Subtext by Zerodha

In this episode, Pranav sits down with Rakesh Basant, Professor of Economics at IIM Ahmedabad, to understand how innovation actually works in India and what it takes to build a thriving ecosystem from the ground up.

In this episode, Pranav and Bhuvan sit down with Sidu Ponnappa, co-founder of realfast and former engineering head at Gojek, to understand how AI agents are fundamentally rewiring organizations and the IT services industry.

In this episode, Pranav sits down with Avantika Goswami and Trishant Dev from the Centre for Science and Environment to discuss why industrializing and decarbonizing simultaneously is the hardest problem the developing world has ever been asked to solve.

Arvind Chari, Chief Investment Strategist at Quantum Advisors, joins Bhuvan to unpack why India has swung from being "TINA" (there is no alternative) to being called "anti-India" by global investors. They dig into why foreign capital still matters even with record domestic savings, why capital gains tax on foreign investors hurts more than people realize, and why India's capex cycle hasn't taken off despite years of optimistic talk. The conversation covers manufacturing versus services as India's real path to jobs, why public education remains India's biggest weak point, and how a new generation of engineers may be turning to manufacturing startups instead of chasing H-1B visas. Arvind closes with his honest take on what could actually turn him from an India optimist into a pessimist. Timestamps 0:00 – Intro, meet Arvind 7:17 – Why India's returns stay strong 14:34 – What drives India's growth limit 21:51 – Case for foreign capital 29:08 – Where investment money can come from 36:25 – Why companies aren't…

In this episode, Kashish and Vishvesh sit down with Mudit Narain, co-founder of Voltseal, to understand the mechanics of India's electricity grid and how batteries are solving the intermittency of renewable energy.

In this episode, Pranav sits down with Dr. Rohit Chandra, Assistant Professor at IIT Delhi, to understand the political economy and history shaping India’s past, present, and future energy sectors.

In this episode, Kashish sits down with Rajashree Murukute, Senior Director at CARE Ratings, to understand why India’s municipal bond market hasn't taken off and what it will take to mature.

In this episode of Subtext by Zerodha, Pranav sits down with Arpit Tandon, Director of AI Strategy at CGI, to understand what AI really means for the Indian IT industry.

In this episode, Pranav Manie sits down with Mausam Kumar, post-doctoral researcher at Princeton, former industrial policy fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, and PhD from IIT Bombay to unpack how India’s industrial policy really works, what the role of individual states is in the process, who drives the finance it needs, and how it interacts with external factors like China.

In this episode of Subtext, host Kashish sits down with Sagar Lele, Executive Director at Paterson Securities, to break down one of the most intimidating yet essential skills in finance: decoding quarterly earnings. From navigating investor presentations and spotting structural shifts to building mental frameworks that separate signal from noise, this conversation strips away the jargon and explains, from an insider's perspective, how to truly read the pulse of corporate India.

In this episode of Subtext, host Kashish sits down with Amit, CIO of Fixed Income at Nippon India to break down one of the most misunderstood concepts in Indian finance: monetary policy transmission. From repo rates and CASA ratios to liquidity dynamics, FCNR deposits, and the future of securitization in Indian banking, this conversation strips away the jargon and explains, from first principles, how money moves through the Indian economy.

In this episode, we sit down with the founder of GalaxEye to explore one of the most audacious bets in Indian deep tech: building a satellite that can see through clouds. We go deep on the technology behind Optical SAR (OptiSAR) — a fusion of multi-spectral imaging and synthetic aperture radar — and why consistent, all-weather satellite imagery could be as transformative as GPS.

In this episode of Subtext, I sit down with Tamal Bandyopadhyay — veteran banking journalist and senior advisor at Jana Small Finance Bank — to unpack the microfinance credit crisis of 2023–24.

Brad W. Setser, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and one of the most respected voices on global capital flows, joins us for a wide-ranging conversation on what is driving the dollar today, why China's export boom is a problem for the whole world, and what happens if the AI bubble bursts. Timestamp: 0:00 – Introduction 2:38 – History of Dollar Strength & What Drives It 5:26 – AI & Private Capital Flows into the US 9:08 – Strait of Hormuz Crisis & Oil Markets 12:49 – UAE Leaving OPEC: What It Signals 15:21 – Why Surplus Countries (China, Korea, Taiwan) Keep Buying Dollars 19:23 – Origins of Export-Led Growth: Asia's Dollar Accumulation 27:38 – What Should China Do to Fix Its Imbalances? 34:24 – Is Export-Led Growth Still Viable? 39:31 – Deglobalization: Is It Actually Happening? 45:45 – Trump-Xi Summit: Who Has the Leverage? 48:44 – Trump's Industrial Policy vs. Biden's CHIPS Act 52:42 – Brad's Experience Translating Research into Policy 56:07 – How Countries Creatively Reroute Trade & Hide…

