TMS Ep461: Tesla Motors, new vs old IITs, PSU stocks, green diamonds

A recent meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has rekindled hopes of electric vehicle maker’s entry into the Indian market. And in Musk’s own words, the Texas-based company will be in India “as soon as humanly possible”. We focus on the EV components and battery space, and try to gauge whether or not Tesla’s entry into India will give a fillip to its nascent ecosystem in these sectors.

Tesla’s China sales, meanwhile, have tripled in the last three years. But given the ongoing changes in policies and the talented pool of techies, India can become a good alternative. And a lot of these gold-standard techies come out from the country’s IITs. But, it seems, older IITs still hold an edge over the ones set up recently. A CAG report has indicated that the newer IITs are falling behind their counterparts in terms of performance and overall quality. So how can newer IITs catch up to Bombay and Madras counterparts? 

After this interesting analysis of the country’s premier institutions, let us turn our gaze to its financial markets. Shares of select public sector undertaking companies have registered an impressive rally in the last one year. So then, are there any PSU pockets worth your money? 

The government, meanwhile, may meet its disinvestment target for the current financial year even without selling any fresh stake in PSU, if its plans for IDBI Bank and Concor go through. But right now, all eyes are on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s US visit. On Wednesday evening, he presented a bunch of gifts to US president Joe Biden and First Lady Jilly Biden. And one of them caught everyone’s attention. It was a 7.5-carat lab-grown green diamond. We all have heard of blood diamonds, but what is this green diamond? Let us find out in this episode of the podcast.