Arvind's Newsletter

1.Union Budget 2024-25: A Budget for long term capital and gains- Suveen Sinha, Business Standard

A day after the Economic Survey expressed concern over the sustained surge of India’s stock markets, the Budget sent the indices yo-yoing. As Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman read out the parts of her speech that raised long-term capital gains and securities transaction tax (STT), the BSE’s bellwether Sensex plunged more than 1,000 points. It was a rearguard rally by Titan, ITC, and Adani Ports that pulled the market back up and pared the losses to the bare minimum.

The STT increase is intended to curb the irrational exuberance retail investors are showing for futures & options. This exuberance had deepened the frown lines on the foreheads of regulators as well as many market participants because derivatives are mainly meant to serve as hedging tools for large institutional investors. They can really burn retail players.

If we look beyond the immediate reaction of stock markets, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has responded to several needs of the economy, as well as a few calls of politics in a country perpetually in election mode. Though this was perhaps her shortest Budget speech, at 86 minutes, she managed to speak at length on creation of jobs — addressing the needs of job seekers as well as employers — skilling of the workforce, and building more infrastructure.

She did away with the angel tax, a move that is likely to spur investments in startups. She also dispensed with the equalisation levy, a 2 per cent tax imposed in 2016 on profits of non-resident digital companies providing services to Indian firms. And she reduced tax on foreign companies.

The finance minister gave the salaried class, especially in the lower-income slabs, some more money to play with by raising the standard deduction for income tax and tampering with the slabs. She tinkered with a range of Customs duties and made buying of gold and silver cheaper.

The standout features of today’s Budget would be its unyielding commitment to fiscal discipline and longer-term pronouncements. It is heartwarming to see the fiscal deficit figure come below 5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) after years.

2.India will seek licences to explore deep-sea minerals essential for energy transition technologies, according to M Ravichandran, a top scientist at India's Ministry of Earth Sciences, The Economic Times reported. The UN-backed International Seabed Authority (IAS) has issued 31 exploration licences, including two for India, but mining regulations are pending.

Although India has worked on deep sea mining technology, it still needs three to four years to perfect it, said M Rajeevan, former chief of India's Ministry of Earth Sciences. 

India will focus on the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, rich in polymetallic nodules containing manganese, nickel, copper, and cobalt, used in electric vehicles and solar panels.

3.India’s improving tele-density and rising broadband speeds, with greater 5G deployment

116.5 crores is the total number of wireless telephone connections in India as of March 2024, as per Economic Survey 2023-24. The tele-density, i.e. the number of mobile phones per 100 people increased from 75.2 in 2014 to 85.7 in 2024.

Additionally, the launch of 5G services has propelled India’s ranking for mobile broadband speed from 118 to 15 as of March 2024.

4.US Vice President Kamala Harris launched her campaign for the White House, leaning on her career as a prosecutor as she pledged to “take our case to the American people” to defeat Donald Trump. 

Her remarks came as she said she secured the Democratic nomination to run, a swift coalescence of the party following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal. Speculation quickly turned to her potential running mate, with The New York Times suggesting she would likely choose a male from a battleground state. Her path is burdened by what has been: A prior presidential run ended in disaster, Semafor’s Benjy Sarlin noted, though Harris’ politics — particularly her crime-fighting stances, previously criticised by progressives — are better suited for the current moment.

5.What are Kamla Harris’s chances against Trump?
A poll on Monday by Morning Consult, the first to be carried out since Biden dropped out of the race, gave Trump a two-point lead over Harris, at 47 per cent to 45 per cent. It was down sharply from the six-point advantage the former president enjoyed over the 81-year-old incumbent.

The survey also found that more Democratic voters now feel strongly motivated to vote than Republicans, by 27 per cent to 24 per cent. Trump remains a clear but not prohibitive favourite to win back the White House, according to prediction markets, but Harris’s odds have narrowed.

Over the 24 hours to midday Tuesday EST, the implied probability of a Harris victory had risen from 38 per cent to 43 per cent, according to the political prediction market PredictIt. The likelihood of Trump prevailing fell from 60 per cent to 55 per cent.

6.The explosive growth of renewables in China is masking their slow uptake elsewhere in the world, an academic argued.

Brett Christophers wrote in the Financial Times that charts showing exponential increases are misleading: “The outsized materiality of [China’s transition] means global figures veil more than they reveal” China accounted for 63% of new global capacity in 2023. And while the surface reading suggests a rapidly accelerating growth — 50% more wind, solar and other zero-carbon energy sources were built in 2023 than 2022 — an overwhelming amount comes from China. The rise is slowest in Africa and elsewhere in Asia, Christophers noted, which have some of the most fossil fuel-intensive power sectors: “The pace of progress is slowest precisely where it is needed most.”

7.AI can detect prostate cancer better than doctors, at least according to a new study.

Avenda Health released a study last month that involved ten doctors who each assessed 50 different prostate cancer cases. Avenda’s Unfold AI software detected cancer with 84.7% accuracy, while physicians who tried to detect cancer manually fell between 67.2 percent and 75.9 percent.

The study, done in partnership with UCLA Health and published in the Journal of Urology, also found that by using AI to assist with cancer contouring, predictions of cancer size were 45 times more accurate and consistent with AI than without it.

8.And in Google News:Google’s plan to turn off third-party cookies in Chrome is dying

Google now says Chrome won’t join Safari and Firefox in blocking the web trackers by default, and instead, it will have users choose.

Google is putting the brakes on a change that would have made it more difficult to track users across different websites to serve them targeted ads. After years of testing, planning, and delays, Google has scrapped a plan to turn off third-party cookie tracking by default like Safari and Firefox already do. The change was supposed to reach Chrome users soon, despite concerns raised by competitors, regulators, and privacy advocates.

Now, Chrome will ask users to “make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing” instead of deprecating third-party cookies, writes Google Privacy Sandbox VP Anthony Chavez. That could work more like Apple’s app tracking opt-in, a setting that reportedly cost social media platforms nearly $10 billion when it rolled out in 2021.

Also, Google parent and Wiz end talks on $23bn deal.
Google parent company Alphabet had been in talks to buy the Israeli cyber security company in what would also have ranked as the biggest purchase of a venture-backed company, according to PitchBook, a data provider. “While we are flattered by offers we have received, we have chosen to continue on our path to building Wiz,” the company told employees in an email on Monday. A second person familiar with the matter confirmed that the deal had fallen through.