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India’s retail sector is worth $1.06 trillion and is projected to double to $1.93 trillion by 2030 (Deloitte-FICCI Report). Online retail is $75 billion in 2024 and is likely to grow to $260 billion by 2030. Online retail’s share in the total retail will grow from 7 per cent to 14 per cent.

The growth will not be solely on the basis of distribution expansion. It will be dependant on the ability to anticipate and respond to shifting consumer behavior.

Gen Z has emerged as a major consumer group. In 2025, their direct spending is projected to reach $250 billion. There is growth seen in fashion, personal care and footwear. Their consumption share in nation’s total consumption is 43 per cent.

Small players grow quickly through e-commerce and quick commerce. They respond faster, especially in younger cohorts.

Quick commerce is available in 80 cities and towns. It is expanding rapidly — 70 to 80 per cent yearly. Smaller cities are emerging as growth engines. They account for over 60 per cent of all e-commerce transactions.

There are challenges — last mile delivery, digital literacy and uneven infrastructure.

Consumption is shifting towards premium products, sustainability and indigenous products.

Retail contributes over 10 per cent to country’s GDP and employs about 8 per cent of the workforce.

AI runs on data and vast amounts of data. The quality and volume of the data determines the precision and usefulness of AI’s output. It is necessary to manage such immense data flows. It requires more than storage. It requires infrastructure that is secure, resilient and capable of processing the data at fast speed. This is where the data centers step in. They are not merely real estate full of servers. They are the nerve centres of AI’s growth. They provide the backbone for AI needs — housing, computing power, connectivity, security systems.

AI and data centers have symbiotic relationship. Both help each other. Modern co-location facilities are not designed for rack densities exceeding 100 kw. The architecture should be suitable for model training, inferencing and large-scale data processing.

The convergence of AI, 5G and IoT is moving complete power closer to the user. Edge data centres at smaller cities are responsible for delivering ultra-low-latency services for sectors like gaming, telemedicine and smart cities. High speed, low latency and connectivity are not negotiable for AI workloads.

Data centers self-optimize, and adapt to changing workloads.

There is skepticism about cryptos. However, while crypto is taking steps to enter the financial system, it is sure that the crash and collapse of crypto is not imminent. Crypto has a future as a speculative asset, and it diverts capital from more productive uses.

Crypto as a medium of exchange is volatile and hard to use. Instead of cryptos, one can use government-backed virtual currency. Even stablecoins can match the dollar. Those who defend cryptos contend that they are the ultimate hedge against the collapse of dollar.

As cryptos are speculative assets, with no intrinsic value, cryptos will collapse and price will go to zero. Another scenario is that cryptos are here to stay. It suits those investors who want lots of risk in their portfolio. Yet another scenario, despite everything, it goes well. The limited supply works in favour of cryptos. Investing in cryptos is not like investing in a company that makes things. Its primary value is in its limited supply.

Many India-qualified lawyers are gravitating towards West Asia as an active destination to work abroad, As compared to other foreign jurisdictions, bar qualifications and visa processes in West Asia are relatively smoother. Many firms in Middle East are launching India-focused desks and practice groups.

Many Indian law firms have been opening offices in this region. DSK Legal is the first to have set up full-services branches in Abu Dhabi and Dubai simultaneously. Lawyers from MENA region are exploring career options in Indian firms. Cyril A Amarchand Mangaldas opened an office in Abu Dhabi earlier in 2025. Other Indian firms in the region include Kochhar & Co., AKS Partners and Singularity Legal, among others.

Dubai happens to be the most attractive location for India-qualified lawyers. Abu Dhabi is hot on its heels. It is closely followed by Saudi Arabia.

The competitive practice areas are banking and finance, M&A, international arbitration and tech law. Already, the UK and US law firms are established here, and are scaling. However, the Indian lawyer firms have cut a good image. Some years back, the international firms were reluctant to hire Indian lawyers if they did not have international bar qualifications. However, new talent is emerging from national law universities in recent past and Indian lawyers are becoming successful here. That has brought about a sea change. Dual qualifications (US/UK bar) are not a deal breaker here. Though Dubai-based firms still prefer them, firms across Abu Dhabi, Saudi, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait are more flexible. This is so when the candidates have cross-border experience and client exposure.

The total estimated legal services market in the UAE and Saudi is $15.6 billion. West Asian market offers immense opportunities for India-qualified lawyers and law firms. There is a synergy between India and West Asia.

More than 60 per cent lawyers here work in corporate, banking, finance, and dispute resolution. 30 percent lawyers hold an LLM. Many have moved to the region after postgraduation.

`Voyager, the NASA spacecraft, will soon creat history by covering a journey of one full light day — a vast distance that light covers in 24 hours. It is awe-inspiring event that reminds us the vastness of the universe.

