Automation is threatening close to 70% of jobs in India, and 77% of jobs in China, says the World Bank. Automation of many industrial and service jobs, the bread and butter of growth in these countries, could mean large scale unemployment at a time India badly needs strong job growth for the many millions of young workers coming of age. India is among the youngest countries in the world, and the government will have to figure out new ways to address this challenge. Some solutions that are already being proposed in other countries include a universal basic income for all adults. 

Google puts India in focus, making it among the first six markets it will launch the Pixel smartphone at a price of Rs 57k. The phone comes with virtual reality enabler Daydream, Google Assistant built-in, and unlimited cloud storage. The fancy features and the phone's appearance puts it in direct competition with top end phones including the Samsung Galaxy series and Apple iPhones. This is a big jump that Google is taking into the hardware space, with its additional announcement of Google Home. 

The new RBI Governor Urjit Patel marked a definitive end to the Rajan era, with a cut to the repo rate - the borrowing rate for banks - from 6.5% to 6.25%. The RBI said all six members of the new Monetary Committee voted in favour of the rate cut, and cited falling inflation as the reason for the move. In the future the number of favorable votes in favor or against rate cuts are likely going to be an additional indicator to markets how optimistic the RBI is about inflation and growth. 

In light of the upcoming Adiya Nuovo merger with Grasim, the Aditya Birla group may be looking to sell its minority stakes in the telecom tower and financial services businesses, while Grasim fully exits from its fertilizer and insulator companies. The telecom tower business is a subsidiary of Idea Cellular.

Photo of the day: Brian Rakowski, Google VP of products, talks about the Pixel phone at the launch event. AP Photo/Eric Risberg