🪖 Exercise Shakti

Good morning and Happy Friyay. You know the drill - have a cool weekend when it arrives 😎 

Ruchirr Sharma & Shatakshi Sharmaa  

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• 🪖 Exercise Shakti

• 🇮🇳 India widens Israel evacuation

• 🗞️ Bite-sized summaries

  • 🤖 Climate conscious AI

  • 😢 Sam Altman is disappointed

• 🧑‍🍳 What else is cookin’?

MARKETS

🇮🇳 India

• Indian stock markets ended lower for the third straight session. Broader indices underperformed, with midcap and smallcap indices down over 1.5%. Barring autos, all sectoral indices declined, reflecting cautious investor sentiment amid geopolitical tensions and volatile crude prices.

🌍️ International

• US stock markets were closed on the occasion of Juneteenth.

DEFENCE

🪖 Exercise Shakti

India and France have kicked off the eighth edition of their joint military exercise, ‘Exercise Shakti’, at Camp Larzac in southern France.

With 90 troops from each nation - India represented by the Jammu & Kashmir Rifles and France by the 13th Foreign Legion Half-Brigade—the two countries are aiming to sharpen their coordination in complex, real-world scenarios.

This year’s edition focuses on sub-conventional operations - military actions against irregular threats like insurgency or terrorism - under the framework of Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which authorizes action to restore global peace and security. In simpler terms, both nations are practicing how to fight side-by-side in peacekeeping or counter-terror missions, in environments like dense urban zones or conflict-ridden regions.

But this isn’t just about training exercises. It reflects the deepening strategic relationship between India and France - two major Indo-Pacific powers increasingly aligned on security, defense technology, and global peacekeeping goals.

Overall: Such joint exercises help build not only interoperability (how well soldiers and systems work together) but also mutual trust. At a time when global alliances are shifting and new conflicts are emerging, bilateral military cooperation like Shakti sends a strong signal: these two democracies are committed to working together for stability—both regionally and beyond.

Read more: Economic Times

EVACUATION

🇮🇳 India widens Israel evacuation

As tensions escalate between Israel and Iran, the Indian government has announced an expansion of Operation Sindhu to evacuate Indian nationals from Israel.

Originally launched on June 18 to bring back nearly 10,000 Indians from Iran, the mission now includes assistance for any of the 36,000 Indians currently in Israel who wish to return home.

The move comes amid intensifying hostilities, including Israeli strikes on Iranian facilities and retaliatory threats that have impacted civil aviation. With Ben Gurion Airport shut down, Indian citizens will now be evacuated through Israel’s land borders, likely via Jordan or Egypt, before flying back to India.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has urged Indians in Israel to register with the Embassy in Tel Aviv and stay in contact via a 24/7 control room. This marks the second major evacuation from Israel in recent years—the first being Operation Ajay in 2023 during the Israel-Hamas war.

The government’s swift response highlights its priority on citizen safety abroad. Past casualties - including Indian nationals injured or killed in cross-border conflicts and UN missions - have reinforced the need for rapid evacuation protocols.

Overall: In simple terms, India is once again stepping up to protect its people in volatile regions, using diplomatic coordination and logistical planning to ensure their safe return.

Read more: The Hindu

GENERAL OVERVIEW

🗞️ Bite-sized summaries

🤖 Climate conscious AI - As AI becomes more integrated into daily life, its environmental impact is growing. A new study finds that larger AI models consume significantly more energy and emit more carbon, often without a big accuracy gain. Researchers tested 14 open-source chatbots and found that longer, reasoning-based answers drive up emissions. The study urges choosing the right-sized model for the task — smaller ones can often do the job just as well. Power source also matters: emissions vary greatly depending on where servers are located. Experts suggest users avoid using large AI for simple tasks and stick to tools like search engines or calculators.

😢 Sam Altman is disappointed - OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, in a new podcast, expressed disappointment over Elon Musk’s alleged attempts to block the $500 billion Stargate AI data center project unless his startup xAI was included. “I didn’t think Elon would abuse his government influence to compete unfairly,” Altman said, citing The Wall Street Journal report. The Stargate UAE project, backed by SoftBank and OpenAI, aims to be the world’s largest AI infrastructure outside the U.S. Altman praised the U.S. administration for resisting pressure and shared awe at visiting the Texas site, calling the scale and pace of construction “quite something.”

HEADLINES

🧑‍🍳 What else is cookin’?

What’s happening in India (and around the world 🌍️)

• Duracell sues rival Energizer over ‘misleading’ battery life claims.

• Trump grants TikTok another 90-day extension in enforcement of sale-or-ban law.

• Sam Altman says Meta is offering $100 million to poach his employees.

• Big Four, other global firms push back against draft ICAI rules.

• Sebi tweaks for ease of doing startups