The Blue Tsunami

 

The 2006 war in Iraq aided democrats in wresting both houses of Congress from George Bush. It is after 20 years, in 2026, that the Republican President, Mr Trump, lost both houses to Democrats due to the Iran war. Starting in the Midwest, the rout ran southward, dragging the fate of Republicans along with it.

Agonised by the rising cost of living, high fuel prices, and the impact of high trade tariffs on agriculture sector and perhaps the way the US is being stewarded by the present Republican regime, voters even in conservative bastions—Kansas, Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas—who, two years ago, put Mr Trump in white House for a second term, dramatically turned toward Democrats.

How else can one explain the victory of a Democrat, Adam Hamilton, to the Senate from Kansas—a state that had elected exclusively Republican senators for the last 94 years? Or, take South Carolina— a State Mr Trump won by nearly 18 points just two years ago— elected Ms Annie Andrews, a paediatrician, over Mr Trump’s hand-picked Republican candidate..  

The 2026 midterm elections indeed turned out several unprecedented milestones in representation: Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat, won a bitter race in Michigan, defeating Republican Mike Rogers to become the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate in history; New Hampshire elected Chris Pappas, the first out gay man to the Senate; Peggy Flanagan, the first native American woman, became the Senator from Minnesota; and a 29-year-old Democrat, Melat Kiros, became the first Gen Z woman in Congress.

Another noteworthy outcome of the mid-term elections is: Keisha Lance Bottoms, a Democrat from the South, became Georgia’s first Black woman governor. Equally interesting is the victory of Gina Hinojosa over the incumbent Republican, making her the first Latina governor of Texas. Democrat Amy Acton defeated high-profile Republican Vivek Ramaswamy to become Ohio’s first female governor.

Niceties aside, the outcome of the midterm elections poses a challenge to Democrats. The Democratic candidates campaigned across the country against Mr Trump’s handling of the economy. They placed ‘affordability’ concerns at the centre of their campaign.

But once settled in the House in January 2027, they will find themselves with no direct levers to bring down prices, which have indeed become a drag on many Americans’ budgets. And we know the effect of a party’s failure to fulfil campaign promises. Incidentally, it is this very inability of the present Republican administrative setup that led to their rout in the midterm elections.

At best, Democrats may be able to hold Trump’s administration accountable for corruption charges by initiating investigations. But on the critical issue of ‘affordability’, they can do very little to actually lower prices beyond drafting bills designed to send a message about their commitment to campaign promises. This policy limitation may pose a major challenge for the Democrats in the 2028 presidential campaign.

Democratic senators can, of course, block Mr Trump’s nominees, including the US Supreme Court justices, should a vacancy arise. But that is not what matters most to the voters. As the Democratic Party’s Senate minority leader said, “Americans voted for a change, and now Democrats must deliver”.   

Reacting to the poll results, Mr Trump, against the apprehensions of many, accepted the verdict and congratulated Democrats, saying, “They did a good job. They have been looking for this one for 11 years, and they finally got it.” He even said that he would work with Democrats on issues such as immigration—a good omen—but at the same time he also threatened to veto any “insane” bills they passed.

That aside, in his usual style, Mr Trump —who asked voters in the campaign to pretend he was on the ballot— deflated the blame for the failure at the polls from his shoulders by declaring that it was not he who was on the ballot and that if he were, “we would have won in a landslide”.

The new remake of the Senate may not make much difference to India. But in some quarters, there is hope that with the weakened political footing of the President and the new House of Congress swinging in an anti-tariff direction, India may be able to negotiate for a favourable, rule-based trade agreement. But Mr Trump, being what he is, may not show much enthusiasm to sign the Bilateral Trade Agreement with India that quickly and smoothly, especially when he has nothing much to gain out of it.

However, if the Senate succeeds in pushing the White House toward a diplomatic exit from this "costly war of choice" to provide immediate relief to global energy markets and domestic inflation, India could breathe easier, for a restored free flow of crude and gas from the Gulf would significantly ease its inflationary pressures. It would also ease the pressure on the rupee. But the big question remains: Will Mr Trump yield to Democratic pressure?

Similarly, with a Democratic Congress at the helm, India expects that immigration policies will be shaped by structured debates and a predictable and stable framework rather than abrupt, tweet-based rule changes. Yet, this too could turn out to be wishful thinking, for Mr Trump has already aggressively signalled his intent to use his veto power.

So, global geopolitics is set to run through an uncertainty corridor at least until the new Congress officially convenes in Washington in January 2027.

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Munimāṇikyaṃ Narasiṃhārāvu

 

Munimanikyam Narasimha Rao(1898-1973) was a celebrated Telugu humourist, playwright, and novelist. He brought middle-class domestic life into mainstream Telugu literature. He revolutionized Telugu short story writing by introducing subtle, wholesome family humour.

His most enduring contribution to Telugu literature is the creation of "Kantham", a fictional character modelled as an affectionate, witty, and clever middle-class housewife. Through a series of semi-autobiographical and domestic sketches, he depicted the everyday banter, light-hearted squabbles, and deep affection between Kantham and her husband. This character became a household name across Andhra Pradesh, for she was a realistic embodiment of domestic harmony.

కాంతం అన్న మాట వినగానే మునిమాణిక్యం గారు గుర్తొస్తారు. మునిమాణిక్యం గారి పేరు వినగానే కాంతం గుర్తొస్తుంది. ఇంతగా మమేకమైన పాత్రకర్త, పాత్ర తెలుగు సాహిత్యంలో బహుశా అరుదు. అందుకేనేమో సమకాలీన విమర్శకులు వీరిని హిస్టరీ- మేస్టరీ నుండి కథక మాణిక్యంగా ఎదిగారు అని కొనియాడారు. అందుకే ఈ రూపాంతరం చరిత్ర మనందరం తెలుసుకోవాల్సిందే.

