u/savage2199

When asked by a Norwegian journalist why he avoids questions from "the freest press in the world," PM Narendra Modi walked away. He hasn't held an unscripted press conference in 12 years.

That led me to look into the actual numbers.

According to the RSF 2026 World Press Freedom Index, India scores 32. That puts it closer to Russia (23) than to Indonesia (43), another developing democracy. Meanwhile, the US ranks #64, which seems low until you consider its political pillar score (53.6).

The story gets even more interesting for India when you break it down by pillar.

Source: https://rsf.org/en/index?year

China exports goods worth 73% more than the United States: $3.77T versus $2.18T.

China's $940B in electrical machinery exports alone nearly matches half of all US global exports, underscoring its manufacturing dominance.

China's leading categories are manufactured goods shipped and embedded into economies worldwide.

This advantage isn’t easily undone; physical supply chain dominance takes decades to reverse. You can’t fix that with dollars or better software.

Full trade comparison of both countries here: https://www.vizmaya.fyi/story/the-century-trade-story

Source: http://english.customs.gov.cn/Statics/dbe2c034-de23-4794-83ce-74d1a2bf14e6.html,

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/exports-by-category

Source: https://www.vizmaya.fyi/story/india-exam-leaks

Stargate is a $500B AI infrastructure project led by OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank,  with 7 sites across the US.

Building on this, the partners are constructing 9+ GW of capacity, equivalent to New York City's entire peak power demand. This is enough to run 20 million H100S, matching the total AI compute existing on Earth at the end of 2025.

Among these sites, the most advanced is in Abilene, Texas, which is already operational at 0.3 GW.

Read the complete breakdown here: https://www.vizmaya.fyi/story/stargate-real-constraint

Source: EpochAI