Daily News Capsules
1. New US immigration rule: No auto extension of work authorisation
The US Department of Homeland Security has eliminated automatic extensions of employment authorisation documents, a move that will force foreign workers, especially Indians who make up a large portion of the expat workforce, to stop working if their renewals are not approved before their current permits expire. The interim final rule, published on Wednesday and coming into effect from Thursday, ends a practice that allowed workers to continue their jobs for up to 540 days while renewal applications were pending. Starting Thursday, anyone filing to renew their work permit will lose authorisation the day after their current document expires if the government has not yet approved the renewal. The change is expected to significantly affect Indian professionals, including H-1B workers waiting years or decades for green cards, their H-4 spouses who depend on work permits, students on STEM work extensions, and other employment-based green card applicants who must repeatedly renew authorisations while in visa backlog. “This represents a major shift in how employment authorisation renewals are handled,” said Henry Lindpere, senior counsel, immigration law at Manifest Law.
Possible Question
Examine the implications of recent changes in US immigration and work authorisation policies for India’s skilled workforce. How do such external policy shifts affect India’s talent management and remittance inflows?
2. Nvidia is 1st $5 trillion company on back of AI mania
Nvidia made history on Wednesday as the first company to reach $5 trillion in market value, powered by a stunning rally that has cemented its place at the centre of the global artificial intelligence boom. The milestone underscores the company’s swift transformation from a niche graphics-chip designer into the backbone of the global AI industry, turning CEO Jensen Huang into a Silicon Valley icon. Since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, Nvidia’s shares have climbed 12-fold as the AI frenzy propelled the S&P 500 to record highs, igniting a debate on whether frothy tech valuations could lead to the next big bubble. The new milestone, coming just three months after Nvidia breached the $4 trillion mark, would surpass the total cryptocurrency market value and equal roughly half the size of Europe’s benchmark equities index, the Stoxx 600 index. Huang unveiled $500 billion in AI chip orders on Tuesday and said he plans to build seven supercomputers for the US government. Meanwhile, United States President Donald Trump is expected to discuss Nvidia’s Blackwell chip with Chinese President Xi Jinping during their meeting on Thursday. Sales of the high-end chip have been a key sticking point between the two sides due to Washington’s export controls.
Possible Question
Discuss the significance of Nvidia’s rise as the first $5 trillion company in the context of the global AI boom. What lessons does this hold for India’s semiconductor and AI strategy?
3. SC slams govt over lapses in EWS compliance at hospitals
The Supreme Court on Wednesday warned the Delhi government of contempt proceedings for failing to monitor and submit reports on whether private hospitals in the city, which received land at concessional rates, are complying with its directive to provide free treatment to patients from economically weaker sections (EWS). A bench of justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Vipul M Pancholi empasised that under its July 2018 judgment, the government is obligated to file periodic compliance reports showing that such hospitals are reserving 10% of in-patient (IPD) beds and 25% of out-patient (OPD) services for EWS patients. To be sure, the 2018 ruling had made clear that any violation would amount to contempt of court and could lead to the cancellation of the hospitals’ leases. Appearing for the Delhi government, advocate Piyush Beriwal admitted that no such compliance report had been filed since 2019. “We will issue contempt against you. Why didn’t you file your report?” the bench said, observing that the matter directly concerns access to healthcare for “poor and vulnerable sections of society”. The bench rebuked the government for attempting to shift the responsibility to the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), noting that the duty to monitor and report compliance lies squarely with the Delhi health department.
Possible Question:
Critically evaluate the challenges in ensuring compliance with welfare obligations in private healthcare institutions in India. What mechanisms can strengthen accountability while balancing private and public interests?
4. Trump, Xi may declare trade truce after chaos
Donald Trump and Xi Jinping are set to finalise a detente as they meet on Thursday in South Korea, putting the world’s biggest trade fight on hold — at least for now. Initial signals indicate the leaders are readying a pact that could see a rollback of some tariffs, fees, and export restrictions threatened or implemented in recent months. That includes a reduction in US duties linked to fentanyl, approval of the sale of TikTok’s US operations, soybean purchases, and a deal to halt measures, including China’s sweeping plan to require licenses for goods with even a trace amount of its rare earths. The moment is a watershed — for the global economy, markets and companies that rely on trade as well as for key sectors, such as semiconductors and shipping, that have become bargaining chips in the broader conflict. Still, the outcome looks more like a temporary pause in hostilities rather than a durable agreement that will alter the trajectory of a managed decoupling of the world’s two leading economies. The two leaders will meet in Busan, South Korea, the White House said, their first in-person discussion since Trump returned to office in January. The last nine months have been turbulent, with Trump at one point raising tariffs on Chinese products to 145% and Beijing cutting off supplies of rare earth magnets used to make high-tech goods, including fighter jets, smartphones and wind turbines.
Possible question:
Analyse the impact of recurring US-China trade tensions on the global economy. How should India calibrate its trade and industrial policies in response to such uncertainties?