             ముగ్ధగా అడుగిడి, ప్రౌఢగా చెలాయించుకుంటూ, ‘అహం సర్వకామ సమృద్ధినీ’ అన్నట్లుగా అన్నిటా తానై కథానాయకుడి సంసారాన్ని సుఖమయంగా నడిపించడమే గాక, పెద్ద ముత్తయిదుగా వీధిలో వాళ్ళందరికీ ఏది మంచో ఏది చెడో విడమరిచి చెప్తూ బతికిన నాలుగు రోజులు తియ్యగా, తృప్తిగా, ఆనందంగా, ఆహ్లాదంగా గడిపి వెళ్లిన కాంతం పాత్రకి తన సతీమణి శేషగిరమ్మే స్ఫూర్తి అని మునిమాణిక్యం గారే చెప్పుకున్నారన్న వినికిడి వీరి జీవిత యాత్ర గురించి తెలుసుకోవడానికి మరో బలీయమైన కారణం.

          అలా అని ఆద్యంతం సుఖమయంగా సాగిన కాంతం సంసారానికి అంతా కాంతం తెలివొక్కటే కారణం అనుకోడానికి వీల్లేదు—"వ్యాపిన్యై నమ: అంటూ కాంతం అన్నదానికల్లా తలూపి ‘ఫాలోయర్’గా నడుచుకున్న కథానాయకుడు కూడా గొప్పవాడే. మరి కాంతం పాత్రకి మాస్టారి భార్య స్ఫూర్తి అయినప్పుడు కథానాయకుడి పాత్రకు స్ఫూర్తి ఎవరు అన్న ప్రశ్న ఉదయించడం సహజం—కదా?

          ఏదేమైనా, దంపతుల ఇష్టాఇష్టాలు, వాటిని సమకూర్చుకోవటంలో దొర్లే విసుర్లు, కోపతాపాలు, అలకలు చివరకు సమన్వయాలు ఇత్యాదులు సంసారాల్లో సర్వసాధారణం! కాంతం కథల్లో కథానాయకుడు వెంకట్రావులా మగవాడు అందం, విరహం, వియోగం వంటి ఊహల్లో తేలిపోతూ ఉండటం కూడా సహజమే. ఊహాజగత్తులో తేలిపోతున్న భర్తకు ఆత్మీయత, అంత: సౌందర్యమే సంసార సుఖానికి ‘మదర్ బోర్డ్’ అని తెలియచెప్పి, పైత్యాన్ని వేళాకోళాలతో, సమరస భావనలతో, నర్మగర్భ సంభాషణలతో దులిపి వాస్తవ జగత్తులోనికి రప్పించడం తెలిసిన కాంతం సంసార యాత్ర మనకింకో పాఠం చెబుతుంది.

          అయిష్టతను ప్రదర్శించడం భార్యాభర్తలకు తెలియాలి. అంతకంటే ముఖ్యం ప్రదర్శించిన అయిష్టతను—భార్యదే కావచ్చు లేదా భర్తేదే కావచ్చు—ఆబ్జెక్టివ్ గా చూడగలిగిన సంస్కారం ఇద్దరిలో ఉంటే ఇర్రిటెంట్స్ ఉద్భవించవు. అప్పుడే విశ్లేషణ పుట్టుకొస్తుంది… దాని ద్వారా హేతువు, తద్వారా రావల్సిన, కావల్సిన మార్పులు ఆవిర్భవిస్తాయి. దాంపత్యాన్ని ఆనందించగలిగే కళ అబ్బుతుంది. అప్పుడు ఆ సంసారం ఆనందమయంగాక ఏమవుతుంది?

          వేషభాషలు శరవేగంగా మారుతున్న ఈ రోజుల్లో కూడా ఇవన్నీ సర్వసామాన్యం. ఒక రకంగా చెప్పాలంటే ఈనాటి స్పర్ధ, క్షణక్షణ సంఘర్షణ, అంతులేని అనిశ్చిత, ఇత్యాదులతో కూడిన జీవనపథంలో ఈ 'సాఫ్ట్ వేర్ అవసరం ఇంకా ఎక్కువైనట్లనిపిస్తుంది.

          అవసరాలే మానవ సంబంధాలకు అంకురార్పణగా మారుతున్న ఈ యుగంలో, అవగాహనలకు, అప్యాయతలకు టైం దొరకని ఈనాటి దాంపత్యాయనంలో పరస్పరం మనసులెరిగి మమత పెంచే, అభిమానాలు పంచే ప్రవర్తనను తన సొంతకళగా అలవరచుకొన్న కాంతం నుంచీ, కాంతం సంసారాన్నుంచి ఈనాటి యువత నేర్చుకోదగింది ఎంతో ఉంది.

          మానవ స్వభావాన్ని జీవిత విధానాల్ని పూర్తిగా ఆకళింపు చేసుకొని ఇతరుల నొప్పింపక తానొవ్వక సంసార నావకు చుక్కాని తిప్పిన కాంతం గురించి తెలుసుకోవాలి. తెలుసుకొని ఆ కిటుకుల్ని ఆవాహం చేసుకోవాలి, ఆచరించాలి, ఆనందించాలి.

          అప్పుడే పరుగులిడే జీవితంలో ఏర్పడే, ఏర్పడుతున్న స్తబ్ధతను తొలగించుకుంటూ ఉన్నంతలో—ఉన్నంత సమయంలో, ఉన్నంత సౌకర్యాలతో, ఉన్నంత ఆర్థిక వనరులతో—దాంపత్య జీవితంలోని మాధుర్యాన్ని ఆస్వాదించవచ్చు. వెరసి ఇవన్నీ తెలుసుకోవాలంటే ఈ గుణగణాలన్నింటినీ ఒకచోట ప్రోగు చేసి “కాంతం కథలు”, “నేను - మా కాంతం”, “కాంతం కాపురం”, “కాంతం కైఫీయత్తు”  వంటి సంకలనాల ద్వారా కాంతాన్ని మనకు పరిచయం చేసిన సృష్టికర్త, మునిమాణిక్యం మాస్టారి కథలు చదవాల్సిందే.

