- Arvind's Newsletter
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- Arvind's Newsletter
1.World's largest smartphone glass company to make in India from 2024
Corning Inc, the world’s largest maker of smartphone cover glass, will begin manufacturing the product in India by the end of 2024 through its joint venture with Noida-based contract manufacturer Optiemus Infracom Ltd, which will be called Bharat Innovation Glass Technologies.
For the first time cover glass will be made in India for both local and international OEMs that are assembling their devices in India.
The JV aims to make 30 million units in India in the first phase of manufacturing, which will employ between 500-1000 people. The parties are currently in discussions with state governments, including those of Tamil Nadu and Telangana, to acquire land for the factory.
Corning, famous for its ‘Gorilla Glass’, said the JV was considering applying for financial incentives for the manufacturing of electronic components and semiconductors.
2.Goa Going Beyond Beaches to Become a ‘Workation’ Spot, reports Economic Times
The Goa government is working on attracting more ‘digital nomads’ and technology investment to the state by bolstering its electronics and accommodation infrastructure.
This quarter, co-working shacks called ‘sea hubs’ will be set up along the beach, the state’s minister of tourism and IT, Rohan Khaunte, told ET. “They can go and surf in the water, they can go to the shack and have some good Goan food, and then go and work at a workstation,” he said.
High-speed internet connectivity in rural areas is crucial for both ‘digital nomads’ and the success of Goa’s homestay policy, which the state government plans to roll out next month to take tourism to the hinterland
Khaunte said the government is aiming for 100% internet connectivity in the state in two years.
3.Israel has reportedly agreed to delay its anticipated ground invasion of Gaza to allow the US time to deploy air-defense systems to protect US troops in the Middle East.
US officials are concerned Israel's invasion could cause an uptick in militant groups targeting American forces in the region; at least 13 such attacks have occurred in Syria and Iraq in the past week. Israel hasn't disclosed the timeline of its ground invasion but said it would delay its plans until at least later this week.
The delay also gives Israel and the US additional time to negotiate the release of hostages held by Hamas and for humanitarian aid to reach Palestinians in Gaza. Hamas has so far released four hostages since capturing 222 people from Israel during its Oct. 7 attack.
The Israeli army conducted a “targeted raid” in the enclave overnight using tanks, saying it was part of preparations for “the next stages of combat.” Israel’s 19-day bombing campaign of Gaza is now one of the most this century, The New York Times reported.
More than 6,500 people have died and 17,400 injured in Gaza, while more than 1,400 have died and more than 5,400 injured in Israel.
4.ESG is beyond redemption: may it RIP, opines Academic Aswath Damodaran, Professor of Finance at Stern Business School, New York University, in the Financial Times. Some excerpts:
“Born in sanctimony, nurtured with hypocrisy and sold with sophistry, ESG grew unchallenged for a decade, but it is now facing a mountain of troubles, almost all of them of its own making. The problems of investing with an environmental, social and governance framework start with assessing what it measures, which has changed over time and reflects its revisionist history.
ESG started as a measure of goodness, built around a UN document enunciating the principles for responsible investing, with significant establishment buy-in. As the selling of ESG to investors ramped up, its salespeople recognised that goodness had limited selling power. So they switched gears, arguing that ESG was an instrument for delivering higher returns without concurrent risk.
That case worked well through much of the last decade, mostly because of ESG investors’ abhorrence of fossil fuels and embrace of technology firms, but the Russian invasion of Ukraine changed the calculus. As sector funds underperformed, advocates moved on to claim that higher ESG scores lead to less risk and lower costs of capital. Perhaps because both risk claims are questionable, they now contend that ESG’s primary purpose is disclosure about material issues.
It serves ESG advocates to keep the definition amorphous, since, like the socialists of the 20th century whose response to every socialist failure was that their ideas had never been properly implemented, the defence against every ESG critique is that it is incorrectly defined or implemented. The truth is that ESG scores today measure everything — consequently, they measure nothing.
Once you strip ESG of its “good for value” and “good for investors” arguments, the only argument left for it is that it is good for society, and there too, ESG is destined to fail.
ESG is beyond redemption, a testimonial to the consequences of letting good intentions overwhelm good sense and allowing the selling imperative to define and drive mission. May it RIP.
5.Adam Grant, an organisational psychologist at Wharton Business School, and author of The Originals and Give and Take, is one my favourite authors. He is also podcast host of Re-Thinking. In this episode, Malcom Gladwell hosts a lively discussion on Adam’s new book - Hidden Potential: the Science of Achieving Greater Things. They explore why we overemphasise innate talent, how Adam grappled with imposter syndrome as a writer and perfectionism as an athlete, and how to chart a path to greater things. A discussion worth hearing on Apple podcast or Spotify.
While I have not yet read Adam’s new book (I plan too), here is an excerpt that gives guidance on a specific type of feedback: feedback from experts. The book is called Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things, and in this excerpt Grant breaks down common misperceptions that assume virtuosos will naturally be good at explaining their expertise. Instead, expertise is often tacit, Grant writes, and the more skilled we are at something, the harder it can be to explain all the pieces of that skill.
So “picking an expert’s brain” will often lead us awry. For better advice, try this instead: ask them to retrace their route to expertise. “The point of engaging guides isn’t to blindly follow their leads,” Grant writes. “It’s to chart possible paths to explore together.
