Good morning.
A cake was baked in zero gravity. Chips worth ₹1.27 lakh crore were cleared on the ground. Thursday has range.
😊 Feels Good
No Oven. No Gravity. Still Made the Cake.
NASA's Jack Hathaway and French astronaut Sophie Adenot had each just crossed 100 days in space - both on their first-ever spaceflight. Their crewmates decided that they deserved a celebration.
What followed was a cake. Assembled 260 miles above Earth, with zero gravity and limited supplies working against them. It worked anyway. Some things just have to happen. Read More →
🤔 Do you know what rejection can do to you?
A man decided to get rejected every day for 100 days. What happened instead changed his life.
What's Stirring
India Is Building Its Own Chip Industry
What happened?
The Union Cabinet cleared seven major decisions on Wednesday with a total outlay of ₹2,19,353 crore - India's largest single-day manufacturing push in recent memory.
The two headline approvals:
Semicon 2.0 - ₹1,27,500 crore to accelerate India's semiconductor chip ecosystem. Three chip plants are already in commercial production under the first phase. This doubles down on that.
Mobile Phone Manufacturing Scheme - ₹62,500 crore to scale up India's phone manufacturing capacity, which has already made India the world's second-largest mobile phone producer.
What else got cleared? Let’s take a look.
List of the seven decisions. Source: Economic Times
Why it matters:
China controls most of the world's chip supply. Every phone, EV, and AI system runs on semiconductors. India just decided it does not want to keep depending on someone else for that. Read before the next iPhone drops →
State of the Week - Gujarat
Gir Said No to More Resorts. The Lions Will Not Complain.
Image credits: Gir National Park
Gujarat has announced that no new resorts will be permitted inside the Gir forest area - home to the world's last surviving population of Asiatic lions. The decision puts conservation firmly ahead of tourism revenue.
Gir's lion population has grown from 523 in 2015 to 674 in 2020, a recovery credited to strict habitat protection.
Allowing more resorts would have brought more human activity, more noise, and more pressure on a habitat that is already under stress. Gujarat chose the lions. That is the story. Read More →
🧠 Trivia Time
Which Indian city has the highest number of post offices in the world?
Hint: Think red buildings and roundabouts
Scroll to the end for the answer
🗞️ Also Read
🤝 The India-UK Free Trade Agreement came into force on July 15. Scotch tariffs drop, Indian exports get zero-duty access, and 75,000 professionals stop paying double social security.
🏅 India's five-student Physics Olympiad team won five gold medals at the 56th IPhO in Colombia, sharing the World No. 1 rank with China, Kazakhstan, Russia, South Korea, and Taiwan.
🚀 NASA's Anil Menon - Indian-American astronaut and SpaceX crew member - has headed to the ISS alongside two Russian cosmonauts.
⚽ Spain beat France 2-0 in the first World Cup semifinal on Tuesday, booking their place in the final.
🐝 Two rare bee species have been discovered in Arunachal Pradesh, raising both excitement and conservation concerns in one of India's most biodiverse regions.
🏛️ President Droupadi Murmu inaugurated Saushrutam 2026 in Delhi - a national conclave on traditional Indian medicine and surgery, named after the ancient physician Sushruta.
🧠 Trivia Answer: Delhi
With over 1,000 post offices, Delhi has more post offices than any other city in the world. The next time you walk past one, maybe give it a moment of respect.
