If all the women of the world had a collective wallet where we could put in a penny for every time we heard the words “your biological clock is ticking,” we could move to Venus and run our own planet.But as unfair as it may be, it is true. There is an ideal time period in a woman’s life when she can have a baby. Or when she is the most “fertile.”Unlike men who are biologically not limited by such constraints, women are born with a limited number of eggs. And turns out, this number of eggs sees a drastic decline after the age of 37. And when we say drastic, we mean drastic.But in the 1980s, scientists figured out how to freeze women's eggs. They developed a process called oocyte cryopreservation. It took thirty years for the procedure to become widely available. Today, a growing number of women are opting for the procedure. Most people assume that women freeze their eggs so they can buy time to achieve professional success. Women who freeze their eggs are often envisioned as 'career-driven', 'power hungry', and ambitious. But, egg freezing is an intense process. It is invasive, it is painful. It takes a toll on women not just physically but mentally as well. Plus, it is expensive.So why do women freeze their eggs?Hosts Snigdha and Rahel went to Dr Marcia Inhorn, a professor at the University of Yale and author of Motherhood on Ice to find out.Tune in.Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. Text us and tell us what you thought of the episode!Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

For a country that boasts of its digital public goods infrastructure like Aadhar and UPI, it is a wonder why telecom has been so ignored. After nearly 1500 crore rupees of was reportedly lost to digital fraud in the financial year 2024, the govt’s Trai is finally scrambling to catch up with CPAN or the Calling Name Presentation (CNAP) service, its own version of Truecaller.  Truecaller, the Swedish call-screening company, meanwhile, has been holding the fort for a while now. Users count on it to save them from spam and fraud calls.  While TrueCaller maybe looking like a hero in this situation, it is a private company after all. It is using this opportunity to make money from both users and businesses. But its success in India is also built partially on how inadequate privacy laws are in India. The company has been accused of breaching data privacy norms in the past.  Can TRAI replace Truecaller?  Tune in.(This episode was first published in July, 2024)DAYBREAK UNWIND RECOMMENDATIONS for "coming of age"Rahel: Big Mouth, NetflixSnigdha: The Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro and Lady Bird (2017)Atish Deore: The works of PL Deshpande, a Marathi author and playwright Shubhangi: Derry Girls (2018)Brijesh: Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens   Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. For next Thursday's Unwind, send us your recommendations to us as texts or voice notes. The theme is "favourite translated books."              

Late last month, the Supreme Court made a very strong statement about NRI quotas at medical colleges. It essentially said that the whole thing was a fraud. But the thing is, since the Supreme Court called it out, the practice has only gotten murkier. So The Ken reporter Alifiya Khan conducted an investigation. She scoured several social networking sites only to find countless posts promising seats in medical institutes to aspirants who scored way  below the required cutoff and even those who were hardly eligible for the NRI quota. The only requirement? Well, applicants need to be ready to cough up some big bucks. The Ken wanted to see if there was something to these claims. So Alifiya went undercover. She posed as the sibling of a Maharashtra-based MBBS aspirant, with a measly NEET score of 180. She then contacted four education consultancies. And all of them, quite unsurprisingly, had boilerplate replies. The running thread – regardless of your score, they would hook you up with a medical college. And yet, most people high up in medical colleges don’t want to let go of NRI quota. Because in many ways it is what keeps the whole system afloat. What’s going on? Stay tuned. 

There is an unusual one-of-kind competition brewing within the Indian fintech space. It is so disruptive that its leaving founders and chief executives of some of India’s biggest fintechs feeling pretty intimidated and also helpless. The funny thing is, the brains behind this new competitor that’s left the whole industry feeling pretty blindsided is the Reserve Bank of India itself. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the banking regulator. And it’s called the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub or RBIH. The RBIH has been around for two years now. It's a first-of-its kind sort of company, because it is led by a central bank. Now, perhaps its closest counterpart, would be the National Payments Corporation of India or NPCI. We all know it for creating the unified payments interface or UPI. The NPCI is owned by a consortium of banks, whereas the RBIH is wholly owned by the regulator. It’s raison detre is simple: it’s meant to accelerate innovation across the financial sector. But unlike the NPCI, which collaborates with lenders in some way or the other to develop its products, the RBIH asks lenders to participate. But for the most part, a lot of fintech founders say that it works in a silo. Tune in. We are now on WhatsApp at +918971108379! Text us or send us a voice note to tell us what you thought of this episode. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Earlier this month, CRED, released its financials for the year ended March 2024 at a press conference. Cred claims to have about 13 million monthly active users. For the financial year ended March 2024, it saw revenue rise more than 60% to nearly $300 million, and losses shrink by around 40% to about U$70 million. Plus, its monthly transacting users grew by more than 30%. Shah said how it's the top 10% of households who drive 60% of consumption. Even with UPI, he said, it was the top 30–40 million that drove billions of UPI transactions. And out of that target audience, Cred claims to have about 13 million monthly active users.But Cred says it does not present the option to take a loan for many of its users. And while a little more than a third of them are qualified to borrow, only about 10% have taken on a loan. According to Shah, Cred has taken a deliberately conservative approach here, which is what makes Cred unusual and 'popular with the chief risk officers of banks in India.'Tune in.We are now on WhatsApp at +918971108379! Text us or send us a voice note to tell us what you thought of this episode. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

A little more than a week ago, we read a really strange piece of news. Apparently, an expert committee recommended the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) to ban the over the counter sale of emergency contraceptive pills like i-pill and Unwanted 72. They suggested  women should be only allowed to access it with a doctor’s prescription because of concerns over side effects. This was weird for many reasons. One, levonorgestrel, which is what these pills contain, is one of the safest emergency contraceptives available in the world. It is approved by WHO and the FDA. In fact, it is so safe, that even breastfeeding women can take it.Second, these emergency contraceptive pills are already a part of the Indian  govt’s family welfare programme. It was approved by the DCGI back in 2001. Ten years later, the ministry of health even made it a part of the ASHA workers drug kit.Much to the relief of women, the DCGI came up with a clarification a few days later saying no such ban was going to take place. But the news brought us face to face with the possibility that something as life-changing as the emergency pill—the one saving grace women have when it comes to their reproductive rights and bodily autonomy—could be taken away, just like that.Despite our progressive policy on the matter and the fact that more than 60% of emergency contraceptive pills in our country are sold over the counter, women often hesitate to buy it themselves. The fear of judgment and shame comes in the way of access.In this episode, hosts Snigdha Sharma and Rahel Philipose talk to two experts, Vinoj Manning, the CEO of the Ipas Development Foundation, and Leeza Mangaldas, a sex educator and author of The Sex Book, about about this chasm that exists between our seemingly progressive policies and our actual society and its attitude towards emergency contraceptive pills and women's reproductive rights.Tune in!We are now on WhatsApp at +918971108379! Text us or send us a voice note to tell us what you thought of this episode. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Back in 2004, two sisters, Kainaz and Tina Messman, decided to turn their life-long passion for food and baking into a full fledged business. They set up Theobroma, a small cafe tucked away in a corner of Mumbai’s posh Colaba. Today, there are more than 200 Theobroma outlets in over 30 cities across the country. The bakery chain’s evolution has been nothing short of remarkable. It has managed to build a profitable business that too in a category known to have products with one of the shortest shelf lives. The chain now commands a valuation of well over Rs 3,000 crore. In fact, investors like Chrys Capital, Bain Capital and Carlyle Group are queueing up to buy the 20-year-old brand. But being in the big leagues has meant changing up its strategy. Over the years, Theorobroma has cut down the number of baked and semi-baked items on its menu, and instead filled their shelves with longer lasting products like cookies. It’s been able to do that because of its massive, centrally located commissaries. And these strategic shifts have paid off big time. Because now investors are valuing the company at 7-9X its revenue. All of this is good news for its current promoters, the Messman sisters and the private equity investor ICICI Ventures, which invested $20 million between 2017 and 2019. Both are likely to exit with handsome returns. But once that happens, where would that leave Theobroma? Most industry experts say that sailing through with new owners is no picnic. Tune in.Daybreak Unwind recommendations for folk songs:Rahel: Genda Phool, Delhi 6, 2009Snigdha: Sketches of Darjeeling by Bipul Chettri, 2014Anushka:  Mor Bani Thanghat Kare by Jhaverchand MeghaniHari: Kalakkatha Sandana Meram by Nanjamma Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. For next Thursday's Unwind, send us your recommendations to us as texts or voice notes. The theme is "coming of age."

Today, most conventional or slow clothing brands like Lee, Wrangler, United Colours of Benetton, Pepe Jeans and Levi’s are facing a tough new reality where they aren’t just trying to outperform each other. They are also up against fast fashion brands that are now dominating the industry. In the process, many of these slow brands have lost relevance in the larger scheme of things. In this episode we are going to talk about two of these brands in particular – Lee and Wrangler. Both are international brands that were launched in India in the late 80s and early 90s. But neither really took off. But now, they are trying to make a comeback. And behind this comeback is a Bengaluru based retail company called Ace Turtle. It wants to build a mini version of Indian conglomerate Reliance Brands Limited. That’s a pretty ambitious goal, considering the brands in their lineup couldn’t be more different.Tune in. Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. For next Thursday's Unwind, send us your recommendations to us as texts or voice notes. The theme is "favourite folk songs."

Earlier this year, Zomato acquired ticketing platform Paytm Insider. With this, Zomato was able to take its 'going out' strategy to the next level. Since 2018, Zomato has been holding live events. You have probably heard of its its massive carnival-style event called Zomaland. The idea behind it is simple: a big part of going to a movie, or a music festival, or pretty much any live event is the food and drinks. So by being associated with live events, Zomato is able to expand the company’s reach from just restaurants to other spaces where food and beverages are consumed. The Insider acquisition takes this to a whole other level. It will place Zomato in the big leagues and really shake up India’s live-events sector. But so far, this has been a space dominated by one player – BookMyShow. For a long time now, it has been the default choice for both users and big artists because it offers discoverability and visibility like no one else does. But at the same time, it has also been facing some heat for not providing a great customer experience. Case in point: the recent Coldplay fiasco. This is exactly where a formidable rival like Insider could come in and shake things up. In fact, Zomato’s shadow is already looming. Tune in. Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. For next Thursday's Unwind, send us your recommendations to us as texts or voice notes. The theme is "favourite folk songs."

The PM’s internship scheme wants to provide 10 million internships to freshly minted students over the course of the next five years. Students from premier institutes like IITs and IIMs or students with professional degrees like CA, CMA or masters are not allowed to apply. The idea is to address India’s problem of youth unemployment by making students from lower socio-economic backgrounds employable and giving them real world exposure.  It sounds great. If it is implemented well, the scheme has the potential to challenge deep-rooted hiring biases that exist in the job sector in India.  However, 10 million interns in five years is making corporates uneasy. They’re overwhelmed because they don't know how many interns they can hire. Two million interns per year between 500 odd top companies is a lot and corporates are unsure if they have the resources and the bandwidth to train and retain these interns and then deal with another two million pool the following year.  The scheme opened up for signing up to students on Saturday, Oct 12. Within one day more than 1 and a half lakh students had already registered according to news reports.  But because the scheme doesnt really have a sector specific approach, it is highly likely that we have a problem-solution mismatch coming our way. Tune in.Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. For next Thursday's Unwind, send us your recommendations to us as texts or voice notes. The theme is "favourite folk songs."

Back in 2014, Ashoka University introduced India to the concept of a liberal arts education. The private research university, tucked away in Sonipat, Haryana, came along at a time when the cracks in India’s higher education system were starting to become pretty glaring. It positioned itself as everything a conventional Indian college was not.  Ashoka promised to offer  ‘holistic, liberal, multidisciplinary, and interdisciplinary’ education. Simply put, it was offering choice. And that simple yet powerful promise is what made it stand out. But ten years later, it is facing new pressures. The latest phase of the Ashoka story is not one that a lot of people may have seen coming. It's marked by a stronger focus on business and sciences than ever before.  Case in point: the university’s thriving entrepreneurship department. In the last few years, it has become one of the most popular courses on offer. A big reason for its popularity is because students think signing up for courses like these will make them more ‘employable’. And that, fundamentally goes against what Ashoka stands for. So now, Ashoka is facing a dilemma: Should it give in to parental pressure and start acting like a business school, driven by placements and employability? Or should it just stay the course? Tune in. Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. For next Thursday's Unwind, send us your recommendations to us as texts or voice notes. The theme is "favourite folk songs."

About a month ago, news broke about Reliance's plans to merge Disney+ Hotstar with JioCinema after their Star-Viacom18 merger. While the merger is pending approvals from the Competition Commission of India, data from Google Play Store data shows Disney+ Hotstar had over 500 million downloads while JioCinema had over 100 million downloads.While the idea makes sense from a consumer's perspective who has to deal with too many subscriptions and too many choices, things don't quite add up from a strategic perspective for Reliance.Tune in.DAYBREAK UNWIND RECOMMENDATIONS for "favourite murder mystery."Snigdha: We Have Always Lived in The Castle by Shirley JacksonRahel: Nancy Drew by Carolyn Keene (The Phantom of Venice)Devansh: Blood on the Tracks by Shūzō OshimiVenkat: Agent Sai Srinivasa Athreya, 2019 (movie)Vaidehi: Glass Onion: A Knives Out MysteryRohith: Jane Jaan, 2023 (movie)Ashish: Sharp Objects by Gillian FlynnHari: Dial M for MurderDaybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. For next Thursday's Unwind, send us your recommendations to us as texts or voice notes. The theme is "favourite folk songs."

