April 24, 2026

By Cherian Samuel

In March, a group of American investors agreed to pay Rupees 153 billion, US $1.6 billion, for the Rajasthan Royals, according to ESPNcricinfo. The Royals are a ​men’s cricket team in the Indian Premier League based in Jaipur, Rajasthan.​

When the sale closes, the original owners of the Royals, which is a group led by Manoj Badale, will apparently earn a 2,400% gain on their purchase of the team in 2008. Such a 19% compound annual return, over the past eighteen years, beats the investment gains of most stock, private equity and venture funds in the United States and the United Kingdom.

The Indian league is a cricket contest, in the Twenty20 format, among ten teams based in major Indian cities. Two teams play a single innings each, limited to a maximum of twenty overs, 120 legal deliveries. The owners of the Royals also own similarly branded cricket teams, the Paarl Royals in the South African League and the Barbados Royals in the Caribbean Premier League.

According to ESPN, other current owners of the Royals include Lachlan Murdoch, chief executive of New York based media company Fox Corporation, and Red Bird Capital, New York, which manages $14 billion, including investments in sports teams.

The buyers of the Royals is a group reportedly led by Kal Somani, an existing investor in the franchise. Based in Scottsdale, Arizona, he is the founder of IntraEdge, an outsourcing company, and co-owner of Academian, an education technology services company. The other buyers are Rob Walton, an heir to the Walmart fortune and ​part of the group which owns the National Football League’s (NFL’s) Denver Broncos ​team, and Michael Hamp, son of Sheila Ford Hamp, member of the Ford Motor Company family ​which owns the NFL’s Detroit Lions​ team.

Also, in March, ​a group of Indian and American buyers agreed to pay Rupees 166 billion, US $1.8 billion​, for the Royal Challengers Bengaluru cricket franchise. The Challengers’ men’s and women’s teams won the​ir respective league titles in 2025.

The buyers are led by the Aditya Birla Group​, an Indian family which runs aluminum, cement and other companies in forty countries, with a total market value of more than $100 billion. The other buyers are the Times of India Group, Bolt Ventures, and Blackstone. The ​share of ownership among the partners ​is not disclosed.

Blackstone​ is a New York​ based firm managing $1.3 trillion in assets, ranging from equities, bonds, real estate, private equity, and sports teams.​ It has a market value of $89 billion. Bolt ventures, the private investment platform of David Blitzer, owns other sports properties including the Crystal Palace Football Club in the U​K Premier League and the Philadelphia 76ers in the US National Basketball Association league. ​​Blitzer is the Chairman of Blackstone’s Tactical Opportunities Group and earlier led the firm’s European private equity business. He joined Blackstone in 1991 and has a net worth of $4 billion, according to Forbes.

The Challengers is being sold by an Indian-subsidiary of Diageo, the London-based vendor of Johnnie Walker whiskey and other alcoholic drinks. The sale of the cricket franchise is expected to close after it receives legal, regulatory and other approvals.

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(Photo: Sanju Samson, with the 2026 T-20 Cricket World Cup. Samson is a member of the Chennai Super Kings IPL team. Courtesy: ICC.)

In 2025, revenues from sports in India totaled Rupees 189 billion, US $2 billion.​ according to a WPP Media report. Cricket accounted for an estimated nine tenths of the revenues. Men’s cricket has always been a big business in India. In fact​, it ​continues to be the only major sports business in India, boosted by the ​Indian Premier League. The league was launched in 2008 by the Board of Control for Cricket in India. The Board sought to copy the financial success of the T20 Blast, now known as the Vitality Blast, which was launched in the UK in 2003.

The Indian league gives Indians, who are huge cricket fans, an added jolt of entertainment: ten teams playing 84 matches over two months, from March to May. The Twenty20 games are fast paced three-​to-four-hour contests, featuring the top Indian and foreign cricketers.

The teams pay large sums to hire the best talent from major cricket playing nations. Among the foreigners playing in the current 2026 season are Australian Cameron Green. The Kolkata Knight Riders are paying him a record Rupees 250 million, US $2.6 million, according to the BBC. Other foreign players include Heinrich Klaasen from South Africa, Jos Buttler, England, Matheesha Pathirana, Sri Lanka, Mustafizur Rahman, Bangladesh, and Sherfane Rutherford, West Indies.

Among the highest paid Indian players are Virat Kohli, who earns Rupees 210 million, playing for the Bengaluru Challengers; Sanju Samson, who earns Rupees 180 million, US $1.9 million, playing for the Chennai Super Kings; and Kartik Sharma and Prashant Veer, who both earn around Rupees 160 million, US $1.7 million. In March, Samson’s batting was key to India winning the 2026 T20 World Cup.

The Indian league teams are also sprinkled with aging, former Indian superstars like Mahendra Dhoni, 44. They are there more to attract cricket fans dripping in nostalgia. The games are also spiced with cheerleaders, music, and fireworks.

The league’s season attracts more than a billion viewers on TV and online platforms, the most watched cricket league in the world. They include more than 400 million unique TV viewers, according to CVC, which is part owner of the Gujarat Titans league team. Given such a massive, growing audience, most of the league’s revenues comes from fees for the global TV broadcast and digital media rights.

The current five-year media rights deal for the Indian league, valid from 2023 to 2027, brings in more than Rupees 484 billion, US $6.2 billion, or more than US $1.2 billion per year, according to sportspro.com.​ The Indian cricket board retains half of this revenue while the league teams share 45%, according to IPL.com.​ The teams also earn revenue from local sponsors and sales of tickets, jerseys and other merchandise.

The current media rights were bought, following an auction in 2022, by a group comprising Star India, Viacom18, and Times Internet. The price ​they paid was reportedly more than double what Star India paid for the 2018 to 2022 ​media rights, Rupees 165 billion, US $2.6 billion, according to sportspro.com.​ Star India was then part of the US media giant Walt Disney.

Times Internet is part of the Mumbai based Times of India Group. The group owns Willow which broadcasts all major cricket matches, including the Indian league, in the U.S. Willow charges a US $9.99 monthly subscription; it also offers a US $79.99 annual plan.

In November 2024, Star India merged with Viacom18 to form JioStar. While Disney owns 37%, JioStar is controlled by Reliance Industries. Reliance is India’s largest private company, with fiscal year 2026 revenues of US $124 billion, operating in a range of businesses including energy, petro-chemicals and media. Mukesh Ambani is Chairman of Reliance while his wife Nita Ambani is Chairperson of JioStar.

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(Photo: Manoj Badale, former lead-owner of Rajasthan Royals. Courtesy British Asian Trust.)

The annual fees for the Indian cricket league’s media rights have reportedly risen twelve-fold since the first season. Japan’s Sony bought the TV rights for the first ten IPL seasons, 2008 to 2017, for a total $1 billion, $100 million a year, according to ESPNcricinfo.

The sharp rise in media fees have boosted the valuations of Indian league teams, both the resale price of existing teams and the prices paid at auctions for new franchisees. In 2021, nine bidders reportedly took part in an auction held in Dubai by the cricket board for new Indian league teams. The RP Sanjiv Goenka Group, an Indian business family, won the bid for the Lucknow Super Giants for a price of Rupees 71 billion, US $964 million, according to ESPN. CVC Partners won the bid for the Gujarat Titans, based in A​hmedabad, for reportedly Rupees 56 billion, US $750 million. CVC, based in Luxembourg, is a global investor, including in private equity, credit and sports teams, with Euro 205 billion ​in assets under management.

In 2008, the cricket board reportedly secured $724 million when it auctioned the eight initial franchisees. The original teams were the Mumbai Indians, Kolkata Knight Riders, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Chennai Super Kings, Rajasthan Royals, Delhi Daredevils, now Delhi Capitals, Kings XI Punjab, now Punjab Kings, and Deccan Chargers. In 2013, the Chargers were replaced by Sunrisers Hyderabad.

The initial owners were wealthy Indian business families, Indian companies, and Bollywood stars. The Mumbai Indians, for instance, is owned by a subsidiary of Mumbai-based Reliance Industries. It is controlled by Mukesh Ambani, who has a net worth of $92 billion, according to Forbes. Reliance also owns JioStar, which is the major current owner of the Indian league’s media rights. The Chennai Super Kings is owned by a subsidiary of India Cements, whose chairman is N. Srinivasan, a former president of the cricket board. The Kolkata Knight Riders is owned by Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, and actress Juhi Chawla and her husband Jay Mehta, of the Mehta Group.

Following the success of the UK and Indian Twenty20 leagues, similar leagues have been launched in other countries: the Big Bash League, Australia, 2011; Bangladesh Premier League, 2012; Caribbean Premier League, West Indies, 2013; and the Pakistan Super League, 2016. Given the size of India’s population, and its fervent cricket fans, the Indian league has the biggest audience and is the richest league.

In recent years, similar to the Rajasthan Royals, Indian league franchise owners have bought teams in other national leagues. For instance, the owner of the Mumbai Indians team also owns the New York team in the US league, the Cape Town team in South Africa, and the Emirates team. The Chennai Super Kings owns Joburg Super Kings, in South Africa, and Texas Super Kings in the US. And the Kolkata Knight Riders owns the LA Knight Riders, US, and Abu Dhabi Knight Riders.

A group of investors led by Manoj Badale owns 65% of the Royals franchise, according to msn.com. In the 2008 auction, Badale’s group​ reported​ly paid $67 million,​ the lowest price among the eight initial franchises. This was possibly because there were few competing bidders for the team since it is based in Jaipur. It is a far smaller city compared to Mumbai or Bengaluru, whose franchises were originally bought for around $111 million each, according to msn.com.

The sale of the Royals, when completed, may be one of Badale’s major investment successes. He is a British-Indian ​co-founder of more than 15 businesses, largely technology-related, since 1998. Badale, 58-years-old, and Charles Mindenhall co-​founded ​London-based Blenheim Chalcot, ​a digital venture ​investor. In 2011, Blenheim bought Home Learning College, the UK’s largest online vocational learning provider.

Badale is the co-founder of netdecisions group, a major internet services provider, which is now Agilisys, an information technology services and outsourcing business based in Alpharetta, a suburb of Atlanta, US. Earlier, Badale was a partner at Monitor Company​, working in the UK, Germany and India. He earned an MA in economics from Emmanuel College, Cambridge University. Badale, who was born in Dhule, Maharashtra, India, grew up in the UK.

In a 2023 interview with the Business of Sport, Badale said that the financial success of the Royals was due to the management’s long-term strategy based on collecting and analyzing data, ranging from trends in performance of batters and bowlers to size of audiences. This enabled the Royals to run a lean operation, with tight cost controls, and hire, at a cheap price, less-known cricketers with the potential to perform well in the twenty overs league match format.

Most Indian cricket pundits predict valuations of Indian league teams will keep rising, with some forecasting they will exceed $5 billion by 2035. In contrast, a report from D&P Advisory, a valuation consultancy based in Bengaluru, says the Indian men’s league is “grappling with maturity and recalibration.” This is in part because the consolidation of TV platforms in India “has transformed the media rights ecosystem, altering the balance of competition and value creation.”

Is there any significance, for the future valuation of Indian league cricket teams, when an investor like Manoj Badale, with a good track record, is selling his stake in the Rajasthan Royals?

(Story updated April 25, 2026.)

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Cherian Samuel, a writer based in Washington DC, retired from the World Bank. He earned a PhD in Economics from the University of Maryland.

(Photo: A coconut tree climber in Kerala. Courtesy Wikipedia.)

By Sunil Mani

April 3, 2026

Over the past twenty-five years, the total area of coconut farms in Kerala has shrunk by roughly a quarter, according to the state’s Planning Board. In 2024–25, coconut cultivation covered nearly 770,000 hectares. These farms still account for nearly a third of the state’s total cropped area. So, by far, coconut continues to be Kerala’s biggest farmed crop and a key part of its economy. Rubber is the state’s second largest crop covering about a fifth of the farmed area.

