Tootfinder

Sources: top VC firms operating in India are expected to commit investments ranging from $300M to $500M each to India's AI ecosystem at the AI Impact Summit (The Economic Times)
https://economictimes.indi…

Major VCs line up top dollars for coordinated AI capital push in India
Top venture capital firms in India are set to invest $300–500 million each into the country’s AI ecosystem, covering infrastructure, enterprise applications and sector-specific solutions. Global and domestic VCs, including Khosla Ventures, Accel India and Lightspeed, are participating. Combined, these commitments could exceed $1 billion, surpassing last year’s startup funding.

"India launches tender for 1 GW round-the-clock renewable power"
#India #Energy #Renewables

India launches tender for 1 GW round-the-clock renewable power
Solar Energy Corp. of India (SECI) has started accepting bids to develop 1 GW of round-the-clock renewable power projects, with energy storage systems required to ensure continuous supply.

Anthropic appoints Irina Ghose, a former Microsoft India managing director, to lead its business in India, which has the second-largest user base for Claude (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/15/anthropic-taps-for…

Anthropic taps former Microsoft India MD to lead Bengaluru expansion | TechCrunch
Irina Ghose joins Anthropic as India managing director after 24 years at Microsoft.

Indian studio Applause Entertainment partners with microdrama platform Story TV to co-produce and distribute short-form content for mobile audiences (Naman Ramachandran/Variety)
https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/applause-entertainment-story-…

Applause Entertainment, Story TV Team for Microdrama Slate in India
Applause Entertainment has struck a partnership with Indian microdrama platform Story TV to co-produce and distribute a slate of short-form content.

"Analysis: Coal power drops in China and India for first time in 52 years after clean-energy records"
#China #India #Energy

Analysis: Coal power drops in China and India for first time in 52 years after clean-energy records - Carbon Brief
Coal power generation fell in both China and India in 2025, after each nation added record amounts of clean energy

Anthropic opens a Bengaluru office, its second in Asia, says its India run rate revenue doubled since October, and curates training data for 10 Indic languages (Anthropic)
https://www.anthropic.com/news/bengaluru-office-partnerships-across-india

Anthropic opens Bengaluru office and announces new partnerships across India
Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that's working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.

Google's and Accel's joint AI startup accelerator Atoms picked five Indian startups from 4K applications, saying ~70% of rejected applicants were AI "wrappers" (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/15/goog…

Google, Accel India accelerator chooses 5 startups and none are 'AI wrappers' | TechCrunch
Google and Accel say about 70% of AI startup pitches tied to India were "wrappers" as they reviewed more than 4,000 applications for their Atoms cohort.

I spent Friday trying to hack into a customer box in India. They need support but have "secured" the system beyond the reach of the access mechanisms they have offered. None of the 4 different VPN’s we operate for their US operations can reach the box directly, so I must RDP into a domain controller in Mumbai, which they replaced without telling us. After finally getting to the box, none of the dozen passwords they’ve provided over the years work.
Definitely billable hours. <…

I just had a meeting with persons from Spain, Poland, Germany and India.
This is a thing i really like in the digital world :)

India drops a proposal to require Apple, Google, Samsung, and others to pre-install the country's biometric identification app Aadhaar on phones (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/india-drops-propo…

Sam Altman says that India has 100M weekly active ChatGPT users, the app's second-largest userbase after the US, ahead of the AI Impact Summit (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/15/india-has-100m-weekly-active-chatgpt-u…

India has 100M weekly active ChatGPT users, Sam Altman says | TechCrunch
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says India has the largest number of student users of ChatGPT worldwide.