So far, buying medicines in India has been a complete minefield. Allow me to elaborate with the help of a completely plausible hypothetical scenario. Say you catch the flu one day and need 75 mg of the antiviral drug Oseltamivir. More often than not, we don’t really check the price tag of these drugs. But what if I told you the prices can swing anywhere between Rs 30 and Rs 125 per capsule, depending on the manufacturer and the doctor prescribing it. Now, variable pricing is not really a revelation. It’s a pretty common practice. The government caps the price of nearly 400 essential drugs through the National List of Essential Medicines. But that’s where the oevrsight ends. Generally, non-essential drugs remain outside this price cap. The National Health Authority, the body which runs India’s public health insurance scheme, Ayushman Bharat, is now looking for digital pharmacy partners to promote pricing transparency. The aim is to tackle this overcharging crisis. So in September, it went ahead and enlisted Marg ERP, a leading provider of pharmacy inventory software as one such partner. Now Kaushal Shah, founder of Evitalrx, revealed that even his cloud-based pharma software firm is on track to join the initiative in the coming weeks.But here’s the thing. This one click solution is still a long way off. Tune in. Don't forget to send us your recommendation for this Thursday’s Unwind segment. The theme is “your favourite murder mystery.” Send them to us on WhatsApp as a voice note or as a text message. The number is +9189711-08379 Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Back in the day, being from one of India’s prestigious boarding schools – the likes of Doon or Mayo – was the ultimate stamp of honour.  Most of these schools were established close to a century ago, during British rule. And for the longest time, they were infamous for taking that legacy pretty seriously. In fact, that was exactly why they remained the go-to destination for India’s elite. But now, things are changing. In the recent past, the likes of Doon and Mayo have had to change their approach. They are now fighting to stay relevant. And the reason for that is the exponential growth of international schools and foreign boarding schools across the country. Tune in. Don't forget to send us your recommendation for this Thursday’s Unwind segment. The theme is “your favourite murder mystery.” Send them to us on WhatsApp as a voice note or as a text message. The number is +9189711-08379 Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Sarvam, a generative AI startup based out of Bangalore, managed to raise more than $50 million from investors like Peak XIV and Khosla Ventures, in less than 6 months after it was launched last year. Last month, Sarvam released a range of new multilingual products—Al agents, voice and text models, and a workbench aimed at legal professionals. Enterprise customers who used Sarvam's services are satisfied with the performance of its products. But developers have flagged issues with its voice-based models. Even the text model is primarily trained on synthetic data which could lead to nonsensical answers if left untested.With increasing competition in this space, surely, Sarvam is going to  address the product issues in later releases.Tune in.Don't forget to send us your recommendation for this Thursday’s Unwind segment. The theme is “your favourite murder mystery.” Send them to us on WhatsApp as a voice note or as a text message. The number is +9189711-08379 Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Every time you take a domestic flight and don't have to break a fixed deposit to buy a ticket, you have Captain GR Gopinath to thank. In 2003, he  launched Air Deccan, India's first budget airline.  Before that, only the rich and powerful could afford to fly. So, planes were like mini 5-star hotels – you would be waited on hand and foot, would have access to luxurious lounges, get served gourmet food. And of course, it came with an outrageous price tag to match. With Air Deccan, flying was finally democratised. And soon enough, others followed. Everyone wanted to copy the Air Deccan playbook. Cut to now. The only successful airline in India at the moment have followed the budget route, with Indigo as the market leader. On the surface, things look great. India is home to the third largest domestic aviation market by volume. Domestic passenger numbers have more than doubled in the last decade. In June alone, more than 13 million people flew domestically. But if everything is going right behind the scenes? Then why is the flying experience getting so bad? Tune in. Why do women freeze their eggs? Take the survey here.Don't forget to send us your recommendation for this Thursday’s Unwind segment. The theme is “your favourite murder mystery.” Send them to us on WhatsApp as a voice note or as a text message. The number is +9189711-08379 Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Earlier this week, Tarun Saxena, a 42 year old a Bajaj Finance employee from Uttar Pradesh, died by suicide citing work pressure. Saxena blamed the stress over loan collection targets and named his seniors, urging his family to file a police complaint. Despite the massive size of its loan book, Bajaj Finance has still been growing at a phenomenal rate. But now, the non-bank has become a prisoner of its own growth rate. It has to maintain it anyhow.And bearing the brunt of it all are employees like Tarun Saxena.Tune in.Don't forget to send us your recommendation for this Thursday’s Unwind segment. The theme is “your favourite murder mystery.” Send them to us on WhatsApp as a voice note or as a text message. The number is +9189711-08379. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Not so long ago, Birkenstocks were considered the antithesis of high fashion. For the longest time, the 250-year-old German brand’s characteristic chunky sandal was seen as nothing more than an orthopedic shoe meant for hippies and old people. And then, everything changed. In the last decade or so, Birkenstock had a major glow up. It all started with the brand deciding not to settle for being just another comfortable but cringey sandal anymore. So to make Birks cool the brand began collaborating with high-end fashion designers like Rick Owens, Valentino and Dior.  Very quickly celebrities and influencers caught on. They were suddenly being spotted walking out of the gym, or a cafe with a pair of birks on. And just like that, a trend was born. The orthopedic sandal, built more for comfort than for style, was the new it-shoe. Now, the Birk craze has found its way to India. Tune in. This episode was originally published on July 16Why do women freeze their eggs? Take the survey here.Don't forget to send us your recommendation for this Thursday’s Unwind segment. The theme is “your favourite murder mystery.” Send them to us on WhatsApp as a voice note or as a text message. The number is +9189711-08379. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

India's biggest quick commerce players — Blinkit, Instamart, and Zepto — are on a mission. They are frantically hunting for properties they can convert into dark stores. Dark stores are an integral part of any quick commerce strategy. Especially now, that the lines between quick commerce and e-commerce are very quickly blurring. People aren't just ordering pantry staples anymore. They are also placing orders for high value goods like headphones and full blown air conditioners. So, dark stores have to cater to these evolving needs. And things are even more heated now that Walmart-backed Flipkart and Amazon have entered the quick commerce race.All that hype adds up to a mad dash for real estate, especially in tier-2 cities like Lucknow and Jaipur in north India and Nagpur in central India. And the unlikely winners in all of this are property owners and local brokers. Tune in. Why do women freeze their eggs? Take the survey here.Don't forget to send us your recommendation for this Thursday’s Unwind segment. The theme is “your favourite murder mystery.” Send them to us on WhatsApp as a voice note or as a text message. The number is +9189711-08379. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Young independent doctors in India are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Take F M, a 32-year-old psychiatrist who has a clinic in South Mumbai. She’s spent a third of her life slogging through medical schools and internships to finally earn her super-specialised degree. But two years into her private practice in a posh South Mumbai area, she wonders if being a doctor is really worth it.Nearly 50% of the total medical seats in India are in private and deemed medical colleges, which don’t come cheap. Sheetal Shrigiri, gynecologist and counselor at a coaching center for medical-entrance exams told The Ken an MBBS degree at a private college costs anything between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 1 crore.Apart from the financial burden of the degree itself, once they become doctors, there is increasing competition from hospital chains and also the pressure of having a social media presence and to deal with.Tune in.Why do women freeze their eggs? Take the survey here.Don't forget to send us your recommendation for this Thursday’s Unwind segment. The theme is “your favourite murder mystery.” Send them to us on WhatsApp as a voice note or as a text message. The number is +9189711-08379. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In this episode of Daybreak, hosts Snigdha and Rahel try something new — instead of the usual monologue or interview, they cover three of the biggest social media stories from around the world. The first is Brazil's ban on the Elon Musk-owned microblogging platform, X. The feud between Musk and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes traces back to April, when the judge ordered the suspension of dozens of accounts for allegedly spreading disinformation. Musk refused to comply and the row that followed was, well, unhinged. It ultimately led to Musk shutting shop in Brazil and Moraes ordering the local telecom agency to block access to X across the nation of 200 million. A somewhat similar situation arose in India back in 2020, but it unfolded very differently. Next up, host Snigdha dives into a recent study by the International Panel on the Information Environment that flags owners of social media platforms as one of the biggest threats to a trustworthy news environment onlineAnd finally, host Rahel shares some of the biggest announcements from Meta Connect 2024. Spoiler: one was a pair of augmented-reality sunglasses that looked a lot like classic Ray Ban wayfarers, but worked essentially like a mini computer you could wear on your face. Tune in. Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. Don't forget to take our egg freezing survey. P.S.  For next Thursday's Unwind, send us your recommendations to us as texts or voice notes. The theme is "favourite murder mystery."If you have feedback on our new news wrap format, please write to us on WhatsApp or send us an email at [email protected], [email protected] Check out the story about Starlink, host Rahel mentioned during the episode.

What put iPhone city on the map is that it produces more than half of the world’s iPhone’s every single year. The global demand for the Apple iPhone has only increased over the years. To keep up with that demand Foxconn hires up to 200,000 workers – a mix of migrants and college students – to make sure that the assembly lines keep running. Especially during the peak season which happens to begin right around now, from September to February. Iphone city is the perfect example of the China manufacturing playbook. It is what propelled China to emerge as the world’s manufacturing hub. It’s pretty simple – Foxconn and companies like it build these large facilities, pack millions of migrant laborers into dorms near their facilities, and get them to work long hours, in often tough conditions. But now things are changing. More and more global companies are adopting a China-plus-one strategy. And India is becoming a favoured alternative. And  as the focus shifts our way, manufacturers in India are pretty much replicating the same China labour model. But this model has an indigenous problem.Tune inDAYBREAK UNWIND RECOMMENDATIONS for "best opening lines in a book or a film."Nicholas: 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia MarquezStory he refers to: The Most Memorable Annual Pig Parade of KharagpurRahel: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak  Prithu: The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy by Douglas AdamsAvinash: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Ruhi: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K RowlingBrady: Rounders (film, 1998)Sayan: The Fellowship of the Ring, J. R. R Tolkien Sameer: Gangs of Wasseypur (film, 2012)Sumit: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt VonnegutRohin: The Body by Stephen KingSnigdha: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley JacksonDaybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. For next Thursday's Unwind, send us your recommendations to us as texts or voice notes. The theme is "favourite murder mystery."

Back in 2022, e-commerce giant Flipkart’s 35 billion dollar universe was left with a gaping fintech hole after the payments app Phonepe was spun off. There a brief period, after that, when it wasn’t clear whether Flipkart would ever try to dip its toes in consumer payments play again. But then again, this is Flipkart. Here is a company that has a finger in every pie – from online travel, fashion, quick commerce, logistics, even medicine delivery. Some may say it was only a matter of time before the company filled that gap and took another big fintech bet. That time came in June, when Flipkart launched Super.money, a credit-first unified payments interface app. Emphasis on credit-first. But the thing is, right now, credit is a hill everyone is queueing up on. So, does Flipkart stand a chance? Tune in. Don't forget to send us your recommendation for this Thursday’s Unwind segment. The theme is “your favourite opening line from a book or film.” Send them to us on WhatsApp as a voice note or as a text message. The number is +9189711-08379. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Half of the world’s electric cars are on China’s roads, thanks to a wave of smart incentives for both consumers and manufacturers, such as tax breaks and purchase subsidies. The payoff is tangible: the smog that once shrouded some major cities has lifted, and road noise has dropped significantly.But it brought unexpected costs and challenges that nobody saw coming. Tune inDon't forget to send us your recommendation for this Thursday’s Unwind segment. The theme is “your favourite opening line from a book or film.” Send them to us on WhatsApp as a voice note or as a text message. The number is +9189711-08379. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

A few years ago, Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy had set a target of 40% growth across all categories for Flipkart. But in 2023, it was still stuck at 20%. So the company is now on a mission. It wants to push growth, gain market share, and turn a profit.So in January 2024, Flipkart's top execs along with the CEO came together for a meeting to outline a roadmap for 2024. Krishnamurthy wanted Flipkart to introduce a loyalty programme for top spenders, give out more incentives to ensure customer loyalty, push up transaction numbers and average order sizes, and also focus on brands.In the same meeting he also admitted that the company had faced quite a few hurdles the previous year but he was sure they’d make a comeback and hit profitability before the IPO.But here’s the thing, prepping for an IPO often has long term effects on a company’s culture. And the cracks are already beginning to appear inside Flipkart.Tune in.**This episode was first published on 6 May, 2024

Meet Shaik Salauddin, a 38-year-old cab driver from Hyderabad, who is fighting for the rights of eight million gig workers from across the country. While India's gig economy is burgeoning, the workers on whose backs it is built barely enjoy any rights or legal protections. Salauddin realised this early on and in 2019, after five years of relentless pursuit, the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) was born. With over 25,000 members working for aggregators like Uber, Amazon, and Zomato, through IFAT, Salauddin is redefining the way we look at trade unions. To begin with, the union has no political affiliations. Instead, Salauddin encourages all of its members to understand power structures and approach the right people to drive change.Thanks to his efforts, two states, Karnataka and Rajasthan, have introduced legislations to protect the rights of gig workers. Others like Kerala are working on their own.In this episode, hosts Snigdha and Rahel speak to Salauddin himself and to Prof. Vinoj Abraham from Labour Economics at the Centre for Development Studies in Thiruvananthapuram to understand the significance of Salauddin's work and why it is important to protect gig workers.  Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.A special shout out to Hari Krishna, from the Two by Two team, who kindly agreed to dub parts of this episode. Thank you, Hari!Fill in Akshaya's Happiness Survey here