Coconut products are a key ingredient in a Keralite’s daily food consumption, from breakfast and meals to snacks. The fruit is also used to produce a wide range of processed products. Oil, which is extracted from copra, dried coconut kernel, is the major processed product. Major oil brands operating in the state include Marico’s Parachute and local vendors like Kerafed and Mezhukkattil Mills. Other kernel-based products include desiccated coconut, coconut milk and cream. Also, virgin coconut oil which is made by cold-processing fresh kernel.

The water from tender coconuts is a popular natural health beverage all over India. The coconut shell is a raw material used for producing activated carbon, which is a value-added export. Then, coir and coir pith, derived from the husk, are inputs for the state’s coir industry.

The total annual value of Kerala’s coconut economy is estimated to be more than Rs 35,000 crores, US $3.8 billion. Coconut oil and kernel products account for more than half, coir and coir products for about a fifth, and virgin oil, activated carbon and other products account for the rest.

The coconut economy in Kerala, including cultivation, harvesting, processing, and marketing, is estimated to employ more than 3.5 million, making it the largest single employer in the state. Nearly a quarter of them are employed in coir-related jobs.

The decline in area under coconut cultivation in Kerala is mainly due to the conversion of farms into real estate development, homes and apartment and commercial buildings. Some of the development is carried out by the landowners themselves, especially those who have the funds to invest.

Demand for real estate continues to be strong due to rising household incomes, especially for families with sons and daughters working abroad, mainly in the Persian Gulf countries. Another factor fuelling demand is the state’s rising population, currently around 35 million.

Over the past two decades, land prices in Kerala have seen a sharp increase driven in large part by strong demand from Keralites, especially emigrant sons and daughters working in the Persian Gulf countries. According to Kerala government data, land prices in the state have more than doubled since 2010, with prices rising far higher in Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, and other urban areas. Contrary to official data, land prices in the state have likely risen by more than four times in the past 25 years according to real estate investors and brokers.

Under current farming practices, the net returns, after all costs, from coconut cultivation in Kerala range from about Rupees 30,000, US $300, to Rupees 70,000, US $720, per hectare annually. So, a household growing coconuts, even in a remote rural region of Kerala, can earn eight times more per year by selling the land and investing the proceeds in a safe, fixed income deposit with a government-run bank, than from selling coconuts. The only thing holding back more growers from selling land is a farming family’s age-old eagerness to hold onto their land. Also, some of them are holding on hoping to sell when prices rise even higher.

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(Photo: A coconut grove in Kerala. Courtesy Wikipedia Commons.)

For centuries, coconut farming has played a key role in Kerala’s economy. The coconut palm, Cocos nucifera, is deeply intertwined with everyday life, serving as a culinary staple, a source of livelihood, and a cornerstone of cultural identity. In fact, the very name Keralam is derived from the Malayalam word kera, meaning coconut tree, signifying that the region is the “land of coconut trees.”

The decline in Kerala’s annual coconut output is sharper than the decline in coconut farming area. In 2024–25, roughly 5.6 billion coconuts were harvested in the state, down by half over the past decade, according to the Coconut Board. With rising harvests in others states, Kerala’s share of India’s coconut production has fallen to about two-fifths, down from two thirds in the early 1970s. Since 2022, Kerala is estimated to be the third largest coconut producer, trailing the neighboring states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

The sharper decline in output per hectare, for coconut farms in Kerala, is due to a drop in productivity. In 2024–25, coconut farms in the state harvested roughly 7,211 nuts per hectare, more than a fifth below the all-India average of 9871 nuts.

A major reason for the lower productivity is that coconut cultivation in Kerala has largely become a homestead-based activity, characterised by scattered trees. Unlike in other states, many growers in Kerala have not adopted advanced yield-enhancing practices. The practices include integrated drip irrigation and fertilization, high-density planting and monocropping, use of hybrid/dwarf varieties, integrated nutrient and pest management, and mechanised harvesting tools which enhance the capabilities of tree climbers.

Also, Kerala faces an acute shortage of coconut tree climbers which has reduced routine maintenance, such as crown cleaning and early disease detection as well as harvesting efficiency. Overall, a shortage of labor in the state has led to higher wages for climbers and other laborers, which reduces a grower’s income.

Another factor reducing coconut farm yields in Kerala is the shorter, more intense rainfall, rising temperatures, and heat stress. Such climate changes have made the trees more vulnerable to pests and diseases like root wilt and the red palm weevil.

Not surprisingly, the decline in coconut production in Kerala has led to a spike in prices, raising the cost of food. Since 2019, the retail price of a coconut has more than doubled to Rupees 70, US 80 cents. Coconut oil prices have soared with premium brands selling for as high as Rupees 770, US $8, per litre.

Since the mid-2010’s, with sliding harvests and rising consumption, Kerala has been a net buyer of coconuts from other states. Major oil mills in Kerala are buying from growers in other states, mainly neighboring Tamil Nadu where growers offer lower prices, than in Kerala, to bulk buyers. In the past, traders in Kerala bought coconuts from local farmers, turned them into copra and then sold the copra to mills for oil extraction.

Even while retail prices have risen, there is a large gap between what coconut growers in Kerala earn and what consumers pay. In February 2026, price data shows that growers received about half the retail price: farm‑gate prices were about Rs 26, US $0.24, per kilogram of copra in Kerala compared with an average retail price of around Rs 59, US $0.60). Both farm‑gate and retail prices fluctuate widely with changes in supply and demand.

Most growers in Kerala sell raw coconuts and not copra and other value-added products. In an effort to help raise a grower’s income, Keralaagro shops, set up by the Kerala government, buys coconuts - and other produce- from farmers. The produce is sold directly to consumers, cutting off the profits pocketed by traders and other intermediaries. However, the government-run stores have minimal impact since there are only about 30 outlets, selling well under one percent of the state’s coconut output. Keralaagro hence appears to be more of a model to demonstrate the potential of raising farm incomes, by bypassing traders, rather than a state-wide solution to raise farm incomes.

Roughly two thirds of Kerala’s coconut harvest is processed into copra and oil, with nearly all of the value-added tasks being done by traders and oil mill owners. Kerafed, the Government of Kerala’s coconut cooperative, procures, processes and distributes coconuts, copra and coconut oil. But this mainly benefits traders and mill-owners. Kerafed wholesales the oil and copra to distributors and retailers, who reach about 14,000 retail stores across Kerala. Keraafed competes with Keraagro since both of them buy coconuts from farmers. However, Kerafed is a much larger operation.

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(Photo: A coconut farm in Kerala. Courtesy Wikipedia Commons.)

In 2025, to try and tackle the decline in farming area and productivity, Kerala’s Coconut Board introduced several measures. The grant for a new planting was raised sharply from Rupees 6,500, US $68, per hectare to Rupees 56,000, US $590. The board is also promoting multi-cropping, growing coconuts with banana, pineapple, cocoa, pepper and grass, to boost a grower’s income. It is also funding entrepreneurs to set up startup business to process coconuts into value-added products.

Between 2020 and 2025, Kerala’s Agriculture Department distributed more than 5.6 million coconut seedlings to growers, mostly at subsidized prices. They included both dwarf and tall, hybrid trees. Roughly three quarters of the seedlings were planted.

The dwarf trees will begin bearing fruit in about four years, while the tall varieties will take around seven years. By 2030, if a substantial share of the new plantings survive to maturity, annual coconut output in Kerala could rise by several hundred million nuts.

Even while the coconut farming area in Kerala shrinks, incomes of the remaining farming households can be raised by shifting from homestead cultivation to commercial cropping on larger size farms. One way to do this is to raise the limits on land ownership. This is highly unlikely since distribution of farmland, to laborers and small farmers who farm crops, has been the focus of major political struggles in the state for more than a century.

Another option is for households in Kerala to farm coconuts collectively via co-operatives. Yet, while there are several hundred co-operatives in the state, they operate as purchasing and marketing groups, not as entities collectively farming land. Or, households should be allowed to lease farm their land to growers who want to cultivate a larger area. Leasing of farm land is legally permitted, with regulations, in several Indian states, including Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. Kerala is among the states which imposes restrictions or bans on leasing farm land.

The Kerala government could try to curtail land sales for real estate development by taxing purchases at very high rates. But this will anger emigrant workers who eagerly look forward to a retired life in a home they own in Kerala. The emigrant Keralites account for a major share of the consumption spending in the state.

As land prices keep rising, more households will likely sell their coconut farms, including some with newly planted seedlings.

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Sunil Mani is a visiting professor, Centre for Development Studies, and Ahmedabad University, both in India. The views expressed are personal.

(Photo: Sanju Samson with the World Cup, 2026. Courtesy ICC.)

This podcast discusses Sanju Samson’s success at the 2026 Cricket World Cup. It was due to his learning from the masters, persistence, and luck.

By Cherian Samuel

March 29, 2026

Speaking to a crowd of thousands, assembled at the stadium in Thiruvananthapuram this month, following India’s Cricket World Cup victory, Samson said, “We all have dreams. Our dreams should be big, the biggest dreams. I dreamed about being part of the Indian cricket team and also winning a World Cup. As we pursue our dreams there will be naysayers. There will be obstacles and opposition. We must move forward. We must respond not with words but through our actions.”

(Sanju Samson and wife Charulatha Remesh holding the World Cup, 2026. Courtesy Sanju Samson social media.)

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(Photo: Sanju Samson with the 2026 World Cup. Courtesy ICC.)

By Cherian Samuel

March 29, 2026

Earlier this month, Sanju Samson became a rare Keralite who was celebrated by Indian cricket fans. The wicket-keeper batsman enabled India to win the Cricket T20 World Cup, which was held in the country. Samson, 31-years-old, won the Player of the Tournament award.

In the knockout stage against the West Indies, Samson scored 97 of the Indian team’s 199 runs, with five wickets to spare. This beat the West Indies score of 195 runs in the 20 overs tournament. In the semi-finals, he scored 89 of India’s 253 runs, a narrow win over England’s 247 runs for seven wickets. In the finals, Samson scored 89 of India’s 255 runs while New Zealand were all out for 159 runs in 19 overs. India, which has won three T20 World Cups, was the first host nation to win the title.

“I was rewarded for being brave enough to dream,” Samson told the media after India’s World Cup win. “It feels like a dream! I have no words. I was part of the World Cup winning team in 2024 but didn’t play a single match, I’ve been visualising and working hard for this moment ever since.”

Samson is “a special talent,” Gautam Gambhir, India’s head coach and former Indian cricketer, told the media. He added that Samson was proof that you can succeed when you believe in yourself.

Given that cricket is by far the most popular sport in India, Samson’s World Cup performance makes him one of the great male sports stars in the country. And also in Kerala, though cricket is less popular in the state than soccer and volleyball.

Twenty cricket is the shortest form of the game with each team playing a single inning of maximum 20 overs, 120 legal balls, over three to four hours. The batsmen are selected for this contest based on their power hitting. They try to quickly hit fours and sixes to help their team build a huge total score in 20 overs. Amongst the leading Indian batsmen, Samson is a muscular power hitter. While 5 feet 7 inches tall, he weighs 75 kilograms, 165 pounds.

Up until this month’s World Cup, Samson had an erratic record in international competitions, despite a good, long record in domestic matches. In January 2026, prior to the World Cup, Samson performed poorly in India’s bilateral T20 series against New Zealand, which was held in India. “After the New Zealand series I was broken, my dreams were completely shattered... But God had different plans,” he told the media after the World Cup win.

