Flex fuel for India’s energy independence

 

Graphic based on an article by Vipin Labroo. Visuals generated with AI assistance.

India’s huge dependence on fossil fuel imports more often than not makes it strategically vulnerable to geo strategic headwinds. Add to that the fact that the environmental damage caused by excessive reliance on such a source of energy is visibly manifest in increasing incidence of extreme weather incidents, isn't it time that India found an alternative to fossil fuels real fast so that it can inure itself against having to depend upon an unreliable source of fuel, often used as a tool of strategic blackmail by foreign powers? That such an alternative source of energy would be easier on the environment would be the icing on the cake.

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What are the alternatives available to India in this regard? Promoting the use of electric vehicles is certainly on the cards, but one has to remember that the matching infrastructure has to come up fast. One also has to, however, bear in mind that if the power used to charge EVs does not come from a non-polluting source, we will not really be addressing the environmental issue in the best possible way

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Using flex fuel, which is a mixture of petrol and ethanol in varying proportions, is emerging as a viable and practical way of reducing one’s dependence on unreliable fossil fuel imports. What makes it very viable is the fact that ethanol is a by product of the process that converts sugarcane to sugar. It can also be made from surplus and damaged grain like rice, corn and other kinds of cereals. Given the size of the Indian agricultural sector, this is something that can be seriously looked at as a source of easily available bio fuel or flex fuel.

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Brazil, another major sugarcane producer, has long been held as the model to emulate when it comes to bio fuel or flex fuel adoption. In the aftermath of the oil shock of the 1970s, Brazil decided to start using ethanol in a major way to cut down on its reliance on fossil fuels to power its cars. In fact, cars in Brazil used to run on 100 percent ethanol right till the 2000s, when they  began to use flex fuel, and today it is common to find vehicles fueling up on flex fuel ranging from E27 (27 percent ethanol and 73 percent petrol) right through varying combinations -E30, E50 and E75 to E100. People generally opt for a combination based on the prevailing prices of petrol and ethanol.

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India achieved the E20 (20 percent ethanol and 80 percent petrol) blending target five years ahead of schedule in 2025, marking an important milestone in the nation’s flex fuel journey. Giving a further fillip to this journey towards widespread flex fuel adoption, leading Indo-Japanese car manufacturer Maruti Suzuki have announced the launch of a true blue flex fuel variant of their popular Wagon R model that is capable of running on any ethanol- petrol combination ranging from E20 all the way till E100.

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In anticipation of a growing demand for flex-fuel cars, the state-owned Indian Oil Corporation has already opened an E85 fuel dispensing petrol pump in Delhi, a first among many such pumps that are expected to open in major urban centres. What is interesting is the fact that the price of E85 has been kept 20 percent lower than the price of the E20 fuel sold at regular Indian petrol pumps.

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As more and more car manufacturers come out with flex fuel compatible vehicles and the availability of blended E85 and even E199 fuel becomes more commonplace, we may begin to see the start of a bona fide transition from relying exclusively on hard to come by fossil fuel to fuel we can practically  grow on our land. The sooner that happens, the better it is for us, as we can't wait for another global  oil crisis to hold our economy and people to ransom. The world can have its geostrategic wrangles while we look contentedly at our crops of sugarcane and breathe a sigh of relief!

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Will AI cause a water crisis?

 

Illustration: AI-generated infographic based on the author's article, "Will AI Cause a Water Crisis?"

AI has dominated conversations in recent years, causing equal amounts of hope and fear amongst its supporters and detractors, respectively, owing to its ability to massively enhance productivity, even while it threatens to make human employees redundant. What has perhaps gone unnoticed is that AI may be contributing to a water crisis in a world already reeling from an environmental crisis brought about by more than a century of rapacious, largely unhindered exploitation of the earth’s scarce natural resources. Is AI going to add another disappointing chapter to this sordid saga?