A "laddige" is a ball of crushed rice pops (rice still with bran) rolled with a syrup of jaggery (cane sugar). It is a prominent daily offering to Krishna in #Udupi #India and is given/sold as "prasaada" to devotees.
Not all laddige prasaada is actually from the altar because scale.
#food

China to remove tariffs on most African imports from May 1, expands zero-duty policy across continent - The Times of India
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/international-business/china-to-remove-tariffs-on-most-african-imports-from-may-1-expands-zero-duty-policy-across-continent/articleshow/128343878.cms

A profile of Wikipedia as it faces challenges, including attacks from Elon Musk and the far right, reduced traffic due to AI, and legal challenges in India (Darren Loucaides/Financial Times)

I recently learned of this #JS library that works with #LeafletJS, @…, or @…

GitHub - ramSeraph/india_boundary_corrector: Library to correct the Indian Boundary for existing raster basemaps
Library to correct the Indian Boundary for existing raster basemaps - ramSeraph/india_boundary_corrector

During the outsourcing and offshoring craze a decade or two ago everyone hired cheap developers in India and eventually companies realized that that doesn’t work.
Now they’re trying the same with outsourcing to LLMs.
The bottleneck in software development isn’t coding.
It’s management and design.

🥑 Avocadoes may become easier to grow in India—but not if global emissions remain high
#avocado

Avocadoes may become easier to grow in India—but not if global emissions remain high
A new study suggests that with low to moderate levels of global greenhouse emissions in coming decades, more of India could become suitable for growing avocadoes. However, with high enough emissions, growing zones could shrink and destabilize by 2070.

Indian border town adjacent to Bhutan is reeling from riverbed pollution https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/04/indian-border-town-adjacent-to-bhutan-is-reeling-from-riverbed-pollution/

Indian border town adjacent to Bhutan is reeling from riverbed pollution
Jaigaon, a densely populated town on India’s border with Bhutan, is facing a crisis of poor waste disposal, reports contributor Chandrani Sinha for Mongabay India. Much of the town’s plastic, construction and medical waste gets dumped along the banks of the Torsa River. The river originates in the Chumbi Valley in the eastern Himalayas and […]

India-based AI cloud startup Neysa plans to raise up to $600M in equity led by Blackstone, plus $600M in debt, to deploy 20K GPUs in India for AI training (Baiju Kalesh/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-1…

Antas bli runt 300-400 kr/månad för weogvy.
"With the semaglutide patent expiring, the weight loss drug boom in the West is now expected to hit India more strongly"
https://indianexpress.com/article/health-well…

"Coal power generation falls in China and India for first time since 1970s"
#China #India #Energy #FossilFuels

India produces over 1.5M CS graduates annually, but scale is no longer an advantage with the rise of AI coding tools; Infosys revamps hiring to focus on AI (Saritha Rai/Bloomberg)

How did we end up with the EU being eerily proud of a tight bond with the new #India? A “mother of all deals?”
Trump virtually learnt from Modi.
https://www.

Demand for Russian oil is falling! Even India has turned away! #shorts: https://benborges.xyz/2026/02/13/demand-for-russian-oil-is.html

As India prepares to host its AI Impact Summit in New Delhi this week, the country is set to promote a frugal AI strategy focused on solving local issues (Tripti Lahiri/Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/tech/a…

India and the EU signed a security and defense pact yesterday, covering a lot of cyber territory. But Intelligence Online says the EU wanted India to rein in its hacking-for-hire industry, which India denies even exists. So that was left out of the deal.

Europe/India • Indian 'hackers for hire' to continue to thrive under Brussels-New Dehli trade deal
The major trade and strategic agreement signed on 27 January between the European Union and India includes a cyber component, which has been subject to a discreet tug-of-war between cyber diplomats

@… I am perturbed Fiona! 🙁 - Compare these two reports about the meeting between Canada's Carney and India's Modi. The BBC makes it 100% about nuclear, whereas the Canadian Press outlines all the sustainable energy technologies in the agreement and only once mentions uranium.

