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By:

Rajendra Joshi

3 December 2024 at 3:50:26 am

Kolhapur cop sets new standard for investigations

Yogesh Kumar Gupta Kolhapur: When a police officer takes genuine interest in securing justice for citizens duped in financial fraud, investigations can move swiftly enough to lift the crushing burden off affected families. Kolhapur Superintendent of Police Yogesh Kumar Gupta has demonstrated precisely that. His firm and sensitive handling of a cheating case ensured relief for Akshay Deepak Dhale, a young entrepreneur from Kolhapur who had fallen prey to a Rajkot-based company that allegedly...

Kolhapur cop sets new standard for investigations

Yogesh Kumar Gupta Kolhapur: When a police officer takes genuine interest in securing justice for citizens duped in financial fraud, investigations can move swiftly enough to lift the crushing burden off affected families. Kolhapur Superintendent of Police Yogesh Kumar Gupta has demonstrated precisely that. His firm and sensitive handling of a cheating case ensured relief for Akshay Deepak Dhale, a young entrepreneur from Kolhapur who had fallen prey to a Rajkot-based company that allegedly promised to secure large government loans for business expansion. Gupta’s intervention compelled company representatives to travel to Kolhapur and assure repayment of the money collected, effectively forcing them onto the back foot. Dhale, a resident of Sadar Bazaar, had dreamt of expanding his late father’s small printing business after losing him during the Covid-19 pandemic. Lured by promises of securing a multi-crore loan under a Central government scheme, he transferred ₹69 lakh — raised from nearly 15 friends and relatives — to the company’s account. The loan, however, never materialised. When Dhale began making inquiries, he was met with evasive responses. The financial shock left the family devastated. Initial attempts to seek police help reportedly went nowhere, with the matter labelled as “non-criminal” and dismissed at the preliminary stage. Acting on advice, the family approached the district police chief directly. Gupta’s decisive stand altered the course of the case, leading to concrete assurances of refund from the company. However, a far larger challenge now looms before the Kolhapur police chief. Across Kolhapur — and reportedly other parts of Maharashtra — several Marathi youths claim to have been duped by a Morbi-based businessman who allegedly promises to set up “innovative” enterprises for aspiring entrepreneurs. The scale of the alleged fraud runs into crores of rupees. The businessman, said to be linked to a major tile industry in Morbi, is accused of luring youngsters through social media promotions and advertorials in prominent English dailies. Contracts are structured to appear transparent and legitimate. Prospective entrepreneurs are promised exclusive access to novel business models, often involving products sourced from Chinese markets, complete with projected marketing strategies and attractive feature lists. According to victims, payments are collected upfront, but the products eventually supplied lack the promised specifications and hold negligible market value. Several youths across Maharashtra are believed to have suffered losses. Those who have confronted the accused allege they were threatened with defamation suits and warned that a team of “expert lawyers” would ensure their financial and reputational ruin if complaints were filed. While some victims have resigned themselves to debt and despair, others who attempted to pursue police complaints claim they were turned away. For many of these young entrepreneurs, SP Yogesh Kumar Gupta represents a ray of hope. If he chooses to take up the matter with the same resolve demonstrated earlier, it could not only restore faith among affected youths but also send a strong deterrent message to fraudsters operating under the guise of innovation-driven enterprise.

Silicon Shivers

Indian technology stocks have long served as a barometer of global risk appetite rather than purely domestic confidence. A sudden swoon in Indian technology stocks on Thursday that saw tech biggies Infosys, TCS and Wipro slid by as much as 5 percent in a single session was a reminder that India’s IT giants remain deeply exposed to shifts in sentiment on Wall Street.


The slump dragged the Nifty IT index down nearly as far and placing it among the market’s worst performers for the second time in over a week.


It reflected renewed turbulence in American technology shares, sending out a clear message that India’s IT champions, despite their scale and maturity, remain tethered to sentiment in the United States where both their largest clients and their most unsettling technological challenges reside.


Overnight declines in US technology stocks, whether driven by interest-rate jitters or shifts in investor fashion, routinely echo through Dalal Street. What made Thursday’s episode more unsettling was not the macro trigger but the fears that artificial intelligence (AI) may finally pose a structural threat to India’s labour-heavy IT services model.


Recent advances in generative AI by firms such as Anthropic have reignited debate over whether automation can displace the bread-and-butter work of Indian outsourcing firms. Coding, maintenance, testing and customer support are the tasks AI tools promise to make faster and cheaper.


If clients can secure the same outcomes with fewer billable hours, pricing pressure is inevitable. Markets are reacting to that possibility well before its full effects are visible in earnings.


The unease runs deeper than margins. India’s IT industry employs more than five million people and has long functioned as a white-collar shock absorber, drawing in graduates from engineering colleges and offering a path to middle-class security. It is precisely this scale that makes AI unsettling. Entry-level roles like testing, support and routine coding form the base of the employment pyramid and the natural point of insertion for automation. Even modest productivity gains, multiplied across such a vast workforce, could translate into a gradual thinning of opportunities for newcomers.


In theory, displaced workers can be retrained for higher-value tasks. In practice, the pace of automation may outrun the speed at which skills are upgraded. Unlike earlier technology shifts that altered delivery models or infrastructure, AI strikes at the repetitive work that underpins mass employment.


While there has been no major company-specific negative announcement from Infosys, TCS or Wipro, the sell-off reflects global tech weakness and resurfacing AI fears rather than a sudden deterioration in domestic fundamentals.


Some analysts argue this cycle may nonetheless be different and that Indian IT has doubled in size since the cloud era and now finds itself as the incumbent rather than the insurgent. The truth lies between complacency and panic. Indian IT is unlikely to be hollowed out by AI, but its role as a mass employment engine could well be poised to weaken.

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