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‘Ongoing continuously’: India-US in contact at various levels for trade deal; FTA talks also on with EU – The Times of India

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‘Ongoing continuously’: India-US in contact at various levels for trade deal; FTA talks also on with EU – The Times of India


Piyush Goyal talked about India-US trade talks progress

NEW DELHI: Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal indicated on Tuesday that the government is maintaining contact with the United States at various levels concerning the proposed Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA), suggesting potential progress towards the agreement.The minister, however, avoided specifying any timeline for completing the BTA negotiations, noting that discussions continue without fixed deadlines. “Our talks with the United States are ongoing continuously. Contacts are maintained at different levels. We never negotiate based on deadlines. The possibilities are full. Every possibility exists. Currently, the US government is in shutdown mode. In light of that, we’ll have to see how, where, and when the talks can take place,” the Union Minister stated during his Qatar visit.

India And Qatar To Finalise Trade Pact Talks Soon; FTA Expected By Mid-2026: Piyush Goyal

This comes just two days external affairs minister S Jaishankar clarified India’s stance, talking about ‘respecting the red lines’. Acknowledging that there are “problems” and “issues” in the India-US relationship that need resolution, Jaishankar said on Sunday that any understanding on bilateral trade “has to be (one) where our bottom lines, our red lines are respected.” “There has got to be a trade understanding with US. But… in any agreement, there are things you can negotiate and things you can’t,” he added, asserting that India will not compromise on matters affecting the interests of farmers, small-scale industries, and fishermen.

Trade talks with EU

Meanwhile, regarding Free Trade Agreement (FTA) discussions with the European Union, Goyal said, “There are very good discussions going on between EU and India in Brussels. Our entire team is there.” He shared positive views about the partnership between the $20 trillion European Union comprising 27 nations and India, currently the fastest growing large economy globally.Goyal highlighted the advantages both partners bring: India’s youthful, skilled workforce alongside the EU’s technological and innovative capabilities. “We are hoping to work together in a spirit of deep understanding of each other’s sensitivities so that we can conclude a very equitable, fair and balanced free trade agreement between the $20 trillion European Union of 27 countries and India, the fastest growing large economy in the world today, we complement each other,” he stated.Goyal further added, “Our young, talented and skilled population is a great resource for the European Union who needs talented young people. The innovation and technology base that European Union has holds tremendous potential for Indian businesses and jointly the European Union companies and Indian companies can leverage each other’s strengths so that we can serve the world together.”He announced that Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agarwal would visit Brussels to meet his counterpart after the current discussions conclude, planning the next steps.Addressing the FTA timeline, Goyal said, “I have often said that we neither do negotiations with a deadline, nor do we like to unnecessarily delay negotiations. So we will make every endeavor to meet the leaders expectations and complete the negotiations before the end of the year and I see tremendous potential and possibility.”





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Bewakoof Co-Founder Prabhkiran Singh Announces Exit After 14 Years At The Helm

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Bewakoof Co-Founder Prabhkiran Singh Announces Exit After 14 Years At The Helm


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Prabhkiran Singh, Co-Founder and CEO of Bewakoof, steps down after 14 years, leaving a Mumbai slum startup turned national youth brand.

Prabhkiran Singh announces his decision to step down as CEO of Bewakoof after 14 years.

Prabhkiran Singh announces his decision to step down as CEO of Bewakoof after 14 years.

Prabhkiran Singh, Co-Founder and CEO of Bewakoof, has announced that he will be stepping away from the company he built over the past 14 years, marking the end of a long entrepreneurial chapter that began in 2011.

Bewakoof is a D2C fashion brand, which is popular among GenZ.

From Mumbai Slum Startup To National Youth Brand

In a LinkedIn post shared on Tuesday, Singh reflected on starting Bewakoof at the age of 21 with a fellow engineering graduate. The company was launched from a small room in a Mumbai slum at a time when direct-to-consumer (D2C) fashion brands were still a nascent concept in India and equity funding was limited.

He recalled personally handling early operations, including making T-shirt deliveries via local trains and responding to customer queries. Over time, the brand scaled significantly, growing from campus T-shirt sales to shipping over 20,000 products daily.

Bewakoof went on to become one of India’s prominent youth-focused fashion brands and, according to Singh, was the first D2C fashion startup in the country to cross ₹100 crore in revenue. The company also built a social media community of more than 6 million followers.

Backed By TMRW And Aditya Birla Group

Singh stated that the company is now “structurally ready” for its next phase, supported by a strong leadership team and the backing of TMRW and the Aditya Birla Group.

He added that after 14 years of building the business, he intends to prioritize his health, family, and personal goals. Singh will continue to lead Bewakoof until the end of March.

Calling the startup his “firstborn,” Singh said he will continue to support the brand from the sidelines as it works toward building a long-term legacy.

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New data series: Real GDP growth data calculation methodology overhauled to improve accuracy – here’s what changes – The Times of India

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New data series: Real GDP growth data calculation methodology overhauled to improve accuracy – here’s what changes – The Times of India


Real GDP in India is calculated by adjusting nominal growth figures for inflation through the use of price indices. (AI image)

India is set to release its first set of GDP or Gross Domestic Product data on the basis of a new series that may also address recent criticism from economists. The government is revamping the methodology used to estimate real GDP growth under a new national accounts series scheduled to be released this week. The revised framework will incorporate more detailed price deflation techniques to respond to concerns raised by economists.Real GDP in India is calculated by adjusting nominal growth figures for inflation through the use of price indices. Critics have argued that the existing approach is outdated because it depends largely on the wholesale price index rather than the more widely followed consumer price index.In November, the International Monetary Fund highlighted shortcomings in India’s national accounts system. It pointed to the continued use of the 2011–12 base year, heavy dependence on wholesale price data and extensive reliance on single-deflation techniques. The IMF assigned the methodology a “C” rating.

