What we're reading #2

This will include articles and even books that really gave us food for thought.

Hi folks, hope you’ve had a great week!

Our team at Markets is always reading, often much more than what might be considered healthy. So, we thought it would be nice to have an outlet to put out what we’re reading that isn’t part of our normal cycle of content.

So we’re kickstarting “What We’re Reading”, where every weekend, our team outlines the interesting things we’ve read in the past week. This will include articles and even books that really gave us food for thought.

We’d also love to know what has piqued your interest, too! Please feel free to let us know in the comments.

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What Bhuvan is reading

Iran, Week One (link)

A very thoughtful and sobering piece by Tom Stevenson in the London Review of Books on the first week of the attack on Iran by the US and Israel.

The sheer, spectacular stupidity of this war should be obvious to anyone with even a few functioning brain cells. Stevenson does a good job tracing the current state of the conflict. As the US and Israel continue to pound Iran, Iran has been retaliating by hitting US allies across the region—primarily US military bases and assets in places like Bahrain, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi.

What makes the piece particularly good is that Stevenson places the current attack in its historical context. He traces how the US has, for years, been itching to repeat what it did in Iraq, constantly searching for a pretext.

Even as I write this, events seem to be escalating. After the article was published, reports emerged that Iran had targeted water desalination plants in Bahrain. To my mind, that would mark a spectacular escalation in what is already a misguided and horrific war of aggression.

It is a deeply cynical war. We seem to be living in a time when Donald Trump has taken to heart that cliché that floats around places like Substack and Instagram: you can just do it.

You’ll regret it (link)

The second piece is also about Iran, this time by the brilliant Sam Kriss. I won’t ruin it with my own ersatz commentary. Just read it. It’s a savage takedown of the deeply cynical moment we seem to be living through.

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What Krishna is reading

Bengaluru’s fix for the water-tanker “mafia”: yet more tankers. What could go wrong? (link)

I’ve been living in Bangalore for the last 2.5 years, and within the first year itself, I remember there being a massive water crisis. At the time, I didn’t really understand what was happening — how the water supply actually works here, why tankers are everywhere, or what BWSSB even does. You just hear “water problem” and “tanker mafia” thrown around without much context.

This piece by The Ken is a brilliant breakdown of all of it. The government launched an app called Sanchari Cauvery to take on the private tanker operators—GPS-tracked tankers, BIS-certified water, 40% cheaper than market rates. Sounds great on paper. Nine months later, 10,000 downloads in a city of 14 million. A 2.8 rating on the Play Store.

And the reason it’s failing isn’t one thing — it’s everything. The utility doesn’t own most of its fleet, it leases tankers from the same operators it called a “mafia.” Those operators are dealing with delayed payments and broken economics. Apartment complexes, meanwhile, look at BWSSB’s tariffs and connection charges and realise their existing tanker guy is just as affordable and far more reliable.

A city that once had over 2,300 lakes now has fewer than 200. Really worth your time if you want to understand how Bangalore’s water problem actually works.

India Is the AI World’s Most Valuable Unpaid Intern (link)

We (India) have the engineers, the data, and we are rapidly becoming one of the biggest AI user bases in the world. But what we dont have is the compute, it doesn’t have foundational research at scale, and most importantly, we arent treating data like a strategic asset. We are just… giving it away. This piece’s framing is very sharp: India is basically the AI world’s most valuable unpaid intern. Training Silicon Valley’s models for free. Worth a read.

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