Arvind's Newsletter

Issue No. #1156

1.India slammed Washington’s threat of tariffs over India’s purchase of Russian oil as “unjustified and unreasonable”: Economic Times and others

India reacted strongly after US President Donald Trump again threatened substantial tariffs against the country for purchasing Russian oil and “selling it on the open market for big profits”. It accused the US and the European Union of unfairly “targeting” India when they themselves were importing key inputs from Russia.

“India has been targeted by the United States and the European Union for importing oil from Russia after the commencement of the Ukraine conflict,” the MEA said. “In fact, India began importing from Russia because traditional supplies were diverted to Europe after the outbreak of the conflict. The US at that time actively encouraged such imports by India for strengthening global energy markets stability.”

Meanwhile, Donald Trump has said he plans to “substantially” raise tariffs on imports from India because of its purchases of Russian oil, in a new escalation of tensions between Washington and New Delhi.

But, India is digging in its heels and resisting pressure from the U.S. to curb purchases of Russian oil, despite threats by President Trump to retaliate by imposing higher tariffs on India.

2.India Services PMI hits 11-month high in July on strong export demand: Business Standard

India’s services sector continued its strong run in July, with the HSBC India Services Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) climbing to an 11-month high of 60.5, up slightly from 60.4 in June, according to S&P Global data released on Tuesday. 

Survey respondents cited strong advertising campaigns, new client onboarding, and solid demand as the primary drivers of growth. Export orders improved, with Indian firms securing contracts from Asia, Canada, Europe, the UAE, and the US. Sectorally, finance and insurance led growth, while real estate and business services lagged.

Despite healthy order books, employment growth eased to its weakest pace in 15 months, with fewer than 2 per cent of surveyed companies adding staff in July.

3.IndiGo secures London Heathrow slot, marking a major milestone in its global push: Mint

It becomes the latest Indian carrier to join the coveted Heathrow club, with long-haul expansion plans using leased Boeing 787s from Norse Atlantic.

India’s largest airline, IndiGo, placed an order for 30 A350s last year, which will start deliveries in 2027. The airline, which had leased two B777s from Turkish Airlines to operate to Istanbul, went ahead and progressively leased six B789s from Norse Atlantic. With one already in service, the next five enter between September this year and March 2026. IndiGo announced the launch of flights to London Heathrow on its 19th birthday.

4.Indian jeweller Titan eyes shifting some manufacturing to Gulf as US trade tensions escalate: Reuters

India's biggest jeweller and watchmaker Titan is exploring shifting some manufacturing to the Middle East Gulf to maintain low-tariff access to U.S. markets amid trade tensions between Washington and New Delhi, Managing Director C.K. Venkataraman said.

5.India scraps central renewable energy pricing pools to speed up power deals: Reuters

India has scrapped a central pricing system for renewable energy projects after developers raised concerns that it was slowing down power deals, as per a memo seen by Reuters.

The Ministry of Power said it was dissolving the solar power central pool and the solar-wind hybrid central pool, set up in February 2024 to standardise tariffs for clean energy projects over a three-year period, the memo dated August 1 said.

The pools were part of a uniform renewable energy tariff (URET) mechanism aimed at protecting buyers from fluctuating prices.

However, developers and government renewable agencies raised concerns that the buyers were hesitant to sign contracts due to uncertainty over future tariffs for three years, the memo said.

6The. number of people going hungry worldwide fell by 15 million between 2023 and 2024, a new WHO report said.

Southern Asia and Latin America saw particular gains as the percentage of the world’s population experiencing food shortages fell from 8.7% in 2022 to 8.5% in 2023 and 8.2% last year, the World Health Organization reported. The number is projected to fall further, from last year’s estimate of 673 million to a predicted 512 million by 2030, but progress is not even: Sub-Saharan Africa and Western Asia worsened.

Child stunting and food insecurity levels fell, while adult obesity went up: Since 2016, there have been more obese people worldwide than underweight ones.

7.Fraudulent Scientific Papers Are Rapidly Increasing, Study Finds: New York Times

Shady companies are pumping out a flood of fake research papers. Scientists are alarmed.

“For years, whistle-blowers have warned that fake results are sneaking into the scientific literature at an increasing pace. A new statistical analysis backs up the concern.

A team of researchers found evidence of shady organizations churning out fake or low-quality studies on an industrial scale. And their output is rising fast, threatening the integrity of many fields.

“If these trends are not stopped, science is going to be destroyed,” said Luís A. Nunes Amaral, a data scientist at Northwestern University and an author of the study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday.

Science has made huge advances over the past few centuries only because new generations of scientists could read about the accomplishments of previous ones. Each time a new paper is published, other scientists can explore the findings and think about how to make their own discoveries.”

8.Google unveils Gemini Deep Think AI, a reasoning platform the company says can process multiple ideas at once: TechCrunch and others

Google DeepMind is rolling out Gemini 2.5 Deep Think, which, the company says, is its most advanced AI reasoning model, able to answer questions by exploring and considering multiple ideas simultaneously and then using those outputs to choose the best answer.