New GDP data series: What changes

“We will now use about 500–600 items from the new CPI and the old WPI series, compared with about 180 earlier, to deflate the output and improve accuracy of the data,” Saurabh Garg, secretary in the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, said in an interview according to a Reuters report.He noted that this approach will remain in place until a revised WPI series is introduced, which is expected in the near term.Under the earlier system, periods marked by subdued nominal GDP expansion and low wholesale inflation often resulted in inconsistencies, as they tended to produce comparatively higher real growth estimates.As per the current data series, India’s economy, which is one of the fastest-expanding among major global economies, is projected to grow by 7.4% in 2025–26. This is compared with an estimated 6.5% growth in 2024–25.Nominal GDP, which measures economic output at prevailing market prices, is expected to increase by 8.0% during the current financial year.A revised GDP series with 2022–23 as the base year will be released on February 27, along with updated historical data covering the previous four years.These modifications form part of a wider overhaul of India’s statistical framework, following the introduction of a new retail inflation series earlier this month. Updates to the wholesale price index and industrial production data are also in progress.A key element of the revised framework is the adoption of double deflation, which adjusts both output prices and input costs separately to derive real value added.Garg said the changes are expected to enhance data precision, especially in the manufacturing sector, where differences between input and output price movements had previously raised concerns about distortions under the single-deflation approach.



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Many worlds of AI: For investors, the implications are significant – The Times of India

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Many worlds of AI: For investors, the implications are significant – The Times of India


The story of AI in business is not one of universal acceleration. (AI image)

Two stories from the past few weeks capture something essential about where we are with AI.The first concerns Salesforce, the enterprise software giant that aggressively embraced AI for customer service. CEO Marc Benioff proudly announced that AI deployment had allowed the company to cut support staff from 9,000 to roughly 5,000. Then reality intervened. Reports from late 2025 indicate that the company is now withdrawing from AI due to widespread failure. The AI agents confidently gave wrong answers, dropped instructions when given more than eight steps, and lost focus when users asked unexpected questions. Customers complained that AI support took longer than the simple old search function. Salesforce is now retreating to rigid, rule-based scripting–essentially admitting they were, in their own words, “more confident” than the technology warranted.The second story is a zeitgeist shift. Over the past couple of months, the conversation around AI and coding has transformed completely. People who were skeptical six months ago–senior developers who actually write code for a living–are now saying the age of human beings writing code is ending. Not in some distant future, but imminently. Entire features are being shipped by AI with minimal human intervention. The productivity gains are no longer incremental; they’re structural.How can both be true? How can AI fail comprehensively in customer service–seemingly straightforward–while revolutionising software development, which appears far more complex?The answer is that we’ve been thinking about AI wrong. We treat it as a single phenomenon that will sweep through the economy at roughly the same pace. However, AI in business is not a single story. It’s many parallel stories, moving at wildly different speeds. And the distinction has almost nothing to do with how intelligent the AI is.I’ve written about this tension before. A year ago, I argued that “the fact that a revolution is real doesn’t mean that every business claiming to be part of it will succeed.” More recently, I observed that “the gap between what AI demos well in controlled environments and what it actually delivers when confronting the messy real world remains enormous.” I now think there’s a more precise way to understand this gap. It’s not random. It’s structural.Consider what makes coding fertile ground for AI. Code is formally structured and machine-verifiable–it runs and passes tests, or it doesn’t. The feedback loop is immediate. When AI makes a mistake, a developer (or another AI agent) notices, fixes it, and moves on. Errors are private and reversible. Now consider customer service. Customers don’t speak in data schemas. Emotion, sarcasm, and cultural context matter enormously. One wrong answer can escalate to social media outrage or regulatory complaints. The failures are public and often irreversible.The difference isn’t intelligence. It’s what I’d call error economics. AI thrives where mistakes are cheap, private, and correctable. It struggles where mistakes are expensive, public, and permanent.We received a clear illustration of executive disconnect just a few days ago. During Bajaj Finance’s Q3 call, CEO Rajeev Jain announced that AI had listened to 2 crore calls and generated 100,000 new customer offers. “We’ll be able to listen to 100 million calls next year,” he said proudly. The response on social media was predictable hilarity. As the entire country, except apparently Mr Jain knows, Bajaj Finance’s incessant spam calls are the butt of countless jokes. Here was a CEO using sophisticated technology to optimize something customers actively despise. Machine learning works perfectly; the learning about customers is absent.For investors, the implications are significant. When you hear “AI” attached to a business function, ask: what happens when it’s wrong? If the answer involves customers, regulators, or reputations, progress will be slower than vendor PPTs claim. If the answer is “someone notices and fixes it,” that’s a different world entirely.The story of AI in business is not one of universal acceleration. It’s one of the selective escape velocities. Coding has left the atmosphere and gone into orbit. Customer service is still fighting gravity. Most other functions lie somewhere in between–mistakenly assumed to be closer to the rocket than they really are. The many worlds of AI are not converging. They’re diverging. And that divergence will determine which investments succeed and which disappoint.(Dhirendra Kumar is Founder and CEO of Value Research)



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