Arvind's Newsletter

1.Indians pick UPI over debit cards for ease of use, zero fees

With homegrown instant payment system Unified Payments Interface, or UPI, emerging as the most preferred payment method, consumers are not too keen to use debit cards, latest official data showed. For every ₹100 spent on debit cards, consumers spent over ₹1,900 via UPI in the year ended 31 March 2023.
Aggregate debit card transactions by value stood at ₹7.2 trillion in FY23, while the same for UPI was at ₹139.2 trillion.

Debit card transaction volumes have also been declining over the past few years, from 4 billion in FY21 and 3.9 billion in FY22 to 3.4 billion in FY23. In comparison, UPI transaction volumes have been growing and in FY23 was at 83.8 billion, according to NPCI.

2.Analysts and opposition politicians blamed India’s focus on high-speed trains over upkeep and infrastructure improvement for a horrific train crash that killed at least 275 people.
The crash highlighted concerns not only about passenger safety, but also other problems plaguing the Indian Railways, such as overcrowding and delays. While these are long-standing concerns, in recent years, political will has been focussed not on these problems but on the roll-out of Vande Bharat, a new day train service with steep ticket prices, the online outlet Scroll noted.

Amidst the Vande Bharat push, data from the National Crime Records Bureau shows that railway accidents have increased over the past few years. In 2022-’23, they shot up by 37%, according to a report in the Business Standard which cited the railway ministry’s safety review data.

3.Is there a bullshit (BS) blind spot? 
A series of two studies recently found that people who were the worst at detecting bullshit not only grossly overestimated their detection ability, but also overestimated their ability compared to other people. In other words, they not only believe that they are better at detecting BS than they actually are, they also believe that they are better at it than the average person.

At the same time, those who were best at detecting BS not only underestimated their own performance but also believed that they were slightly worse at detecting BS than the average person. This research was published in Thinking & Reasoning.

4.Apple Set to Launch Virtual-Reality Headset Monday, First Major Product in Decade, based on reports the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal

Apple stock rose to an all-time high on Monday in the run-up to a presentation of its most important product in more than a decade: a “mixed-reality” headset, seven years in the making, that will provide a glimpse of how the tech giant envisions a post-smartphone future. The iPhone maker is widely expected to present a headset resembling a pair of sleek ski goggles that will combine “virtual reality”, in which the wearer is fully immersed in a virtual world, and “augmented reality”, in which digital images are overlaid on the real world reported the Financial Times.

The headset will be Apple’s biggest new product since the iPad debuted in 2010. Its significance is expected to surpass the Apple Watch, which went on sale in 2015, given the potential for AR and VR to become a new computing platform that creates a rich canvas for app developers. Monday’s event will be held in-person at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters. But as with last year it is expected to be hosted like a film premiere: attendees will watch a pre-recorded keynote address available to the public on YouTube. This format is partly a legacy of Covid-19, when all such events went virtual and Apple started creating cinematic presentations that could pack in more content than a live event. But a recorded presentation, which eliminates the risk of a demonstration going awry, also reflects the more cautious tendencies of chief executive Tim Cook, who has never relished the product showmanship of Steve Jobs. The device is expected to cost $3,000 — 10 times that of the Meta Quest 2, the leading VR headset from Facebook’s parent company, and three times the cost of Meta’s higher-end Quest Pro headset.

It is not expected to go on sale in fiscal 2023, which ends in September — a period in which analysts foresee Apple revenues falling 2 per cent to $385 bn. But in the following year its sales should help Apple’s revenues rise a projected 7 per cent to $411 bn, according to estimates from Visible Alpha. Expectation on Wall Street about the expected launch drove Apple’s shares up almost 2 per cent to an intraday high at $184.32. However, its market capitalisation remained below its $3tn peak of early 2022, as the number of shares in circulation has been reduced by buybacks.

While the new headset is likely to steal most of the attention, the company is planning to refresh the software running on its various hardware platforms—iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac. Apple’s new iPhone operating system, iOS 17, will include a number of new health and fitness features, including a journaling app that will help users keep a record of their daily activities to boost mental well being, the Journal reported

5.Saudi Arabia shelling out on sports, athletes amid accusations of sportswashing, reports CBS News.
Karim Benzema, the latest recipient of men’s soccer’s highest accolade, will become the newest superstar to play in Saudi Arabia’s league. Last year, fellow superstar Cristiano Ronaldo inked a deal reportedly worth $200 million per year, the largest ever, while Argentinian legend Lionel Messi may sign an even richer contract with a Saudi club. World sport is awash with Saudi money, part of the kingdom’s efforts to improve its reputation, battered in the West by the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and Riyadh’s brutal war in Yemen. Saudi Arabia owns the English Premier League club Newcastle United, while a race in Jeddah will be part of Formula 1’s calendar at least until 2030.