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Good morning. Apple released a new ad to highlight its new skinny iPad Pro.

The advertisement, "Crush," displays various cultural artefacts, such as instruments, books, a jukebox, and even a stress ball being crushed by a hydraulic press—a trend on TikTok. This concept has not been well received by the audience.

Many believe that transforming objects into yet another screen for people to hold appears to metaphorically crush creativity and culture.

It raises the question: Is technology conquering humanity?

- Ruchrngd Sharma & Shatakshi Sharma

📊 Markets

🇮🇳 India

• After fluctuating between gains and losses throughout the day, Indian equity indices ended flat on Wednesday. Losses from HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank counterbalanced the increases from Reliance Industries and L&T.

🌍️ International

• US stocks were mixed on Wednesday as investors grappled with the prospects for future interest rate cuts and evaluated corporate earnings reports. Remarks from Fed officials suggest rates will likely remain elevated weighed on sentiment. While big tech names have largely delivered on expectations so far this earnings season, disappointing forecasts from companies like Uber, Shopify, and Airbnb stirred concerns about the broader corporate outlook fueling an economic revival.

🏦 Nervous lenders

India consistently underinvests in capital formation.

Here’s what we mean:

• Gross Fixed Capital Formation (GFCF) refers to the development of "productive assets" in a country, such as infrastructure or manufacturing.

• In the last 20 years, India's GFCF expenditure as a percentage of GDP has not exceeded 35%, remaining at around 28-29% for the last decade. In contrast, China's GFCF expenditure has surpassed 40% of GDP every year since 2003.

A significant contributor to this pattern is the insufficient tax collection in India (you can read more about it here)

Now, a new development might complicate this issue further.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has introduced stricter rules for project financing to reduce associated risks with long-term infrastructure projects.

These draft guidelines have caused unease in the banking and NBFC sectors, with concerns that the strict regulations might hinder India's capital expenditure drive and project feasibility.

What’s happening?

• The major concern is the proposed requirement for higher provisioning of up to 5% during the construction phase of projects, even if the loan is classified as a standard asset. Once the project is operational, the provisions can be gradually reduced, but they will remain higher than current rates.

• The RBI has also suggested labeling project loans as non-performing assets (NPAs) if they experience delays beyond six months from the original deadline. Previously, many delayed projects were still classified as standard assets.

• The draft guidelines also require lenders to maintain project-specific data, specify minimum exposure levels in consortium lending, and limit the repayment tenure based on the project's economic life.

Overall: While the RBI's objective is to bolster the regulatory framework and manage risks in project finance, banks, and NBFCs are concerned that these rules could significantly affect their profitability and willingness to take on such exposures.

Analysts predict that the increased provisioning could reduce the net worth of PSU banks by 1.5-3% and possibly raise the interest rates for project finance loans by 1-1.5 percentage points.

As the public consultation process continues, lenders are expected to oppose the proposals, arguing that the increased costs could jeopardize project feasibility and impede India's infrastructure growth. 

Read more: Economic Times

🌡️ Weather Union

Zomato just launched a pioneering initiative called 'Weather Union' - India's first crowd-sourced weather infrastructure. 

Developed in collaboration with the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences at IIT Delhi, Weather Union comprises a network of over 650 on-ground weather stations across 45 major cities.

Here’s how it works: 

• These stations capture real-time data on temperature, humidity, wind speed, rainfall, and other meteorological parameters. 

• The data is then optimised using machine learning algorithms to ensure operational continuity under any weather conditions.

Why now?

• According to Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal, access to precise real-time weather information is crucial for making informed business decisions to better serve customers. 

• He highlighted that Weather Union holds significant potential for unlocking weather-related use cases across enterprises and research institutions.

The best part? Zomato has opened up free access to this weather data for all companies and institutions in India because they believe that leveraging real-time weather intelligence can boost productivity and efficiency across various sectors of the economy.

Overall: The food delivery giant is encouraging volunteers to host weather stations at their premises, contributing to the expansion of this nationwide infrastructure. 

Weather Union will operate as a not-for-profit initiative under the Zomato umbrella alongside the company's existing CSR program, Feeding India.

With its open-source approach and commitment to crowdsourcing, Zomato's Weather Union aims to democratize access to critical weather data and drive innovation across India's diverse sectors.

Read more: Inc 42

🗞️ Bite-sized summaries

📜 India breaks a world record - India broke the record by receiving over $111 billion in remittances in 2022, becoming the first country to surpass the $100 billion threshold, according to the United Nations' International Organisation for Migration (IOM) World Migration Report 2024. This was driven by a large number of Indian migrant workers, especially in the Gulf states. It was noted that nearly 18 million Indians are international migrants, making India the largest source globally, with major diasporas in UAE, USA and Saudi Arabia.

✈️ Something in the air - Air India Express has been forced to curtail its flight schedule for several days due to over 100 cabin crew members calling in sick since Tuesday evening, apparently to protest changes in HR policies as the airline merges with AIX Connect. The mass sick leave by a section of the crew, mainly senior members, caused network-wide disruptions affecting over 90 flights on Wednesday. The disruptions led to passenger complaints about cancellations and delays, prompting the aviation ministry to seek a report and proper passenger facilities from the airline.

💻️ New iPads - Apple unveiled a redesigned iPad Pro lineup focused on AI capabilities, featuring a new 13-inch model that is 5.1mm thin and the company's thinnest product ever, along with an 11-inch version. Both Pro models have a faster M4 chip with an enhanced neural engine for AI tasks and a brighter OLED display, but higher $999 and $1,299 starting prices. Apple also launched a larger 13-inch iPad Air with an M2 chip alongside the updated 11-inch model starting at $599 and $799 respectively. The iPads aim to reinvigorate sales after a slump, with new premium accessories like an aluminium Magic Keyboard case.

🧑‍🍳 What else is cookin’?

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

• Sam Pitroda steps down as Indian Overseas Congress Chairman as row erupts over his ‘Chinese, African’ remark.

• Paytm offers ₹100 cashback for UPI users amid PSP bank transition. 

• Billionaires alone won’t turn Narendra Modi’s India into a rich country.

• Google brings its Wallet app to India in a digitisation push.

• RBI lifts restrictions on Bank of Baroda's 'Bob World' mobile app, allowing onboarding customers.

• Google contends its app store doesn't abuse dominance.

• AstraZeneca withdraws Covid-19 vaccine, citing low demand.

🍿 Entertainment, Entertainment, Entertainment

• SRH won by 10 wickets against LSG and moved to number 3 on the scorecard. Latest IPL leaderboard here.

• Ranveer Singh inaugurates Mumbai’s Tiffany & Co. store at Jio World. Celebrities including Karishma Kapoor, Masaba Gupta and Khushi Kapoor grace the blue carpet.

• Director Sangeeth Sivan, known for Zor, Apna Sapna Money Money, dies at 65.

• Huma Qureshi AKA Pushpa Pandey Joins Jolly LLB 3.

• Kylian Mbappe’s final match for Paris Saint-Germain ends in a Champions League semi-final defeat to Borussia Dortmund.

• Real Madrid beat Bayern Munich 2-1 (4-3 on aggregate) to advance to the Champions League final.