Short read: Why India caps pollution reading at 500 when the air is far more toxic
Nikita Yadav informs us that there are three big differences in the way in which India’s Pollution Control Board estimates air pollution and the way private sector providers perform the same calculations. The first difference is well known – officially in India the air quality index can never deteriorate beyond 500 regardless of what is […]
Long read: The mystic, the cricketer and the spy: Pakistan’s game of thrones
Politics all over the world is undoubtedly entertaining even for those who despise it. But few countries could compete with Pakistan for the top spot. “Pakistani politics has the quality of a Netflix series. There are coups, assassinations, jihadist attacks, street-stopping protests, tribal insurgencies and, every now and then, threats of nuclear war.” And this […]
Long read: Why AC is cheap, but AC repair is a luxury
The world has been reminded of Jevon’s paradox over the past year or so since the onset of AI as an overarching theme in our lives. It has been referred to in the context of the potential job destruction that AI could bring upon us, mostly by the proponents of AI saying that as workers […]
Long read: As govt starts rolling back Quality Control Orders, a look at adverse impact they had, mainly on MSMEs
Around a decade ago, Indian businessmen who found themselves in a position to influence policy had a clever idea – they convinced the powers that be in New Delhi to start blocking Chinese imports by using Quality Control Orders (QCOs). Whilst the perpetrators of these QCOs then got rich behind artificially erected non-tariff trade barriers, […]
Three Years In: Staying Objective Through Market Extremes
The Global Compounders Portfolio (GCP) is Marcellus’ Global Equities strategy launched in October 2022. It invests in 30-40 deeply moated companies across developed markets—businesses that combine high returns on capital with prudent reinvestment and disciplined capital allocation. The aim has always been straightforward: to deliver long-term compounding of capital through ownership of exceptional franchises, while […]
Short read: Three AI Megadeals Are Breaking New Ground on Wall Street
Plenty has been said and written about the unprecedented data centre capex boom but even if the end seems familiar, no one knows how or when. Enter Wall Street. If the incestuous deals between Nvidia, OpenAI, Oracle, etc seemed innovative enough, this piece in the WSJ throws light on three financing deals which shows Wall […]
Short read: Long degeneracy
In the recent past, we have featured pieces around issues plaguing society ranging from wealth inequality to social media driven envy to short video addiction to shortening attention spans to a growing penchant for instant gratification through punting on everything from options to prediction markets. This piece links all of it to conclude why humanity […]
Short read: Most Top Indian Institutions Drop in QS Asia 2026 Rankings, China Surpasses India in University Tally
Those of us in Marcellus who have been interviewing Indian university graduates over the past 20 years have seen a marked deterioration in the quality of these graduates. Part of the reason for this is the deterioration in the quality of India’s universities. This can also be seen in the declining global rankings of India’s […]
Long read: How Airbus took off
At a time, when the rest of the world is threatened by its reliance on American or now increasingly Chinese stranglehold on key technologies, this comes as an interesting case study of how a multi-polar world could collaborate to counter the might of the hegemons. Airbus, the European aircraft manufacturer is a result of one […]
Long read: Will quantum be bigger than AI?
Zoe Kleinman is the BBC’s technology editor and, in this article, she simplifies for non-experts like us what quantum is and why it can change the world profoundly for both better and worse. She writes: “….quantum mechanics – a strange and partly theoretical branch of physics – is a fiendishly difficult concept to get your […]
Long read: How a warmer world is making pregnancy riskier
In this remarkable piece of science reporting, Sarah Neville of the FT reports on an alarming new mystery that scientists have stumbled upon, namely, the strong (and rising) correlation between warmer temperatures and higher risk of pre-term (or premature) births. She calls this “a scientific mystery that some experts believe is turning, almost unnoticed, into a […]
Short read: Jaspal Bhatti would be an ‘anti-national’ today — satirist who always punched up, not down
Those of us in Marcellus who grew up in the 1980s watching Doordarshan, find it hard to get to forget Jaspal Bhatti, not least for his satire of the IPO market of that era immortalised in this video of the mythical PP Waterballs IPO – see here. Tina Das of The Print reminisces about the legendary […]
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