Green energy orgs applaud Canada-India agreements on renewables
OTTAWA — Some of Canada’s renewable energy organizations are applauding commitments Ottawa signed with India this week to advance development of solar, wind and hydrogen power. Prime Minister Mark Carney spent four days in Mumbai and New Delhi, a trip which concluded with a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and signing a series of […]

Acupuncture for Rescued Elephants Provides Relief from Chronic Pain and Nerve Damage in India Care Center https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/acupuncture-for-rescued-elephants-provides-relief-from-chronic-pain-a…

Acupuncture for Rescued Elephants Provides Relief from Chronic Pain and Nerve Damage in India Care Center
An India wildlife rescue group is using acupuncture to help elephants recover from chronic pain and nerve damage from years of hard labor.

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #JazzTheatre
John Coltrane:
🎵 India
#JohnColtrane
https://liam.bandcamp.com/track/g-dorian-john-coltrane-india

Counterpoint: India's smartphone shipments fell 3% YoY in Q1 2026, a six-year low, as price hikes weigh on sales; 80 smartphone models saw price hikes of ~15% (Abhinav Parmar/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-tel

'Let there be as much outrage': Zohran Mamdani reacts to criticism after hosting first iftar at New York City Hall (Times of India)
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/let-there-be-as-much-outrage-zohran-mamdani-reacts-to-criticism-after-hosting-first-iftar-at-new-york-city-hall/articleshow/129520510.cms
http://www.memeorandum.com/260312/p123#a260312p123

Q&A with Replit CEO Amjad Masad, who says India is Replit's second-largest market by active users, on integrating Razorpay's tech, AI's impact on SaaS, and more (Bhavya Dilipkumar/Moneycontrol)
https://www.

Saalumarada Thimmakka Dies;
Planted and Nurtured Thousands of Trees
Believed to be 113,
she spent decades building an environmental legacy in India,
inspired by her grief at being unable to conceive children.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/wor…

Saalumarada Thimmakka Dies; Planted and Nurtured Thousands of Trees
Believed to be 113, she spent decades building an environmental legacy in India, inspired by her grief at being unable to conceive children.

I clicked into this article almost by accident, and a few sentences in thought "this is AI!". But no, it's just written in Indian English, which rings differently from "standard" English. And AI also "rings" differently.

THIS animal has a tongue heavier than an elephant and it’s not a myth | - The Times of India
Trending News: Picture an animal whose tongue will weigh as much as an entire elephant. Sounds like an exciting joke, but not for the blue whale, unfortunately. Blue.

Data analytics company Fractal, which became India's first AI unicorn in 2022, raised $313M in its Mumbai IPO; its shares fell 5% amid a weak Indian IPO market (Rajesh Mascarenhas/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Thirty #Tamili and #Prakrit #scripts reveal 2,000-year-old #India-

Thirty Tamili and Prakrit scripts reveal 2,000-year-old India-Egypt trade
About 30 Tamili and Prakrit inscriptions were found in rock-cut tombs in Egypt’s Valley of Kings, dating to the 1st–3rd centuries AD. Scholars say the find underscores India-Roman trade, merchant networks and early literacy.

India partners with Alibaba.com to help Indian startups and small businesses reach overseas buyers, highlighting its selective engagement with Chinese platforms (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/13/india-…

India partners with Alibaba.com for export push despite past China tech bans | TechCrunch
India turns to Alibaba.com's B2B network of 50 million buyers in 200 countries to help businesses scale global exports.

"Solar-plus-storage could meet 90% of India’s power demand"
#India #SolarPower #Energy

Solar-plus-storage could meet 90% of India’s power demand
Ember sazs that solar paired with battery storage could supply 90% of India’s electricity demand at a levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) of INR 5.06/kWh ($56/MWh).

As you may know, India has border disputes with China and Pakistan. And because OSM’s on-the-ground policy means that the default borders are based on the actual lines of control, this does not square with India’s requirement to show their preferred borders making most OSM-based maps illegal in India.

