1.Tata Motors to demerge businesses into two separate listed companies, one focussed on PVs and other on CVs

One entity will encompass the Commercial Vehicles business along with its associated investments, while the other will include the Passenger Vehicles businesses, comprising PV, EV, JLR, and their associated investments. This demerger will be executed through an NCLT scheme of arrangement. Importantly, all shareholders of TML will retain identical shareholding in both listed entities following the demerger.

The demerger will help in better growth prospects for employees and enhanced value for shareholders, Chairman N Chandrasekaran said in a statement.  

The scheme of arrangement for the demerger shall be placed before the board in the coming months and will be subject to all necessary shareholder, creditor and regulatory approvals, which could take a further 12-15 months to complete, the company said.

2.Falling foreign ownership in booming Indian stock market

Foreign investors now own a smaller share in the booming Indian stock market than before.  Their holdings now account for 16.3 per cent of the total market, likely the lowest in a decade, according to a report by brokerage firm ICICI Securities. However, the value of their holdings continues to rise and it touched nearly Rs 62 trillion as of January-end

The decline in foreign ownership also reflects increased buying by domestic institutions, incl­u­ding mutual funds.Domestic institutional inv­e­stors owned a nearly 16 per cent stake, according to the latest available December quarter num­bers. It was around 13 per cent in 2019.Mutual fund investors allocated nearly Rs 19,000 crore through monthly systematic investment plans (SIPs) in January, according to industry data. This represents a 36 per cent increase over the same period last year.  

Foreign investors have also been allocating higher amou­nts to debt. Indian debt securities are due to be included in global indices, which are expected to attract additional capital. Inflows into Indian debt recorded their hig­h­est levels since July 2023 on a trailing 12-month basis in February.

3.India Inc pushes capital expenditure as capacity utilisation nears 75%

With India Inc’s average capacity utilisation touching the 74 per cent mark, according to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), top Indian conglomerates are finally pressing the pedal on capital expenditure.

According to a report by Motilal Oswal Financial Securities (MOSL), private sector capital expenditure (capex) has started ramping up from select sectors, which will get another leg up from thermal power, production linked-led capex and semiconductor capex.

Last week, Tata Electronics and Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (PSMC), Taiwan, announced plans to invest Rs 91,000 crore in Dholera, while Tata Semiconductor Assembly and Test Private Limited announced plans to invest Rs 27,000 crore in Assam.

Other conglomerates are also leading the investment plans. Aditya Birla announced plans to invest Rs 10,000 crore in the paints business.

The Adani Group is leading the capex plans in the infrastructure sector as it expects to report record Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax and depreciation) of Rs 80,000 crore for the financial year ended March 2024, with Rs 1 trillion for 2025.It will invest in data centres, airports, roads, ports and power generating units in the coming quarters with equity investments expected from sovereign funds from West Asia. Last week, it announced Rs 75,000 crore in Madhya Pradesh. 

Reliance Industries is also investing in a battery giga factory in thenew energy business vertical that will be ready by 2026 even as its capex in Reliance Jio in 5G rollout is almost over.

The JSW Group has announced plans to invest Rs 40,000 crore in an electric vehicles capacity in Odisha apart from investing an additional Rs 65,000 crore in a new steel plant.

The Vedanta Group is planning to invest up to $2.3 billion per annum for the next three years, with funds allocated towards the aluminum, power, oil and gas and zinc businesses.

4.Nvidia CEO says AI could pass human tests in five years

Depending on how you define it, artificial general intelligence could be here within five years, Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang said. Humans have “general” intelligence: We can do many different tasks. AlphaGo, the Go-playing AI, is a “narrow” AI, capable of just one task. Huang said AIs would do well on “every single test that you can possibly imagine,” such as legal or medical exams, within five years. That wouldn’t mean it was conscious or thought like a human, but it would be capable of most of the intellectual tasks a human can do. Huang also said that AI algorithms and processing are progressing “tremendously,” meaning that the number of chips required will grow more slowly as each one can do more work.

5.“Parrhesia”: The importance of speaking truth to power and how to do it well

The idea of a "court jester" speaking truth to power is a common one in history. Machiavelli believed it was essential to good governance.

The ancient Greek philosophers called this "parrhesia" and practiced it often. In modern times, Michel Foucault reinvented the idea.

Here we look at three practical ways parrhesia might apply in our lives.

6.A poll showed 73% of voters, including a majority of his 2020 supporters, say U.S. President Joe Biden is too old to lead. 

Biden and his likely opponent Donald Trump will be the oldest ever candidates for the presidency. Both made high-profile gaffes over the weekend: Trump, four years the younger at 77, confused Biden with his predecessor Obama for the third time, while Biden announced the U.S. would airdrop supplies into Ukraine, meaning Gaza. But voters seem less worried about Trump’s age, with 42% saying he was too old to be effective. Nikki Haley, Trump’s only remaining rival for the Republican nomination, won the District of Columbia primary, the last ahead of Super Tuesday, when 15 states will vote for their preferred candidate.

7.A single killer whale killed a great white shark. The unprecedented moment was caught on camera.

A solitary killer whale, or orca, has been filmed hunting and killing a great white shark in an "astonishing" attack. Scientists said it was "unprecedented" and showed the exceptional predatory skills of killer whales. Two orcas in particular off South Africa's coast have been observed before working together to hunt and kill sharks, including great whites.

8.Last-chance tourism is becoming a thing.

The rate at which places like the French Alps are melting is prompting travellers to book trips with climate change in mind — and yes, there’s some murky arguments around whether the trips will just exacerbate the change.

9.The World Is in for Another China Shock; Jason Douglas of Wall Street Journal

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the U.S. and the global economy experienced a “China shock," a boom in imports of cheap Chinese-made goods that helped keep inflation low but at the cost of local manufacturing jobs.

A sequel might be in the making as Beijing doubles down on exports to revive the country’s growth. Its factories are churning out more cars, machinery and consumer electronics than its domestic economy can absorb. Propped up by cheap, state-directed loans, Chinese companies are glutting foreign markets with products they can’t sell at home.

Some economists see this China shock pushing inflation down even more than the first. China’s economy is now slowing, whereas, in the previous era, it was booming. As a result, the disinflationary effect of cheap Chinese-manufactured goods won’t be offset by Chinese demand for iron ore, coal and other commodities.

China is also a much larger economy than it was, accounting for more of the world’s manufacturing. It had 31% of global manufacturing output in 2022, and 14% of all goods exports, according to World Bank data. Two decades earlier China’s share of manufacturing was less than 10% and of exports less than 5%.

In the early 2000s, overproduction mainly came from China, while factories elsewhere shut down. Now, the U.S. and other countries are investing heavily in and protecting their own industries as geopolitical tensions rise. Chinese firms such as the battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology are building plants overseas to soothe opposition to imports, though they already produce much of what the world needs at home.

The result could be a world swimming in manufactured goods, and short of the spending power to buy them—a classic recipe for falling prices.

There are some countervailing forces. The U.S., Europe and Japan don’t want a rerun of the early 2000s, when cheap Chinese goods put many of their factories out of business. So they have extended billions of dollars in support to industries deemed strategic, and imposed or threatened to impose tariffs on Chinese imports. Aging populations and persistent labor shortages in the developed world could further offset some disinflationary pressure China exerts this time.

“It won’t be the same China shock," said David Autor, a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the authors of a 2016 paper that described the original China shock.

Even so, “the concerns are more fundamental" now, Autor said, because China is competing with advanced economies in cars, computer chips and complex machinery—higher-value industries that are viewed as more central to technological leadership.