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News18
3 days ago
- Business
- News18
The Idli On Your Plate: Vedic Origins, Global Exploits
Last Updated: Even a century ago, Idli was a dish largely confined to the Tamil-speaking regions. This is rather intriguing given the fact that the Idli's origins are Vedic Idli vies with information technology as one of the enduring Indian success stories of globalisation. Its unparalleled conquest occurred silently and went unnoticed even as it was unfolding. Today, there is no continent where you don't find Idli. Globalisation didn't just usher in the Microsofts and the Googles to India. It also brought American corporatised, stock-market-traded food-producing factories like KFC, Pizza Hut, McDonalds and Taco Bell. Each spent millions to first study the Indian market before entering it. All of them ultimately ate the humble pie here. Nothing proclaims their admission of defeat more loudly than their India-centric menus. Nowhere else in the world would you see an Ultimate Tandoori Veggie, a Nawabi Murg Makhni, a Dhabe da Kheema, an Indian Tandoori Zinger Burger, an Indian Paneer Zinger Burger, Mazedar Makhni Paneer Pizza, or a Tikka Masala Burrito (veg and non-veg). It is a crime of cosmic proportions when we observe that the discerning power of the Indian palate has not been given its due honour. Nothing screams 'conviction" louder than the finely-honed Indian taste bud, which singlehandedly brought these gigantic American food chains to their knees in an astonishingly swift time, forcing them to reinvent and Indianise themselves. But thanks to prolonged colonisation, the average Indian initially attached prestige and glamour value to these American food chains. Yet, his taste buds did not allow him to lie. Overall, stepping inside an American fast food chain is akin to stepping inside the shop floor of a factory. What you get there is a product, not food. In a parallel development, the Idli was quietly steamrolling its humble brigade. Just as the McDonalds of the world were attempting to culinarily invade India led by an advance party of Excel sheets and PowerPoint presentations, the Idli had already made an impressive presence in the Western hemisphere. It required no 'strategising" to customise it to Western tastebuds. It needed no corporate think tanks and strategists and expensive ad agencies. And its silent conquest has remained unchanged from the day it was born. To my mind, the best tribute that we can pay the Idli is twofold. The first is its physical appearance, which resembles the fully-rounded and stainless smile of a cherub. The second is its intrinsic and unpretentious purity. The Idli is tasteless but irresistible; it is bland but harmless; it causes no stomach upset and is easily digestible; it can be eaten with almost any accompaniment — chutney, curry, broth, pickle, saagu…anything. In short, you are powerless to resist the alluring suzerainty of the Idli. It is the topmost dish on the menu of any restaurant throughout South India. This holds true for any restaurant throughout India that serves south Indian food. Yet, for all its virtuous prowess, the Idli's conquest of the world is a relatively recent story. Even a century ago, Idli was a dish largely confined to the Tamil speaking regions. This is rather intriguing given the fact that the Idli's origins are Vedic. Sri Sediyapu Krishna Bhatta was one of the most distinguished and original scholars in language, linguistics, aesthetics and prosody. After ransacking about three millennia worth of primary sources in most Indian languages, he has narrated the full history of Idli in a delightful Kannada essay titled, iḍliya itihāsa (The History of Idli). It bears his characteristic distinction — depth and breadth of multidisciplinary scholarship, and meticulous reasoning. He begins with an intense technical investigation into the word Idli, that takes up three-plus pages. It is a highly pleasurable scholastic journey interspersed with vivid scenes of socio-cultural history, etymology, morphology and phonology. The following is its condensed version. In the Sanskrit-English Dictionary of V.S. Apte, he finds the following words: 1. इण्ड्रः iṇḍrah 2. इण्ड्रम् iṇḍram 3. इण्ड्रवम् iṇḍravam (used in the dual): This means, 'two small, round plates used as coverings for the hands in taking the fire-pans from the fire." It occurs in the phrase, 'अथैनमिण्ड्राभ्यां परिगृह्णाति" (athainamiṇḍrābhyāṃ parigṛhṇāti) occurring in the Satapatha Brahmana. To state the obvious, the earliest mention of the word iṇḍram occurs in the Satapatha Brahmaṇa, which dates back to at least seven thousand years. The context in which it occurs has unambiguous connotations related to Yajna. On the physical plane, iṇḍra ( इण्ड्र) was a utensil, the aforementioned two small round plates. This utensil is exactly what is used even today to make Idlis. Over the millennia, the number of these plates have increased more than a hundredfold — as seen typically in fast food South Indian restaurants. However, the physical form and shape of the utensil has remained