1.RIL aims to be green energy leader

Addressing RIL’s shareholders in its annual report for FY24, Ambani said, “Our new energy and new materials business is poised to become one of the largest providers of green energy globally, as well as a prime contributor towards India’s 2070 net zero target."

Ambani said the company’s ambitious renewable energy project—the Dhirubhai Ambani Green Energy Giga Complex—in Jamnagar, Gujarat, is progressing rapidly as RIL works towards its goal of attaining net carbon zero by 2035. Ambani’s net-zero target entails a faster transition than his closest rival and Asia’s richest businessman Gautam Adani who has targeted net-zero by 2050.

Elaborating on its green energy roadmap, RIL said that by 2025 it will establish 20 GW solar capacity for captive needs of round-the-clock power and intermittent energy for green hydrogen.

By 2025, RIL will commence transition from grey to green hydrogen and industrialise sodium ion cell production at a megawatt level.

By 2026 , Jamnagar PV factory will be scaled to 20 GW in a phased manner and a comprehensive battery giga factory is planned to be established.

By 2027, RIL will expand its cell-to-pack manufacturing facility to 50 GWh annually, and by 2030, the company will establish and enable 100 GW of renewable energy.

2.AI is coming for India’s IT outsourcing industry; Megha Mandavia in Wall Street Journal

Artificial intelligence is upending India’s technology outsourcing business. The industry is pivoting to adapt, but the changes could cost a large number of coveted jobs.

The country’s big outsourcing companies are already using AI and have plans to integrate it throughout their businesses. That might not save the low-end operations that run call centres or do other basic tasks within the so-called business process outsourcing sector.

“If I am just doing a simple contact centre service then generative AI is going to replace that person very quickly," said Keshav Murugesh, chief executive of WNS, a U.S.-listed Indian tech-services company. “It’s as simple as that."

AI is threatening to disrupt most businesses around the world, not just India’s $250 billion outsourcing industry. The outsourcing boom in India over the past few decades created the “getting Bangalore-d" phenomenon in the U.S., often used for Americans who lost their jobs to more affordable Indian talent.

Vin Kumar, a tech consultant at Hackett Group, said U.S. companies will stop using Indian outsourcing businesses unless they replace people with automation whenever possible. “If Indian firms are not able to do it then they will bring these operations back in-house," he said.

The most vulnerable operations employed more than 1.4 million people in 2021, according to the latest data from Nasscom. A third of these jobs are in call centers. “The prize is to move up the value chain and go after new processes," said Murugesh.

In Harvard Business Review, Matt Beane, a technology researcher and professor, captures the impact of AI on jobs. He points out that historically, automation affected blue-collar jobs first, while white-collar workers often benefited from it. However, this trend is changing with the rise of generative AI (gen AI). Now, remote workers who primarily handle digital tasks are likely to be impacted first and most significantly by AI automation. 

3.Bajaj group diversifies into healthcare sector: Economic Times
The ₹1.46 lakh crore Bajaj Group is preparing to enter the healthcare sector by setting up a chain of hospitals in metros across the country, said people aware of the plan.

This will be the first major diversification for the Jamnalal Bajaj-founded, 98-year-old business house since the death of former patriarch Rahul Bajaj in February 2022.

The healthcare business, plans for which are in the initial stages, will be housed in a newly formed company. Nirav Bajaj, head of corporate strategy at Mukand, is overseeing the project and likely to helm the new company.

4.UK Protests Swell

Thousands of counter-protesters turned out across the United Kingdom yesterday in response to the country's worst riots in over a decade. Over 400 rioters had been arrested amid expanded prosecution protocols, with three people already sentenced to several years in prison.

Demonstrations primarily against migrant and Islamic communities began last week amid online posts suggesting a Muslim immigrant was responsible for the stabbing deaths of three young girls in Southport, England. The posts came despite officials identifying the suspect as a 17-year-old male born in the UK to Rwandan parents. The day after the attack, groups gathered outside a mosque in Southport, confronting police and setting cars on fire; similar protests erupted in over 15 other cities since, from London to Belfast in Northern Ireland. Dozens of officers have been injured.

The suspect was charged with three counts of murder and 10 counts of attempted murder.

5.Two astronauts stuck in space as Starliner is stalled

Two astronauts’ anticipated nine-day stay in space may turn into eight months. NASA is preparing contingency plans for Boeing's Starliner astronauts to potentially return from the International Space Station in February 2025. 

The announcement yesterday is the latest setback for Boeing over the capsule's inaugural crewed mission to space.

The Starliner took off June 5, carrying veteran NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams after a series of delays for what was intended to be a nine-day mission. 

That mission has since extended past two months, with the capsule held for further testing amid concerns of helium leaks and thruster control. NASA’s latest announcement reportedly comes amid internal dissent with Boeing, which maintains its capsule is safe to fly.

