The real history of free speech — from supreme ideal to poisonous politics
The debate over free speech has become wider and more intense in 2025, unsurprisingly so. But it isn’t just with the events in the US, closer home here in India, we have had a stand-up comic being defended for free speech after the studio in which he performed was vandalised and more dramatically, Elon Musk’s […]
Long read: 50 years of travel tips
As we book our tickets for our summer holidays with our families and wrestle with their conflicting demands, we enjoyed reading travel expert Kevin Kelly’s thoughtful and super helpful piece on how to have a “happy holiday”. Mr Kelly’s blog is long, well written, nicely structured. Hence, we suggest you read it in full. Here […]
Long read: The Great Indian Passport Scam: Labyrinth of fictional identities, expert forgers & pliant system
The lack of an integrated biometrics system in India is being ruthlessly exploited by forgers, criminals and illegal immigrants. Bismee Taskin has written a super interesting article on how the fact that India’s Aadhar database and the country’s passport database do not talk to each other is hurting the country. Specifically, this is allowing criminals […]
Navigating our Rising Giants through the SMID Meltdown
The BSE500 index companies (especially the bottom 250 market-cap companies in the index) have witnessed significant moderation in their earnings in recent quarters. This together with their elevated valuations (especially for the smaller cap stocks) represents a formidable challenge for most smidcap portfolios in India. In this difficult environment, the Rising Giants portfolio companies’ earnings […]
Navigating the portfolio amidst SMID challenges
The BSE500 index companies (especially the bottom 250 market cap companies in the index) have witnessed significant moderation in their earnings in recent quarters. This together with their elevated valuations (especially for the smaller cap stocks) represents a formidable challenge for most smidcap portfolios in India. In this difficult environment, the Little Champs portfolio companies’ […]
Short read: Finding the Edge: A masterful tale of Jimmy Anderson’s cricketing journey
Who is the greatest fast bowler ever? Answers are likely to range from Wasim Akram to Malcolm Marshall to Sir Richard Hadlee or even a Glenn McGrath. Jimmy Anderson would perhaps be way down the list on that vote. But if greatness is about longevity at the top, there is little to debate Anderson’s candidature. […]
Short read: Have humans passed peak brain power?
A key reason for us human beings to dominate the planet has been our reasoning power or intelligence. Unfortunately, that seems to be on the wane for our species as a whole according to this FT piece. The article notes the recent results from PISA, the OECD’s international benchmarking test for performance by 15-year-olds in […]
Short read: Jet Dilemma
You know you are in trouble with your jet procurement policy when the US President says in public that you will be buying a jet which you actually cannot afford to buy. The team at the Statesman lay out the muddle that is India’s jet procurement policy: “India’s fighter jet procurement strategy is at a […]
Long read: Interview with Joerg Wuttke: “An America in Self Destruction Mode Is Seen With Great Pleasure in Beijing”
With Trump’s ‘shock and awe’ policies, all conventional macro thinking is proving useless. Geo-politics from Trump’s trade and foreign policies amidst technology disruption from AI is only making it that much complicated. Financial markets across the world’s three largest economic zones – the US, EU and China have behaved differently off late with the former […]
Long read: Selling Water: How Punjab’s Basmati Exports Are Worsening Its Groundwater Crisis
Did you know that it takes 5,000 litres of water to grow 1 kg of rice? And did you know that India – increasingly a water deficient country – merrily exports rice to more than 170 countries. In fact, we learnt from Anant Prakash’s nerve shattering story of policy incompetence that, “India is the world’s […]
Long read: The Last Decision by the World’s Leading Thinker on Decisions
Jason Zweig of the WSJ has written a mind-blowing bittersweet article about his friend and one-time collaborator, the Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman. (Jason helped Danny write the mega bestseller, ‘Thinking, Fast & Slow’.) The focus of the article is Danny’s decision, at the age of 90, to take his own life in mid-March 2024. It […]
Short read: Why it’s possible to be optimistic in a world of bad news
In the investing world, bulls are deemed reckless and speculative whilst bears are regarded particularly thoughtful and rational. In the world at large too, optimists are seen as delusional whilst pessimism is justified given the inevitable troubles surrounding us. Yet, as this author argues, optimists are the ones with the power to change the world. […]
For more content on our strategy, visit the archives GO TO ARCHIVES