For nearly two decades, Abhishek Ganguly worked as the managing director of Puma, the German athleisure brand in India. In that period alone, the brand’s revenue shot up from Rs 20 crore to close to Rs 4,000 crore. Under Ganguly, Puma even managed to beat its longtime rival Adidas to become a market leader. In 2023, Ganguly decided to quit and start his own venture called Agilitas Sports with two of his colleagues from Puma, Atul Bajaj and Amit Prabhu. Within a year, Ganguly’s company has managed to rack up more than Rs 700 crore in revenue. The way Ganguly and his co-founders got to this point is interesting. Instead of doing the obvious thing and launching their own sneaker brand, Ganguly did something quite odd. Something, that even the biggest sportswear brands in the world – Nike, Reebok, Adidas – have never even attempted. Last September, Agilitas bought India’s largest sportswear contract manufacturer, Mochiko shoes. This is the company that manufactures shoes for international brands like Adidas, Puma, New Balance, Skechers, Reebok, Asics, Crocs, Decathlon  – the works. Ganguly’s logic behind owning the factory is simple – he wants whole  pie and not just a slice of the margin. He told The Ken's DVLS Pranathi that having the additional manufacturer’s margin in a price-sensitive market like India is worth its weight in gold. But there is a reason giants like Puma and Adidas don’t go down this road—taking care of manufacturing in-house is a logistical nightmare. That’s why most brands outsource to companies that are equipped to do it, like Mochiko. But Agilitas is dead set on bringing the entire operation in-house. It’s convinced it can work and has also managed to convince VCs that there is merit in controlling both manufacturing and distributing. Investors are betting on the Ganguly-Bajaj-Prabhu trio to pull off another Puma-sized victory. But will the other shoe drop? Tune in.**The host mistakenly said a decade instead of two decades when referring to Abhishek Ganguly's stint at Puma. The error is regretted.Fill in Akshaya's Happiness Survey hereDAYBREAK UNWIND RECCOMENDATIONS FOR COMFORT FOOD SPOTSRahel: Kappa Chakka Kandhari, Bangalore,           Unnamed food truck at Utorda Beach, South GoaSnigdha: Alu Dum from Bari's tuck shop near Loreto Convent, Darjeeling                Thukpa at Kunga's, near Planter's Club, Darjeeling                 Ghee Podi Dosa from Umesh Refreshments, Indiranagar, BangaloreSatyam: Litti Chokha, Jai Mata Di Food Stall, HSR Layout, BangaloreShayanika: Dosa and Puliyogare Rice at 3 Trees Cafe, Upper Dharamkot, Dharamsala

Back when it was launched in 2020, Bajaj Finsev Health had a clear plan: it wanted to provide a complete healthcare package to its consumers. And it did that by happily playing a supporting role in India’s booming healthcare industry. Here's what Bajaj Finserv Health does. It is essentially a health management platform. So it facilitates things like doctor consultations and health checkups to its 400-odd corporate clients. Simple enough. But four years later, the company’s vision has evolved. They want to take things to the next level. It’s clearly sick of playing a supporting role. So it has decided to step into the spotlight. The first step was to acquire 22-year-old Vidal Healthcare, which is a third party administrator.Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.P.S. While you are here, take The First Two Years Happiness survey here. 

Subway, the globally popular sandwich-eatery chain, is now grappling with sweeping changes in India—and not for the better. For one, the world’s largest quick-service restaurant (QSR) brand is moving away from the franchise model it has operated under for the past 25 years. In doing so, it’s also shedding the very thing that made it popular in the first place: choice.Tune in. Don't forget to send us your recommendation for this Thursday’s Unwind segment. The theme is “comfort food at your fav spot in the city.” Send them to us on WhatsApp as a voice note or as a text message. The number is +9189711-08379. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Last month, a Twitter post a Bengaluru-based IT professional about getting a laptop delivered from Flipkart went viral on social. The reason? Flipkart’s quick delivery arm called Minutes that went live in select cities had delivered it to him at a Starbucks cafe in 13 minutes.But Minutes is Flipkart’s third attempt at quick delivery. And the real test is actually around the corner when the Big Billion Days sale goes live at the end of this month. During the sale, daily order volumes usually go up by nearly 140%, which makes delivery delays unavoidable. Flipkart’s delivery partners who work with its logistics and supply-chain arm, Ekart Logistics, are stretched thin. And now its going to get even more challenging because Flipkart is going use the same delivery personnel for Minutes.Not only is Ekart going to help Flipkart with quick delivery, it is also supposed to be helping it manage its dark stores. Can Flipkart finally strike the right balance between its e commerce and quick commerce business?Tune in.Don't forget to send us your recommendation for this Thursday’s Unwind segment. The theme is “comfort food at your fav spot in the city.” Send them to us on WhatsApp as a voice note or as a text message. The number is +9189711-08379. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Back in the late 2000s when Byju's was founded, it was best known for teaching students how to 'hack' competitive examinations like the CAT. They taught students how to work backwards from the answer and use a bunch of shortcuts to get the highest score possible. The art of 'hacking' examinations was something that the company's founder, Byju Raveendran, was the master of. Or at least that's how the Byju's origin story goes. It all started back in the early 2000s when Byju, an engineer from a small town in Kerala, began helping his friends with the CAT exam. Every time he would sit for the exam, he’d score in the 100th percentile. This was when he sharpened his ability to teach-the-test. The lore spread and Byju's was created. By 2022, its valuation hit $22 billion. The company was on a dream run.The real trouble began when Byju’s began applying this hack method to its growth with unrealistic sales targets and billions of dollars in loans. Fast forward to now, on Sept 17 2024, the Supreme Court of India is going to hear a plea against the NCLAT's stay on insolvency proceedings against Byju’s. In this episode, we dive into the Byjus saga. How did it get here? And who is to blame? Hosts Snigdha and Rahel speak to Olina Banerji, who covers education for The Ken. Subscribe to her newsletter, Ed Set Go. If you've been wondering what The Ken is all about and why our subscribers love us, here is your chance to find out. Check out our special 30-day trial curated just for you

The real-estate market of Delhi-NCR is an anomaly. The Ken spoke to a bunch of potential homebuyers who are looking for premium apartments with budgets of up to 2.5 crore rupees.  Real-estate experts are telling them to give up on their dreams. Lately, the national capital has been facing an acute supply crunch of new housing projects, especially in the mid-premium segment (80 lakh to 2 crore rupees) depending on the city.   Delhi NCR has witnessed the sharpest fall in inventory in this segment in the last few years.   Real-estate prices in turn have shot up far beyond the reach of most buyers. But it’s not like demand for housing has gone down because of these sky high prices.  People are still buying tens of thousands of these mid-premium houses in and around Delhi.   So the obvious question then is: why aren’t more residential housing units being built?  From listeners: Praveen: Partner (2007)Sravan: The InternAnish: Lord of the Rings trilogyFrom hosts:Snigdha: The Perfect CoupleRahel: Call Me BaeDaybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. For next Thursday's Unwind, send us your recommendations to us as texts or voice notes. The theme is "comfort food from your favourite spot in town."

India's tuition republic came into the picture to fill the gaps in the education system. First and foremost: they promise to get you into the college of your dreams. That simple but powerful promise has made this a Rs 58,000 crore industry. But there is a flip side to this. It puts traditional schools in a rather precarious position. Students start trickling out of the system after class 10. Their parents transfer them to junior colleges or schools with integrated coaching models so they can focus on cracking competitive exams. One school has had enough of this. It's tackling attrition by taking on these coaching centres directly. The first step? Hiring 200 IITians. Tune in. If you've been wondering what The Ken is all about and why our subscribers love us, here is your chance to find out. Check out our special 30-day trial curated just for you.To apply for the latest job openings in The Ken's podcast team, click here.

On Independence Day this year, just six days after it went public, Ola Electric launched three new electric motorbikes. This was a bold move, especially considering that  electric vehicles haven’t really clicked with the Indian audience yet. The exception to that rule has been electric two and three wheelers, which had some unexpected success in tier-2 India. But motorcycles are not scooters. People still prefer their 125cc ICE bikes. So, it’s a difficult space to break into. But if there is one thing we know about Ola Electric, it’s that the company does not shy away from making bold business decisions. It has its sights set on becoming the next Hero Splendor. Has Ola Electric bitten off more than it can chew? Tune in.If you've been wondering what The Ken is all about and why our subscribers love us, here is your chance to find out. Check out our special 30-day trial curated just for you.To apply for the latest job openings in The Ken's podcast team, click here.

Three days ago, Rapido, the bike taxi company, became India’s latest unicorn after it raised $200 million at a valuation of over $1 billion. The funding round which was led by WestBridge Capital also saw new investors put in their money into the company. In an interview to the ET, CEO Aravind Sanka said that the funds will be used to expand Rapido's newly launched four-wheeler taxi service, which competes with Ola and Uber.  But here’s the thing. Ever since it started, Rapido has consciously stayed away from venturing into the cab business. Until last year was happy to stay in the bike taxi lane and beat Ola and Uber there even though that it managed to do it, often, at the expense of customer safety. Now it has forayed into cab-hailing but it is trying a different route. Instead of commissions, its driver partners pay it a subscription fee. Tune in.If you've been wondering what The Ken is all about and why our subscribers love us, here is your chance to find out. Check out our special 30-day trial curated just for you.To apply for the latest job openings in The Ken's podcast team, click here.

"Google is a monopolist and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly."Last month, Judge Amit P Mehta of of US District Court for the District of Columbia delivered a historic ruling against one of the biggest technology companies in the world. Google was accused of abusing its dominance by paying the likes of Apple and Samsung billions of dollars to make its search engine the default option on their smartphones and browsers. It is being called the biggest antitrust case of the century. And this is only the beginning. The Google ruling comes amid a growing anti-big tech sentiment. The general consensus is that this tiny group of companies — Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft — have grown too big and too powerful. These companies are deciding what we see on the internet — the news we consume, the information we have access to, what we buy and who we buy from. At some point, everyone got a little wary of these companies. They started seeing some real threats to their power in the form of antitrust lawsuits and regulations. Suddenly, their every move was being scrutinised. Have we gone too far? Manjushree RM, Senior Resident Fellow at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, weighs in on the pushback against big tech, and how India is keeping up with it all. P.S The Ken's podcast team is hiring! Here's what we're looking for.Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. Send us a hello with your name and since when you've been listening to us and be a part our community. Also, if you have any recommendations for this Thursday's Unwind segment, send them to us as texts or voice notes.Want to be part of the Daybreak community? Introduce yourself here.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Dunzo, the Reliance Retail-backed quick delivery company, let go off 75% of its workforce in fresh round of layoffs earlier this week. But for the longest time, Dunzo has been an anomaly. Its a small company that has managed to make its name a verb. Like Google but Google is a giant.  Its revenue was just $7 million dollars in the year that ended in 2022. For perspective, Zomato made more than 70 times that amount in the same period,  But it did not matter.  Because it changed our lives and it became the kind of consumer brand that tech companies who do anything for.   To understand the unravelling of Dunzo, we need to go back to two years ago when Dunzo was on a high.  Tune in.P.S Don't miss our brand new Thursday segment, DAYBREAK UNWIND, in this episode!This week's recommendations:From listeners: Ashish: The BearJoy: Panlong aka Coiling DragonIshan Sarkar: The Peanut Butter FalcomApurva: Blue Eye Samurai From hosts:Snigdha: Invisible Planets: 13 Visions of The Future of China edited and translated by Ken Liu                The Worst Person in The World Rahel: Sisters in SweatDaybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. Send us a hello with your name and be a part of the Daybreak community. For next Thursday's Unwind, send us your recommendations to us as texts or voice notes. The theme is "comfort food from your favourite spot in town."

There was once a time, not very long ago, when every company wanted to be a fintech. Food delivery, ride hailing, e-commerce – companies that you would not otherwise associate with financial services. And when you think about it, it does add up. A couple years ago, fintech was where the money was at. Indian fintechs received nearly 9 billion dollars in funding in calendar year 2021. It was one the hottest sectors in the country. The inside joke among venture capitalists was how founders could raise a round of funding just by mentioning “financial services” in their pitch deck. What were earlier standalone businesses would now exist as mere features on their apps. People in the industry came up with a catch-all term – fintech-as-a-feature. Take Ola for instance. Zomato seemed to be going down that path too. In 2022, it had applied for a non-bank financial company or NBFC licence with the Reserve Bank of India. But since then, things have changed. From 2022 onwards, the amount of money being raised by fintechs has dipped considerable. In 2022, they raised about 5.4 billion dollars, then in 2023, this amount fell to 2 billion. What's going on? Tune in to find out. P.S The Ken's podcast team is hiring! Here's what we're looking for.Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. Send us a hello with your name and since when you've been listening to us and be a part our community. Also, if you have any recommendations for this Thursday's Unwind segment, send them to us as texts or voice notes.Want to be part of the Daybreak community? Introduce yourself here.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In the last decade, the number of people covered by health insurance has more than doubled. Of course, big hospitals – both the state funded ones and the private ones that look a lot like five-star resorts – are making the most of it. They are really raking it in. But there is a sizeable chunk of the healthcare system that is left out. The small, private hospitals that make up nearly 85 per cent of the industry. This is the ‘missing middle’. It’s disorganized and severely underfunded. It’s also stuck in a bureaucratic maze of claims and reimbursements. The patients that rely on these facilities are  very often stuck between subsidised schemes and private insurance. But here’s the thing – where there is chaos there is also huge opportunity. Opportunity that a new crop of health fintechs have identified. Enter Gmoney, Digisparsh, Healthcred, and Carepay. All of them are waiting to disrupt the ‘cashless insurance’ space. They’re coming to the rescue with plans to connect the dots between insurers, hospitals, and patients. Tune in. P.S The Ken's podcast team is hiring! Here's what we're looking for.Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. Send us a hello with your name and since when you've been listening to us and be a part our community. Also, if you have any recommendations for this Thursday's Unwind segment, send them to us as texts or voice notes.Want to be part of the Daybreak community? Introduce yourself here.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

For a while now, some of the biggest players in India’s third-party logistics industry have been riding on the success of e-commerce unicorn Meesho. As of 2023, it accounted for over half of the 2.5 billion shipments that were being handled by third-party logistics players. Companies like Delhivery and Ecom Express happily rose to the occasion and partnered with Meesho to handle all its order deliveries. For logistics companies this was a dream come true because most of the other major e-commerce players in India – like Flipkart and Amazon – take care of all their logistics in-house. Now, Meesho has announced the launch of Valmo, its own in-house logistics arm. Naturally, third party logistics partners are nervous. But no one is more shaken up than Ecom Express.Tune in.P.S The Ken's podcast team is hiring! Here's what we're looking for.Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. Send us a hello with your name and since when you've been listening to us and be a part our community. Also, if you have any recommendations for this Thursday's Unwind segment, send them to us as texts or voice notes.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

When it comes to electric vehicles, China is the crownless king. Nothing new there.But what was news to us was when Bhavish Aggarwal recently announced at an event that his company, Ola Electric, is the world’s largest electric two-wheeler manufacturer and the fourth-largest EV company in the world. It left everyone scratching their heads for a few seconds until they noticed the fine print at the bottom of the powerpoint slide — marked with an asterisk, in tiny lettering, it said excluding China.But you can't exclude China from the EV conversation because for the last decade it has been leagues ahead of the rest of the world. The Chinese government has been pushing for EV adoption — and all of its efforts have paid off. Multiple studies and surveys have found that China’s EV market is now the biggest in the world. In fact, we included China and fixed that chart, Mr Bhavvish Aggarwal. Take a look. But it's not all sunshine and rainbows. While India is still in its teething phase as far as electric mobility is concerned, China is well into its teens, and we all know puberty comes with a whole set of its own problems. In China’s case it’s price wars, record breaking insurance premiums, and a threat to data privacy. Are there lessons here for India? Tune in to find out. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.Want to be part of the Daybreak community? Introduce yourself here.

