This Week in Tech India (TWITI) #38 of 2025

H1B madness. So the Trump administration increased – without warning – the fee for new H1B visas from US companies almost 20 times to $100,000/- per visa. This immediately caused a lot of confusion, with companies like Microsoft telling its H1B-status-based employees who were currently overseas to return to the US as soon as possible. Then a couple of days later, the Government published ‘clarifications’ that this new nonsense-fee was only for new H1B visa applications, and does not apply to existing ones and renewals.

In response, the Indian Government put out a carefully worded diplomatic response, where the Government highlighted the concern that this could disrupt families, and that they expect the US Government to address this concern.

This whole episode is the latest in a series of bizarre measures that the Trump administration is taking against India. From the tariffs, to the threat of further tariffs, to calling India a ‘dead economy’, and this. All in very short time. Okay, the H1B fee applies to ALL visa applications, but more than 70% of H1B visa holders are Indians.

They say it’s because we are buying Russian oil. But the thing is, if India doesn’t buy oil from Russia, India will likely have to buy oil from Iran – which is also under sanctions. This whole thing is a mess of Trump’s making. So far, our response has been measured and only deemed necessary, which shows that the Indian Government is far more mature and level headed than the US Government.

Heck, the US President Trump also made a show about wishing PM Modi on his birthday, and saying that India and the US are working together to resolve trade disputes…. that the Trump administration created. This was BEFORE the H1B mess.

Seems like Trump is like that toxic ex-girlfriend, who finds it hard to move on.

Anyway, closer to home, here’s what else happened this week in Tech India:

• Tata Technologies has acquired 100% equity shares of ES-Tech GmbH and its subsidiaries (collectively, ES-Tec Group) for a total cash consideration of €75 million. Es-Tech is an automobile engineering services provider with “deep domain expertise in Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), Connected Driving, and Digital Engineering. With a talent pool of over 300 skilled professionals, ES-Tec has built a strong reputation for delivering complex systems engineering solutions to its customers.” Das ist gut?
• Swiggy has launched a new app in Pune called Toing, which is aimed at delivering budget eats. Apart from being fun to say (“Toing”, haha!) this app is said to compete with Rapido’s Ownly (see TWITI #33 of 2025) and is different from its other apps like Snacc, which targets 10 minute snacks in select cities. Btw reminder that Swiggy owns six other apps – Instamart, Dineout, Crew, and more.
• The Government of India has proposed a 20 year tax exemption for Data Centre developers, provided they meet target employment generation, capacity generation, and power usage effectiveness. Whether this proposal gets approve or not, this is another strong message from the Government on India’s tech domination ambitions,.
• British semiconductor global leader Arm has a new unit in Bengaluru, which will focus on will focus on designing cutting-edge chips, including advanced two-nanometre (2nm) nodes, union electronics and IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told reporters in Bengaluru earlier this week. This is a big deal because smaller chips are more advanced, denser, faster and more power-efficient than bigger ones. Vaishnaw said Arm’s 2nm chip design programme would make it only the second such company after Renesas to achieve this benchmark in India, while indicating more advanced projects are in the pipeline.
• Rolls-Royce opens its largest aerospace Global Capability Centre (GCC) in Bangalore. A press release from Rolls-Royce said, “This (the centre) is in addition to the company’s plans to double its sourcing from India over the next five years, accelerating the integration of Indian suppliers into its global supply chain.” As of today, over 1,400 Rolls-Royce engines power various platforms of the Indian Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Army. More than 3,000 people work across its ecosystem, including 2,000 highly skilled engineers contributing to global development programmes.
• Groww, the online investment platform, officially files for IPO after it received SEBI approval. This is on the heels of Urban Company’s blockbuster IPO last week, and more IPOs from the likes of boAt and Oyo to come.
• TCS announces a deal with Vodafone India to “to transform their business support system (BSS) through an AI-driven and future ready platform. The five-year engagement will help India’s leading telecom service provider unlock new capabilities in customer experience by deploying a next-gen platform focused on intelligence, automation, personalization and accelerated launch of new product and services.” At this stage, it will take more than AI to save VI (see what I did that?!) from bankruptcy.
• The Indian Government has named eight organisations, including IIT Bombay, Tech Mahindra and Fractal Analytics, to build foundational large language models (LLMs) under the IndiaAI Mission.
• PhonePe, Paytm and Cred shutdown their rent payment services after RBI curbs. Users will no longer be able to use fintech apps to route their rent payments through credit cards and will now have to go back to online banking or cheques.
• Zomato (parent company: Eternal) partners with Make My Trip to have food delivered on trains. The partnership will allow the food delivery major to deliver food at 130 more railway stations across the country. I mean, if I’m taking a train I do love vada from Karjat but I don’t want to get out of the train on my way to Pune. Anyway.
• Nvidia paid $900m to buy Enfabrica. I’m including this here to tell you all that Enfabrica is not and Indian company – contrary to what many news outlets are saying. It has an Indian-origin CEO. It is Silicon Valley based.

By the way, this week the iPhone 17 series officially went on sale in India, and there were scenes of a mad rush and riot outside BKC’s Apple Store. And the first person to buy the iPhone in India got…. what he paid for. Nothing more. 🤷🏽‍♂️