Arvind’s Newsletter -Weekend edition Issue No. #1060

1.How social media is driving young Indians into debt: Mint

The rise of "social media debt" among young Indians is becoming a worrying trend, with platforms like Instagram accused of fueling reckless consumer spending through aspirational lifestyles. A Mint report highlighted how many consumers are taking buy-now-pay-later loans or relying on credit cards to maintain an illusion of affluence online—funding luxury purchases, vacations, and concerts beyond their financial means.

2.How Coldplay contradiction is playing in the Indian Economy: Economic Times

When the British rock band Coldplay started their India tour, even they may not have expected the kind of response they got to their shows. And at Ahmedabad, with over 134,000 fans rooting for them even as it was being livestreamed on Disney+Hotstar, this was perhaps the largest live concert anywhere in the world. Tickets were being sold at a premium and there were takers. This underlines something contradictory, The Economic Times writes. 

“While people are thronging concerts in record numbers by buying tickets at steep prices, they are holding back on essential spending. The record concert attendings come when urban consumption is down in the country.”

India's consumption has two stories to tell. While demand for premium products — from groceries and spirits to clothing and shoes — has bucked the slowdown trend, especially in the cities, there is a cutback in mass-priced segments due to inflation.

‘The secular trend of premiumisation remains resilient, with the premium segment growing ahead of our segment this quarter,’ Rohit Jawa, managing director at HUL, has told ET recently. ‘This indicates that consumer needs and aspirations to upgrade continue to evolve, although they are currently opting for smaller packs to manage their overall spends. Premiumisation is really where the country, the market is going.’”

3.India’s core sector growth slows to 4% in December: Mint

India's infrastructure output, which accounts for about two-fifths of industrial production, slowed in December compared to the previous month, as production of four of the eight core constituent sectors, coal, natural gas, refinery products, and fertilisers, fell during the month.

The index of the eight core industries fell to 4% annually in December after registering a 4.4% growth in November and 3.7% in October, according to provisional data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry on Friday.

4.Amid Apple’s record streak in India, iPhone sales in the country hit $10bn

The company's smartphone market share in India reached 11%, and entered top5 smartphones in India for the first time, while analysts predict continued growth due to strong demand and new product launches.

Apple chief executive Tim Cook, speaking at the company’s post-results earnings call with analysts, underlined India’s role both as a consumption market and an export hub for Apple. 

“We’re going to open four new stores there (in India). Also, the iPhone was the top-selling model in India for the quarter. And it’s the second-largest smartphone market in the world and the third largest for PCs and tablets, and so there's a huge market. And we have very modest share in these markets, and so I think there’s lots of upside there,” Cook added.

5.The UN says it is “deeply concerned” as Rwanda-backed M23 rebels rapidly advance to the city of Bukavu in Democratic Republic of Congo: New York Times

Rebels backed by Rwanda are seizing huge tracts of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Their progress has been swift and stunning. In a month, they have routed Congo’s underequipped army several times and caused more than half a million people to flee. On Monday, they captured Goma, a major Congolese city along the Rwandan border. (They grabbed it once before, in 2012.)

Goma residents have been hiding in their houses for the past week without electricity or running water. Gunfire, and occasionally bombs, explode around them. Some of them took in families who had fled from camps and villages outside the city. But plenty of those displaced people arrived in Goma knowing nobody.

Why are the rebels, known as M23, grabbing parts of eastern Congo? In their telling, they’re protecting ethnic Tutsis, the minority group massacred in a 1994 genocide, some of whom also live in Congo. But experts say the real reason is Congo’s rare minerals, which power our phones and devices. Congo’s mines are making the rebels — and their patrons in Rwanda — rich.

6.A drug billed as the first truly novel painkiller in 20 years was approved by US regulators. 

Suzetrigine, which is sold under the brand name Journavx, is a non-opioid: Its manufacturer said that it offered almost as much pain relief for moderate to severe pain as opioids, without “the addictive potential.”

Suzetrigine is reported to block pain signals before they get to the brain, unlike opioids which work in the brain itself. The rise of prescription opioids in the 1990s — which makers also claimed were non-addictive — is blamed for an epidemic of overdose deaths in the US so severe it lowered the entire population’s average life expectancy for two years in a row.

7.China is building a massive wartime military commander centre at Beijing: Financial Times

The complex appears to be part of preparation for the possibility of nuclear war.

China’s military is building a massive complex in western Beijing that US intelligence believes will serve as a wartime command centre far larger than the Pentagon, according to current and former American officials.

Satellite images obtained by the Financial Times that are being examined by US intelligence show a roughly 1,500-acre construction site 30km south-west of Beijing with deep holes that military experts assess will house large, hardened bunkers to protect Chinese military leaders during any conflict — including potentially a nuclear war.

Several current and former US officials said the intelligence community was closely monitoring the site, which would be the world’s largest military command centre — and at least 10 times the size of the Pentagon.

The PLA is also rapidly expanding its nuclear weapons arsenal and working to better integrate its different branches. Military experts believe the PLA’s lack of integration is among its biggest weaknesses compared with the US armed forces.

8.Consulting Pay: What MBAs Earned In 2024:Poets and Quants

Consulting pay may have remained flat in 2024, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t big differences in compensation between levels of education and firms of choice. Take top of the market pay.

According to Management Consulted data, MBAs can expect to top out at $192,000 in base. By the same token, their performance bonus and signing bonus can reach $63,000 and $35,000 respectively. That’s a major upgrade over bachelor’s degree holders who landed consulting jobs in 2024. Starting out, their base hit $112,000 at the high end – or $80,000 less than their MBA counterparts. And there was a similar drop-off in performance bonus ($30,000), and signing bonus ($5,000). Read on.

9.Big Tech woos Musk: Wall Street Journal

Amazon reportedly boosted its advertising spending on X and Apple is considering returning ads to the platform.

The two companies backed away in 2023 amid growing concerns about moderation policies and hate speech. Their apparent return is largely driven by changes in the political climate, The Wall Street Journal said:

The platform’s owner Elon Musk has : “emerged as one of the most powerful people in (US) President Trump’s orbit” and both business and national leaders are striving to improve their standing with him. It could result in a significant boost to X’s balance sheet after a long period of stagnant user and revenue growth.