Dolce Far Niente - The Sweetness of Doing Nothing
My take on things this week - Insights, musings and more
Prefer listening to this article instead?
Hello folks! Hope you are all in good health! I celebrated my six-month wedding anniversary with my lovely wife on the weekend of 15th June. I also took some time off to replenish myself by doing nothing at all. It was sort of like fasting for the mind.
Since the past few days, I have started waking up early in the morning. Somewhere around 5-5:30 am. After freshening up, I open the balcony door and breathe in the cool fresh air, sitting on the chair to meditate. I have been meditating for a while and make it a point to take out some time for it every day. But lately I’ve noticed that it’s become difficult to sit still and meditate for 10-15 minutes. Our minds are always stimulated to do something.
However, this experiment of early mornings has helped me with this challenge and made me realize that there’s a certain beauty in slowing down. During this morning time, I don’t do anything. I just sit there in the balcony and look at the trees, the sky and listen to sound of the birds chirping. I watch the squirrels playing around and jumping from one branch to another. Sometimes if I’m lucky, I even catch a glimpse of the fox, running away & hiding into the dark green bushes. I get my Kindle after a while to read or play my guitar.
There’s this Italian phrase called ‘Dolce Far Niente’, which translates to “The sweetness of doing nothing”. I think I now understand what it really means.
Anyway, let’s move on from the wild and get back to the world.
From Musk’s much anticipated approval of $56 billion pay package by Tesla shareholders, to India winning the T20 World Cup after 17 years, a lot has happened since the time I was away.
Putting the disclaimer here again; none of what I write is financial advice. Please do your own thorough research before you invest your hard-earned money into anything. So, without further ado, let’s get started with some stories that caught my attention.
Novo Nordisk’s WeGovy Gets Approval in China
It seems like Novo Nordisk’s good time will continue further as their weight loss drug WeGovy got approval from China. Novo will now be able to sell its popular drug in the Chinese market, which currently has the world’s largest share of obesity patients with a survey saying that over 50% of adults are either obese or overweight.
But there's a catch. The Danish pharmaceutical giant has only got 2 years for making the most of this huge Chinese market. The reason being that their patent for Semaglutide, which is the active ingredient in WeGovy is due for expiry in China by 2026. It's already having some legal issues regarding this where a Chinese pharma company is in a legal battle with Novo over the patent. For now, there's been no further progress in that case. At the end of the day, good news is good news and investors seemed happy as shares of Novo Nordisk rose by approximately 4% on Tuesday.
It’s good to see a European company leading the world in the healthcare sector. Novo Nordisk is now one of the most valuable European companies along with ASML & LVMH.
For further reading on this, I’ll leave a link here to the CNBC article.
India’s Upcoming AI Boom
India is eyeing to be the next hub for AI development. Tech companies like Amazon and Microsoft are looking to invest billions into India for building of AI infrastructure. The investments will mostly be in data centres and cloud storage spaces. Amazon is looking to invest close to $13 billion in cloud infrastructure by 2030 while Microsoft has already promised to invest $4 billion in India.
India has an advantage with its big pool of talented engineers. With the AI market growing fast, India is looking to lead the AI race in Asia on the basis of these investments. The government is also offering incentives for tech companies to invest in the country. But with these investments come the challenges related to energy demand and supply. As per Stanford report, India is currently ranking 5th in the world in terms of countries with most investment in AI.
Data Centres consume huge amounts of electricity and water. India is already undergoing an energy transition phase from coal to renewable energy, as currently most of country ‘s energy needs are fulfilled from coal. Which also brings the question of whether this unprecedented growth would be sustainable in the long run without negatively affecting the environment quality.
The US and EU are having their fair share of issues with China and this means that they're now looking for alternatives. India is well placed and could surely capitalize on this opportunity to take a lead over China, if it plays its cards right.