Russian oil revenue plummets as sanctions target Putin’s cash cow | The Independent
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russian-oil-shadow-fleet-putin-trump-india-b2917969.html

WaPo terminated the contract of its Delhi bureau chief Pranshu Verma; a source says "there is no clarity if the paper will continue with its bureau in Delhi" (Aban Usmani/Newslaundry)
https://www.newslaundry.com/2026/02/05/what-the-murder-o…

What the ‘murder’ of Washington Post means for India
The Washington Post’s layoffs aren’t just an American media story. As foreign bureaus close and global coverage shrinks, countries like India lose one more watcher – and we’re reminded how fragile journalism becomes when it rests in the hands of billionaires.

India approves a $1.1B state-backed VC fund to finance high-risk areas like AI and advanced manufacturing, doubling down on an effort that debuted in 2016 (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/14/india-doubles-down…

India doubles down on state-backed venture capital, approving $1.1B fund | TechCrunch
India’s $1.1B fund-of-funds will invest through private VCs to support deep-tech and manufacturing startups.

Starting April 1, 2026, the Indian government will effectively ban Chinese video surveillance giants, including Hikvision, Dahua, and TP-Link, from selling internet-connected CCTV cameras in the country.
https://cybersecuritynews.com/india-ban-cctv-products/?mid=1#cid…

India Set to Ban Sale of Hikvision, TP-Link, CCTV Products From April
Starting April 1, 2026, the Indian government will effectively ban Chinese video surveillance giants, including Hikvision, Dahua, and TP-Link, from selling internet-connected CCTV cameras in the country.

"India Says Its Grasslands Are ‘Wastelands.’ Medieval Folklore Suggests Otherwise"
#India #Environment
https://

India Says Its Grasslands Are 'Wastelands.' Medieval Folklore Suggests Otherwise

Google expands Personal Intelligence, which lets users connect their Google accounts for tailored Gemini answers, to India, initially for AI Pro and Ultra users (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/14/google-brings-its-gemi…

Google brings its Gemini Personal Intelligence feature to India | TechCrunch
The feature lets users connect Google accounts like Gmail and Photos to get personalized answers

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #VarietyMix
India.Arie:
🎵 Strength Courage & Wisdom
#IndiaArie
https://sonnishine.bandcamp.com/track/strength-courage-wisdom-india-arie
https://open.spotify.com/track/2kIZPLtqtmDh3dX6HuAfD0

Trump entered the Kaseya Center shortly after 9pm
alongside several members of his family and UFC chief Dana White,
who has been a supporter of the president since his first term.
Seated nearby was Secretary of State Rubio as well as the US ambassador to India, Sergio Gor,
the rapper Vanilla Ice and former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino.
“The Secretary of State skipped the Iran negotiations in Pakistan to attend a UFC fight.
So did the Special Envoy for …

She helped decriminalize homosexuality in India. Now she'll become its first out Parliament member. - LGBTQ Nation
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/03/she-helped-decriminalize-homosexuality-in-india-now-shell-become-its-first-out-parliament-member/

I think I died and went to heaven: of music, peace, brotherhood. For 5 minutes anyway. 🎶 ☮️ 👐
Composition ("baani") by Kabir, sung in Gujarati-Rajasthani folk style. Video includes English captions, lyrics, translation.
Best 5 minutes you'll spend today.
#India #music #spiritual

Indian conglomerate Adani Group announces plans to invest $100B to build renewable energy-powered AI-ready data centers across India by 2035 (Urvi Dugar/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/indias-adani-invest-100-billio…

"Once Dried up and Full of Plastic, Canal in India Is Now Clear and Lined with Mangroves"
#India #Environment #Plastic

Once Dried up and Full of Plastic, Canal in India Is Now Clear and Lined with Mangrove Trees
750 kilograms—almost 2,000 pounds—of trash were pulled from the canal along with heaps of invasive prosopis plants. 

