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From Consumption to Circulation: Building India’s Petro-Materials Transformation Economy

On 28 April, Hyderabad-based materials transformation company Srichakra Polyplast announced that it will invest ₹425 crore to expand its food-grade recycled PET (rPET) capacity from around 90,000 tonnes to over 113,000 tonnes by 2026, and is targeting ₹1,000 crore in revenue in FY27-28, as reported by BusinessLine. The company, which reported revenue of ₹227 crore in FY25, expects to scale to ₹400 crore in FY26, with the planned investment directly supporting this growth through capacity expansion and higher-spec, food-grade recycling capabilities. This development may appear, at first glance, as incremental progress in waste management. In reality, they point to a deeper structural shift. The BusinessLine report further said that from April 2026, companies using PET bottles will be required to incorporate 40 per cent recycled content, up from 30 per cent earlier, tightening compliance requirements across the value chain. T he plastic recycling market, thus, is running into a structura...
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From Talent Debate to System Design: Rethinking India's Talent Migration Question

India’s long-running debate over “brain drain" has returned in a new form. This time, it is not about whether talent leaves—but whether it should come back. On 27 April, tech entrepreneur Sridhar Vembu, in an open letter in X, appealed to Indian-Americans to return home to build India's technological strength and industrial sovereignty, arguing that the political environment in USA is no longer suitable to them. On 28 April, in US-based tech entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa, in a response article in Moneycontrol, argued that India no longer needs its diaspora  in the way Vembu appeals for and that India’s internal momentum is now sufficient rebuild the country. Both perspectives are thoughtful, and both capture important aspects of India’s evolving position in the world.  But they are also focused on a question that is, ultimately, secondary: Should Indians abroad return? The more fundamental question is simpler—and more consequential: What kind of country is India becoming for those...
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Solving India's Tech Jobs Paradox: From Labour Market Fixes to Long-Term Strength

India’s technology job market is sending paradoxical signals. On one hand, a BusinessLine report (published on 10 April) points to a sharp rise in applications per tech role—doubling in some cases after layoffs and hiring slowdowns. On the other hand, a Quess Corp report (released on 20 April) highlights a 38-42% shortage of quality AI/ML talent, especially in Global Capability Centres (GCCs).  At first glance, these look contradictory. How can there be both a surplus of tech candidates and a shortage of tech talent? The answer lies in a structural mismatch that is becoming increasingly visible in India’s evolving tech ecosystem. The Real Problem: Not a Talent Shortage, but a Capability Gap The rise in applications per role reflects a surplus of generalist, application-level talent—engineers trained for routine coding, testing, and IT services work. These roles formed the backbone of India’s IT success over the past two decades. However, the nature of demand is shifting. According ...
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Packaging the Future: A Sequenced Semiconductor Strategy for India

India’s semiconductor push has, understandably, been framed around fabs, frontier nodes, and technological sovereignty. The ambition is valid. But there is a quieter constraint that cannot be ignored: time. Semiconductor ecosystems take decades to mature, while India faces a far more immediate challenge—a large and restless youth cohort that must be absorbed into productive, dignified work. Bridging this mismatch requires a shift in emphasis, not a dilution of ambition. India should remain committed to a full-stack semiconductor ecosystem. But in the near term, it needs a layer that can scale faster, distribute geographically, and generate employment without waiting for long-gestation breakthroughs. That layer is semiconductor packaging . The Constraint: Long Horizons, Immediate Pressures Building cutting-edge fabs, materials ecosystems, and advanced design capabilities is a generational project. It requires capital, coordination, and institutional depth that cannot be rushed. Yet Indi...
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From Energy to Intelligence: The Missing Electronic Layer in Industry 4.0/5.0 Strategy

India’s industrial transformation narrative is evolving rapidly. The language of Industry 4.0/5.0 now dominates policy discourses and public discussions. The next phase of industrialization is to be driven by green energy, AI, automation, and digitally coordinated production and logistics systems. Factories and fieldsites are expected not only to be powered by green energy, but also to operate as intelligent, adaptive systems. This vision is directionally sound—but structurally incomplete. The current discourse makes two conceptual leaps. The first, as I argued in a blogpost on 11 April, moves from renewable energy generation to industrial consumption, often overlooking the electrical infrastructure required to make power usable at scale. The second leap moves from powered systems to intelligent systems—without adequately accounting for the infrastructure that enables real-time control and responsiveness. If electrical infrastructure forms the first missing layer in this transition, e...
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From Consultant Dependent State to Capable State: Re-Structuring External Expertise in India

On 13 April, a short political news report in the New Indian Express drew citizens' attention to an under-examined concern: the expanding role of consultancy firms in government. The news capsule said that consultancy firms now draft policy papers, design tenders, manage bids, and sometimes oversee implementation. In several cases, they act like end-to-end operators while the official machinery only signs approvals and clears payments worth thousands of crores. The Cabinet Secretariat is reportedly now reviewing this dependence. The concern is valid—but incomplete. The real issue is not that consultants are present in governance. Modern states, especially those operating at India’s scale and complexity, will inevitably draw upon external expertise. The deeper issue is that consultants are being used in ways that reflect underlying structural gaps within the administrative system. In that sense, consultant dependence is not the disease. It is the symptom. The Misdiagnosis: “Too Much...
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The Scale-Out Gap: India’s Missing Industrial Layer

Over the past decade, India has become significantly better at building industrial capability. Production-linked incentives, logistics corridors, cluster-based development, and targeted skilling programmes have begun to produce credible manufacturing and technology ecosystems. In sectors ranging from electronics to renewable energy, the state has shown that it can assemble land, infrastructure, policy support, and demand visibility into functioning industrial nodes. But a structural gap remains. These successes tend to stay localised. They do not reliably replicate across geographies. India does not lack industrial policy. It lacks a scale-out system. Early Signals of Scale—But Not Yet Systemic There are early signals that India is beginning to move beyond isolated capability creation into scaling. India's smartphone manufacturing ecosystem has vastly expanded over the last few years. More recently, the broader electronics manufacturing ecosystem has also expanded. In parallel, gre...
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