Hello,
The H-1B visa shakeup has turned dreams into nightmares.
US President Donald Trump, in an executive order, has slapped a $100,000 fee on H-1B visa applications. Indians, who account for 71% of all approvals, are set to be hit the hardest.
Indian IT giant TCS, the second-biggest beneficiary after Amazon with over 5,000 approvals in 2025, is expected to feel the brunt.
Other top beneficiaries include Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Google, Deloitte, Infosys, Wipro, and Tech Mahindra Americas.
Ajay Bhutoria, former advisor to President Joe Biden, warned of a potential crisis for the US technology sector’s competitive edge.
Indian entrepreneurs aren’t holding back either. Former Infosys CFO and industry veteran Mohandas Pai said the move will dampen fresh applications and may accelerate offshoring in the coming months.
This rule may also negatively impact India’s tech landscape. NASSCOM says Indian IT companies operating in the US may face business disruption for onshore projects.
While giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and JP Morgan have advised their staff to return to the US before the September 21 deadline, Cognizant has advised all employees on H-1B visas to halt international travel.
And while policy changes rattled the tech world, in Chennai, the buzz was all about AI’s next frontier at DevSparks Chennai 2025.
In today’s newsletter, we will talk about
- How AI is reshaping industries in real time
- A journey through Poomaale Estate in Coorg
- Homegrown drone tech startup
Here’s your trivia for today: Which is the only country that sits atop four tectonic plates?
DevSparks
How AI is reshaping industries in real time
At DevSparks 2025, Jigar Halani, Director, Solution Architect & Engg at NVIDIA, laid out a bold vision for how artificial intelligence, particularly agentic AI, will reshape industries across the country.
Greater good:
- As a case study, Halani pointed out that India’s biometric identity system Aadhaar, which covers nearly 1.4 billion citizens, has started using LLMs to automatically respond to citizen grievances.
- Halani highlighted that Bhashini, a government-backed platform, can now provide machine translation and speech technologies across languages.
- The rise of reasoning models allows AI to handle constraints and logic in ways that earlier systems could not. This ability, he argued, is especially relevant to India’s judiciary, where more than 52 million cases remain pending.
Travel & Leisure
A journey through Poomaale Estate in Coorg
One can’t call Blyton a resort in the conventional sense; it encompasses the essence of Coorg’s diverse ecology and raw beauty. The large, but homely, guesthouse is decorated with modest Mangaluru tiles, wide verandas, and wooden chairs, which build a perfect ambience for long hours of coffee and conversation, interspersed by the chirps of birds and a gushing waterfall.
Recharging:
- Meals at Blyton Bungalow were as much a reflection of the land as the treks. Every dish was sourced either from the Poomaale Estate itself or from one of its sister properties or “collectives” in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, operated by their parent entity, Beforest.
- At Poomaale, coffee was earthy and robust, harvested, dried, and roasted just a few hundred meters away from Blyton.
- Poomaale Estate’s beauty best unfolds on foot. The trail was alive with fungi following the monsoon rains, as well as many fruit trees, specifically litchi, rambutan, and mandarins.
Startup
Homegrown drone tech startup
Meet Zuppa, a Chennai-based startup that develops hardware and software for surveillance, mapping, logistics, and mission-critical operations.
Its drones are equipped with AI, swarming technology (where multiple drones together coordinate like a flock), and GPS-independent navigation to address both commercial and national security needs. They can carry and drop payloads with precision guidance software while maintaining a strong emphasis on cybersecurity and fully indigenous development.
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News & updates
- Mega deal: Oracle is in talks with Meta for a multi-year cloud computing deal worth about $20 billion, underscoring the social media giant’s drive to secure faster access to computing power, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.
- Preparedness: India is considering setting up a strategic reserve of critical minerals for emergency use in defence manufacturing, joining other countries that are accelerating efforts to build a domestic supply chain, according to Rajesh Kumar Singh, a top Ministry of Defence official.
- Disruption: A cyberattack at a service provider for check-in and boarding systems has disrupted operations at several major European airports, including London’s Heathrow, causing flight delays and cancellations. Brussels Airport and Berlin Airport were also affected.
Which is the only country that sits atop four tectonic plates?
Answer: Japan. It sits at the intersection of the North American Plate, Eurasian Plate, Pacific Plate, and Philippine Sea Plate.
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