Voyager was launched in 1977 and has travelled 16 billion miles from the earth. It is still functional and is sending signals. Its journey tells us about human inquisitiveness, endurance and ambition.

Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause — the boundary where the solar wind from the sun gives way to interstellar space. It moves approximately 38000 miles per hour. Radio signals take 24 hours to reach the earth from the Voyager.

November 15, 2026. Voyager will be 16 billion miles from the earth. Jan 28, 2027. It will reach one light-day mark.

Apollo 10 had attained a speed of 25000 miles per hour in 1960. Such a high-speed vehicle will take five months to reach the sun by covering 93 million miles.

Voyager 1 has completed 50 years of journey by covering equivalent to 1 light-day.

The issue is where is the end of our solar system. Maybe it is in Oort cloud or may be farther. There the gravitational pull of the sun fades away. It is half the way to Proxima Centaur, our nearest star neighbour.

It is a fuzzy region. Voyager will take 40000 years to reach this region — the gravitational edge. It is two light years away.

All this exploration will reveal new secrets of the cosmos.

Some MPs from England have launched AI prototype of themselves. Some users expressed themselves on X calling this ‘appalling’. The press criticized this as ‘weird’ chatbot. Politicians provide robotic answers while dodging the questions. MPs use AI to squeeze more out of their job. They use AI to create digital replicas of themselves. They conduct their work at higher scale. Some use AI clone to present their YouTube show. Of course, there are costs associated with this. There is lower quality of service, and erosion of authenticity. There are benefits too. Those with limited resources can avail of chatbots. It is an altogether a new way of engaging.

Different professionals such as physiotherapists can use AI chatbots to provide ‘tailored advice’ at reasonable costs. Coaches can offer their Clones to provide coaching and later train the chatbot on the advice given to clients on Zoom calls. What is being done is to replicate premium research more than the person whose clone it is.

Deepak Chopra has launched digital twin which costs a few dollars to use. He treats it as an exercise in scaling himself further.

This article THAT has been published in Physical Review Letters IS contributed by L. Kepf R Barre, S. Prabhakar, E. Giese and R. Fickler (Doi: 10.1103 /Physical Revlett. 134. 203601). The work is by the researchers at Tampere university, collaborating with colleagues in India and Germany. They have demonstrated for the first time that the angular momentum remains conserved when a photon is split into two. It confirms a basic physics principle at quantum level and could apply to computing, communication and sensing technologies.

At quantum level, the amount of orbital angular momentum (OAM) must be preserved while interacting with matter. In billiards, a momentum of one ball transforms to another when they collide. Spinning objects also prove this principle. Light too can possess angular momentum. It leads to spatial shape of a light beam. The work examines how far limits of conservation can be pushed —to the minutest small scale.

A photon with no OAM splits and the resulting two values OAM cancel each other out — a photon carries one unit of OAM and the second carries negative one. The equation 1+(-1) = 0 always holds. Even when a single photon is involved, the principle holds.

Measurments here are delicate. The processes are inefficient. Every billionth photon converts into a photon pair. It is a search for the needle in a haystack.

A stable optical setup, low background noise, highly sensitive detection efficiency and experimental endurance is conducive for enough successful conversions proving the basic conservation law.

OAM conservation gets substantiated. At the same time, there were first indications of quantum entanglement in the generated photon pairs. It means this technique can be extended to create more complex photonic quantum states — novel quantum states where photons are entangled in all possible ways.

They are trying to make the research more advanced in the future, especially detection of the needle in lab haystack. Even multi-photon states could be leveraged for new quantum states and applications.

To expand domestic operations, global firms set up global capability centers (GCCs) in India. These try to unlock the full value by stimulating innovation, agility and delivering perceptible impact. Previously, GCCs were built for operational scale and cost efficiency. There is a market shift now, both in size and intent. Currently, GCCs are not limited to delivery. They drive innovation. GCCs are staffed with talent, mature leadership and they receive policy support. These GCCs thus run high-value functions such as product development, engineering and R&D.

In fact, they are treated as strategic extensions of the parent company.

Three sectors are witnessing momentum — private sector (BFSI, health and energy), public sector (government-led digitization) and GCC space.

Companies are struggling with tech debt which impedes business agility. Here incremental approach does not work. What is required is reframing. Some components can be retained in the system, and some will have to be retired.

Talent has to be retained. This cannot be done just by perks or policies. What is required is intent. The kind of environment we sre building matters. To make someone stay, you must create conducive environment. Innovation thrives if the organization has the right culture. People stay when they are aligned with organizational culture. In the context of GCCs, we can say, these can give space to teams to take ownership, drive outcomes and grow continuously.