Arvind's Newsletter

1.India's SEBI expedites IPO approvals, sources say, as record fundraising eyed: Reuters

India's market regulator is speeding up clearances of initial public offerings (IPOs), boosting an already strong pipeline of share sales that could hit a record this year, according to regulatory and investment banking sources.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) will try to approve a majority of the IPOs within three months of filing, the two regulatory sources said. Previously, such clearances sometimes took up to six months.

Shortening IPO approval timelines is among the changes that new SEBI chief Tuhin Kanta Pandey, who took over in March, is bringing as part of a goal to ease regulation. Disclosure requirements on companies were significantly tightened before Pandey took over the reins, which increased the timelines for companies to go public.

SEBI is using artificial intelligence to scan documents for shortcomings and engaging with merchant bankers to speed up clarifications needed, the regulatory sources said.

2.Govt eyes sub-target for renewable energy under priority sector lending: Mint

The ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE) is preparing a recommendation to the finance ministry carve out a sub-target under priority sector lending (PSL) for renewable energy projects, two people aware of the development said.

While renewable energy is already a priority sector, sub-targets currently exist only for agriculture (18%), micro enterprises (7.5%), and loans for economically weaker sections (12%).

Now, with the need for increased financing for renewable energy at competitive rates, the energy ministry is weighing a sub-target for renewable energy projects, the people cited above said.

3.India’s banks want to break into the M&A game: Financial Times

In the first-half of this year, India saw nearly 700 mergers and acquisitions worth around $24bn, excluding private equity investments and exits. But Indian banks earned absolutely nothing from directly financing the deals.

India’s regulators have long blocked the country’s public and private banks from providing loans to domestic companies to buy equity in other businesses. That has pushed acquirers to turn to bond issues, non-banking financial institutions and foreign lenders to raise funds.

Now Indian bankers, frustrated at being locked out of the country’s booming M&A market due to outdated rules, want change, with some seeing the ban as outdated in modern financial system.

Challa Sreenivasulu Setty, chair of India’s largest lender, the State Bank of India, last month publicly advocated for a lifting of the restrictions, at least for large listed companies. He says the Indian Banks Association will ask Reserve Bank of India to do so, indicating broader support for the change.

4.Azure Power settles US securities lawsuit, deposits USD 23 million in escrow account: Economic Times

Azure Power has settled a securities law violation lawsuit in the US by depositing USD 23 million into an escrow account. The settlement, which received final court approval, resolves allegations of US securities law violations without any admission of liability. Azure Power believes this resolution will allow them to focus on sustainable energy solutions. Maybe the settlement will help it to delist from US

5.The world needs new antibiotics. Can India deliver them? Mint

Big Pharma is vacating infectious diseases research to chase more lucrative segments like oncology and diabetes. This has left behind a gaping void. A set of Indian companies are diving in—Wockhardt, Orchid Pharma and Bugworks. A successful antibiotic drug can change their fortunes.

“Over a decade ago, global pharma major AstraZeneca started pulling out of anti-infectives research. In 2014, it shuttered an Indian research site in Bengaluru, axing early-stage research on neglected tropical diseases, tuberculosis, and malaria.

At the same time, in the same city, Bugworks, a biotech firm, was taking shape. A group of scientists and executives from AstraZeneca came on board, embarking on drug research around infectious diseases.

Founded by Anand Anandkumar, Balasubramanian V., Santanu Datta and Shahul Hameed, the company set its sights on a growing global crisis—antimicrobial resistance. There is a dire need for new antibiotics as existing drugs are losing efficacy. Bacteria evolve to grow immune to medicines meant to kill them.

The company has raised close to $43 million in funding since inception and has two novel antibiotic drug candidates in the pipeline—one in phase 1 trials and the second at the preclinical stage. A drug candidate is a molecule which has passed initial discovery and is being further studied.

The biotech’s genesis exemplifies a larger story. As Big Pharma started vacating infectious diseases research to chase more lucrative segments like oncology and diabetes, it left behind a gaping void. A handful of plucky innovators in India, the world’s generic pharmacy, are addressing the gap, weathering financial storms and scientific uncertainty to give the world much-needed new antibiotics.

Estimates on the cost of developing a new drug vary across the board. A Deloitte report analysing the R&D costs of 20 big pharma companies stated that it cost an average $2.23 billion to develop a drug in 2024. A 2024 study, published in JAMA Network Open Journal, suggested far lower expenses. Analysing data between 2000 and 2018, it stated that the cost of developing a new drug was $172.7 million, but the figure rose to $879.3 million when cost of capital and drug development failures were included.