​Water Guzzling Data Centres are the Problem

It is data centres that make AI tick, but in the process consume a lot of water to cool down the servers that help in carrying out tasks ranging from summarising a document to creating an image. What that does to a country like India, where 342 million people out of a population of 1.4 billion people don’t have access to safe water, is something that needs to be seriously looked at. Water-hungry data centre infrastructure is expected to annually consume enough water to satisfy the water needs of 1.3 billion people at the end of the decade. In India, it is projected that data centres’ annual water consumption could cater to Mumbai’s water needs for a whole week. Apart from the above, the fact that the electricity generated for running a data centre also requires water adds to the problem.

​That being stated, data centres are not the only business or industrial activity that consumes a lot of water. There have been quite a few heavy industries in the past that required the use of a lot of water. The steel, textile, chemical and paper & pulp industries are cases in point in this regard. But the problem with data centres, specifically is that these are often located in areas where water resources are already very strained. The situation gets exacerbated by global warming, which can further negatively impact the availability of water.

​Can you have data centres and yet avert a water crisis?

Given that no country, including the most populous one in the world like India, can afford to lag behind with regard to AI adoption, one has to look at managing the negative fallout of such a policy with regard to pressure on scarce water resources. For instance, data centres could look at rainwater harvesting or treated wastewater for their cooling needs. They could also look at using seawater for cooling the servers, something which gives coastal cities like Visakhapatnam an advantage. No wonder that Reliance Industries  has decided to set up a 1.5 GW data centre there.

​Improved cooling technologies like air cooling and liquid cooling, as well closed loop systems, can also help reduce the consumption of water for cooling data centre servers. Besides, the use of more efficient newer chips that require less energy and cooling than in the past helps mitigate the situation as well.

​Data centre growth- planning is the key

Data centre growth may be inevitable in an era that is already defined by AI, but allowing that to happen in an unplanned, haphazard and random manner can prove disastrous for water security across nations at a time when climate change is already negatively impacting water availability across the globe. Ensuring that data centres don’t come up in regions facing water scarcity and choosing optimal infrastructure design is of the essence here. The implementation of efficient water management practices can help ensure that the growth of data centres provides an impetus to the growth of AI in countries around the world, rather than lead to debilitating water crises.

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Why do we have the most ill mannered and badly behaved drivers in the whole bloody world?

 

AI-generated illustration created with ChatGPT based on an article by Vipin Labroo.

Private vehicle ownership has exploded exponentially in India over the last thirty to forty years. While less than 1% of Indian families owned cars in the early 1990s, the percentage has gone up to 8 to 10% in recent times. This may be a miniscule percentage compared to 91.7% for American households that own at least one vehicle, affirming our being firmly in the developing nation category, but the hubris displayed on the roads across Indian cities and towns by these Johnnys come lately is appalling.

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It seems no rules apply to Indian car drivers. The bigger the car is, the fewer the rules that apply. The recent rash of incidents involving drivers of the all-mighty and all-conquering Mahindra Thar SUVs is a case in point. There is utter scorn for speed limits, with cars driven by rank nut cases tearing down the narrow roads and streets of residential areas and societies with gay abandon. People, often regardless of age and sex, drive like they have a grand prix race to win or are participating in the shooting of a car chase in a Hollywood thriller. Woe betide the poor genteel soul driving at a reasonable speed of 40 to 50 kilometres an hour if they come in the way of these speed devils.

The fiends in their mean machines will honk so loudly that you will get a heart attack. Why they might even swerve their car to a stop right ahead of yours after overtaking you, forcing you to stop as well and brace for a face-to-face confrontation with them, which might not end well for you. Discretion is the better part of valour for most average people who drive a car only to get from point A to B and are not trying to prove any point.

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Things seem to get worse with every passing year, as evidenced by the fact that people think nothing of driving against the flow of traffic, if it saves them some time, never mind the jams and chaos that they cause in doing so. This is a phenomenon that is witnessed even on the new expressways that get inaugurated with alarming regularity these days. What is behind the fact that our drivers are so obviously uncultured and even uncouth these days?

