Arvind's Newsletter

1.Tata Group ‘fighting multiple fires’ after cyber attacks and boardroom splits: Financial Times and others

Two of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s top lieutenants have held an extraordinary meeting with executives from India’s Tata Group as one of the country’s most important conglomerates struggles to contain boardroom divisions and repeated crises among its businesses.

India’s powerful home affairs minister Amit Shah and finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman this week met Tata Trusts chair Noel Tata and Tata Sons chair N Chandrasekaran, to address the conglomerate’s stability, said two people who work with the group.

The government’s move is “completely unprecedented”, said historian Mircea Raianu, author of a 2021 book on Tata Group, a business empire he said always had “strategic autonomy” despite its role in crucial sectors including arms manufacturing and semiconductors.

The meeting capped a tumultuous half year for the conglomerate, which has suffered an aviation disaster, cyber attacks in the UK and slowing growth at Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest IT services company. The operational challenges follow the group’s loss of its longtime leader Ratan Tata, who shaped its decades-long internationalisation push and died one year ago this week.

The market value of Tata’s 16 listed companies, spanning sectors including tea, tourism and steel, has fallen about $70bn to under $300bn this year.

Meanwhile Reuters reported, a trustee of Tata Group's charity arm has said its decision to vote him off the board of the $180-billion business empire it controls was "unprecedented" and signals a "different era", in the biggest boardroom rift to shake India Inc in years.

The disagreement in recent weeks concerns which trustees should sit on the board of Tata Sons, the general business direction taken by the group and how to manage the planned exit of minority shareholder Shapoorji Pallonji, Reuters has reported.

The trustees voted not to reappoint Vice Chairman Vijay Singh to the board of Tata Sons in September, laying bare a tussle among senior members of the powerful charity arm, which is led by Ratan Tata's half-brother Noel Tata.

2.Govt opens up State Bank of India managing director position to pvt sector: Business Standard

The government has for the first time opened up one managing director (MD) position at State Bank of India (SBI) to private-sector bankers, in a major overhaul of the way leadership is chosen in India’s public financial institutions.

It has also empowered the Financial Services Institutions Bureau (FSIB) to assess and recommend candidates, setting aside their Annual Performance Appraisal Reports (APARs).

Under the revised guidelines, private-sector candidates applying for one of the four MD positions at SBI must have at least 21 years of professional experience, including a minimum of 15 years in banking. They must also have served either two years at the board level of a bank or at least three years at the highest level below the board. However, candidates eligible under public-sector positions shall also be eligible to apply under the position open for private candidates.

A vacancy for private bankers may come up as early as January 2026, when the tenure of the current SBI MD, Ashwini Kumar Tewari, is set to end. This also opens up the possibility of a private banker heading India’s largest public-sector bank in the future, as the SBI chairman is selected from among the four MDs.

3.Adani sets out to raise ₹30,000 crore for Terminal 2 of Navi Mumbai Airport: Mint

The Navi Mumbai airport hasn’t even welcomed its first flyer yet — but Adani Group is already charting its next flight path. The conglomerate is gearing up to raise a whopping ₹30,000 crore for Terminal 2, slated to take off by 2029. 

Talks are underway with Indian and Japanese lenders, including SBI, MUFG, and Mizuho, alongside Singapore’s Temasek. About ₹10,000 crore is expected to be secured in the next six months. Terminal 2 will be massive — spread across 400,000 sq. m and designed to handle 30 million passengers annually, compared to 20 million at Terminal 1.

Adani Airport Holdings Ltd, which already runs eight airports, isn’t stopping here. It plans to list publicly in 2-3 years and is eyeing 3-4 more airports in India’s next privatisation wave. The aviation bet seems clear — scale up fast and secure the skies before rivals catch up.

4.Behind the electronics surprise: India's path to $500 billion by 2030: Business Standard

It was conceived as a “Make in India” boost to the electronics component industry across sectors — from mobile devices and consumer electronics to auto, industrial electronics, and telecom. But the start was slow, with government officials having to extend the deadline by a month after many companies failed to submit applications fast enough.

However, when the Electronics Component Manufacturing Scheme (ECMS) closed on September 30, the results came as a complete surprise. The response was overwhelming: As many as 249 applicants were ready to invest a total of over ₹1 trillion, more than double the scheme’s target. And its initial target of production value was crossed by 2.2 times to ₹4.56 trillion, along with the promise of 142,000 jobs.

A senior official at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) said: “We never imagined this kind of response. We thought we would get investments of $7.5 billion or so but we got $14-15 billion. No government scheme has seen such a response, and the key reason is we had massive engagement with stakeholders.”

The government has fixed an aggressive target for electronics manufacturing, aiming to take it to $500 billion by 2030. Seventy per cent of this ($350 billion) is expected to come from finished products (like mobile phones, laptops, and TV sets), and 30 per cent ($150) from sub-assemblies and components.

5.Citigroup Expects Up to $20 Billion in India IPOs Over Next Year: Bloomberg

India’s IPO boom shows no sign of slowing, with Citigroup projecting up to $20 billion in share sales over the next year — a record pipeline spanning tech, healthcare and consumer sectors. Already this year, IPOs have raised $12 billion, with another $5 billion expected this month from big names like Tata Capital and the India unit of LG Electronics.

