Bacteria-sized robots take on microplastics and win by breaking them down

AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY

Research News

 

IMAGE: METALLIC MICROROBOTS (DARK BLUE DOTS) COLONIZE A JAGGED PIECE OF MICROPLASTIC UNDER VISIBLE LIGHT, BREAKING DOWN THE PLASTIC INTO SMALLER MOLECULES. view more 

CREDIT: ADAPTED FROM ACS APPLIED MATERIALS & INTERFACES 2021, DOI: 10.1021/ACSAMI.1C04559

Small pieces of plastic are everywhere, stretching from urban environments to pristine wilderness. Left to their own devices, it can take hundreds of years for them to degrade completely. Catalysts activated by sunlight could speed up the process, but getting these compounds to interact with microplastics is difficult. In a proof-of-concept study, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces developed self-propelled microrobots that can swim, attach to plastics and break them down.

While plastic products are omnipresent indoors, plastic waste and broken bits now litter the outdoors, too. The smallest of these - microplastics less than 5 mm in size - are hard to pick up and remove. In addition, they can adsorb heavy metals and pollutants, potentially harming humans or animals if accidently consumed. So, previous researchers proposed a low-energy way to get rid of plastics in the environment by using catalysts that use sunlight to produce highly reactive compounds that break down these types of polymers. However, getting the catalysts and tiny plastic pieces in contact with each other is challenging and usually requires pretreatments or bulky mechanical stirrers, which aren't easily scaled-up. Martin Pumera and colleagues wanted to create a sunlight-propelled catalyst that moves toward and latches onto microparticles and dismantles them.

To transform a catalytic material into light-driven microrobots, the researchers made star-shaped particles of bismuth vanadate and then evenly coated the 4-8 μm-wide structures with magnetic iron oxide. The microrobots could swim down a maze of channels and interact with microplastic pieces along their entire lengths. The researchers found that under visible light, microrobots strongly glommed on to four common types of plastics. The team then illuminated pieces of the four plastics covered with the microrobot catalyst for seven days in a dilute hydrogen peroxide solution. They observed that the plastic lost 3% of its weight and that the surface texture for all types changed from smooth to pitted, and small molecules and components of the plastics were found in the left-over solution. The researchers say the self-propelled microrobot catalysts pave the way toward systems that can capture and degrade microplastics in hard-to-reach-locations.

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The authors acknowledge funding from the European Regional Development Fund.

The abstract that accompanies this paper can be viewed here.

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS' mission is to advance the broader chemistry enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and all its people. The Society is a global leader in promoting excellence in science education and providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, eBooks and weekly news periodical Chemical & Engineering News. ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a leader in scientific information solutions, its CAS division partners with global innovators to accelerate breakthroughs by curating, connecting and analyzing the world's scientific knowledge. ACS' main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

Ocean microplastics: First global view shows seasonal changes and sources

Satellites reveal fluctuation in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and releases from the Yangtze River

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Research News

 

An estimated 8 million tons of plastic trash enters the ocean each year, and most of it is battered by sun and waves into microplastics--tiny flecks that can ride currents hundreds or thousands of miles from their point of entry.

The debris can harm sea life and marine ecosystems, and it's extremely difficult to track and clean up.

Now, University of Michigan researchers have developed a new way to spot ocean microplastics across the globe and track them over time, providing a day-by-day timeline of where they enter the water, how they move and where they tend to collect.

The approach relies on the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System, or CYGNSS, and can give a global view or zoom in on small areas for a high-resolution picture of microplastic releases from a single location.

The technique is a major improvement over current tracking methods, which rely mainly on spotty reports from plankton trawlers that net microplastics along with their catch.

"We're still early in the research process, but I hope this can be part of a fundamental change in how we track and manage microplastic pollution," said Chris Ruf, the Frederick Bartman Collegiate Professor of Climate and Space Science at U-M, principal investigator of CYGNSS and senior author on a newly published paper on the work.

Their initial observations are revealing.

Season changes in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

The team found that global microplastic concentrations tend to vary by season, peaking in the North Atlantic and Pacific during the Northern Hemisphere's summer months. June and July, for example, are the peak months for the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a convergence zone in the North Pacific where microplastic collects in massive quantities.

Concentrations in the Southern Hemisphere peak during its summer months of January and February. Concentrations tend to be lower during the winter, likely due to a combination of stronger currents that break up microplastic plumes and increased vertical mixing that drives them further beneath the water's surface, researchers say.

