Awal Madan
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
Trump's comments on India and its economy 'belittling, unacceptable': Anand Sharma
Congress leader and former commerce minister Anand Sharma on Monday asserted that US President Donald Trump 's comments on India and its economy are "belittling and unacceptable", as he urged the government not to succumb to the American leader's "bullying tactics" to sign a "suboptimal" trade deal. In a statement, Sharma said India must uphold its sovereignty and supreme national interests and Parliament as well as leaders of all political parties must be taken in confidence on any understanding reached with the US. "President Trump has triggered an upheaval and caused unprecedented disruption in the world order by his utterances and actions. His comments on India and its economy are belittling and unacceptable," the Congress leader said. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Secure Your Child's Future with Strong English Fluency Planet Spark Learn More Undo His remarks come days after Trump announced the imposition of 25 per cent tariff and penalties on India and called India and Russia "dead economies". Echoing Trump's criticism of the Indian economy, Rahul Gandhi had last week said everybody except Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman know that the country's economy is "dead". Live Events In his statement, Sharma said India has withstood pressures and threats in the past and emerged stronger. "President Trump is mistaken that India does not have options. As the fourth largest economy India has resilience and inherent strength to engage with the world on principles of equality and mutual respect," Sharma said. "Signing of a robust economic and trade agreement with the UK is most welcome. India should prioritise concluding India-EU Trade deal. It is equally important to engage with major trading blocs and regions: Africa Union, ASEAN, GCC and LAC to deepen market access and trade," Sharma said. He said the government must not succumb to Trump's "bullying tactics" to sign a "suboptimal" trade deal. "India must uphold its sovereignty and supreme national interests. Parliament and leaders of all political parties must be taken in confidence on any understanding reached with the US," Sharma said.
Time of India
2 hours ago
- Time of India
Verdis: Roblox creator forms a new country with 400 citizens in unclaimed land between Croatia and Serbia, and it's real
A 20-year-old man has gone viral on Reddit after he declared himself president of a self-proclaimed nation called the Free Republic of Verdis, located in a small disputed area along the Danube River between Croatia and Serbia. Daniel Jackson, who founded the micro-nation in 2019, says Verdis now has its own flag, cabinet, currency, and around 400 citizens. A micro-nation born out of a border dispute Verdis is located on a 0.5-square-kilometer patch of forest known on maps as "pocket three." The area remains unclaimed by either Croatia or Serbia due to an unresolved border dispute. Jackson told news agency SWNS that he discovered the area was technically unowned and decided to act on an idea he first had as a teenager. Explore courses from Top Institutes in Please select course: Select a Course Category Others MCA Data Science Cybersecurity Management Product Management Finance Technology Digital Marketing Degree Artificial Intelligence Operations Management CXO Healthcare Leadership Design Thinking PGDM Data Science Data Analytics Public Policy MBA others healthcare Project Management Skills you'll gain: Duration: 7 Months S P Jain Institute of Management and Research CERT-SPJIMR Exec Cert Prog in AI for Biz India Starts on undefined Get Details Skills you'll gain: Duration: 28 Weeks MICA CERT-MICA SBMPR Async India Starts on undefined Get Details Skills you'll gain: Duration: 9 months IIM Lucknow SEPO - IIML CHRO India Starts on undefined Get Details Skills you'll gain: Duration: 16 Weeks Indian School of Business CERT-ISB Transforming HR with Analytics & AI India Starts on undefined Get Details "Verdis was an idea I had when I was 14," said Jackson. "It was just a bit of an experiment at first with a few mates. We have all dreamed of creating something crazy." by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Even Beautiful Women Have Their 'Oops' Moments Read More Building a government from scratch Jackson, a digital designer who creates virtual worlds on Roblox, began working seriously on Verdis at the age of 18. He introduced laws, selected official languages, English, Croatian, and Serbian, and adopted the Euro as the national currency. "We started making Verdis a reality when I was 18 by forming some laws and a flag," he said. "We have now built up a government and have a great cabinet." Live Events Verdis is accessible only by boat from the Croatian city of Osijek. Despite its remote location, Jackson claims over 15,000 people have applied for citizenship, and more than 400 have been approved. Each citizen receives a Verdisian passport, though Jackson warns it should not be used for international travel. Confrontation with Croatian authorities In October 2023, Croatian police detained Jackson and several others who attempted to settle in the area. They were deported and Jackson was banned from re-entering Croatia for life. "They deported us but couldn't give a reason why," Jackson said. "They said we were a threat to homeland security." Since then, he has operated what he calls a "government in exile" and accused Croatian authorities of installing surveillance to block access from the Serbian side. "We have had a lot of problems with Croatian authorities, but we do want a good relationship with them in the future," he said. "They haven't taken to us kindly and have been aggressive." Support from Serbia and future plans Jackson now travels often to Belgrade, Serbia, where he says officials have been more open to his project. He continues to advocate for access to Verdis and hopes to return there one day. "It is a matter of when, not if, we get back on the land," he said. "Croatia doesn't claim the land, so we have the right to it, and we believe that we have a good chance." A symbolic project with growing support Jackson said the Free Republic of Verdis started with just four people. The micro-nation now selectively approves citizens based on their skills, especially in areas like medicine or policing. "It is a very small country so we have to be careful who we let in," he said. Despite legal obstacles and setbacks, Jackson insists the goal is not personal power but creating a working, community-driven micro-nation. "If successful, I would step down from my position and call an election," he said. "I am not interested in power at all … I just want to be a normal citizen. It has been eye-opening, and I am quite proud of what I have achieved." "To the naked eye it is just a lot of forest, but when you realize that you are in a country you have created, it is magical," he added.
