Arvind's Newsletter

1.Indian IT shares fall over fears from Trump’s $100,000 H-1B visa fee: Bloomberg and others

Donald Trump’s move to curtail H-1B visas threatens to rewrite the rules for one of India’s biggest business success stories, a decades-old model that’s grown into a $280 billion industry and underpins much of the technology behind the world’s largest corporations.

According to the Financial Times ,US employers are facing a $14bn annual bill for hiring skilled foreign workers after Donald Trump slapped a $100,000 fee on the cost of securing a visa for new employees to enter the country.

The US president’s order on Friday — which requires a $100,000 fee for H-1B applications — will force a rethink at Indian outsourcers led by Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys, who deploy tens of thousands of engineers across American clients.

Shares in Indian IT services companies fell on Monday after US President Donald Trump sharply raised the application fee for H-1B visas, threatening disruption for a sector that has been one of the country’s biggest business successes.

The Nifty IT index closed down 3 per cent in Mumbai, with Tata Consultancy Services, one of India’s largest outsourcers, falling by the same amount. Rival Infosys closed 2.6 per cent lower, Wipro dropped 2.2 per cent and HCLTech slipped 1.9 per cent.

Indian citizens account for more than 70 per cent of H-1B visa holders in the US.

2.Core sector output hits 13-month high, expands 6.3% in August: Mint

India’s core infrastructure industries grew at their fastest pace in more than a year, with output rising 6.3% in August compared with a year earlier, provisional data from the commerce ministry showed on Monday.

The uptick marked the quickest pace in 13 months, buoyed by strong gains in coal, fertilisers, and refinery products.

The eight core sectors—coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilizers, steel, cement, and electricity—together make up over two-fifths of the country’s industrial output. Growth had slowed to 3.7% in July, while August last year saw a contraction of 1.5%.

Despite the rebound in August, broader industrial activity has shown signs of strain.

3.PhonePe posts 40% revenue surge, turns free cash flow positive ahead of IPO: Business Standard

IPO-bound fintech firm PhonePe recorded Rs 7,115 crore in revenue, reflecting a strong 40 per cent year-on-year growth, according to regulatory filings with the Registrar of Companies (RoC).

This was accompanied by the company turning free cash flow positive, with cash flow from operations amounting to Rs 1,202 crore.

PhonePe continued to improve its bottom line, with adjusted EBITDA (excluding ESOP costs) more than doubling to Rs 1,477 crore (from Rs 652 crore in the prior year), and adjusted PAT (excluding ESOP costs) more than tripling to Rs 630 crore (from Rs 197 crore in the prior year). The company also recorded positive adjusted EBIT (excluding ESOP costs) for the first time at Rs 117 crore.

The company reportedly also plans to file its DRHP later this year for a potential listing on the Indian exchanges

4.Asset-lite, profit-heavy: How Porter built India’s biggest intra-city logistics empire: Mint

Over a decade ago, Logistics company Porter started, promising to fix a broken system. Its bet on a ‘density’ model and small businesses paid off—it cut a profit in FY25. This is the story of the unicorn’s grind and grit in a $800 million market.

The intra-city logistics market has always been a tough nut to crack. Orders are small, margins thin, and fuel costs unforgiving. Not to mention the stiff competition from a web of informal fleet operators. But Porter’s bet on an asset-lite model that caters to small businesses eventually paid off—the company was able to turn what looked like a messy, fragmented market into a system that could generate predictability, revenue, and profit.

In 2024-25, the company’s revenue surged nearly 57% to ₹4,342 crore; it posted its first ever profit of ₹55 crore, from a loss of ₹96 crore a year earlier.

India’s intra-city parcel delivery market, in 2024-25, was estimated at $600–800 million by Redseer, a research firm. Porter leads the pack, well ahead of Rapido, Borzo, Uber, Uncle Delivery and others, with commissions typically at 14–16%, said Mrigank Gutgutia, partner at the firm.

That is not all. The company’s good run includes one of the largest fund raises this year— $200 million—from prominent investors including Kedaara Capital and Wellington Management. The round, which pegged the company’s valuation at around $1.2 billion, is yet to close. The capital raise is likely to touch $300 million, with new investors expected to join the cap table, multiple people familiar with the matter told Mint.

5.As Uttarakhand turns 25, flawed development model takes the shine off celebrations: Ramachandra Guha in Scroll

The savage assault on the hills by constructing poorly-designed roads, ill-conceived dams and other large projects has brought destruction in its wake.

“Successive state governments in Uttarakhand, aided by the Centre, have mounted a savage assault on the hills by constructing poorly-designed roads, ill-conceived dams, and other large projects that claim to promote “development” but in fact bring devastation in their wake. The Char Dham highway is the most dangerous of these projects, and it remains a tragedy that the Supreme Court, even after being presented with irrefutable scientific evidence of the damage it was causing, allowed it to proceed on its destructive path.