In this episode of Subtext, we sit down with Zohra Khan, CEO & Founder of IPEC India - a power electronics company building EV chargers for the Indian market. We cover: How EV chargers actually work and why they need to be customised for each vehicle brand Why India's power grid is both a challenge and an opportunity for EV adoption The push to standardise charging connectors and protocols for two-wheelers (Think EV version of USB-C) Why German and Chinese chargers often fail in Indian conditions - and how IPEC builds for that The semiconductor supply chain problem and India's path to self-reliance What's coming in FY2027: bidirectional charging, 2x growth, and new product launches A deep dive into the infrastructure powering India's EV revolution. Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zohra-khan-889a8a14a/ Time Stamps: 0:00 – Introduction to IPEC & Zohra's Background 2:46 – How EV Chargers Work & What Differs Across OEMs 5:34 – Bottlenecks for EV End Consumers (Home vs Public Charging) 9:29 – Charging…

In this episode, we sit down with Amit Kumar Gupta from FinTrekk Capital to break down the copper market — from AI-driven demand and falling ore grades to the value chain dynamics between miners, smelters, and downstream players. We also explore India's copper story, the Sterlite plant shutdown, and how retail investors can play the copper theme. Amit Kumar Gupta - https://x.com/amitgupta0310

India's venture capital market is maturing - but are we asking the right questions? In this episode, we sit down with Aaditya Shukla and Aaditya Muralidhar from Bain & Company, co-authors of the annual India VC Report, to go beyond the headlines and into the nuance.

The rules-based world trade order is fracturing — and India needs a strategy. In this episode, we sit down with Ajay Srivastava, founder of the Global Trade Research Initiative and veteran of India's Trade Service, to make sense of what's happening in global trade and what it means for India.

In this episode, Kashish sits down with Rosa Abraham and Dr. Tamoghna Halder (professors at Azim Premji University) to discuss the State of Working India Report 2026 — a deep dive into India's labour market and what it means for the country's youth.

What makes China's manufacturing machine so powerful — and what does it mean for the rest of the world? In this episode, we sit down with Kyle Chan — fellow at the Brookings Institution's China Centre, Princeton PhD, and author of the newsletter High Capacity — for a deep dive into China's industrial strategy. We cover: - How Chinese entrepreneurs operate within the state system - The rise of BYD, Huawei, and China's "overtake on the curve" strategy - The evolution debate and China's excess capacity problem - Why the Strait of Hormuz crisis is a massive tailwind for Chinese EVs - China's five-year plan and the race to dominate future industries - What India can learn — and take advantage of — from China's playbook - A conversation packed with insight on geopolitics, clean tech, and the future of global manufacturing. Timestamp: 0:00 - Introduction & Guest Welcome 0:30 - Entrepreneurship Culture in China: Hero Stories & What Gets Rewarded 3:10 - Huawei & BYD: Go-to-Market Strategies (Wolf Pack, Underdog…

We used to live in a world of rules. Now, we live in a world of power. Pranav Agarwal and Pranay Kotasthane break down the "Matsya Nyaya" of modern geopolitics. We cover the weaponisation of critical minerals, the shifting influence of the US and China, and the strategic path India must take to thrive in an uncertain future. Key topics: Geopolitics, Rare Earths, India’s Foreign Policy, and the Future of Trade. Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 2:05 Guest Introduction & Welcome 3:02 World Order, Power & Legitimacy 14:09 Critical Minerals & Geopolitics 15:16 Two Frameworks: Resource Leverage & Prices 28:03 China's Rare Earth Leverage (and the 2028 Prediction) 38:33 India's Critical Minerals Strategy 54:33 India's Manufacturing Challenge 1:04:25 AI & India's Opportunity 1:07:01 Technological Sovereignty 1:12:35 Bangalore & Urban Governance 1:22:32 Thinking Across Disciplines 1:27:02 Information Diet & How Pranay Thinks