The data also showed several brief spikes in microplastic concentration at the mouth of the Yangtze River--long suspected to be a chief source.

"It's one thing to suspect a source of microplastic pollution, but quite another to see it happening," Ruf said. "The microplastics data that has been available in the past has been so sparse, just brief snapshots that aren't repeatable."

The researchers produced visualizations that show microplastic concentrations around the globe. Often the areas of accumulation are due to prevailing local water currents and convergence zones, with the Pacific patch being the most extreme example.

"What makes the plumes from major river mouths noteworthy is that they are a source into the ocean, as opposed to places where the microplastics tend to accumulate," Ruf said.

Ruf says the information could help organizations that clean up microplastics deploy ships and other resources more efficiently. The researchers are already in talks with a Dutch cleanup organization, The Ocean Cleanup, on working together to validate the team's initial findings. Single-point release data may also be useful to the United Nations agency UNESCO, which has sponsored a task force to find new ways to track the release of microplastics into the world's waters.

Hurricane-tracking satellites set their sights on plastic pollution

Developed by Ruf and U-M undergraduate Madeline Evans, the tracking method uses existing data from CYGNSS, a system of eight microsatellites launched in 2016 to monitor weather near the heart of large storm systems and bolster predictions on their severity. Ruf leads the CYGNSS mission.

The key to the process is ocean surface roughness, which CYGNSS already measures using radar. The measurements have mainly been used to calculate wind speed near the eyes of hurricanes, but Ruf wondered whether they might have other uses as well.

"We'd been taking these radar measurements of surface roughness and using them to measure wind speed, and we knew that the presence of stuff in the water alters its responsiveness to the environment," Ruf said. "So I got the idea of doing the whole thing backward, using changes in responsiveness to predict the presence of stuff in the water."

Using independent wind speed measurements from NOAA, the team looked for places where the ocean seemed less rough than it should be given the wind speed. They then matched those areas up with actual observations from plankton trawlers and ocean current models that predict the migration of microplastic. They found a high correlation between the smoother areas and those with more microplastic.

Ruf's team believes the changes in ocean roughness may not be caused directly by the microplastics, but instead by surfactants--a family of oily or soapy compounds that lower the surface tension on a liquid's surface. Surfactants tend to accompany microplastics in the ocean, both because they're often released along with microplastics and because they travel and collect in similar ways once they're in the water.

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A paper on the work, "Towards the Detection and Imaging of Ocean Microplastics with a Spaceborne Radar," is newly published in IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

Written by Gabe Cherry

The rocky road to accurate sea-level predictions

Dirt and water under Greenland control future sea

STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: HENNING ÅKESSON view more 

CREDIT: HENNING ÅKESSON

The type of material present under glaciers has a big impact on how fast they slide towards the ocean. Scientists face a challenging task to acquire data of this under-ice landscape, let alone how to represent it accurately in models of future sea-level rise.

"Choosing the wrong equations for the under-ice landscape can have the same effect on the predicted contribution to sea-level rise as a warming of several degrees", says Henning Åkesson, who led a new published study on Petermann Glacier in Greenland.

Glaciers and ice sheets around the world currently lose more than 700,000 Olympic swimming pools of water every day. Glaciers form by the transformation of snow into ice, which is later melted by the atmosphere in summer, or slides all the way into the sea. With climate change, glaciers are breaking up and drop icebergs into the ocean at an accelerating pace. Exactly how fast depends to a large extent on the bed below all the ice. Glaciers conceal a landscape under the ice covered by rocks, sediments and water. A new study shows that the way we represent this under-ice landscape in computer models means a great deal for our predictions of future sea-level rise. More specifically, how we incorporate the friction between the ground and the ice sliding over it in glacier models is what affects our predictions. This was found by a team of Swedish and American scientists, when they simulated the future of Petermann Glacier, the largest and fastest glacier in northern Greenland.

Petermann is one of the few glaciers in the northern hemisphere with a remaining ice tongue, a type of floating glacier extension otherwise mainly found in Antarctica, where they are called ice shelves. These floating extensions have been found to be exposed to warm subsurface water flowing from the open ocean towards the glaciers. This happens both in Antarctica and in many fjords around Greenland, including the Petermann Fjord.

"Peterman lost 40% of its floating ice tongue over the last decade. It still has a 45 km tongue, but we found that a slightly warmer ocean than today would lead to its break up, and trigger a retreat of the glacier", says Henning Åkesson, a postdoctoral researcher at Stockholm University who led the study.