India tightens its rules on social media content, especially for AI-generated and manipulated material, giving platforms three hours to comply with takedowns (Swati Gupta/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-1…

Nifty IT Index, which tracks Indian IT stocks, has slumped about 15% so far in February on worries about AI and is on track for its worst month since March 2020 (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-16/a…

US Grants Temporary Waiver for India to Import Russian Oil | Financial Post
https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/us-grants-temporary-waiver-for-india-to-import-russian-oil

It's interesting that all the press coverage of a police raid of cyberscammers in Bihar, India emphasizes that the majority of the people arrested were women.
15 women among 22 held for cyber fraud in Bihar
https://www.ptinews.com/story/national/15-

Press Trust Of India

"Five key climate and energy announcements in India’s budget for 2026"
#India #Climate #ClimateChange

Five key climate and energy announcements in India’s budget for 2026 - Carbon Brief
Carbon Brief's Aruna Chandrasekhar runs through five key climate- and energy-focused announcements in India's budget for 2026.

Flipkart moves its headquarters back to India, more than a decade after it moved to Singapore, as it prepares for a potential IPO in India in the coming months (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/09/flipkart-moves-its-headqu…

Flipkart moves its headquarters back to India ahead of IPO | TechCrunch
Flipkart's headquarters shift comes as the Walmart-backed e-commerce giant reaches about $30 billion in GMV.

Google rolls out Gemini in Chrome to India, New Zealand, and Canada, and adds support for over 50 additional languages, including Hindi, French, and Spanish (Charmaine D'Silva/The Keyword)
https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/prod…

Expanding Chrome’s AI experiences to India, New Zealand and Canada
We’re bringing Gemini in Chrome’s powerful AI features to more regions and languages, helping millions of people get the most out of their browser.

"Premier Energies commissions 5.6 GW solar module facility in India"
#India #Energy #Renewables

Premier Energies commissions 5.6 GW solar module facility in India
Premier Energies Ltd has commenced trial production at its 5.6 GW solar module manufacturing facility in Seetharampur, Telangana. The new facility produces G12R TOPCon modules with zero busbar (0BB) architecture.

Migrant workers in India leave as gas runs out: 'I don't want to starve to death'
https://archive.ph/kNAP5

Amazon MX Player rolls out Fatafat, a free, ad-supported, mobile-first platform offering serialized vertical videos, in India, as micro dramas gain momentum (Jesse Whittock/Deadline)
https://deadline.com/2026/03/amazon-mx-player-fatafat-microdrama-s…

Amazon MX Player Rolls Out Microdrama Service Fatafat As Vertical Video Gains Momentum In India
Amazon MX Player has launched a micro-drama service, as a new report predicts huge growth for vertical video in India.

Flipkart and Amazon's quick commerce push in India is intensifying competition in an already crowded space where profitability remains under pressure (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/11/walmart-owned-f…

Walmart-owned Flipkart, Amazon are squeezing India's quick commerce startups | TechCrunch
Flipkart's ongoing expansion beyond major cities and heavy discounting is raising risks for India's quick commerce startups, analysts say.

India's updated startup framework doubles deep-tech startup eligibility to 20 years and triples the revenue cap for tax, grant, and regulatory benefits to ~$33M (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/07/india-has-changed-its-startup…

India has changed its startup rules for deep tech | TechCrunch
India is adjusting startup rules to help more of its deep tech startups with funding and long-term success.

US eases Russian oil limits amid Iran price surge
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5772316-oil-prices-russia-india-iran-bessent/amp/

Abhishek Singh, CEO of IndiaAI Mission, says India will seek international agreement on a "global AI commons" at this week's AI Impact Summit in New Delhi (Financial Times)
https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/03efd373…

Bengaluru-based Amagi, an ad tools provider for broadcast and streaming TV, fell below its listing price in its India market debut after raising $196M in an IPO (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/20/amagi…

Amagi slides in India debut, as cloud TV software firm tests investor appetite | TechCrunch
Amagi shares debuted at a 12% discount, offering an early read on investor demand for a rare type of tech listing in India.

