Blog

Alaska came into the headlines recently on account of the meeting between President Trump and Putin. Alaska for thousands of years was inhabited by the natives (Inuit, Aleut, Tingit, Haida and Athabascans). They led a primitive life — hunting, fishing and trading.

In the mid-1700s, Russian explorers reached Alaska, and the Russians established settlements there. They controlled the fur trade. Russia faced financial distress, and it feared losing Alaska to Britain in war. Therefore, they sold Alaska to the US for $7.2 million (a throw-away price of 2 cents an acre). Alaska became the 49th state of the USA in 1959. Thus, Alaska was Russian territory between 1741 to 1867. It was governed by the Russian American Company under the authority of Czar.

Alaska (US) and Russia are separated by Bering Strait. At the closet point these two countries are 55 miles (88 kms) apart. There are two islands between them — Little Diomede on the US side and Big Diomede on the Russian side. The distance between them is just 2.4 miles (3.8 kms).

On a clear day, one can see Russia from Alaska. The territory could be physically linked by building a bridge costing around $65-100 billion. There could be a sub-sea tunnel (similar to English Channel tunnel) through which high-speed trains can run — a link from the US to Europe and Asia. There could be ferry service to cross the strait. At present, there is no infrastructure on both the sides. The only link between them is by air. Some adventurous people cross the frozen strait on foot, skis or dog sledge.

The little Diomede (US, Alaska) and big Diomede (Russia) — between them runs the International Date Line (IDL). They are separated by water as well as by one whole calendar day. Little Diomide is in Alaska time zone (-9). Big Diomede in Kamchatka time zone (+12). There is a difference of one full day (21 hours). On a Monday morning on little Diomide, there is a Tuesday morning on the big Diomede. Thus, from yesterday on one side, you can see tomorrow across the water.

Dog bite is first washed under running water for 10-15 minutes with soap without scrubbing hard. Bleeding is controlled with a sterile bandage. Betadine type antiseptic is applied. The wound is protected till medical attention is given.

Since a bite can get secondary infection, doctors usually prescribe amoxicillin-clavunate antibiotic.

The treatment consists of rabies vaccine and rabies immunoglobins. Rabies vaccine (IM) can be given in deltoid muscle on day 0, 3, 7 14 and 28 — in all five doses. Another regimen is intradermal on day 0, 3, 7, 28 (4 visits). Two small doses are given in each arm at each visit.

Rabies immunoglobin can be derived from humans. They are called HRIG. They can be derived from horses. They are called ERIG. HRIG is given in a dose of 20 IU per kg of body weight. ERIG is given in a dose of 40 IU per kg of body weight. Immunoglobins are given directly into and around the bite wound.

If tetanus booster has not been taken in the last five years, one can be given a tetanus booster.

Anti-rabies vaccines are available in approximately 80 per cent of public health facilities across India. RIG is not widely available — available to the extant 20 per cent public sector facilities. RIG is available at tertiary and secondary health care facilities. In private sector, hospitals which stock rabies vaccines also stock RIG.

Sassoon experiences shortages of both the vaccine and RIG. PMC facilities maintain adequate supplies, say Naidu, Kamla Nehru, Sonwane. They offer 24×7 dog-bite treatment in Pune.

Wall street banks have started covering the firms which are not publicly treated, e.g. J P Morgan Chase released a report of 100 large private companies on OpenAI and Citi group released a report of 100 large private companies. These companies mostly belonged to the tech sector. Other poor institutions will soon follow suit.

The US securities market is showing an upward trend. Investment banks would like to arrange secondary share sales of top unicorns. They are after the employees who would like to divest their stakes. Services could be offered to these new billionaires when they encash their holdings. Apart from this, they earn their brokerage fees.

It is difficult to arrive at a fair price for investors. Here the research done by investment banks come handy. It could facilitate secondary sales. The thematic research is a value add-on for institutional investors, who find brokerage reports irrelevant. Asset managers understand a few dozen stocks in a concentrated market. It then becomes unnecessary to outsource due diligence to investment banks.

