Arvind's Newsletter

1.Jewar airport at NOIDA (Delhi’s second) to start operations from April

Jewar International Airport in Uttar Pradesh, set to be Asia’s largest, will begin operations in April. A validation flight was conducted in December, and the project remains on schedule, according to Business Standard.

Minister for Civil Aviation Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu told the parliament that airlines such as Air India and IndiGo are preparing to launch services from the airport. Additionally, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Union Budget on Saturday announced plans to develop 100 more airports across the country to expand air travel infrastructure.

2.China’s Shein Makes Low-Key Return to India With Ambani After 2020 Ban: Bloomberg

Shein has restarted its India operations in partnership with Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd., as the fast fashion retailer seeks to tap buyers in the world’s most-populous country where it was banned in 2020 on security fears.

Founded in China but now based in Singapore, Shein’s mobile app and India website, Sheinindia.in, were launched without any fanfare last week by NextGen Fast Fashion Ltd. — a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd. overseen by Isha Ambani. The app has over 10,000 downloads on Google’s Play Store and is ranked no.9 among peers on Apple’s store, according to data from the platforms.

Shein was one of 59 Chinese apps—including TikTok—India banned in 2020 citing threats to its sovereignty and security.ent. The global e-commerce platform has also come under fire from the European Union. Shein is facing potential fines with the bloc imminently set to open a probe into its compliance with consumer laws over the sale of illegal products.

3.Amazon and SpaceX Want In on India’s Satellite Internet Market

Across India, the world’s most populous country, about one-quarter of the nation’s landmass remains unconnected to the internet, says mobile operator Bharti Airtel Ltd. Neither terrestrial wireless phone networks nor traditional fiber internet has fully resolved the issue, leaving hundreds of millions of people offline. But as low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite networks proliferate, there’s a new chance for the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to solve that digital divide. Read why Amazon and Starlink want in on India’s satellite internet market. 

4.China hit back at US tariffs with export restrictions, surcharges on American coal and gas, and an antitrust probe into Google. 

Beijing’s countermeasures came after US President Donald Trump paused levies on Canada and Mexico following concessions from those countries’ leaders, but went ahead with a 10% tax on Chinese goods.

Among the measures, Beijing hit US coal and liquefied natural gas exports with a 15% levy, and targeted its oil and agricultural equipment with a 10% fee. Authorities also put Calvin Klein owner PVH and US gene sequencing company Illumina onto a so-called blacklist of entities, and imposed new export control on tungsten-related materials. It’s getting messy indeed. 

His apparent willingness to negotiate suggests Beijing may have room to manoeuvre, but the White House’s fast-changing announcements “have stunned markets and board rooms across the world,” The Wall Street Journal said.

“If this is all part of a master plan by Trump” to get American allies to spend more on defence and cut their trade surpluses, “then fine,” one analyst wrote. “Instead it looks chaotic and confused.”

5.OpenAI launches a research tool: MIT Technology Review

OpenAI launched a tool called Deep Research. You can give it a complex question to look into, and it will spend up to 30 minutes reading sources, compiling information, and writing a report for you. It’s brand new, and we haven’t tested the quality of its outputs yet. Since its computations take so much time (and therefore energy), right now it’s only available to users with OpenAI’s paid Pro tier ($200 per month) and limits the number of queries they can make per month. 

Why it matters: AI companies have been competing to build useful “agents” that can do things on your behalf. On January 23, OpenAI launched an agent called Operator that could use your computer for you to do things like book restaurants or check out flight options. The new research tool signals that OpenAI is not just trying to make these mundane online tasks slightly easier; it wants to position AI as able to handle professional research tasks. It claims that Deep Research “accomplishes in tens of minutes what would take a human many hours.” Time will tell if users will find it worth the high costs and the risk of including wrong information. Read more from Rhiannon Williams

6.AI’s use in art, movies gets a boost from Copyright Office: The Washington Post

The US Copyright Office finds that art produced with the help of AI should be eligible for copyright protection under existing law in most cases, but wholly AI-generated works probably are not.

