What's behind that resilience? Is that sort of policy intervention or is the economy more resilient than we had expected?

Yeah, a couple of things.

One, India was able to get oil supplies from various different countries.

And also, it's a big exporter of refined oil.

And the fact that refining margins have really gone up was very helpful for India.

Having said that, I think, again, if oil prices remain high for long, we will start seeing growth slow.

But so far, growth has been very strong.

So why is that happening?

What's behind that resilience? Is that sort of policy intervention or is the economy more resilient than we had expected?

Yeah, a couple of things.

One, India was able to get oil supplies from various different countries.

And also, it's a big exporter of refined oil.

And the fact that refining margins have really gone up was very helpful for India.

Having said that, I think, again, if oil prices remain high for long, we will start seeing growth slow.

But so far, growth has been very strong.

So why is that happening?

Hmm

...

in ASEAN, which by the way includes a variety of things, you know: integrated circuits, computers, monitors, phones.

More recently, uh, semiconductor fabs and also AI data centers.

Now, especially the semiconductors and the data center parts, they really need clean water, they need, uh, reliable electricity, and they also need controlled temperatures, and all of these three can be disrupted in El Niño years when you see a lot of water stress and you see temperatures rise.

Does it mean that, that there, there's no place to hide?

Yes, absolutely.

There's no place to hide.

Is AI a headwind for the Indian economy or a tailwind? I mean where do you come down on in terms of what AI means for growth in India and business opportunities?

Yeah, so far, I think the prime beneficiaries of AI have been either those who are the writers of the large language models or those who produce the hardware that's needed for the AI to rise.

And in a way, India hasn't been a part of either.

And that's sort of been a disappointment over the last year.

But if your question is, how is India going to fare over the medium term, the next couple of years? I think it's still up in the air.

When I look at India's IT exports, it's got two parts.

One are the large IT companies who actually provide a lot of softwares and their plan is that they're going to rebuild themselves and they're going to reimagine their work and they're going to use a large language models and continue to write softwares and help MNCs over their own old clients.

India still has a few aces up its sleeve.

where do you come down on in terms of what AI means for growth in India and business opportunities?

Yeah.

So far, I think the prime beneficiaries of AI have been either those who are the writers of the large language models or those who produce the hardware that's needed for the AI to rise.

And in a way, India hasn't been a part of either, and that has sort of been a disappointment over the last year.

But if your question is how is India going to fare over the medium term, the next couple of years, I think it's still up in the air.

When I look at India's IT exports, it's got two parts.

One are the large IT companies who actually provide a lot of softwares, and their plan is that they're going to rebuild themselves, and they're going to reimagine their work, and they're going to use the large language models and, and continue to, you know, write softwares and, and help MNCs who were their own c- own old clients, but we'd have to see how that goes.

India still has a few aces up its sleeve."