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eMudhra’s Compromised Tokens: A New Security Challenge

 

eMudhra Ltd. is a Bengaluru-headquartered digital trust and cybersecurity company operating as India’s largest licensed Certifying Authority (CA). Its core business revolves around digital trust services, identity verification, and paperless transformation solutions using Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) technology. In short, it serves as a digital “trust backbone”, ensuring machine-to-machine communications are authenticated, secure and legally recognized.

On October 19, 2026, an independent researcher found that eight of eMudhra’s private keys—which are supposed to be unguessable, mathematically random numbers used to verify the legitimacy of secure websites—associated with eight of its intermediate certificates were mathematically flawed. A bug in eMudhra’s certificate generation script back in April 2025 had accidentally tied the private keys to their publicly distributed certificates, and these keys were so hilariously weak—the private keys of certificates were generated with zero mathematical strength; one was as small as the single-digit “4”—that they could be cracked and recovered in no time using basic math, that too, without needing to hack eMudhra’s servers.

The damage that the flawed keys caused could have been catastrophic to the foundation of internet security. For, with the so weakly generated keys, malicious actors or State-sponsored hackers could have self-issued perfectly valid, authentic-looking digital Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)/Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificates for any website on the internet, such as Google.com, Microsoft.com or major banking portals. As the forged certificates are signed by a trusted authority—eMudhra—web browsers would be deceived into trusting them, enabling spoofing and man-in-the-middle attacks. Attackers could have seamlessly captured, read and altered supposedly secure data in real time, including corporate login credentials and passwords, credit card details and bank account numbers, private emails, and medical records.

Fortunately, this vulnerability remained unnoticed in the wild for almost 17 months—no end-entity certificates had been issued through them—until it was discovered by a conscientious researcher who ran an open-source auditing tool designed to check public certificate databases for low-randomness mathematical errors. Immediately on noticing the flaw, he sent a note to major browser vendors such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Mozilla. These bodies responded immediately with coordinated defense measures to neutralize the threat, bypassing the standard revocation timelines and pushing the emergency software patches directly to billions of devices worldwide. These updates hardcoded a permanent blocklist that completely untrusted eMudhra’s compromised roots. Reports also indicate that Google’s Chrome Root Program is actively collaborating with international root-store operators and software maintainers to audit whether eMudhra’s remaining domestic CA certificates can safely remain trusted. That said, it must also be admitted that non-browser TLS clients such as millions of older Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices, smart appliances, and legacy embedded systems face most of the remaining risk.

In a press interview, the cofounder of eMudhra said that the keys came out of a formal key generation exercise when an error in an additional wrap-unwrap step for keys intended for international operations produced weak keys alongside the intended strong ones. In the process, the company’s market valuation suffered a catastrophic crash (lost 34% of market cap in two successive sessions) on the stock market. It even forced the firm to exit from the global SLL/TLS certificate business entirely. Concurrently, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has taken cognisance of the incident and appointed a committee to investigate the human error and audit the oversight failures that allowed the script error to happen unnoticed. It thus became a textbook example of what happens when the core rule of cryptography—keeping a private key mathematically complex and completely secret—is entirely broken.

When asked if the firm can assure that the Indian users of digital-signature services used for GST filings, income tax returns and other government services are not affected by the incident, the cofounder of the company said: “The Indian DAC business runs on a completely isolated and separate infrastructure” and “there has been no incident similar to this”. He further said: “We plan to introduce more stringent oversight of key-generation ceremonies, additional maker-checker controls and artificial intelligence tools to automatically verify key strength”.

Over and above all this, eMudhra episode—basic cryptographic hygiene overridden by a code script-flaw—posits an important question: Will it have any impact on India’s digital technology and cybersecurity reputation? Historically speaking, similar failures—DigiNotar of Netherlands/ WoSign of China—permanently damaged global trust in those nations’ security systems. All along, we have positioned ourselves as a global leader in digital public infrastructure through platforms like Aadhaar, UPI, and eSign. But with the eMudhra episode, that image is likely to be eroded: the country’s credibility in engineering high-security, sovereign PKI will be called into question.  

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Nobel for Macroeconomic Stabilization

 

The 2026 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was jointly awarded to American economists Robert E. Hall, professor of economics and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, emeritus, and Michael Woodford, professor of political economy at Columbia University, “for [their] microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilization”. Their “new macroeconomic models” – two complementary bodies of work developed independently by these two that together provided microeconomic foundations of the New Keynesian framework – are known to “have significantly improved our ability to implement effective stabilization policy”. The Chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences further observed that “with them, we are better equipped to deal with shocks in the economy, such ‌as energy crises or sudden changes in how much households consume".

To better appreciate the significance of these laureates’ work, let us travel back to the 1970s, a time when the oil shocks of 1973 led to stagflation— simultaneous high inflation and high unemployment— challenging central banks of the US, UK, and other developed nations. In an attempt to curb rising unemployment, the Fed, operating under a traditional Keynesian framework, initially underreacted to the inflationary threat by keeping monetary policy too accommodative—an attempt to manage aggregate demand to curb rising unemployment—but this made inflation harder to control. This led workers to demand higher wages to keep up with rising costs. In turn, this led businesses to raise prices to cover higher wages, ultimately creating a wage-price spiral. The result was deeply embedded inflation which lasted longer—till Volker’s aggressive interest rate hikes in the late 70s and early 80s.  

