🎩 Best of the Week: The silent sleep tax Indian women payFrom India's sleep divide to fake notes, the monsoon, and the US's HIRE Act
Dear reader, For as long as I can remember, my mother’s day began before my father’s—and ended long after his. Over the years, I realized this wasn’t just my home. It was a pattern I saw repeating across countless Indian households. Married women, especially those with children, seemed to have days that never truly ended. Even when men woke up early, they often had the liberty to dedicate that time to themselves—morning walks, gym sessions, quiet reading. For women, mornings almost always began chaotic inside the kitchen—cooking breakfast, packing tiffins, ensuring everyone else’s day was set in motion. And while men often wrapped up their days soon after dinner, women’s work stretched on—arranging the kitchen, cleaning the surroundings, making sure the house was in order before they could finally call it a night. This unequal rhythm, inherited over generations, has been quietly draining women of something most of us take for granted—sleep has now been laid bare with data. Mint’s detailed report by Tanay Sukumar uncovers how women sacrifice sleep, night after night, while men don’t. It’s the story of an overlooked burden: the silent sleep tax women have been paying all along. Also read:On to the best of Mint’s journalism from this week:Counterfeit notes go viralStacks of ₹500 bills, aluminium trunks full of cash, counting machines whirring—sounds like a scene from a crime thriller, right? Except these videos are real, playing out on Facebook and Instagram feeds. Sellers like Rihan Rathod flaunt bundles of “A1 quality” notes, run them through machines, even highlight RBI strips—all while dropping WhatsApp numbers for buyers. What once hid in the shadows of smuggling routes is now out in the open, repackaged as social media storefronts. But when fake currency sneaks into ATMs, shops, or even your wallet, who really pays the price: the scammer, the platform, or the unsuspecting citizen? The billionaire next doorSometimes, silence follows an epiphany. For Gautam Buddha, it was cosmic nothingness; for others, it might be witnessing the dizzying world of India’s uber-rich. Picture this: a Himalayan resort booked entirely for a wedding anniversary, ₹20,000-a-bottle champagne flowing, and Bollywood singers on stage—all for a man who isn’t even the richest in his city. This is India’s staggering wealth divide—800 million depend on free foodgrains, yet a sliver of families controls $11.6 trillion in assets. With $2.7 trillion in liquid wealth up for grabs, wealth management has become the hottest new frontier. But how do you build an economy when dazzling excess coexists with desperate survival? Too much rain hurts the harvestIndia’s economy runs on the monsoon, but this year’s rains have been a double-edged sword. What began as a blessing for kharif crops soon turned into a flood nightmare for key states like Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Telangana—where rainfall was 150–450% above normal in early September. Punjab alone, which grows 11% of India’s cereals, could see up to 10% crop losses. History shows erratic rainfall often fuels food inflation—remember onions in 2019 or tomatoes in 2023? With inflation currently tame and GST cuts in play, economists hope the damage will be contained. Is quality education becoming a luxury?For Noida mom Neha Pandey, spending ₹2.5 lakh a year on her daughter’s schooling and tuition feels like a steep price—but can parents really afford to compromise when the future job market is so unforgiving? A new national survey reveals that over half of India’s students are now in private schools, where costs can be 10–35 times higher than in government schools. Add private coaching—which nearly a third of urban students attend—and the bill only grows. But the paradox is that even with these investments, many graduates end up underemployed. So, is India’s education system nurturing talent or simply worsening inequality? And more importantly, are families getting the return on their massive investments? India’s ethanol boom is reshaping its farmsCorn is quietly taking over Indian farmlands. Lured by rising maize prices, fuelled by its growing use in ethanol production, farmers are swapping soybeans for corn. They’re not alone: India has planted maize on a record 9.4 million hectares this Kharif, even as soy acreage shrinks. Ethanol blending in petrol has hit 19%, almost touching the E20 target five years early. But this grain rush has a cost. Farmers are shifting from oilseeds, pulses and cotton, crops India already imports, to water-thirsty cereals, risking soil and water depletion. Also read:
