The Morning Brief

Abishur Prakash, geopolitical strategist and author focused on tech and security, joins to unpack the clash between companies and governments over AI access. He discusses Anthropic’s ethical stand, OpenAI’s classified pivot, sovereign AI challenges in Europe, and how AI could shift from targeting to driving battlefield decisions. The conversation maps two futures: corporate alignment with states or government-built alternatives.

Amitendu Palit, global trade expert at NUS, and Biswajit Dhar, retired JNU trade economist, analyze India’s cautious reopening to Chinese FDI. They discuss why Delhi moved now. They outline which sectors could welcome Chinese money and which remain off-limits. They probe indirect investment structures, thresholds and security-focused exceptions.

Puran Choudhary, Economic Times reporter on-the-ground in Bengaluru reporting LPG shortages and black-market impacts. Bob McNally, former White House energy advisor and Rapidan Energy founder, gives historical and geopolitical perspective on major oil shocks. Amrita Sen, founder of Energy Aspects and oil market analyst, breaks down crude, product and LPG flow disruptions. They discuss the Strait of Hormuz shutdown, supply shocks, refinery cuts, shipping and strategic reserve responses.

Ajay Raag, a payments and money-flows reporter, and Disha Acharya, an investigative journalist on offshore gaming, unpack how offshore platforms evaded India’s ban. They discuss mirror sites, regional interfaces and seamless UPI flows. They examine mule-account networks, massive user traffic from India, enforcement gaps and the ban’s industry fallout.

Mary Ellen Iskenderian, President and CEO of Women's World Banking, a leader in women's financial inclusion, reflects on five decades of progress and gaps. She discusses the $700 billion market opportunity, why women are strong financial clients, India's digital financial models, tech barriers women face, and links between women's finance and climate resilience.

Wendy Hall, pioneering computer scientist and co-founder of Web Science, reflects on AI governance, social machines, and why repeating web-era mistakes could be worse. She tackles AGI hype, the need for metrology and laws on deepfakes. She also highlights the Global South's stake and the persistent gender imbalance shaping AI culture.

Dilasha Seth, Middle East correspondent on markets and geopolitics, and Sobia Khan, UAE real estate analyst, discuss how recent Gulf tensions shook Dubai’s safe-haven status. They cover paused Indian purchases, hit market sentiment, sovereign fund moves, remittance risks for millions of Indian workers, real estate price and yield shifts, and which sectors face the biggest disruption.

Pranab Dhal Samanta, Executive Editor (Politics) at The Economic Times and veteran political journalist, offers expert analysis on West Asia and Iran. He walks through escalation dynamics and containment risks. He discusses US aims, Iran’s internal stability, military hazards, oil and Hormuz market shocks, and India’s diplomatic and evacuation dilemmas.

Dr Usha Raman, former communication professor in India focused on media, education and children; Dr Sonia Livingstone, LSE social psychologist studying children and digital media. They explore AI becoming confidants for kids and emotional risks. They discuss how AI reshapes learning, widens class and language gaps in India, and what practical guardrails and design fixes could protect young users.

Yoshua Bengio, deep learning pioneer steering AI toward safety; Stuart Russell, UC Berkeley AI safety trailblazer advocating human-centered objectives. They debate extinction-level risks, models developing goal-like behavior and self-preservation, the need for scientific evaluation and liability-based regulation, and global governance to prevent concentration of power and democratic erosion.