TK Arun

TK Arun

TK Arun is a Senior Journalist and Columnist based in Delhi.
  • Articles: 0

China’s Manufacturing Resilience: Insights from Industrial Robots and AI

Many analysts would appear to be in a hurry to write off China as the world’s leading manufacturing powerhouse, based on the US desire to diversify supply chains away from China or, at least, adopt a China plus One strategy, the onset of population decline in China, the sharp rises in Chinese wages and the troubles that have, of late, pulled down China’s growth rate. It would be wise to hasten slowly, going by insights from the International Federation of Robotics’ World Robotics Report 2023, particularly, its volume devoted to industrial robots, and the global trend of arming robots with artificial intelligence of assorted kinds.

Influence of Sheikhs over Gaza

Like Israeli hardliners, Arab regimes don’t want a democratic Palestinian state. Such a state may well threaten govts defined by the kings-emirs-theocracy formula.

As Israel pounds the Gaza Strip, targeting Hamas after its terror strike against Israel that killed a reported 1,300 people, mostly civilians including children, and the stage is set for mass casualties in Gaza, where do the rights and wrongs of the Israel-Palestine conflict fall?
Some propositions of America’s Declaration of Independence are couched in universal terms that offer a framework to answer that question, one that resonates with Indian foreign policy as well. All peoples are entitled to separate and equal status, and, within a people, everyone is entitled to the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The Persistence of India’s Angel Tax: A Menace to Startups and the Need for Reform

Angel and tax combine as naturally as do gold and rust, or, say, deer and hyena. That, of course, is in the real world. In the world of Indian taxation, things are a bit different. The so-called Angel Tax, introduced in 2012, has undergone various bits of cosmetic surgery, in order to make this grotesque mutant look less threatening, but it remains a menace to Indian startups. The latest attempt to soothe frayed nerves in the startup universe has been a clarification that bars the tax from haunting the premises of startups recognised by the department for promotion of industry and internal trade. Instead of pulling a fang or blunting a claw of this tax monster, what needs to be done is to slay it once and for all

Two Mergers and Future Alerts for Carbon Capture, Use Technologies and Gaming

TK Arun Over the last week, there have been two big corporate mergers whose significance we would do well to appreciate. ›ExxonMobil’s acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources, a shale oil biggie in the Permian Basin, for $59.5 billion. ›Microsoft’s acquisition…

Sugar-Coated Illusions: The Flaws of Ethanol Fuel

If there is a wild goose running for its life ahead of the target to blend ethanol into petrol up to 20 per cent of the volume by the end of 2025-26, it is keeping itself pretty invisible. But make no mistake, any attempt to use a farm-grown crop like sugarcane to produce biofuels is little more than a wild goose chase.

Idea of Feminist Economics Winning the Nobel Prize: Good News for Women

Empowering women to make life choices, respecting their autonomy, and men's readiness to share in household chores and care work is the way ahead.

This year's Economics Nobel, awarded to a woman economic historian, Claudia Goldin, honours analytical scrutiny to questions of not just economic growth but also of sociology and of quotidian attitudes of men and women in domestic, even intimate, spaces.

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