US HIRE Act threatens to upend India’s IT outsourcing modelIndia’s $250-billion IT services industry, which gets over 60% of its revenue from the US, faces a new threat. A proposed US law, the Halting International Relocation of Employment (HIRE) Act, seeks to levy a steep 25% tax on payments made to foreign firms for services. If passed, it could erode the cost advantage that made Indian IT indispensable to American companies. But passing it won’t be easy. US firms depend heavily on Indian talent, with tens of thousands on H-1B visas and most offshore work done from India. Experts say the bill is unlikely to pass in its current form, but even the debate could push clients to renegotiate contracts and squeeze margins. With growth already muted, Indian IT firms may be forced to absorb costs to stay competitive. India readies $20-billion push to become a semiconductor powerhouseIndia is gearing up for its boldest semiconductor bet yet. The government is drafting a $20 billion incentive package, double its earlier outlay, to supercharge the India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) and transform the country from a chip back office to a full-stack hub. After spending nearly its entire $10 billion first tranche backing projects such as Tata’s $11-billion fab and Micron’s testing unit, the government now wants to build advanced fabs, launch India’s first display fab, boost chip design patents, and plug supply-chain gaps. The proposal, now with the finance ministry, could reach the Union Cabinet by the end of the year. Global rivals are pouring tens of billions into chips, but India is pitching policy stability as its edge. When the internet’s invisible backbone breaksEver wondered how your Instagram feed loads instantly or a Zoom call from Mumbai to London stays seamless? The credit goes to 559 undersea fibre-optic cables crisscrossing the ocean floor, which carry more than 95% of the world’s internet traffic. But on Saturday, this invisible backbone faltered, as cable cuts in the Red Sea disrupted internet speeds across Asia and West Asia. These cables can be damaged by ship anchors, fishing nets, or even sabotage, and repairing them can take months as India relies on foreign repair ships. The Red Sea is especially critical: it carries 80% of Asia’s westward data traffic, making it a hotspot for disruptions amid regional tensions. Telecom firms reroute traffic during such outages, but rising data demand makes resilience vital. Taxman swaps scare for soft nudgesIndia’s top indirect tax authority is shifting gears—from crackdowns to gentle nudges. The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) plans to match GST filings with income tax returns to spot mismatches and flag suspicious overuse of input tax credits, but without flooding small vendors with notices. Chairman Sanjay Kumar Agarwal has urged officers to avoid “scare tactics” like aggressive scrutiny of UPI payment data, which triggered protests in Karnataka earlier this year. Instead, the CBIC will quietly flag risks, like firms paying most of their GST via credits rather than cash, and nudge them to comply voluntarily. Experts say this calibrated approach, powered by big data, could expand India’s tax base while preserving business confidence. Can India use data-driven monitoring to boost compliance without reviving fears of tax harassment that haunted businesses in the past? Can Bollywood end 2025 on a high note?Big budgets aren’t the only ones winning anymore. Recent hits such as Saiyaara (₹337 crore) and Mahavatar Narsimha (₹177 crore) prove that even mid-scale films can pull audiences back to theatres. With the festive season kicking in, can Bollywood cash in and close the year strong? The line-up looks promising: Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari, Thama, De De Pyaar De 2, and Alia Bhatt’s Alpha. Hollywood and South India are also in the race with Avatar: Fire and Ash and Kantara: A Legend Chapter 1. But will rising ticket prices and quick OTT turnarounds dampen the momentum? That's all for this week. I hope you have a pleasant weekend! If you have feedback, want to discuss food, movies and shows, or have anything else to say about our journalism, write to me at shravani.sinha@livemint.com or reply to this email. You can also write to feedback@livemint.com. Best, Shravani Sinha Senior Correspondent
|
