Arvind's Newsletter

1.The boards of HDFC and HDFC Banks are set to meet after hours on June 30 to go ahead with the merger following approvals from requisite regulatory bodies. The effective date of merger will be July1, 2023.

The merger is expected to create the largest financial services conglomerate in India. The combined entity will have a market capitalisation of over ₹ 8 trillion ($98 billion).On July 13, HDFC Ltd stock will go off the bourses and shareholders will get their shares converted to HDFC Bank.

2. The warning bells about India’s fast-growing diabetes crisis have been sounded off for some time now. A recent health ministry-funded study by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has confirmed the worst. Over 100 million Indians aged 20 and above are now estimated to be living with diabetes, constituting 11.4% of the population in this age group, while another 136 million (15.3%) are pre-diabetic, with sugar levels higher than normal but not high enough to qualify as diabetes.

   The prevalence is higher than previously estimated. The National Family Health Survey of 2019-21 had found that 15.6% of men and 13.5% of women had high to very high random blood sugar levels or were on medication to control it.

   Experts urge that we need urgent prevention strategies to prevent conversion from pre-diabetes to diabetes.”If we don’t actively intervene now, the number of people with diabetes will increase even further over the next five years.”

3.The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has issued a show-cause notice to Tata Group-owned Air India, asking why it should not investigate its proposal to Vistara.

Tata Group has 30 days to respond to the CCI order and receive approval for the merger without an investigation, reported LiveMint.

4.Harvard Scholar Who Studies Honesty Is Accused of Fabricating Findings

The scholar, Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School, has been a co-author of dozens of papers in peer-reviewed journals on such topics as how rituals like silently counting to 10 before deciding what to eat can increase the chance of choosing healthier food, and how networking can make professionals feel dirty.

Gino, has been accused of breaking the rules – quite brazenly – in at least four published research papers, and possibly many more. A spate of news articles in the last several days detail instances in which Gino is accused of fabricating data and manipulating results. And at least one paper – a study examining ways to elicit more honest responses – has since been retracted.

Gino’s profile at HBS now states that she is on administrative leave. If the accusations prove to have merit, it could mark the fall of a rising academic star blessed with the intelligence, innovative thinking, and an endearing Italian accent capable of charming both academics and titans of business alike. Today, some of her colleagues are wondering if she is the academic versionof Elizabeth Holmes or, like Prof. Amy Cuddy, another victim of a culture where social media allows envious colleagues to unmercifully pile on.

5.In Classrooms, Teachers Put A.I. Tutoring Bots to the Test reports New York Times and Financial Times reports Biotech begins human trials of A.I. designed drug

Newark Public Schools is one of the first school systems in the United States to pilot test Khanmigo, an automated teaching aid developed by Khan Academy, an education nonprofit whose online lessons are used by hundreds of districts.

Newark has essentially volunteered to be a guinea pig for public schools across the country that are trying to distinguish the practical use of new A.I.-assisted tutoring bots from their marketing promises.

Officials in Newark, the largest district in New Jersey, said they were cautiously testing the tutoring bot in three schools. Their findings could influence districts across the United States that are vetting A.I. tools this summer for the upcoming school year.

Newark students began using Khan’s automated teaching aid in May. The reviews have so far been mixed but it is early days.

A biotech company backed by Chinese conglomerate Fosun Group and private equity giant Warburg Pincus has begun one of the first mid-stage human trials of a drug discovered and designed by artificial intelligence.

Insilico Medicine, which was founded by Latvian-born scientist Alex Zhavoronkov, said it had dosed a patient in China with a novel therapy to treat the chronic lung disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. The company said the drug, INS018_055, was the first entirely “AI-discovered and AI designed” drug to begin a phase 2 clinical trial and represented an important milestone for the industry.

“For Insilico, it is the moment of truth . . . but it is also a true test for AI and the entire industry should be watching,” said Zhavoronkov in an interview with Financial Times.

“Our company, and it’s a big, bold claim, can double the productivity of pretty much every big pharma company”.

Insilico is one of a new generation of biotechs, which have collectively raised billions of dollars to develop AI tools aimed at revolutionising drug development. It is part of a race by Big Pharma and investors to capitalise on a $50 bn market opportunity for AI in the sector, according to a report by Morgan Stanley.

Zhavoronkov said Insilico’s AI platforms could potentially halve the time it took to discover drugs and slash the cost of bringing medicines to market — estimated by Deloitte at $2.3bn on average per therapy. Sanofi, Fosun and Johnson & Johnson were among several pharma companies that had signed partnership deals that provided access to Insilico’s technology, he said.