The hands that stayed apart

AT THE CRESCENDO of the India AI Impact Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi did what leaders often do at grand global gatherings: he reached out — literally.

- TEAM FE

Flanked by top tech executives, Modi clasped hands and raised them aloft in a familiar show of unity. It was a carefully staged tableau: India at the centre, global AI powerhouses at its side, arms lifted in symbolic convergence.

All but two. Standing on the same stage were Sam Altman of OpenAI and Dario Amodei of Anthropic— perhaps the two most closely watched rivals in AI today. As other CEOs linked hands with the PM in a collective lift for-the-cameras moment, Altman and Amodei kept theirs politely — but awkwardly -- to themselves. No visible frost; no dramatic snub; just a tiny but telling gap in the human chain.