A big reason when we choose to buy online instead of going to a store depends on how easy the e-commerce company makes it to return stuff. So far, with most companies, all you have to do is ask for a return on the app or website and someone comes to your doorstep and picks it up.While e-commerce companies have been wooing you with the option, in reality they hate returns because reverse logistics are a costly affair for them.Which is why e-commerce platforms like Ajio and Myntra are changing their return policies. Some are even blocking some customer accounts.  But are customers ready to give it up yet?Tune in.* This story was previously featured on Daybreak in April, 2024P.S Don't miss our brand new Thursday segment, DAYBREAK UNWIND, in this episode!This week's recommendations:Snigdha: To read: The Buddha in the Attic by Julie OtsukaTo watch: Kalki 2898 ADRahel:To watch and listen: Hanumankind – Big Dawgs | Ft. Kalmi Daybreak is now on WhatsApp at +918971108379. Send us a hello with your name and be a part of the Daybreak community. Also, if you have any recommendations for next Thursday's Unwind, send them to us as texts or voice notes.

There was once a time, not too long ago,  when you could walk into a young working professional’s rented home in a tier-1 city, and all the furniture would look pretty familiar. About a decade ago, everyone and their uncle was renting furniture from the two OG rental platforms Rentmojo and Furlenco. It just made sense. When Rentmojo and Furlenco were launched about a decade ago, they were like an answer to a lot of people’s prayers. It was a great deal – your fridge, washing machine, king sized bed and more would be delivered right at your doorstep. Use them for as long as you need, and return them when you are done. Cut to 2024, and things have changed. They are struggling to stay relevant. Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.Want to be part of the Daybreak community? Introduce yourself here.

Lenders are flouting every rule in their books to cater to the rising gold-loan demand. Thanks to the collusion between lenders and borrowers at some of the branches, one in ten gold loans every month is sanctioned through malpractices—like tweaking weight and misreporting purity of gold, said two industry executives.In this episode, we delve into the murky world of gold loans and what often goes wrong when borrowers seek them out. Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.Want to be part of the Daybreak community? Introduce yourself here.

If you’ve ever taken a loan from a non bank or an NBFC, the EMI is usually auto-debited from your account every month. But if you missed a payment, you know what usually goes down. You are inundated with phone calls from your lender and maybe agents even start visiting your home. Not an ideal situation for you or your lender.But now, your lender can just monitor your account and deduct the money as soon as it comes into your account…all thanks to that auto-debit permission you granted. Earlier, only a bank could do this when it lent money to its account holder. But now non-banks can do it, too. A fintech executive told The Ken that this tool will soon become business as usual in every lender’s tool box. But things are still not there yet since the banks are not predictably sharing the statement data or their servers are down.And here’s where account aggregators come into the picture. These aggregators are a newly-created class of licensed companies by the Reserve Bank of India. They basically help businesses exchange financial information about a user after taking the user’s consent. Meanwhile, Navi Finserv, a four-year-old non-bank, is quite particular about how fast it can help its users take out a loan. Navi’s co-founder and CEO Sachin Bansal—who previously co-founded the Flipkart —believes “banking should be as easy as going on Swiggy and ordering food”. So to amp up both disbursals and collections, Navi and others like it are counting on account aggregators. But being able to access a borrower’s bank statement at any given time is a powerful collection tool.And the problem is how Navi is using this power.Tune in. If you're interested in working for The Ken's podcast team, apply here

The pandemic disrupted everyone's travel plans. But now, everyone is travelling with a vengeance and it's really overloading the systems. With visa appointment slots hard to come by, travel agents have turned securing visa dates into a profitable business. Meanwhile, embassies and consulates are trying hard to limit the wait list. And at the center of this anxiety-inducing maze is one company called VFS global that handles the visa application process for more than 150 of the world’s 195 countries, including India.In this post pandemic era of the so-called revenge travel, VFS is where the dreams of many travelers’ go to die. For many Indian travellers, VFS is like the mean gatekeeper not letting them get to their dream destination.  Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.Want to be part of the Daybreak community? Introduce yourself here.

What really makes UPI successful? The number of transactions. In FY2024, for example, more than 130 billion transactions were carried out through UPI. But it's not enough. UPI needs more and more to the point where now it has become a transaction-hungry monster. And NPCI National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), government body that runs UPI has to constantly come up with ways to feed this ever-hungry monster.Its latest offering is delegated payments. Earlier this month, Reserve Bank of India Governor, Shaktikanta Das, announced that non-UPI users, like elderly people or teenagers or anyone who does not have a way to transact via UPI, can use another UPI user’s account and spend through it.While many payments platforms are excited about this new feature, there are some serious issues that may become roadblocks later.Tune in to find out.

Many thought the fall of WeWork – as quick and public as it was – was the final nail in the coffin for the fledgling coworking space business.  But a few years later, the pandemic is over and people are finally making their way back to their workplaces. The end of work from home has given the coworking space a new lease on life and one Delhi-based startup in particular is really standing out.Awfis, a nine-year-old flexible workspace company, is breaking pretty much every rule in the coworking space playbook. And it seems to be working out pretty well for the company. Tune in. Listen to the latest episode of Two by Two hereDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

For more than two decades, India’s jewellery industry has been dominated by one name and one name only – Tanishq. The Titan-owned brand has managed to become the go-to jewellery store for people across the country. Some may even call it the gold standard…literally. But since last year, things have been changing. Tanishq’s dominance is being challenged. Not by some massive international player or any other pan-India brand. Nope. Instead, it is regional players that are starting to dim Tanishq’s shine. You may have noticed all the Malabar Gold and Kalyan Jewellers ads and billboards that have popped up in the last year or so. Both are regional brands that have really been giving Tanishq a run for its money. The funny thing is all of these regional brands have risen to the top by doing exactly what Tanishq does best. They are literally hijacking Tanishq’s own playbook. And in the process, what was once Titan’s exclusive territory, with its 8% market share in a sea of unorganised competition, is now getting crowded.Tune in. Listen to the latest episode of Two by Two hereDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Tech platforms like Google, Meta, or even e-marketplaces such as Olx are increasingly becoming hotbeds of online advertising scams in India. People have been losing anything from a few thousands to even a few crore rupees to cyber crime syndicates who have  proficient, tech-savvy members.The amount of money consumers have reported losing to fraud that originated on social-media platforms has skyrocketed since 2017. Last year alone, people reported losing more than $1.2 billion to fraud that started on social media.What are big techs like Google and Meta doing to prevent these crimes? Is it enough?Tune in to find out.**This episode is a rerun and was first published on Nov 27, 2023Listen to the latest episode of Two by Two hereDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In Mumbai last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that India was entering the bid to host the Summer Olympic Games in 2036. Yup, bidding happens more than a decade before the actual event. Because that’s how long it takes to prep a city for the Olympics. At the same event, PM Modi said hosting the games India is the “age-old dream and aspiration of 140 crore Indians”. You see, the prestige associated with hosting the Olympics is undeniable…many would say, it is priceless. If you think about it, for a developing country, is the ultimate flex, right? But in the end, is it really worth it? Sports economist Andrew Zimbalist does not think so. He has devoted much of his career to exposing the dark underbelly of the Olympics. Tune in. P.S. The Ken podcast team is looking for a talented podcast producer and an audio journalist. If you fit the bill or know someone who does, please apply! 

For many in the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), this year’s Union Budget announcement was a damp squib.On 23 July, several officials from the ticketing-and-catering arm of Indian Railways waited for over an hour, with the collective hope that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman would quash the discounts on UPI payments. The reason behind their discontent is that the discount has cost IRCTC an arm and a leg. The company has lost Rs 40 crore in revenue. But despite all of the pushback, this year’s Budget did not mention revoking the mandate anywhere. So, what’s going on? And why isn’t the government backing down?Tune in to find out. P.S. The Ken podcast team is looking for a talented podcast producer and an audio journalist. If you fit the bill or know someone who does, please apply! 

Fertility rates in India are not looking good. In fact, it has fallen below the necessary replacement fertility level, which is basically the total fertility rate at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next, without migration. So to nip the issue in the bud, state governments are now stepping in to offer what private equity-backed fertility centres would otherwise charge lakhs of rupees for: IVF treatment for free. If it sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is. Tune In. 

Every year, nearly three lakh students flock to the city of Kota in Rajasthan, the coaching capital of the country. Almost half of them enroll themselves at Allen Career Institute, a 36 year-old pioneering coaching centre that was last valued at over 1 billion dollars.Lately, Kota’s reputation has been under question because of the frequent student suicides.This has obviously affected the number of students coming in and for the first time in its history, the coaching giant Allen is seeing a fall in its admissions. And its no small dip. Admissions have dropped by over 35% to around 80,000. But here’s the interesting part. This isn't restricted to Allen institute in kota alone. Its happening in other cities too.Actually two years ago, VCl investment firm Bodhi Tree Systems came into the picture and Allen began expanding the number of campuses outside Kota. Now, in total, there are over 200 of them and at least, one-third are new. The company’s CEO Nitin Kukreja told The Ken that Allen entered 16 new cities like Patna and Lucknow last year alone. A senior teacher at Allen Kota told us that for a centre to be profitable, it needs at least 4,000–5,000 student enrolments. But right now, Allen is not even seeing half of this. At least half a dozen senior Allen staffers and competitors told The Ken that a big chunk of these new centers are losing money. Staff pays have taken a hit but Allen is also hiring staff in new cities with a possible plan of shifting base out of Kota.In today’s episode we take a look at what’s happening inside one of the country’s latest test prep giants.Tune into to Two by Two's latest episode, 'Delhi pricked the Bengaluru bubble' here

The search for an ideal workplace is a bit like finding El Dorado — that land of endless wealth and opportunities. Like El Dorado, 'the ideal workplace' also, well, seems like a myth. But that doesn't stop people from striving to find one. This is a conversation that goes right back to the birth of the modern corporation. From the civil rights movement in the US, to the evolution of trade unions in India – throughout history, people have fought for a fair and equitable workplace. One that has equal opportunities for everyone, where everyone feels seen and heard, and no one is treated differently because of where they come from or who they are.  Eventually, the century-long battle for the ideal workplace finally boiled down to  three core values – diversity, equity and inclusion or DEI. But here’s the thing about DEI – it comes and goes in waves. And it usually takes an extreme incident to trigger the pendulum to swing towards DEI. And when the pendulum swings to the other side, DEI’s alter ego, that has been lurking in the shadows all along, finally makes its entrance. Lately, its been popularly known as MEI — merit, excellence and intelligence. Right now, we are bang in the middle of yet another wave of the DEI vs MEI debate. In the last few weeks, giants like Microsoft, Google, Meta have majorly scaled down their DEI initiatives. Some have even laid off entire DEI teams. Naturally, many are of the opinion\ that DEI is on its deathbed.The repercussions of all of this are being felt here in corporate India where a watered down version of DEI was just about getting started. But now that it has hit a wall in the West, what does that mean for us? To find out hosts Snigdha and Rahel speak to two women who are trying to fix this broken system but in very different ways. Christina Dhanuja, author, DEI strategy consultant and the founder of Dalit History Month and Naiyya Saggi, the co-founder of The Good Glamm Group, a unicorn startup based out of India.Tune in. For feedback, write to us at [email protected] is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

From September 2, IDFC Bank’s credit card customers will only have to pay 2% of the total bill amount every month instead of the earlier 5%. The bank has reduced the minimum amount due (MAD). Even Axis Bank did this last year in November.This means for customers, there are lesser chances of being tagged as a defaulters which hurts their credit score.  Why are banks doing this?Two bankers told The Ken that the main reason why banks or lenders are reducing MAD is because of rising defaults. India has been warming up to the idea of credit. In fact, now its come to a point where debit card usage is declining. Online credit card spending in India rose by 20% in the last one year to reach more than ₹1 lakh crore in March this year. But for banks or lenders this also means that the associated non-performing assets (NPAs) have started to become a cause for concern. This is why lowering the limit for defaults will help banks. But for customers, there is more to it than meets the eye.Tune in

The last nine years have been quite a wild ride for Cars24. It has gone from being a consumer-to-business auction platform for dealers to buy used cars, to becoming a consumer-to-consumer marketplace for used cars. It has seen its fair share of highs and lows along the way. Off late, once again, the business has been floundering. But Cars24 is dealing with it by undergoing its most intense and unexpected makeover yet. It seems to be transforming into a full-blown fintech. The startup got a non-bank license  to finance used cars half a decade ago. Back then, its financing arm was meant to be a lever to sell more cars. But now it is much more than that. Tune in. 

