Arvind's Newsletter

1.India’s RBI Governor Signals He’s Open to More Flexible Rupee

India’s central bank governor, Sanjay Malhotra, has signaled that he’s open to letting the rupee trade more freely, according to people familiar with his thinking. Malhotra, who took office last month, is preparing for his first policy meeting with the currency at record lows against the dollar. While the new RBI chief is still looking to prevent excessive moves, he’s shown no opposition to arguments for letting the rupee depreciate — a departure from the tight control favoured by his predecessor, Shaktikanta Das.

2.India's billionaire promoters' club surpasses 200 members in 2024

The club of billionaire promoters in India expanded to a record high of 201 members at the end of 2024, up sharply from 157 at the close of the equivalent period the previous year and 126 when 2022 ended.

Their combined wealth went past $1 trillion for the first time and reached an all-time high of $1,023.9 billion at the end of December. 

By comparison, the combined market cap of all BSE-listed companies was up 18.9 per cent in December 2024 at $5,200 billion from $4,374 billion at the end of December 2023.

3.India's M&A activity sees 38% jump in CY24, $35 billion IPO pipeline

$109 bn is the total value of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) recorded in India for CY2024, a 38% increase from $79 billion in 2023, The Economic Times reported on Monday. Indian conglomerates nearly doubled their deal contributions to $48 billion. Equity fundraising also hit a record $74 billion in CY2024, with a significant share flowing into startups, but many of them have faced closures, returned capital, or struggled to scale.

4.Apple became the latest US tech giant to grapple with the future of its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

The company’s board of directors urged shareholders to vote against a proposal submitted by a conservative think tank to abolish its diversity efforts.

The debate at Apple comes amid a broader Big Tech backlash against DEI, part of a move to align more closely with incoming US President Donald Trump’s values: Amazon is scaling back some initiatives, while Meta is killing major programs altogether. The latter is “a strong signal… that the company’s push to make inroads with the incoming Trump administration isn’t just posturing, but is shift in ethos,” Axios wrote.

5.Amazon races to transplant Alexa’s ‘brain’ with generative AI

Amazon is gearing up to relaunch its Alexa voice-powered digital assistant as an artificial intelligence “agent” that can complete practical tasks, as the tech group races to resolve the challenges that have dogged the system’s AI overhaul.

The $2.4tn company has for the past two years sought to redesign Alexa, its conversational system embedded within 500 mn consumer devices worldwide, so the software’s “brain” is transplanted with generative AI. 

Rohit Prasad, who leads the artificial general intelligence (AGI) team at Amazon, told the Financial Times the voice assistant still needed to surmount several technical hurdles before the rollout.

This includes solving the problem of “hallucinations” or fabricated answers, its response speed or “latency”, and reliability. “Hallucinations have to be close to zero,” said Prasad. “It’s still an open problem in the industry, but we are working extremely hard on it.”

6,The truth behind your $12 dress: Inside the Chinese factories fuelling Shein's success

"The buildings have been hollowed out to make way for sewing machines, rolls of fabric and bags brimming with cloth scraps. The doors to their basements are always open for the seemingly endless cycle of deliveries and collections. As the day passes, the shelves fill up with warehouse-bound, clear plastic bags labelled with a now-distinctive five-letter noun. But even past 10:00pm, the sewing machines - and the people hunched over them - don't stop as more fabric arrives, in trucks so full that bolts of colour sometimes tumble onto the factory floor." A special report from BBC has the who, what, why, and wear.

7.Singapore is turning to AI to care for its rapidly aging population

By 2030, one in four Singaporeans will be over 65, requiring eldercare. Currently, about one in 10 seniors above the age of 60 has some form of dementia, according to government data; by 2030, the total number of elders with dementia is expected to increase fivefold.

In response, the Singapore government has made mental health and well-being a key priority on the national agenda. The country has a dire shortage of nurses, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said last year, partly due to high attrition rates during the pandemic. Singapore has since made up for that shortage — in 2023, public hospitals hired 4,000 nurses, primarily from the Philippines, Malaysia, and Myanmar. But that’s not enough. In the next five years, at least 6,000 more nurses need to be hired annually to meet the projected health care demands of the country’s aging population.

To fill the manpower gap further, the government is turning to AI. Singapore is an early adopter of AI, using generative AI tools in schools, government agencies, and the courts. It also uses a machine learning–based monitoring system for the elderly that alerts caregivers to any unusual behaviours, such as falls.

8.Mexico pledges to shrink trade deficit with China in nod to Donald Trump

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum unveiled a plan to cut imports from China, after US President-elect Donald Trump said her country was becoming a back door for Chinese goods.

Sheinbaum also said that the only way to compete against China was by strengthening the US-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement, which is up for review next year. 

Mexico — heavily reliant on the US for both imports and exports — has cracked down on northbound migration, fentanyl production, and Chinese counterfeit goods, all in a bid to placate Trump, who has vowed to impose tariffs of up to 25% on the US’ southern neighbour should it fail to meet his demands.

9.China Weighs Sale of TikTok US to Musk as a Possible Option

Chinese officials are evaluating a potential option that involves Elon Musk acquiring the US operations of TikTok if the company fails to fend off a controversial ban on the short-video app, according to people familiar with the matter.

Beijing officials strongly prefer that TikTok remains under the ownership of parent ByteDance Ltd., the people say, and the company is contesting the impending ban with an appeal to the US Supreme Court. But the justices signaled during arguments on Jan. 10 that they are likely to uphold the law.

Senior Chinese officials had already begun to debate contingency plans for TikTok as part of an expansive discussion on how to work with Donald Trump’s administration, one of which involves Musk, said the people, asking not to be identified revealing confidential discussions.

10.Which AI Models Have the Lowest Hallucination Rates?

As AI-powered tools and applications become more integrated into our daily lives, it’s important to keep in mind that models may sometimes generate incorrect information.

This phenomenon, known as “hallucinations,” is described by IBM as occurring when a large language model (LLM)—such as a generative AI chatbot or computer vision tool—detects patterns or objects that do not exist or are imperceptible to humans, leading to outputs that are inaccurate or nonsensical.

This chart visualises the top 15 AI large language models with the lowest hallucination rates.