Hi, I’m Bhuvan.This is my commonplace book.

A tale of two Chinas

Outside China, the key question is whether companies use Chinese technology or compete against it. Cheaper Chinese industrial robots and machinery can boost productivity and ease labor shortages for their customers. For rival producers, the economics are less appealing. European machinery makers illustrate the squeeze. China has moved from a major buyer of advanced machinery to a formidable competitor at home and abroad. In…

Sales of weight loss drugs in India

Spurious drugs are a recurring problem in India, said Mahesh Zagade, a former commissioner of the Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration. He said that while the country’s laws are robust, implementation and enforcement have been lacking. Short-staffed regulators, the possibility of corruption, and easy access to raw materials have contributed to the problem, in his view. “This is a failure of the official machinery,” he…

Indian government sucks at industrial policy

I’d say that I am not against the government’s actions; I am very much for the government’s actions on dealing with the fundamentals. So let’s focus on public goods such as education and healthcare, let’s focus on building good roads, let’s focus on creating a good business environment, let’s focus on utilities, let’s focus on water, electricity, logistics. These are areas where you have a much better chance of success…

Begum Aizaz Rasul

With the enactment of the Government of India Act 1935, the couple joined the Muslim League and entered electoral politics. In the 1937 elections, she was one of the few women who successfully contested from a non-reserved seat and was elected to the U.P legislative assembly. Begum Aijaz Rasul remained a member until 1952. She held the office of the Deputy President of the council from 1937 to 1940 and acted as the Leader of…

How much foreign investment did India attract?

New entry in This Indian Life

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Diarization

NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Diarization is an open-weight, 100M-parameter model that ranks #1 on VoiceArena's Diarization-Bench leaderboard with a 14.72% Diarization Error Rate (DER). Supporting up to eight speakers across live and recorded conversations, it handles overlapping speech, chunked processing for flexible recording lengths, and customizable streaming latency

Galbraith’s Antidote to Economic Dogma

I react to what is necessary. I would like to eschew any formula. There are some things where the government is absolutely inevitable, which we cannot get along without comprehensive state action. But there are many things — producing consumer goods, producing a wide range of entertainment, producing a wide level of cultural activity — where the market system, which independent activity is also important, so I react…