India gets aggressive in the electric car race; An Instagram post could lead the taxmen to you

India refuses to be left behind in the electric car revolution. The government is pushing international and national carmakers behind the scenes to establish necessary EV technologies on a very aggressive timeline, inspired by a deal between Australia and Elon Musk to solve Southern Australia’s brownouts in 100 days — or do it for free. The India challenge would mean quickly setting up factories to build vehicles, batteries and a charging infrastructure, though the scale and schedule of the projects is not yet known. India, among the world’s fastest-growing car markets, has promised to electrify all vehicles sold in the country by 2030.  

Infosys wants you to know it’s unfazed by recent chaos: it will continue to add about 6,000 net engineers annually in the next two years, as it did in the past year, said its interim CEO UB Pravin Rao. No word on where those hires will be located — Infosys does not share headcount per country — though the company has been scaling up its hiring process in the US and European markets. Meanwhile in India, IT is hurting: the top 7 firms, Infosys included, are laying off an estimated 56,000 people at least this year, twice the previous year’s numbers, often by rating their performance lower to prepare their exit. It could be a matter of finding the right talent: while a million graduates make it on the Indian job market each year, only 20 to 30% are quality talent, Rao also said.

The market regulator wants to cut through the clutter in mutual funds.The Securities and Exchange Board of India recommended tightening the definitions of mutual funds categories, from more than 2,000 types of schemes offered by 40+ mutual fund houses, to perhaps half that. This should make it easier for investors to choose a relevant scheme.

Companies need to think beyond offering an attractive salary or employee benefits if they want to hire talented engineers. According to a study by consulting firm Zinnov, fresh engineering graduates consider work-life balance and career development opportunities as the most important factors while deciding where to work. Pay and benefits only come in 3rd and 4th. The study shows that Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and Apple have emerged as favourites.

Think twice before uploading the photo of your newly-bought expensive watch or jewellery on social media. The income tax department’s “Project Insight” will now analyse mismatches in income declarations and spending patterns based on information revealed on social media. Project Insight is part of the government’s larger plan to crack down on tax evaders and black money hoarders. It’s now in beta testing and likely to launch next month. Clean up those feeds…  

Idea of the Day: Multitasking fries your attention span. Heavy multitaskers are more easily distracted, according to Stanford research; when they try to focus on one task, their brains activate more areas than needed — “a neural indicator of distraction,” explains psychologist, speaker and author Daniel Goleman. But don’t worry, multitaskers: The same research found that exercises like breath counting and mindful meditation can help restore that ability to focus.

“Attention tasks don’t really go on in parallel, as ‘multitasking’ implies; instead they demand rapid switching from one thing to the other. And following every such switch, when our attention returns to the original task, its strength has been appreciably diminished.”

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— Nirajita Banerjee / Share this using #DailyRundownIndia