It is during this crisis that Dr Robert Hall revolutionized our understanding of how the economy functions by publishing his seminal paper in 1978 titled “Stochastic Implications of the Life Cycle–Permanent Income Hypothesis: Theory and Evidence,” examining consumer behavior and studying how people decide how much to spend. Hall argued that people make spending decisions based on their expectations of future income. They change their spending when new information or unexpected shocks alter those expectations. Since new information cannot be predicted, changes in consumer spending cannot be reliably predicted either; thus he introduced the “random walk” hypothesis of consumption. Contrary to older consumption theories, Hall posited that consumption is independent of past income patterns and should exhibit a martingale property, that is, that changes in consumption are unpredictable and only respond to unexpected changes in future income. By shifting the focus to micro-level, forward looking expectations, Dr Hall presented the missing foundation for central banks to navigate shocks, anchor inflation and implement effective macroeconomic stabilization policies. Simply put, he made ‘expectations’ and ‘information’ central to the understanding of how the economy functions.

Using Hall’s forward-looking consumer theory, Dr Woodford built a new monetary policy framework, which he explained in detail in his 2003 book Interest and Prices: Foundations of a Theory of Monetary Policy. He integrated Hall’s rational expectations framework into a microeconomic analysis of how firms adjust prices. It rests on four core pillars: one, microeconomic ‘sticky prices’ and menu costs: he argued that businesses do not continuously or instantly change prices when broader demand or production costs change, for such changes lead to microeconomic frictions such as physical costs, structural adjustments, and managing buyer relationships. As prices are thus microeconomically sticky, when aggregate demand falls, businesses will first cut output and reduce hiring workers before lowering their prices. Two, forward-looking price setting: Paralleling Hall’s consumer logic, Woodford asserted that businesses do not just take cognizance of today’s raw material costs or immediate demand when pricing the goods, but rather determine prices based on rational expectations of future economic conditions. Three, the new Keynesian Phillips Curve: this mathematically synthesized curve based on microeconomic pricing behaviors states that today’s inflation is a direct function of expected future inflation and real marginal costs; and four, strategic complementarity and relative prices: Woodford emphasizes that pricing decisions are highly interdependent; for instance, if a firm increases its price while its competitors do not, it loses its market share.   

Thus, by integrating Hall’s forward-looking consumer theory, Woodford proposed the New Keynesian stabilization framework, which asserts that a central bank’s most potent weapon is not the physical money supply that it prints, but its ability to manage public expectations. Indeed, as households and price-setting businesses are always looking ahead while making decisions, ‘forward guidance’ has become a structural policy tool for central banks to influence public spending, borrowing, and pricing decisions of businesses today. He has also shown in his book how the tools of the New Keynesian framework can be used to design an optimal inflation-targeting regime—one that balances stabilzation goals with the pursuit of price stability that rests on an explicit welfare analysis.  

By reconstructing traditional Keynesian frameworks to reflect the realities of forward-looking human behavior, Hall and Woodford rewrote the macroeconomic stabilization toolkit, which central banks and governments are now adopting to anchor inflation, tame business cycles, and successfully navigate global economic shocks with transparency and credibility. Thus came into existence the broader New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE model) as the modern benchmark framework for central banks to bridge the gap between microeconomic behaviour and macroeconomic policy.

That said, the New Keynesian stabilization framework has its own limitations: while highly effective at smoothing normal, demand-driven business cycles, it is not that effective at addressing structural turbulence from pandemics, wars and supply chain disruptions driven by geopolitical tensions.

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AI: Producers Cannot Be the Guardrails

 

Anthropic, a frontier lab in AI, has approached public markets for an initial public offering with a stark warning that advanced AI could pose “catastrophic and existential risks to humanity”. Indeed, it is said that Anthropic devoted roughly 80 pages of its S-1 prospectus to list risk factors associated with autonomous ‘rogue’ AI agents that could behave unpredictably and escape human control. The prospectus explicitly highlights specific behavioral risk categories and real-world system vulnerabilities such as self-preserving behaviors and resistance to shutdown, information manipulation and concealment, evaluation awareness (deception during testing), coercive and deceptive tactics (blackmail), uncharted legal and liability risks, exploitation and misuse (the ‘uplift’ risk), etc.

The world had already seen how AI agents orchestrated and covered up the attack on Hugging Face: they generated well over 17,000 cyberattack log events, with around 1200 AI agents working together as a swarm for weeks, repeatedly doing the same thing to solve a cyber-challenge set by OpenAI. Similar instances of models escaping isolated digital “sandboxes”—the secure testing environments created to carry out internal safety evaluations to catch rogue model behaviors— were reported by Anthropic, Meta, and China’s Moonshot. Indeed, as many as 200 instances of agent misbehaviour were reported—some of them potentially dangerous. 

This dangerous phenomenon raises a battery of questions: When such behavior inflicts losses, who compensates for losses, the developer or the human in control? Do enterprises have safety protocols? What regulatory frameworks are put in place by the government? Experts opine that regulators are slow in building frameworks, even though enterprises are actively integrating AI into their workflows.

Amidst the growing anxiety, the US President, along with leading technology companies, unveiled a safety pact called “Super Intelligence Joint Commitment on Frontier Responsibilities” on September 29, 2026. The pact proposes four layers of controls within companies: under the first layer, companies to put in place internal controls to monitor AI capabilities and alignment of “super intelligence models” during both training and development stages, particularly for risks such as cyberattacks, gaining unintended access to external servers, biosecurity and chemical threats; second layer mandates establishment of a dedicated internal team to monitor whether those safeguards are working as intended; under the third layer, an independent external team audits these safeguards to declare that company’s real-world safety efforts are genuinely working; and, the fourth layer envisages the establishment of an independent board-level committee to review all internal and external safety audit reports and ensure that corporate executives take direct responsibility for the behavior of their frontier technologies.

This has obviously, and unsurprisingly, attracted much criticism from international experts who labeled it “a pact with no teeth”. They posed several critical questions: How willing would a company driven by fierce competition and commercial incentives be to follow the pact true to its spirit? What if corporations hide internal technical failures? Importantly, can an industry be left to regulate itself when the consequences of its failure could extend far beyond individual companies?