Many glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica flow towards the ocean much faster than they did a few decades ago, and therefore contribute more to global sea-level rise. Scientists have therefore mobilized great efforts into learning what is going on in these environments. This has spurred new insights into the landscape under glaciers and the shape of the seafloor where they drain. We now also know much more about what happens to the ice when glaciers meet the sea.

Still, the remote polar regions are notoriously difficult to study because of sea ice, icebergs, and often harsh weather. The under-ice landscape is a particular challenge because, frankly, it is hard to measure something covered by a kilometer of ice on top. Even in areas of known under-ice topography, describing its physical properties using mathematical equations is difficult. Computer models are therefore still somewhat in the dark when it comes to how to represent things like sediments, rocks, ponds and rivers under glaciers in the equations that describe ice flow. These equations are ultimately the foundation of the models used by the IPCC to estimate how fast glaciers flow and how much sea levels will rise under future climate warming.

"As we said, choosing the wrong equations for the under-ice landscape can have the same effect on the contribution to sea-level rise as a warming of several degrees", Åkesson says.

"In fact, predicted sea-level rise for this Greenland glacier can quadruple depending on how we represent friction under the ice. We still don't know which way is the best, but our study illustrates that ice-sheet models still need to progress in this respect, in order to improve our estimates of mass loss from Earth's polar ice sheets."

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CAPTION

Swedish icebreaker Oden at the front of Petermann Ice Shelf in 2019. The new study shows that this ice shelf may break up if ocean warming continues.

CREDIT

Martin Jakobsson

CAPTION

The 20 km-wide Petermann Fjord with the ice shelf in the far distance.

CREDIT

Martin Jakobsson

Why this London, Ont., MP voted against a 2017 motion to condemn Islamophobia

Rebecca Zandbergen 

CBC NEWS

JUNE 10, 2021

© Karen Vecchio/Twitter In 2017, Karen Vecchio, the Conservative MP for Elgin-Middlesex-London, voted against M-103, a motion introduced by Ontario Liberal MP Iqra Khalid to condemn Islamophobia. She spoke to CBC London on Thursday 

In the wake of the fatal attack Sunday on a Muslim family in London, Ont., politicians of every stripe have come out to condemn hate and violence in this province and across Canada.

Salman Afzaal, 46, his wife Madiha Salman, 44, their daughter Yumna Afzaal, 15, and Salman's mother, Talat Afzaal, 74, were killed. The youngest member of the family, nine-year-old Fayez, survived and remains in hospital.

Following Tuesday night's vigil, Karen Vecchio, the Conservative MP for Elgin-Middlesex-London, is among those who took to social media, and said, "Last night I stood amongst 10,000 Canadians who came together to grieve, commemorate and address the issues of Islamophobia."

But in 2017, after six people were killed in an attack on a Quebec City mosque, Vecchio voted against M-103, a motion first introduced in 2016, to condemn Islamophobia.

In the recent attack, police say they believe it was premeditated and motivated by anti-Muslim hate. Community groups and politicians have also spoken out about Islamophobia.

Vecchio spoke to Rebecca Zandbergen of CBC's London Morning on Thursday morning about why and how she may have done things differently:

Standing among over 10,000 people who were there to commemorate the family and address Islamophobia: it was a very powerful evening. I think since the tragedy on Sunday, this has been a time in which many people throughout London and the region are reflecting because this is just a family, a family like I have. The bottom line is no family is free until all families are free. No family should ever worry about walking down the street and be targeted because of their religion and how they look.

I recognize the importance to the community and the importance to push this forward to understand racism and hate. So M-103 today would look very different in my eyes. But back at that time when this was put forward in 2016, there was also another motion in the House that I had supported. It was much broader. I have spoken to Iqra Khalid [the Ontario Liberal MP who sponsored the motion] and I have respect for her and worked with her on the women's caucus for some time. We had put forward a motion that was a bit different and much broader. It expanded to different religions ... that included Sikh, Jewish, Islam. It expanded everything.

No. When I voted, I personally thought we need to include other communities, including the Sikhs and Hindus.

You're absolutely right. I recognize that, yes, I could have voted for both, and would I today? Absolutely. But what I'm saying is at that time when I was looking at those bills, I wanted to expand it.

Yes, absolutely. I absolutely do.

