A heads up that there will be no newsletter from Oct 2 to 8 as I am travelling

1.Tata Group Loses $73 Billion in Market Value as risks grow: Bloomberg

India’s Tata Group has lost about $73 billion in market value this year, with a significant chunk of the erosion coming in recent weeks following challenges ranging from US visa curbs to a cyberattack.

The combined market value of the biggest Indian group’s 16 firms has slipped to about $287 billion, the lowest in nearly two years, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The group lost about $19 billion since Sept. 19 after President Donald Trump tightened US work-visa rules, weighing on Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.

The coffee-to-cars conglomerate is undergoing one of its most turbulent years as it navigates a cyberattack at its luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover that has crippled production, one of the most devastating air crashes in India’s aviation history and fresh challenges to its software unit from Trump’s America First policies. Read on Gift Article.

2.IIP growth slows to 4% in August as manufacturing output weakens: Business Standards

Despite a favourable base effect, growth in industrial production moderated to 4 per cent in August from an upwardly revised 4.3 per cent in July, driven by weaker manufacturing activity, according to data released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) on Monday. 

In August 2024, growth in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) had stood at 0 per cent. The latest data showed that manufacturing output eased sharply to 3.8 per cent in August from 6 per cent in July, while electricity generation rose to a five-month high of 4.1 per cent and mining output turned positive at 6 per cent after a gap of four months.

  In the first five months (April–August) of the current financial year, IIP growth stood at 2.8 per cent compared to 4.3 per cent in the corresponding period of the previous year.

3.India, Bhutan to connect by rail for the first time with total outlay of Rs 4,033 crore: Economic Times

In a significant boost to India-Bhutan relations, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, along with Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, announced plans to connect the country to Gelephu and Samtse via new railway links at a total outlay of Rs 4,033 crores.

The India-Bhutan Railway Project aims to connect two important cities in Bhutan. As shared by the Foreign Secretary, one is Gelephu, being developed as a mindfulness city, and the other is Samtse, an industrial city.

Both projects will be linked to the Indian Railways network at Kokrajar and Banarhat.

4.India's Tata Capital sets 310-326 rupee per share price band for $1.75 billion IPO: Reuters

Tata Capital is aiming for a valuation of about $15 billion for its $1.75 billion initial public offering, according to Reuters' calculations, making it India's biggest listing so far this year.

The non-bank lender has set a price band of 310-326 rupees per share, a newspaper advertisement showed on Monday. The Mumbai-based firm, which filed for the IPO through the confidential route earlier this year, will open the offer for bids on October 6.

5.YouTube introduces Premium Lite subscription plan in India at ₹89 per month: Business Standard

Video-sharing platform YouTube has launched a pilot version of its Premium Lite subscription for users in India. The plan offers select features of the Premium subscription at an affordable Rs 89 per month.

With Premium Lite, users can watch YouTube videos across gaming, fashion, beauty and news, among others, without advertisement interruptions. The plan will be available across devices, including phones, laptops and televisions. The rollout is underway, with full availability expected across India in the coming weeks.

In comparison, the Premium subscription includes ad-free videos and music, music videos, and download and background play options at Rs 149 per month. This comes at a time when YouTube Music and Premium subscribers globally crossed 125 million, including trial versions. The company said the Premium Lite option is designed to offer flexible choices catering to diverse viewer preferences.

6.Xi Pushes Trump to Oppose Taiwan Independence in Major Shift: Bloomberg

Chinese President Xi Jinping is renewing a push for the US to change a decades-old phrase describing its stance on Taiwan independence, a concession that would be a major diplomatic win for Beijing.

China has asked the Trump administration to officially declare that it “opposes” Taiwan independence, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private information.

The suggested wording is stronger than the Biden administration’s previous statement that US officials “do not support” the self-ruled island seeking formal independence, and would add to China’s campaign to isolate Taiwan on the world stage. The Wall Street Journal first reported the request.

The Trump administration has not made a decision regarding the demand, and it’s one in a long list of asks from the Chinese side under consideration, according to a separate person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified as the information is private. A State Department fact sheet on US ties with Taiwan is currently unavailable on its website.

7.Moldova’s pro-EU government secured a majority in an election marred by accusations of Russian disinformation.

The vote has out size importance because of Moldova’s strategic location bordering Ukraine and NATO-member Romania, along with a long-running domestic conflict that has seen a breakaway region align with Moscow.

In the run-up to the polls, media outlets were hacked, several people were arrested for allegedly fomenting violent unrest, and Moldova’s embassy in Brussels was evacuated over a bomb threat.

Ultimately, the vote keeps Moldova on a path to EU membership, but as RFE/RL’s Europe editor noted, “the real winner maybe Brussels,” with the result offering a much-needed success as European powers fret over Russia’s adventurism along the bloc’s borders.

8.AI is shrinking workforces — and making more work for managers: Quartz

Corporate ladders aren’t being climbed anymore — they’re being sawed in half. Managers in the U.S. now juggle triple the number of employees they did a decade ago, according to Gartner, while companies such as Google and Intel are lopping off entire layers of middle management. Job postings for those positions have fallen 42% since 2022, and by 2026, Gartner says one in five companies will let AI finish the job. Call it “The Great Flattening”: fewer bosses, more workers, and an office hierarchy that’s starting to look like a pancake.

The fallout is less efficiency and more entropy. At Microsoft and Amazon, cuts have already left managers stretched so thin they resemble human Slack channels — expected to coach, strategise, and keep morale afloat while pinging out endless updates. As workplace consultant Jessica Weiss points out, your manager has as much impact on your mental health as your spouse. So what happens when your boss has 75 “spouses” to look after?

And while companies frame this flattening as streamlining, the first casualty is culture. Mentorship requires time; trust requires presence. Both are disappearing as managers morph into overworked “portfolio operators” who are hopping across sprawling teams. In the short term, that saves payroll. In the long term, it drains loyalty. The winners won’t be the firms that replace bosses with dashboards; the winners will be the ones that recognise gutting management isn’t cost-cutting — it’s culture-cutting. 

9.The McKinsey CEO pipeline: How the consulting giant built an empire of influence and filled the world’s corner offices with its alumni: Fortune

Across corporate America, McKinsey-trained executives occupy a remarkable number of corner offices. The firm counts at least 18 current Fortune 500 CEOs among its alumni—more than any other company—including Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, DoorDash’s Tony Xu, Lockheed Martin’s James Taiclet, and Visa’s Ryan McInerney. Add the Fortune Global 500, and that list jumps to 28, with names like Novartis’s Vas Narasimhan and Allianz’s Oliver Bäte.

McKinsey says its internal data shows that more than 500 alumni have held C-suite roles at current Global 500 companies since McKinsey’s founding; more than 700 currently hold such roles at companies with more than $300 million in annual revenue, and, stunningly, more than half of its alumni over age 40 have reached the C-Suite.

10.The Volunteer’s Dilemma: Stephen Pinker in the Behavioural Scientist

“No one can deny that people often fail to act when they know they should,” writes Steven Pinker. “Many of us have walked by a homeless person, or been awakened by a scream and turned over to fall back asleep, or shirked from refilling a coffee pot in a communal kitchen.”

How you handle these situations, Pinker explains, depends heavily on “common knowledge,” or your knowledge of what everyone else knows (and their knowledge of what you know, and your knowledge of their knowledge of what you know, and so on).

If you think someone else will step in to help, you might be less likely to do it yourself. But what if you think that they think that you will step in? “Learning about something in public, even if everyone already knows it, can change everything,” Pinker writes.