IDC: India's PC market had its strongest year on record in 2025, with shipments up 10.2% YoY to 15.9M units; commercial buyers accounted for 52.9% of shipments (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/06/india-pc-sh…

India PC shipments surpass pandemic peak as first-time users upgrade | TechCrunch
India's PC shipments rose 10.2% to 15.9 million units in 2025, surpassing pandemic highs as first-time users upgrade devices, IDC said.

Sources: India is drafting new smartphone manufacturing incentives linking subsidies to exports and greater use of local components, benefiting Apple and others (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-12/…

Sources: India plans to unveil a ~$10.8B fund aimed at bolstering domestic chipmaking, including subsidizing chip design projects and manufacturing equipment (Sankalp Phartiyal/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

How India's outsourcing industry, which employs 6M people and is worth nearly $300B, is racing to adapt as AI promises to automate white-collar work (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/technology/india-technology-jobs-ai.html

India Built the World’s Back Office. A.I. Is Starting to Shrink It.
Artificial intelligence promises to automate the white-collar work that made India a tech powerhouse. The country is racing to adapt before it’s too late.

Sources: Oracle has cut ~10,000 jobs in India, or ~20% of its Indian workforce, as part of a restructuring that has reportedly affected 30,000 staff worldwide (The Economic Times)
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/t

Oracle layoffs: AI pivot triggers 10,000 job cuts in India
Oracle has cut around 10,000 jobs in India, sources told ET. This is part of a global restructuring affecting 30,000 employees. The company is reducing roles in its tech divisions. Oracle Financial Software Services also saw job losses. Employees are concerned about increased workloads. This follows similar tech industry layoffs this year.

A look at India's push to become a major provider of AI services, as US tech companies pledge tens of billions in Indian data center investments (Wall Street Journal)
https://www.wsj.com/world/india/why-big-te…

India proposes zero taxes for foreign cloud providers through 2047 on services sold outside the country as long as they run workloads from Indian data centers (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/01/india-offers-zero-ta…

India offers zero taxes through 2047 to lure global AI workloads | TechCrunch
New Delhi's latest move comes as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft expand data center investments in India.

Sensor Tower: India was the largest market for GenAI app downloads in 2025, surging 207% YoY; India accounts for 20% of global installs but 1% of in-app revenue (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/24/india-ai-boom-pushe…

India's AI boom pushes firms to trade near-term revenue for users | TechCrunch
ChatGPT and rivals are testing whether India's massive AI user boom can translate into paying customers as free offers wind down.

Indian IT giant TCS reports Q4 sales up 9.7% YoY to $7.63B, net profit up 12.2% to $1.48B, both above est., and says new AI models did not hurt services demand (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indias-tcs-beats-fourth-quarter-revenue-v…

Source: India issued a blocking order on February 24 to restrict access to developer database service Supabase; the government did not publicly cite a reason (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/27/india…

India disrupts access to popular developer platform Supabase with blocking order | TechCrunch
India, one of Supabase’s biggest markets, is seeing patchy access after a government block order.

India says foreign investment gains made before 2017 are exempt from its General Anti-Avoidance Rules, after a court required Tiger to pay $1.6B on a 2018 sale (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/world/india/india-shields-pre-201…

India tightens its rules on social media content, especially for AI-generated and manipulated material, giving platforms three hours to comply with takedowns (Swati Gupta/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-1…

India joins Pax Silica, a US-led initiative that aims to build secure supply chains for semiconductors, advanced manufacturing, and critical technologies (Rajesh Roy/Associated Press)
https://apnews.com/article/pax-silica-india-us-trump-modi-994d1ce…

India joins US-led Pax Silica initiative
India joined a U.S.-led initiative to strengthen technology cooperation among strategic allies in a move Friday that underscores the nations’ warming ties after a brief strain over New Delhi’s unabated purchase of discounted Russian oil. The decision aligns India closely with Washington’s efforts to build secure supply chains for semiconductors, advanced manufacturing and critical technologies at a time geopolitical competition with China is intensifying. It also signals a reset in relati…

Google's experience in India has become a proving ground to scale AI in education, as the country accounts for the highest global usage of Gemini for learning (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/29/india-is-teaching-google-h…

India is teaching Google how AI in education can scale | TechCrunch
With the highest global usage of Gemini for learning, India is emerging as a key market shaping Google's approach to AI in education.