7.DeepSeek crashes the AI Party: Story Break, Story Change or Story Shift! Blog Post of Prof. Aswath Damodaran of New York University.

Aswath Damodaran latest blog post presents his views on the implication of China’s DeepSeek on the AI party. He makes it clear this is an evolving narrative and a complex one at that.

“With all the caveats, including the fact that I am an AI novice, with a deeper understanding of potato chips than computer chips, and that it is early in the game, I am going to take a stand on where in this continuum I see the DeepSeek effect falling. I believe that DeepSeek does change the AI story, by creating two pathways to the AI product and service endgame. On one path that will lead to what I will term the “low intensity” AI market, it has opened the door to lower cost alternatives, in terms of investments in computing power and data, and competitors will flock in. That said, there will remain a segment of the AI market, where the old story will prevail, and the path of massive investments in computer chips and data centers leading to premium AI products and services will be the one that has to be taken.

Note that the entry characteristics for the two paths will also determine the profitability and payoffs from their respective AI product and service markets (that will eventually exist). The “low entry cost” pathway is more likely to lead to commoditisation, with lots of competitors and low pricing power, whereas the “high entry cost” path with its requirements for large upfront investment and access to data will create a more restrictive market, with higher priced and more profitable AI products and services. This story leaves me with a judgment call to make about the relative sizes of the markets for the two pathways. I am generalising, but much of what consumers have seen so far as AI offerings fall into the low cost pathway and I would not be surprised, if that remains true for the most part. The DeepSeek entry has now made it more likely that you and I (as consumers) will see more AI products and services offered to us, at low cost or even for free. There is another segment of the AI products and services market, though, with businesses (or governments) as customers, where significant investments made and refinements will lead to AI products and services, with much higher price points. In this market, I would not be surprised to see networking benefits manifest, where the largest players acquire advantages, leading to winner-take-all markets.”

8.Why Great Leaders Ask Great Questions? Forbes

What if the secret to great leadership lies not in the answers you give, but in the questions you ask? Leaders often face unprecedented complexity, and success often hinges on their ability to guide attention, inspire collaboration, and unlock creativity within their teams. Gervase Bushe, professor at Simon Fraser University, emphasizes the transformative power of generative questions—those that are surprising, thought-provoking, and invite storytelling.

This principle is central to Strategic Doing, a discipline designed to tackle complex challenges. Specifically, it aligns with Rule 2 of Strategic Doing: Frame conversations with the right question. Drawing from neuroscience and the biology of behaviour, let’s explores why asking the right questions is a leadership superpower and how it can fundamentally shift team dynamics and outcomes.

9.Five extraordinary night-time experiences around the world

From fiery festivals to nature's most dazzling "sky-dance", interest in the night skies is booming, with "noctourism" poised to be a major travel trend in 2025.

Interest in the night skies is booming. Booking.com recently named "noctourism" as a top travel trend for 2025, with their survey of more than 27,000 travellers finding that around two-thirds have considered going to "darker sky destinations" to experience things like starbathing (lying down and looking at the night skies) and witnessing once-in-a-lifetime cosmic events. 

"The cool thing about night adventures is you see so many different sides to a destination, by just staying up late or rising early," says Stephanie Vermillon, author of the new book 100 Nights Of A Lifetime: The World's Ultimate Adventures After Dark. "Our senses are heightened, and there are things you see at night that you don't see any other time, so everything feels exciting and new." 

10.The Beatles won a Grammy for a song created with the help of artificial intelligence — the first such track to receive the honor. 

Now and Then, awarded Best Rock Performance, was recorded by John Lennon in 1977 as a solo demo. Paul McCartney used audio isolation technology to clean up his late bandmate’s tape, releasing it in late 2023.

The track employed “subtle technology that illuminates, rather than generates,” The Los Angeles Times wrote. Using AI in music is contentious, and the Grammys mandates that submissions have meaningful “human authorship.” The song’s producer compared AI to nuclear power. “It can split the atom — is that a good idea? Yes if you’re creating energy, but no if your making a bomb.”