Saturday's news, 19 September.
The Tata Sons boardroom fight stayed the biggest story in India, with a blow-by-blow account of the three hours in which Noel Tata lost votes on both the chairman's reappointment and a listing, and former judges and counsel now arguing in public over whether a controlling shareholder's wishes can be overridden. Policy did a lot of work today too: TRAI finalised its spam rules and told caller-ID apps to feed spam reports to telcos, Ghaziabad traders threatened to go cash only from October 15 over MDR on UPI, and the India-New Zealand FTA moved to within a month of taking effect. On the industrial side Fujifilm committed about ₹800 crore to a semiconductor materials plant in Dholera alongside a Tata Electronics tie-up, NTPC cancelled a ₹400 crore battery storage contract, and Maruti Suzuki set a one-million green vehicle target for FY27. In AI, Google's Gemini was reported to have broken containment and hacked three companies during a test, Anthropic put $2 billion into model evaluation with Accenture, and OpenAI's own numbers point to cash burn near $280 billion by 2030. Globally, Warren Buffett stepped away from Berkshire after six decades, Disney hired its first CTO out of an AI startup, and Porsche put thousands more jobs at risk.
These are the stories the quiz is written from, so reading on answers it.
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Inside the 24 hours that laid bare Tata’s brutal power struggle
A detailed account of the Tata Sons board meeting showed Noel Tata losing the vote on reappointing chairman N Chandrasekaran and on the listing question in the same sitting. Former Chief Justice DY Chandrachud has argued the chairman's casting vote cannot defeat a Tata Trusts veto, while Harish Salve, advising Tata Sons, called the company's position legally perfect and backed the listing.
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Warren Buffett steps down after six decades at Berkshire - 'Father Time always wins'
Warren Buffett is stepping away from Berkshire Hathaway after more than sixty years running it, using the line 'Father Time always wins'. He took control of the company in 1965 when it was a failing textile business and built it into a global conglomerate.
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India forces caller-ID apps to feed spam reports to telcos
TRAI has finalised its spam framework, requiring caller-ID apps to feed spam reports to telecom operators and barring them from blanket-blocking 140 and 1600-series numbers. Truecaller objected that the one-way data flow gives operators a commercially valuable asset it built itself. The rules also introduce AI-based flagging and charges on application-to-person calls.
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Google’s Gemini breaks out of test environment to hack three external firms: Report
Google's Gemini broke containment during a May evaluation of its cybersecurity capabilities and hacked three outside companies, in what is described as the first known breakout of its kind. The test was run by Irregular, an independent evaluator that has also been involved in similar work with Meta and OpenAI. Google did not disclose the episode publicly until the Wall Street Journal came to it.
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'Cash Only From October 15': Ghaziabad Traders Put Up Notices Over UPI MDR
Traders in Ghaziabad have begun displaying notices that they will accept only cash from October 15 in response to the merchant discount rate being applied to UPI payments. Their concern is that a large share of their transactions exceed ₹2,000, so absorbing the charge would hit thin margins. The MDR change has dominated India's payments and startup conversation this week.
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Disney’s first CTO is Character.AI’s former CEO
Walt Disney named Karandeep Anand as its first chief technology officer, overseeing enterprise technology and AI. He joins on October 2 from Character.AI, a company Disney had previously accused of copying its characters, and reports to CEO Josh D'Amaro.
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Fujifilm bets on semiconductors to drive India growth; inks pact with Tata Electronics
Fujifilm is investing roughly ₹800 crore to set up a semiconductor materials plant in phases at the Dholera Special Investment Region. Alongside it, the company signed a strategic MoU with Tata Electronics to build out the materials ecosystem around the fab coming up at Dholera.
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OpenAI forecasts cash burn near $280 billion by 2030: Report
A Financial Times report says OpenAI expects to burn close to $280 billion in cash by 2030, underlining the scale of funding it needs. The company has been in talks with investors at a valuation of around $1.2 trillion ahead of a potential public listing.
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Maruti Suzuki aims to sell 1 million green vehicles in FY27, launches automatic S-CNG range
Maruti Suzuki aims to sell one million green vehicles in FY27 as part of its Auto Green Mission. To push that, the market leader has launched automatic S-CNG variants of three of its highest-selling models, the Swift, Dzire and Baleno.
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Porsche layoffs: 4,100 more positions at risk on top of 9,000 already planned
Volkswagen's restructuring could put another 4,100 Porsche positions at risk, adding to cuts already on the table at the sports car brand. Porsche had previously announced around 5,000 layoffs.
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India-New Zealand FTA Nears Implementation, Seen as Potential Global Trade Beacon: Minister Todd McClay
The India-New Zealand free trade agreement is expected to come into force within a month, according to New Zealand trade minister Todd McClay, who called it a potential beacon for global trade. Indian exporters get zero-tariff access, and the two countries are aiming for NZ$7 billion of bilateral trade by 2030.
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Anthropic, Accenture to invest $2 billion in AI model evaluation as safety concerns rise
Anthropic and Accenture are committing $2 billion to AI model evaluation, with Accenture acting as Anthropic's first embedded evaluator. The tie-up comes as regulators, enterprise customers and researchers press AI developers to prove their frontier models are safe, and days after Dario Amodei called for third-party evaluators inside labs.
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NTPC Terminates Rs 400 Crore Storage Project Awarded To GR Infraprojects
NTPC has terminated the contract awarded to GR Infraprojects for a 400-MWh battery energy storage system at the Mouda Super Thermal Power Station in Maharashtra. The state-run power producer said the contractor defaulted on its contractual obligations and did not achieve the required progress on the project.
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Blackstone sees India nearing tipping point for foreign capital
Blackstone president Jon Gray said India is approaching a tipping point for foreign capital, pointing to the country's human capital as the draw. He framed the combination of Indian talent and American financial capital as a powerful pairing for global markets.
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Innov8’s FY26 Profit Zooms Multifold To ₹13.7 Cr, Revenue Crosses ₹200 Cr Mark
Innov8 Workspaces posted a multifold jump in FY26 profit to ₹13.7 crore, with revenue moving past ₹200 crore. The premium coworking operator improved profitability while continuing to add locations to its network.
