So what's your sense on how this could go? And could Indian refiners benefit from this in terms of present or future opportunities?

So Indian refiners are benefiting from this.

The GRMs have gone up, Govind.

So the Singapore GRM margin right now is about five and a half to six dollars a barrel, and you'll be surprised that in US that number can be thirty to forty dollars a barrel, which is just absolutely crazy.

So if the Indian market were not as tightly controlled and regulated, my suspicion is that the refining margins in India may also have been higher, but they are broadly kept in check by the government as well.

And of course, as far as the export is concerned, the margins are better because most of the exports go to Europe.

And Europe, the prices of petrol and diesel are significantly higher because their own refineries are not able to source enough crude to be able to run at higher capacities, and plus their running costs are also more.

But do you see the need for more capacity? Do you see that we need to think differently in the way we are expanding our refining output?

So can you tell us a little bit about how that experience as the domain expert comes to bear now with GIA Ventures?

Yeah.

So I actually built and sold a company in the fintech space and saw financial services adopt fintech from very early on to 2012, 13 to 2021, and then worked in the identity space.

I think the central idea with which we started saying that, you know, vertical first and AI second is really that a task is not a job.

And, you know, if you look at radiology, you know, basically when deep learning started doing radiology scans, everybody said that the number of radiologists will go down.

And the exact opposite happened because what you do with deep learning or AI in a radiology scan is just like a task.

The job includes, you know, boards and signing and taking the liability and doing like 10 other very, very important processes which cannot be done by AI.

Can you give me a few examples, some companies that maybe you've already invested in or companies that you're looking at that you think fit what you're looking for?

I reached out to Amit Goel, co-founder and chief global strategist at Delhi-based Pace360, and also someone who was early to caution against the high valuations in gold and began by asking him how he was seeing the last few months and how he was using those learnings or what he could share from those learnings.

So my understanding is that, and we pretty much had this understanding when the war began and gold prices went up initially.

It was our understanding that in this particular round of geopolitical tensions, gold and silver are not going to do well.

And the reason was very clear that the safe haven buying in the world either happens in US dollar or it happens in precious metals.

And this time, because of the fact that crude oil and gas prices went up and euro and pound and even yen, they weakened when oil and gas prices went up because they are dependent on imports for a large chunk of their gas and oil requirements.

So obviously, dollar went up.

And when dollar goes up, there are very little chances that they would be safe even buying in gold and silver.

And as you look ahead, what are the factors that you feel will determine prices or demand for gold and silver? And are there similarities with the past? I mean, for example, central bank buying, or could we see some new forces at play?

So what should investors on the sidelines or otherwise do or how should they be looking at it in a sort of macro view? I spoke with Amit Goel, co-founder and chief global strategist of Pace360, who we've spoken to in the past on gold and he's always been a little cautious.

So, see, my understanding is that there is still a frenzied buying happening in gold and silver ETFs.

And in fact, not just the ETFs, but also on gold and silver bars, coins and in whatever form people can lay their hands on.

There is frenzied buying happening in the world.

And I think collectively, what at one point of time was a haven has become like a bubble.

So, you know, when any asset class in the world, if it becomes everybody's safe haven and everybody flocks towards that asset class, then you can be very sure that a bubble is being created.

And this is exactly what is happening to gold and silver, whether it is any geopolitical event or a crisis, any economic crisis, anything to do with U.S. fiscal deficit, anything to do with dollar debasement, anything to do with resurgence of inflation.

So how would you caution investors or advise investors, whether they're small or large at a time like this? So

And if we were to break it down a little, I mean, in terms of the kind of flows we see into various components, particularly of gold, or for that matter, even silver, where are you seeing the demand? I mean, central bank buying, ETFs, individual retail buying, what is sort of standing out, at least or has been standing out in the recent past? And then what could change now?

What is clearly not standing out is the central bank buying.

So let's talk about gold first.

2025 has ended with central banks probably buying the least amount in terms of tons in the last three to four years.

So we do not have the official figures yet, but the assumption is that it's going to be somewhere in the vicinity of 800 tons in the year 25, which is lighter than the thousand plus tons that we have become used to in the previous three years, which were 22, 23 and 24.

So clearly that is not the catalyst for the up moves that we have seen in the last few months.

That is one.

What's your sense in terms of how people could look at gold and silver now versus other classes of investments, including, of course, equities?