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Things weren’t so bad three to four decades back when there were far fewer people who could afford to own and drive cars. There were only the stately Ambassadors, Premier Padminis and Standards on the roads driven gently  by people who were so much better behaved and civilised than most of today’s drivers. There were long delays in the delivery of cars bought by people those days, as these needed to be booked in advance and one had to patiently  wait for one’s turn to come. Maybe their patience developed on account of waiting and waiting for the elusive car keys to land in their hands.

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Apart from government officials who were officially given cars  for their transportation needs, most car owners came from amongst high-ranking private sector employees, business people, officers in the armed forces and professionals like doctors and chartered accountants. These were the creme de la creme of society, not necessarily in terms of wealth, but certainly in terms of social mores, and it showed in the way that they drove their cars.

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As the nation slowly becomes wealthier, the number of people who can afford cars has gone up significantly, but sadly what has been lost is good manners, decency, decorum and the right set of values required when driving on a road shared with people. This is witnessed not just in the way that many people drive, but also in the way that they behave when they travel anywhere as tourists.

Talking loudly, throwing trash anywhere and everywhere like it is nobody’s business, acting entitled and picking up fights at will defines such worthies. No wonder that people are throwing up their hands in horror from Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh back home to Vietnam, Thailand and nation after nation around the world.

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People need to understand that something like driving can be a pleasure if carried out in a civilized manner. Follow the rules, don’t be aggressive and spare a thought for others driving on the road. If you are a genuine car buff, then take pride in your knowledge about different kinds of cars on the roads in terms of what brand they are, the kind of power they generate, what kind of fuel they use, their mileage and other features.

Become a member of a Beetle cars group or take part in a classic or vintage car rally. There is a whole global culture built around cars that you can choose to be proud of (check out former late night TV host Jay Leno’s private car collection online, for example and learn about cars). Blasting loud and rustic music with bawdy lyrics meant to disturb and driving like a deranged lunatic at top speed to terrify everybody on the road is not the way to be. Time to grow up.

AI Video Generator vs. Human Video Production- where are we headed in 2026?

 

Image generated using AI based on original content by Vipin Labroo.

AI video generation seems to have crossed the Rubicon when it comes to its going mainstream vis-à-vis traditional human video production. In 2026, it is has manifested itself as a technology that can deliver in spades to content creators across the board. AI video generators are now quite capable of creating extremely real-looking clips that are as long as sixty seconds by way of just a text prompt.[1]

They have, in fact, gone several steps ahead, in that they can automatically and autonomously generate whole videos without any access to a script or images. Converting a write-up to a video in no time can help marketers come up with a promotional video without having to expend much time and money in creating new footage. Great speed is AI video generation’s defining advantage over traditional video creation. It can, for instance, highlight the important parts and make helpful background music suggestions in practically no time. This can help power a brand or marketing manager’s social media campaign in a spectacular fashion.

Besides, AI video generators can help marketers personalize videos by incorporating prospect or client demographics, helping in much better engagement and ultimately enhanced sales. AI is expected to change the paradigm of video generation by not only writing scripts but also creating whole new virtual worlds with real-looking people speaking like real people. No longer does one have to hire script writers and voice actors to create an impactful video. What’s more, all of that happens, almost in a jiffy.

AI video production has arrived in 2026 and how. While human-made videos are well-entrenched and will definitely always be around, as they forge a deep human connection with the audience and serve as a testament to truth and fact, the sheer convenience, versatility, and cost-effectiveness of AI videos make them increasingly all-pervasive. Which creator would not want to create videos on the go that are very high quality, ultra realistic, very smart, incisive and hard hitting? It is almost a fait accompli when compared with the traditional, old fashioned way of making video content.