Once again, it's the messaging.We're looking at our economy right now and so I want to ensure when we're talking about it, we're looking at the security of Canadian families and security includes the economy, it includes safety, includes it all. So I would not take what he has indicated there in our motto, to have anything to do with Islamophobia. It is not the intention whatsoever and people can try to take any phrase like that and move it. It is absolutely genuine and wanting to ensure that we have a secure Canada for all Canadians. And that includes our new immigrants to Canada, and to our brothers and sisters who are of Muslim faith.

I understand where you're coming from, but we're referring to the economy. I see where you're going on this. And I think every single time you have a slogan, we have to be very cautious because there's going to be lots of individuals that are going to take that and that they're going to twist it. Let's not kid ourselves. When we have political foes, they like to take anything and twist it.

Lots of phone calls. Lots of people have tried to put things on my Facebook. I find that we're at a time of great hate. And so I've been trying to reach out to all of those people individually. I don't believe the social media platforms are the best way to have discussions. I've been on the phone with many individuals in our own community, including going to the vigil just last night here in St. Thomas with the St. Thomas Islamic Centre. I think we have to do lots of great work in our smaller communities and that's the kind of work I'll continue to do

 SPACE RACE 3.0

European Space Agency adds another new Venus mission

By

Paul Brinkmann

An illustration depicts the EnVision orbiter unfolding instruments as it nears Venus. Image courtesy of European Space Agency

June 10 (UPI) -- The European Space Agency has approved a new mission to study Venus -- the third new mission to Venus to be announced in the past two weeks.

The ESA announced Thursday it will launch the EnVision orbiter in 2031 or 2032, with a budget of roughly $610 million.

It will follow two NASA missions to Venus that are scheduled to launch in a three-year span starting in 2028. NASA announced those missions, known as DAVINCI+ and Veritas, on June 2.

EnVision will scan specific regions of the Venusian surface that may be selected using data from Veritas, said Günther Hasinger, ESA director of science, in an interview Thursday.

RELATEDNASA will launch first U.S. missions to Venus since 1989

"Venus has been kind of ignored for a long time. So I believe we will get similar details of Venus as we have today for Mars, once these missions are concluded," Hasinger said.

Such knowledge could help scientists combat the worst impact of climate change on Earth, since the Venusian atmosphere may have undergone similar changes, he said.

All three Venus missions will attempt to answer the same difficult question that has vexed scientists for decades: Why did Venus, which is similar in size and location in the solar system to Earth, evolve into a hellish environment with temperatures that can melt lead at the surface?

Veritas will map the entire surface of the planet, while EnVision targets mountainous regions known as tesserae. DAVINCI+ will plummet through the atmosphere to the surface in an hour-long journey as it samples the air using various sensors.

RELATEDScientists will peer at first galaxies with James Webb telescope

EnVision's key instruments will be radar that can penetrate the thick sulfuric-acid clouds in the Venus atmosphere. NASA will supply key components for EnVision.

That radar will provide detailed maps of the surface -- 10 to 50 times more accurate than NASA's previous Magellan orbiter launched in 1989, said Adriana Ocampo, NASA's program scientist for the EnVision mission, in an interview.

"It's actually the same team that's working on EnVision and Veritas, so this would be complementary science. This will serve to maximize science to ad

Hackers steal 780gb of data from major game publisher Electronic Art

Major video game publisher Electronic Arts said Thursday that hackers stole vital data including source code and other internal tools. Photo by Elliot Lash/Wikimedia Commons

June 10 (UPI) -- Hackers breached the systems of Electronic Arts, one of the world's largest video game publishers, and stole important data including source code and other internal tools, the company said Thursday.

The hack was first reported by Vice, which reviewed posts on underground hacking forums where hackers said they had 780gb of EA's data and were advertising it for sale.

"You have full capability of exploiting on all EA services," the hackers said.

In the forum posts, the hackers said they had taken the source code for EA's soccer game FIFA 21 and the code for its online matchmaking server, the source code and tools for the company's proprietary Frostbite engine, and proprietary frameworks and software development kits, Vice reported.

RELATEDU.S. seizes domains used in USAID hack

An EA representative said the company was aware of the hack and that player data was not affected.

"We are investigating a recent incident of intrusion into our network where a limited amount of game source code and related tools were stolen," the representative said. "No player data was accessed and we have no reason to believe there is any risk to player privacy. Following the incident, we've already made security improvements and do not expect an impact on our games or our business. We are actively working with law enforcement officials and other experts as part of this ongoing criminal investigation."

The representative also said it was not a ransomware attack, in which hackers encrypt a company's data and attempt to force them to pay a ransom to unlock it.

