Sanchit, appreciate your view on journalism but it's not fair to lump different media products and make a sweeping remark. You are missing the nuance yourself :) That said, we don't write to sell "fear". We don't need to. There are stories that require nuance and we go extra distance to include them. And there are stories that are based on facts and we present a point of view based on those facts. You may not agree with that PoV and all readers are welcome to present their PoV. We have the comment section precisely for that and it's open only to subscribers.

Seema Singh

Arvind, to clarify, this is not a regular analysis piece; it's a special column called Counterthesis. (We have published many in the past; you can check them out.) You should have noticed the format change at the beginning, Thesis and Counterthesis, before calling it a PR. Nothing at The Ken is PR. On a separate note, being a veterinarian, you should appreciate this because Sidsfarm founder told me what Nitara is striving to do is the right way forward. Marginal farmers have neither money, nor knowledge/clout to change their plight. The scale of the problem requires an integrated platform. Buffalo farming is suited for Indian climate but it's going to get extinct.

Seema Singh

Thank you for your note. You are right, one story cannot be all things to all readers. Moreover, since not much is written about the institution, I chose to write a story that an average reader (not an academic), student or parent would like to read to understand what's going on. In any case, writing about academic structures etc is beyond the scope of a Ken story :) As for how Plaksha's leadership will measure its success, I can answer only from what I gathered. They will probably look at if the Mohali petri dish has resulted in some solutions for the water, energy, agri or health issues that they are taking up for research now. Or how have their students done in the outside world, did they turn out thought leaders or just remained job seekers? Even if 15-20% of them go out and be change makers, I guess that's a notable goal to achieve.

Seema Singh

Thanks, Manas, for your note. You are partly right. But I believe some of the great seats of engineering or higher education — two that I have studied a bit are Boston and Bay area — are what they are because their students and academics' work started companies and even industries in those areas. If IITs or IIITs in India have not been able to create innovation hubs around them, then the onus largely lies on them. Metros in India are already crowded, polluted and somewhat unliveable. Plaksha has a good opportunity, a worthy challenge IMO, to convert Mohali into Boston. Chandigarh already has some semiconductor labs/companies and neighbouring Ludhiana was a centre of machine tools long ago. It just takes backbreaking work to make it happen :)

Seema Singh

Parijat, Starlink will never acquire Vi. Starlink and telcos usually don't see eye to eye. It's largely a B2C company, at least until now, and will never go the whole hog with telcos, leave alone a debt-ridden, loss-making company like Vi. As for partnership, I don't think Vi would want any such distraction when it has to put out so many fires of its own. Satcom will always be more expensive that the regular, pre-paid plans that are popular in India, at least in the foreseeable future. In 100+ countries, Starlink has just 5 million subscribers.

Seema Singh

Thanks for pointing it out and sorry about the typo. We've corrected it.

Seema Singh

Nikunj, that's a story for another day :) Let the deal first happen.

Seema Singh

Hi Nikhil, we don't use LLM at The Ken. At least until now!

Seema Singh

Hi Pulkit, thanks for your note. I agree with you to an extent. Can I ask what do you mean by having not seen any enterprise AI solutions company? Is there any company from any other region that you think are showing the way? Also, what do you mean by "extracting" money. Trying to understand what old paradigm enterprise software companies now integrating AI are missing out on? We can take this discussion on email if you prefer that.

Seema Singh

Hi Vivek, thanks for reading the story. It's an interesting thought but I don't think LLMs have been trained to give policy advice just yet. But Meity can train one reasoning model for Indian policy making if they think they don't have the bandwidth :)

Seema Singh

Shashank, I am sorry that you didn't find the story insightful enough. But I am unable to understand what discussion you were expecting. The story does talk about the business, its relative value, medium term challenge, and the pressure on profitability. There's no way one can directly compare it with any listed or unlisted peer. So I chose to focus on the novel origin story and how that has allowed the promoters to build two parallel companies in exactly the same space. And to my mind, this is no ordinary "share price movement".

Seema Singh

Thanks, Amit. You've summarised the crux of valuation mismatch well. It was an expensive IPO and I am not surprised at its muted debut on the market today. What is important, though, is how the merger will happen and how the holdco will perform in the near-to-mid term.

Seema Singh

Glad you read the full interview, Suchir. We try very hard to not waste our readers' time :)

Seema Singh

Sorry about not explaining this, Rishabh. We've added a box to explain it.

Seema Singh

Thanks, Mohan. Agree with you, also a journalist. We need more fund managers and other specialists in money management to talk about their work and philosophy.

Seema Singh

Thanks, Gokul. We are thinking about this format and the audio feature is in the works :)

Seema Singh

Dharmendra, there was no way in our current layout/design to use the high resolution image. The idea was to hint at the complexity of the system. I will email you the image.

Seema Singh

Shikher, I am sorry to hear that. I'll try to do better next time. I think the four summary points really summarise the gist of the story, as does the short summary. Maybe you can start there :)

Seema Singh

Vandana, The story seems one-sided to you because I did not quote a bunch of startups trying to do diet-related diabetes reversal. There's a reason for that. I've followed most startups' work for many years and I did not feel the need to bring those examples in. This is a different technology. None of those startups have the creds of publishing in peer-reviewed journals. And this is NOT a keto programme, whereas Virta is a Keto diet programme. On its website, Virta lists 3-4 publications. (Please check them out). They are ALL non-RCT studies, which do not count in the scientific world. I'm afraid I don't understand what depth were you looking for in a story that is about a very different technology which has no real peers.

Seema Singh

Tarang, until the Bill is presented in the Parliament there's scope to add to the understanding and the debate. And, by extension, influence the thinking in the government. The Bill was supposed to be presented in the Budget session but now it's pushed down. So if there's a well-argued point of view, why not put it on the table?

Seema Singh

Vinit, if you look at the article format, it's called Counterthesis. You'd appreciate why we've named it so. It "is" one person's counter view. So it may appear pushy but that's the point. To put forth a provocative argument of one person who's got sufficient industry/social/intellectual creds. You can check out our previous articles under this rubric.

Seema Singh

Karan, the story is free for the next 48 hours. Please share it away.

Seema Singh

Zahid, the story is free for the next 48 hours. Please share it away.

Seema Singh

:)

Seema Singh