New Delhi, July 28 -- When Tata Consultancy Services announced it would lay off 12,000 employees, it hid behind phrases like "future-ready", "realignment", and "strategic initiatives". These aren't explanations; they're camouflage. Beneath the polite language lies an unsettling truth: India's biggest private employer is finally acknowledging that its core business model-legions of employees performing predictable, routine tasks-is obsolete.

Nearly three decades ago, Intel's legendary CEO Andy Grove recounted a radical act of self-reflection in his book 'Only the Paranoid Survive'. Facing existential disruption, Intel's leadership symbolically fired themselves. They walked out of the building and asked, "If we were starting fresh today, w...