Though selected for the Indian team, as in 2024, Samson did not get to play in the initial round of the 2026 World Cup matches. Then, he played during the Super 8 stage of the tournament due to fortunate circumstances. The coach and captain selected Samson to replace some of India’s leading batsmen who had performed poorly in the initial round. This time, he made the most of the opportunity.

Samson’s wife Charulatha Remesh traveled with him for the World Cup matches. During the early rounds, she helped him tackle his self-doubt about his talent and abilities since he was not asked to play. Remesh reportedly runs a human resources business in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.

Samson and Remesh, who met in 2013 at Mar Ivanios College, Thiruvananthapuram, married in 2018. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the college and a postgraduate degree in Human Resources from Loyola College of Social Sciences, Thiruvananthapuram. Samson earned a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Mar Ivanios College.

In 2024, Samson scored three centuries, more than 100 runs, two of them outside India, in the T20 matches against South Africa and Bangladesh. This led both Gautam Gambhir, who took over as India’s head coach that year, and team captain Suryakumar Yadav to believe that Samson could perform well in the World Cup.

Yet, while selected for the 2025 series against Australia, Samson did not get to play. He reached out to Sachin Tendulkar, one of India’s greatest batsmen. He asked Tendulkar what he needed to do to improve his game and mindset. “For the last couple of months, I have…had big, big conversations with him. Getting guidance from someone like him, what more can you ask for?” Samson told the media after the World Cup victory.

On the eve of the T20 World Cup Final this month, Tendulkar called Samson to check on how he was feeling and on how he viewed what needed to be done to win the game. “I received a message from Sachin sir and it was a very emotional moment for me,” Samson said.

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In 2013, as an 18-year-old, Samson was selected by the Rajasthan Royals, a cricket team in the India Premier League (IPL). In 2021, he was named captain and, a year later, he led the Royals to the IPL final. S. Sreenath, a former Indian cricketer and fellow Keralite, invited Samson to try out for the Rajasthan Royals. Earlier, in 2012, Samson was selected by the Kolkata Knight Riders, another IPL team, though he did not play any matches that season.

The IPL, a professional T20 league, is the most popular and richest cricket tournament in the world. It comprises of ten teams based in major Indian cities, including Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore. The league was started in 2007 by the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

Samson’s father, Samson Viswanath, was key to him pursuing cricket. Since Samson was four years old, Viswanath encouraged him to watch videos to learn the techniques of leading Indian batsmen Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid.

In the 1990s, Viswanath, a constable in the Delhi Police, played as a striker for Delhi’s soccer team. He spent a large portion of his modest salary on cricket coaches, bats, pads, gloves, balls and travel to tournaments for Sanju and his brother Saly. He also arranged for his sons to practice with the Delhi Police cricket team so they can learn and sharpen their skills against older, stronger players.

Both brothers played for Kerala’s junior cricket team due to Viswanath’s foresight. In 2003, when Samson was eight, Viswanath took voluntary retirement and moved the family from Delhi back to Kerala. He wanted his sons to have a chance of being selected for Kerala’s junior cricket team. This would have been very tough in Delhi where the competition is far more intense. Viswanath had made a similar decision to leave Kerala, to take up a job with the Delhi Police, so he could play in the city’s soccer team. He knew it would be very difficult for him to find a similar stable job in Kerala, based on his soccer skills, since the state has several good soccer players.

Viswanath emphasized self-belief, asking Samson to project the body language of a leader on the field. He told his sons at an early age, “You are the son of a constable. The boys you play with are sons of politicians, IAS, IPS (senior bureaucrats) and businessmen. If you want to succeed, your bat must speak for you”.

Viswanath has been vocal in his support for Samson’s cricket career. He blames former Indian captains and coaches, MS Dhoni, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and Rahil Dravid, for Samson’s exclusion from the Indian team. “These four people wasted 10 years of my son’s life. But the more they hurt him, the stronger Sanju came out of the crisis,” Viswanath told Media One, a Malayalam news outlet.

(Sanju Samson and wife Charulatha Remesh holding the World Cup, 2026. Courtesy Sanju Samson social media.)

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Samson was born in Kerala in a Christian family, to Samson and Lijy Viswanath, in Pulluvila, Vizhinjam, about 50 miles from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala’s capital city.

Samson’s cricket success was widely celebrated in Kerala, where he is revered as an Adipoli (a person of excellence). This month, when he arrived in the state, the day after the World Cup win, he was greeted by large crowds. On March 16, several thousand people attended a public reception for Samson, organized by the Kerala government, at the Central Stadium in Thiruvananthapuram. He was dressed in the traditional mundu (garment worn around the waist) and jubba (long, full-sleeved tunic). “My biggest achievement is your praying for me. Thank you for that,” Samson said in Malayalam. He added he was grateful for the support of several people in the state, including Biju George, a former cricket coach.

In addition to visiting his parents, Samson went on a 404 kilometers, 250 miles, road trip across Kerala in his Range Rover. One of his stops at a local chai stop went viral on social media. He went to Kozhikode on a surprise visit to his friend Rohan Kunnummal, who took over from him as the state’s cricket team captain.

Samson also visited Nithin Babu, owner of Feya Garments, a retail apparel store in Ernakulam. Babu gave cash bonuses totaling Rupees 277,000 ($3,000) to his 82 employees, following Samson’s performance in the three final matches of the World Cup. Samson bowled an over for Babu and then joined his family in a meal of his favorite dish, kappa (tapioca) and meen (fish). The visit was organized by Airtel in connection with Babu’s participation in a “Super Fan” contest held by the cellphone service provider.

Faith is central to Samson. This month, after his match-winning innings against the West Indies, in the World Cup match in Kolkata, he knelt down on the ground and drew a cross. “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Thanks to the Lord Almighty for actually blessing me today,” he said later, “I have kept on doubting myself, kept on thinking... can I make it?” Samson’s home town of Vizhinjam has a centuries-old Portuguese Church, Our Lady of Sea Voyage. When he is home on Sunday mornings he attends mass at the church.

Samson avoids exclusive media interviews. But in 2022, he was interviewed by Basil Joseph, a leading Keralite film actor and director and a cricket fan. “I am from Vizhinjam, from a middle-class family, trying to help others in my extended family and community,” Samson told Joseph. “I have been able to help some of them study in colleges and find jobs. From a young age I have enjoyed sharing what I have, including my cricket bat. I overdo it at times.”

In 2018, Samson founded the Six Guns Sports Academy in Thiruvananthapuram, dedicated to training young male and female cricket and soccer players in Kerala. He also invites cricket players from Kerala to IPL team trials.

In the current 2026 IPL season, which begins this week, Samson will play for the Chennai Super Kings, after being traded from the Rajasthan Royals. He will earn Rupees 18 crore, $1.9 million), one of biggest annual payments for a player in IPL history. Samson’s net worth is estimated to be more than Rupees 85 crores, $10 million, which includes fees from cricket teams and sponsorships with Puma, Gillette and other consumer brands. He lives in a luxury home in Thiruvananthapuram and his collection of cars includes Lexus, Mercedes and other vehicles.

Speaking to the crowd at the stadium in Thiruvananthapuram this month, Samson said, “We all have dreams. Our dreams should be big, the biggest dreams. I dreamed about being part of the Indian cricket team and also winning a World Cup. As we pursue our dreams there will be naysayers. There will be obstacles and opposition. We must move forward. We must respond not with words but through our actions.”

*Cherian Samuel, a writer based in Washington DC, retired from the World Bank. He earned a PhD in economics from the University of Maryland.

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(Photo: Mira Nair, courtesy Wikipedia.)

Mira Nair needs to answer several questions to clarify her ties with Ghislaine Maxwell and, if she cares, to explain her relationship to the victims of the convicted sex offender. They include: Why did Nair agree to Maxwell hosting a party for her film when it was known, especially in New York’s cultural world, that Maxwell was the girlfriend of convicted sex offender Epstein? Did Nair have any financial or other ties to Maxwell and Epstein? How long did Nair remain in contact with Maxwell? Till Maxwell’s conviction in 2022? Did Nair offer Maxwell anything in return for hosting the Amelia party? Was Nair also a client of Peggy Siegel, Epstein and Maxwell’s publicist? If so, for long?

(Photo: Mira Nair, courtesy Wikipedia.)

March 20, 2026

Since February, there have been protests outside New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s official residence over his mother Mira Nair’s alleged ties to Ghislaine Maxwell, girlfriend of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. This was after Nair was named in a batch of Epstein files, millions of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein released by the United States Department of Justice.

“Just left Ghislaine’s townhouse...after party for film (Amelia). Bill Clinton and Jeff Bezos were there...Jean Pigoni, director Mira Nair....etc. Film received tepid reaction although women like it much more...”, Peggy Siegel said in an email she sent to Epstein in 2009, as revealed in the Epstein files. Siegel was “a once-powerful Hollywood publicist who later faced industry backlash over her deep social ties to Epstein,” according to a Fox News report. Ghislaine refers to Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted for her role in Epstein’s sex crimes. The party was organized by Maxwell to celebrate the release of Nair’s film Amelia.

Another allegation of the protesters is that, in 2017, Mamdani was present at a luncheon organized by Siegel. A photo of Mamdani at the luncheon was published by Fox News. The protests have gotten media coverage, including by major news sites in India.

Mamdani was 18-years-old when he reportedly attended the party hosted for his mother’s film by Maxwell at her townhouse in New York City. There is no mention of Mamdani in the Epstein files. Also, neither the Epstein files or any other investigations allege that Nair was involved in Maxwell’s or Epstein’s criminal activities.

The real agenda of the protesters against Mamdani, 34-years-old, is not known, apart from their apparent attempt to weaken Mamdani’s public support and hence his ability to govern New York City. However, Nair needs to answer several questions to clarify her relationship with Maxwell, and if relevant, Epstein.

In 2008, the year before Maxwell hosted the party for Nair’s film, Epstein pleaded guilty to charges: ”one count of soliciting prostitution and one count of soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18.” According to PBS, Epstein was arrested earlier in 2006 on “multiple counts of unlawful sex with a minor.” Epstein’s arrest was widely covered in the US media. So, in 2009, when Maxwell hosted the party for Nair’s film Amelia, Nair likely knew that Maxwell’s boyfriend Epstein was convicted of sex crimes.

In 2022, Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison after a a jury convicted her of multiple charges, including sex trafficking, conspiracy and transportation of a minor for illegal sexual activity. Maxwell, 64, is the daughter of the late Robert Maxwell, 1923-1991, a Czechoslovakia-born British publisher. “His financial risks led him into grand fraud and an apparent suicide” at sea, off Canary Islands, according to Britannica.

Epstein was arrested again in 2019, but died by suicide while awaiting trial in a New York City prison. At his death, Epstein, 66, who was reported to be an adviser to several wealthy people, had a net worth of nearly $600 million, according to Forbes.

In lawsuits, Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s victims, said that, “starting when she was 17, (in 2001) Epstein and his girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, set up sexual encounters with royalty, politicians, academicians, businessmen and other rich and powerful men, including Britain’s Prince Andrew. All of those men deny the allegations,” PBS reported. After Andrew’s name appeared more than fifty times in the Epstein files, he was briefly arrested by the British Government and stripped off his royal titles, homes and funds.

Giuffre, the first of Epstein’s victims to publicly identify herself, was recruited into Epstein’s sex ring by Maxwell in Palm Beach, Florida. In fact, Maxwell played an active role with Epstein in the abuse of the girls, Amy Wallace, collaborator on Giuffre’s memoir Nobody’s Girl, told NPR. Maxwell “was telling girls to sexually service her. She was hurting some of those girls when she was angry at them in a sexual way.”

Giuffre was 41-years-old when she died by suicide in 2025. In her memoir, released posthomously in 2025, she alleged that her father was the “original betrayer.” Since age seven, she alleged, she was sexually abused by her father and a family friend. Later, while with Epstein and Maxwell, they exploited Giuffre’s emotional vulnerability.