Sources: Apple made ~55M iPhones in India in 2025, up 53% YoY from 36M in 2024, ~25% of total iPhone production as it shifts away from China to avoid tariffs (Sankalp Phartiyal/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20

Rozana, which offers rural e-commerce and logistics services to 21,000 villages across India, raised a $31.6M Series B led by Bertelsmann India Investments (Gyan Vardhan/Entrackr)
https://entrackr.com/news/rural-commerce-startu…

Rural commerce startup Rozana raises Rs 290 Cr in Series B led by Bertelsmann
Rural omnichannel retail platform Rozana has raised Rs 290 crore ($31.6 million) in a Series B funding round led by Bertelsmann India Investments.

Mumbai-based digital payments processor BillDesk agrees to acquire the Indian business of Worldline for an equity value of ~$70M, set to close in H2 2026 (The Economic Times)
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/t

Billdesk to acquire Worldline’s India operations; deal values business at $70 million
Billdesk is set to acquire the India payments business of French payment giant Worldline for an estimated equity value of $70 million. In a press release Worldline said that it will be entering into a long-term technology and software pact with Billdesk, through which Worldline’s software stack will continue to remain operational in India. At an enterprise level the value of the deal was pegged at $43.6 million.

Deccan AI, which supplies post-training data and evaluation work, raised a $25M Series A led by A91 Partners; most of its workforce of experts is based in India (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/25/deccan-ai-…

Mercor competitor Deccan AI raises $25M, sources experts from India | TechCrunch
Deccan AI concentrates its workforce in India to manage quality in a fast-growing but fragmented AI training market.

Sources: Walmart-backed PhonePe targets an up to $10.5B valuation in its Indian IPO; PhonePe raised $600M from General Atlantic at a $14.5B valuation in October (Jaspreet Kalra/Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/world/india/walmar

Counterpoint: India smartphone shipments were flat YoY at ~153M; Apple shipped 14M iPhones, raising its share of shipments to a record 9%, up from 7% in 2024 (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/23/appl

Apple iPhone just had its best year in India as the smartphone market stays broadly flat | TechCrunch
Apple shipped a record 14 million iPhones in India in 2025 and gained market share.

Google launches Ask Maps, a Gemini-powered conversational feature for iOS and Android in the US and India that lets users ask "complex, real-world questions" (Andrew J. Hawkins/The Verge)
https://www.theverge.com/tech/893262/google-maps-gemi…

You can now ask Google Maps ‘complex, real-world questions’ — and Gemini will answer
Google Maps announced two new AI-powered features: Ask Map and Immersive Navigation, letting users ask conversational questions and upgrading the navigation setting to include more details.

General Catalyst plans to invest $5B in India over five years, an increase from the $500M to $1B previously announced, after merging with a local VC in 2024 (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/19/general-catalyst-commits-5b-to-ind…

General Catalyst commits $5B to India over five years | TechCrunch
The pledge marks a sharp jump from General Catalyst's earlier $500 million–$1 billion India earmark.

Peak XV, which split from Sequoia in 2023, raised $1.3B across new India- and Asia-focused funds, bringing its total assets under management to over $10B (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/20/peak-xv-rais…

Peak XV raises $1.3B, doubles down on AI as global VC rivalry in India heats up | TechCrunch
Peak XV says most of its new capital will target India as the firm prioritizes AI, fintech and cross-border bets while navigating recent partner departures.