Last year, the central bank banned Razorpay and a bunch of its competitors, like PayTM, Cashfree and PayU, from onboarding new merchants until they were able to secure a payment aggregator license. Till then, they all had in principal approvals for the license. But the RBI stepped in and said they had to stop onboarding merchants until they actually got the license. It was only in December that the RBI lifted the ban after Razorpay finally received the license. Obviously, it was a big day for Razorpay. All of the employees who had already left for the day came straight back to office. They all knew exactly what they had to do because they had been planning for this day for months now. Razorpay had a big opportunity to gain marketshare. In the last seven months since the RBI lifted the embargo, it has been in recovery mode. And in the process, it has fundamentally changed as a company. Tune in. 

Jupiter, the Mumbai based neobank, went from a $70 million valuation in 2019 to a $700 million valuation in just two years. Venture capitalists, along with fintech founders, continue to believe in neobanks. A report by Statista predicts that the transaction value across neobanks in India is will cross $150 Bn by 2027.Jupiter, a leader in the space, quadrupled its user base to two million in just a year in 2022. Thanks to its efficient user experience to access banking products like savings accounts or fixed deposits, many 20- and 30-year-olds are drawn to Jupiter. They use the platform to park their money, make small transactions, and invest with features like a sub-account to park funds for different saving goals or flexi-SIP payments.But RBI clipped its wings, like it did for other fintechs. Since Jupiter realised the regulator also doesn’t like startups calling themselves a “bank” in any form unless they are licensed to be one, it began the journey of itself from a neo bank into a non-bank. And Jupiter had been trying to get its non bank license from RBI ever since it started operations but it only got last year.But building its own loan book is turning out to be an expensive affair. And in the process of getting its finances in order, Jupiter may just about become another annoying bank app.Tune in.Listen to the latest episode of Two by Two, 'Is Zepto a gold medalist or a bronze medalist?' here.

"I am willing to take the risk and give this drug a shot, for I've tried and tested almost all anti-obesity means myself—and even failed at some. As a first step, I am banking on other Ozempic users’ experience." Meet Alifiya Khan, a health and education reporter at The Ken. Last month, she published a story on Ozempic, the 'miracle' weight-loss drug, and how easy it is to procure despite not being officially cleared for sale by the Indian government. But this isn’t just another health story. Alifiya herself has been suffering from obesity for more than a decade now. For her procuring Ozempic wasn't just to further a story. She needed it for herself. After trying every fad diet, weight loss pill, and non-invasive procedure, to Alifiya, Ozempic is the light at the end of the tunnel. In this episode, she joins hosts Snigdha and Rahel to share her story. Tune in. P.S. Not sure if you heard, but we hit 1 million downloads this month! We could not be more excited and grateful to you, our listeners. Could you do us a favour? Could you fill in this form and share your feedback? Also drop us a rating! P.P.S. The Ken's podcast team is hiring! We are looking for a producer and host with at least 4-5 years of experience in the field. If you are interested or know someone who would be, please write to [email protected] with 'Application for The Ken Podcasts' in the subject line.

A few days ago, an X user shared a screenshot of Google Maps depicting how it would be faster to walk than drive from a particular place to another in Bengaluru. After all, the city is best known for two things: great weather and terrible traffic. The so-called Silcon Valley of India is the sixth slowest city in the world! How is it then that no one has come up with some innovative tech-based solutions?Actually, they have.  But you’ll be surprised to know that one the key reasons why the city's traffic troubles never seem to end is because the focus has mostly been only on tech driven solutions. Tune in.**This episode was first published on 19 Feb, 2024Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories

Microschools are basically a modern twist on the concept of a one-room school house. So smaller classes, student-led learning, a flexible curriculum, the works.So for instance,  if traditional schools teach the photosynthesis phenomenon through textbook readings, a microschool would nudge students to conduct interactive experiments with plants and light.In most of these schools, there’s no fixed curriculum. Its personalised as per the needs of each student. Sounds ideal right? Except for the fact that they are way more expensive than a regular school. And then there's the question of higher education. Sure these kids may be able to think more critically than a CBSE student, but what happens when they go to college? Or if they have to transfer to a traditional school at some point?Despite these questions, more and more parents are embracing this new school of thought. Could it really be the next best thing in education? Tune in. 

Craving a low-cal, zero-sugar, guilt free tub of ice cream? Well then, Hocco isn't for you. The ice cream brand, founded by Havmor scion Ankit Chona, takes great pride in making and selling ice cream the old fashioned way. It's a brave choice considering low-cal ice cream is really having its moment. VCs seem to believe that ice cream is a dish best served cold...and sugar free. But Chona is sticking to his guns. And if the numbers are anything to go by, his bet seems to be paying off.  Tune in. 

On Friday this week, we’re going to see one of the largest IPOs of 2024 by a new-economy company. The Bhavish Aggarwal-led Ola Electric is all set to make its debut in the stock market. The IPO which has been in the works for sometime is expected to value the company at a little over $4 billion. Aggarwal is due to sell almost 38 million shares as part of the offer for sale which is nearly 20% lower than what the company had indicated in its DHRP. The company is a leader in the two wheeler EV space in india with more than one third of the market share. Of course, getting here has been no cakewalk for Ola Electric. Just last month it was reported that the company was planning to let go of 400-500 employees to streamline its operations before the listing.In this episode we go over some of the highlights from the company's offer document.Tune in.P.S. Check out the most recent episode of Two by Two, our brand new business podcast, where the hosts ask: why has all the disruption and joy gone out of startups? Stream on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or other platforms!Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

The global astrology market today is worth nearly $13 billion. In India alone, the online astrology market is estimated around $100 million and is expected to grow ten times in the next five years or so. But this isn’t astrology as we’ve known it. In the last few years, astrology has had a facelift and it’s largely thanks to Gen Z. They have rediscovered it and turned it into a full blown cultural moment. Meme pages, Astro Twitter, mercury retrograde—astrology has become a pop culture phenomenon, not just here in India but across the world. New-age astrology apps like Co Star and Pattern give you the option of checking whether your “vibes” match with your friend or love interest.  It's like modern-day kundli matching. And Gen Zs are here for it and more. They’re also using astrology apps to check what stocks to put their money on, for their appraisal season—basically, anytime they have to make a decision, big or small.We wanted to know why the Gen Z, a generation that’s been recognised for its hyper-awareness about things like climate change, politics, governance is embracing astrology so passionately despite all of its very well documented flaws as a pseudoscience. Also, how are astrology app makers are responding to this trend?To find out, we spoke to two Gen Zs—Misha Verma, a 22 year-old 2D animator from Bengaluru and Khushi Singh Kopar, a 23 year-old UI/UX designer from New Delhi who part times as a tarot reader, the founder of an AI-powered astrology app called Melooha, Vikram Labhe, and Nakul Shenoy, a mentalist based out of Bengaluru.Tune in!Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Once valued at $22 billion, Byju's, is undergoing insolvency proceedings initiated by the National Company Law Tribunal. This is over a $19 million payment default to the Board of Control for Cricket in India. Byju’s could now see a potential buyout or liquidation. It gets worse. A couple of days ago, one of the largest foreign investors in India, the Qatar Investment Authority, requested the Karnataka High Court to block founder Byju Raveendran’s personal assets.To say things are bad is an understatement.The first question that comes to mind is, of course, what happened. But that’s a story that’s been told too many times. Instead, today, we tell you what Olina Banerji, The Ken's edtech expert and writer of our popular newsletter, Ed Set Go, wrote about Byju’s in the latest edition.She took us back to see what made Byju’s the company it became in the first place and the legacy it is leaving behind.Tune in.P.S. – Check out the first episode of the latest addition to our podcast slate, Two by Two, on Spotify, Apple or YouTube!Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Healthify saw immense success during the pandemic. Its revenues more than doubled in FY 2022. And it adds up when you think about it. With millions of people stuck at home and gyms shut, Healthify’s virtual fitness and nutrition plans were pretty ideal. But once gyms reopened, home workouts didn’t cut it anymore. And unfortunately, Healthify really bore the brunt of it. The following year, revenue growth slowed down considerably and losses began to soar. But the company's leadership seems undeterred. In fact they want to expand business to the United States, where it will be up against established healthtechs like Noom and MyFitnessPal.  The company seems to be pinning its hopes on the US market as somewhat of a hail Mary pass. 

In 2015, Bira 19 introduced India to craft beer. In the process, the brand started the conversation around taste and quality. It very quickly blew up and became the cool new beer to drink at a bar or a party. The craft beer brand also managed to become a hit among investors. It bagged $450 million in funding from the likes of Japanese beer and beverage company Kirin Holdings and venture capital giant Peak XV Partners, formerly known as Sequoia Capital. But somewhere along the way, the brand seems to have lost direction. In the last few years, Bira has been in short supply at liquor retailers and pubs. And to make matters worse, former Bira executives and industry insiders say that the company’s dealing with a  major cash crunch and its supply chain is in a dire state. All of this at a time when the company is reportedly planning to go public. Bira CEO Ankur Jain recently said that Bira is planning its IPO in 2026. But will he be able to get his business in order by then? And more importantly, what went wrong?Tune in to find out. 

In the 2024 financial year, Apple sold products worth $8 billion in India. This was a third more than the previous year. But how did a premium company like Apple that hates giving discounts sell products worth 8 billion dollars in a country as price sensitive as India? Apple obviously knew that its phones were unaffordable for most people in India?It found an answer was easy financing. After the Covid-19 outbreak in 2020, Apple made financing tie-ups with banks a mainstay. And one of the most important deals Apple made was with India’s largest private sector lender, and leading credit card issuer HDFC Bank. In fact, it was one of the costliest deals HDFC had. Thanks to it, HDFC customers have been enjoying exclusive cashbacks on Apple products ever since.Here's the bad news. The deal between Apple and HDFC is now over.What happened?Tune in.

With Swiggy set to go public soon, the quick commerce space in India is starting to look more and more like  a wrestling match. Going to head to head against Swiggy is the only listed quick commerce platform in the country, its arch rival Zomato.Both companies are doing exactly the same thing but somehow Zomato managed to leave Swiggy far behind. Swiggy’s  market share has dropped considerably in the last few years both in quick commerce and food delivery.  Now, not only is Zomato listed, its share prices have been going through the roof and Blinkit has become the jewel in its crown. So does Swiggy, the OG of food delivery in India, stand a chance? To find out, hosts Snigdha and Rahel invite The Ken's Deputy Editor Seetharaman G to the studio.Tune in.P.S. – Check out the first episode of the latest addition to our podcast slate, Two by Two, where the speakers discuss the rivalry between Flipkart and Phonepe, on Spotify, Apple or YouTube!Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

For most Indians, a cup of good chai is a comfort that's accessible. Coffee chains, on the other hand, are mostly premium.  And it all adds up when one considers the fact that Indians consume 20 cups of tea for every cup of coffee. But we live in a time when opulence and luxury makes us go google eyed. In the Indian consumer market, premiumisation is no longer a choice.  Even chai cafes chains don’t really have an option but to take the premium path.  But Chaayos, the largest tea cafe chain in India, has decided not to go where the wind blows. And Nitin Saluja, the 40-year-old founder of Chaayos, says that this decision is actually based on its customers. Over the last two years, nearly 200 of them have clearly indicated their unanimous opinion to the company: don’t become like Starbucks.  Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.P.S. – Check out the first episode of Two by Two, where the speakers discuss the rivalry between Flipkart and Phonepe, on Spotify, Apple or YouTube!

About two months ago, something pretty bizarre happened at the India office of Great Place to Work. At about 2:30 am on May 28, the board of the organization was summoned for a Zoom call. But the timing of the Zoom call wasn’t what was so alarming. At one point during the conversation, the founder, Prasenjit Bhattacharya, asked everyone to leave the call. Everyone except for Yeshasvini Ramaswami, the chief executive of the company. Just a few moments later, Prasenjit told her that she was being fired. You see, this isn’t the first time a CEO has been fired. But the way that this particular incident played out went against everything that Great Place to Work has stood for for so long.What's going on? Tune in 

Not so long ago, Birkenstocks were considered the antithesis of high fashion. For the longest time, the 250-year-old German brand’s characteristic chunky sandal was seen as nothing more than an orthopedic shoe meant for hippies and old people. And then, everything changed. In the last decade or so, Birkenstock had a major glow up. It all started with the brand deciding not to settle for being just another comfortable but cringey sandal anymore. So to make Birks cool the brand began collaborating with high-end fashion designers like Rick Owens, Valentino and Dior.  Very quickly celebrities and influencers caught on. They were suddenly being spotted walking out of the gym, or a cafe with a pair of birks on. And just like that, a trend was born. The orthopedic sandal, built more for comfort than for style, was the new it-shoe. Now, the Birk craze has found its way to India. Tune in. 

Flipkart, the Walmart owned e commerce giant, is on an overdrive to achieve profitability to realise its dreams of going public.To do this, it has tasked its category managers in fashion and lifestyle with squeezing more business out of brand partners. In fact, Flipkart is also using its own Myntra to get better leverage with these brands. The list of brands Flipkart is negotiating with includes Nike, Adidas and Puma, Woodland, Casio, and the Indian fashion retail giant Aditya Birla Fashion Retail Limited (ABFRL).Brands are resisting but they can only do so much because the kind of reach Flipkart gives them is unmatched. It has a registered customer base of more than 400 million.Does this mean that these brands have to give in to Flipkart’s demands? 