Deepak Chopra, 79, self-help author and wellness guru, is another Indian mentioned in the Epstein files; more than 3,000 times in Chopra’s case. In a post on X/Twitter, Chopra states some of his email exchanges with Epstein “reflect poor judgement in tone…Any contact I had was limited and unrelated to abusive activity.” Chopra once told Epstein he was “deeply grateful for our friendship” and often discussed attending various events with Epstein and his “girls”, according to People magazine. Also, as one reader, responded on X/Twitter, “Mr Chopra fails to mention that his emails are dated after Mr Epstein had been tried and found guilty of inappropriate sexual conduct with minors.”

Besides Amelia, feature films directed by Nair include Salaam Bombay (1988), Mississippi Masala (1991), The Perez Family (1995), Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996), Hysterical Blindness (2002), Vanity Fair (2004), The Namesake (2006), The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012), and the Queen of Katwe (2016). Monsoon Wedding, 2001, is Nair’s highest rated film on Rotten Tomatoes, a site where audiences rate films, while Amelia, 2009, is the lowest rated.

Nair began her film career as an actor and then turned to directing starting with documentaries, including So Far From India, and India Cabaret; and later in 1999, The Laughing Club of India.

Mira Nair, 68-years-old, was born in Rourkela, Odisha, India, and educated at Delhi University and at Harvard. She lives in New York City with her husband Mahmood Mamdani, who is a Professor of Government at Columbia University. Her first marriage was to Mitch Epstein, no relation of Jeffrey Epstein.

“I’ve always been drawn to stories of those who are considered marginalized. If you’re not in the mainstream or if you’re not in the stream at all, you’re virtually invisible,” Nair told the Ford Foundation. "Wealthy people, powerful people get to treat people less wealthy terribly," Amy Wallace, collaborator of Giuffre’s memoir Nobody’s Girl, told NPR.

One of the victims of Maxwell and Epstein was Rina Oh, an Indian student who lived briefly in Epstein’s mansion in Florida. “I was trapped, with no transportation, no money, and threats of physical harm. That fear kept me silent for decades,” Oh told India Today. "From an early age, when I was five or six years old, I was abused by an adult…And it was very easy to manipulate me. I was already very damaged. Jeffrey saw that, and he took advantage of me," Oh told NDTV.

Mira Nair needs to answer several questions, not just to clarify her ties with Ghislaine Maxwell, but, if she cares, to explain her relationship to the victims of the convicted sex offender. They include: Why did Nair agree to Maxwell hosting a party for her film when it was widely known, especially in New York’s cultural world, that Maxwell was the girlfriend of convicted sex offender Epstein? Did Nair have any financial or other ties to Maxwell and Epstein? How long did Nair remain in contact with Maxwell? Till Maxwell’s conviction in 2022? Did Nair offer Maxwell anything in return for hosting the Amelia party? Was Nair also a client of Peggy Siegel, Epstein and Maxwell’s publicist? If so, for long?

Some rich and powerful men and women try to scrub their reputation by acting as patrons of culture, philanthropy, and other social causes. They do this by giving money to the noble causes, while hiring publicists to spread the word about their good deeds. Was this why Ghislaine Maxwell hosted a party for Mira Nair’s film Amelia? In fact, Epstein paid upto $12,500 per month, to numerous online reputation management firms and individuals, in a years-long campaign to flood the internet with favorable fluff, including about his philanthropy, “to bury negative coverage of his 2008 sex offense conviction” and rehabilitate his public image, according to the Detroit News.

In turn, some of those working in films, art, philanthropy, and social fields, believe they are doing “god’s work.” So, they rationalize seeking and accepting funding and other support from tainted sources, even from convicted criminals, as helping them do their work. This brings up one more question for Mira Nair: does she hold a similar view which led her to ask Maxwell to host the Amelia film party?

(Story updated March 21, 2026)

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(Photo: a simulated training session at the Government College of Nursing, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala; courtesy college.)

Kerala’s nursing heritage dates back a century with the first nursing school, the Ernakulam Government School of Nursing, established in 1924 at the Ernakulam General Hospital. The school was founded by the Italian Sisters of Charity, following a request from the Maharaja of Cochin. The graduates of the school have played a major role in building the reputation of Keralite nurses around the World. Admissions to the school, which annually graduates about 40 students, is likely the most competitive among nursing colleges in India.

The high social status of women nurses in Kerala is evident from their being much sought after brides, as also seen in matrimonial advertisements. In fact, there is a specific Malayalam word, kondupokum, used by parents in the matrimonial ads they place for their daughters who are nurses. The word literally means “will carry away.” In the matrimonial ads, it implies, “Our daughter has a prestigious, high-paying job abroad, and we need a groom who is willing to go with her and support that life.”

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(Photo: a simulated training session at the Government College of Nursing, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala; courtesy college.)

March 14, 2026

by Sunil Mani

Earlier this month, hundreds of nurses from nearly 490 private hospitals and healthcare clinics across Kerala went on strike. Their main demand is raising the minimum basic salary to Rupees 40,000, $430, per month, up from Rupees 25,450, $270, which has been unchanged since 2018. They also seek hiring of more nurses to reduce extra-long work hours, improve patient nurse staffing ratios, and no dismissals of nurses, especially union organizers.

The strike, led by the United Nurses Association, is ongoing. While regular medical services at the facilities are disrupted, care is being provided to emergency patients.

In addition to the demands of the nurses, the strike brings attention to the major role of Keralite nurses in the state’s economy and in healthcare services in many parts of the world. Neither the governments of Kerala or India track the number of Keralite and Indian nurses working in foreign countries. A rough estimate, based on earlier studies, points to more than 300,000 Keralite nurses employed abroad. This makes them the largest number of migrant Indian professionals after engineers.

While Keralites are less than a tenth of the nurses in India, they account for nearly nine out of ten Indian nurses employed in foreign countries. Kerala is likely the second largest source of nurses around the world, after the Phillipines. With almost all the nurses being women, they make up the largest number of Indian women professionals working abroad.

More than half of the Keralite nurses working abroad are employed by healthcare systems in the Persian Gulf countries, mainly Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain. Following the COVID-19 outbreak, there has been rising demand for Indian nurses in the Western countries. In 2022, for instance, roughly 25,000 of them found jobs in the United States and Europe. More Indian nurses are also being hired in other Western countries, including Canada which annually offers work visas to more than 20,000 foreign healthcare workers.

In 2025, there were 900 nursing candidates from India hired in Germany, with another 700 expected to be deployed this year. Also, last year, United Kingdom’s National Health Service hired 200 healthcare workers from Kerala, after hiring 300 the previous year. Christian missionaries working in Kerala, especially Roman Catholics, enable the hiring of Keralite nurses in Germany and Italy Indian nurses are also employed in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

India has roughly 5,800 nursing colleges and schools, annually graduating more than 200,000 students with degrees and diplomas. But much of the demand from high-paying, major healthcare facilities in India is for graduates of the top 200 reputed institutions, which account for roughly a tenth of the students. They include the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, Pondicherry, and Christian Medical College, Tamil Nadu.

The bulk of foreign hiring of Indian nurses is carried out by private agencies in India, working on behalf of foreign employers. The agencies are required to register with the Government of India and are subject to other rules aimed to protect the nurses. Yet, there are regular news reports of nurses, who are eager to find jobs abroad, being swindled by scammers.

A major scam occurred in 2014. Four men from Kerala were arrested for collecting Rupees 232 crores, $25 million, from thousands of nurses for a fake job placement program in Kuwait. Their agency, Al Zarafa Manpower Consultants, provided forged job recruitment and other documents. The nurses, who spent money to travel to Kuwait, found there were no jobs. Worse, each of them lost Rs. 20 lakhs, $22,000, they and their families likely borrowed to pay the placement fees demanded by the scammers.

In the 1970s, demand for Indian nurses began surging in the Persian Gulf countries, during the economic boom in the region which was fueled by rising crude oil prices. Demand remained strong in these countries till the mid-2010’s. Then in 2014, the Indian government restricted Indian nurses from taking up jobs in eighteen Persian Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Oman due to reported underpayment of salaries, long hours and extreme work conditions, and alleged physical and sexual assaults.

Agencies of both the Governments of India and Kerala attempt to protect nurses from being exploited by foreign employers and from recruiting scams. But their efforts are relatively small.

For instance, the Overseas Development and Employment Promotion Consultants placed only about 3,100 nurses for jobs in the Persian Gulf and Europe over six years ending 2024. Similarly, the Non-Resident Keralites Affairs Department placed only 2,540 nurses in foreign countries from 2018 to 2023. Both Kerala government agencies charge a small fee, which covers leads to potential foreign jobs, certification of nursing qualifications, and, if needed, some initial foreign language training.

Keralite nurses working abroad make a major contribution to Kerala’s income. So it is odd that the state government also does not track their annual remittances to families, bank and investment accounts, and for home purchases.

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(Photo: nursing students at the Government College of Nursing, Ernakulam, Kerala; courtesy college.)

Foreign employers seek to hire Indian nurses with a nursing degree, preferably after a science degree, proficiency in spoken and written English, and experience, in addition to their usual criteria of skills, work habits and good recommendations.

Keralite women have several strengths for finding nursing jobs both in India and abroad. Most of those who study science in college are very interested in pursuing a nursing career. They are eager to acquire a skill like nursing which will enable them to find long-term jobs, amidst the high unemployment in India, including among women with science degrees.

From an early age, many women in Kerala have some knowledge of nursing and what steps to take to earn a degree or diploma, due to regular chats with relatives and friends who work as nurses, including in foreign jobs. Many of them also have a proficiency in English since they attended English language schools from an early age. Some of them also imbibe the rich tradition of patient care skills which are native to Kerala, given its renowned, age-old ayurvedic health treatments, which continue to remain a big attraction for foreign tourists.

But there is intense competition for admissions to the government-recognized nursing colleges in Kerala, including requiring to finish at the top among several thousand students who take the high-pressure entrance exams. Each year only about 4,000 degree and diploma students are admitted by the 131 government-recognized nursing colleges in Kerala for the General Nursing and Midwifery programs.

About a third of the colleges are run by the government. The rest are run privately with some being affiliated with hospitals run by Christian and other religious non-profit institutions. The Government Colleges of Nursing in Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode, and Kottayam are highly sought after. Reputed private institutions include the Lourdes College of Nursing in Kochi.

Each year, healthcare facilities in Kerala hire only about a tenth of the state’s nursing graduates. The rest have to find jobs in other states in India, with some hired overseas. An additional 10,000 Keralite women attain nursing qualifications in other states, especially in neighboring Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

There are also several privately run nursing colleges and schools, many for-profit, in Kerala as well as in other states. But their degrees and diplomas, which are not recognized by government agencies, have little value and their fees are very high.

In 2025, more than 2,000 vacancies for junior nursing positions in central government-run healthcare facilities remained unfilled for three years, according to a report in India Today. India’s healthcare facilities will need to hire more than a million nurses if they are to meet the World Health Organization’s recommended ratio of three nurses per 1,000 population. The ratio is roughly 2 per 1,000.

There is a shortage of quality nurses and other healthcare staff not just in India but around the world, including in the western countries. The demand will continue to grow due to the rising medical needs of a rapidly aging global population.

Equally important, nursing requires physical and labor skills as well as medical knowledge and experience. So, most aspects of nursing jobs are not being automated by the rising use of robots and artificial intelligence tools. This makes a nursing career far more attractive even when compared to most engineering careers. Already, Indian engineers, including some graduates of the top colleges, are having trouble finding jobs. Demand for them in the US and other Western countries is sharply declining, especially for desk-based software and information technology skills, which are being rapidly automated.

