Arvind's Newsletter

1.Rural consumption is finally looking up for FMCG.

According to consumer intelligence firm NielsenIQ, rural FMCG consumption has surpassed urban consumption for the first time in the last five quarters. In the first quarter of the calendar year 2024, rural FMCG sales grew by 7.6% sequentially while urban sales fell by 5.7% sequentially. 

Other trends in the sector include better performance of home and personal care products, larger players showing stronger numbers, and modern trade volume growing at 14%.

2.Air India's Tata Takeover Timeline: Optimism To Turbulence

The plans for a smooth turnaround for Air India under the Tata Group have encountered significant challenges. Amidst the ongoing complex merger process, the airline faced a fresh setback due to a wave of flight cancellations triggered by mass pilot sick leave, causing widespread disruption for travellers. This incident is the latest in a series of troubles that have beset Air India since its acquisition by the Tata Group in January 2022. The recent disruption saw over 80 domestic and international flights grounded since Tuesday due to a surge in last-minute sick leave by pilots and crew. As the airline worked to manage the crisis, the Civil Aviation Authority launched an investigation into the situation.

Read more at: https://www.ndtvprofit.com/business/air-indias-tata-takeover-timeline-optimism-to-turbulence

3.Google launches Wallet app in India to help users store digital documents

Tech giant Google on Wednesday launched the Google Wallet app in India, enabling users to store and retrieve digital documents like boarding passes, loyalty cards, movie tickets, and more.

However, unlike its US offering, the Google Wallet app won’t allow users to store payment cards and access the tap-and-pay feature in stores. India, will be only region where Google Pay and Wallet will work separately.

The wallet app, which has gone live in the country, will cater to non-payment use cases and complement Google Pay - the payment app of the tech giant, said the company.

The government of India hosted Digilocker also provides similar wallet services for securely storing and accessing documents like licenses and certificates. It facilitates easy sharing of e-documents with authorities and organizations, streamlining verification processes. 

Digilocker app has more than 27 crore users in India and has issued 6.74 billion documents till date, according to the official website.

4.Apple unveils ‘outrageously powerful chip for AI in latest iPads

The tech giant is looking to reverse over a year of iPad sales declines, but it needs to move the device “beyond the toddler stage,” Bloomberg technology columnist Dave Lee argued, pointing to its popularity with kids watching Peppa Pig, as opposed to businesspeople or students.

The iPad should function less like an oversized smartphone and more like a mini laptop, Lee said, noting that its limits are mostly imposed by Apple’s protectionist tendencies: “It still wants consumers to buy its MacBooks.”

The company launched the “M4” chip for its latest iPad Pro devices on Tuesday, just months after it introduced the M3 alongside new Macs in October. AI developers’ insatiable demand for computing power is driving Big Tech companies such as Apple and Nvidia to increase the pace at which they push out more powerful processors capable of handling vast amounts of data.

Apple has come under pressure from investors to unveil new AI features to compete with Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Google, at a time when iPhone sales have been falling.

The explosion in new AI apps since OpenAI launched its breakthrough ChatGPT chatbot 18 months ago has triggered a race to secure the powerful processors needed to build so-called large language models — AI systems capable of producing humanlike text and imagery/

5.Last year likely represented the peak of carbon emissions from the electricity sector, a new report said.

 The turning point came as a result of astonishing rates of clean-power growth: Renewable sources generated 30% of the world’s electricity for the first time. The energy think tank Ember’s annual report showed that solar power is growing particularly fast: 444 gigawatts of new solar capacity were added in 2023, double the figure the previous year, itself a record. And, the head of global insights at Ember said, the best is yet to come: “Many sunny countries have still yet to harness its potential,” with Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia among others still generating less than 3% of their electricity from solar.

6.OpenAI has created a deepfake detector

As experts warn that images, audio and video generated by artificial intelligence could influence the fall elections, OpenAI is releasing a tool designed to detect content created by its own popular image generator, DALL-E. But the prominent A.I. start-up acknowledges that this tool is only a small part of what will be needed to fight so-called deepfakes in the months and years to come.

On Tuesday, OpenAI said it would share its new deepfake detector with a small group of disinformation researchers so they could test the tool in real-world situations and help pinpoint ways it could be improved.

7.China continues to build nuclear power plants at a spectacular rate. In the last 10 years, the country has added more than 34 gigawatts of nuclear capacity, bringing the total number of reactors to 55, with 23 more under construction.

The US still has the largest nuclear fleet, with 94 reactors, but “it took nearly 40 years to add the same nuclear power capacity as China added in 10 years,” the US Energy Information Administration said.

Despite the rapid growth, nuclear power still only made up about 5% of China’s electricity generation in 2022, because the country is also building new coal plants: It added 19 gigawatts of coal in 2022 alone.

8.Swiss army knife maker to produce version without a blade

"In response to an increasing number of countries imposing bans or restrictions on carrying knives, Victorinox, the Swiss 

firm that produces the pocket tools, is in the early stages of developing the first bladeless version of its product."