Have you ever heard of a 'f*** off fund'? Or better yet, do you have one?For the uninitiated, it is a sum of money that women should ideally set aside to get out of a difficult situation – think toxic job, abusive relationship or family situation, you get the drift. The term was coined by freelance writer, Paulette Perhach, in 2016. We recommend that you read her powerful essay on financial independence. The idea is for it to give you enough power, confidence and control to literally be able to say “f*** off” and walk away. You are probably thinking, ‘great in theory, but how do I actually build one for myself?’. We have got you covered. In this special episode of Daybreak, Chaitra Chidanand, the co-founder of Salt, a financial services platform for women, demystifies f*** off funds and how you can get one. Tune inWe would also love to hear your take on f*** off funds. Please take our survey. Suggested readingA F*** Off Fund: the most important female prep, Reddit"The FOF has saved me and my kids a few times.  Health crisis. Unemployment. Violence.  S**t happens.  But just as important—having a FOF means you can act from a position of power, not fear, not subservience." Warren Buffett Invests Like A Girl? Forbes"Buffett has always said that it’s temperament--not intellect--that makes you a great long-term investor. When you look at studies that have been coming out in the last 10 years about how men and women invest, what you see is that women tend to naturally have this temperament that creates long-term investing success."For Women With Money Issues, an A.D.H.D. Diagnosis Can Be Revelatory, NYT'But because activities like planning or budgeting don’t usually give people with A.D.H.D. a dopamine hit, they can find it harder than neurotypical people to get started or stick to accounting activities. This results in extra costs — paying cancellation fees for missed appointments or late fees for not opening a bill on time, or losing refunds because we missed the deadline for returning an unwanted purchase.'For feedback, write to us at [email protected]

According to the ICMR every individual should consume at least 48 grams of protein everyday. But in India, 8 out of every 10 of people dont meet their daily protein requirement. However, there is no denying the fact that awareness about the significance of what is often called the building block of life has increased after the pandemic. People are actively looking to include protein rich foods in their diet.Even the govt has pitched in. In 2020, the govt started an initiative to celebrate a National protein Day every year in February  to increase awareness about the importance of protein in India And that’s where Amul wants to come in. The dairy giant wants to use a key dairy byproduct—whey—to sell protein to a population that is hungry for itTune in.**This episode was first published on 28 Feb, 2024Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories

Things were going really well for Paisabazaar, until the Reserve Bank of India stepped in and hit it where it hurts. The RBI told banks to clamp down on the unsecured loan segment – which happens to be Paisabazaar’s bread and butter.  The regulator has discouraged lenders from small-ticket collateral free loans. And of course lenders know better than to ignore the RBI’s directive. So for Paisabazaar that meant its lending partners started shying away from unsecured loan leads. After a dream run, growth started slowing down. The company knew it had to do something and fast. Tune in 

Students pay hefty fees for an alt MBA from Masters' Union with the confidence that by the end of the course, they will be one step closer to their dream job, and more importantly their dream salary. Except, that isn’t what ended up happening for a majority of students in the batch of 2024. Classes ended a few weeks ago and most of the students are yet to land job offers.You see, it has been a tough year for India’s business schools. Even the IIMs and ISBs of the world have struggled to get a majority of their students placed at top companies. And in this tough climate, Masters’ Union, which has always positioned itself as a challenger to the IIMS, is facing a bigger crisis than any of its peers. Because placing its students isn’t just a matter of pride for the company, it's also crucial to its financial model. Tune in. 

For a country that boasts of its digital public goods infrastructure like Aadhar and UPI, it is a wonder why telecom has been so ignored. After nearly 1500 crore rupees of was reportedly lost to digital fraud in the financial year 2024, the govt's TRAI is finally scrambling to catch up with CPAN or the Calling Name Presentation (CNAP) service, its own version of Truecaller.Truecaller, the Swedish call-screening company, meanwhile, has been holding the fort for a while now. Users count on it to save them from spam and fraud calls. While TrueCaller maybe looking like a hero in this situation, it is a private company after all. It is  using this opportunity to make money from both users and businesses. But its success in India is also built partially on how inadequate privacy laws are in India. It company has been accused of breaching data privacy norms in the past.Can TRAI replace Truecaller?Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

More than 15,000 millionaires are most likely leave China for good this year, according to the latest report by Henley and Partners, a UK-based investment migration consultancy. This largely has to do with the fact that being a multi-millionaire in China is almost like living with a target on your back. Multiple cases of the wealthy disappearing, the most well-known of which was Alibaba's Jack Ma, are testament to this. Basically one can be rich but not too rich, especially when the Chinese economy is struggling with a slowdown. So if millionaires are not disappearing under mysterious circumstances, they are desperately trying to protect their assets at all costs.India too happens to be the third on the Henley list of top countries facing a millionaire exodus. It is expected to lose about 4,000 millionaires this year. But unlike China, this isn’t very concerning because this number has dropped since last year and also because India is also generating more millionaires than it is losing. In many ways, you could say, India stands today where China was 10 years ago. And that’s exactly why we need to understand what is happening in China. In this episode, Daybreak hosts Snigdha and Rahel speak to The Ken's Southeast Asia editor Brady NG about what's going on in our neighbourhood. Tune in.Brady's book recommendation: House of Leaves  Mark Z. DanielewskiArtwork by Adhithi Priya Rajagopal Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

For quick delivery apps like Zomato and Zepto that are often questioned for their carbon footprint, switching to electric vehicle or EV fleets is not just a matter of being environmentally conscious, it is also economically more feasible.But here’s the thing. While takes about four hours to charge an electric scooter from zero to full using a slow charger and approximately 15 minutes for a fast charger, battery swapping which literally takes two mins.Which is why delivery company drivers for whom speed means money, battery swapping is a better option than charging. Quick commerce companies have understood this and they’re partnering with these companies. For example, Zomato and Zepto have both partnered with Battery Smart, a Delhi-based network of battery-swapping stations for EVs. Plus, this comes at a great time because these battery swapping companies are attracting a lot of VC money despite the general VC funding crunch lately. And VCs are loving the fact that quick commerce giants are tying up with these battery swapping companies.So, you’d think that that government must be doing everything it can to give battery-swapping service providers support to expand right?Turns out, that is not really the case.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Cult.fit backed Sugar.fit very boldly promises to completely “cure”  diabetes in as little as six months. It also promises unlimited consultations with top doctors, daily fitness classes, the works. All for about Rs 30,000. That’s a small price to pay for a diabetes-free life. So of course, thousands sign up for it. But if you ask a healthcare professional they will tell you that reversing diabetes completely just isn’t possible. So what is Sugar.fit up to? Tune in to find out P.S. While you are here, check out the latest episode of The Ken's careers podcast The First Two Years. Host Akshaya Chandrasekaran delves into how to transition from grunt work to real work. 

Demand for high-end living is on the rise and Nobroker's subscription plan just doesn't cut it anymore. So it introduced a new postpaid plan to entice wealthy property owners. Funnily enough, the way it works is pretty much how traditional brokers earn their brokerage. This goes against the basic premise with which Nobroker was started almost a decade ago. So why has Nobroker switched up its strategy? And why is it going down the road it was so fundamentally against? Tune in to find out. 

When it entered the quick commerce scene for the first time in 2021, Zepto was a disruptor. Now, it is the third largest company in the market after Blinkit and Swiggy Instamart. Recently, it secured its biggest funding ever at a US$3.6 billion valuation, mainly from its existing investors.Venture Intelligence, a data provider told The Ken that the US$660 million funding is largest bet made by VCs in Indian startups this year. And now, The Ken's sources say that Zepto is planning to raise another round from “top-tier global VCs” at a US$5 billion valuation.What did Zepto do to get all this attention from investors?Tune in.Also listen to:Daybreak: Why we date, marry, or breakup with Swiggy Instamart, Blinkit, Zepto & BigBasketTFTY: How to get people to listen to you when you have no authority or title?

Four years, 15 cohorts, and roughly 1,500 students later, Stoa School has shut down. The poster child for alternative business-school education in India is no longer accepting new students. What went wrong? And what does it mean for India's altMBAs?  Tune in to find out. P.S. While you are here, check out the latest episode of The Ken's careers podcast The First Two Years, where host Akshaya Chandrasekaran delves into how to build trust with colleagues who don't trust you. 

The pandemic, as brutal as it was, forced a lot of businesses to double down on convenience and accessibility. Whether it was your online education or quick deliveries or at home blood tests. Just to be able to skip that dreaded visit to a hospital or a diagnostic centre meant so much to most people.Accredited labs popped up all over promising to come right to your doorstep and collect your samples from the comfort of your home and that too for super affordable prices. Healthians, a testing lab startup has seen bookings triple since the pre-pandemic era. Now, the company handles 12,500–13,000 bookings daily, with nearly 75% of its business coming from home collections.But while home tests are gaining popularity, whether you can trust them 100% is still under question. Phlebotomists and runners hold the keys to a sample’s fate and accuracy. Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

On June 3, about 200 employees of the American management consulting firm Bain and Company’s India division received a rather ominous calendar invite. They each would have a 10-minute meeting with HR. But no one, other than the heads of the regional offices and the head of HR, knew what the meeting was about. During the meeting, they were all told they were being laid off. The layoffs took the consulting community by surprise, because it just wasn’t a very ‘Bain’ thing to do. What's going on? Tune in to find out. 

Nothing about Nykaa is strictly its own anymore. Back when it went public, it had no real rivals in the beauty space. But since then, things have changed. Last year, India’s largest retailer, Reliance Retail, officially entered the beauty space. It launched an omnichannel beauty retail platform called TiraReliance isn’t playing around. In the last year, it has made one thing clear: it wants to completely shake up the country’s  beauty segment. But even the Reliance legacy to back it up, Tira’s success in this space isn’t a given. 

More than a decade has passed since Starbucks came to India. But the world’d biggest coffee chain has been struggling to achieve profitability. In the latest financials,  the company saw its slowest sales growth in India since the pandemic.So far, Starbucks has managed to open around 400 outlets across the country. Meanwhile, Third Wave, a much smaller specialty coffee startup that started around eight years ago, already has more than 100 stores around the country. Its new CEO Rajat Luthra recently announced that that chain plans to open 50 new outlets in existing markets. Third Wave has more than doubled its operating revenue in the last financial year. In the year before that, it saw its revenue grew more than fourfold. It raised $35 million in a funding round led by private equity firm Creaegis in September last year.How far can a startup like Third Wave go against a a 50 year-old global coffee powerhouse with the backing of Tata?Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

At the Worldwide Developers Conference, or WWDC, almost a week ago, Apple made a very important announcement. It launched what it calls 'Apple Intelligence', which is basically an umbrella term for all of the new generative AI features that will be available on certain models of the iPhone, iPad and Macbook. It was a revolutionary announcement because with it, Apple has finally entered the Gen AI race. What took it so long? 'Daybreak' hosts Snigdha and Rahel speak to The Ken co-founder Rohin Dharmakumar in this special episode. P.S while you are here, check out the latest episode of our early careers podcast 'The First Two Years', aka TFTY. In it, host Akshaya Chandrasekaran talks about how to fight for your next promotion. 

The newest battle ground between Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jim is financial services. Airtel already has two thriving ventures. The first is the seven-year-old Airtel Payments Bank which happens to be one of the three profitable payments banks in India. And the second is new financial entity called  Airtel Finance which is mainly aimed at Reliance Jio’s fintech disruptor, Jio Financial Services. The one year old Airtel Finance has already serviced loans worth $300 million. It seems do be doing pretty well. In fact, just last month, in an earnings call, the Airtel boss, Gopal Vittal talked about how Airtel Finance was shaping up really well. He said It served 400,000 car and loan products in FY24.The story is similar with Airtel Payments Bank. It registered its highest-ever annual revenue of more than $250 million in FY24 and also grew its deposits by 50% from the year-ago levels. The bank has been adding nearly a million new customers every month.But all of this comes at a time when India’s other fintechs are struggling with profitability.Apart from the fact that Jio is still leading, there is one more thing that sets the two of them apart from each other. Jio Financial Services’ focus is to lend to B2B players and engage in asset-management services. Airtel, meanwhile, is taking a different path. The company is using the oldest tool it has—SIM cards—to partner with lenders for consumer-centric products like loans and credit cards.But why SIM cards? The answer lies in the Airtels nearly thirty year old distribution network.Tune in.

Bluestone and Caratlane set out with the same dream. They both wanted to sell everyday fine jewellery online. This was a pretty alien concept in a country like ours, where gold and diamonds are seen more as an asset rather than just an accessory. And for a lot of people, buying gold and diamonds online is completely out of the question, even today. But both these companies were committed to the idea that there was space for fine jewellery online. And turns out they were right. Today, pretty much any major jeweller you can think of is selling their jewellery online. But somewhere along the way, they went on completely different trajectories. 

AI algorithms for cancer screening are being developed around the world. Most medical professionals will agree that there is tremendous potential here. If developed properly, AI can potentially detect various cancers at very early stages – which would make it easier to treat cancer and possibly even increase chances of survival. But all of that is great in theory. In reality, the general consensus amongst the medical community is that AI-led cancer screening just isn’t there yet. When it comes to screening, accuracy is everything. And There’s a long way for this technology to go before it is able to detect cases of cancer with close to perfect accuracy. 

Last week, Foxtale, an Indian D2C skincare company secured an $18 million funding in its series B round. Meanwhile, news also broke that the Deepika Padukone-led 82°E is planning to raise around $6 million from new and existing investors. Scores of new age skincare and beauty brands have cropped up since the pandemic and all of them harp on the science of skincare and their whole appeal is transparency.Among them one brand stands out: Minimalist. It is an active ingredients based skincare company that sells products named after the ingredients like niacianamide, retinol, glycolic acid, salicylic acid, etc. It launched around the end of 2020, and within a span of eight months, it built a 1000 crore rupees business. But for years, legacy brands like Ponds and Loreal have been selling products with similar ingredients. The only difference was they either didn't launch them in India or they kept the ingredient names hidden away in tiny fonts at the back of the bottles.Minimalist came around and changed that. And now, seeing the success of brands like Minimalist, legacy brands are rethinking their strategy.Tune in.Also listen to: Daybreak Special: Why aren't we scared of chemicals in our skincare anymore?

There is something really concerning happening to India’s 200-million strong workforce. Nearly half of them, who are above the age of 45, have reached a point in their careers where they may have to retire much earlier than they planned. Against their will.In a nutshell, the usual career span that would last anything between 40 to 50 years even has been slashed by half almost….. to just 20 or 25 years. But this isn’t something that a lot of 40 and 50 year olds are taking lying down. They are figuring out ways to hack the system so they can stay “forever employable”. And in the process, conventional career trajectories are starting to change. Like one 38-year-old CXO put it, “Growth—be it in a profession or in life—is not equivalent to moving up a single, well-defined ladder.” Daybreak hosts Snigdha and Rahel speak to The Ken reporter Vanita Bhatnagar about these new career trends. Tune in.

