From the battle between publishers and AI to ‘Superboys Of Malegaon’ at TIFF 2024, our top stories of the week

1) Aim for the stars

Amith Agarwal, Co-Founder, Whole Time Director & CEO at StarAgri Image: Neha Mithbawkar for Forbes India
Amith Agarwal hails from Alwar, Rajasthan. Instead of taking the path of commerce, he chose the second option. “Alwar was a comfort zone. I wanted to get out,” he says. He got out. First to New Delhi to prepare for entrance exams, then to Mumbai for an MBA and then to Reliance for a job. Soon, this fast-paced journey became another comfort zone for Agarwal. He wanted to become an entrepreneur. In April 2006, he started StarAgri with Suresh Goyal, Amit Goyal and Amit Khandelwal to provide integrated post-harvest management solutions. Eighteen years later, they are reaping a bountiful harvest in StarAgri, India’s largest integrated agri-services platform, which generates over Rs1,000 crore in revenue and is profitable. This is the riveting story of their rollercoaster journey.

2) Publishers vs. AI

Illustration Chaitanya Dinesh Surpur
A recent study by Accenture found that 44 percent of working hours across all sectors could be impacted by AI—14 percent on the low end and 76 percent on the high end. Another study by Deloitte found that 93 percent of students and 83 percent of employees in India are actively using technology. AI has become a part of life and discussions about its impact on people have become a norm. So how are media and publishing companies coping with the new technology? The generative AI aspect of the technology has forced some publishers to seek legal avenues and others to get involved in the mud. What will the outcome be for everyone? Here are a few scenarios.

3) Ikea’s Indian Story

Susanne Pulverer, CEO and Chief Sustainability Officer, Ikea India; Photo: Neha Mithbawkar for Forbes India
Ingvar Kamprad founded Ikea in 1943 at the age of 17, selling household items such as pens, wallets and picture frames. Älmhult, the city where Ikea was founded, is located in a remote area of ​​Sweden and it was difficult to reach potential customers in larger cities. As a result, the Ikea catalog was born in 1951. 80 years later, the model has changed due to the ever-changing dynamics of Indian consumers. The Swedish furniture giant entered India in 2018 with an offline store. But today, the tech-savvy Indian consumer is forcing the company to think about e-commerce first. What led to this decision? What is Ikea’s Indian story? Here’s a look.

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1) Put Desi on the defensive

Ashok Atluri, 58, Chairman and Managing Director, Zen Technologies Image: VIkas Chandra Pureti for Forbes India
In the beginning, shortly after independence, India’s defense force was based on weapons and systems imported from other countries. The dependency was so great that no one in the defense sector wanted to believe that a homegrown company would have the capacity to develop advanced technologies on its own and strengthen India’s defense efforts. It made the first three years miserable for the founders of Zen Technologies when they started in 1993. People were using flight simulators, but no one could imagine that a military tank simulator would also help train soldiers. But Ashok Atluri, the company’s chairman and managing director, was persistent and steadfast in his three basic principles. Read more about these rules and how the company managed to record its highest ever revenue and profit this year.

2) Imitating the best and worst of humanity

Artificial intelligence is already part of our daily lives. It’s in our homes, our offices and, increasingly, our public spaces. Technology, including AI, “will only serve society best if we have checks and balances,” Verity Harding, director of the AI ​​& Geopolitics Project at the University of Cambridge, told Divya Shekhar in April. It’s important, she added, that regulators and the people building AI listen to people who are already vulnerable to the technology and consider different points of view. Her new book, AI needs youuses a historical and intersectional perspective to help us navigate and understand artificial intelligence.

3) Within the chess wave in India

Shyaam Nikhil P is the newest chess grandmaster from India, bringing the tally to 85 for a country that only had its first grandmaster, Viswanathan Anand, in 1988. While Anand remains an icon in the game, the next generation, many of whom he also mentored, have seamlessly taken over. In a sign of a changing of the guard, in August 2023, 17-year-old D Gukesh dethroned Anand as India’s No. 1 chess player in the live ratings for the first time in 36 years. India has emerged as a chess superpower. Viswanathan Anand, a five-time world champion, analyses the country’s meteoric rise in the sport for Sport UnLtd podcasting.

4) Superboys of Malegaon

“Cinema is, and has always been, our escape from everyday life and our daily struggles,” 50-year-old Shaikh Nasir of Malegaon told AFP in an interview. The ‘unemployed cinema fanatic’ delved into the art of filmmaking with cheap rented cameras, innovative production tricks and a crew of equally enthusiastic film buffs. Nasir’s Malegaon Ka Superman is a cult favorite from the Indian hinterland. His passion for cinema has been given its own film treatment. Producers Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti have Superboys of Malegaon—a film inspired by Nasir’s determination. In an interview with Forbes India on the backdrop of the Toronto International Film Festival, Akhtar and actors Adarsh ​​​​Gourav and Vineet Kumar Singh talk about this insane story, why it had to be made into a film, and how it changed their perspective on life.