At present, banks treat their research divisions as a cost center. The costs are met by brokers, deal makers and wealth managers. There is a fall in manpower of equity analysts from a position 10 years back. Manpower is mainly curtailed in Europe and Asia. Compensation too has stagnated. The new trend of covering firms which are not publicly traded provides the manpower an opportunity to prove their worth. There is parallelism that runs between journalism and equity research. Both embrace the Mosaic Theory. They piece together pattern by collecting small pieces of information from every source.

The trickle will soon be a flood.

ChatGPT is being used by 700 million people. It is so well-entrenched as conversational companion with users that any product improvements must be introduced with care and caution. OpenAI has released GPT-5 and it subsumes all earlier models, but this has disturbed the relationship users had with the earlier versions. It was built over a period of time. It was a relationship of warmth and understanding. Many experienced that they have lost an old friend. This is what the product developers call an ‘innovator’s dilemma.‘

The latest version may seem frostier. It engages in less of friendly banter. Previous version has a deep emotional attachment with the users. It was being romanced by a few. The present version is more business-like. This problem is addressed by OpenAI by allowing the freedom to choose a ChatGPT model by providing a toggle to switch between the models. Each model represents a different personality.

The company admits that the previous version was a bit sycophantic. GPT-5 sets fewer boundaries than the company’s previous model o3. New ChatGPT is colder emotionally. It still fails to suggest to the users to speak to a human when users are at their weakest emotionally.

AI tools set boundaries — they remind the users they are not a professional and the person should be advised to seek professional advice. They should also remind the user that it is not a conscious entity.

Lastly, it should not assume human attributes. Such boundaries are necessary when a person is experiencing emotional stress. The model should be helpful and friendly while responding. The person should be advised to go back to community from an isolated position. It should not be a substitute for relationships. It should not replace human therapists and medical professionals.

A line must be drawn between being useful and an emotional confidant. GPT-5 sounds machine-like. If the illusion persists that it is a companion, there are risks associated with it.

OpenAI has two types of models — o-models for complex queries and math problems and GPT models for average users. GPT-5 allocates user’s query to the model that it judges best suits the query. It is a cost-efficient model. It brings AI closer to human behavior. One week after its launch, there is backlash by users as all earlier models were withdrawn. GPT-5 provides curt and terse responses. Again, OpenAI has restored the model selector.

GPT-5 flawed when asked how many b’s are there in ‘blueberry’ and it said three. The users lost access to AI models of their choice. It has become frostier in tone. There is less friendly banter. There is no sycophancy that established warm relationships. Altman has admitted that outright withdrawal of earlier models was a mistake. They introduced a few changes and tweaked GPT-5 to make its personality warmer.

GPT-5 has opened doors for OpenAI in another field — enterprise market. Many companies have adopted GPT-5 in their core offerings -Any Sphere, Vercel and Factory. GPT-5’s enterprise uptake is better than that of Claude.

AS we know a US Court ruled in 2024 that it finds an unlawful monopoly in Google’s online search. The justice department has sought a divestiture of Chrome as a part of the remedies suggested.

Perplexity AI has made on $34.5 billion unsolicited all-cash offer for Alphabet’s Chrome browser. Though it is a low-bid, it is also a bold bid that requires financing well above Perplexity’s own valuation.

Buying Chrome gives Perplexity access to more than 3 billion users of Chrome to give it an edge in the AI search race. Google has not offered Chrome for sale and plans to appeal a US Court ruling.

Perplexity did not disclose how it plans to fund the offer. It is three-year old company. It has raised a funding of $1billion from investors such as Nvidia and SoftBank. It was last valued at $14 billion.

Web browsers are gaining prominence as the new generation users turn to bots such as ChatGPT and Perplexity for answers. Perplexity already has a browser called Comet. Acquining Chrome can make it more competitive.

Perplexity’s bid pledges to keep the underlying browser code called Chromium open source. It expects to invest a few billions more. It does not want to change Chrome’s default search engine.

Chrome is essential for Google to its own AI-push that rolls out features such as AI-generation search summaries called Overviews to help defend its search market share.

Though most lung infections could be misdiagnosed as TB, at times doctors miss a large mass-like shadow on the lungs with seizure, respiratory failure and rapid deterioration, and cancer. There are devastating delay in cancer diagnosis, and this delay could prove to be fatal.

Scanning can show large masses in the lung and legions in the brain. Pleural fluids can be tested to identify the type of cancer. Genetic tests could be run to look for mutations. There could be ALK-positive lung cancer. These occur in 3-7 per cent of lung adenocarcinomas in India.

