Mishik Sharma

Introduction: An Important Warning, But An Incomplete Debate India's export ambitions have entered an increasingly ambitious phase. After recording goods & services exports worth USD 863 billion in FY26, the government has set its sights on the USD 1 trillion milestone. Simultaneously, India has accelerated trade negotiations and concluded several important agreements, reflecting growing confidence that deeper market integration can support industrial expansion. Against this backdrop, a recent report by Global Trade Research Initiative ("FTA Report Card", released on 9 June) highlighed India's widening trade deficits with several FTA partners, low utilisation rates among exporters, and questions about whether trade agreements are translating into the manufacturing gains that policy-makers expect. These concerns deserve serious attention. But the debate risks becoming trapped in a binary: are FTAs beneficial or harmful? Should India embrace trade integration or bec...

Introduction: The AI Paradox The global artificial intelligence industry is passing through one of the most extraordinary expansions in modern economic history. Frontier AI companies are approaching trillion-dollar valuations. Chipmakers have become among the world's most valuable corporations. Data-centre investment is reaching unprecedented scale. Across the ecosystem, new architectures of collaboration are emerging: AI software companies developing custom silicon with semiconductor partners; chip companies deploying edge systems directly into industrial enterprises; cloud providers expanding compute infrastructure at pace; and enterprise-service companies embedding intelligence across sectors. Yet despite this momentum, a recurring anxiety surfaces whenever sentiment shifts. Whenever a major AI company disappoints investors, whenever a large infrastructure commitment proves difficult to monetise, whenever technology equities correct sharply — the same questions return: Is the in...

Introduction: The Wrong Way to Think About Urbanisation Over the past few weeks, a series of seemingly unrelated developments have emerged across India's economy. Housing sales in India's top eight cities moderated during the first quarter of 2026. Logistics and warehousing activity continued expanding despite geopolitical uncertainty and supply-chain disruptions. Large investment commitments were announced in data centres, logistics infrastructure, office space, housing, and industrial facilities. Meanwhile, urban policy discussions continued to focus on traffic congestion, housing affordability, pollution, walkability, and declining quality of life in India's largest metropolitan regions. At first glance, these developments appear disconnected. They are not. They are all manifestations of the same underlying question: how should India physically organise its next phase of economic development? For decades, India has approached industrial policy, urban policy, housing poli...

Introduction: From Gas Supply to Gas Economy On 6 March, in the wake of Qatar halting its gas production and rising fears of a global LPG shortage, I argued that India's gas challenge is fundamentally a supply challenge. Faced with geopolitical disruptions, growing industrial demand, expanding urban gas networks, and ambitious energy-transition goals, India needs a diversified domestic gas-production strategy encompassing associated gas recovery, biogas, green hydrogen, coal-bed methane, underground coal gasification, and other emerging pathways. Yet production alone does not create an economy. Gas trapped underground has no economic value until it reaches consumers. Biogas produced from agricultural residue or animal waste remains a local curiosity unless it can reliably access markets. Future hydrogen production facilities will struggle to influence industrial development if the fuel cannot be moved efficiently to where it is needed. Between production and consumption lies a crit...

Uday Kotak's June 2, 2026 post on X was characteristically blunt. The veteran banker-entrepreneur pointed to Alphabet's decision to raise an additional $80 billion in fresh capital — despite sitting on $160 billion in annual profit, $62 billion in the last quarter alone, and a $4.5 trillion market capitalisation — and held it up as a mirror to India Inc. The contrast with the collective profits and market cap of all Indian listed companies was uncomfortable. His call: set aside the IPL distraction and get back to the "business of business." The post went viral quickly. Supporters praised the call for greater ambition and risk-taking. Critics pushed back, pointing to regulatory hurdles, tax uncertainties, high compliance costs, and a broader risk-averse culture in Indian business. The debate was healthy and timely. Yet, while Kotak's diagnosis of an ambition and execution gap (particularly in innovation intensity) is largely correct, the path forward demands more n...