TMSEp494: Station revamp, AI in entertainment, markets, import substitution

On Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the redevelopment of 508 railway stations in India. The revamping will take place under the modernisation program called Amrit Bharat Station Scheme. But what changes will this redevelopment bring about, and what does transforming 508 railway stations mean for Indian Railways? Thareek Ahmed explains.

Are railway station experiences going to be identical to that of airport check-ins? Well, that’s the ambitious goal. But it’s sometime away. What’s more pressing is the advent of AI and its impact on the world of entertainment. In the US, Hollywood writers’ strike touched 100-days today, where the Writers Guild of America is fighting to restrict the use of Artificial Intelligence in scriptwriting. On the other end of the spectrum, Netflix is offering a salary of whopping 7.4 crore rupees for a Product Manager role on Machine Learning Platform. Ayush Mishra finds out how AI is disrupting the entertainment world.

Experts believe that the increase in content generation and advancements in the entertainment industry around the world will propel the expansion of Artificial Intelligence in the years to come.

Back to the markets, the Q1 earnings season has nearly come to a wrap wherein pockets like IT expectedly led the underperformance while oil marketing companies continued to see a rebound. In our next report, Harshita Singh chalks out the granular details on the sectors that remained in the spotlight.

On August 3, the Centre announced that it is putting imports of laptops and computers, including tablets, under a licensing regime with “immediate effect”. Later on August 5, it announced that the rule will come into effect on November 1.

The Directorate General of Foreign Trade said that the restrictions are being imposed to promote domestic manufacturing and curtail imports of these goods from countries like China and Korea. According to experts, this is the Centre’s effort in the direction of import substitution. But what is import substitution? Listen to this episode of the podcast for answers.