The surge is fuelled by strong domestic demand, even as foreign funds pull back amid US tariff concerns and softer profits. Upcoming listings from Pine Labs, Meesho, and ICICI Prudential AMC, plus a potential blockbuster Reliance Jio IPO, underscore India’s growing clout as one of the world’s most active markets for new listings.

6.Fabled VC giant a16z lands in India: Mint

US venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, better known as a16z, is setting up an office in India's Silicon Valley of Bengaluru, multiple people familiar with the move told Mint.

Its San Francisco-based general partner Anish Acharya is leading hiring for India.

The idea is to scout for early-stage deals in the AI-focused and SaaS firms being built out of India that are servicing global clients, said a person with knowledge of the firm's plans.

7.Not Trump but Venezuela opposition leader María Corina Machado Nobel Peace Prize: Financial Times

The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to María Corina Machado, Venezuela’s main opposition leader, dashing the hopes of US President Donald Trump.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said on Friday it had awarded the prize to Machado for “keeping the flame of democracy burning amidst a growing darkness”.

The win comes despite Trump’s repeated insistence that he deserved to win the prize for resolving “eight wars”, most recently with his work on an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. Machado is in hiding in Venezuela following an election last year that was widely regarded as having been stolen by the incumbent leader, President Nicolás Maduro.

Meanwhile,Norway is bracing for the aftermath of the Nobel Peace Prize announcement on Friday as the Nordic nation has faced increasing pressure from Donald Trump and his administration to award it to the US leader.

8.Gaza ceasefire has started, says Israel’s military: Various including NBC and Financial Times

The Israeli military said a ceasefire in Gaza had gone into effect, paving the way for the release of hostages held in the strip and setting in motion the first phase of US President Donald Trump’s peace plan for the Palestinian territory.

The Israel Defense Forces said that, as of noon local time, its troops had completed their partial withdrawal, pulling back to “updated deployment lines in preparation for the ceasefire agreement and the return of hostages”.

The ceasefire came into effect hours after the Israeli cabinet approved the first phase of the US-brokered deal, which is designed to end Israel’s two-year war against Hamas in Gaza.

Tens of thousands of Gazans had started streaming back north to the ruins of Gaza City and other neighbourhoods. They were warned by the IDF to stay away from troops.

Friday’s troop pullback still leaves the IDF in control of more than half of Gaza, and any further withdrawal depends on the progress of negotiations to fulfil the rest of Trump’s plan.

9.Donald Trump’s second presidency has been good for business — his own: Quartz

Forbes pegs his fortune at $7.3 billion, up $3 billion from last year, and The New Yorker calculates that the Trump family has taken in $3.4 billion since his first term. The portfolio spans luxury real estate, crypto, and the new frontier of political finance: “America First” ETFs and a meme coin that buys access to the man himself. Trump has already pocketed an estimated $385 million from the token, even as his administration loosens crypto oversight.

U.S. conflict-of-interest laws don’t apply to presidents, a carve-out that has turned public trust into private equity. Past presidents sold their businesses to avoid even the appearance of corruption; Trump has built ones. Congress shows no appetite for reform, and the Supreme Court has granted presidents broad immunity for “official acts,” leaving some experts (i.e., Justice Sonia Sotomayor) to describe the modern presidency as a “law-free zone.”

That legal vacuum has become a business climate. Federal agencies are writing checks to Trump-owned properties, foreign governments are striking deals with Trump-linked firms, and regulators are too understaffed to intervene. The Constitution bars foreign gifts, but enforcement requires impeachment — an option that seems off the table. The result is something new in American history: a presidency that is also a business model, one whose shareholders are watching the stock rise — and fall.

10.Why world records seem to be getting harder to beat - according to maths: BBC

New world records in some sports are remarkably elusive, yet in others they seem to fall regularly, as Armand Duplantis's extraordinary pole vault recently demonstrated. Looking to records in other areas such as climate change can help explain why.

To the roar of the crowd at the Athletics World Championships in Tokyo, Armand "Mondo" Duplantis sprinted down the runway with his pole aloft. Pumping music reached a crescendo and the cheers became deafening. Then Duplantis flew.

The Swedish pole vaulter soared above the competition to assert his dominance over one of athletics' most technical disciplines – achieving a new world record in the event. His 6.3m (20.6ft) leap saw Duplantis win his third consecutive world title and, astonishingly, break his 14th world record. He is, in every way, raising the bar again and again. (Read more about how Armand Duplantis is reaching new heights from BBC Sport.)

This is often what can happen in sport. Improvements in diet, technique or equipment can bring a sudden spate of world records, especially in technical disciplines like pole‑vaulting and cycling where small adjustments make a big difference. Technical advances in running events have also seen records tumble in recent years.

In contrast, the men's world record in the long jump has been broken only once since 1968 when Mike Powell leapt 8.95m (29ft 4in) at the 1991 World Championships, also held in Tokyo. Perhaps we have reached peak long jump – a situation in which further improvement is impossible and differences between an athlete's performances come down to "luck": the wind, how well they slept the night before, and so on.