Arvind’s Newsletter

1.How a construction boom led to toxic air in Mumbai

Government incentives have led to a spike in construction projects in the city. Residents are suffering from the resultant increase in pollution levels.

India’s financial capital is slowly gaining the image of one of the most polluted cities in the world: in February, based on air quality index, or AQI, Mumbai was ranked the second-most polluted city in the world. Other parts of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region also showed high pollution levels – Navi Mumbai, one of the nine municipal corporations under the metropolitan region, became the second-most polluted city in the country in October.

One of the largest contributors to this air pollution has been resuspended dust, or dust particles from paved and unpaved roads and construction sites that are raised into the air by mechanisms such as wind or traffic.

2.EY picks Janet Truncale as the first woman to lead a Big Four firm

EY has appointed Janet Truncale, the head of its financial services business in the Americas, to be its next global chief executive, putting a woman in charge of a Big Four accounting firm for the first time. Truncale will replace Carmine Di Sibio, who is retiring in June in the wake of the collapse of a plan to spin off EY’s consulting arm into a new public company.

3.A much-anticipated meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping yielded few major concrete agreements beyond a pledge to keep talking. 

The two sides made little to no progress over U.S. worries of Chinese aggression against Taiwan and in the South China Sea, or Beijing’s complaint that Washington’s semiconductor sanctions are designed to hamper China’s economy. And whereas in years prior, the two countries coordinated limited joint action against Iran, or North Korea, or on climate change, this meeting lacked any such efforts. After the talks, Biden once again called Xi a dictator which China’s foreign ministry labeled “extremely wrong” and “irresponsible political manipulation.”

Still, that the pair spoke at all was viewed as progress. Biden described their meeting as “constructive and productive” and the two countries agreed to re establish military to military and climate communications . Business leaders including Apple’s Tim Cook, Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio, and BlackRock’s Larry Fink ate alongside Xi at an exclusive dinner. And the Chinese leader said the ‘Earth is big enough’ for both countries to succeed — though one veteran China watcher described the easing tensions with a colorful Chinese idiom: “Both sides admitted that they may not pee in the same pot, but vowed to ensure they will not pee on each other.”

4.Al Shifa Hospital

Israel Defense Forces said they had confirmed the presence of a Hamas command center inside northern Gaza's al-Shifa hospital, a revelation which came after soldiers carried out an overnight raid into the building. The facility had become a flashpoint in the war—at least 43 patients had died in the past week amid fighting outside, with more than 1,500 people trapped inside.

Israeli officials said they had recovered materials suggesting the site was home to significant Hamas operations. As of this writing, the Israeli forces had published photos of some weapons recovered from the facility, saying that more evidence would be released shortly. 

Separately, reports suggest Qatar is mediating a deal to potentially release 50 hostages kidnapped by Hamas during their initial Oct. 7 raid into Israel in exchange for a three-day cease-fire

5.Sphere and Loathing in Las Vegas, writes Charlie Warzel in the Atlantic.

The Sphere is a large arena—a futuristic entertainment venue for concerts and other Vegas spectacles. But such a description undersells the Sphere’s ambitions. It is the architectural embodiment of ridiculousness, a monument to spectacle and to the exceedingly human condition of erecting bewildering edifices simply because we can. It cost $2.3 billion; it’s blanketed in 580,000 square feet of LED lights; it can transform its 366-foot-tall exterior into a gargantuan emoji that astronauts can supposedly see from space. This is no half dome and certainly not a rotunda. This is Sphere. Read on.