One answer to these questions could be establishing a legally enforceable regulatory framework, just as the EU put in place its landmark AI Act. Governments may, therefore, have to establish legally enforceable standards defining the responsibilities of AI companies for testing, reporting, incident disclosure and corrective action. Such a framework must also provide room for regulators to investigate incidents involving AI agents causing harm by operating outside prescribed safeguards, and impose proportionate penalties.

The next big challenge that equally merits attention is: international coordination, for AI competition between countries could create an incentive to flout safeguards. Interestingly, when AI titans—Sam Altman of OpenAI, Elon Musk of SpaceX, and Dario Amodei of Anthropic—called for slowing the pace of work on cutting-edge models given the risks to humanity, the US dismissed the calls, insisting that the US must beat China in the AI race.  And, the authoritarian China, which considers AI as a crucial tool for its economic and military modernization, is equally in a great hurry to overtake the US. Which is why, some tech bosses in the US warn that a slowdown in the US alone is ineffective so long as China and other countries push themselves ahead.

Governments should therefore consider establishing an international safety regulator to enforce uniform safety principles beyond agreed guardrails under the US voluntary pact. In this context, it is encouraging to note that in the recent meeting in Washington, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Donald Trump agreed to establish a bilateral “communication channel” to address AI-related incidents, though no details are available as to how the channel will work. Nevertheless, coordinated and enforceable guardrails alone can protect humanity against the existential threats posed by super intelligence AI models.

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Tata Sons: What Next

 

On 11^th September, RBI issued a letter rejecting a long-pending application from Tata Sons to voluntarily surrender its registration as a core investment company. This has a huge impact on the Tata Group’s ownership structure and, perhaps, the future of the group itself. Before getting into the nitty-gritty of the storm it subsequently triggered at the Bombay House, let us first understand the unique architecture of Tata Group companies.

Tata Sons is the privately held principal investment holding company and promoter of 31 Tata Group companies, including TCS, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Titan, Indian Hotels, Tata Capital, Tata Power, Tata Consumer Products, Tata Chemicals, Tata Global Beverages, Tata Investment Corporation, etc., besides unlisted companies in critical sectors such as aerospace and defence, electronics and semiconductor manufacturing. Each of these publicly listed Group companies operates independently under the supervision of its own board of directors.  As of March 31, 2025, the aggregate market capitalisation of 26 publicly listed Group companies stood at around $328 billion. 

About sixty-six per cent of the equity share capital of Tata Sons Pvt Ltd is held by philanthropic trusts, viz., Sir Dorabji Tata Trust (SDTT), the Sir Ratan Tata Trust (SRTT), and a few other similar Tata family trusts.  These trusts, which receive dividends from Tata Sons, support education, health, livelihood generation and art and culture. The only outside stakeholder in Tata Sons is the Shapoorji Pallonji (SP) Group, which owns around 18.37% equity stake through its investment companies, Sterling Investment Corporation and Cyrus Investments. The rest of the equity is held by Tata Group companies (12.86%) and a few other Tata family members (2.87%).    

This being the peculiar structure of Tata Sons, in March 2024, when Ratan Tata was alive, its board had considered the question of public listing and unanimously decided that it should remain unlisted. Accordingly, it proactively prepaid ₹ 21813 crore in debt during 2024 to become “debt-free” and claim the qualification for deregistration as a Core Investment Company (CIC). It is this request for deregistration that the RBI has now rejected, directing Tata Sons to comply with the regulatory framework applicable to an upper-layer non-banking financial company, which means it must go for public listing.  

As the Tata Trusts, majority stakeholders of Tata Sons, are wrestling with this new challenge, Tata Sons board that met on 17^th September passed two resolutions backed by a majority of four directors’ votes: One, to initiate steps to comply with the applicable RBI Upper-Layer NBFC guidelines, and two, to reappoint N. Chandrasekaran as the Executive Chairman for a fresh five-year term.  But Noel Tata, Chairman of Tata Trusts and the nominee director of the Trusts on the board of Tata Sons, was the only one who voted against these two resolutions.

The board meeting brought out the deep-rooted discord between the Tata Sons board and its principal shareholder, Tata Trusts, into the open. Indeed, this meeting was labelled as acrimonious and unseemly. Noel Tata is reported to have said in a note to the Board that RBI “does not mention listing. It prescribes no particular step, and it does not say that the company is in breach. What its legal effect is, and what it requires of this company and by when, are questions upon which this board has formed no view”.   He is for exploring all the  available alternatives, for he believes that going public will destroy the century-old character of the group's holding company, dilute the philanthropic mandate of Tata Trusts, and shift executive focus from long-term institution building to short-term stock market pressures.

The Tata Trusts have also described that as per the provisions of the Articles of Association of Tata Sons, the resolution to reappoint Chandrasekharan as Chairman, with four directors voting in favour and Noel Tata against it, was ab initio illegal. For, as per the Articles of Association, appointment or reappointment of a Chairman requires a majority affirmative vote from the Tata Trust nominee directors. In the instant case, Noel Tata, Nominee Director of the Trusts, voted against the resolution while Venu Srinivasan, another Nominee Director of the Trusts, voted in favour. Hence, there is no majority concurrence from the nominee directors for the resolution. Trusts also argue that the absence of majority concurrence cannot simply be overridden by the ‘casting vote’. That aside, this resolution raises a fundamental question: When the nominee director of the largest shareholder lacks confidence in the prospective Chairman, can he take crucial decisions well in time? Will he have smooth sailing? 

Intriguingly, there remain two more questions, which merit readers’ attention. The first is: Why did Mr Chandrasekharan change his stance within a month of announcing that he would not seek a third term, given the lack of unanimity on the board?  This perhaps needs to be made known to the Tata Group companies that employ over a million people globally for good order’s sake.  Similarly, in 2024, when Ratan Tata was alive, the Tata Sons board unanimously decided that it should remain unlisted. Fast forward to September 17, 2026, the same directors voted in favour of taking steps toward listing of Tata Sons. More striking is that when the SDTT and SRTT unanimously resolved in July 2025 that Tata Sons should remain unlisted, Venu Srinivasan, as one of the trustees, supported the resolution, and the same was communicated to Tata Sons for necessary action. Yet on September 17, he backed the board’s decision to take steps towards listing Tata Sons.   