The rise and rise of AI video generation in 2026 is quite apparent when you look at a few stats pertaining to their growth.[2]

• The global video generation market is expected to touch $18.6 billion by the end of 2026.
• As many as 78% of marketing teams are now known to use AI-generated tools in at least one campaign every quarter.
• AI video tools bring down the average cost of video production by 91% when compared with traditional video making.
• It is estimated that by 2030, a whopping 90% of all online video content will have seen some form of assistance from AI.

 

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[1] https://is4.ai/blog/our-blog-1/ai-video-generation-2026-what-works-what-doesnt-340

 

[2] https://is4.ai/blog/our-blog-1/ai-video-generation-2026-what-works-what-doesnt-340

 

More ROI from AI or Humans?

Illustration generated with AI assistance using ChatGPT and DALL·E by OpenAI. Concept and article text by Vipin Labroo

The whole rationale behind deploying AI to the extent that it threatens to decimate whole professions is premised on the fact that it leads to much enhanced productivity, reduced costs and unprecedented profits. In other words, much more ROI or return on investment than would accrue if humans were employed to carry out the same tasks. But is it really the case that the ROI from using AI in place of humans is always higher? Let us take a look and try to assess if it is indeed like that.

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For all the hype and hoopla surrounding the rising adoption of AI across industries, the fact of the matter is that the ROI delivered by it is way below expectations. According to research carried out by Scaled Agile’s partner, Return on AI Institute; while 90% of organisations find that they derive some value from AI, only a minority are seeing significant economic impact. Even so, almost 60% of them have started slowing or reducing hiring, banking on future AI productivity gains. At the same time, only 2% of them have linked those decisions to actual results. This points to businesses perceiving more value from AI than actually realising it.

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AI Comes at a Cost

Transitioning to AI comes at a cost. Much of it is in the form of the consumption of natural resources like water and rare minerals, as well as damage to the environment on account of the large amount of electricity  required to be produced to make it functional. At the same time, there is a parallel loss of valuable human expertise that would have grown and matured over the years if not replaced by AI. Completely slamming the door on the face of human ingenuity and its ability to create wonders, and instead depending on AI, which hones its skills by studying past human achievements, may not be the bright idea that many think that it is.

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Comparing humans and AI is like comparing apples with oranges

AI has the ability to train on very large amounts of data. However when compared with how vast humanity is, this is a very small part of it. Given that about 80% of online content is available in only 10 languages out of 7000 spoken worldwide there is not much credibility in the claim of AI’s infallibility. This is on account of the fact that a language is more than a simple means of communication. It carries within itself the values, culture and way of life of a people. 

Training AI on a sanitised and restricted data set means that it is picking up the perspectives and biases of only a section of the world’s population.

​This will in no way enable AI to understand and appreciate the whole scale of the values, cultural landscapes and knowledge embodied in the human race that is 8 billion in number. AI may be supremely useful in the right circumstances, but that does not make it as intelligent as the human race.

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ROI on AI requires human support

In a scenario where AI use doesn’t begin to deliver ROI for 2 to 4 years, is it better to invest in human resources and develop and grow them over the years? In any case, organisations that do manage to show high ROI on their AI investment are the ones that have realised that a human centric business model works best in an environment where AI expertise is encouraged. The key learning over here is that AI performs best when it empowers people by transforming how they perform work. The focus here is on aiding the human work force to perform better and not on finding ways and means to replace people with technology on account of illogical FOMO felt by business houses around the world, driven by unfounded hype.

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Money Makes the Mare Go

Feeding the AI behemoth with astronomical investment in the hope of future super profits is not tenable, and more and more companies are realising it. Until the time AI comprehensively proves its worth as a viable business proposition for organisations across scale and geography, it makes way more sense for one to trust  and invest in people. That will get them more ROI in the near term, and who knows the long-term future as well. AI has as much chance of making people leave the workforce as the internet has had since its launch years ago. While AI will doubtless make its worth felt more and more, it will only do so with the help of people. There is no other way.

