IITMAA Fireside Chats Ep. 5: Masterclass by Anuj Gupta on #Policy and How Govt is now a Shaper and Enabler of Business, not a Regulator alone or an Obstacle

https://open.substack.com/pub/rajeevsrinivasan/p/iitmaa-fireside-chats-ep-5-masterclass?r=66qfh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Quick notes: Royal Enfield | Unlivable cities...

• Put the screens away: The U.S. spent $30 Billion to replace textbooks with screens. The Result: A first generation mentally weaker than its parents.. For the first time in modern history, a generation scores lower than the one that raised it. The reason sits on every school desk in America. Nearly two-thirds of laptop time goes off task



• Made-in-Chennai: Royal Enfield beats Ferrari, Audi to become world's third strongest automotive brand. . . . Brings serious vintage style with a modern 650 twin engine




• Mahindra tractors - Built to last: Why American farmers are sleeping on the $15K Tractor that RULES the world



• Biogas could be LPG hedge in India's dairy belt: If all the 40 million cattle-rearing households were to shift to biogas, the displacement potential is up to ~4 million tonnes of LPG every year. Even if 10 million of them make this transition, it could save up to Rs 2,000 crore annually



• Burden of BikAss: India’s legendary hill towns are sinking. Over development threatens many Himalayan states



• India has 100/100 hottest cities in the world: Cutting trees, filling lakes, and building heat traps in the name of BikAss. "The central government is selling geological vital forest land to corporations. Then they are planting irrelevant trees in irrelevant areas to keep the statistics levelled. Not only that but the factories here run completely without regulations"
"Too bad the mangroves on the west coast, trees on the Aravali hills on the western front of India, the sparse protections it has from the warm winds from the direction of Africa, are going away in the name of "progress" and "infrastructure". Capitalism will absolutely be the death of the human race".



• This $50 Wall Cools Any Home By 25°F: Cheap cooling for dry places



• R&D spend of PSUs is more than private player: The tragedy that is Indian private sector.

R&D spend of HAL is 2000 Cr. More than many private sector companies https://t.co/Krxsgzym8E pic.twitter.com/o1XNT891XQ

— ᛊ Mr. Chan ᛊ (@RohitChan666) January 18, 2026



• Who runs India?: China is run by engineers.. US run by lawyers.. Who runs India?

Highly recommended book. Along similar lines is my analysis:
China is run by engineers
US run by lawyers
Europe by ideologue
Pak run by terrorists
Who runs India?

https://t.co/svYBJvtlb7

— Rajiv Malhotra (@RajivMessage) May 9, 2026



• Service companies are not tech companies: Tragedy of Indian homegrown companies




• There Is a Fire Sale on M.B.A.s: Behind all of the price breaks is softening demand for the traditional two-year M.B.A



• Iran has better universities than India?

Sharif is the #1 university in Iran. Over the last 25 years, it has been in the top 3 destinations of top Olympiad medalists. https://t.co/LAA9f2iTQh pic.twitter.com/lGyGUDLtJY

— Adib (@adibvafa) April 29, 2026



• Singapore vs India: World's densest semiconductor fab cluster.

In semiconductors the little island of Singapore has an incredible story to tell:

- 20+ fabs (India has struggled here..)
- consistent state policy + support since 1960s
- 7% of GDP. pic.twitter.com/dsG8d5j3J6

— Amar Govindarajan (@amargov) April 25, 2026



• Raag Mishra Khamaj: Venkatesh Kumar




• What could possibly go wrong: The Pentagon announces AI deals with OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, and more — LLMs to be deployed on classified Department of War networks ‘for lawful operational use’

"Mark my words"...

Astrologer called it right, for once :) ..his other predictions fell flat, though

ep. 190: pax indica unblocked malacca in 1025 CE; do we need it in 2026?

https://open.substack.com/pub/rajeevsrinivasan/p/ep-190-the-need-for-pax-indica-malacca?r=66qfh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Quick notes: Cash cow | DRDO's laser weapon...

• For Korean companies, India is a lucrative cash cow: LG India reported revenue of Rs 24,366 crore and a net profit of Rs 2,203 crore last year. Royalty payments to its Korean parent reached Rs 454.61 crore. But the real headline came with its 2025 IPO: In one stroke, LG India’s market capitalisation surpassed that of its global headquarters’. And it was purely due to generous policy environment.
  
  Hyundai Motor India and its sibling Kia tell a similar tale of extraction masked as investment. Royalty payments stand at 3.5% of sales revenue, translating into thousands of crores annually repatriated to Seoul. Such an anomaly has left Tata Motors and Mahindra to fight an uphill battle against what many term subsidized Korean pricing power.
  
  Samsung India completes the triumvirate of value extractors. Its revenue for the first time crossed Rs 1.11 lakh crore during 2025, making it the only consumer-electronics firm in India to cross the trillion-rupee mark. During 2024, royalty remittances to the Korean parent hit Rs 3,322 crore, roughly 40% of that year’s net profit. Retained earnings have ballooned and been diverted to Vietnam.
  
  Profits earned from Indian consumers through high royalties, IPO cash-outs and dividend flows are effectively subsidizing Vietnamese factories that then export finished goods back into India. Why? Should Korean conglomerates plough cash extracted from India into manufacturing facilities in a smaller neighbor that then undercuts Indian industry? The optics is toxic: India as a lucrative cash cow, Vietnam as the preferred factory floor.
  
  Decades of liberalization were sold on the promise that FDI would catalyze domestic industry, transfer technology and create balanced growth. Instead, the policy has tilted towards foreign giants who repatriate profits, royalties, special dividends and IPO proceeds liberally.
  
