New Delhi: The AI race is on, and data centres to store information and build memory are needed. While India is keen to provide a space for this, it has also raised some concerns.
When Google arrived last year in Visakhapatnam, “the government rolled out the welcome mat, offering billions of dollars’ worth of incentives for the US company to build data centers for artificial intelligence”, report Rory Jones and Krishna Pokharel for The Wall Street Journal.
However, locals are concerned because the city has water problems, and water is typically required in large quantities to cool data-centre servers.
“Some fear their community will be hollowed out entirely, with many residents already pushed from land they have farmed for decades for the $15 billion project.”
While residents will get compensation for displacement, they are worried they will all be scattered.
While such centres have already faced opposition in the US, a similar wave of protests has gripped developing countries as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft “rush to capitalize on growing demand for AI in places with newly emerging middle classes”.
“Many developing-world governments have tight financial resources and more competing needs for them—yet are still offering massive subsidies for the facilities, in some cases totaling billions of dollars,” says the report.
“Developing-world communities are also more prone to water shortages. Their power grids tend to be more fragile. And given the low literacy levels in rural areas where the projects are often built, their potential impact is often poorly understood,” it adds.
Tech giants have faced heavy resistance in India as the country’s data-centre capacity is forecast to grow five-fold over the next five years, according to Morgan Stanley, says WSJ.
“Microsoft and other companies have faced allegations from residents in an Indian court that they illegally occupied public land at a data-center site under construction outside Hyderabad. Microsoft says it rejects the allegations and remains committed to complying with regulations. The case is pending.”
The Economist reports on Indian restaurants in Japan facing the threat of shutdown.
The country has 4,000-5,000 Indian restaurants with a population of only 59,000 Indians. Japan has more Indian restaurants than McDonald’s, it notes.
“Most are owned and staffed by Nepalese immigrants, who number around 300,000. Now they are in trouble. As Japanese politics turns against immigration, the government has tightened rules for the ‘business management’ visa on which most foreign restaurateurs depend,” the report says.
In recent years, the Japanese government has become wary of immigrants. And while the regulations are directed elsewhere, the humble eateries are bearing the brunt. “In recent years officials have grown suspicious that some foreigners, often rich Chinese, have used shell companies to secure visas,” says The Economist.
“In October the government raised the visa’s minimum capital requirement from ¥5m ($31,500) to ¥30m ($188,000). It also required applicants to employ at least one full-time Japanese worker or permanent resident.”
“Even Japanese firms cannot find Japanese workers. How are we supposed to?” Anju Khatri, a Nepalese restaurant owner, is quoted as saying.
The effects have been dramatic. Applications for the visa have fallen by 96 percent, the report notes.
As the gig economy widens its net with global giants preparing to enter the quick-commerce universe, Veena Venugopal interviews Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal for Financial Times.
Goyal acquired Blinkit in 2022 for $560 million. Since then, 10-minute delivery has seen an unprecedented rise, with Swiggy and Zepto as the other leading players. However, Blinkit’s market share has held steady at 50 percent.
“The rest of the industry is in a burn-to-earn mode, where they are spending $2bn for $5-6bn dollars worth of NOV. We don’t indulge in discounts, we don’t slash our delivery fee to zero. So we are actually making money,” says Goyal.
Goyal also commented on Amazon’s recent move to enter the quick commerce sector across 100 different cities with 1000 mini-warehouses. He says Amazon has the assortment ready, but they are grappling with quality of service.
“In Delhi’s national capital region, for example, our assortment now stretches to 80,000 items. Last year it was 35,000-40,000. Customers are getting more choice, and that increases our moat and long-term staying power.”
On the question of Amazon having bigger pockets than most of their competitors, Goyal says: “We also have deep pockets. If it comes to outspending Amazon, we can.”
He points out that Amazon is fundamentally new to quick commerce. “We have seen them compete in food delivery with us. They’ve shut it down. They’re not going to let go of quick commerce so easily. But we still think that we have got a better shot at winning.”
Goyal also questioned the validity of the criticism that the business is built on cheap labour. He tells Venugopal: “If there are people who are willing to work for something without being forced to, that means it’s a better economic opportunity for them.”
In The New York Times, Anupreeta Das profiles Cockroach Janta Party’s founder Abhijeet Dipke.
“Until a couple of weeks ago, Abhijeet Dipke was one of thousands of Indian students in the United States with a fresh graduate degree in hand, seeking a job. Then, a cockroach changed his life,” she writes.
Earlier this month, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant referred to young and unemployed Indians as “cockroaches” who, failing to secure jobs, end up complaining on social media or becoming activists and criticising the system.
Dipke asked, “what if all cockroaches came together?”
Encouraged by thousands of responses, Dipke formed a party and a website with the help of AI. The goal was, as Dipke told NYT, to create a movement of young people “who keep getting called lazy, chronically online, and—most recently—cockroaches”.
“Tens of millions of young people joined the movement, eager to turn a perceived insult into an emblem of pride. Within days, some of the C.J.P.’s accounts had more social media followers than India’s biggest political parties. But beyond the laughs, the instantaneous embrace of Mr. Dipke’s message tells a bigger story of the bleak mood of many young Indians who are struggling to find jobs, even though the country has been the world’s fastest-growing large economy four years in a row.”
The party now has more than one million registered members. “We are here to ask—loudly, repeatedly, in writing—where the money went,” the website reads.
Meanwhile, for Delhi’s outdoor workforce, it’s a fight between heat and survival as temperatures soar up to 45 degrees Celsius, reports Nikita Yadav in the BBC.
“In the afternoon, even walking through the market feels exhausting. But for millions of informal workers across Delhi, staying out of the heat isn’t an option,” notes the report.
Harish Chandra, 52, who pedals a cycle-rickshaw, spoke to the BBC correspondent.
“My day starts around nine in the morning, when the weather is still manageable. But by noon, it becomes difficult. The sun is so harsh that sometimes I feel my body giving up while I pedal,” he says.
But if he stops, he cannot earn. And if he doesn’t earn, he cannot feed his family.
“He recently sent his wife and three children back to their village in Bihar state. The temperatures there are equally high, he says, but open spaces and better ventilation make it easier to cope than Delhi’s cramped neighbourhoods and congested lanes,” the report adds.
Delhi is suffering from what is called the “urban heat island effect”. In Delhi, the concrete, traffic and limited green cover trap heat and keep the city hotter than surrounding areas.
While Delhi has a heat action plan in place, “much of this advice is difficult to follow in practice. Even when temperatures rise, rent has to be paid and food has to be bought”, the report notes.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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