6.What will happen to Google Search? Microsoft’s 1998 antitrust case has clues

Google’s recent antitrust battle and Microsoft’s 1998 case are inextricably linked. Google, like Microsoft, lost its case. And in U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta’s 277-page ruling this week, he mentioned Microsoft 266 times.

Mehta ruled that Google broke antitrust laws and monopolized the search engine and a subset of the search advertising market (i.e. text ads). Google said it plans to appeal the court’s decision. The court, in Microsoft’s case, found the company monopolized computer operating systems — in part through unlawful exclusive arrangements with computer manufacturers and internet providers — and ordered it to break up into two entities. Microsoft appealed the decision, and the DOJ ended up settling with the company in 2001.

The settlement kept Microsoft’s software intact but barred the company from making deals with PC-makers and internet access providers. It also forced Microsoft to share parts of its then-private source code with other software developers so they could make their apps available on Windows.

Google faced nearly-identical backlash from the DOJ over its exclusive distribution agreements with web browser developers (i.e. Apple), smartphone manufacturers running on Android’s platform (i.e. Samsung), and cell service providers (i.e. Verizon). Google paid exorbitant sums to these companies to be the default search engine on their products. For example, Google paid Apple $20 billion in 2022 to be the default Safari search tool on its iPhones and other devices.

“The end result here is not dissimilar from the Microsoft court’s conclusion as to the browser market,” Mehta wrote in his ruling.

7.What Apple stands to lose in landmark Google antitrust verdict: Financial Times

The landmark antitrust ruling against Google on Monday is shaking up one of the longest-standing partnerships in tech. At the heart of the case are billions of dollars’ worth of exclusive agreements Google has inked over the years to become the default search engine on browsers and devices across the world.

No company benefited more than fellow Big Tech giant Apple — which US District Judge Amit Mehta called a “crucial partner” to Google.

During a weeks-long trial, Apple executives showed up to explain and defend the partnership. Under a deal that first took shape in 2002, Google paid a cut of search advertising revenue to Apple to direct its users to Google Search as default, with payments reaching $20bn for 2022, according to the court’s findings. In exchange, Google got access to Apple’s valuable user base — more than half of all search queries in the US currently flow through Apple devices. 

Since Monday’s ruling, Apple has been quiet. But it is likely to be deeply involved in the next phase of the case, which will address the proposed fix to Google’s legal breaches. Remedies in the case could be targeted or wide-ranging. The Department of Justice which brought the case, has not said what it will seek.

“The most profound impact of the judgment is liable to be felt by Apple,” said Eric Seufert, an independent analyst.

JPMorgan analysts wrote that the ruling left Apple with a range of “inconvenient alternatives”, including the possibility of a new revenue sharing agreement with Google that does not grant it exclusive rights as the default search engine, thereby reducing its value. 

Reaching revenue sharing deals with alternative search engines like Microsoft’s Bing, they wrote, would “offer lower economic benefits for Apple, given Google’s superior advertising monetisation”.

Apple could build its own search engine. It has not yet done so, and the judge in the case stopped short of agreeing with the DoJ that the Google deal amounted to a “pay-off” to Apple to keep it out of the search engine market. An internal Apple study in 2018, cited in the judge’s opinion, found that even if it did so and maintained 80 per cent of queries, it would still lose $12 bn in revenue in the first five years after separating from Google.

8.Meet Hanumankind, the genre-smashing rapper from Kerala whose latest song is a global sensation

Ponnani, a sleepy little hamlet on the outskirts of Malappuram in Kerala, is not where hip-hop is likely to find an inflection point.

But for the last three weeks, 31-year-old rapper Sooraj Cherukat aka Hanumankind has drawn the world to a traditional, rickety maut ka kuan (well of death) inside ‘Sree Sai’s Great Indian Maruti Circus’ in the beach town. It’s here that Cherukat calls himself a ‘big stepper’ and soon enough, just lets it rip.

The Bengaluru-based Malayali rapper, standing in the centre of the clay pit, starts to quarry thoughts about identity. The skin colour like the bourbon/ A worldwide sign that we face close curtains/ Out here yo, nothing’s ever certain/ Only thing that’s promised is that promises are broken/ Yeah, so we findin’ ways to cope then… he sings in a gravelly voice.

The explosiveness and the slick production are magnified by the addition of some swashbuckling motorists zipping around a Freddy Mercury-esque Cherukat — he is dressed in a white ganji and pants, and sporting a moustache — in the velodrome made of wooden planks alongside some gnarly and gritty beats.

Cherukat’s latest single outing, ‘Big Dawgs’, has the world talking. The song on YouTube, created in collaboration with producer Kalmi Reddy and directed by Bijoy Shetty, has raked in over 15 million views and over 50,000 comments that are mostly aligned on one thing — ‘Big Dawgs’ is a summer banger.