Is India losing its competitive edge in labor-intensive industries? While big names like Foxconn, Kia, and Apple are setting up shop, the "spillover effect" that transforms a local economy often remains missing. In this episode, Pranav Manie sits down with Professor Aradhana, one of India’s foremost experts on Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and industrial policy. They explore why many industrial zones become isolated "enclaves" rather than engines of national growth, and what India can learn from the success stories of China, Taiwan, and South Korea. Key Topics Discussed: The "Dutch Disease": Has India’s service sector growth accidentally hampered our manufacturing potential? Linkages & Spillovers: Understanding backward linkages (local suppliers), forward linkages (domestic sales), and technology transfer. The Enclave Problem: Why SEZs often fail to integrate with the domestic mainland and how policy barriers (like foreign exchange requirements) get in the way. OEM vs. OBM: The difficult transition from…

AI agents are reshaping the global IT industry and no one feels it more than Indian IT. In this conversation, Pranav Manie sits down with Ameya Pimpalgaonkar, a 20-year veteran of the IT industry (IBM, Accenture, Infosys) turned investor, to break down what's actually happening beneath the surface. We covered Why the shift from headcount-based to outcome-based pricing is real but slower than the hype suggests How Indian IT's pyramid org structure creates deep inertia in the age of AI agents The emerging opportunity in data labelling, annotation, and domain-specific LLM fine-tuning What deals like Infosys-Anthropic actually signal (and what they don't) Why domain specialisation, not scale, will define the next wave of Indian IT Digital sovereignty, AI governance, and why trust is the new moat in enterprise sales A nuanced, grounded take on one of the most debated topics in tech and investing today. Checkout Ameya P's handle here: https://x.com/Finstor85 Timestamps - 0:00 Introduction & thesis: AI agents…

Nishit and Ankush from Phillip Capital have spent years working with NRI and global investors navigating India's financial ecosystem — and they are two of the clearest voices explaining why Gift City is changing everything. Gift City sits in a 34-kilometre stretch between Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar — technically in India, but operating as an offshore jurisdiction. NRI onboarding, which used to take 30 to 45 days, now happens in two. Funds that would cost a fortune to set up in Singapore or Mauritius are being built here at a fraction of the price. And yet, most retail investors still think it's just a tax haven — which it isn't. We sat down with Nishit and Ankush to explain what Gift City actually is and why it matters now. We spoke about why India needed its own offshore financial hub in the first place, how Gift City compares to Mauritius and Singapore as a gateway for global capital, what the onboarding nightmare for NRIs looked like before and why it's now largely gone, how the unified regulator IFSCA…

Deepak Shenoy of Capital Mind joins us to explain what has been happening with the rupee over the past few weeks. Some of it is straightforward — India imports a lot of oil, oil is now significantly more expensive, and that means we need a lot more dollars than before. But there has been a more technical layer to the story involving something called the NDF market, which most people haven't heard of, and that is what this conversation is really about. We spoke about how India's forex market is structured and who the players are, how the RBI manages the rupee, what the NDF market is and why it matters, how Indian banks built up billions of dollars in arbitrage positions that were quietly pushing the rupee down, how the RBI caught on and tried to shut it down, and why Deepak thinks the only real fix is something far more fundamental than anything the RBI can do on its own. LinkedIn: https://in.linkedin.com/in/deepakshenoy Twitter: https://x.com/deepakshenoy

Rory Johnston runs Commodity Context and has spent years tracking the oil market — and he is someone who, by his own admission, is normally the calm one in the room. The fact that he is genuinely alarmed right now tells you something. Since February 28th, the Strait of Hormuz — a 34-kilometre stretch of water that carries roughly 20% of the world's oil supply — has been closed. Asian governments are in panic mode. Flights are being cancelled because jet fuel is running short. India is already feeling the squeeze, particularly on LPG. And yet, financial markets haven't fully caught up with what the physical world is already experiencing. We got Rory on a call to explain what is actually happening and where this goes from here. We spoke about why this is the largest oil supply shock in history, why Brent crude should already be significantly higher than it is and what is holding it back, what the "air pocket" moving through global supply chains means for when the pain fully arrives in Western markets, why…

Most commentary on China operates at a surface level. Xi Jinping is authoritarian, the economy is state-directed, and the Communist Party controls everything. That's all true, but it doesn't actually help you understand why specific things happen the way they do. Manoj Kewalramani is one of the few Indian analysts who can go deeper than that. He's a China Studies research fellow at the Takshashila Institution, speaks Mandarin, and spent years living in China. In this conversation, we try to understand the country as it actually is, not as the headlines describe it. We get into some genuinely interesting territory. On zero-COVID, Manoj explains why the policy became so brutal, not because Xi Jinping was being irrational, but because local officials were responding entirely rationally to a set of incentives from the centre. On China's economy, he makes the case that the overcapacity everyone criticises isn't a flaw in the system. It's how the system is designed to work. On India's favourite lesson from China,…