Reports indicate that these issues may head to Court, but legal battles would only delay solutions, and prolonged battles are certain to harm the interests of the Group as a whole. Listing is indeed more likely to affect the nimbleness of any holding company. In the instant case, it may even shift the board’s focus from the founding fathers’ philosophy of philanthropy to immediate earnings to meet the expectations of new shareholders. At the same time, listing also helps the investment company raise capital and allocate it efficiently, which would, in turn, benefit trusts by boosting their philanthropic activity. Nevertheless, balancing these demands is a big challenge. Still, the House of Tatas, being what it is known for, is sure to live up to its 158-year legacy of good governance, stability, and honoring the Trusts’ philanthropic philosophy.

**

 

7.8% GDP Growth in Q1 FY27 Sparks Intense Debate

 

As is the norm, on the last day of August, the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation (MoSPI) released the economic output data for the first quarter of the current financial year, reporting GDP growth of 7.8 per cent.  This growth rate presents India as the fastest-growing economy. Still, it is lower than the 8.6 per cent recorded in the previous quarter and, of course, higher than the 6.9 per cent growth in the corresponding quarter of 2025-26. This stronger-than-expected performance beats the RBI’s 7 per cent forecast, despite heightened global uncertainties that have pushed up energy prices, stoked inflationary pressures and weakened external demand.  

Interestingly, this 7.8% real-growth estimate for the first quarter of fiscal 2027 is accompanied by an impressive rise in real GVA that stood at 8.2%, supported by strong performance in manufacturing and financial/professional-services. This surge in GVA, many economists opined, acts as a cleaner, more reliable indicator of core economic momentum, for it filters out distortions from volatile net taxation and product subsidies.

Yet, it has triggered intense debate. Subhash Chandra Garg, the former financial secretary, commented that the first quarter real GDP growth is not 7.8 per cent but just 2.6 per cent. He argued that it was the revision of the earlier estimate of Q1 FY 26 GDP from Rs 86 lakh crore to 80 lakh crore that made the year-on-year comparison look much stronger. He further stated that comparing Q1 FY27 nominal GDP of Rs 88.27 lakh crore with the former, unrevised Q1 FY26 figure of Rs 86 lakh crore would imply nominal growth of only about 2.6%, rather than the officially reported 10.3%. He further contended that after accounting for inflation of about 2-2.5%, the real growth might be near zero. His contention is primarily based on the scale and consequences of the revision made to the base-period estimate.

The wider criticism that the revised data attracted from some quarters squarely rests on: one, the substantial revision of past GDP estimates calls for fuller disclosure and closer scrutiny; two, the gap between reported real GVA growth (9.2%) and nominal GVA growth (7.7%) yielding an implicit GVA deflator of minus 1.5%; three, whether the new deflators and double-deflation procedure could make real manufacturing growth appear unusually strong when input-price and output-price movements diverge; and four, the most pertinent question: whether a strong GDP figure adequately reflects employment, investment quality and distributional outcomes.   

The MoSPI rejected Garg’s 2.6% calculation because it compares estimates from different statistical series: Q1 FY27 is measured under the revised 2022–23-base framework, while Garg’s denominator is an older, unrevised estimate based on the base year of 2011-12. They say a valid year-on-year growth calculation must compare the revised Q1 FY27 figure with the correspondingly revised Q1 FY26 figure.

The ministry further stated that the revision resulted from updated sources and methods—such as more extensive GST and digitally generated data—not from a discretionary reduction of last year’s GDP to enhance the current year’s growth rate. On double deflation, it maintains that a negative implicit manufacturing GVA deflator does not mean manufacturing prices fell; it reflects output and intermediate inputs being deflated separately, not because of a 1.5% fall in all manufacturing prices.

Here, one must bear in mind that double deflation measures real value added; of course, the resulting growth estimate may be higher or lower in any particular quarter depending on the data on output, inputs and their respective prices, while a single deflator can distort the volume estimate when commodity, energy and component costs move differently from the prices manufacturers receive for finished goods. Indeed, this switch aligns India’s national accounts more closely with internationally used statistical practice and, as asserted by the Ministry, is not meant to generate a higher GDP figure. There is also a strong argument that economies that grow fast, particularly with a very large informal component, need to reset their base and methodology periodically to capture new information, which may revise overall GDP numbers up or down.

The overall assertion of economists is that there is no playing politics with the data to present a higher GDP number. They argue that if the government were interested in inflating growth, it could have simply tried to push the consumption numbers higher – a figure difficult to measure/verify – but the consumption number was at a lower rate than in the old data. The rise in GDP is also to be understood alongside the growth in investment, imports and import prices.   

That said, it must also be admitted that the GDP growth figures fail to address the concerns about jobs, inequality, or the durability of growth. Nor does it address the higher tariffs on imported goods such as polyester, etc. Surajit Bhalla, in one of his current discussions on GDP, questioned the growing influence of the “deep State” on policymaking. As former finance secretary, SC Garg observed, the sharp downward revision of the corresponding quarter of the previous year calls for far more transparency. His demand to publish the “income leg” of national accounts – revealing how value-added is divided among labour, corporations and government – will certainly clarify how wealth is distributed. Ironically, no such practice was in vogue when he was the Finance Secretary. But in a democracy, these systemic questions matter just as much as GDP growth, if not more.   

Krishnadeva Raya & His Ashtadiggajas

 

Krishnadeva Raya occupies an exalted place among the kings who ruled a greater part of South India from Vijayanagar. He was a brave warrior and a military strategist. He was an aesthetician par excellence. He patronised poets, besides being himself an erudite poet. Although several works, such as Vishnucittiyamu in Telugu and Madalasa Caritra in Sanskrit, are attributed to him, only Amuktamalyada survived.  