Both the Government of India and the Kerala government are expanding capacity at nursing colleges and setting up new ones. In 2023, the Government of India approved 157 new nursing colleges, co-located with medical colleges, including with an annual capacity of 15,700 reserved for students from tribal and lower caste families. The central government has also approved funding for 113 new nursing colleges to be set up by various states. In 2025, the Kerala government announced plans to add roughly 600 more seats for BSc at existing nursing colleges.

Kerala’s nursing heritage dates back a century with the first nursing school, the Ernakulam Government School of Nursing, established in 1924 at the Ernakulam General Hospital. The school was founded by the Italian Sisters of Charity, following a request from the Maharaja of Cochin. The graduates of the school have played a major role in building the reputation of Keralite nurses around the World. Admissions to the school, which annually graduates about 40 students, is likely the most competitive among nursing colleges in India.

The high social status of women nurses in Kerala is evident from their being much sought after brides, as also seen in matrimonial advertisements. In fact, there is a specific Malayalam word, kondupokum, used by parents in the matrimonial ads they place for their daughters who are nurses. The word literally means “will carry away.” In the matrimonial ads, it implies, “Our daughter has a prestigious, high-paying job abroad, and we need a groom who is willing to go with her and support that life.”

Sunil Mani is a visiting professor, Centre for Development Studies, and Ahmedabad University, both in India. The views expressed are personal.

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March 8, 2026

Since the start of the 2026 US Professional Golf Association Tour, Akshay Bhatia finished twice in the top ten in his first five tournaments. On February 12, he had a two-stroke lead starting the final round at the AT&T Pebble Beach Tournament in California. But, in the final round, he was unable to hold the lead as he shot an even par and finished tied in sixth place.

Today, at the final round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational Tournament, in Bay Hill, Florida, he started in second place, two strokes behind the leader Daniel Berger. After the first nine holes, it looked like Bhatia had little chance of winning since Berger’s lead grew to four strokes.

Then, Bhatia birdied four of the final nine holes and eagled the 16^th hole, so he finished tied with Berger at 15 under par at the end of round. Bhatia then beat Berger in the playoffs. “Play bold — I think that was a big thing everyone knows of Mr. Palmer,” Bhatia said at the post-game press conference. “I could feel that energy and buzz. It was awesome. I’m very fortunate to win this tournament.” Palmer (1929-2016) won 62 PGA titles, including seven majors.

The Arnold Palmer win is Bhatia’s third on the PGA Tour, with all three wins coming from playoffs. Sahith Theegala, the other Indian American on the PGA Tour, finished tied for sixth.

With today’s win, Bhatia, 24-years-old, has three wins, two second place finishes and nine top five finishes in 102 starts on the United States Professional Golf Association (PGA) Tour, since he qualified in 2023. He is ranked 39^th in the world. His prize winnings total $18.3 million, including $4 million for today’s win. He has additional income from brand sponsors including Mastercard and Calloway golf.

“Just because it hasn’t been done, doesn’t make it impossible,” is the title of Bhatia’s Instagram feed, which has nearly 380,000 followers.

Indeed, Bhatia is unlike the typical professional golfer in several ways. Though 6 feet tall, he is skinny weighing only 130 pounds (59 Kg). Sahith Theegala, 28-years-old, is 6’3” and 200 lbs. He has one PGA Tour win so far.

Yet, Bhatia’s long limbs and “rubber-band elasticity allows him to generate a swing speed of around 125 miles per hour,” similar to that of the other top golfers, notes Golf Digest. Bhatia’s drives average 301 yards in length.

“I’ve never seen someone hit the ball as well as he does, and I’ve seen a lot,” swing coach George Gankas, who has worked with Bhatia since he was 13, told Golf Digest. “He’s got a gift. His work ethic is also off the charts, and he loves the game.”

In 2024, Bhatia won his second PGA title at the Valero Texas Open in San Antonio, Texas. The key to his win was Ryan Davis, his mental coach. In a post-game press conference, Bhatia said he did not sleep well after the first three rounds. Before starting his final fourth round, Bhatia chatted with Davis. Following the conversation, with a black marker Bhatia wrote “WTW” – “Wire to Wire” or leading from the start to finish - on his left wrist.

In 2021, during his first season as a professional on the Korn Ferry Tour, Bhatia failed to qualify past the first two rounds in his first six tournaments. The next year, he was also cut after two rounds at seven of his eleven tournament starts, again failing to qualify to move up to the PGA Tour. In 2023, he finished second at the Puerto Rican Open which gave him a different path to enter the PGA Tour.

In his junior years Bhatia was labelled by the media as a “phenom” and a “sensation.” In 2019, he was the first high school student to play on the U.S. Walker Cup team, the golf contest held every odd year between amateurs from the U.S. against those from Great Britain and Ireland.

In 2017, and again in 2018, Bhatia won the Boys Junior PGA Championship. In 2017, he had an undefeated 3-0-0 record that helped lead the U.S. team to a 14-10 victory over the International Team in the Junior President’s Cup.

Bhatia’s father Sonny – who plays golf on weekends - and mother Renu are immigrants from India. While Bhatia was a teenager, his mother took on a second job mainly to help pay for his golf expenses. “One day, I’ll repay my mom,” Bhatia told Golf Digest.

Bhatia was born and grew up in Northridge, a suburb of Los Angeles. He took to golf watching his older sister Rhea. She was on the women’s golf team at Queens University, Charlotte, North Carolina.

In 2011, the family moved to Raleigh, North Carolina where Bhatia got to play on better golf courses. He also enjoys bowling. He resides in Jupiter, Florida, with his wife Presleigh, who was his caddie early in his PGA career.

Bhatia was schooled at home finishing from Penn Foster High School, an online for-profit school. Several U.S. colleges, with top rated golf programs, were eager to recruit Bhatia. But, in 2019, at age 17, Bhatia turned professional, bypassing competing as a college student, the route to sharpen both golf and mental skills favored by most golfers, from Tiger Woods, who attended Stanford University, to Theegala, a graduate of Pepperdine.

“I had my niece definitely watching over me,” Bhatia told the Golf Channel. after his win today. His niece, Mia, died at five years old, on the morning of December 13, 2025, the day Bhatia was to wed his now wife, Presleigh. Mia was with her family at the Abaco Club in the Bahamas to attend Bhatia’s wedding. She was born with pyruvate dehydrogenase complex deficiency, a rare, genetic disease, with doctors not expecting her to make it to her first birthday.

There was a rainbow in the sky when Bhatia was receiving the Palmer trophy at the 18^th hole. “When I saw that rainbow on 18, it reminded me” of Mia, he said at the post-game press conference. “She was a fighter for a long time.” Bhatia dedicated the Palmer Tournament win to Mia.

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By Annavajhula J C Bose

Bose retired as a professor of economics from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi*

March 7, 2026

The economic rivalry between the United States and China, and attempts by the US to reduce dependance on Chinese imports, provides opportunities for major expansion of India’s manufacturing capabilities, including in high-technology industries.

Has India been able to gain from such opportunities? This question arises upon reading India’s High-Tech Leap, Industrial Policy and Future of Innovation,** a book by Sunil Mani published in January this year. Mani reviews developments in six high technology industries in India: pharmaceuticals, computer software, vaccines for COVID-19, wind turbine manufacturing, solar photovoltaics, and electric vehicles.

While not major creators of jobs, which India acutely needs, these industries can help boost the country’s economic growth and global competitiveness and also tackle health and global warming challenges.

An economist of industrial policy and innovation in India, Mani is a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Development Studies, Kerala and Ahmedabad University, Gujarat.

Mani’s thesis is that “The path forward for India lies in adopting a more strategic, outcome-oriented industrial policy, drawing lessons from Northeast Asia while adapting them to democratic realities.” By Northeast Asia he refers to South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and China.

He writes that India has achieved some progress in the six industries due to beneficial government policies, including on imports, subsidies and cheap funding, and collaboration between government-owned and private companies. However, barely a fraction of the full potential has been realized.

India’s pharmaceutical industry is a global leader in the production and export of generic drugs. But the companies have made little, if any, investments in research and development of new drugs, including in areas like mRNA technology, which enabled the creation of one of the vaccines to tackle the COVID-19 virus.

In the case of batteries for electric vehicles, India lacks a common standard which rival manufacturers are required to adopt so that a large, nationwide market for the crucial component can be developed. Also, in the absence of a national policy on incentives to buyers of electric vehicles, the Tamil Nadu and Gujarat state governments are offering competing incentives.

Overall, while the Government of India provides various subsidies and access to low-interest loans to the technology companies, such incentives do not require the recipients to achieve specific targets. Research tax credits given to pharmaceutical companies, for instance, are not based on outcomes like commercializing discoveries and exporting value-added drugs. In the software industry, start-ups in artificial intelligence and cloud computing receive grants without being held accountable for selling products, especially to meet rising demand in foreign markets. Electric vehicle manufacturers, which get subsidies, do not have to meet targets for promoting and nurturing the growth of a local supply chain.

Vendors of wind energy systems in India import half of all their components and nearly all of their critical parts; all their gearboxes are bought from Germany. While there is some local production of parts for solar energy systems, spurred by tariffs on certain imports, India remains dependent on China for key supplies like wafers and polysilicon. The country also imports 90 percent of the lithium-ion cells used for solar systems and electric vehicle batteries.

Effectively then, India is mainly an assembler of imported high-tech components. So, in high-tech businesses, it could be said that the Government of India is reluctant to enforce stringent local content requirements on foreign companies operating in India as well as on Indian companies importing products from abroad

Apparently, Indian government policies assume Indian companies will expand local sourcing of supplies to capture a bigger share of the profit margin. But the companies can sell products in India because they are able to secure highly coveted import licenses from the government. Hence, they are likely enjoying good profits by merely operating as importers. Why then would any such business owner risk investing funds to set up sourcing and manufacturing in India to replace imports?

Equally important, the importers appear to face little pressure from an Indian government which may be fearful of rapidly replacing imports since it could lead foreign governments to restrict buying Indian products. Also, since the Government of India faces a shortage of funds, it may have little influence over the Indian importers. If the government were to put up much of the capital, including in the form of low-interest loans, it could pressure the company owners to shift from assembling imports to locally sourcing inputs and manufacturing most of the components. It is not known if any, or some or most, of the Indian importers are getting much of their funding from the government in the form of low-interest loans, subsidies and grants. Mani ought to have explored these issues, and that too in depth, which could have provided insights on what changes are needed in policies so that high-tech industries can thrive in India.

The Indian Space Research Organisation demonstrates India’s success in a high-technology field, as Mani notes. The government-run organization offers satellite launch services to other nations while expanding use of indigenous materials, equipment and technology.

Yet, as Mani points out, unlike in the Northeast Asian economies, there is no central agency in India with a mandate to formulate and supervise implementation of policies to nurture and grow high-tech businesses, efficiently allocate capital, raw materials and other supplies, prevent wasteful competition, and most important, raise sourcing of local materials and equipment to replace imports.

To transform into a leading global high-tech manufacturer, similar to the Northeast Asian countries, India needs to build a supply chain extending from sourcing and processing raw materials to producing photo-voltaic cells, lithium-ion batteries and artificial intelligence tools. India also needs to train a workforce in the advanced skills required for such production.

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*Annavajhula JC Bose and Sunil Mani were students at the Centre for Development Studies, India, in the 1980s.

** India’s High-Tech Leap, Industrial Policy and Future of Innovation, which sells for Rs.9,338, hardcover, in India, is priced way above the reach of libraries in India. In other markets, it is priced at $191.70, hardcover, and $40 eBook. The publisher is Edward Elgar, UK and USA.

(Image: Indian Oil Corp Logo. Courtesy Wikipedia.)

