Arvind's Newsletter

1.Adani’s $108 billion crisis shakes investors’ faith

“Things are moving very fast in the market, with a potentially major reassessment of the risks of investing in Indian equities by international investors," said Singapore-based Gary Dugan, chief executive officer of Global CIO Office, an asset manager and financial advisory firm. “That reassessment includes governance, corporate transparency, nepotism and indebtedness."

According to Mint, Adani, 60, has been close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for decades. And his business — with investments in capital-intensive projects such as airports, power plants and data centres — is at the heart of Modi’s growth agenda. As a national champion, the tycoon has aligned his business interests with Modi’s development goals, often stepping in where the state lacks resources or competence, helping create thousands of jobs. If the slide in asset prices continues and further shakes investor confidence in Adani’s empire, that would be a setback for India’s growth story at a pivotal time.

2.The U.S. is increasing its military presence in the Philippines. An agreement announced today allows US to station military equipment and build facilities, the first time in 30 years that the U.S. will have such a large military presence in the Southeast Asian country. This strengthens US alliances in the region as tensions with China over Taiwan and the South China Sea continue.

The agreement allocates $82M to upgrade the five existing military sites under the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, which supports combined military training and exercises. Beijing has increasingly claimed strategic areas of the South China Sea, including areas Manila claims as its own.

The announcement fills the US alliance along the South Pacific geographic arc, stretching from South Korea and Japan to Australia. The exact locations of the new bases have not been disclosed, but it is believed the US is seeking three locations in the north near Taiwan and one in the south near the South China Sea. However, both China and US continue to woo Indonesia, with China having an edge at the moment.

3. ChatGPT is now officially the fastest growing consumer application in history after it notched 100 million monthly active users in January, per estimates from UBS. It took OpenAI’s chatbot just two months from launch to reach the milestone, compared to nine months for TikTok and 2.5 years for Instagram. So, how to capitalise on this explosion of interest? Open AI said it will soon release ChatGPT Plus, a commercial version, for $20/month.

Meanwhile, Microsoft released an artificial intelligence-powered version of its Teams collaboration software. The update is part of the company’s bet on “generative AI”: It wants to incorporate it into its Bing search engine, and into its Office 365 productivity software, according to The Information. The Chinese tech giant Baidu is incorporating its own chatbot into its search engine. Chatbots are rapidly reshaping our world.

4.Bonhoeffer’s theory of stupidity: We have more to fear from stupid people than evil ones.
When we know something or someone is evil, we can take steps to fight it. With stupidity, it is much more difficult. Dietrich Bonhoeffer argues that stupidity is worse than evil because stupidity can be manipulated and used by evil.He also argues that stupidity tends to go hand-in-hand with acquiring power — that is, being in power means we surrender our individual critical faculties.

5. How Indian health-care workers use WhatsApp to save pregnant women reports MIT Technology Review.

Across India, an all-women cadre of 1 million community health-care workers are responsible for making public health care accessible to people from remote areas and marginalised communities.

These workers counsel pregnant women and ensure they receive proper science-backed health care. Many are turning to WhatsApp as a means to combat the medical misinformation that is rampant across the country and to navigate sensitive medical situations, particularly regarding pregnancy. Their approach has surprisingly good results.