The Waphire Blog

Is ₹1 Crore really enough to be called rich in India? Or is everyone from ₹5 Lakh to ₹1 Crore still part of the middle class?

MARCOS Commando Praveen Kumar Teotia shares his first-hand account of fighting terrorists inside the Taj Hotel, surviving multiple bullet injuries, and risking his life to save over 150 people.

Kunal Kamra argues that coalition governments force political parties to negotiate, compromise, and serve a broader set of interests instead of operating through centralised authority.

Singles means one person completes everything. Doubles means two people - both must run the full distance, but the workstations can be tag-teamed. You do 5 meters, I do 10 meters. We share the workload.

Gandhi ji's talisman used to be in old NCERT textbooks. He said - look at the last man, the one at the very back, and see whether your work benefits him or not. That was the test.

Look at what's on TV. Melody, snacks, entertainment. Manipur is also an Indian state. Violence has continued there. Mainstream TV didn't cover it. Digital media at least tried.

If you want a modest retirement in India at 60 - Rs 1.5 lakh per month - and you live to 85 or 90, you need Rs 25 crores at the point of retirement. In today's money. Rs 25 crores. 90% of people are nowhere near that. They are distracted with iPhone 16, 17 and Paris holidays.

Kids' education is very expensive now. Kids' marriage. Retirement. Plan for all three.

India's middle class is not going to break. It is already broken. It is not going to be in crisis. It is in crisis.

Millions of students prepare for years, but what happens when a single paper leak destroys their future?

In schools and colleges, you have physical education. You will have now mental education. It is very much needed now. Mental fog is coming into mainstream. You will have to proactively take care of your mental health.

India spends around 0.7% of GDP on R&D. China and the US spend 3-4% and more. There should be a lot more donation and capital coming into research and development.

India's middle class is the world's most indebted middle class. No other country's middle class has taken on this much debt.

In my 27-floor Mumbai building during COVID, the older residents could not take their pets out. The car washer's teenage sons took the job. Morning and evening walks. It went on for 18 months. Residents got so used to it that the kids became full-time dog walkers after COVID. Now every Mumbai building has professional dog walkers.

India is heading toward two classes. An elite of industrialists and their C-suite. A mass working class that becomes the government's vote bank. The middle class will be completely hollowed out.

Between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 1 crore, the vehicle has completely stopped. Zero movement in earnings. But inflation is growing at 7-8% per annum, eating them alive.

50 is the new 60 in corporate India. Above 50, the number of people surviving is dropping rapidly. AI is a big part of the reason.

Is ₹1 Crore really enough to be called rich in India? Or is everyone from ₹5 Lakh to ₹1 Crore still part of the middle class?

India is sick. 10 crore Indians are diabetic, another 13.6 crore are pre-diabetic, and over half the country lives with some form of lifestyle disorder.

Look Anil, if the kurta is clean, even one stain will show. If the kurta is dirty, stains will keep falling. So don't let the first stain fall.

I don't think any Indian startup has reached the point where I can stop calling them a startup. This question will be more relevant 20 years from now.

Nipun Jain break down what actually separates a startup from a business, why almost every big Indian startup is a "copy" of something else (and why that's fine), and the real 4-step order for building a company: clarity on the problem, finding the right cofounders, locking a shareholder agreement, and registering private limited.

In the beginning when Infosys was set up, we had all agreed that we will not bring family members into the business, and we will retire at the age of 60.

It's not culture. It's a choice. It's what senior leadership had to do to create this industry. It's not just Infosys. The entire industry is like that. TCS, Wipro, Infosys, HCL - they're all same hardworking culture companies.

If customers were not able to pay, we still worked on those projects because the goodwill is important.

We are all fierce competitors, but we work together. When the Satyam accounting fraud collapsed one of India's four largest IT companies in 2009, the natural competitive move would have been for Infosys, Wipro, HCL and the others to circle. Poach the clients. Poach the employees. Absorb the market share.

The first billion dollar of revenue took 23 years. The second billion dollar happened in 23 months. The third billion dollar happened in the next 13 months. It was a compounding on real life example.

We almost gave up in 1989. We sat down, and we said, There's nothing to show for all the hard work we have done for eight years. That was Kris Gopalakrishnan on our podcast, Infosys co-founder, on the moment that almost ended the company that would go on to define Indian IT.