February 27, 2026

In about a decade or so, as crude oil prices begin a sustained decline, India faces an economic hit even though it ought to benefit as an importer of the commodity. Will the Government of India abandon plans to become a major exporter of refined products, where the country has no economic advantage?

Story updated February 28, 2026

(Image: Indian Oil Corp logo. Courtesy Wikipedia.)

February 27, 2026

Earlier this month, United States President Donald Trump issued a statement in which he agreed “to remove the additional 25% tariff on imports from India in recognition of India’s commitment to stop purchasing Russian Federation oil.”

As a result, India’s cost of oil imports will rise. In 2025, India bought 1.7 million barrels of oil per day from Russia, nearly a third of its total consumption, at a discount of $5 or more per barrel compared to Brent benchmark prices. The current Brent price is $73 a barrel. The higher cost will hurt India’s economy since the country imports 90 percent of the 5.4 million barrels of oil it consumes per day. In fiscal year 2025, India’s oil imports totaled $140 billion, which partly boosted its merchandise trade deficit to $284 billion.

Starting in about a decade, there is a high probability that oil prices will be in a long-term decline, though there could be short-term spikes due to geo-political and supply demand factors. Futures prices in the late 2030’s are far lower than the current price, though on small trading volumes.

Oil prices are likely to decline because global demand stays flat, perhaps declines, as more automobile buyers switch to electric vehicles, especially in China which is the world’s largest auto market. U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs forecasts demand to peak in 2040 at around 113 million barrels per day, up from 105 million barrels today. Meanwhile, on the supply side, global recoverable oil reserves will remain abundant at more than 1,500 billion barrels.

By 2050, India’s crude oil consumption is forecast to nearly double to 9.2 million barrels per day, according to a government report. Unless there are discoveries of major domestic reserves, which is highly unlikely, India’s oil imports will jump to around eight million barrels per day. So, even if prices drop, India’s total oil import bill may rise, enlarging its trade deficit and foreign debt.

Almost all of India’s oil imports are refined domestically by government-run and privately owned companies into diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, naphtha and other value added products. Their current annual capacity is 258 million metric tonnes. So a decline in oil prices could benefit India’s economy since it imports most of its oil and refines it domestically. But to benefit, the Government of India needs to restrict oil imports to the quantity needed to meet domestic consumption.

However, about 1.2 million barrels a day, more than a quarter of India’s oil imports, is refined for exports. By 2030, Indian refiners plan to nearly double annual capacity to more than 450 million tonnes, according to a government report. Part of the new capacity is to meet rising domestic demand for diesel, gasoline and other refined products. The government also has ambitious plans for India to continue to be a major exporter of refined products. The rationale is that Indian exporters will benefit since they will replace capacity which Western countries may shut to meet their green energy goals.

To meet the new capacity goal, Indian refiners will have to spend more than $125 billion in capital investments, according to rating agency CRISIL. The Government of India will have to fund such investments since most of the new capacity will be installed by government-run companies.

The risks of expanding India’s refined products export capacity, based not on cost benefit analyses, but on speculation of what other governments may or may not do are already evident. Recently, the Trump Administration and some other Western governments abandoned their green energy goals. So, there will be far fewer shutdowns of crude oil refining capacity in the West than previous estimates.

More important, it makes little economic sense for India to spend scarce capital to boost exports of refined products and compete against giant, low-cost Persian Gulf and Russian competitors. For instance, the average cost of a barrel of oil for Russian producers is $15, and, for Saudi Arabia’s Aramco, it is between $2 and $10. In contrast, Indian refiners pay five to fifteen times more for each barrel they import. Also, since refining is an energy intensive operation, production costs are far higher in India than in Saudi Arabia and Russia. Saudi Arabia exports around seven million barrels of crude and crude products per day while Russia exports around five million barrels.

(Photo: An oil rig in Russia, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.)

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and the other Persian Gulf exporting countries are expanding their refining capacity to secure more of the processing value. By 2030, they plan to add 618,000 barrels per day of new capacity, raising their refined products output to a net six million barrels per day, according to S&P Global. As a result, they will be exporting nearly a third of their crude oil output as refined products.

By 2035, even if oil prices decline by half, the input costs for Indian refiners will remain at least three to seven times higher than that of their Russian and Saudi competitors. Indian refiners are forecast to continue exporting more than 1.2 million barrels of products per day.

Already, there is evidence that India is at a disadvantage in competing against low-cost rivals. In fiscal year 2025, the prices received by Indian exporters were sharply lower. As a result, that year the value of India’s refined product exports fell to roughly $44 billion, less than half that in fiscal year 2023, even though volumes were a fifth higher at 120 million tonnes.

Such a sharp decline in revenues implies that Indian refiners exported some, if not all, of their products at a loss. This raises a question: is it the government-owned companies - which account for nearly two thirds of India’s refining capacity - who are exporting at a loss? Private companies will export at a loss only if government subsidies and/or tax-benefits ensure they earn profit margins of at least 12%, which is typical for their sales in India.

As oil revenues decline in the Persian Gulf countries, they will likely hire far fewer foreign laborers, including Indians. This will worsen India’s unemployment, especially in Kerala whose economy depends on remittances from workers, mainly in the Persian Gulf, for about a fifth of its income.

The Indian government, which is apparently absorbing the losses on refined products exports, should avoid funding the expansion of refining capacity for exports. Instead, it should use the funds to finance businesses which solve key economic bottlenecks while creating jobs. For instance, India acutely needs a cold-chain to extend the life of vegetables, fruits, meat, dairy, food grains and other farm products. Expanding the cold chain will likely bring in far more export revenues than refined crude oil products, and that too profitably, since India is a major low-cost producer of agricultural and food items. Also, it will help reduce wastage of food produce in India - more than a third is wasted - an estimated annual loss of $26 billion.

In about a decade or so, as crude oil prices begin a sustained decline, India faces an economic hit even though it ought to benefit as an importer of the commodity. Will the Government of India abandon plans to become a major exporter of refined products, where the country has no economic advantage?

Story updated February 28, 2026.

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Sunil Mani is a visiting professor, Centre for Development Studies, and Ahmedabad University, both in India. The views expressed are personal.

February 21, 2026

The achievements of Edavaleth Kakkat Janaki Ammal, Anna Modayil Mani, Thayyoor K. Radha, and Tessy Thomas are inspiring young women in Kerala, as well as India, to pursue careers in science and technology.

During World War II, Janaki Ammal lived in London when it was being bombed by German aircraft. In a 1940 letter to a friend at the University of Michigan, she writes, “Meanwhile we live in great danger - air raids day & night - There goes the siren- I must seek shelter. You cannot imagine the time London is having, but we are all cheerful and getting used to bombs of every description.” Ammal added, “Life isn’t worth it without a sense of danger.”

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(Photo: Edavaleth Kakkat Janaki Ammal while a PhD student at the University of Michigan, around 1928. Courtesy University of Michigan.)

By Sunil Mani

Sunil Mani is a visiting professor, Centre for Development Studies, and Ahmedabad University, both in India. The views expressed are personal.

February 21, 2026

Women graduates and postgraduates in science, medicine, and mathematics account for more than 40 percent of such graduates in India. Yet, the number of women scientists in India is only about a fifth of the roughly 500,000 scientists in the country.

In Kerala, nearly half of young women are enrolled in college compared to a third of men. The state also has a higher share of women with advanced science and technology degrees than the national average. However, the proportion of Keralite women with such degrees who are in science and technology jobs is very low, similar to the national level.

Women with advanced science degrees in Kerala, as well as in India, face barriers to finding jobs in their fields. They include an inability to relocate to another city or town due to family responsibilities and expectations. Also, as with men, women prefer secure, long-term white collar jobs in government and government-run organizations.

Yet, over the past century, several Keralite women have attained major success in science and technology. They include Edavaleth Kakkat Janaki Ammal in botany, Anna Modayil Mani in meteorology, Thayyoor K. Radha in physics and computer programming, and Tessy Thomas in missiles.

Janaki Ammal the Botanist Who Sweetened India’s Sugarcane

(Photo: Edavaleth Kakkat Janaki Ammal, front, while a PhD student at the University of Michigan, around 1928. Courtesy University of Michigan.)

The works of Edavaleth Kakkat Janaki Ammal (1897–1984) include co-authorship with Cyril Darlington, a British cytogeneticist, of the Chromosome Atlas of Cultivated Plants, 1945, and studies in plant polyploidy, where an organism possesses more than two complete sets of chromosomes. The Atlas features around 100,000 plants.

Between 1934 to 1939, Ammal worked on sugarcane genetics at the Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore, India. In a laboratory, she crossbred the wild Indian species Saccharum Spontaneum with sugarcane species then grown in India, to create a high-yielding strain. It also had a higher sugar content and was more suitable for the climate conditions in India. The new strain enabled India to become less reliant on sugar imports. Creating the new strain earned Ammal praise for sweetening sugarcane cultivation in India.

Some male colleagues at the Sugarcane Institute tried to block wider attention to her work, including her efforts to publish in scientific journals, because she was a woman and that too from a low caste. Ammal later described the environment she faced at the institute as one of “brutal persecution” in a “pseudo-scientific” atmosphere, according to a profile of her published by Mandeep Matharu, a Herbarium Curator (Digitiser) at the Royal Horticultural Society Garden Wisley, United Kingdom.

Ammal overcame the obstacles she faced from some of her colleagues in her usual way: she moved on to tackle bigger challenges. In 1939, given her global reputation, she was hired as an assistant cytologist, a scientist who studies plant cells, at the John Innes Horticultural Institute in the UK. In 1946, she became the first woman scientist to be employed by the Royal Historical Society Garden at Wisley. She earned an annual salary of £300. She also worked at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, United States.

In 1951, Ammal returned to India, at the invitation of then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, to reorganize the Botanical Survey of India. As a senior botanist and adviser, she focused on ethnobotany and conservation. She argued that indigenous plant diversity and traditional ecological knowledge were central to sustainable development.

Ammal then worked as chair of the Cytogenetics Department, Professor of Botany and an Emeritus Scientist at an institute in Jammu and Kashmir. During the 1970s, she played an influential scientific role in campaigns to designate Silent Valley in Palghat, Kerala, as a national park. The rain forest is full of rare orchids.

Earlier in the 1920s, Ammal worked at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, following an invitation from C. V. Raman. In 1930, Raman was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics. However, Ammal’s access to laboratory resources, mentoring and intellectual networks were restricted by some upper caste male colleagues.

In 1924, Ammal secured a scholarship to study at the University of Michigan, where she earned an MS, 1925, and PhD, 1931, in botany. The title of her PhD thesis was Chromosome Studies in Nicandra Physalodes (the shoo fly plant). She was the first Indian woman to earn a PhD in botany in the US.

Earlier, she earned an undergraduate degree from Queen Mary’s College, followed by a Honor’s Degree in botany from Presidency College, both in Chennai.

Ammal was born in 1897 in a large Thiya family of modest means in Thallassery, Kerala. Her parents, who did not attend college, supported her decision to pursue a scientific career. Her father, who had a government job in the judicial service, passed on his interest in botany and science to his children. He set up a library of science books in the home. Ammal attended a local school run by Christian missionaries.

Ammal’s scientific legacy includes the sugarcane species she created. The Chromosome Atlas of Cultivated Plants (1945), she co-authored, is still used by plant breeders today. Several botanists have created flowers and plants in her honor. UK’s John Innes Institute offers postgraduate scholarships in her name to students from developing countries. Institutions in India too offer a number of scholarships in her name. In 1984, less than a year after Ammal’s passing, Silent Valley was designated a national park.

Anna Modayil Mani the Weather Woman

(Photo: Anna Modayil Mani, right, courtesy World Meteoroligcal Institute.)