Amazon Joins the Trillion Dollar Club
Amazon is the newest entrant in the elusive trillion-dollar valuation club. Its market cap crossed $2 trillion on Wednesday and the share price was up by 4%
Amazon’s shares are up by 30% this year and approximately 50%, over the past year. Most of this growth is fuelled by the AI hype and Amazon has now joined the party along with Microsoft, Apple, NVIDIA and Alphabet (Google). The company’s been cutting costs and restructuring its business since a while now, to free up funds for investing actively into AI. It would be a key player in AI in the near future. Its cloud business is stronger than ever and with the rising demand for computing needs, I feel Amazon is in a good position to benefit in this upcoming maintaining and scaling phase of AI.
TDK’s Battery Technology Breakthrough
You may have heard of TDK Global or maybe you have not. TDK Corporation is a Japanese company that supplies components to Apple. They make solid state batteries which go into wearable devices like AirPods and Apple Watches.
So, TDK recently announced in a press release that they have made a revolutionary breakthrough in solid state battery technology by successfully developing a battery with 100 times more energy density. The company claims that the next generation solid state battery will have energy density of 1,000 Wh/L.
It seems like we’ll soon get wearable devices with a significantly longer battery (at least 100x) life on a single charge. An exciting news for wearable tech industry in the near future.
India Defeat South Africa to Win the T20 World Cup 2024
It was a brilliant Saturday as India ended their ICC trophy draught by defeating South Africa in a nail-biting match. After winning the toss, Rohit Sharma chose to bat first and the Indian team scored 177 in 20 overs with an awesome cameo by Axar Patel (47 off 31) supported by Virat Kohli’s steady and sensible knock (76 off 59).
The match had its share of twists and turns with South Africa’s middle order building partnerships after early wickets. It came to a point where Klassen almost took it home with his fearless batting.
The last 5 overs where South Africa needed 30 runs off 30 balls, it was all but over for India. However, Bumrah and Hardik had other plans and the game turned the other way round in these 5 overs. Surya Kumar’s sensational catch of Klassen, caught us the match and the trophy. Jasprit Bumrah won the player of the tournament which was well deserved. He’s the best bowler India has ever seen and we’re lucky to witness his bowling greatness. An absolute class act! Virat Kohli won the man of the match award for his anchor innings which set the tone after India lost quick 3 wickets.
I still remember watching the 2007 World Cup, where Dhoni, and his men made the dream come true for Indian cricket fans. Those unforgettable six sixes in an over by Yuvraj Singh against Stuart Broad will forever be etched in our memories. Now after 17 years, it’s Rohit’s boys who achieved a similar feat. From Sreesanth’s catch to Surya Kumar’s catch, Indian cricket has come a long way indeed! Time really flies.
This was the last match for Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli as they’ll be retiring from the T20 format of the game. What a time to announce it. For Indian coach Rahul Dravid too, life came a full circle when India was knocked out of the group stage of 2007 ODI World Cup in West Indies and losing his captaincy to winning the world cup now in West Indies, as a coach in 2024. A perfect end to his cricketing career story!
This win will surely heal the heartbreak caused on 19th November ‘23, where the Indian team lost the 50 over World Cup final against Australia, despite going unbeaten throughout the tournament.
Watching Recommendation: Bluey
I came across this Australian show called Bluey, a kids cartoon about a dog family. My wife and I gave it a try when we were looking for something leisurely to watch while having our lunch or dinner. The show invokes a sense of nostalgic wholesomeness of childhood. The good part about the show is that it teaches a lot about healthy parenting. I personally like how the family plays pretend games with their kids, similar to how we used to play when we were kids. The days when our minds weren’t consumed by screens and we had that privilege of getting bored and actually making up games with our imagination.
I would definitely recommend watching it in case you’re looking for something light-hearted and subtly therapeutic at the same time.
That's all for this week. Stay healthy, eat good and sleep well! I’ll see you again next Sunday. Till then, Adiós!