Krishnadevaraya’s munificent patronage extended to several poets is a laudable history. Eight Royal Elephants (Ashtadiggajas) were said to have adorned his court. The literal translation of this Sanskrit word, Ashtadiggajas, means ‘eight elephants of the directions’. According to Hindu cosmology, eight mythical elephants guard and support the earth at its cardinal corners. Similarly, these eight literary giants were considered the foundational pillars of the emperor’s royal court assembly, popularly known as Bhuvana Vijayam. Under their influence and Krishnadevaraya’s patronage (1509-29 CE), this era came to be known as the Golden Age of Telugu Literature or the Prabandha Age.

The Ashtadiggajas of Krishnadevaraya’s court are known for their unparalleled literary excellence. They are: Allasani Peddana (Manu Charitra), Nandi Thimmana (Parijatapaharanam), Madayyagari Mallana (Rajasekara Charitram), Dhurjati (Kalahasti Mahatyamu), Ayyalaraju Ramabhadrudu (Ramaabhyudayamu), Tenali Ramakrishna (Panduranga Mahatmyam, Udbhataradhya Charitamu) , Ramarajabhushanudu (Vasucharitramu & Kavyalankarasangrahamu), and Pingali Surana (Garuda Puranam, Prabhavatee Pradyumnamu, Raghava Pandaveeyam, kalapurnodayamu). Adapting lesser-known stories from the Puranas, they have crafted intricate and imaginative Kavyas (epics).

The term Prabandha is usually interpreted to mean a great/impressive composition. In the course of time, certain characteristics came to be associated with it, and soon they turned out to be mandatory requirements. They are: composition should narrate the story of a national virtuous hero, a well-known tale; have as chief rasa Sringara, although there could be attendant rasas like Veera; have eighteen descriptions (Ashtadasa Varnanalu); contain five or six cantos; and be replete with alankaras (figures of speech).

A prabandha, like the epics of the West, commences with an invocation of Gods to bless the poetic enterprise and goes on to sing the praise of ancient poets. It also narrates the circumstances that led to its composition. They are known for rich imagination and highly dignified word arrangements.

We shall now talk a little about Panduranga Mahatmyam of Tenali Ramakrishna. It is an immortal legendary account of the famous temple shrine of Lord Vithoba, an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, located at Pandharpur on the banks of the Bhima River. He adapted the core of the text from the ancient Sanskrit Skanda Purana but elevated it into a complex, standalone literary masterpiece.

The overarching philosophy of the text is "Matru Devo Bhava, Pitru Devo Bhava"—asserting that the selfless service and love given to one's parents is the highest form of worshipping God.

In it, there is a beautifully crafted Upakhyanam that narrates the downfall of a brilliant but morally corrupt scholar called Nigama Sarma, who wastes his family’s wealth on vices. More than Sarma, it is his unnamed sister who shines most in the story. She travels across lands to reform her brother. Ramakrishna designed her character so well by mouthing her with powerful and emotionally charged dialogues and logic with which she attempts to wean her brother from vices, making her stand out as one of the finest female characters in Prabandha literature.  That’s what is narrated hereunder in Telugu.

పాండురంగ మహత్యం

“ఏ ప్రబంధం చదివినా ఏముంది నాయికా నాయకుల శృంగార విహారాల విరహాల వర్ణన తప్ప” అన్న కొందరి భావనలో ఎంత ఔచిత్యం ఉందో, “అర్థం చేసుకున్న ప్రబంధ కావ్యాలలో లోకకళ్యాణానికి ఉపయుక్తమగు ఉపదేశసందేశాలు అనేకములు” అన్న ఇతరుల భావనలోను అంతే వాస్తవికత ఉంది.

ఈ ‘పాండురంగ మహత్యం‘ నందలి నిగమశర్మ అక్క క్యారెక్టర్ పరిశీలిస్తే మనకు ప్రబంధ పఠన ప్రయోజనం విదితమవుతుంది. నిగమశర్మ దుర్వ్యసనాలోలుడు. పరకాంతాసక్తుడు. నీతిపథము విడనాడిన వివేకహీనుడు. విచ్చలవిడిగా తిరుగుతూ ఆస్తినంతా హారతికర్పూరంలా కరిగించినవాడు. చివరకు అప్పులు, జూదము, మోసం మొదలగు అలవాట్లకు లోనై అథ: పాతాళగతుడవుతాడు. ఇది తెలిసిన ఇతని అక్క తమ్మునికి బుద్ధి చెప్పి త్రోవకు తేవాలన్న ఆర్తితో భర్తను పిల్లలను వెంటబెట్టుకొని పుట్టింటికి వస్తుంది.

కాంతివిహీనమైన పుట్టినిల్లు చూచి కలతచెందుతుంది. దు:ఖసాగరంలో కొట్టుమిట్టాడు తున్న తల్లిదండ్రులను చూచి అమితంగా బాధపడుతుంది. తమ్ముడెక్కడున్నాడో ఎప్పుడొస్తాడో ఎవరికీ ఎరుకలేదు. అయినా సగటు స్త్రీలా వారితో కలిసి ఏడవదు. ఓర్పుతో నేర్పుగా అన్నిటా తానై మెలగుతూ తీయటి మాటలతో, సంతోషం కలిగించే ఉపచారములతో తొలుత తల్లిదండ్రులను సముదాయిస్తుంది. తెలివిగా ఇంటిని అంటిన చీకటిని తొలగింప ప్రయత్నిస్తుంది.

ఇంతలో ఒకనాడు “చలిది వంటకంబు గుడువం చనుదెంచి”న నిగమశర్మ అక్కను చూచి తప్పుకొనిపోలేక నమస్కరిస్తాడు. ప్రేమతో ఆలింగనం చేసుకోవచ్చిన అక్క తమ్ముని శరీరమును “మదోన్మత్త మత్తకామినీ దత్తంబులగు నఖాంకంబులు” చూచి తాక మనసు రాక, తన రాక లక్ష్యాన్ని మనస్సులో స్థిరముగాకలదై ఉద్వేగమును అణచుకొని, "సీమంతపు బెండ్లికొడుకవు గ"మ్మని హేతుగర్భితంబుగా ఆశీర్వదిస్తుంది.

