Why Tender Specs Never Change Structurally

Specifications in government tenders define functional, technical, performance and corporate requirements of the product being procured. Examples of specs for a B2B technology product include: Vendor must have at least three customers who use the product The product must run on Oracle database Response time of the product should not exceed 3 seconds Vendor must … Read more

Enshittification Of ET Prime

Enshittification: The process where digital platforms gradually decline in quality as companies stop prioritizing users and instead focus on maximizing profits for themselves and their shareholders aka MSV. The term was coined by Cory Doctorow in 2022. Through the years, it has been applied to Google Search and many other digital platforms. In this post, … Read more

Why Agentic AI Adoption Is Underwhelming

From time to time, I’ve cited many success stories of Enterprise Agentic AI: Bajaj Finance: Agentic AI powers 10% of quarterly loan disbursements, worth Rs. 1,600 crore, by analyzing millions of calls and creating tailored offers that added Rs. 325 crore in volumes. DBS: Inhouse AI agent built on top of ChatGPT cuts down KYC … Read more

Accelerate Index In India

According to the op-ed entitled What To Rank And File Away in Economic Times dated 1 August 2026, Indian higher education institutes ramped up research in line with the high weightage given for R&D in QS ratings. Their efforts have borne fruit. In the latest QS World University Rankings 2027 published in June 2026, IIT … Read more

Whose R&D Is GCC’s R&D Anyway?

From: Ketharaman Swaminathan To: editet@timesofindia.com Subject: Time to Score Own Goals Dear Editor: This has reference to the op-ed entitled Time to Score Own Goals by Chandrika Soyantar in today’s Economic Times about GCCs and the nature of R&D work carried out at them. For the uninitiated, GCC stands for Global Capability Center. It’s a delivery unit … Read more

Will Yes / No Button In Payment Apps Curb Cybercrime?

Compared to many other countries, India has taken a very nuanced approach towards fighting cybercrime. In my blog post entitled How Are Regulators Cracking Down on Cybercrime In Different Countries?, I’d applauded innovations like Cybercrime I4C Portal and regulatory playbook undergirded by deep collaboration between banks, payments operator and law enforcement. For the uninitiated, here’s … Read more

Five Reasons Why India Hasn’t Made Breakthrough Innovations

According to the popular narrative, India can’t make breakthrough innovations because of brain drain, low investments in R&D, billionaires more interested in making ice cream, and so on. To those, let me add five more reasons. Overzealous regulation Scam syndrome Lack of talent Faux authenticity Extreme value-consciousness Let’s unpack each one of them. 1. Overzealous … Read more

CRED + Meta: The Ultimate Privilege Marketing Machine?

Five years ago, in my blog post entitled InCREDible Rise Of CRED, I predicted that targeted ads would eventually be the business model of CRED. My prediction has aged well, with ad tech major Meta taking a 25% stake in the startup for $900 million in what’s widely regarded as the first step towards acquiring a majority … Read more

Why The Kimi Panic Is Misplaced

Every few months, there’s an AI breakthrough from USA or China, which triggers another round of hand-wringing in India. The latest example is Kimi K3, a frontier LLM model released by Beijing-based company Moonshot AI last month. Kimi K3 is widely regarded as rivaling the performance of the best American models. As a Free Open … Read more