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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.When a film star enters politics, the first question is usually whether charisma can translate into votes. In Tamil Nadu, where cinema and politics have long shared a porous border, that question has been asked for decades. But the more consequential question—what happens after the victory—has often been the harder one.As a journalist and a commentator of many elections, I tend to believe that Vijay’s entry into the chief minister’s office marks a new phase in the state’s political evolution, and it arrives with a complex mix of expectations, vulnerabilities, and structural tests.The most immediate challenge is administrative.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.As a non-resident Bengali of my generation, I have witnessed with deep anguish the steady decline of West Bengal from its once-prominent position in India’s economic and intellectual landscape. What has been even more disheartening is the repeated pattern of large electoral mandates being given to successive governments—first the Left Front, and then the Trinamool Congress—followed by a growing sense of unmet expectations and a sense of repeated betrayal of trust.When Mamata Banerjee came to power in 2011, she carried with her a powerful promise of change: an end to decades of Left Front rule, which many believe had pushed the state into fiscal stress, industrial stagnation, and governance fatigue.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The second week of a blockbuster trial between Elon Musk and Sam Altman kicks off Monday, with the future of OpenAI very much up for grabs.OpenAI President Greg Brockman is expected to testify Monday, the next star witness in a revolving cast of some of the most important leaders in AI.Over three days of testimony and cross-examination last week, Musk sought to make his case to nine jurors that he was manipulated by OpenAI and Altman into giving $38 million to a nonprofit, only for the startup to turn it into a for-profit venture.The Tesla and SpaceX owner is asking the court to remove Altman and Brockman from their leadership roles at OpenAI, damages of up to $180 billion to be paid out from OpenAI’s for-profit arm to its nonprofit parent, and an unwinding of the company’s recent conversion to a more traditional corporate governance structure.If even one of these remedies is granted, it could change the course of OpenAI and the rest of the artificial-intelligence industry with it.Musk’s attorneys have pointed to private journal entries written by Brockman, obtained as part of legal discovery, to support the argument that the OpenAI founders were secretly plotting about the company’s for-profit structure.“We’ve been thinking that maybe we should just flip to a for profit,” Brockman allegedly wrote in a private journal entry in 2017.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.On 29 April, the Centre issued guidelines requiring electric truck makers to localize components such as battery management systems and vehicle control units to qualify for incentives under the PM E-Drive scheme. E-truck makers must use domestically produced components from September 2026.The government had eased rules during the 2025 rare-earth magnet shortage by extending deadlines for importing related subassemblies without forfeiting incentives.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Any doubts that China has become the heartland of the global car industry are quickly dispelled by a visit to the country’s main motor show. Beijing’s noisy and crowded event this year was twice as large as in 2024 (it moves to Shanghai on alternate years) with around 180 new cars on display. The show, which concluded on May 3rd, demonstrated once again that foreign carmakers are lagging behind their Chinese rivals in the race to the industry’s future.Yet the show also illustrated the extent to which foreign carmakers are looking to remake themselves in the image of their ascendant Chinese competitors.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.AMERICA’S TOP artificial-intelligence labs have accused their Chinese rivals of being ruthless copycats. This month Anthropic and OpenAI each disclosed evidence that leading Chinese AI labs have illicitly used American models to train their own. The firms accuse Chinese researchers of aggressively “distilling” American chatbots—feeding them prompts in order to learn from and mimic their responses.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Mumbai: Milky Mist has raised about ₹482 crore in a pre-IPO round led by Singapore-based Temasek’s subsidiary Jongsong Investments Pte. Ltd, the dairy product maker said in a statement on Monday.The fundraise comprises a primary capital infusion of about ₹357 crore and a secondary share sale of about ₹125 crore ahead of the company’s proposed initial public offering (IPO) later this year.As part of the primary issuance, Milky Mist allotted 5,43,789 equity shares at ₹139.76 per share, aggregating about ₹7.6 crore.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Anthropic is finalizing a deal to create a new joint venture with Blackstone, Goldman Sachs and a handful of other Wall Street firms that aims to sell artificial-intelligence tools to private-equity backed companies, according to people familiar with the matter.An announcement is expected as soon as Monday, the people said.Anthropic, Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman are anchoring the deal and are each expected to invest roughly $300 million, the people added.Goldman Sachs is also set to be a founding investor, putting in around $150 million, the people said. General Atlantic and other firms are also involved in the deal.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Nostalgia is paying off for Hollywood.“The Devil Wears Prada 2” opened to an estimated $233.6 million worldwide this weekend, driven largely by women eager to rejoin Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway in the world of fashion journalism 20 years after the original movie. It grossed $77 million in the U.S.