India Today
2 hours ago
- India Today
TCS layoffs show Indian IT giants have missed the bus, job loss and pain ahead
Unless you are living a life without a smartphone, you must already be aware of it — TCS has announced that it will be reducing its headcount by 12,000 employees. The company is not explicitly saying that it is because of AI tools like Claude and Gemini, which are fairly competent at some of the work we do in our offices, but read between the lines and it becomes TCS layoffs mark the beginning of an era where tools like ChatGPT can do enough work to make teams after teams, and employees after employees, redundant and unnecessary. This does not mean that IT jobs will vanish. It only means that we are in for a choppy ride. And by we, I mean people in India, the country that benefited greatly from the last three decades when the entire world turned into some sort of code and a country, we have ridden an IT wave because of our familiarity with English, a culture of following instructions to the T, and the availability of millions of coders who are willing to work 60 hours a week at 1/10th the salary that someone in the US would demand. In other words, before there was Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini — AI tools that are familiar with English, can follow instructions, and are cheap to run — there was your average Indian coder, almost like a human AI who could be trusted to follow guidelines and libraries created by the cracked engineers in Silicon Valley, and then do boring and repetitive tasks. Now, the same coder is at the risk of losing their job. The real AI is here. It is even cheaper and more in the late 18th and 19th centuries, machines replaced manual work. This was catastrophic for skilled manual labourers — think weavers — and horses. To keep society intact, the world invented knowledge work, elaborate bureaucracies, and the service industry. In the early 21st century, we are at a point where AI tools are good enough to replace knowledge work and disrupt the service industry. Again, it is going to be catastrophic for a lot of people, though horses will be spared this time. The Indian government, along with other governments, will soften the blow with new policies and probably more bureaucracy. But the hammer will fall in the coming years, and pain will be is also the pain that, in some ways, TCL, Infosys, Wipro, HCL, Tech Mahindra and their ilk deserve. Despite a huge opportunity open to them in the last 20 years, they have been happy doing the unimaginative and lazy work and have kept billing their rich or unsuspecting clients for Valley creates libraries, programming languages and products. Indian coders use and service them. Instead of building novel expertise, the biggest flex of Indian IT giants has been to hire coders from Pilani at a salary that is less than that of a Starbucks barista in San Francisco. In other words, they have focused on arbitrage instead of building something unique. Their profits have not been invested in R&D or product has been synonymous with servicing the tech industry, but only because the rest of the world, for whatever reasons, doesn't seem too enthusiastic about it. Europe, still flush with money from the colonial era and from intellectual property, doesn't want this Korea, China and Asian island nations until now did not have enough familiarity with English to do it on the scale India could. Skilled labour in the US is too pricey. The rest of the world just doesn't have enough knowledge, workers or stability to do what India managed in Bengaluru and is a bit of luck that made India an IT powerhouse and not necessarily our abilities. Though, it can be argued that a degree of luck, whether we are talking about individuals or societies, is needed for any tragedy of India is that, despite the initial luck, due to which it reaped rich rewards for several decades, the IT giants of our country have been completely vision-less and risk-averse. Instead of realising their good fortune and working to build on it, they believe in their fantasy of being the genius IT giants. And now, when the tide is turning, our IT industry doesn't have a good anchor that can stabilise compare it with China. In manufacturing, as the factories shifted from Europe and the US to Asia, a number of Chinese and Korean companies quickly became large OEMs, somewhat like how Indian IT companies became support arms for the global IT the 1990s, the Chinese took the IP, research and design from Western companies and made products for them. But they did not stay OEMs. In a few years, they became product companies in their own right, first domestically and then globally. From BYD to Oppo, they all started as makers of parts or products for others. But gradually they expanded, with a vision to be manufacturers of something Indian IT giant has made a transition like this. In a country famed for its supposed IT prowess, we don't have a proper operating system for phones or computers that we can call our own. In fact, in a country of IT giants, we don't have a locally-made media player, a chat app, a browser, even a proper video game, or maybe a file explorer that is as good as or better than its global counterparts. Even in the late 2010s, when it became clear that the next wave in tech is going to be around AI, Indian IT giants kept slumbering. It's not that they did not have money. They have plenty of profits coming in. But they had no vision. They never had any vision beyond the the chickens are coming home to roost. When you build an industry on the basis of arbitrage, sooner or later, it is going to be upended. This is what is happening in 2025 and will only gather a week or so, OpenAI is expected to launch ChatGPT 5 and there is chatter that this one is specifically going to be great at coding, better than even the Claude Opus 4, which is already considered a coding tool as good as an entry-level software it another three to four years and the kind of work that our IT giants do will be manageable by AI systems. Humans will still be required, particularly for complex, challenging and novel work. But for that work, you may not need 10,000 employees. It could be the kind of work that employees do at Nvidia, an almost $4 trillion company, but with just 26,000 comparison, TCS has over 6 lakh employees. A lot of these employees are going to find that in the next two to three years, ChatGPT will be able to do their work faster, more efficiently and cheaper.(Javed Anwer is Technology Editor, India Today Group Digital. Latent Space is a weekly column on tech, world, and everything in between. The name comes from the science of AI and to reflect it, Latent Space functions in the same way: by simplifying the world of tech and giving it a context)- Ends(Views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author)
