Data centres: The watts and the water 

The full version of this column can be read online - https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/data-centres-the-watts-and-the-water/article71335930.ece

Why India is struggling to acquire critical mineral assets abroad 🔍

🧑‍💻 RUNDOWN AI

📆August 14, 2026 at 02:59PM

What is Sapta Dhara? Decoding the PM Modi’s Independence Day Speech

https://www.affairstap.com/2026/08/what-is-sapta-dhara-decoding-pm-modis.html

India's 2026 population of 142.6 crores is dominated by its younger cohorts Gen Z leads at 26%, followed closely by Gen Alpha at 24% and Millennials at 23%, meaning nearly three-fourths of the country falls under 45. Boomers account for 16%, Baby Boomers 10%, while those above 80 years form just 1% of the population.

IBC at 10: From Framework to Culture

The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 was never intended to recover debt or rescue every distressed enterprise. Its purpose was to provide India with a credible mechanism for economic exit, enabling resources to move from failing arrangements to more productive uses.

Ten years on, the IBC has substantially changed incentives, strengthened credit discipline and helped unlock value that was earlier trapped in prolonged distress. Its most significant achievement may, however, be less visible: the behavioural change it has induced. Many defaults are now resolved or restructured before formal insolvency because the consequences of default are credible.

But the second decade presents important challenges. Time discipline needs to be restored; liquidation must be recognised as a legitimate economic outcome; the Code must remain faithful to its resolution and value-maximisation objective; and stakeholder legitimacy needs greater attention.

By M S Sahoo, Former IBBI Chair

Sebi is proposing to make it easier and cheaper for investors to qualify as accredited investors (AIs), while significantly widening the pool of investors eligible for the status.

Accredited investors are individuals or entities deemed financially sophisticated enough to take on higher-risk investments.

India’s merchandise exports recorded strong growth in July 2026 despite West Asian disruptions. This reflects diversification of India’s trade geography and shipping routes.
Key Data
India’s merchandise exports stood at $44.2 billion, up 19.6% year-on-year.
Merchandise imports stood at $76.2 billion, up 17.5%.
Total exports stood at $80.14 billion, up 13.31%.
Total imports stood at $95.16 billion, up 15.83%.
The trade deficit widened to $15 billion, compared with $11.4 billion a year earlier.

AI agents can do your tasks: How, and how much should you let them? 🔍

🧑‍💻 RUNDOWN AI

📆August 17, 2026 at 06:22AM

Buy PIB 360 and AffairsTap Current Affairs (2-in-1) Magazine - July 2026

Our July 2026 edition of PIB Summary, RBI Circular Magazine and AffairsTap Monthly Current Affairs Magazine are Available Now.

Link: https://www.brajeshmohan.in/p/buy-pib-summary.html

The Impossible Trinity, Revisited.

A sharp opinion piece by Ananth Narayan (former wholetime member, Sebi) argues that RBI's large, sustained market interventions call for greater coherence in its overall policy framework — even though the central bank maintains it does not target any specific USD/INR level.

Key Highlights:

• Over the last 10 years, across spot and forward markets, RBI's net annual currency intervention has averaged about $60 billion, or 2% of GDP — with the RBI selling a significant $118 billion in FY25 to restrict the rise in USD/INR from 83.50 to 85.50

• Between April 2025 and February 2026, RBI sold another $37 billion even as USD/INR moved up to 91; following the outbreak of the Iran war, it sold a further $37 billion in March 2026, with USD/INR eventually ending the month around 93.50

• The author argues India's interest-rate policy extends beyond the MPC — RBI also intervenes heavily in bond markets and modulates banking liquidity to facilitate monetary-policy transmission, with its own bond holdings rising by ₹7.2 trillion during FY26, accounting for a substantial 40% of incremental government debt

• RBI's large bond purchases and liquidity operations have kept rupee-denominated interest rates below levels that would otherwise be required to attract discretionary savings — the benchmark 10-year India-US spread averaged just 235 basis points in FY26, a multi-year low