Subscribers to Google’s $250-per-month Ultra subscription will gain access to Gemini 2.5 Deep Think in the Gemini app starting Friday.

First unveiled in May at Google I/O 2025, Gemini 2.5 Deep Think is Google’s first publicly available multi-agent model. These systems spawn multiple AI agents to tackle a question in parallel, a process that uses significantly more computational resources than a single agent, but tends to result in better answers.

Google notes that the Gemini 2.5 Deep Think model is a significant improvement over what it announced at I/O. The company also claims to have developed “novel reinforcement learning techniques” to encourage Gemini 2.5 Deep Think to make better use of its reasoning paths.

Meanwhile, OpenAI’s ChatGPT to hit 700 million weekly users, up 4x from last year

9.After the Big Fat Indian Wedding - Big Fat “fake” Indian Wedding: BBC

Gen Z’s latest party trend in India ?

10.How OnlyFans transformed porn: The Economist

Since it was founded in 2016 by a well-heeled Briton, OnlyFans has grown into a giant of X-rated content. The platform, whose current owner, a secretive Ukrainian-American, is reportedly looking to sell it for $8bn, is used by over 4m “creators”, who post content, and over 300m “fans”, who pay for it. In its fiscal year to November 2023, the latest data available, it brought in revenue of $1.3bn. At around 50%, its operating margin was higher than those of tech giants such as Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft. OnlyFans has been an enormous financial success. It has also transformed how porn is made, shared and consumed online.

The internet has been filled with smut for as long as it has existed. Work published in the Journal of Sex Research in 2023 suggests major porn sites get more monthly visitors and page views than Amazon, Netflix or Zoom. Yet the industry has struggled to make money. “Tube sites”, such as PornHub, allow users to watch videos for free. Ad revenues are paltry, as many brands steer clear of adult content. Measures to keep illegal content like child porn off some sites are weak.

OnlyFans developed a lucrative new approach. It charges users to watch videos, with extra fees for bespoke content, merchandise and personalised chats. Much of this, though not all, is sexual in nature. OnlyFans keeps a 20% cut of what users pay, slightly less than Uber, a ride-hailing app, and about the same as Airbnb, a home-sharing platform. OnlyFans paid creators $5.3bn in its 2023 fiscal year. Because it isn’t on the app stores run by Apple and Google, it doesn’t have to pay them a share of its takings.

Money has allowed OnlyFans to invest in security measures which, though imperfect, are better than those of many of its peers. In some markets, including Britain, it uses third-party technology to estimate a viewer’s age based on a facial scan, to ensure minors don’t sign up. For creators, it requires numerous pieces of documentation, including a government ID and bank details. It has nearly 1,500 people verifying accounts and checking that videos on the platform meet its rules. In May OnlyFans rejected about two-thirds of the 187,305 applications it received for new accounts. Keily Blair, its chief executive, compares this to the know-your-customer process used by big banks. “There is no anonymity on OnlyFans,” she says, adding that the site is not end-to-end encrypted, allowing the firm to monitor what is published. And there is no algorithm pushing posts.

Creators have flocked to the site. Last year Lily Allen, a pop singer, revealed she was making more money through OnlyFans, where she shared photographs of her feet, than through Spotify, a music-streaming service. Bonnie Blue, a sex worker who was banned from OnlyFans this month following a stunt in which she slept with more than 1,000 men in a day, tells The Economist she earned as much as $250,000 per month from the site. She bought a Ferrari and a Rolex. Hers is a serious business: Ms Blue has a team of around ten people, including photographers, editors and security. She says she spends 60-70% of her time at her desk, rather than in the bedroom, replying to messages and doing administrative tasks. “Being an online creator isn’t as glam as it seems,” she says.

There are many risks for OnlyFans. One is competition from newer subscription sites, like Fansly, where Ms Blue has shared videos since the ban. Artificial-intelligence tools are producing increasingly realistic porn for free. Then there is the policing of adult content. On July 1st Sweden will introduce rules that mean anyone paying for custom images or videos on porn sites could face up to a year in prison. OnlyFans was fined over £1m ($1.4m) by Britain’s media watchdog this year for providing it with faulty information about its age-verification process. An independent review in Britain of the porn industry, published in February, argued that “the competition for clicks is driving the production of increasingly disturbing content”; last week the government announced that the depiction of strangulation in porn would be made illegal. OnlyFans is also at the mercy of payment providers, which have their own rules on which services they will support.

Still, for $8bn, OnlyFans looks like a bargain. Airbnb and Uber are currently valued at 33 and 50 times their past 12 months’ operating profits, respectively. On an average of the two, OnlyFans should be valued at around $28bn. If its profit has grown since it last reported results in 2023, it would be worth even more. At least a few buyers will be tempted to take a look.