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Who cares about quality and authenticity when fluff is what everybody wants?

 

Illustration generated using OpenAI’s DALL·E via ChatGPT. Concept and prompt by the author.

In an era in which a real estate baron cum reality TV host known for outrageous comments and an absolute absence of scruples is elected the president of the most powerful country in the world and allowed to treat  nations across the globe as a doormat what is the incentive for people to put a premium on quality and authenticity? The advent of the internet age, which was supposed to usher in an age of egalitarianism where everyone was supposed to get a fair chance at achieving success backed only by talent and hard work, has actually enabled mediocrity, nepotism, fakery and plain nonsense to thrive at the cost of what is right, fair, true and genuine. A monstrosity called the algorithm has ensured that venal and corrupt individuals and greedy and rapacious organisations are able to direct people to serve their vested interests without  the latter even realising it.

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People no longer care to read or engage in deep conversations with anyone. Social media has had a decided role in uneducating people. Nobody cares to read a well-written newspaper editorial anymore. In fact, newspapers are closing down right, left and centre. Leading television channels are an arena for deafening slanging matches where not a single coherent argument is made or a convincing conclusion reached. The online media space has its own dedicated niches where people push their agendas safe in their respective echo chambers.

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Education has become a farce, with real estate builders and people with criminal antecedents opening schools, engineering colleges, medical colleges and universities at will, ripping off hundreds of thousands of gullible students and parents. The entrance tests to the educational institutions of repute are often compromised on account of repeated incidents of test-paper leaks. Mountains and forests are merrily destroyed in the name of development, never mind the poisoned rivers and air that are left in their wake.

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Tyrannical world leaders wage economic and real war to wreck a well-established and perfectly functioning world order, replacing it with global anarchy that could lead to economic collapse and anarchy in nations across the global south. Where have the statesmen and stateswomen of the world gone? Why are we allowing morons, goons and uncouth leaders to assume the mantle of leadership, when many of them really need psychiatric care?

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Of course, everybody talks like they crave authenticity. There is all this talk about following your passion and living mindfully. People are asked to share the stories of failure, hardship and redemption. But scratch the surface, and it is all fluff. People are pretentious and deceitful and not who they show themselves to be. Who would have thought that Bill Cosby, the avuncular comedian everyone doted on, would be such a monster? People like Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew, as well as the many worthies named in Epstein Files, holding positions of immense authority, have been shown to have a fleet of clay. Whom can the people look up to for inspiration anymore?

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We may be living in the post-truth world, whatever that might mean, and it's possible that people have always been like this, with the lid coming off what was always the way of the world. However, isn’t there a definite feeling that something is off? Like everybody, the whole human race is more diminished than it used to be in the past.

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Man landed on the Moon in 1969, and it was truly a remarkable feat-the culmination of the rise of humans from the forests and caves of their distant past to truly celestial glory. Come 2026 and they send humans to the Moon only to circle it and not touch down. What did anyone feel about that event? Not even deja vu, it came, and it went.

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We don’t put writers, philosophers and scientists on a pedestal. Instead, we worship social media stars with millions of followers whose claim to fame might be crazy and outlandish antics and the ability to shock decent people on account of their facility with expletives. We have passed the stage of expecting there to be a rebound to a world where honest, hard working, decent and competent people would inevitably make it to the top. They cannot. The system is loaded against them. We have reached critical mass in terms of irretrievably being drawn into a morass of mediocrity, dishonesty, gaslighting, conspicuous consumption, and a false sense of entitlement. Far from nursing a damaged moral compass back to health, the world has thrown it away.

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Will AI replace ghostwriters?

Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash

 With AI decimating jobs and professions across the board, does ghostwriting have any chance of standing up to the juggernaut? For GenAI technology with its multifarious capabilities, ghostwriting is probably low-hanging fruit when it comes to replacing human beings. That may really be bad news for the thriving ghostwriting industry currently valued at $1.42 billion and projected to reach $2.23 billion by 2030. But are things really that way for ghostwriters, and is it really the end of the road for them? The facts seem to suggest otherwise. Far from damaging the prospects for ghostwriters, digital technology has seen a sharp growth in demand for their services as more and more individuals, organisations, and businesses are communicating more and more with their audiences.

​From businesses seeking to engage and win over their customers and clients with content that speaks to the latter’s needs to thought and opinion leaders seeking to build up their brand image, ghostwriting is seeing a steady increase in demand.  From would- be authors seeking to self-publish to creators and influencers- a whole range of people and organisations would gladly pay for the services rendered by a ghost writer. Prince Harry’s much talked about best sellerSpare was, for instance, ghost written by JR Moehringer, apparently for a $1 million fee.

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The Entry of AI

While there is an undeniable boom in the growth of the ghostwriting industry, is there impending  doom on the horizon in the shape of AI writing tools, making it possible for anyone to churn out any form of written content, almost at will? The thing about using GenAI to write for you is that the quality of output entirely depends on the quality of input. If somebody outsourced writing work to a ghostwriter in the past  because they didn’t possess the required writing skills, then how could they now be expected to provide the ideal brief or set of prompts required to obtain high-quality content? A ghostwriter, on the other hand, is a living flesh-and-bone human being who can have a conversation with his client and draw out what it is that he or she wants to convey through a piece of writing.

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AI-generated content often lacks soul because it is essentially regurgitated, lacking emotional depth and genuine insight. It, therefore, comes across as flat and mechanical, akin to how Schwarzenegger speaks in a mechanical drawl in the Terminator series of movies. Would someone wanting to author a memoir collaborate with AI to bring the story of their life with all its human pain, suffering, angst, joys, victories and achievements or with a fellow empathetic human being, who is also an exquisite wordsmith?

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Humans Respond to Genuine Connection

What AI does often borders on plagiarism, because it does not think originally and simply discerns patterns from large amounts of written content created by others and hammers out some form of text that is neat, well organised, but completely lacking in soul. Human beings forge bonds on a primaeval and instinctive level. There is, perhaps, more chance of someone connecting with a dog or cat than with content created by a machine. When Brutus stabs Caesar in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the latter utters the immortal line, “Et tu Brute, then fall Casesar,” encapsulating a human being’s pain and anguish at the betrayal of someone very close to oneself. In this, you have an example of words touching you deeply. Would AI be able to showcase genuine human pain and pathos with so much heartfelt honesty?

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AI Can Be Unreliable

Unsupervised and unvetted AI-generated content often contains major errors and factual inaccuracies. It can’t always be relied upon to conform to the most ethical practices in terms of complying with copyright issues, as originality is not its strong suit. With so much riding on the content created on behalf of large organisations and institutions, it is best to work with a human professional of high repute, who will deliver exactly what is required.

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Backlash Against AI Content

There is already a  massive backlash against AI writing, with prospective clients explicitly stating their preference for human created content. In fact, many of them use tools to detect the use of AI. Consulting major Deloitte had to recently agree to refund the Australian government a portion of a $440000 consultancy fee after acknowledging that a report delivered by it which contained AI generated content had many serious errors in it.  A horror novel titled Shy Girl by US author Mia Ballard, which was scheduled for publication in the US in the month of April got cancelled on account of concerns that AI had been used to write it.

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Conclusion

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Nobody is denying the fact that AI is a great tool for writers to use and improve their craft. It can help them carry out research, bounce off ideas, help in editing and organising text, gathering information and fact checking. Using it as a wholesale content creator, though, is not a great idea and may lead to grief. As a matter of fact, there is as much chance of ghostwriting being replaced by AI as there is of commercial airlines sacking human pilots and moving en masse to pilotless aircraft. It is just not tenable.

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