Arvind’s Newsletter

1. India’s PLI scheme designed to spur local production has drawn investments totaling 535 billion rupees ($6.54 billion) till December 2022. Investments under the production-linked incentive, or PLI scheme, are expected to rise further to 2.74 trillion rupees (5x) as the scheme runs its course, as per the trade ministry.

2.A reason to dream

In India, where cricket is by far the most popular sport, a women’s league arrived last month with a splash. Investors poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the league, delivering big paydays for the sport’s biggest female stars, and crowds swarmed the inaugural tournament.

The New York Times’s Mujib Mashal visited Dharoki, a village in the wheat fields of the Punjab region, where the league’s success has inspired a generation of girls to dream of becoming cricket stars.

3.Apple could personalize your health fitness regime with AI

It seems every big tech company has some kind of plan for AI, and apparently Apple is no exception. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman the company is working on a new health coaching service that uses AI to tailor the experience to each user.

Apparently this new service is codenamed Quartz, and is being designed to keep users motivated. That apparently includes pushing them to exercise, improving their eating habits and sleeping better, with each program tailored to the individuals. That’s all accomplished through the power of AI and the Apple Watch.

Of course, like most of Apple’s other services, this new AI coach won’t be free. Instead you’ll reportedly have to pay a monthly subscription for the privilege. Sadly, it isn’t clear whether this will be a brand new subscription, or if it will form part of the existing $10-a-month Apple Fitness Plus service.

4.Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is a book on military strategy, which is why you’ll find lessons on how to engage properly in chariot battles. But that’s not why the book remains popular today. Instead, its timelessness is due to the wisdom imparted by Sun Tzu regarding conflict. Much of what he discusses would be recognized today as “emotional intelligence,” and his advice is applicable to all aspects of our lives, from personal relationships to business deals. Here, we discuss five particularly insightful quotes.

5.With its AI edge, Microsoft is eating into Google's search dominance

In its first-quarter results, Alphabet's search revenue growth slowed, even as Microsoft reported more downloads for its ChatGPT-enabled BingThe numbers that both companies disclosed are telling.

Google’s revenues in “search and other” categories rose 1.87% year-on-year, a far smaller growth than the 24.3% in the same quarter in 2022 and the 30.1% in 2021. Meanwhile, Nadella said that daily installs of the Bing mobile app have grown four times since Microsoft bundled AI features into the browser’s search capability.

There’s no doubt that Google, which has led the way on search for years, has found itself challenged by Microsoft’s investment in and integration of Open AI’s dialogue-based chatbot over the last six months. Making matters worse, Bard, Google’s own answer to ChatGPT, didn’t get off to a flying start.

6.Tycoon Mukesh Ambani’s media venture Viacom18, which is backed by James Murdoch, has bought the India rights to show films and television from Hollywood giant Warner Bros Discovery, stepping up competition with Disney in one of the world’s fastest-growing markets for streaming.

The Warner Bros deal expands Viacom18’s offering from sport to high end entertainment, after the company beat Disney to secure rights to stream the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket competition.

The newly announced deal will from next month let Viacom18’s TV channels and its JioCinema streaming service show Emmy-award winning comedy drama Succession, which is inspired by the life of Murdoch’s media baron father Rupert. It will also host shows from The Last of Us to The White Lotus, and Warner Bros movies like the Harry Potter series in the “multiyear” agreement, whose value was not disclosed.

As streaming services like Netflix have suffered a slowdown in their traditional markets, fast-growing India has become a key battleground for companies desperate to win viewers. Research firm Media Partners Asia expects India’s online video industry to more than double annual revenues to $6.5bn by 2027, and India is estimated to have a streaming audience of more than half a billion people, according to data provider Statista.

Viacom18 is a partnership between Ambani’s Reliance Industries conglomerate, Paramount and a Qatari sovereign wealth fund-backed investment group run by Murdoch and Uday Shankar, a former Disney executive.

Ferzad Palia, Viacom18’s head of streaming and international business, said the deal allowed the network “to offer the best of Hollywood content to our elite consumers”.