  On the other hand, Indian firms struggle with higher compliance costs, delayed approvals, and a royalty burden that starves local innovation.



Part of what pushed this into the open is what Korean firms did here in the last year.

Hyundai and LG listed their Indian arms and between them sent about $4.7 billion back to Seoul through IPOs and special dividends. Samsung's royalty payments to its parent tripled. All within… pic.twitter.com/e2Nbsuxew6

— Amar Govindarajan (@amargov) April 22, 2026




• Draining the economy: The proof is in the math: In just the last 12 months, Hyundai and LG repatriated $4.7 billion in royalties and profits. That is nearly ₹40,000 crore leaving our economy.

Localization of parts is not the same as localization of value. You can source 85% of a car’s weight (steel, rubber, glass) in India, but if the Intellectual Property (IP), engine architecture, and software ownership sit in Seoul, the wealth generated by Indian labor and…

— vijay (@Vic_Vij) April 23, 2026




• Funding the Adversary: India’s trade deficit with China has nearly tripled since Modi took office. Bankrolling China's rise which in turn lays claim to vast Indian territories including an entire state.




• You signed a trade-deal, now we will screw you: Indian exports face rising cost pressure as EU plans carbon tax expansion



• Galgotias School of Innovation: AI making work cheaper and this is a BIG Problem for Indian IT Services




• Trump kissing Xi Jinping's ass: A quiet U.S. favor for Xi Jinping.. A U.S. quota increase at the IMF would rescue China’s bad loans.
  
  Trump is scheduled to visit Beijing in May for a summit with Xi, and he will come bearing at least one surprising gift: A budget request to Congress to hand more money to Mr. Xi’s friends at the IMF.



• Chinese satellites over Mideast battlefield put US on edge: Chinese AI company MizarVision claimed on social media to have tracked the movements of American aircraft carriers, F-22 stealth fighters and B-52 bombers by using AI to analyze satellite data.



• Microwave weapon: 20-gigawatt Chinese microwave weapon touted as ‘Starlink’s worst nightmare’ by country's media — portable 5-ton device can deliver full-minute destructive bursts



• India’s “Star Wars” LASER DEFENCE: DRDO's $3 solution to a $30,000 drone problem. 100 kW Dura-2 can melt drones in seconds.




• Pakistan Is Getting a Stealth Fighter in 2026: China is ramping up the timeline to deliver J-35A to Pak



• Lesson for India, the GREAT consumer of imported tech: Iran claims US exploited networking equipment backdoors during strikes — says devices from Cisco and others failed despite blackout in attack that 'indicates deep sabotage'



• Privacy risk: Google Chrome lacks protection against one of the most basic and common ways to track users online



• Why this Chinese EV terrifies Europe’s carmakers: Luxury car makers staring at Chinese onslaught.



• China's Geely just built one of the most efficient engines ever: Geely now holds a Guinness World Record for thermal efficiency, with its new i-HEV Hybrid system rated at 48.4%



• Raag: Kamod By Manjiri Alegaonkar

iitmaa fireside chat ep 4: masterclass on semiconductors by suraj rengarajan

https://rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com/p/ep-04-masterclass-on-indias-semiconductor

Quick notes: Ditching windows | Dr Kurt Tank...

• Digital sovereignty push: France is ditching Windows for Linux... when will India do this? Claude is there to make the process smooth.



• Dr Kurt Tank and the Marut program:




• “If we can’t build it, host a summit”: India's technological progress occurs primarily in keynote presentations

Watching India pitch itself as a “rule-setter” in AI is a reminder that geopolitics now includes a new category:
Countries whose technological progress occurs primarily in keynote presentations.

India doesn’t have an AI industry, but they have an AI narrative:
“If we can’t build… pic.twitter.com/XnhLmwu2yk

— 𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘦 (@OopsGuess) February 23, 2026




• R&D poor nation: The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) proposed Rs 28,169 crore but received Rs 21,632 crore at the budget estimates stage — a reduction of nearly Rs 6,500 crore. The ministry proposed Rs 13,000 crore for the semiconductor programme but received Rs 8,000 crore at the budget estimates stage.



• A giant leap for our energy sector: India is now only the second country after Russia to operate a commercial-scale FBR. Parallel development of the third stage to leverage India’s vast thorium resources, a vision conceived by Dr Homi Bhabha.

16/

China has been trying to build a Fast Breeder Reactor for 20 years.

They've spent billions.
Bought Russian technology.
Hired foreign experts.

Their CFR-600 is still being commissioned.

India built theirs:
✅ Indigenously - no foreign reactor design
✅ With domestic…

— CA Vivek Khatri (@CaVivekkhatri) April 7, 2026




• Meta must face youth addiction lawsuit: "...designing a social media platform that capitalizes on the developmental vulnerabilities of children or by affirmatively misleading consumers about the safety of the Instagram platform" . . . . Yoga can reduce gaming addiction.



• Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in the classroom: Studies have linked heavy digital use to reduced comprehension and memory retention as well as eye strain. . . Sweden’s Education Recalibration



• Non whites are non Americans:

Trump’s lawyers can’t even say for sure if Native Americans are citizens by birth.

This administration is disgusting! pic.twitter.com/GT4iG8tvU2

— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) April 1, 2026




• Pakistan’s solar boom shielding it from worst of Iran war crisis: A quarter of Pakistani households are now using solar panels. This insulates millions of families from the energy supply crunch prompted by the US-Israel war on Iran.



• India no Vishwaguru: Acharya S.N. Goenka's interview