RELATEDPentagon expands program inviting hackers to report problems

The EA hack comes after a pair of high-profile ransomware attacks on meat producer JBS and the Colonial Pipeline which provides 45% of the East Coast's fuel supply in which they paid $11 million and $4.4 million in ransoms respectively.

'Laughing gas' shows promise against tough-to-treat depression

By

Alan Mozes, HealthDay News

When antidepressants fail to rein in hard-to-treat depression, the common anesthetic most know as "laughing gas" might be a safe and effective alternative, new research suggests.

The finding follows work with 28 patients struggling with "treatment-resistant major depression," a severe condition that investigators say affects about one-third of all patients -- an estimated 17 million American adults -- who develop major depressive disorder.

For such patients, antidepressants often fail to provide relief. But following three one-hour laughing gas inhalation sessions spread across three months, 85% of patients had significant depression relief that endured weeks post-treatment.

"Laughing gas is nitrous oxide, one of the oldest and most commonly used anesthetics," explained study author Peter Nagele, chair of anesthesia and critical care at the University of Chicago.

RELATEDMajor gene study pinpoints DNA linked to increased bipolar disorder risk

"And we found that laughing gas, at a much lower concentration than is used, for instance, during dental procedures, can help patients with difficult-to-treat depression," Nagele said.

Between 2016 and 2019, Nagele's team tried out two laughing gas formulations: one at a level of 50% nitrous oxide and one at a level of 25%.

Previous investigations had already demonstrated an antidepressant benefit at the higher level. But those efforts only assessed a post-treatment benefit of 24 hours.

RELATEDMore kids, teens, young adults visited ERs for mental health during pandemic

And patients exposed to the higher dose commonly experienced side effects, including nausea, sedation and or "mild dissociation," a kind of daydreaming experience.

In the latest study, patients were between the ages of 18 and 75. All were told to continue their usual depression care and maintain their existing antidepressant regimen.

About one-third were exposed to three sessions of 50% nitrous oxide inhalation treatment, one-third were given a 25% nitrous oxide inhalation treatment and one-third were given an oxygen inhalation treatment that contained no laughing gas.

RELATEDStudy finds 'magic mushroom' hallucinogen as good as antidepressants

Treatment was delivered via a standard anesthesia face mask, and all were monitored for up to one hour post-treatment.

After four patients withdrew from the study, results were drawn from 20 patients who completed all three inhalation sessions and four patients who completed at least one treatment.

The investigators found that both formulations offered significant depression control. In fact, just a single session -- at either dosage -- provided "rapid" depression control among patients, the team noted.

Depression control also appeared to grow in effect over time, enduring up to a month post-treatment among some of the patients.

At the three-month mark, the team found that 85% of patients had symptom improvement and 40% were found to be in depression remission.

Perhaps just as importantly, the team also found that "using a lower concentration of nitrous oxide also reduced the risk of side effects fourfold."

So, how exactly does laughing gas tamp down depression?

"The mechanism of how nitrous oxide exerts antidepressant effects is unknown, and is likely different from how it induces sedation and unconsciousness and also pain relief," Nagele said. "Having said this, the most widely accepted theory is that nitrous oxide blocks a specific receptor in the brain called NMDA-receptor, which is also considered the main mechanism for [the medication] ketamine."

Ketamine is a class III scheduled drug. While hospitals traditionally deploy the drug as an anesthetic, it's also been explored for its potential as an "off-label" treatment for depression.

According to Steven Hollon, a professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University in Brentwood, Tenn., "Ketamine is the hottest thing going" in the world of alternative depression treatment research.

Hollon was not involved in the new study, and acknowledged that he is not well-versed in the specifics of nitrous oxide depression treatment research.

Still, he stressed that the finding "suggests a common mechanism" with ketamine. And he characterized Nagele's work as "a most impressive 'proof-of-concept' study that would make me want to see the matter pursued."

The depression control seen among those patients exposed to low-dose laughing gas was "as good or better than you would hope to get in a placebo-controlled trial with antidepressant medications, and these are treatment-resistant patients. [It's] quite impressive," Hollon noted.

"If they came forward with this as pilot data, I would fund them for a major trial," he added. "These are very promising findings."

The report by Nagele and his colleagues was published in the this week issue of Science Translational Medicine.

More information

There's more on treatment-resistant depression at the Mayo Clinic.

Copyright © 2021 HealthDay. All rights reserved. 

