Arvind’s Newsletter

1.Google Plans $15 Billion Data Center in Biggest India Bet: Bloomberg

Alphabet Inc.’s Google aims to invest about $15 billion building an AI infrastructure hub in southern India over the next five years, making its biggest bet on the fast-growing country.

The US company outlined plans Tuesday for a data center in the port city of Visakhapatnam linked to new energy sources and a fiber-optic network. Indian tycoon Gautam Adani said his company AdaniConneX would partner with Google on the project, along with Bharti Airtel, the country’s No. 2 wireless carrier.

Google’s biggest investment in India to date, the project will anchor the regional government’s plan to accelerate the AI industry locally, the US company said in a statement. The Indian state of Andhra Pradesh aims to host 6 gigawatts of data center capacity by 2029, Nara Lokesh, the region’s technology minister, told Bloomberg News.

2.RBL Bank says reports of Emirates NBD Bank stake buy 'incorrect': Business Standard

RBL Bank on Tuesday said that reports suggesting Emirates NBD Bank PJSC, the second-largest bank in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is looking to acquire a controlling stake in the bank are incorrect.

Earlier reports had suggested that Dubai’s Emirates NBD Bank was in advanced talks to acquire a controlling stake in India’s RBL Bank for over $1 billion; and that the UAE government-owned lender planned to buy 26% from institutional investors and make an open offer for another 25%, potentially taking its holding to 51%.

3.LG Electronics India eclipses South Korean parent in blockbuster $13 billion trading debut: Reuters

After a near 50 per cent surge in market value post-listing, LG Electronics India is now valued at almost $13 billion — 37 per cent higher than its South Korean parent, LG Electronics Inc’s, market capitalisation of $9.4 billion.

In its IPO, the Seoul-headquartered parent sold a 15 per cent stake, raising $1.3 billion (₹11,607 crore). The remaining 85 per cent holding is worth nearly $11 billion, about 17 per cent above LG’s own market cap.

LG now joins Maruti Suzuki India in eclipsing its parent’s valuation. India’s largest passenger car maker is worth $57.5 billion, more than twice Suzuki Motor Corp’s $28.3 billion market cap. Suzuki holds a 58.28 per cent stake in its Indian subsidiary.

While most domestically listed multinational subsidiaries do not surpass their parents’ market capitalisation, they typically trade at steep valuation premiums. An analysis of 11 such firms shows trailing 12-month price-to-earnings (P/E) multiples between two and six times higher than their parent companies.

4.India’s rank is rising in Global Innovation Index. But where’s the innovation? Moneycontrol

India has risen to 38th place in the recently released World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Global Innovation Index 2025 (GII). This appears very impressive, particularly its performance in information and communication technology (ICT) services exports (ranked 1st globally), late-stage venture capital deals (4th), intangible asset intensity (8th), and unicorn valuation (11th). However, this hides fundamental structural weaknesses and failures of India's innovation ecosystem.

Let’s start with academia-industry collaboration. Despite India's overall ranking improvement, it ranked 86th in research and development (R&D) collaboration between higher education institutions and industry in 2024 - its lowest standing ever in this metric. It would, therefore, be premature to celebrate India as an "innovation overperformer". That would rely heavily on output metrics relative to GDP rather than assessing quality or commercial viability.

5.India Plans Agency to Fix Flaws in Infrastructure Projects: Bloomberg

India plans to set up a federal Transport Planning Authority to coordinate infrastructure projects and curb wasteful spending, according to people familiar with the matter. The new body, which will work closely with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office, will oversee development across sectors, aligning ministries to improve project viability and avoid delays, the people said. India’s increased spending on infrastructure has led to costly inefficiencies and underused infrastructure, such as empty airport terminals and metro systems operating below capacity. (And I thought the PMO was already supposed to be doing this.)

6.California becomes first state to regulate AI companion chatbots | TechCrunch

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a landmark bill on Monday that regulates AI companion chatbots, making it the first state in the nation to require AI chatbot operators to implement safety protocols for AI companions.

The law, SB 243, is designed to protect children and vulnerable users from some of the harms associated with AI companion chatbot use. It holds companies — from the big labs like Meta and OpenAI to more focused companion startups like Character AI and Replika — legally accountable if their chatbots fail to meet the law’s standards.

7.Ian Bremmer of Gzero Media calls the US-brokered peace deal between Israel and Hamas “a big win” for US President Donald Trump.

“He had leverage, and he used it,” Ian says. “It’s much better to say your president succeeded than failed—and this is a success.” But as Ian notes, “lasting peace will depend on reconstruction, governance, and whether both sides can hold to their word.”

Watch video below:

8.How mega batteries are unlocking an energy revolution: Financial Times

California has become a hub of the global battery storage revolution. Following a blackout in 2020 — caused by a grid shutdown during a heatwave after solar output failed to meet soaring AC demands — the state invested hugely in giant batteries. Capacity has tripled to 13 gigawatts, enough to power nearly 10 million homes, with a further 8.6 GW planned by 2027.

Now, daytime solar energy is stored and discharged in the evenings, smoothing out supply. Global battery capacity is expected to rise 67% this year and tenfold by 2035, the Financial Times reported, driven by increased electricity demand, particularly for data centers, and the plummeting costs of the technology: Lithium-ion batteries have dropped 90% in price since 2010.

9.The happiest, most successful employees have 6 things in common, says CEO who’s interviewed 30,000 people: CNBC

Most of us have to work, but life is far too short to have so much of it dominated by unhappiness or discontent. So I believe that everyone needs — and deserves — to be happy at work. 

I’m the CEO of an executive search firm, where we’ve interviewed more than 30,000 candidates. And as the author of “Work How You Are Wired: 12 Data-Driven Steps to Finding a Job You Love,” I surveyed about 7,000 people about their careers. Over the years, I’ve studied what makes people successful and happy — or struggling and miserable — at work. 

Here are the six keys to happiness at work:

10.The Astonishing Versatility of Diane Keaton: Time Magazine

“When an actor we’ve always loved dies, the first thing we think is, “This is incomprehensible.” Actors, for those of us who have measured our lives in movies, aren’t just performers who have given us joy. They’re people who have walked along with us year by year; we match stride with them without even being aware of it. We measure the changes in them—the laugh lines that weren’t there the year before, the slightly rounded tummy that most women are forced to reckon with sometime in their fifties—more observantly than we register similar shifts in ourselves. To watch ourselves age is not much fun, but to watch them age is the privilege of a lifetime.

That’s how it was with Diane Keaton, who died on Oct. 11 at age 79. Keaton wasn't just a gifted performer; she also proved to be a fine director. She took wonderful photographs. She could sing, in a fine, clear voice with the charm of a robin's warble. She adopted children in her early 50s. She never married. She always looked great, expressing radical, rapturous individuality with her clothing, her eyewear, her retro jewelry. But most significantly, she was one of the most sparkling actors of her generation, and though many people associate her mostly with the brainy doodle of a performance she gave in Annie Hall—a brilliant one—she was astonishingly versatile. She was great without ever trying to be great, a performer who took full advantage of the freedom newly afforded to actresses in the 1970s, even though it was always the men of the new Hollywood—performers like Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, one of Keaton’s great loves—who drew the loudest praise.” Read on.