• The piece contends this has pushed discretionary savings away from debt and into domestic equities, contributing to pockets of overvaluation, while low interest-rate differentials also compressed forward premia — making it cheaper to hedge and speculate against the rupee, deterring foreign investment and incentivising outflows

• For now, RBI has eased the underlying "trilemma" by attracting three-to-five-year foreign funds through its heavily subsidised FX-swap window — but this doesn't eliminate the structural tension, since funds raised through the swap window keep domestic interest rates below what would otherwise be needed

• The author's proposed solution: rather than mechanical rules, RBI could adopt a broader framework — similar to inflation-targeting central banks like the ECB, RBA, BoE and BoJ — that explicitly considers the impact of large interventions on interest-rate differentials, capital flows, and exchange rates, alongside addressing structural issues like taxation of fixed-income returns and capital gains to attract more discretionary savings into deposits and debt markets.

A compelling case for RBI to formalise how it thinks about the interconnectedness of interest rates, capital flows, and exchange rates — not by targeting the rupee, but by being more transparent about the trade-offs its interventions already create.

OpenAI launched “ChatGPT for Teens” for users aged 13–17. Users identified as under 18 are automatically placed into the teen experience.
The teen version introduces additional protections against:
Self-harm and suicide-related content
Violence and dangerous activities
Sexually explicit content and romantic/sexual roleplay
Eating disorders and harmful body-image content

Zerodha is one of the few companies in India that remains family-owned, founder-led, and bootstrapped, with the Kamath brothers holding more than 84% of the company.

Since Zerodha is privately held, there is no current market valuation available. However, its closest listed competitor is Groww, operated by Billionbrains Garage Ventures Ltd.

Groww's market capitalisation is approximately ₹1,21,933 crore (around $14.5 billion), with its share price trading at around ₹194 per share on the NSE.

More importantly, Zerodha is profitable, with around 30% CAGR and a 69% EBITDA margin. Based on these financial metrics and a comparison with its listed peer, Zerodha's implied valuation could be in the range of $18-20 billion.

This is rarest in Indian Start UP Ecosystem. Fascinating Story.

Internationalisation of Rupee
Context: DGFT amended FTP 2023, allowing exporters to receive payments in rupees while retaining export incentives.

How it promotes internationalisation: Rupee can now be used for export invoicing, payment settlement and fulfilment of export obligations, expanding its role as an international trade currency.
Supporting mechanism: Payments are settled through RBI’s Special Rupee Vostro Accounts (SRVAs), introduced in 2022.
Benefits: Reduces dependence on the US dollar, lowers exchange-rate risk and transaction costs, preserves forex reserves and facilitates trade with sanction-hit countries.
Challenges: Limited global acceptability and convertibility, persistent trade deficit, exchange-rate volatility and shortage of attractive rupee-denominated assets.

Way Forward: Expand rupee-based bilateral trade, deepen financial markets, maintain macroeconomic stability and gradually liberalise the capital account.

Right to walk: Will Andhra’s pioneering pedestrian safety policy work? 🔍

🧑‍💻 RUNDOWN AI

📆August 22, 2026 at 01:42PM

GS-3 (UPSC CSE)

All doable, even the RBI, NABARD Student can address 15/20 Questions.

However the paper is Lengthy, All the Questions have multiple part.

Ind AS 117 is the Indian Accounting Standard for Insurance Contracts, aligned with the international standard IFRS 17. It sets clear rules for how companies record, measure, show, and share information about insurance contracts. It replaces the older interim standard, Ind AS 104.

What's Islamic Nato defence pact?
A defence arrangement was signed between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in September. According to Bloomberg, the pact states that “any aggression” against one member would be treated as an attack on all. Turkey, a Nato member with the second-largest military in the alliance after the US, has now formally joined the grouping at the Macca City in Saudi Arebia under MACCA Pact.

Turkey and Pakistan already have close defence cooperation. Ankara is building corvette warships for Pakistan’s navy, has upgraded Pakistan’s F-16 fighter jets, and shares drone technology with both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Turkey also now wants both countries to join its Kaan fifth-generation fighter jet programme.