intact. After this, Sri Sediyapu traces the phonetic changes that the word iṇḍra underwent in the realms of space and space. It variously morphed into inḍrī, inḍari, iḍḍalige, iḍḍali, and finally, iḍli in Kannada. The earliest mention of the word iḍḍalige occurs in the Haḻagannaḍa (Old Kannada) work titled Vaḍḍārādhane, dating back to the 9th century CE. Then we have the Ayurvedic treatise titled, cakradattā saṃhita (10th – 11th century), which contains this verse: godhāpadīmūlayuktām khādet māṣemḍarīm naraḥ | jayet ślīpada rogottham jvaram ghoraṃ na saṃśayaḥ || When the root of the godhāpadī plant is mixed with blackgram and ground into a fine powder and the inḍari dish prepared from this mixture is eaten, it cures the terrible fever caused by elephantiasis. The verse makes it clear that Idli was prepared in this manner using blackgram. It is interesting to note that Chakrapanidatta, author of the Cakradattā saṃhita lived in the Gauda-Desha or Bengal. top videos View all (To be continued) The author is the founder and chief editor, The Dharma Dispatch. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views. view comments Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: August 10, 2025, 18:27 IST News opinion Opinion | The Idli On Your Plate: Vedic Origins, Global Exploits Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Business Insider
21-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Terminal's CEO hosts a monthly dinner with CTOs. Here's what he's heard about AI's impact on tech jobs.
Dylan Serota hosts monthly dinner parties with chief technology officers. The topic everyone's wanted to talk about lately is AI coding tools, he told Business Insider. Serota is CEO of Terminal, a talent platform for software engineers and developers. Last year, he told Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale that none of his dinner party guests believed AI would cut into software engineering jobs. Even as AI coding tools have grown more self-sufficient, Serota hasn't changed his view. That doesn't mean the job of a software engineer isn't changing. "There's absolutely consensus that the job is evolving," Serota told BI. "There's job evolution, not necessarily job replacement." Serota said his dinner party guests were bullish on AI coding tools, recognizing the "productivity gains" they could offer their teams. Simple engineering tasks may become cheaper as a result— but Serota said this will push tech companies to do more and not to pull back in engineering head count. "Being able to increase basically the corpus of data, the corpus of software, you actually will continue to invest in more software engineers to do things," Serota said. Running a talent platform, Serota's business relies on the demand for software engineers. He also interfaces with them — and the companies that are hiring them — firsthand. Some have slowed hiring, he said, but others have sped up. What's changing, Serota points out, is the type of engineers that tech companies are hiring for. "We used to get requests from people like, 'I want a Python developer,'" Serota said. "They were hiring very language- or domain-oriented skill sets for specific positions. That has transitioned now. They just want general really good engineers and a lot more emphasis on engineering fundamentals." Serota said that companies were less interested in who can "write code" and more interested in who can "think like an engineer." While job replacement remains up for debate, AI code editors will certainly transform the industry. At tech behemoths like Microsoft and Google, some 30% of code is written by AI. Business leaders speaking candidly about the potential job impacts of AI can be a delicate balancing act — and just because CTOs may be saying they don't expect to replace software engineers due to AI, it's still a possibility. In June, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wrote a memo to the company that AI would "reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains." Serota's dinner party guests are not necessarily from the Amazons and Googles of the world. More are CTOs from "leading startups and growth-stage companies" than Fortune 500 leaders, which may change their vantage point, he said. Serota declined to list any of his invitees. Tech companies may also be more cautious around AI coding tools than expected. Serota pointed to a recent study which suggested use of code editors led to productivity losses among experienced engineers. "There's some companies that even don't allow junior engineers to use AI tools," Serota said, fearing they could lead to "broad dependence." Other companies handling more sensitive information also still have security concerns. Serota said that some dinner guests worried that opening up their libraries to code editors would make the data vulnerable. "Those concerns are smaller in number, because people are so excited about what you can do, but those things surprise me," he said. From Serota's vantage point, software engineers shouldn't panic. "The demand for engineers is increasing, not decreasing," he said.