Anna Modayil Mani (1918–2001) played a key role in transforming India’s weather forecasting capabilities from dependence on imported instruments to using more equpment made domestically. As an applied scientist at the Indian Meteorological Department, New Delhi, she led teams which designed, tested and standardized more than 100 weather instruments. They included rain gauges, pyranometers, ozonesondes, anemometers and radiation sensors, specifically tailored to Indian conditions while matching international quality standards.

Mani also helped set up a nationwide network for measuring solar radiation, wind, and levels of ozone in the atmosphere. She led the research and publication of the Wind Energy Resource Survey in India, 1992, and the Handbook of Solar Radiation Data for India, 1980. These texts became essential resources for renewable energy studies and policies in India. She also documented early evidence of urbanization’s harmful impact on the chemistry of the atmosphere.

In 1964, Mani led the development of India’s first ozonesonde which enabled the precise measurement of ozone as high as 22 miles in the stratosphere. This was at a time when global concerns began emerging about the harmful effects of ultraviolet rays due to the depletion of protective layers of ozone. Her work spurred scientists in India to research the field.

In 1948, Mani joined the Meteorological Department as an applied scientist. She was not hired as a scientist because she did not earn a PhD, according to a BBC report. Despite producing substantial experimental work at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, she was denied a PhD on a technicality—her lack of a Master’s degree. Rather than feeling handicapped by her lack of a PhD, Mani immersed herself in creating instruments that could help understand and forecast weather patterns.

(Photo: Anna Modayil Mani, left, at the Raman Research Institute, 1980. Courtesy of the institute.)

In the early 1940s, Mani studied under C. V. Raman at the Indian Institute of Science. Like Janaki Ammal, she was part of Raman’s laboratory at a time when there were very few women scientists. Given strict segregation by sex, Mani and another female student often worked in isolation. They were excluded from the wider, informal conversations which typically spread knowledge and stimulate research ideas. Some male colleagues viewed errors she made as evidence of inherent “female incompetence.”

Mani earned a degree in physics from Womens Christistan College, Madras. She was raised in a Syrian Christian family in Travancore province, now part of Kerala, where she completed high school. Her father was an engineer in the Travancore Public Works Department and her mother a homemaker, according to a report in Mathrubhoomi.com.

In 1976, Mani retired as Deputy Director General of the Meteorological Department. Three years earlier, she was named an honorary fellow of the Centre for Development Studies, Kerala, a role she occupied until her passing in 2001.

Anna Mani is revered as the Weather Woman of India. Her work was guided by her belief that, “Accurate measurements are the foundation of understanding nature.”

Thayyoor K. Radha Theoretical Physicist and Computer Programmer

(Photo: Thayyoor K. Radha, third from right, with her parents and siblings while growing up in Kerala. Courtesy, Institute of Advanced Studies, US.)

Thayyoor K. Radha, 87-years-old, researched the intersection of quantum mechanics, scattering theory and relativistic propagator structure. While none of her fourteen research papers became canonical classics, in terms of frequent citations by other researchers, they tackled advanced problems in theoretical physics.

From 1976 to 1992, Radha worked as a computer programmer, including at the physics department at the University of Alberta, Canada. She gave research ideas to some of the physicists many of whom “listed me as a co-author on their work. There are even one or two articles that I wrote on my own,” she told Caitlin Rizzo, an archivist at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Princeton, US, in 2024.

Earlier, during the 1965-1966 academic year, she was a visiting fellow and member of the School of Mathematics/Natural Sciences at the Institute. She was invited by the director J. Robert Oppenheimer, a theoretical physicist. He led the Manhattan Project which resulted in the US building nuclear bombs. Albert Einstein was a scientist at the institute from 1933 to 1955. Recalling her experience of working at the Institute she told Rizzo, “I walked the street where Einstein lived.”

While at the institute, she presented a seminar at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. During the visit, she met Vembu Gourishankar, a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering. They got married and Radha moved to Canada, where she raised a son and daughter.

Radha worked briefly as an instructor for a course on Feynman quantum electrodynamics at the University of Alberta. She was offered an assistant professorship. But she was pregnant with her first child and “could not find a babysitter who did not smoke.” Then, since she had a difficult second pregnancy, she decided not to take up the teaching job.

Four years later, when Radha reapplied for the teaching job, the university had reduced its hiring. In 1973, she began taking courses in computer science at the University of Alberta. “I was at the top of my class. The physics department immediately sought to hire me…I was one of the only ones that knew physics and programming, so I got the job,” she told Rizzo.

(Photo: Thayyoor K. Radha with husband Vembu Gourishankar, son Arvind, and daughter Sita. Courtesy, Institute of Advanced Studies, US.)

In the early 1960s, Radha earned a PhD in theoretical physics from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay. Her thesis consisted of a set of fourteen published papers, related to particle physics, Feynman propagators, and particle interactions. Earlier, she was one of four women studying theoretical physics at the University of Madras. She began college by studying mathematics and then, at the Presidency College, Chennai, she switched to studying physics. She excelled in physics, topping the class.

Radha’s mother did not want her to move to Chennai to attend college because “she was scared for me to be amongst men in a co-educational facility. My father convinced her to let me go,” she told Rizzo. Radha’s father, who was a schoolteacher, had also studied physics at Presidency College.

Radha, who lives in Canada, was born in 1938 in a village in Kerala which had no electricity. At night, she studied under the light of a kerosene lamp. She was the fourth of five children, with three sisters and a brother. After she finished high school, she told Rizzo, “my sisters were still unmarried. Rather than have a third daughter waiting to marry, they encouraged my father and mother to allow me to continue my education,”

Although she could not pursue a research career in particle physics, Radha keeps up with new advancements in the field. She also tutors university students in math and physics. Her advice to her children, grandchildren and the young, she told RIzzo, is to “pursue your passion, learn from others, and be humble. Your life will be enriched beyond your imagination.”

Tessy Thomas Managed India’s Missile Projects

(Photo: Tessy Thomas, courtesy Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.)

While at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Tessy Thomas was a Project Director on the Agni-V. Last test fired in 2025, the nuclear-capable missile has a range of around 3,000 miles.

Earlier, she was a Project Director on the Agni-IV, which was launched in 2014. She led teams which integrated guidance control, re-entry, propulsion and trajectory systems for the missile. In her work, Thomas was aided by her study of applied mathematics, control theory, and systems engineering.

In 2018, Thomas was appointed as the Director General, Aeronautical Systems, at DRDO. She joined the government organization in 1988 as a scientist at a laboratory in Hyderabad. Earlier she was on the faculty at the Defence Institute of Advanced Technology, Pune.

In 2014, Thomas earned a PhD in Missile Guidance from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad. She earned an M.Tech in Guided Missiles from the Defence Institute in 1986; a B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from the Government Engineering College, Trichur. Kerala, and an MBA in Operations Management from the Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi, 2007.

Born in 1963, Thomas grew up in Alappuzha. Kerala, in a Christian family. Her father was an accountant. In 1976, when she was thirteen, he had a stroke and was bedridden. Despite the financial and emotional strain, Thomas’s mother insisted she focus on her schooling and pursue her interest in science and mathematics. Her mother was a school teacher who later stayed home to raise Thomas and her siblings.

Tessy Thomas, 62 years old, retired from the DRDO. She is married to Saroj Kumar Patel, who was a Commodore in the Indian Navy. They have a son Tejas.

As a child, Thomas was fascinated by the rocket launches from the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station near Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. Working as a scientist, she told the media, “I always say science has no gender. It is the knowledge and technical expertise that matters and if you are willing to learn, women can excel and succeed in this field.”

The achievements of Edavaleth Kakkat Janaki Ammal, Anna Modayil Mani, Thayyoor K. Radha, and Tessy Thomas are inspiring young women in Kerala, as well as India, to pursue careers in science and technology.

During World War II, Janaki Ammal lived in London when it was being bombed by German aircraft. In a 1940 letter to a friend at the University of Michigan, she writes, “Meanwhile we live in great danger - air raids day & night - There goes the siren- I must seek shelter. You cannot imagine the time London is having, but we are all cheerful and getting used to bombs of every description.” Ammal added, “Life isn’t worth it without a sense of danger.”

Story updated February 22, 2026

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February 16, 2026

The AI Impact Summit, India, 2026, was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi today. One of the goals of the week long program, organized by the Government of India, is “to amplify the voice of the Global South, ensuring that technological advancements and opportunities are shared broadly, not concentrated in a few regions.”

The Chief Executives of more than 40 major US and Western technology and services companies, including Sundar Pichai of Google, Sam Altman of OpenAI, and Dario Amodei of Anthropic, will be speaking at the summit. Over the past several weeks, apparently as part of the build up, to the summit, Microsoft, Google, Amazon and other giant American companies announced more than $68 billion in spending on data centers, cloud computing and other AI-related infrastructure in India, over the next five years.

The investments are primarily expected to enhance WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, and other consumer services in India, offered by the American companies, as well as boost usage of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude large language models (LLMs). The investments will also expand the capabilities of the global companies in India, which hosts a major part of their worldwide operations, as well as help secure contracts from businesses and government agencies in the country.

Microsoft, for instance, has more than 22,000 employees in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and other Indian cities. In December 2025, the technology giant said it will invest $17.5 billion in India, by 2029, to advance “cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, skilling and ongoing operations.”

The AI investments in India, by the global companies, may appear to be large. “Big Tech’s $70 Billion AI Move: Silicon Valley Bets On India, Snubs Trump’s ‘America First’ Diktat,” was the headline of a story in The Times of India. “Data Center Surge Reaches India as American Tech Giants Invest Billions,” was the headline of a New York Times story.

But the total investments in India will be tiny: only one percent of the $7 trillion that the companies plan to spend on AI globally by 2030. These global providers of online consumer services and LLMs acknowledge that India is their second largest market, in terms of users. Yet, apparently, the companies are not offering, and, nor is the Government of India requiring them to transfer technology, build local supply chains and achieve employment and talent training goals. Also, are some AI investment announcements being made more to appease Indian officials and gain greater access to the country’s market?

The AI investments are forecast to create four million jobs in India by 2030, according to a government report. However, there are no official estimates on how many jobs will be displaced by AI-based tools and services. They are already causing major job losses in a country facing massive, rising unemployment. In July, for instance, Tata Consultancy Services, an information technology firm and India’s largest private sector employer, reportedly started cutting 12,000 jobs. There are roughly six million employed by IT firms in India, including a quarter of them in customer service and call center work. Almost all the call center jobs and many of the IT jobs in India are at risk of being displaced by AI.

There are no programs and funding to re-skill the displaced employees. In fact, the Indian government has committed just $1.2 billion toward AI development. This spending is very small compared to the billions of dollars in subsidies, including for power and land purchases as well as tax, fee reductions and other incentives, offered to the AI projects by the central and state governments in India.

For instance, Google will reportedly receive subsidies and other incentives from the Andhra Pradesh government totaling more than $2.4 billion, or 15% of its total investment. By 2030, Google plans to spend $15 billion on an AI hub in Visakhapatnam, including a data center “to help meet demand for digital services across India and around the world.” The hub in Andhra will deliver “industry-leading AI infrastructure at scale…enabling businesses to innovate faster,” Thomas Kurian, Chief Executive of Google Cloud said in a statement.

In sharp contrast, in China, as Apple’s experience illustrates, American and other global companies have to team up and transfer technology to local partners, help fund and build domestic supply chains, and provide the latest, advanced training to local talent in technology, manufacturing, operations and all other skills necessary to run the business.

While there are thousands of Indians with math, statistics, physics, engineering, and other skills, necessary for advanced AI-related training, the country has few, if any, advanced AI institutes. So, at the very least, the Government of India should assess a fee, for training local talent, on the global technology companies expanding their AI-based operations in the country.