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.President Trump said Sunday the U.S. would start guiding commercial ships out of the Strait of Hormuz where they have been trapped by the war between the U.S.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Chennai: For years, Tamil Nadu has punched beyond its weight. With just 4% of India’s land area and 6% of its population, the state’s contribution to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2024-25 was 9.4%.The state’s economy is growing much faster than India’s 6.5%. Even as foreign direct investment (FDI) into India has slowed, foreign investors continue to bet big on Tamil Nadu.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Chennai: To say the Kerala government’s finances are in a mess is an understatement. The state has a litany of woes which successive governments have failed to take head on. Its ability to raise revenue is impaired.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Split pricing has its benefits. If something is sold to price-insensitive customers at a steep mark-up, then overall utility can be maximized if the extra charge allows price reduction for others. This idea works best when consumption is easily divided.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Whether the majority of the exit poll predictions regarding the landslide victory of the incumbent National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government come true or not will be known later on Monday. However, the newly-formed government, irrespective of the party, will be inheriting an economy full of contradictions—of high economic growth and low income.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.At his confirmation hearing last week, Kevin Warsh [US President Donald Trump’s nominee for Federal Reserve Chair] dodged questions about interest rates, tariffs and the 2020 election. As his nomination to be chair of the Federal Reserve heads toward confirmation after clearing the Senate Banking Committee Wednesday, it’s worth focusing on an equally troubling gap in his public record: his near silence on anything related to employment.Warsh gave a perfunctory nod to the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate—price stability and maximum employment—in last week’s testimony, but while he extensively discussed the former, he essentially ignored the latter.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.This year’s first monetary policy meeting revealed an interesting data point on an emerging monetary product, an element that is bound to influence monetary systems and policies, including global payment systems. Its development has been characterized by caution, and while it is still some distance away from becoming widely accepted, its use-case scenarios present policy and regulatory challenges.India’s central bank digital currency (CBDC), or e-rupee, is finally emerging from the shadows. It is being tested in the domestic economy through managed programmes.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Mumbai: Nestlé India flagged potential price increases if input costs remain elevated, even as it continues to prioritize volume-led growth.“We did see some commodity inflation like milk and wheat… The fuel part is a curveball,” chairman and managing director Manish Tiwary told Mint.“Of course, if it persists, while we do want more volume-led growth, we might have to make some price adjustments,” he added.Nestlé India, the maker of KitKat and Maggi, has leaned on volumes to drive growth, but Tiwary acknowledged that pricing could return to the mix depending on how commodity costs evolve. “So, from almost a complete volume-led growth, we could have some pricing (-led growth), depending on how the commodity and prices move,” he said.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Four angry women, in Bengali writer Kabita Singha’s eponymous novel, decide to go “out flying for a whole day” one winter in Calcutta (now Kolkata), most likely in the 1950s. Suman, Bulan, Renu and Chuni are fashionably bedecked as they walk from Dalhousie towards Park Street.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.A viral narrative on social media last week casts Sam Bankman-Fried as “a genius at picking generational winners.” The figures cited are eye-catching. An 8% stake in Anthropic, acquired for $500 million, is now said to be worth over $30 billion.A $200,000 investment in a tiny AI startup, Cursor, is framed as having grown into a multibillion-dollar stake. Add in Solana, SpaceX, and Robinhood.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Vedanta Ltd is set to overhaul its dividend policy, moving away from a structure that guarantees a fixed minimum payout to a more flexible, board-driven approach, which may impact the sentiments of investors who have long relied on the company’s predictable returns.Earlier, the mining giant was committed to paying at least 30% of profits as dividends, and now the board will have the flexibility to pay 30% or the amount they deem fit, chief financial officer Ajay Goel disclosed the move during a post-earnings call with analysts last week.Speaking on the change, Goel said the company’s dividend framework will transition from a “prescriptive” model to a more “principle-based” one. Vedanta's FY26 dividend payout was the lowest level since FY21.The timing is significant as Vedanta is in the midst of splitting into five separately listed entities, and the demerged entities will have a similar but separate dividend policy.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.On 27 April, when weather-monitoring platform AQI reported that 97 of the world’s hottest cities are in India, it felt like a ringing validation of the way I have been feeling since I set foot in my hometown a week ago to vote in the assembly elections.With temperatures crossing 30 degrees Celsius, the heat and humidity in Kolkata has been unbearable this April. If you are lucky to have the option of working from home, you could avoid the worst of the heat.