Zomato, the food delivery giant is all set to infuse more than $35 million into Blinkit. But not too long ago, Blinkit, the grocery delivery platform that was formerly known as Grofers, was on the verge of dying. It was the first year of the pandemic and the demand for quick commerce was at its peak. Grofers wanted to join the bandwagon but it didnt have the money.A year later in June 2021, it got its shot in the arm with a $120 Mn infusion from Zomato. A year later, in 2022, Zomato decided to go all the way in and acquired Blinkit for nearly $600 million. It was not been all smooth sailing even after that.But somehow, Blinkit has managed to crack the quick commerce market and become a leader.  How?Tune in.*This episode was first published on March 6, 2024Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

When 29-year-old Deepa delivered a healthy baby boy six months ago, she thought her health insurance would cover her hospital expenses. But unfortunately, it barely covered 1/3rd of the Rs 1 lakh bill. So she ended up using her corporate health insurance that offered a higher limit. And this isn’t a one off. The Ken spoke to 13 women from six different cities who delivered babies in the last couple of years. Most of them had experiences just like Deepa. Seven of them said they got their maternity expenses covered by corporate health insurance, either their own or their spouses. And that’s despite having their own personal health cover in place. Luckily for Deepa and the seven women we spoke to, they had some form of corporate health insurance in place. But in a country like ours, that’s a luxury. Only about 200 million out of the 1.4 billion citizens of this country have access to it. That’s pretty abysmal. In this episode, we delve into what health insurers have against pregnancies. Tune In. 

When e-commerce giant Flipkart acquired online travel aggregator (OTA) Cleartrip back in 2021, the hope was that it would be able to turn things around. Cleartrip had hit rock bottom. And in many ways the only way from there on was up. But things haven’t quite played out as Flipkart and Cleartrip had hoped. One big reason is that Cleartrip under Flipkart may have veered too far away from what makes an OTA an OTA — the OG tried-and-tested strategies that made us keep going back to old school travel agents back in the day.Tune In. 

Last year,  Indians collectively drank nearly 600 million litres of energy drinks. This was almost 30X more than 2018. Among all the go to drinks in India, lately energy drinks have become super popular. People seem to clearly be attracted to their appeal as stimulants.And what’s crazy is that these drinks have become an alternative to chai at tea stalls for office goers. And even for daily wage workers who have to work in this insane heat, they are often a cheaper meal replacement. For the more privileged, they’re also cocktail mixers at parties. As of 2023, PepsiCo's Sting had 90% of the market share in energy drinks in terms of volume. It's been doing so well that Varun Beverages, the company that bottles and distributes for PepsiCo in India, became the hottest FMCG stock in the country. Its saw its share price rise by more than 1000% per cent in the last five to six years.But the ones driving this growth are the country’s youth, who are often unaware of the contents of the drink and the heath risks that come along with it.Tune inDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Desi dating apps are vying for parental approval. And their strategy seems to be working. A couple months ago, Agrima Srivastava, a 29-year-old media professional from Lucknow, had an awkward conversation with her mother. She wanted to know if Agrima had ever heard of Indian dating apps, Aisle and Better Half. That was the first time Agrima had an open conversation with her mother about her love life. She told her that she was on dating apps, but homegrown ones like Aisle and Better half, were "just too serious". Funnily enough, the very reason Agrima was hesitant to get on an Indian dating app is why her mom approved of it. And Agrima's mom isn't alone. Many Indian dating apps have positioned themselves as the perfect stop gap between casual dating and marriage. It allows people the autonomy to choose their own partner without their parents getting involved, while also connecting them with a pool of potential partners from similar communities and upbringings. It's like parent-approved dating. How do they work? And do Indian dating app users need them? We speak to Chandni Gaglani, the head of Aisle and three dating app users to find out. Tune in. P.S. while you are here, why don't you check out The Ken's early careers podcast, The First Two Years. You can listen to it here. 

It has been a tough couple of years for India’s Chartered accountants. This was and to some extent still is one of the most sought after jobs in the country. But lately, the amount of risk involved in their work has been amped up considerably. And as a result, CAs have been resigning left, right and centre. The reason this is happening is because the auditing industry has been undergoing a major shake-up. And behind this shakeup is a relatively new, independent audit regulator called the NFRA, or the National Finance Reporting Authority. The NFRA has set all sorts of records in the last two years. Since 2022, it has debarred 78 auditors and imposed close to Rs 20 crore in penalties. Tune in. 

According to a survey by S&P, more than 75% of Indian adults do not understand basic financial concepts. The gap is 5% more when it comes to women.So the rise of financial influencers who simplify complex financial jargon and provide investment advice is not really surprising. But often, they underplay risks  and overplay returns, and try to ride the market waves.In fact, SEBI, the market capital regulator, has been receiving many complaints and is working on creating a framework of strict guidelines to bring them under its control.But reining these ‘finfluencers’ in is a bit of a catch-22 situation.Tune in.

Since 2021, Toyota and Maruti have been engaged in somewhat of a marriage of convenience. The terms were pretty simple. Toyota would share its hybrid technology with Maruti Suzuki. In exchange, Toyota would get to re-enter the pocket-friendly segment. So what this meant was that the non-premium Toyota cars sold were actually built by Maruti. And the fully hybrid cars sold under the Maruti label were built by Toyota. This arrangement has worked well for both companies for multiple reasons. The biggest of which is the growing popularity of hybrid vehicles in India in the recent past. But in the process, EV makers seem to be losing big time. Tune in.P.S. While you are here, why don't you check out the latest episode of The First Two Years, The Ken's early careers podcast. It's a good one! Akshaya talks about how to network without seeming desperate. Check it out here. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Credit card companies, in their rush to sell more and more cards use a whole gamut of attractive offers—the most popular one being free access to airport lounges. Thanks to this and the sharp rise in domestic air travellers, airport lounges saw of footfall of over 8 million people in 2022.What was once an exclusive service became a top-selling feature, even for non-premium cards issued by banks. Lounge access became overused and an expensive bill to foot for credit card issuers.Now, one after the other, major banks are revising their lounge policy. But retracting the freebie altogether is not a risk banks can afford to take.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In today’s special Friday episode, The Ken’s Praveen Gopal Krishnan (aka PGK) joins hosts Snigdha and Rahel to talk about India’s complicated relationship with 10 minute delivery apps. They talk about how these apps are shaping our economy and society at large, and more importantly how we, as users, are shaping them.Why do we pick a particular app, what makes us switch to another one and what makes us abandon them all together?PGK asked his readers just that in a recent survey he carried out in his weekly newsletter, The Nutgraf. You can check it out here.You can also check out the Bangalore floods edition Snigdha mentioned, here.Listen to Kabir Biswas talk about Dunzo and the quick delivery business on First Principles.If you're curious about the time everyone except Zepto assumed quick commerce was dying, click here.P.S Tell us what you thought of this episode. a) Was the subject interesting enough for you? b) Did you enjoy the conversation? You can write to us at [email protected] is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

At the time of demonetisation, the country was desperately seeking an alternative to cash. And a payments regulator called NPCI or the National Payments Corporation of India, was our unexpected knight in shining armour. The NPCI managed to launch UPI at just the right time. This was a revolutionary, once in a generation product that really put the NPCI on the map. Over the years, UPI also became a huge political asset for the Central Government. That’s evident from the fact that political leaders, including the PM, have made it a point to repeatedly endorse UPI. But nearly two general elections later, the pressure is on for the NPCI to come up with a new product, the next UPI. And the NPCI is really feeling the pressure. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

New-age D2C mattress brands like Wakefit and The Sleep Company have successfully made orthopaedic mattresses into a mass product. They are changing the landscape of the mattress market in India with their innovative science and tech based approach and clever marketing techniques. Wakefit, for example, literally offers a “sleep internship" where all you have to do is "sleep for 9 hours everyday for a hundred days and earn up to 10 lakh rupees."It's come to a point where even older and bigger mattress makers have had to adapt these changes and start selling these orthopedic mattresses.But is this really about the science or more about the selling?Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

A couple months ago, Xiaomi released a new product – the SU7. This wasn’t a smartphone, or any other gadget that you would have otherwise associated with the Chinese company. The SU7 is actually Xiaomi’s first-ever Electric Vehicle. Now, this is a major milestone for Xiaomi. It has become the first smartphone maker to successfully launch an EV. Funnily enough, this is something that many smartphone makers  and technology companies – from Apple to Samsung – have tried to do but failed at. Until now. But what do smartphone makers have to do with EVs?Tune in to find out.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Indians have really been warming up to credit cards lately. More than a 100 million credit cards are in circulation in India as of now. And this rise has a lot to do with the benefits customers get: cash back deals and reward points that you can collect and redeem for anything from flight tickets to stays at fancy resorts.But between the two, cashbacks are a more straightforward method of making the most of your credit card. Availing reward points, on the other hand, requires a combination of skill and patience. And between the two, there’s one that banks actually don’t like.Tune in to find out.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In this week's Daybreak Special episode, hosts Snigdha Sharma and Rahel Philipose speak to The Ken's Shivani Verma about her investigation into Pharmeasy's dubious business practices. The once IPO-bound company is under the scanner for its 'unethical' ways of upselling alternative medicines and supplements. Everyone – from Pharmeasy's own pharmacists, to the doctors who call behalf of the company to validate a customer's prescription – are under pressure to sell these supplements. The saga began with Pharmeasy’s 2021  acquisition of Bengaluru-based e-pharmacy Medlife, where former executives noted a similar trend of upselling alternatives and supplements.  This comes amid ballooning losses and immense pressure from investors to show profitability. So what's the deal? Why is Pharmeasy going down this route? Tune in to find out. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.P.S. Daybreak episodes drop daily now :)

Thanks to Swiggy and Blinkit, it’s gotten to a point where getting everything – from your groceries to a literal water cooler – delivered to your doorstep within minutes has become pretty routine. Something we expect. But there is so much going on behind the scenes to make that delivery possible. Like one executive told The Ken, it’s a combination of solid logistics and precise inventory management.Pulling that off with just groceries that you can easily throw into a carrier and strap on to a bike is one thing. But then you go and add things like water coolers, mixer grinders, even iPhones to the mix. It sounds like a logistical nightmare. But it’s a nightmare that quick commerce apps like Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart and Zepto have dived headfirst into. They are becoming everything stores, almost like ‘mini Amazons’. And with that, the very nature of quick commerce is changing. 

If you were flying sometime last month, you may have noticed, staff from Digiyatra, the contactless, biometric entry system at airports, were repeating the same thing over and over again to passengers at the entrance: “The old app is discontinued, please download the new app.” Passengers were only given this information at the airport. None of them received any notifications or SMSes.Apart from inconveniencing passengers, this also sent  alarm bells ringing among some of them. Because, think about it. Usually you're asked to update an app, not delete it and download a new one, right?Anyway, most attributed it to some kind of a tech upgrade, which was also what Digiyatra Foundation (DYF), the company that runs the app said. Apparently, it was a part of their plan to expand to a larger user base.But you know what? That’s not the real reason. Behind it all, is a scam.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.P.S. Daybreak episodes drop daily now :)

No other payment aggregator has been able to pull off what Phonepe has in less than a year. Its nearly 50 per cent market share is obviously a huge draw for new merchants. And in the last couple years, its been able to onboard some pretty big names like Bharti Airtel and IRCTC. But the bigger the client, the more ruthless their demands. At the end of the day, they are only loyal to the aggregator that promises them the lowest prices and highest success rates. So how does PhonePe make sure that it stays on top? And where does that leave everyone else? Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.P.S. Daybreak episodes drop daily now :)

The lure of appearing on the popular reality show on national television is so strong that even startups that already have been funded by VCs and institutional investors want to get on Shark Tank. In fact, investors themselves are asking their founders to go on the show.Money or funding is not the goal for these startups. It's the marketing opportunity they want.But Sony, the producer of the Shark Tank is trying its best to make sure that the show doesn't lose its real purpose: to be an investment platform.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.P.S. Daybreak episodes drop daily now:)

Contrary to its name, the US-based skincare brand 'The Ordinary' pulled off something pretty extraordinary when it was launched in 2016. From the beginning, it was all about transparency. It veered away from fancy packaging, instead opting for simple labels that list out all of the main ingredients, or 'actives', that were used to make the product.And just like that, the brand managed to demystify active ingredients for everyone!This kicked off somewhat of a skincare revolution around the world, including in India. Today, anyone who understands skincare knows what active ingredients are and which one is best suited for their skin. Suddenly, hyaluronic acid, niacinamide, AHAs and BHAs are all part of common parlance.But it took more than just 'The Ordinary effect' to get here.Daybreak co-hosts Snigdha Sharma and Rahel Philipose speak to Shamika Haldipurkar, the founder of premium skincare brand d'you, and Vasudha Rai, former beauty editor of Harper's Bazaar and skincare content creator, to unpack this change in perception.If you have already listened to this episode, please give us your feedback here.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.P.S. Starting this week, Daybreak episodes drop daily :)

CP Plus, one of the most popular CCTV camera-makers in India, gets 80% of its supplies for its parent company, Aditya Infotech Ltd (AIL), from the Chinese security-equipment manufacturer Dahua Technology.Dahua and Hikvision, another Chinese surveillance-tech firm, are facing sanctions in the UK, US, Australia, and other countries, for their connection to the Chinese government.But in India growing surveillance tech market, both these companies enjoy more than a 50% market share. And bringing them under control is turning out to be complicated for the government.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

A few days ago Meesho closed the first tranche of its $600 million funding round by securing $275 million. The e-commerce unicorn has impressed investors lately thanks to its sustainded operating growth and the reduction in its monthly burn rate.Over time, the platform has built a kind of dominance in India’s smaller cities and towns that become the envy of its competitors —all thanks to its super affordable unbranded products.But now, Meesho wants to boost its profits. For it, it's relying on something that’s a bit out of character for it. It is betting big on Meesho Mall, a space dedicated to legacy and D2C brands.But with small-businesses and unbranded products embedded in to its very DNA, is Meesho ready to take the big brands route?Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

You may be surprised by how often bank lockers are robbed. According to Finance Ministry data, close to Rs 200 crore has been stolen from locker facilities in the last three years alone. This is pretty disconcerting, especially considering that for the longest time the bank locker has been considered the safest place to store your most precious valuables. It also doesn’t help that every aspect of locker management in banks – from actually opening your locker, to eventually closing it – is extremely complicated. The Supreme Court recognised this. In 2021, it passed an order that was meant to make lockers more secure. After that, the RBI issued a new set of guidelines on locker management. But three years later, experts say the RBI guidelines are protecting banks more than customers. So, the question is: Is your locker really the best place to store your valuables?Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

When Gaurav Munjal started Unacademy, the edtech unicorn, he hated the offline coaching business. Edtech companies have tried to stay away from offline because of a number of reasons like low profit margins and huge capital. But with the edtech downturn, Gaurav Munjal, finally admitted to the press that he’d been wrong and had overestimated the online business. This came at a time when Unacademy's online business was free falling. So the edtech  shifted focus to its offline coaching network which now makes up 50% of its business. From celeb endorsements to massive discounts on its fee, the edtech is doing everything it can to counter its rivals like Allen and Aakash Institute.Unacademy is changing its very DNA but experts are raising questions about the long-term sustainability of the business. Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

When it comes to debit cards and ATM networks, no one can beat the State Bank of India. But being the market leader of debit cards in India is actually turning out to be a problem for the public lender. With Indians becoming more open to credit cards and UPI swamping the market, debit cards are dying a slow death. In fact, a lot of industry experts agree that debit cards, in their current physical form, may actually become obsolete in the coming decade. And by being the biggest player in this market that is fading away, SBI is also taking the largest beating from its decline. But instead of cutting its losses, SBI is still doggedly trying to save this dying product. Why?Tune inDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.P.S. -- Tell us your stories of great friendships at work here!