India's TCS signs OpenAI as its first data center customer, starting with 100MW of capacity; Tata Group plans to deploy ChatGPT Enterprise, starting with TCS (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/18/openai-taps-t…

OpenAI taps Tata for 100MW AI data center capacity in India, eyes 1GW | TechCrunch
OpenAI also plans to expand its presence in India with new offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru later this year.

Indian digital payments company Pine Labs plans to embed OpenAI APIs into its infrastructure to enable AI-assisted settlement, reconciliation, and invoicing (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/18/openai-deepens-india-push-…

OpenAI deepens India push with Pine Labs fintech partnership | TechCrunch
OpenAI moves beyond ChatGPT in India with a Pine Labs deal targeting enterprise payments and AI-driven commerce.

Bengaluru-based Amagi, an ad tools provider for broadcast and streaming TV, fell below its listing price in its India market debut after raising $196M in an IPO (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/20/amagi…

Amagi slides in India debut, as cloud TV software firm tests investor appetite | TechCrunch
Amagi shares debuted at a 12% discount, offering an early read on investor demand for a rare type of tech listing in India.

AI's deflationary impact on India's IT industry, which has never seen a decline in software exports in 24 years, will likely take years to fully materialize (Manish Singh/India Dispatch)
https://indiadispatch.com/p/in-defense-of-indias-it-industry

In Defense of India's IT Industry
The cost of electricity does not run an enterprise.

HSBC: JioHotstar had 300M paying subscribers in India in 2025, compared with 65M for Amazon Prime Video and 20M for Netflix; ~24% of OTT users pay for content (Manish Singh/India Dispatch)
https://indiadispatch.com/p/netflix-said-to-have-20-million-paying
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Netflix Said To Have 20 Million Paying Subscribers in India
Amazon Prime Video has more than three times the subscribers as Netflix in India, according to HSBC.

OpenAI says users aged 18-24 account for ~50% and under-30s represent 80% of ChatGPT usage in India; Indians use ChatGPT mostly for work (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/20/openai-says-18-to-24-year-olds-…

OpenAI says 18 to 24-year-olds account for nearly 50% of ChatGPT usage in India | TechCrunch
The company said on Friday that users between 18 and 24 years of age account for nearly 50% of all messages sent by Indians to ChatGPT, and users under 30 accounted for 80% of usage in the country.

At India's AI Summit, Sundar Pichai announces the America-India Connect Initiative to build new fiber optic lines between India, the US, and other countries (Saritha Rai/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/202…

Nvidia says it is working with Peak XV and other VC firms in India to fund AI startups; over 4,000 Indian AI startups have joined its global startup program (Dylan Butts/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/18/nvidia-india-ai-vc-data-center-partners.html…

Nvidia is partnering with major Indian VC firms in search for the country's next AI start-ups
Nvidia is expanding its partnerships in India, including with venture capital firms, as it bets on the country's AI ecosystem that has drawn massive Big Tech investments. 

Several Indian tech workers say they are buckling under deadline pressure and worry about layoffs, with many fearing conditions will worsen with the rise of AI (Parth Mn/Rest of World)
https://restofworld.org/2026/india-tech-workers-crisis-suicide/

Death of an Indian tech worker
A wave of suicides and widespread AI-fueled layoffs reveal a workforce under extreme pressure.

OpenAI partners with six Indian education institutions, including IIT Delhi, IIM Ahmedabad, and AIIMS New Delhi, to provide ChatGPT Edu access to 100K students (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)
https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/18/openai-pushes…

OpenAI pushes into higher education as India seeks to scale AI skills | TechCrunch
OpenAI says its India education partnerships aim to reach more than 100,000 students, faculty and staff over the next year.

Sources: Alphabet plans a new complex in Bengaluru, India, which can accommodate up to 20K extra staff, amid US visa restrictions and proposed H-1B fee hikes (Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-03/alphabet…