Yahoo
24-06-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Nissan applies for ILC charter from FDIC
This story was originally published on Banking Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Banking Dive newsletter. Nissan Motor Acceptance Co. has applied for an industrial loan company charter from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Utah Department of Financial Institutions, the Japanese carmaker said Friday. 'Forming Nissan Bank U.S. gives us greater flexibility to serve dealers more efficiently and competitively – so they can better serve their customers,' Kevin Cullum, president of Nissan's financial services arm, said in a press release. 'From small towns to major markets, this Bank will help dealers access the tools they need to grow – while reinforcing our long-term investment in the U.S. market.' The carmaker did not detail what specific products a charter would allow it to offer to make financing more flexible or cost-effective. Nonetheless, Nissan joins a spate of automotive firms vying for an ILC charter. GM Financial, for example, resubmitted its application for an ILC charter in January. Ford, similarly, applied to become an industrial bank in 2022. Regulators' prevailing stance on ILCs appears to be shifting. FDIC Acting Chair Travis Hill, in an April speech, cited greater acceptance of ILCs as one of several ways to boost the number of new banks in the U.S. Some lawmakers, however, have long argued the ILC designation exempts companies from the definition of a 'bank' under the Bank Holding Company Act. As long as industrial banks don't offer demand deposit accounts, they can bypass oversight by the Federal Reserve, opponents have said. 'The Rakutens and the Googles of the world shouldn't be able to circumvent the Fed,' Sen. John Kennedy, R-LA, said in 2019, introducing a bill to close that 'loophole.' 'If they're allowed to handle your banking services, they're going to turn into continents,' he said. Michele Alt, a co-founder of financial services advisory and investment firm Klaros Group, which advised Nissan on its ILC move, said such charters have existed in the U.S. in some form for more than 100 years, noting that the Competitive Equality in Banking Act eliminated 'nonbank banks' but preserved ILCs. 'An ILC is a lawful charter type that the FDIC is directed to approve if an applicant satisfies applicable statutory criteria, and opposition by competitors is not part of that approval criteria,' Alt said. Independent Community Bankers of America, a trade group, represents some of those 'competitors.' 'Any company that wishes to own a full-service bank should be subject to the same restrictions and supervision that apply to any other bank holding company,' ICBA CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey has said. Prospects for ILCs have seesawed over the years. The FDIC went more than a decade without approving any ILC charter applications, until it gave green lights to fintech Square (now Block) and student loan servicer Nelnet in 2020. But the applications have often languished for years. GM Financial applied for an ILC charter in December 2020 – and gained conditional approval from Utah's financial regulator 3½ years later – in June 2024. However, GM pulled the application from FDIC consideration 'to address feedback' from the agency, the company said. As recently as last year, at least one lawmaker, now-former Sen. Mitt Romney, urged action on pending ILC charter applications, arguing that industrial banks would 'provide critical access to credit opportunities within the regulated banking sector.' Romney represented Utah; Nissan Bank would be based in Salt Lake City. But the FDIC, during the Biden era, was largely reluctant to embrace the ILC. The agency last July proposed a rule that would have demanded industrial banks operate independently of their parent companies and required the FDIC to evaluate whether the ILC would meet its community's lending needs. Hill, who now runs the regulator, voted no on that proposal. 'Given the gravity of the policy issues at play, I think it would make sense for the FDIC to engage in a thoughtful, deliberative policymaking process to provide transparency around how we might approach this and other ILC-related questions,' Hill said at the time. The rule was not finalized before President Donald Trump's election brought about a leadership change at the FDIC. Since then, the queue of companies awaiting the agency's approval on ILC charters has only grown longer. OneMain Financial applied to become an industrial bank in March. Investment firm Edward Jones applied in April. Edward Jones, for one, had initially sought an ILC charter in 2020 but withdrew its application in 2022, citing the 'environment' at the time. Recommended Reading Finance firms outpacing other industries in work flexibility: survey Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Google Going to Trial After Doing Something Super Sketchy to Android Users
