Best of BS Opinion: Skilling, scaling, and reclaiming innovations

Business Standard

17-07-2025

There's something oddly sacred about midnight snacking. That stolen moment when the world has quieted down and your fridge becomes your temple. Half a pizza slice, a couple of salami slices, some leftover noodles, maybe a spoonful of peanut butter straight from the jar. It's not just food, it's a ritual of piecing together what the day left unfinished. Today's writeups feel a lot like it, unconnected at first, but ultimately comforting in their messiness. They speak to a nation trying to make sense of its scattered ingredients, ideas, ambitions, gaps, and goals, under the flickering light of change. Let's dive in.
Take the Union finance minister's renewed push for global capability centres (GCCs). On paper, it's a promising late-night snack, a Budget idea reheated with tax breaks and support for small-town talent hubs. But as our first editorial notes, India's business environment still needs prep: power outages, regulatory half-measures, and a skilling system that doesn't quite match industry appetite. Without fixing the kitchen, no amount of garnish will make the dish work.
If that sounds familiar, our second editorial's deep dive into the lagging AI regulation offers a similar flavour. While the European Union has plated up a full-course meal with its AI Act, India is still figuring out the recipe. The country's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, though a start, doesn't quite address the global buffet of challenges: Data scraping, model misuse, or even the basic seasoning of transparency. As Big Tech feasts unchecked, India risks showing up at the innovation dinner party with an empty tiffin.
Then there's our urban sprawl. Amit Kapoor writes how our cities, instead of cooking up dynamism, are just boiling over. With traffic jams, heat islands, and scattered planning, India's metros resemble overstuffed thalis — crowded, but offering little nourishment. To regain productivity, Balakrishnan calls for a smarter recipe: integrated governance, resilient design, and real data-driven plans.
Meanwhile, Naushad Forbes turns the spotlight to R&D, where India has long survived on snacks even as others have enjoyed feasts. The new Rs 1 trillion RDI scheme could change that, but only if funds go directly to firms that can digest them, those with hungry, growing R&D teams and the stamina for mid-stage research. Without focus, we risk spreading the chutney too thin.
And finally, Vivek Banerji's Insight Edge: Crafting Breakthroughs in a World of Information Overload, reviewed by Ajit Balakrishnan, is like the healthy snack you didn't know you needed. The author argues that in this data-glutted world, insight, not information, is the real nourishment. Forget endless dashboards. What we need is curiosity, empathy, and a refusal to pretend we always know the answer. Sounds a lot like the way we rummage the fridge, hoping to find meaning — or at least cold pizza.
Stay tuned!