ALK mutations respond well to targeted oral therapies. A pathway of mutated gene could be blocked by a pill. The oxygen requirements reduce. The patient could be off a ventilator soon. There is a dramatic turnaround in targeted therapies.

Three months later, PET scan can show a complete response. Cancer can be controlled. This is precision oncology.

With access to molecular testing, treatment can be personalized instead of relying on chemotherapy.

The Us FDA has approved a device that provided hope to patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis (RA). RA is a chronic condition resistant to treatment and is usually managed by medications.

The device is a departure from the traditional therapy — it taps the power of the uncontrolled inflamation that results into auto-immune disease.

The inch-long device — Setpoint System — is implanted into the neck. It sits in a pod wrapped around the vagus nerve (the longest nerve in the body).Electronically, the device stimulates the nerve for one minute each day. It can turn off inflammation and ‘reset’ the immune system. It is a true paradigm shift in the treatment of RA. It belongs to the so-called bioelectronics medicine.

The vagus stimulation is also being studied to manage inflammatory bowl disease in children, lupus and other conditions. Trials for multiple sclerosis or Crohn’s disease are also planned. The device’s long-term effectiveness and safety are being studied.

Surgery to implant devices can lead to infections resistant to antibiotics.

This device is a result of extensive research. Vagus nerve acts as an on-off switch. It works for an overactive immune system. It acts like a brake system in the car. In a way, it reeducates the immune system.

Its price has not been disclosed. It is designed to last for a decade, It could be less expensive than the quota of medicines to manage RA for a year. It is to be seen whether the effectiveness of the device wane over time.

Recently Titan sued Lenskart on account of its website code that carried metatags with the potential to influence search engine results. We have heard about misleading taglines or comparative advertising. Here the issue is metatags hidden in keywords embedded in the HTML of a webpage. These are invisible to consumers, but they help search engines decide which pages to show up whenever there is a search by someone for a particular brand.

Titan discovered that Lenskart had embedded its trademarks — Titan, Titan Eye + and Fastrack — into its own metatags. The argument of Titan was that this could unfairly divert consumer traffic. Lenskart pleaded inadvertence and removed the tags. That resulted into the closure of the case.

Brands are fighting for consumer attention. This case invited a larger discussion. The issue is how fair it is to use the rival brand names to gain online visibility in this competitive world. It could damage the equity of the aggressor and his brand. Is there any role for regulators such as ASCI?

The practice is a red flag for brand’s marketing. One off case can be ignored, but repeated lapses risk the erosion of reputation.

Courts urge brands to tread carefully in how they compete online. The use of competitor’s trade names involving Google Adwords do come up before the courts, e.g. MakeMyTrip vs. Booking.com, and the Agrawal Packers & Movers case. The courts have backed the protection of registered trademarks.

The battle for attention is fought for digital-first brands in terms of milliseconds on Google search. The promotional strategy decides the line between smart strategy and overreach.

ASCI discourages brands from unfairly using another company’s name. It violates the fairness in competition and gives unfair advantage. ASCI’s remit does not extend to backend technologies such as SEO and metatag manipulation. ASCI code is for advertising consent. In the age of digital advertising, what constitutes advertising has changed. At present, these are not within ASCI’s remit.

Though these are invisible practices, the impact is real. It can qualify as trademark infringement under Section 29 of the Trademarks Act, 1999. A more concrete form can be given to these legal pronouncements by amending existing laws which define such digital practices.

Sholay: 50th Birthday on August 15, 2025. Sholay was released on August 15, 1975, and since then has never receded from the memory of Indian audiences. It has never left us. The movie breathes into our lives through its dialogues. These have become our everyday colloquial. The dialogues are alive in our heads through the characters. Anyone utters Jay and Veeru or Basanti and we know which screen characters these names refer. Sholay has, in fact, transcended cinema — it is a story with pan-India appeal.

To older generation, Sholay is a story inseparable from their youth. Next generations treats it as family fable. They discovered it on TV and internet.

