Shankaracharya: Vedic Cool

Newsmaker: Satya Chandrashekarendra Saraswati
On April 30, 2025, beneath the towering gopurams of Kanchipuram, a 24-year-old Vedic scholar from Andhra Pradesh was anointed as the 71st Shankara­charya of the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham. Born Duddu Satya Venkata Surya Subrahmanya Ganesha Sharma Dravid, the newly initiated pontiff received the monastic name Satya Chandrashekarendra Saraswati Swamigal following a tradi­tional Sanyasa Deeksha ceremony conducted by the current Shankaracharya, Vijayendra Saraswathi. At its heart was a quiet erasure of name, lineage, caste, and past, and the be­stowal of a singular purpose—to preserve, teach, and embody the teachings of Advaita Vedanta. Vedic chants reverberated as senior scholars recited invocations from the Upanishads. Holy waters were poured over the initiate’s head, conch shells sounded, and the danda (staff) was handed to him in a gesture of spiritual transmission. The event, held on the sacred occasion of Akshaya Tritiya and aligned with the 2,534th birth anniversary of Adi Shankaracharya, was witnessed by thousands of devotees, priests, scholars and political dignitar­ies and livestreamed on social media.

Trained in the Rig Veda and other core branches of Vedic learning, the new Shankaracharya is known for his fluency in Sanskrit, command of the Dashopanishads, and years of service in temples. His appointment signals continuity in the Peetham’s emphasis on Advaita Vedanta and its legacy of youth­ful, erudite leadership. As he assumes the spiritual mantle, Satya Chandrashekarendra Saraswati, robed in ochre, carrying the staff of monastic authority, steps into a lineage that traces it­self to Adi Shankaracharya. The young seer is expected to guide the mutt in its quiet mission of ritual, learning, and dharmic service in an increasingly secularised landscape. (By V Shoba)

Noisemaker: Vijay Wadettiwar
Loose Talker

Of the Congress leaders who offered unfiltered, ill-considered remarks on the Pahalgam terror attack, Maharashtra MLA Vijay Wadettiwar took the cake. BJP, he opined, was spreading inaccurate accounts claiming the victims were segregated on the basis of religion. The government should take responsibility as they are saying that terrorists killed people after asking them (about their religion), he reportedly said. Do terrorists have the time to do so, he wondered. Soon enough the Congress high command cracked down on such loose talk. But it is matter of wonderment as to why such comments were offered in the first place. Of course, Wadettiwar later regretted his remarks.

 The Big Picture

Ho Chi Minh City, April 30, 2025: Return to Saigon Celebrations mark the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. Saigon fell on April 30, 1975 with North Vietnamese troops capturing the city as the US evacuated more than 7,000 people.

 Ideas
The Ethics of AI

In December last year, an Italian publisher brought out a new book. Titled Ipnocrazia: Trump, Musk e La Nuova Architettura Della Realtà (Hypnocracy: Trump, Musk, and the New Architecture of Reality), the book was written, according to its publisher, by a Hong Kong–born philosopher named Jianwei Xun who is now based in Berlin. The book has been described as one that depicts how the powerful use technology, such as AI, to shape perception with “hypnotic narratives” that put the public in a sort of collective trance. The book gained quick attention and was covered by various media outlets in Germany, Spain, Italy and France.

It has now been discovered that no such writer exists. Jianwei Xun turned out to be an invention, and the book, which discussed the dangers of manipulating reality through technology, had been generated using artificial intelligence. The person who was behind the book was Andrea Colamedici, the man listed as the book’s Italian translator, who does a day job teaching “prompt thinking”, a type of course that teaches how to effectively interact with AI models at the European Institute of Design. Since being outed, he has described his intention as a ‘philosophical experiment’ and a performance to show the dangers of AI.

This news comes at a time when much of the world, especially those in the creative industries, has been debating the use of AI in their fields.

The AI-generated book has created a storm, with accusations of dishonesty and poor ethics being hurled at Colamedici. The creator however says this discussion is exactly what he wanted.

Money Mantra
The Hawkish Portfolio
As border tension spikes, defence stocks rally

WHENEVER THE GUNS along the Line of Control start talking, fear is usually the first shell to land on Dalal Street. Past episodes of India-Pakistan brinkmanship show a clear pattern: Equity volatility spikes, the rupee falls, and in­vestors instinctively rotate from cyclicals into safe-harbour assets.

Although most flare-ups prove shortlived, headline risk alone can reorder sector leadership for weeks, so building a portfolio that can live through the fog of war requires focusing on businesses whose cash flows are either protected by government spending, regulated tariffs, or dollar-denominated revenue.

The first group that usually rallies is defence and aerospace stocks. Each time geopolitical tension rises, New Delhi expedites procure­ment, signs emergency contracts, and advances milestone payments, turning a slow-moving order book into near-term cash flow.

Listed missile-maker Bharat Dynamics, for instance, typically sees revenue bunch in the quarters immediately after a shooting incident, while platform specialists such as Hindustan Aeronautics or electron­ics supplier Data Patterns benefit when negotiations that had been crawling close. Shipyards like Mazagon Dock, Cochin Shipyard and Garden Reach follow the same heartbeat. The operative word for inves­tors here is discipline; defence names can spike vertically on day-one headlines and then correct just as sharply.

Consumer-staple companies provide another line of defence. Households may postpone buying cars or televisions, but they do not suddenly stop brushing their teeth or eating biscuits, which is why Hindustan Unilever, ITC and Britannia have a track record of outper­forming the broader indices during geopolitical sell-offs.

For those who prefer liquid hedges to stock-picking, gold comes into its own. Physical metal is hard to buy at institutional scale overnight, but gold exchange-traded funds and sovereign gold bonds trade every minute, and history shows that rupee-denominated gold prices often jump 5-7 per cent within a few weeks of the first border skirmish. (Ramesh Singh)

 Salah’s Selfie

When Mohamed Salah struck a goal on Liverpool’s big day against Tottenham Hotspur to make it 4-1—his team would eventually win 5-1 and clinch the Premier League title—the Egyptian star rushed to the sidelines, got hold of a phone from a person who seemed to be a fan, and took a selfie that would become instantly iconic. The photo has since received millions of likes and views on social media. “At the beginning of the season I always take selfies with players [who score], so for this one I said ‘OK, I have to think of something special because it’s a picture that’s going to be there forever’,” he later said. But the moment may not have been quite as spontaneous. The phone Salah used is made by Google, one of Liverpool’s sponsors, and the person he took the phone from turned out to be a Liverpool employee. It may have been planned, but that did not stop it from going viral.

defence stocks rallyHo Chi Minh CitySatya Chandrashekarendra SaraswatiThe Ethics of AIVijay Wadettiwar