According to one estimate, since its inception in the year 2000, Uttarakhand has lost almost 50,000 hectares of rich natural forest to so-called development projects; highways, dams, mines, government townships, from which local people hardly benefit. If one conservatively estimates that a hectare of natural forests contains 3,000 trees, then roughly 150 million trees may have been destroyed by the government of Uttarakhand since the state was established. The economic and environmental costs of this destruction are incalculable.

The Himalaya are a beautiful yet fragile ecosystem, which lies in a seismic zone, and where a rich forest cover is necessary not only to sustain the local village economy but to protect against soil erosion and floods. By seeking to tame the mountains of Uttarakhand by concretising them, the state and Central governments have catalysed a series of tragic accidents, of which the incident at Dharali is only the most recent.” Read on

6.Countries Recognise Palestine: Financial Times

The United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia formally recognised a Palestinian state yesterday. The decision breaks from US policy and marks a significant shift for countries like the UK, which had long maintained that statehood should be determined through direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. The move comes as Israel intensifies military action in Gaza and expansion of settlements in occupied West Bank

The decision allows the countries to receive a Palestinian ambassador and sign bilateral treaties. The three cited the ongoing war in Gaza—including restrictions on humanitarian aid—as well as expanding settlements in the West Bank for the change. Families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza had asked the UK and others to hold off on the decision until hostages were released, citing concerns that recognition could appear to reward Hamas and affect ceasefire negotiations.

Nearly a dozen countries have announced similar plans since last year, with others, including France, expected to make similar announcements today as countries gather for the UN General Assembly. At least 150 of 193 UN member states recognize Palestine as a state.

7.AI and weather tracking as a very positive intervention: Tyler Cowen in Marginal Revolution

“India’s monsoon season was unusual this year, but many farmers there had new AI weather-forecasting tools to help them ride out the storms.

Google’s open-source artificial intelligence model NeuralGCM and the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts’s AI systems are making sophisticated and granular forecasting data available to even the smallest farms in poor areas. Thanks to the open-source AI, and decades of rainfall data, the Indian government sent out forecasts to 38 million farmers to warn them about looming monsoons.

The initiative to help farmers adapt is the latest example of how companies are expanding their weather-tracking capabilities amid mounting concerns about extreme weather and climate change.

The effort is part of a growing “democratization of weather forecasting,” said Pedram Hassanzadeh, a researcher at the University of Chicago who focuses on machine learning and extreme weather. Researchers from the university partnered with the Indian government to gather and send out the monsoon predictions.

“Up until very recently, to run a weather model, you needed a 100 million-dollar supercomputer,” said Olivia Graham, a product manager at Google Research. But now, farmers in India can make better-informed agricultural decisions quickly, she said.”

8.The nature of foreign direct investment is changing, with more funds being channeled into advanced industries, a new McKinsey report argued. 

Since 2022, three-quarters of cross-border announcements have gone to these types of future-shaping industries as well as energy and mining projects—up from about half pre-2020. While not all announcements proceed, historically 60 to 80 percent have.

Advanced economies announced more investment into one another—particularly to the United States—but decreased flows to China by nearly 70 percent. China pivoted from net investee to prominent investor in future-shaping industries, boosting announcements to Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa by over two-thirds. Emerging economies attracted investment pledges from across the geopolitical spectrum.

Five years ago, billion-dollar deals represented less than a third of total FDI value, but it is more than half. FDI projects could rapidly boost global battery and data center manufacturing, the report argued.

9.Creatine - can this muscle-boosting supplement help sharpen my brain? BBC

Originally known for enhancing the performance of bodybuilders and athletes in the 1990s, is arguably one of the world's most researched supplements. Thousands of studies have been carried out over the past few decades evaluating its ability to increase muscle mass and overall strength.

"Creatine has become so big, you feel that if you are not using it, you are kind of losing out," says Dr Henry Chung, a lecturer in sport and exercise science at the University of Essex. "It's moved from elite sport into the mainstream. It's not about whether to take it anymore, it's about when to take it - before or after exercise? Everyday? How much?

"In which form is best? Powder, tablets, gummies?"

Creatine is a naturally occurring compound which is stored in our muscles, and helps our cells produce energy. It is a vital component in the ATP-CP system, the fastest, most powerful energy system in our bodies.

It fuels the first 10-20 seconds in high intensity workouts - giving that quick, powerful burst of energy. From lifting weights to sprinting round the track, research suggests creatine supplementation can help improve performance.

And away from the gym, there is a growing, but still relatively limited, body of evidence to suggest it can also help with our short-term memory, mood and focus.

10.Trump says Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Murdochs will be involved in TikTok deal:CNN

President Donald Trump on Sunday said tech and media giants Larry Ellison, Michael Dell, and Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch will be a part of the group to take over TikTok’s algorithm in the acquisition of the social media platform’s US operations.

Oracle will recreate and provide security for a US version of TikTok’s algorithm, as part of a deal orchestrated by President Donald Trump to force a divestiture of the American arm of the Chinese-owned viral video app.