Even a ten percent fee on their spending will raise roughly $1.4 billion a year. This will fund the annual operations of at least fourteen new institutes offering advanced AI and related skills to 14,000 undergraduate students in India.

Such a fee, if implemented, can finance the creation of an advanced pool of AI and related talent, catalyze the formation of startups, enable domestic companies to expand into AI-related businesses, attract jobs from foreign companies seeking AI talent, and modernize defense capabilities.

AI centers need massive quantities of both power to operate and water for cooling, which are in very short supply in India. In 2030, will the global technology companies, which only partially meet their planned AI investments in India, say it was due to the shortage of power and water?

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February 14, 2026

So far in 2026, nearly 26,000 employees have been laid off by technology companies in the United States. The true numbers are likely far higher since most companies avoid public disclosure of layoffs. In fact, in January, the number of employees laid off by US employers was the highest since 2009. Also, less than a third of Americans graduating from colleges in 2025 found a job in their field.

Meanwhile, some unemployed professionals - as well as politicians - say foreigners are taking American jobs. “In its current form the H1B program is used almost universally to either bring on mediocre indentured servants, for Indian hiring managers to exclusively hire co-ethnics,” a reader posted as a comment on a Wall Street Journal story this week.

The layoffs, and blaming foreigners for fewer professional job openings, is the context for a new Texas policy on H-1B visas. These work visas enable employers in the US to hire skilled foreign professionals on a temporary basis.

By March 27, 2026, hospitals, universities, research centers and other agencies run by the Texas administration, have to provide data on how many foreigners they employ on H-1B visas. They also have to send “Documentation demonstrating efforts to provide qualified Texas candidates with a reasonable opportunity to apply for each position filled by a H-1B visa holder before a new petition was submitted for that position.”

Agency officials will likely lay off those on H-1B visas even before their visas expire, to prove they are abiding by the governor’s policies and thus protect their careers. Texas A&M “remains committed to protecting Texas taxpayers…and ensuring that Texas students and communities are served by a strong and qualified workforce,” an official of the state university told Nexstar.

As a result, thousands working on H-1B visas at Texas agencies will soon likely lose their jobs and have to leave the United States. Many of them are doctors, engineers, scientists, nurses and other professionals from India.

Institutions at the University of Texas alone have more than 1,000 employees on H-1 B visas: including 228 at the Southwestern Medical Center, 214 at Texas A&M University, 171 at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, and 169 at UT Austin, according to government data accessed by The Short Horn, a University of Texas publication.

Already, since last month, Texas agencies have frozen hiring foreigners on H-1B visas till May 2027. This was “to ensure American jobs are going to American workers,” the state’s Republican Governor Greg Abbott said in a statement.

In addition to state-run agencies, the new H-1 B visa policy will likely be followed by universities, hospitals, research centers and other institutions, which get funding from the Texas administration, as well as by businesses which provide products and services to state agencies. As it is, private businesses hiring foreign professionals in the state face scrutiny. The Texas Attorney General is investigating the use of H-1B visas by three businesses.

The Texas H-1B policy is the latest blow to students from India hoping to find work in the US upon graduation. Last month, following Texas, Florida’s Republican governor said state agencies will freeze H-1B hires. Other Republican governors will likely adopt similar policies. State agencies will also be asked to stop hiring fresh foreign graduates on practical training visas, according to news reports.

In fiscal year 2025, state-run institutions hired half of the roughly 17,000 foreigners employed by US universities on H-1B visas, according to Inside Higher Ed. Now many of them are at risk of losing their jobs. Private universities, non-profits and business organizations, are facing pressure, from President Donald Trump’s Administration and Republican state governors, to stop hiring foreigners. As part of such efforts, in September 2025, the Trump administration introduced a $100,000 fee to be paid by employers hiring a foreigner on an H-1B visa. The fee is already having an impact. Texas A&M, for instance, stopped sponsoring foreigners for new H-1B visas.

In May, when they graduate from American universities, at best a small fraction of the several hundred thousand students from India are likely to find a job in the US. Most of them are pursuing Master’s degrees in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). As it is, even in 2022 and 2023, during a good job market, a student from India had only a one in three chance of securing a practical training visa and a one in fifteen chance of securing an H-1B visa. This was for graduates with advanced STEM degrees. The prospects are far lower for those with an undergraduate, advanced social science, or even an MBA degree.

Most students from India in the US are not from wealthy families. They pay for their tuition and living expenses by borrowing $100,000 to $200,000 from banks, family and friends, by pledging homes and other assets as collateral. They hope that, upon graduation, they will secure jobs in the US on temporary work visas, which will enable them to save enough money to repay the loans.

Meanwhile, most American universities face large, rising budget deficits, with even some major ones having to cut faculty and staff. Hence they are very eager to boost tuition revenues by enrolling more foreign students, especially from India and China. In fact, Indian students contribute a big share of the funding of US universities. During the 2024-25 academic year, for instance, 363,000 Indians spent at least $24 billion to study in the US.

So, even as job prospects for foreign graduates get worse in the US, American universities are very eager to attract more students from India. Their aggressive recruitment strategies include awarding teaser scholarships, which at best cover only 10 percent to 20 percent of the tuition, not the total costs; enabling foreign students to stay an extra semester or two as a campus intern, for a fee, while they search for jobs in the US; offering dozens of MS programs, more than a hundred at major universities; boosting the capacity of popular STEM classes to enroll more foreigners, with more than one thousand students in some programs; diluting admission standards, and hence the value of the degree, including by no longer requiring scores of the basic Graduate Record Examination; and paying $5,000 or more to admission consultants and agents in India for every student they help enroll.

In India, there are grim stories from relatives, neighbors and friends about students being forced to return, with heavy debt, since they could not find jobs in the US. Some are unable to find work in India. Each day, more such stories are being covered by Indian news sites and on social media posts. They are convincing some students to avoid pursuing US degrees and falling into a debt trap.

Yet, currently several hundred thousand Indians are applying for admissions to US universities for the upcoming 2026-2027 academic year. They should ignore the tiny scholarships, expensive internships and other temptations offered by the universities. To protect themselves and their families from the burden of debt, they should focus on one simple measure: pursue an advanced STEM degree, even from a top US university, only if it can be funded with a loan which can be repaid within ten years, based on a salary earned in India.

(Photo: Vinod Jose, courtesy Wayanad Literary Festival.)

February 7, 2026

Part of the mission of St. Thomas College is “To empower the students with deep knowledge and awareness of current developments in their chosen subject of study.” Also, given accomplished alumni and past speakers, the college management’s decision to cancel Vinod Jose’s lecture, which was presumably backed by officials of the Catholic Church, will hurt the college’s reputation.

February 6, 2026

In 2021, Vinod Jose, accepted the Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism from Nieman Fellows at Harvard University. The award was given to The Caravan, a New Delhi-based magazine of which Jose was then Executive Editor, “in recognition of its reporting on the erosion of human rights, social justice, and democracy in India.”

Speaking at the award ceremony, Jose said, “Christians are randomly being picked up — nuns harassed…Priests and missionaries being attacked. Every religious minority” and lower castes are targeted in India.

In 2025, there were nearly 900 attacks on Christians in India, according to Christian Solidarity International, “continuing a five-year surge in attacks that intensified during the Christmas season.”

The attacks are carried out by Hindu extremists reportedly belonging to groups affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which rules India with Narendra Modi as Prime Minister. The “prime minister hasn’t said a word against the Hindu radicals who attacked Christians,” notes a columnist in The Wall Street Journal.

One of the attacks in 2025 was in Kerala, where a man from the RSS attacked “a group of children under 15,” damaging their musical instruments during a Christmas carol performance. So, it is odd that, this week, the St. Thomas College, run by the Catholic Church in Palai, Kerala, cancelled Jose’s lecture on the State of Indian Democracy.

“Funnily enough, with the disinvitation,” Jose notes in a social media post, “the lecture has already been delivered, without me uttering a word. The state of Indian democracy stands explained.” Jose learnt about the cancellation, for being a “controversial figure,” from a fellow speaker and not from the college management.

Vinod K Jose was the Executive Editor of The Caravan, New Delhi, from 2009 to 2023. Under him, the magazine exposed numerous corruption scandals in India; many involving governments of BJP’s Narendra Modi as well as former Congress Party Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

“The Caravan has persistently spoken truth to power while documenting the rise of political Hinduism in the country over the past decade,” the Nieman Fellows noted. “Risking violence and imprisonment, its reporters have written an essential series of investigations into Hindu supremacist terrorism, political murder, caste and gender injustice, and ethnic violence against India’s Muslim minority. The Caravan has repeatedly demonstrated that it represents a beacon of moral clarity in Indian public life.”

In 2021, there were ten judicial cases outstanding against Jose and the publisher of Caravan, in five states where the administration and “the police report directly to Prime Minister Modi,” Jose said while speaking at Harvard. The magazine also faced multi-million-dollar legal threats from a major company with close ties to the government. He added, “A small publication like us will be worried whether we will be run out of business, whether they will send us to jail.”

At Caravan, Jose noted, the journalists were extremely lucky to have an owner who gave “us a lot of freedom,” despite financial, legal and other threats, unlike at most major media companies in India. Also, the magazine has a large, growing number of subscribers which provides financial independence and stability.

Caravan was founded in 1939 by Vishwa Nath, inspired by Mahatma Gandhi who was then leading India’s struggle for freedom from British rule. Now it is published by the Delhi Press Group, run by Nath’s grandson Anant Nath. The group publishes 33 magazines in English and nine Indian languages.

(Photo: Vinod Jose, courtesy Wayanad Literary Festival.)

In 2008, Jose worked as a producer in South Asia for Pacifica Radio. From 2002 to 2007, he was a freelance radio producer, including for BBC and NPR. He started his career as a reporter for The Indian Express, Delhi, in 2001. From 1997 to 2001, while a student, as a freelancer, he reported stories for Udayavani, a Kannada publication, and wrote features for Malayalam newspapers Mathrubhumi and Malayala Manorama.

Vinod Kizhakkeparambil Joseph, 46-years-old, is the director of the Wayanad Literary Festival, Kerala; it is next scheduled to be held in December 2026. He was a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University School of Advanced Study, 2021-2022. Jose earned a PhD in sociology from Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi, 2011; an MS from the School of Journalism, Columbia University, New York, 2008; an MS in communications from Manipal University, India, 2001; and a BA in English from Mary Matha Arts & Science College, Wayanad, Kerala, 2000. He grew up in Wayanad.

Part of the mission of St. Thomas College is “To empower the students with deep knowledge and awareness of current developments in their chosen subject of study.” The college, which was founded in 1950, offers 18 undergraduate and 15 postgraduate programs and ten research departments. It has nearly 2,900 students and 151 faculty members. Alumni include K. G. Balakrishnan, former Chief Justice of India, Tom Jose, the current Chief Secretary of Kerala, and Siby George, India’s former ambassador to Switzerland, Vatican and Liechtenstein. Past speakers at the college include Nobel Laureates Ada E. Yonath, chemistry, 2009, and Klaus von Klitzing, physics, 1985.

Given accomplished alumni and past speakers, the college management’s decision to cancel Jose’s lecture, which was presumably backed by officials of the Catholic Church, will hurt the college’s reputation. Sibi James, head of St. Thomas College, did not respond to questions from The Wire. Sources familiar with the management told the publication that Jose’s lecture could have resulted in Modi’s Government blocking the college from receiving foreign donations.

In his post, Jose implies that his lecture may have been cancelled because, “If not all, at least a section of the Christian society in Kerala are tiptoeing the RSS-BJP line of blocking relevant, transparent conversations at the least, and at its maximum, working to help the Hindu right get a foothold in Kerala.”

Story updated February 7, 2026