70-hour work weeks no longer enough for Infosys founder, who praises China’s 996 culture
PLUS: Manga publishers win Cloudflare copyright case; India, EU to link payment systems; Storm over Australia’s weather website; And more!
ASIA IN BRIEF Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy has suggested Indian citizens should work 72-hour weeks, up from his previous target of 70 hours.
Murthy has for years argued that 70-hour weeks are necessary to advance India’s economy, and can be accommodated if the nation reverts to a one-day weekend.
His remarks have stirred controversy because few feel that 70-hour weeks improve productivity, and many know they make it extremely difficult to achieve decent work-life balance.
Murthy continues to argue he is right, and last week used an interview with India outlet Republic to praise China’s “996” culture that sees some people work from 9:00AM to 9:00PM, Monday through Saturday.
The Infosys founder made no mention of the fact that software developers in China have protested against 996 culture and that Chinese courts have ruled it illegal and won support from senior Chinese lawmakers for doing so. Nor does Murthy seem to know that Chinese youth have created a subculture called “Lying flat” that rejects 996 and suggests dropping out instead, and has had enough impact that senior Chinese lawmakers have criticised that, too.
Murthy, however, said India does not lack for talented and intelligent people, then added that he is no smarter than many others and attributed his success to hard work across long hours – after his family agreed to let him do so.
Manga publishers celebrate Cloudflare copyright case
Tokyo’s District Court last week found Cloudflare contributed to copyright infringement by providing content delivery network (CDN) services to sites that hosted pirated manga, and ordered the company to pay 500 million yen ($3.3 million).
In a joint statement about the decision, four publishers said they told Cloudflare it was assisting copyright infringement, but the company continued to provide its CDN to pirate sites.
“We believe this is an important decision given the current situation where piracy site operators often hide their identities and repeatedly conduct large-scale distribution using CDN services from overseas,” the publishers wrote, adding their “hope that this judgment will be a step toward ensuring proper use of CDN services. We will continue our efforts to protect the rights of works, creators, and related parties, while aiming for further expansion of legitimate content.”
India and Europe will link payment systems
The Reserve Bank of India last week announced that plans to link the nation’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) with Europe’s TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS) will soon enter a “realisation phase.”
Both schemes allow instant electronic payments. The plan to link them envisions the schemes extending to cross-border payments between Europe and India, a potential boost to trade and a challenge to the US-dollar-centric SWIFT payment system.
China’s Typhoon gang targeted Russia, researchers say
Infosec researchers at Russian company PT Security claim to have found China-linked actors attacking Russian clouds.
In a report published last week, researchers Daniil Grigoryan and Varvara Koloskova claim that APT 31 – aka Violet Typhoon – attacked Russia’s IT sector during 2024 and 2025, and focused on “companies working as contractors and solution integrators for government agencies.”
“The attackers demonstrated knowledge of the work processes at the target organizations,” the pair wrote, and “carefully timed their attacks, targeting weekends and holidays.”
APT 31 apparently used a blend of common malware, and unique items from its own arsenal, to achieve persistent access to target networks, and used Russian clouds to run its command and control network.
The gang allegedly went looking for user credentials and uploaded them to a cloud storage hosted by Yandex, Russia’s Google-like web giant, and Microsoft’s OneDrive.
The researchers believe APT 31 remains active and continues to target Russian assets.
Which is awkward given Chinese president Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin have declared a friendly partnership “without limits.”
And perhaps without sincerity, too, given Symantec also recently found evidence of Beijing’s online operatives targeting Russia.
Storm over 24x weather website upgrade budget blowout in Australia
Australia’s minister for the environment has asked the nation’s Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) to explain how it spent AU$96 million ($62 million) on its new website – and still delivered an update that created a storm of controversy.
The BOM launched its new site in late October, but the changes it made quickly proved unpopular as users found the formats of weather maps and rain radars difficult to understand, and complained it offered less info, less often, than its predecessor. As severe storms struck parts of Australia the Bureau therefore resorted to old designs so the public could understand its warnings.
Environment Minister Murray Watt, whose portfolio includes the BOM, investigated the matter and was initially told the website upgrade cost AU$4 million. Later advice revealed the actual cost of the upgrade project was AU$96 million, leading the minister to demand the BOM’s CEO – who has been in the job for two weeks and did not oversee the upgrade project – explain why the new site cost so much and how the agency will ensure Australians get weather info they can understand.
The BOM on Sunday published a statement that says the $96 million cost “reflects the significant investment required to fully rebuild and test the systems and technology that underpin the website, making sure it is secure and stable and can draw in the huge amounts of data gathered from our observing network and weather models.”
Google expands in Taiwan, Singapore
Google last week announced it will open a new office in Taiwan’s capital, Taipei, which will become its largest AI infrastructure hardware engineering hub outside of the U.S. This multidisciplinary hub, home to hundreds of employees, is designed to accelerate AI innovation.
“The technology developed and tested in this Taipei hub will be deployed in Google's data centers and AI infrastructure around the world,” Google stated.
Also last week, the web giant announced a new AI lab in Singapore, where a group of “exceptional research scientists, software engineers, and AI impact experts” will focus on “advancing Gemini and frontier AI capabilities, with a strong emphasis on linguistic and cultural inclusivity for this diverse region.”
VMware and NEC in private cloud pledge
Broadcom’s VMware business unit last week announced that Japan’s tech services giant will adopt its Cloud Foundation suite to build a private cloud, then use the expertise gathered during that project to “promote the modernization of private clouds” for its clients. ®