Arvind's Newsletter

1. “Make in India” Finally Picks Up?

The steep tariffs by the US on China are already pushing laptop and phone makers toward India, according to The Economic Times. Dixon Technologies, the report said, was investing Rs 1,000 crore in Tamil Nadu to manufacture laptops for HP and Lenovo; Alphabet Inc is talking to Dixon and Foxconn about moving manufacturing of Google’s Pixel smartphone from Vietnam to India; the Taiwanese brand Asus is partnering with VVDN to set up an assembly line in Manesar.

The report said companies are attracted to the Indian government’s various Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes, designed to boost manufacturing in the country. But critics believe that most companies that avail these schemes assemble rather than manufacture in India, which doesn’t benefit the country nearly as much. 

2.India Pulls Ahead of Rivals as Trump Trade War Roils Markets (so far): Bloomberg

As US President Donald Trump shocks markets and governments with his trade war, few countries are weathering the turbulence better than India, both politically and economically.

The South Asian nation is well-positioned to withstand ruptures to global trade. When Washington announced its harshest levies yet on dozens of countries this month, India was insulated from the ripple effects by its relatively small export base. Trump’s proposed tariff on Indian goods — 26% — was also far lower than those imposed on manufacturing rivals in Southeast Asia, like Vietnam, where the threat of a 46% import tax fueled panic through factories making products for American buyers.

As the US and other large economies stare at recessions, India’s economy is expected to grow more than 6% — slower than last year, but still the fastest of other major nations, buffered in part by its massive domestic market of 1.4 billion people. The US has prioritized India in its trade negotiations, with Vice President JD Vance touching down in New Delhi this week, where he met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Harley-Davidson motorbikes could be about to get a whole lot cheaper in India. Officials are considering cutting tariffs on motorcycles with an engine capacity of 750cc or more to zero, people familiar with the matter said. The deliberations are part of New Delhi’s efforts to cut a trade deal with President Donald Trump without conceding too much of its own protectionism. The market for such high-capacity bikes in India is a tiny fraction of the nearly 16 million units sold every year, making the potential concession relatively painless for the local industry.

3.Megha Engineering receives India’s first private sector nuclear power order: Economic Times

Megha Engineering & Infrastructure Ltd. (MEIL) has received a Rs 12,800 crore order from Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) to construct two 700 Megawatt (MW) nuclear reactors—Kaiga Units 5 & 6—in Karnataka.

Bids were opened in June 2024 with MEIL outbidding peers to emerge as the lowest bidder. Sector watchers said this is the biggest-ever order placed by NPCIL and the first to the private sector. MEIL said this is the company’s first step into the nuclear energy sector.

4.Big Oil is offshoring its prized engineering jobs to India: Wall Street Journal

Chevron, BP and other oil companies are offshoring more specialized white-collar positions and related work to lower-cost labor pools in countries such as India, while cutting thousands of jobs elsewhere.

The shift, alongside a string of mergers and cost-cutting, has thinned the companies’ ranks of skilled U.S. workers. It has also disrupted the industry’s pecking order, which for decades has been topped by specialized engineers whose positions were more insulated during oil busts.

The new positions aren’t only traditional back-office jobs that U.S. companies have offshored for years. Chevron intends to hire engineers, geologists and environmental scientists in India as part of a $1 billion investment to develop an engineering and innovation hub near Bellandur, a suburb of Bengaluru, a spokesman said.

5.Global Growth Slowdown: IMF

The International Monetary Fund yesterday lowered its 2025 growth outlook for the US and the global economy, citing heightened uncertainty and economic disruption caused by President Donald Trump’s sweeping new tariffs.   

The IMF trimmed the 2025 US growth estimate to 1.8% from 2.7%, the largest reduction among the world's advanced economies, and cut the global growth forecast to 2.8% from 3.3%. The fund cautioned the trade policy climate and ongoing conflicts between the US and other tariff-hit countries are discouraging investment and spending. US inflation is now predicted to reach 3% this year, one percentage point higher than the IMF’s January projection, while the risk of a US recession has increased to 40%, up from 25% in October.

6.US President Donald Trump suggested he could slash tariffs on Chinese goods, offering a potential reprieve in a trade war engulfing the world’s two biggest economies.

Trump said he would be “very nice” to China, adding that tariffs “will come down substantially” if the pair reach an agreement; A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman replied that “the door for talks is wide open.”

Analysts noted that Washington’s apparent reversal — Trump ramped up levies on Chinese goods to 145%, even as he cut duties on others — suggested US resolve for a prolonged trade conflict was weakening: “The more he talks like this, the more it shows how anxious the US side is,” a Hong Kong-based expert told the South China Morning Post.

7.Teens, Social Media and Mental Health: Pew Research

Parents are more worried about the impact of social media use on their teens' mental health than teens themselves are. And teens are more worried about the impact of social media on the mental health of their peers than the impact on them personally. For today's teens, social media is so fully integrated into their broader social lives, a teen's ability to suss out its effects as a separate line item in a survey seems a little sus. Here's the latest from Pew Research report.

8. The first signs of a US “brain drain” are showing up: Nature 

American scientists submitted 32% more applications for overseas jobs in Q1 2025 than the same period last year, following huge cuts to research programs and the termination of hundreds of federal grants, Nature reported.

The signs can be seen abroad, too: France’s Aix Marseilles University, which offered places to US science “refugees,” said it had received 242 eligible applications for 20 posts, while Australian and British universities are racing to attract US researchers.

As well as cuts to science funding hitting academia, White House tariffs are hurting industry research: One biotech analyst told The Times of London that it is “virtually impossible to raise money” given widespread economic uncertainty.

9.The Oscars are officially open to artificial intelligence.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said it had changed its voting rules, and the most notable addition was that for the first time it explicitly addressed the use of generative AI in the making of films, saying that it would “neither help no harm” a movie’s chances, although the degree of human creativity involved would be taken into account.

Filmmakers already use AI — Adrien Brody’s Hungarian accent in The Brutalist was AI-assisted, as were some effects in Dune: Part Two — although it remains controversial. Another change was that members must now watch all nominated films in a category in order to vote: Readers may be surprised that this was not already the case.

10.Elon Musk to prioritise Tesla over White House role as profits slump: Financial Times

Elon Musk said he would “significantly” scale back his US government role and refocus his attention on Tesla, after the carmaker’s profits cratered in the first quarter. “Starting next month, I will be allocating far more of my time to Tesla,” Musk said on Tuesday.

“The large slug of work necessary to get the [Department of Government Efficiency] team in place and working in the government to get the financial house in order is mostly done.” The Tesla chief emphasised he would not be leaving the Trump administration completely, and would probably remain Doge’s figurehead until the end of the president’s term, “to make sure that the waste and fraud that we stop does not come roaring back”.

Tesla shares rose 5.2 per cent to $250.28 in early trading on Wednesday.

Musk’s role as an adviser to Donald Trump — whose campaign he backed with more than a quarter of a billion dollars — has catapulted the world’s richest man into the heart of government and handed him enormous power to gut key departments and regulatory agencies.

But some of the billionaire’s business interests have also suffered from his political alliances. Tesla’s brand has become associated with Trump’s actions, and the administration’s sweeping tariffs on China threaten to disrupt important supply chains.