, on Jan. 7. .......... The person who was killed is believed to be a 37-year-old man, an American citizen who lived in Minneapolis.......... At least 10 shots appear to have been fired within five seconds. .............. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said he saw a video of the shooting. “How many more residents, how many more Americans, need to die or get badly hurt for this operation to end?” he asked, adding that “a great American city is being invaded by its own federal government.” .......... There are now 3,000 ICE and Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis, a city whose own police force numbers 600. ........... It’s becoming harder for Americans to tell themselves that Trump is only going after “hard-core criminals.” Or even “illegal immigrants.” Or even Latinos. Or Black people. Or communists or “radical left extremists.” ......... He’s coming after all of us. ......... He’s coming after all of us who oppose his tyranny and brutality. All of us who defy his dictatorship. All of us who challenge his out-of-control, murderous goons. .......... All across America, we must rise up against this oppression as peacefully but as definitively as we possibly can.

Netaji’ Subhas Chandra Bose’s ‘parakram’ must guide Bharat’s path to progress Prime Minister Narendra Modi has consistently emphasised the need to shed the colonial mindset. This vision is reflected in the government’s observance of Netaji’s birth anniversary as Parakram Diwas ............. A profound insight into Netaji’s personality comes from a remarkable tribute by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore in 1939. He hailed Subhas Chandra Bose as deshnayak — the leader of the nation. Gurudev observed that in troubled times, a country needs the strong hand of an inspired and valiant leader. In Netaji, he saw a rare fusion of courage, vision and moral force. .................. When conventional paths appeared inadequate to achieve Independence, Netaji charted his own course, transforming the freedom struggle into an international movement through the Indian National Army. He asserted, “There is no power on earth that can deprive us of our birthright of liberty any longer.” This belief found expression in the INA. ................ Netaji’s clarion call —“Give me blood, and I will give you freedom”— resonated deeply across regions and communities of India, especially the people of the southern regions, the Tamils in particular. The deep emotional and ideological bond between Netaji and the Tamil people became one of the strongest pillars of support for the INA and the freedom movement. Netaji’s popularity also resonated powerfully with Tamil communities in Malaya, Burma and Singapore. .............. From the early 1920s, Netaji recognised the political importance of the Madras Presidency in the Indian national movement. As a Congress organiser and national leader, he engaged closely with political workers in the region. Netaji’s visits to Madras (now Chennai) and other centres of the presidency were marked by large public meetings and enthusiastic receptions, particularly by students and the politically conscious youth. .............. On September 3, 1939, Netaji arrived at Madras Central Station, where he was received by supporters, including lawyer and freedom fighter S Srinivasa Iyengar and Pasumpon U Muthuramalinga Thevar. Taken in an open jeep to “The Peak”, the residence of civil engineer S P Ayyaswamy Mudaliar, he was followed by a sea of supporters. That evening, he addressed a massive public meeting at Marina Beach. ............... During this visit, Pasumpon U Muthuramalinga Thevar, a close associate of Netaji, emerged as a key leader of the Forward Bloc in Tamil Nadu. Often remembered as the “Bose of the South”, he played a significant role in mobilising Tamil support for the INA. He also founded a Tamil weekly magazine, Netaji. ................. In a stirring address at the Padang in Singapore in 1943, Netaji urged women to join the struggle, declaring that this must be a truly revolutionary army. His words deeply moved Tamil Indian women in Malaya, many of whom had endured hardship on rubber plantations. Despite having never seen India, nearly a thousand of them volunteered for the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. .................. Janaky Thevar, only 14 when she first heard Netaji speak, donated her diamond earring to the INA and later rose to a senior leadership position in the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. Saraswathi Rajamani, often regarded as one of India’s youngest women intelligence operatives, joined the INA at 16 and served with distinction. In keeping with Netaji’s egalitarian vision, women trained and served alongside men, and caste divisions were rejected. ................ Alongside these leaders stood countless unnamed Tamil soldiers and labourers from Ramanathapuram, Tirunelveli, Madurai, Sivaganga, Tiruchirappalli and Cuddalore, who answered Netaji’s call from Malaya, Burma and Singapore.

Deeply moved by this overwhelming support, Netaji is believed to have remarked that if he were to be born again, he would wish to be born a Tamilian.

............... Prime Minister Narendra Modi has consistently emphasised the need to shed the colonial mindset, honour India’s values and freedom fighters, and

advance towards true freedom of the mind and spirit.

This vision is reflected in the government’s observance of Netaji’s birth anniversary as Parakram Diwas, the renaming of historic islands in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in his honour, and the installation of his statue at Kartavya Path.

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