In the information age, data is gold — and Google has enough to make King Midas blush. But in this new economic paradigm, all that data comes at a price: privacy lawsuits. To amass its wealth, Google's been caught collecting personal information from users even in incognito mode, tracking location data even when location tracking is off, collecting children's personal information in violation of child safety laws, and selling millions of Americans' health data to a healthcare conglomerate — and that's just a taste. Now, Reuters reports that Google's going to trial in California after a class action lawsuit representing some 14 million state residents alleged the company gathered personal data from their phones even when they were off. The suit alleges that Google enables Android phones to send and receive info "for Google's own purposes," draining users' cellular data as they do. While the California suit is unique for going to trial, it's just one of 50 separate state class action lawsuits being brought against the tech company. Altogether, there are billions of dollars on the line. It's a big case with some major implications: can the companies that sell our phones — and in Google's case with Android, create the underlying operating system — decide whether or not we can ever turn them off? Google's response is telling. Rather than deny that it had collected data on powered-off Androids, it's saying that Android users gave their consent to Google's "passive" data harvesting when they agreed to the company's terms of service agreement, which is required to use the phone. Google is also challenging the core of the plaintiffs' argument — basically, that cell phone data doesn't count as personal property under California law. And if it isn't, then there's nothing wrong with Google taking it without permission. Ultimately, there's a lot of money riding in how the state classifies that nebulous data. George Zelcs, a lawyer representing the plantiffs, told Reuters that Android users aren't arguing against data collection when the phones are on and the apps are fired up. Instead, he notes that "these phone users unknowingly subsidize the same Google advertising business that earns over $200 billion a year." Googles usual tactic when it's caught nabbing data — to settle out of court for millions or sometimes billions of dollars — probably won't fly here, as the timeline reaches all the way back to 2016. With millions of defendants and unfathomable quantities of data at play, any sort of settlement is likely to run in the "tens of billions," according to Reuters. Time will tell whether that's less costly than if Google were to lose all that juicy data altogether. More on law: A Mother Says an AI Startup's Chatbot Drove Her Son to Suicide. Its Response: the First Amendment Protects "Speech Allegedly Resulting in Suicide"
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Breaking Up Google Could Be a Disaster for Open Internet
I am no fan of Google. But forcing the company to sell off Chrome - which is exactly what the government aims to do in an ongoing antitrust lawsuit - threatens to break the open Internet far more than it protects it. A key component to the governments case pertains to Googles Chrome browser and argues that allowing its continued ownership of Chrome creates a monopoly. Lets look at a few alternatives: Microsofts Edge, Brave, and Opera. What do all of these have in common? Theyre all built on whats called Chromium, which is an open-source version of Chrome - with Googles components (see: spyware) stripped out. From there, developers are free to build whatever code theyd like to, such as Edges built-in Copilot and Braves native ad-blocking. Google is under no obligation to provide its open-source Chromium foundation for competitors to use, much less continue to invest in and improve. Forcing Google to sell Chrome would risk upending this ecosystem. It should be little surprise that none other than OpenAI has expressed interest in purchasing Chrome if it is spun off. The irony of selling off the browser from Google under the guise of breaking up monopolies only to hand it to the largest AI platform - which is currently smoking Google in the field - was apparently lost on the government. So what? Wouldnt people be free to just switch to a non-Chromium browser? While this is an option, its becoming less and less realistic. Edge, Brave, and the like are fast, and they feel like using Chrome because theyre built on the same source code. There are only two mainstream alternatives out there away from this foundation, and both have their own issues. There is Safari, but that only works on Apple software. Alternatively, Mozillas Firefox is the last major browser to run on an engine independent from Chromium. However, it has been steadily declining in terms of performance and was recently embroiled in a PR crisis over privacy concerns. For the vast majority of users seeking a high-quality alternative to Chrome, Chromium is going to be the way to go. A second part of the governments case rests on the fact that Google has struck deals with different companies to make themselves the default search engine, including in Firefox. I have always found the case that making a search engine set as the default to be "monopolistic" to be extremely weak - Edge sets Bing as the default, which many users change immediately. However, this initially trivial complaint could have disastrous consequences for competition. Google has long paid Mozilla - among many other companies - to be the default search engine in Firefox, which has become their largest revenue source in recent years. The companys CFO testified last week that without the Google search deal, Firefox could be "doomed." Such a ruling could plausibly put an end to the last alternative to Chromium across platforms. Because, you know, monopolies. As is so often the case with government intervention, they spot what they perceive to be "bad behavior" and attempt to remedy it with alternatives that are often worse than the problem they set out to fix. The real-world fallout from this case could be quality alternatives to Chrome such as Edge and Brave losing access to the open-source bedrock theyre built on, and the complete collapse of Firefox itself. You need not be a fan of Google to recognize the potentially disastrous consequences this could have for the Internet as we know it. Kyle Moran is a political commentator with Young Voices, specializing in international affairs and national security. He graduated from the University of Rhode Island, and his work has been published widely from RealClearPolitics to the Washington Examiner.
