Gyanendra Singh

I returned to the national capital after 2 am and have rarely seen anything like what Delhi is witnessing now, with checkpoints every few hundred metres, concrete barriers and spike strips laid across our roads, a war-like deployment of 22,000 police and paramilitary across the city, 250 trains cancelled and 45 metro stations closed, and reports of young people being detained from their own homes and the streets in and around Delhi -- all to prevent citizens from peacefully raising questions about the integrity of our elections. Most regressive (as well as repressive) is the suspension of the internet in the heart of the national capital. Freedom of movement stands completely shackled. Jantar Mantar was designated precisely so that citizens could voice dissent in the centre of Delhi, and today even the roads leading to it have been declared out of bounds. One is entitled to ask where this extraordinary manpower and urgency disappear when women in our capital need protection. Those detained will hvre to be released .And if the protesters simply return on Monday, will the authorities lock down the national capital all over again? Our GenZ deserves better than an undeclared Emer-GenZ. A government confident in the fairness of its elections would welcome questions about them, whereas one that turns its capital into a fortress to avoid them only deepens the very suspicions it seeks to suppress. The government should provide answers, not lathis; expression, not repression. Barricades will do nothing to restore faith in the Election Commission, and the sooner it answers the public's questions, the sooner calm will be restored. The strength of a democracy is measured by how it treats those who question its working, and by that measure, what we have seen today is utterly shameful and unconscionable. mrf.lu/28s4r @INCIndia

Trump wants fewer Indian technology professionals moving to America. The unintended consequence may be more American technology work moving to India. I have spent more than three decades in this industry. So when I read about the latest US action restricting some large technology companies from using PERM, the route through which employees move towards permanent residency, I was less worried than the headlines suggested. One number explains why. Indian IT companies accounted for less than 1,400 of the 117,849 PERM certifications last year. Less than 2%. The direct impact may therefore be smaller than it first appears. But something more interesting is happening underneath. The original Indian IT model was simple. The customer had important work in America, so we sent Indian engineers there to do it. Then we discovered that much of that work could be done from India. The onsite-offshore model was born. I lived that transition. We may be at the beginning of another one. America is making it harder to move Indian talent there, while technology is making it easier for smaller teams in India to take responsibility for increasingly sophisticated work. There is an irony here. In trying to reduce the movement of Indian talent to America, the US may accelerate the movement of American work to India. But I don’t mean another wave of coding and maintenance jobs. The opportunity is architecture, product engineering, cybersecurity, AI implementation, industry solutions and eventually ownership of products and IP. Indian teams should not merely receive specifications from New York. They should help decide what gets built. Not merely maintain a global bank’s technology platform, but help redesign the bank. Not just supply engineers to solve somebody else’s problem, but own the problem. There is an uncomfortable truth too. For thirty years, growth in Indian IT and growth in Indian IT employment travelled together. Win more business, hire more engineers. As AI technology improves productivity, that relationship may weaken. Indian IT could win more sophisticated work and create more value without headcount growing at the same rate. So we need a different definition of success. For thirty years, Indian IT competed largely on the cost of Indian talent. The next thirty will depend on the capability of Indian talent. Can we create architects rather than only programmers? Build products and IP here? Move more global decision-making to India? Create more value per person and therefore pay our people far better? Those are much bigger questions than how many visas America issues. So worry not about the visa headlines. Trump may make it harder for Indian engineers to move to American work. The opportunity is to make American work move to Indian engineers.

nifty now down 330 points ! It seems like a vicious cycle now, FII outflows and higher oil prices leading to a fall in the rupee and the fall in the rupee causing more FIIs to withdraw money yesterdays sell number is not small, over 6000cr we all know the main reasons for FII selling India , not enough participation in global growing themes like AI etc but the rupee fall is a fresh trigger for sure with the rupee now at 97 to the dollar, India is now even more unattractive as an investment destination to foreign investors and remember the rupee is close to all time lows despite the RBI spending 50 bln$ of its reserves to defend it the other big problem is taxation, which should be addressed to allay concerns for foreign investors what really matters end of the day is post tax post currency returns FIIs have to pay long term capital gains tax, transaction tax , in some cases dividend withholding tax while if you compare it to investing in US and China, a foreign portfolio investor pays zero tax thats a huge difference its a perfect storm so if india wants to attract real global capital into the country , it has to fix a lot of issues, the rupee , taxation , innovation and growth.

Shabash… full marks for consistency… And an idea: why not declare wherever the “divine” being chooses as his abode to be a central jail…. Let’s be done with this charade.. Rape convict Ram Rahim out of jail again on 21-day furlough. 3rd release this year, 17th in 9 yrs Sushil Manav @sushilmanav reports theprint.in/india/rape-convi…

India recorded over 15 lakh new cancer cases in 2024, with Delhi alone accounting for 28,000+ cases. This isn’t just a statistic, it’s a national alarm bell. The article highlights not only the sharp rise in cancers but also how our daily environment is steadily eroding public health. When you put this alongside Delhi’s spiralling pollution data, including 2 lakh+ acute respiratory illness cases in the last two years, the pattern is impossible to ignore. Toxic air isn’t just causing coughs and breathlessness; it’s creating long-term stress on the body, weakening immunity, burdening families, and increasing vulnerability to chronic diseases. Air pollution isn’t a seasonal inconvenience. It’s quietly shaping India’s health future & these numbers make that painfully clear. We need urgent, science driven, year round interventions. Clean air can’t be a luxury for a few. timesofindia.indiatimes.com/… via @AnujaJaiswalTOI @timesofindia @PMOIndia @JPNadda @MoHFW_INDIA