Analysis-Frequent run-ins with India gov't cloud U.S. tech expansion plans

By Sankalp Phartiyal and Aditya Kalra 

JUNE 11, 2021

© Reuters/Dado Ruvic FILE PHOTO: Illustration of 3D printed Facebook and Twitter logos on a computer motherboard

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Another spat between India's government and U.S. big tech has exacerbated disillusion among firms which have spent billions to build hubs in their largest growth market, to the extent some are rethinking expansion plans, people close to the matter said.

The government on Saturday said Twitter Inc had not indicated compliance with new rules aimed at making social media firms more accountable to legal requests, and therefore risked losing liability exemptions for content posted on its platform.

Twitter joins compatriots Amazon.com Inc, Facebook Inc and Facebook-owned WhatsApp in long being at loggerheads with the administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi over data privacy bills and policies some executives have called protectionist, but tension has escalated in recent weeks.

Police visited Twitter last month to notify it of a probe into the tagging of a political tweet as "manipulated media", and in February interrogated an Amazon official about the potentially adverse social impact of a political drama. Meanwhile, WhatsApp is challenging the government in court over rules it said would force it to access encrypted data.

"The fear is there," said a senior tech industry executive in India. "It weighs both strategically and operationally."

There are no indications the increasing run-ins have led to the delay or cancellation of planned investment.

Still, three senior executives familiar with the thinking of major U.S. tech firms said perceptions of India being an alternative, more accessible growth market to China are changing, and that longstanding plans for India's role in their operations are being reviewed.

"There always used to be these discussions to make India a hub, but that is being thought through now," said one of the executives, who works at a U.S. tech firm. "This feeling is across the board."

Four other executives and advisors also expressed concern about rising tension. All declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter and because discussions were private.

Twitter, Amazon, Facebook, WhatsApp and India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology did not respond to requests for comment.

MISINFORMATION

The government has argued that its rules are needed to stem the spread of misinformation that can spark violence - such as in 2017 when kidnapping rumours shared on message apps including WhatsApp led to lynching. It also said the rules are necessary to hold large technology companies accountable for practices that hurt domestic businesses or compromise customer privacy.

India is a massive market for U.S. tech giants. It is the biggest market for both Facebook and WhatsApp by user numbers, showed data from Statista, and third for Twitter. Amazon has committed as much as $6.5 billion to invest in the country.

To attract small businesses through WhatsApp, Facebook last year invested $5.7 billion in Reliance Industries Ltd's media and telecommunications arm, Jio Platforms.

Alphabet Inc's Google also pumped $4.5 billion into Jio last year from a newly created $10 billion fund earmarked for investment in India over five to seven years.

COMPLIANCE

The government has tried to balance attracting high-tech investment with nationalist policies aimed at protecting local businesses and, critics say, advancing its political agenda.

A border confrontation with China prompted it to effectively ban Chinese social media apps, including TikTok and WeChat.

The government has also forced foreign firms to store data locally against fierce lobbying, and its promotion of a domestic payment card network prompted Mastercard Inc to complain https://www.reuters.com/article/india-mastercard-idINKCN1N65IS to the U.S. government about the use of nationalism.

In 2019, compliance issues with new regulations saw Amazon remove thousands of products from its e-commerce platform. The e-tailer is separately facing scrutiny by the Competition Commission of India for its retailing practices.

Twitter publicly refused to comply with some government demands to remove content, a stance which some industry executives said may have aggravated its current situation.

WhatsApp has gone to court rather than comply with a new law requiring social media firms to trace the origin of dangerous or criminal posts on their platforms. The message app operator said it cannot comply without breaking encryption, while observers said yielding could prompt similar demands in other countries.

At the same time, WhatsApp has faced regulatory delays that have limited its payment service to just 4% of its 500 million customers. Nevertheless, it is pressing ahead with hiring for a service it has called a "globally significant" opportunity.

Government officials have shown little patience for objections. IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said any robust democracy must have accountability mechanisms, such as the ability to identify the originator of messages.

"A private company sitting in America should refrain from lecturing us on democracy when you are denying your users the right to effective redressal forum," Prasad said in an interview with the Hindu newspaper published on Sunday.

Still, continued antagonism could imperil Modi's ambition of making India a go-to investment destination.

"It's a question of what you would develop in a three-to-five-year horizon," said another executive familiar with the thinking of U.S. firms. "Do you do that in India or do you do that in another country. That's where the conversation is."

(Reporting by Sankalp Phartiyal and Aditya Kalra; Edting by Jonathan Weber and Christopher Cushing)