5. ‘Developing nations will need at least $310bn a year by 2030’
Adaptation finance — money needed to help developing countries mitigate the climate crisis — are likely to be over $310 billion per year in developing countries by 2035 , 12 times higher than the current international requirement, the Adaptation Gap Report 2025 has flagged. As per the report, international public adaptation finance flows to developing countries were $26 billion in 2023, down from $28 billion the previous year. This leaves a gap of $284-339 billion per year – 12 to 14 times more than current flows, the report by the United Nations Environment Programme added. Based on extrapolated needs expressed in Nationally Determined Contributions (emission reduction targets) and National Adaptation Plans, the flow need rises to $365 billion a year. If current trends in financing do not turn around quickly, the Glasgow Climate Pact goal of doubling international public adaptation finance flows from 2019 levels to approximately $40 billion by 2025 will not be achieved, as per the report. As per the New Collective Quantified Goal at COP29 in Baku, developed nations would provide at least $300 billion per year as adaptation finance flows. However, this includes both mitigation and adaptation and is clearly insufficient. “Meanwhile, if the estimated adaptation finance needs of $310-365 billion in 2035 were adjusted for inflation at an annual rate of 3% (a figure in line with near-term projections), they would increase to $440-520 billion,” the report states.
Possible Question
Assess the challenges of mobilising climate adaptation finance for developing countries. How can India leverage multilateral platforms to bridge its adaptation finance gap?
Editorial Snapshots
A. Message to the US and Russia
India’s move to work with a Russian state-run aviation major facing extensive Western sanctions to build a civilian commuter aircraft came almost a decade after Moscow first offered the complete production of the regional jet to New Delhi. The fact that an agreement was finally signed on the SJ-100 jet by India’s Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) with Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) ahead of President Vladimir Putin’s visit for an annual summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi is being seen as both a part of India’s balancing act and a message to the US and to Russia. At a time when the US has intensified sanctions and punitive measures over the purchase of Russian energy, New Delhi has made it clear that it will not be bullied into making decisions that affect the country’s strategic autonomy. To the Russian side, the agreement is the signal that India is willing to branch out into other critical sectors at a time when the sanctions may have forced the reduction of procurement of Russian energy. The UAC, which was created by Putin by merging several of Russia’s main players in aviation, has played a key role in the licenced manufacture of the Sukhoi-30MKI combat jets that are currently among the Indian Air Force’s frontline assets. While the deal between HAL and UAC envisages the manufacture of the 100-seat regional jet for domestic consumers, India will have to be mindful of the potential impact of US, British and European Union sanctions against the Russian firm. This will help pre-empt any cooling-off in New Delhi-Moscow ties over energy purchases. Washington should read the message here: Grandstanding on politics and delaying trade deals and technology transfers will only persuade India to explore other and more fruitful collaborations.
Possible Question
In light of India’s recent defence and aviation cooperation with Russia, discuss the challenges of maintaining strategic autonomy amid great-power rivalries. How does this reflect India’s approach to multipolarity?
B. Scholarship measured with clock and in hours
A recent attendance policy at a department (Electronic Systems Engineering) of the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru — which demands MTech and first year PhD students spend at least 50 hours a week in labs, and senior PhD scholars do 70–80-hour-a-week schedules — makes for a troubling read. With a whole gamut of surveillance paraphernalia necessary to track the hours, the clock-Nazi culture undermines the trust that underlies the student teacher/supervisor/institution relationship and replaces it with the fear of penal action. The clock may help streamline production processes in a Fordist industrial environment, but it will not necessarily improve output in the academic world. Policies, influenced more by the tendency to discipline and punish, can have serious consequences for the health of students. Such policies fail to grasp the work-leisure dialectic, which is necessary for a healthy and enabling learning environment. Student suicides in higher education institutes such as the IITs have been blamed on the absence of a balanced campus life. In fact, many campuses have introduced strict guidelines on work hours (lab, library, classroom) to eliminate stress caused by overwork. Institutions should know that decent classrooms, hostels, well-resourced 24×7 libraries and labs, and more importantly, the freedom to engage in debate, dialogue, and discussion fearlessly, are more likely to enable knowledge production than disciplinary overreach.
Possible Question
Critically assess the impact of rigid attendance and work-hour policies in India’s higher education institutions. How can a balance between academic rigour and student well-being be achieved?
Fact of the day
Is the H-1B visa crisis a blessing in disguise for IT?
Indian information technology services companies’ strategy of servicing US clients from offshore locations to offset the impact of the H-1B visa fee hike—from $1,000 to $100,000—is boosting their operating margins. In the July-September quarter, HCLTech, the country’s third-largest IT firm, booked the highest quarter-on quarter jump in operating margin of 110 bps (basis points) to 17.4%. It was followed by Tech Mahindra (100bps to 12.1%), Persistent Systems (80bps, 16.3%), and Infosys (20bps, 21%). L&T Technology Services Ltd (LTTS), too, saw margins rise 10bps to 13.4%. A hundred basis points equal 1%. These companies cited offshoring and nearshoring as contributing to this rise, and expect it to continue. Offshoring involves relocating work to countries farther from a client’s base, while nearshoring involves shifting employees to neighbouring countries. Both approaches help companies lower operating cost, especially employee salaries. While offshoring has been integral to operations, IT firms are now relocating employees to even Canada or Mexico. Tech Mahindra’s chief executive Mohit Joshi pointed to the company’s ability to deliver locally from the Americas — Canada, Mexico, Brazil. Salil Parekh, chief executive of Infosys, the country’s second-largest IT outsourcer, said the company will continue growing in nearshore locations. At least one expert said companies that have refrained from publicly criticising offshoring are engaging in it. “Even larger players such as Tata Consultancy Services Ltd and Wipro are quietly using these levers to stabilise margins amid a muted demand environment,” said Phil Fersht, chief executive of consultancy HFS Research.