Read on

6.Nepal Gen Z Rally: Bloomberg

At least 19 people were killed and over 100 others were wounded in Nepal yesterday amid Gen Z-led protests over a social media ban. Tens of thousands of people demonstrated, some breaching barricades near the country’s parliament building.

The protests are centred on a ban last week on 26 social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, and X. The outlets failed to meet a Supreme Court deadline requiring them to appoint a government liaison and obtain a license to operate. Critics accuse the country’s prime minister of using the directive to crack down on free speech. TikTok, Viber, and several smaller outlets were cleared to operate.

An estimated 7.5% of Nepalese citizens live abroad, many relying on social media to communicate. The country’s home minister resigned yesterday; curfews were in effect across the country.

7.The iPhone is reportedly going skinny. But Apple’s bigger AI story still looks unfinished: Quartz

The thinnest thing on stage tomorrow at the Apple event won’t be CEO Tim Cook’s patience with AI questions. It’ll be the iPhone 17 Air, a rumoured 5.5-millimeter featherweight meant to prove that form still sells when function is running late. Apple is wagering that a fresh silhouette is the one feature you can spot across the room — and the one that might jolt millions of fence-sitters to buy a new iPhone.

That gamble isn’t risk-free. Shaving millimeters means playing battery Jenga and trimming camera ambitions, all while opening the door to fragility memes before Cook leaves the stage. Apple’s pitch is “intentional minimalism”: one 48-megapixel lens, computational math to fake the zooms, and the trusty “all-day battery” refrain. If buyers read that as bold design, the Air becomes a mid-tier hit. If it feels like thin for thin’s sake, the story sours fast.

Everything else tomorrow is scaffolding. Watches could whisper new health alerts, AirPods may sneak in heart-rate sensors, and base models might finally get high-refresh displays so scrolling looks less 2019. AI will likely be there, but in lowercase — small Siri upgrades, writing aids, and a promise of bigger leaps in 2026. The strategy is blunt but familiar: design now, AI later, and let the ecosystem nudge you into buying more than one thing. If the Air dazzles, Apple buys another cycle. If not, “Awe Dropping” risks becoming the punchline. 

8.The World Health Organization named the weight-loss drug semaglutide an “essential medicine.” 

Since 1977, the WHO has kept a list of drugs it argues are essential to global public health. Originally intended to guide health policy in developing countries, the list’s purpose has broadened; it is now used by some 150 countries to guide drug procurement and access.

Semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, has transformed the treatment of diabetes and obesity, and may have been critical in spurring a 2023 decline in adult obesity in the US for the first time in a decade.

The WHO’s move also signals to manufacturers to bring prices down and could help drive companies to make cheaper generic versions, Gizmodo reported

9.Americans are getting tired of capitalism: Quartz

The latest Gallup poll found that just 54% of respondents have a favourable view of capitalism, down from 60% in 2021 — but its tenets are still popular.

Although capitalism’s approval ratings are dropping, its tenants are still popular. Nearly all of surveyed Americans (95%) hold a positive view of small businesses and 81% are in favor of free enterprise. However, those views drop when it comes to big businesses, with just 37% viewing them in a positive light, according to the survey published Monday. 

Views of big businesses have mostly been in decline since 2012, with a nine-point drop this year compared to 2021. 

10.On the Reverse Flynn Effect: Cal Newport on Substack

“Last fall, a Norwegian psychology professor named Lars Dehli was asked to give a lecture on intelligence. It had been a while since he had taught the topic, so he looked forward to revisiting it. As he explained in an essay​ about the experience, he decided to start the lecture by discussing the so-called Flynn Effect—the well-known phenomenon, first observed by James Flynn, whereby measured IQ scores have been steadily increasing since World War II. “It’s always fun to tell students that their generation is the smartest people who have ever lived,” Dehli wrote.

But as he gathered data to build an up-to-date chart, he was “very surprised” by what he discovered: “IQ has actually started to fall.”

Delhi was not the first person to notice this decline. In recent years, a growing number of researchers have been documenting what has become known as the Reverse Flynn Effect. Consider, for example,a recent paper​ published in the journal Intelligence that studied IQ scores over time in an American population. It found a steady decline in almost every intelligence metric studied as part of a 35-item assessment.

There’s no consensus on the causes of the Reverse Flynn Effect. But in a recent podcast experience, James Mariott, a critic and columnist for The Times of London, summarised a hypothesis that has been gaining traction: as we switch our information consumption from print to digital devices, our ability to think deeply degrades.