Salim-Javed’s dialogues captivated the audiences. In fact, 1970s were an audio era. Radio Ceylon or Vividh Bharati were on air throughout the day. Sholay’s dialogue records were blaring in homes, shops and markets. Most were able to recollect these dialogues. In theatres too, audiences pre-empted the dialogues of the characters. The characters made the dialogues unforgettable. All these characters were archetypical. Keshto Mukherjee’s barber and Asrani’s Angrezon ke Jamane ka Jailer are still remembered. Jagdeep’s Surma Bhopali with typical Bhopali lingo is still remembered. Gabbar has left an indelible mark. Mac Mohan’s three words ‘poorey pachas hazaar’ still echo in our ears. Viju Khote’s received Gabbar’s one liner, ‘Tera kya hoga, kaalia’ has been identified by audiences.

To begin with, Sholay on release did not do well. In its second week, there were half-empty theatres. It was later that the film picked up. Most reviews were dismissive. Over the decades, the film has been reappraised. It has been declared as greatest Indian film ever made. It has become a myth. It belongs to the public now, like any other work of art. It is being shown at International Film Festivals on completing its 50th Birthday.

In the original story idea from the writer pair Salim-Javed, the duo to counter the dacoit were drawn from army — two recruits who were dismissed on account of indiscipline. However, when army comes into picture, there are limitations of narrative and so they changed the characters to a cop and two hoodlums. Basanti was not conceived initially. They had a dacoit in mind. Later they added a multitude of characters making it a muti-starrer. Sholay has an amalgamation of emotions — vendetta, love, friendship, simplicity of the village, smartness of two urban hoodlums. It has become a timeless classic despite the march of times.

Let us understand the concept of demographic dividend. In the population of a country, when the young population component of 15-64 rises more than the component of dependents, say children under 15 and elderly, over 64, a demographic dividend sets in leading to an economic growth. Thus, a country can take advantage of its young population when birth rates fall (less children to support), health care improves (people live longer and heathier). A country reaps benefits from large young working population as productivity improves, there is more saving and investment and the government earns more revenues from taxes.

However, demographic dividend is not automatic. A country must create enough jobs, focus on education and practice good governance. If not managed well, there is higher unemployment, poverty and social unrest. Thus, it is an opportunity that can lead to prosperity but if wasted, it turns into a liability.

Countries like South Korea between 1960s and 1990s, Ireland between 1990s and 2000s and China between 1980s and 2010s used the opportunity well. The countries who missed the opportunity are sub-Saharan African nations and some middle eastern and north African countries.

The key lessons are that a large workforce that is unskilled is a liability. Another lesson is that economic policies should be so designed as to generate jobs. Most importantly, the governance matters most — corruption, instability and poor planning is wastage of demographic advantage.

India’s demographic dividend period started around 2005-2006 and will reach its peak between 2025-2040. By 2030, most Indians (68 per cent) will be of working age. Every month 1 million young people will enter the workplace. The GDP of the country could reach 7-8 per cent. Country could become global hub for manufacturing and services. Indian can experience consumption boom.

If India does not manage its demographic dividend well, there could be mass unemployment, skill mismatch and economic disparity.

By 2050, India will show a demographic shift towards an older population. The fertility rate is declining. The ideal fertility rate for replacement should be 2.1, whereas India has a lower rate of 1.9. By 2050, the elderly will make up over 20 per cent of population (as compared to 10 per cent today). The working age population will plateau.

At this stage, India should make smart investments in health, skills, education and livelihoods.

In future, when the proportion of elderly individuals rises, there will be greater demand for age-related services such as elderly care, assisted living facilities and other support services. Consequently, there will be decline in demand for child-related services.

China and India currently have the highest working age populations between 16 and 59 years of age. Both will see a projected decline by 2050

Every year, nearly one million Indians turn 18 and they add to the workforce. Over 65 per cent of Indian population is under 35, creating a median age of 28. The world is greying, and India is bursting with youth. Indians are a decade younger than China, where median age is 38. India is two decades younger than Japan, where median age is 48. This demographic dividend is once-in-a-life-time opportunity. It means working age population far outnumbers dependents. If harnessed well, it could power India’s economy for decades.

The working age population will surge to one billion by 2047. It could take the annual GDP growth to an increase of 2-3 percentage points. India could maintain this growth upto 2055. Thus it is a three decade runway. The population surge also increases domestic demand. India’s talent pool will be a good resource for global business.