ఈ దీవెనలోని భావం గ్రహించిన నిగమశర్మ ఇక అక్క ఉపదేశాలు, చీవాట్లు మొదలెడుతుందేమోనని బయటకు పోవ ప్రయత్నిస్తాడు. ఇది గమనించిన అక్క తెలివిగా మేనల్లుడిని తమ్ముడికిచ్చి "మీ బావబంతిని ఆరగింతువుగాక! శాకపాకంబులు నిమిషంబులోన గావింతు"నని చెప్పి నేర్పుగా తమ్ముడిని ఇంటనుండునట్లు చేస్తుంది.

భోజనాదులు ముగిసిన తరువాత తాంబూలం సేవిస్తూ తిన్నెపై కూర్చున్న తమ్మునికి హితం చెప్పటానికి ఇదే తగిన సమయంగా భావిస్తుంది. తమ్ముడి మానసిక స్థితిని గమనించినదై, ముందుగానే విరుచుకుపడక, నేర్పుగా ప్రియవచనాలతో సంభాషణ మొదలిడుతుంది. "ఏరా తమ్ముడ! నీ వేదాధ్యయనమునకు విఘ్నము కలుగుననియా ఇంతకాలం నన్ను చూచుటకు రాలేదు? నీకొరకు ఎదురుచూచి నా కన్నులు కాయలుకాసినవి. నీ బావయు నీరాకకు ఎదురుచూసెడివాడు".

ఇక్కడ మనం గ్రహించవలసిన ముఖ్య విషయం తమ్ముడు వేదాధ్యయనం చేయటం లేదని తనకు తెలుసు. తమ్ముడికీ తెలుసు. అయినా తెలియనట్లు ఆ విషయం ప్రస్తావించి పరోక్షంగా తమ్ముడి ప్రవర్తన తప్పు అని ధ్వనింపచేస్తుంది. తన ప్రశ్నలు తమ్మునికి అప్రియమైనా, విని అలోచించాలి అన్న కోరికతో తన భావావేశాన్ని నియంత్రించుకుని తెలివిగా నీరాకకు ఎదురుచూసి నా కళ్ళు కాయలు కాసినవి అంటూ సౌభ్రాతృత్వాన్ని ప్రదర్శిస్తుంది.

తమ్ముడి అహం దెబ్బ తినకుండా జాగ్రత్తపడుతూ అతని ప్రవర్తన నీతిమాలినదని, కులభ్రష్టుణ్ణి చేసిందని, తెలియజేయడానికిగాను "నీవు యజ్ఞం చేయగా వేదిక అలంకరింతునని, సుమంగిళి పూజలు అందుకొందునని గంపెడు ఆశతో అందరితో చెప్పుకున్నానే! నా ఆశలన్నీ వమ్ముచేశావు; నీవేదియులేక సర్వగుణహీనుడవౌట ఎరుగనైతి" అని అతని మనస్సును ఆకట్టుకునే రీతిలో భావభరితంగా ప్రేమతో బుజ్జగిస్తున్నట్లు తన బాధను వ్యక్తీకరిస్తుంది. తమ్ముడి మనస్సు మీద ఆ మాటల ప్రభావం గ్రహించి, ఇదే మంచి సమయంగా ఎంచి, తెలివిగా అంటుంది: ‘చేయి మీదుగా నడిచిన పూర్ణకాముడవే! నా తమ్ముడవే! నీకీ బేలతనమేల! వేశ్య మందిరములకేల నేగెదవు, వలదు నాయనా! నేను చెప్పినట్లు విను. నీకు కావలసినచో హరికౌస్తుభమైనను తెచ్చెదను" అని తన ఎమోషనల్ సపోర్ట్ ను తెలియజేస్తూ ఇకనైనా సన్మార్గము చేపట్టమని తమ్ముని ప్రోత్సహిస్తుంది. ఇదంతా విన్న తమ్ముడు తను మారినట్లు కొన్నాళ్ళు ప్రవర్తిస్తాడు.

కవి ఈ నిగమశర్మ అక్క పాత్రను తీర్చిదిద్దిన తీరు పాఠకులకు డేనియల్ గోల్ మెన్ ప్రాచుర్యంలోకి తెచ్చిన "ఎమోషనల్ ఇంటెలిజన్స్"—తనను తాను తెలుసుకొనుట, తద్వార తన భావోద్వేగములను నియంత్రించుకొనుట, ఎదుటివాని మనోగతాన్ని గ్రహించి ఇద్దరి మధ్య 'కామన్ గ్రౌండ్' వెతుకుట, దాని ద్వారా వ్యక్తిగతమైన సంబంధాలను వృద్ధి చేసుకొనుట, ఎదుటివాని ఎదుగుదలకు అవసరమైన ఎమోషనల్ సపోర్ట్ ఇస్తూ తోడ్పడుట వంటి లక్షణాలచే ప్రేరితమైన ప్రవర్తన—అను ప్రతిపాదనను గుర్తుచేస్తుంది.

తనవారి మంచిని కాంక్షించుట, దానికొరకు ప్రయాసపడవలసిన ఆవశ్యకతను, విధివిధానములను ఉపదేశించుటకు మించి కవిత్వానికి ప్రయోజనం వేరే ఏముంటుంది? ఈ ఉపాఖ్యానం మరొక సందేశం కూడా ఇస్తుంది: ఎంతటి సద్వంశంలో జన్మించినా, వేదాధ్యయనం చేసినా, వివేకవంతుడయినా మనిషి, నీతిపథమును తప్పిననాడు, భ్రష్టుడగుట తథ్యం.

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