The Morning Brief

Chabahar Sanctions: India’s Western Deadlock

The future of India’s most ambitious overseas port project hangs in the balance. With the US reinstating its sanctions for Iran’s Chabahar Port, India faces a strategic dilemma: risk Washington’s ire or abandon years of investment, regional influence, and its only land route to Afghanistan that bypasses Pakistan. In this episode, Host Anirban Chowdhury talks to ET’s P Manoj and Arun Gupta, former Managing Director of India Ports Global to break down how Chabahar went from a symbol of India’s westward ambitions to a geopolitical tightrope with ports dismantled, directors resigning, legal opinions sought, and China waiting in the wings. What does this mean for India’s trade corridors, its ties with Iran, and its standing in West Asia?You can follow Anirban Chowdhury on his social media: Twitter and LinkedinListen to Corner Office Conversation our new show:: Corner Office Conversation with Pawan Goenka, Chairman, IN-SPACe, Corner Office Conversation with The New Leaders of Indian Pharma and much more. Check out other interesting episodes from the host like: Why Is India Still Buying Russian Oil?, How AI is Rewriting Cinema Part 2, Trump vs Harvard: India Impact, Of Dragons and Elephants: Modi–Xi in Focus and much more. Catch the latest episode of ‘The Morning Brief’ on ET Play, The Economic Times Online, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, JioSaavn, Amazon Music and Youtube.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Vineet Nayar says the Tech Industry is at an Inflection Point, Not Crisis Mode

Vineet Nayar, the former HCL Technologies CEO who once flipped corporate hierarchies on their head is now reimagining classrooms at scale through Sampark Foundation. In this episode of The Morning Brief, host Anirban Chowdhury and ET’s tech reporter Beena Parmar talk to Nayar on the big questions: Is AI truly disrupting India’s $100-billion IT industry, or is it just cost-cutting in a new avatar? Why does India lead in public digital innovation yet falter at building breakthrough global products? And can the education system shift from producing knowledge workers to nurturing real problem solvers? Drawing on career-defining inflection points, Nayar reflects on the future of technology and education in India. From layoffs and AI hype to policy and innovation gaps, the conversation offers candid insights into how crises can be converted into opportunities and how both boardrooms and classrooms must evolve to keep pace. You can follow Anirban Chowdhury on his social media: Twitter and Linkedin You can follow Beena Parmar on her Linkedin, Twitter profiles and read her Newspaper Articles.Listen to Corner Office Conversation our new show:: Corner Office Conversation with Pawan Goenka, Chairman, IN-SPACe, Corner Office Conversation with The New Leaders of Indian Pharma and much more. Check out other interesting episodes from the host like: Why Is India Still Buying Russian Oil?, How AI is Rewriting Cinema Part 2, Trump vs Harvard: India Impact, Of Dragons and Elephants: Modi–Xi in Focus and much more. Catch the latest episode of ‘The Morning Brief’ on ET Play, The Economic Times Online, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, JioSaavn, Amazon Music and Youtube. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dissecting 2025’s Biggest IPO: Tata Capital

Tata Capital is about to drop 2025’s biggest IPO. In this episode of The Morning Brief, we bring you exclusive comments from Rajiv Sabharwal, MD & CEO of Tata Capital on the company’s plan around its ₹15,512 crore markets debut. Host Dia Rekhi also speaks to Tarun Singh, MD of Highbrow Securities and IPO expert, to unpack the company’s landmark listing set to be among India’s largest ever. The conversation explores the strategy behind expanding retail participation, the challenges from the merger with the vehicle financing arm, valuation pressures, and fundraising strategies.Tune in: You can follow Dia Rekhi on social media: Linkedin & TwitterYou can follow Sangita Mehta on her social media: Twitter and Linkedin Listen to Corner Office Conversation our new show:: Corner Office Conversation with Pawan Goenka, Chairman, IN-SPACe, Corner Office Conversation with The New Leaders of Indian Pharma and much more. Check out other interesting episodes from the host like: Why Is India Still Buying Russian Oil?, How AI is Rewriting Cinema Part 2, Trump vs Harvard: India Impact, Of Dragons and Elephants: Modi–Xi in Focus and much more. Catch the latest episode of ‘The Morning Brief’ on ET Play, The Economic Times Online, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, JioSaavn, Amazon Music and Youtube.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Corner Office Conversation with Elizabeth Reid, Head of Search, Google

Elizabeth Reid is one of Google’s most powerful women. She also has one of its most challenging jobs. At a time when AI is reshaping how people seek information, as standalone LLMs become their foremost information sources, friends and therapists, Reid, Head of Search, has to constantly grapple with the challenge that it’s no longer the only answer to all the world’s questions And yet, Google’s search clicks are up and more qualified, people are asking detailed questions and, as she insists, the story of the blue link is far from over. In this episode, she talks to host Anirban Chowdhury about why Google isn’t facing an innovators’ dilemma yet, although it is trying to constantly improve the search experience, how Google and its searchers now talk differently to each other, whether there is a gap in gauging their intent and setting context, if agentic AI is truly an innovation worth chasing. She also talks about why the tech behemoth’s latest innovations must come to India weeks after the US, compared to two years earlier and how, soon, some of them might come to India first. Tune in. You can follow Anirban Chowdhury on his social media: Twitter and LinkedinListen to Corner Office Conversation our new show:: Corner Office Conversation with Pawan Goenka, Chairman, IN-SPACe, Corner Office Conversation with The New Leaders of Indian Pharma and much more. Check out other interesting episodes from the host like: Why Is India Still Buying Russian Oil?, How AI is Rewriting Cinema Part 2, Trump vs Harvard: India Impact, Of Dragons and Elephants: Modi–Xi in Focus and much more. Catch the latest episode of ‘The Morning Brief’ on ET Play, The Economic Times Online, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, JioSaavn, Amazon Music and Youtube.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

India's Big Indic Data Chase

A quiet race is on to give India its own AI voice. From call-centre automation to defence and legal systems, Abhishek Upperwal of Soket Labs and journalist Swathi Radhakrishnan tell us why AI trained only on Western, English-heavy data cannot meet India’s needs. Translation isn’t enough; models must “think” in Hindi, Tamil or Marathi to capture nuance and reduce bias. The government’s IndiaAI mission, with nearly ₹10,000 crore in funding, is catalysing startups to build these Indic models. But their biggest bottleneck is data. Only a sliver of the world’s open datasets are in Indian languages, and even public archives like Doordarshan take time to unlock. Startups are scrambling crowdsourcing voices, licensing publishing-house content, generating synthetic text and negotiating with ministries to reach the 15–20 trillion high-quality tokens needed for a world-class foundation model. In this episode Host Anirban Chowdhury, ET’s Swathi Moorthy and Soket AI’s, founder, Abhishek Upperwal try to answer the following questions: What makes sovereign, Indic-first AI critical for India’s economy and security? How are innovators overcoming the huge shortage of quality language data? Can low-cost, DeepSeek-style methods help India build frugal yet powerful models? Where will the commercial payoffs voice AI, regional apps, enterprise tools arrive first? Tune in.You can follow Anirban Chowdhury on his social media: Twitter and LinkedinYou can follow Swathi Moorthy on her social media: Twitter and LinkedIn and also read Newspaper ArticleListen to Corner Office Conversation our new show:: Corner Office Conversation with Pawan Goenka, Chairman, IN-SPACe, Corner Office Conversation with The New Leaders of Indian Pharma and much more. Check out other interesting episodes from the host like: Why Is India Still Buying Russian Oil?, How AI is Rewriting Cinema Part 2, Trump vs Harvard: India Impact, Of Dragons and Elephants: Modi–Xi in Focus and much more. Catch the latest episode of ‘The Morning Brief’ on ET Play, The Economic Times Online, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, JioSaavn, Amazon Music and Youtube. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.