With increased competition within the country, the world leader of Ayurveda brands, Dabur, is looking to acquire and expand. It wants to change its story and focus on a new target consumer.For example, the company's toothpaste brand Dabur Herb'l Charcoal recently collaborated with Disney for its Star Wars franchise and hired Darth Vader as its chief innovative officer. Just last year in October, it also acquired a 51% stake in Badshah Masala, one of the country’s leading spices companies.  But why is the over-hundred years old established company trying so hard to change its narrative?  Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Aditya Birla Fashion is arguably one of India's most complex listed retailers. It has dozens of really diverse fashion brands and retail formats under it. On one hand it has high-end luxury labels like Sabyasachi and Tarun Tahiliani, and on the other, it also owns the retail chain Pantaloons and labels like Allen Solly, and Louis Phillip — names that we all know because they are accessible to most people. Now, you would think this we-have-something-for-everyone strategy must be working out great for Aditya Birla Fashion, right?Turns out, that’s not quite true. In fact, it's having this opposite effect. Experts in the industry say it’s almost like the company has an identity crisis.What's going on at Aditya Birla Fashion? Tune in to find out.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

A few years ago, Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy had set a target of 40% growth across all categories for Flipkart. But in 2023, it was still stuck at 20%. So the company is now on a mission. It wants to push growth, gain market share, and turn a profit.So in January this year, Flipkarts top execs along with the CEO came together for a meeting to outline a roadmap for 2024. Krishnamurthy wanted Flipkart to introduce a loyalty programme for top spenders, give out more incentives to ensure customer loyalty, push up transaction numbers and average order sizes, and also focus on brands.In the same meeting he also admitted that the company had faced quite a few hurdles the previous year but he was sure they’d make a comeback and hit profitability before the IPO.But here’s the thing, prepping for an IPO often has long term effects on a company’s culture. And the cracks are already beginning to appear inside Flipkart.Tune in.Also listen to: What Swiggy's IPO prep means for its employeesDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Even though EV sales just make up a fifth of the Tata Motors’s overall sales, the automobile-maker is still the reigning giant of India's growing EV ecosystem. It is also leading the cab industry’s shift to EVs.Over the next 3 to 5 years, it has promised to sell at least 50, 000 EV four wheelers to cab companies. Based on the deal made over a year ago, half of them are meant for Uber. But it's been over a year since the deal with Uber and only 4000 Tata EVs are up and running in Uber's fleet?Did Tata Motors make a miscaculation? Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Nearly half of India’s 200 million workforce that is over the age of 45 suddenly has the sword of an involuntary retirement hanging over their heads. These are loyal employees from sectors like pharma, retail, manufacturing, and banking who are dealing with shorter career spans but for whom retirement is not a voluntary choice.Those aged between 40-60 years are facing long periods of joblessness after quitting or losing a job. But finding a job has become increasingly difficult for them and it is leading to a lot of stress and financial issues. In a nutshell, their career span has shortened from more than 40 years to just 20 or 25 years. Why is this happening?Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In the last decade or so, French retailer Decathlon has managed to completely change how most of us shop for anything sports and fitness related. It replaced mom and pop sports stores by becoming a one-stop shops for all things sports and fitness related. Cult.Fit wants to pull off just that with the help of its in-house athleisure and fitness equipment brand, Cult.sport.But it doesn’t help that it’s been a pretty rocky ride for Cult.Sport this far. The brand hasn’t really taken off the way Cult had hoped. So with its heart set on an IPO, is Cult’s retail project a good idea? Or could it just end up being a distraction?Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

More people switching to Electric Vehicles (EVs) is not just great for our environment, it's great for hackers too. As EVs become more popular, hackers are constantly looking for opportunities to exploit the widening network of digitally connected vehicles. Between 2018 to 2021, incidents related to breach of cybersecurity in the auto industry rose by more than 200%. And it is only going to get worse in the coming years.In India though, it is not much of a concern yet due to the low penetration of EVs so far. But it won’t remain that way for long without proper safeguards in place.The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act 2023 is a step in the right direction, but it is not enough.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

A damning investigative report about Swiggy recently revealed how the foodtech giant has been depriving its delivery workers of their health insurance coverage if their ratings fall. It comes at a time when the company is prepping to make its stock market debut to raise more than a billion dollars. Earlier this week, Swiggy  also got the official green flag for the IPO from its shareholders.But so far, only its food delivery business is profitable. So now, the company is running on overdrive to hit profitability before it goes public. And Swiggy employees are bearing the brunt. Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

A few weeks ago, retail chemists got together to draw BJP's president JP Nadda's attention to the dangers of e-pharmacies. AICOD urged BJP to promise to include this ban in their election manifesto, along with a ban on discount advertising. They said e-pharmacies should be done away with nationwide to protect public health and prevent drug abuse among the youth.However, this isn't the first time that offline chemists have approached the government to express their woes against e-pharmacies. In fact, they have been lobbying so hard for that the government was forced to shelf the much-required policy on the online sale of drugs saying the matter was "sensitive."But e-pharmacies aren't taking this lying down either. What can bring an end to this long-drawn battle?Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

When you think of the average unicorn-status startup, PocketFM — a homegrown audio streaming platform — is somewhat of an anomaly. Its main claim to fame? Very dramatic, borderline NSFW Hindi fiction audio series’. Its content can best be described as ‘masala’ entertainment. And yet, millions of listeners tune in every day to listen to stories like ‘I love you monster’, or ‘Karan Arjun reloaded’, or ‘Millionaire Ghar Jamaai’. While all this may not be your cup of tea, it has really worked for PocketFM. So much so that the company is now just inches away from a $1 billion valuation. Ever since it was launched in 2018, PocketFM has taken some pretty risky business decisions. Like in late 2021, when it decided to enter the US market. But even though most of its big, bold bets paid off overseas, there is one thing PocketFM has been struggling to do. And you’ll surprised to hear this: Despite such an enviable user base, and investors buzzing around it, in India, PocketFM is struggling to get users to actually pay for its content.Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In the last few years, companies like Everest that manage cab fleets have become the silent battalion in Uber’s army of cabs. In fact, 90% of Everest’s fleet is with Uber.This, of course, has helped Everest grow its revenues and both seem to have found their relationship to be mutually beneficial. Everest gets to run its assets on a high demand platform. And for Uber, it become so much easier to manage its cars. So Uber is deepening its ties with Everest, especially with Uber Green in mind. But as Uber gives more control to the fleet management company, the basics of the ride hailing business could change forever.Tune inDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Last month, the Reserve Bank of India directed credit card issuers or banks to not sign exclusive contracts with card networks, like Visa and Mastercard, that restrict them from using other networks. The RBI did this because it said consumers deserve to have the freedom of choice. This new rule will be effective from early September and it will change the credit card game as we know it.For starters, the American card network giants Visa and Mastercard who together have been dominating 90% of the market for forty years now will no longer be sitting easy. The directive is also bad news for co-branded credit cards, one of the most popular products in the financial-services market.But for home-grown Rupay, this is great news. It's almost like the government has created a fast lane for it. But will Rupay take it and win?Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In 2021, Campus Activewear took away the top spot in India's athleisure-footwear market from Puma, thanks to its affordable and trendy sneaker offerings. And by May 2022, it became a publicly listed company. Within a span of five months after its listing, its valuation shot up to a staggering US$2.2 billion.However, two years later now, its market capitalisation has nosedived to under US$890. The reason is a combination of factors including the slow down in demand and also, an ever-increasing number of competitors with similar offering.But out of all its rivals, there is one that stands out–Abros. And it was co-founded by a man who worked with Campus for nearly three decades.Tune inDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories. 

Just like every Lok Sabha election in the last 72 years, millions of people will vote for a new government over the next couple of weeks.  But there is one thing that really sets this election apart. Never before have political parties actively used Generative Artificial IntelIigence at this scale. It is a turning point in India’s electoral evolution. Some AI startups in India have been developing hyper-personalised voter experiences for political parties. This comes at a time when Gen AI tools like deepfakes have become very sophisticated — to the point where even experts often  struggle to tell what is real and what is not. In the run-up to the election, when you are being bombarded with political content, videos and images, this can be very dangerous. Yet, there are barely any rules in place to regulate the use of this technology during the election process. What does this mean for the world’s largest democracy? Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In January, the RBI, more or less killed Paytm Payments Bank. But Paytm Bank was the backbone of its loan business, the same business that helped it recover from its post-IPO bloodbath.Now, Paytm’s lending partners, on whom its loan business is dependent, are spooked  They dont know if they should continue working with Paytm. Meanwhile, Paytm is doing its best to save what it can but Paytm Payment Bank is currently in limbo. Last week, Survinder Chawla, the MD and CEO of Paytm Payments bank also put in his papers. So far, we don't know what is going to happen but there’s one thing we know for sure: Paytm is doing everything it can to separate itself from Paytm bank, which was once an integral part of its business.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.**Paytm’s founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma is an investor in The Ken

Phone calls from Bajaj Finance offering loans are almost inescapable and lately, the non-bank has faced quite a backlash for it. But telecalling has been an enduring sales channel for the company which boasts of a loan book worth $28 billion. And despite the massive size of its loan book, it’s been growing at 30% for years. Now this rate is seeing a dip through.Bajaj needs to maintain a 26-27% growth rate. Meanwhile, shifting its loan sourcing to its digital assets is going to take a while.So those pesky calls are unlikely to stop anytime soon.In this episode, we take a closer look at this Bajaj Finance’s annoying but successful system of tele-calling.**This is a repeat episode since April 11 was a public holiday

It's been over a year since the govt launched Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC). The idea was to build the world largest e-commerce platform to check the monopoly of giants like Amazon and Flipkart. From ride-sharing and food delivery, to groceries, the platform can be used to buy and sell anything.The platform is close to hitting the 50 million transactions mark now. And what stands out about it is its fascinating pricing strategy that makes ordering food on it as much as 45% cheaper than a Swiggy or a Zomato. Could ONDC make the two food delivery giants redundant?While there is no easy  answer to the question, what made us more curious was this: Do we want ONDC to win? And if it does then what could be the consequences?Tune in to find out.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Lat week, the struggling edtech giant Byju's laid off another 500 of its employees. This came along with a salary delay of three consecutive months. In his email to employees two months ago, Raveendran had written, “I have been moving mountains for months to make payroll, and this time, the struggle was even bigger to ensure that you receive what you rightfully deserve."With the latest round of layoffs though, the employee count at Byju’s has gone down from 15000 at the end of last year to around 13,000 now. This is the same company whose founder would boast about how Byju's was the largest startup employer in the country with a headcount of 55,000. The Ken had investigated what all of this means for Byju’s employees last year and we understood how they got the worst end of the stick. They told us they had been fired arbitrarily without any notice. In fact, some were being forced to resign.Even this time, according to reports by The Economic Times, they were laid off without any notice. And like that wasn't enough, we also learnt companies have specifically been telling recruiters to avoid hiring Byju’s employees.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In January this year, Tata Digital's BigBasket announced its rebranding for slotted delivery service to “Supersaver”, promising to deliver products in under two hours. Back when Tata had acquired the BigBasket at a reported valuation of $2 billion in mid-2021, the company was loss-making. But for those at BigBasket, it was an opportunity to shift their focus back to the company’s core business: doorstep grocery delivery.While it was a bit too late when Tata realised its new acquisition was left out from the quick commerce game, there was one game that BigBasket seemed to be clearly winning.Tune in to find out.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

The government of India launched Digiyatra, a contactless, facial-recognition-based passenger-entry system, in December 2023. The idea was for those who sign up on the platform to avoid the tedious process of getting their ID and flight tickets checked by  CISF personnel at airports.But lately, stories of passengers being forced to sign up for the app are surfacing on social media. Just this week, there were reports of Digiyatra forcing users to move to a new app without notice. Meanwhile, airlines, which are important stakeholders to make the entire endeavour successful are unable to see any benefits for themselves. Airports though see it as a great opportunity. In fact, multiple sources close to the implementation of Digiyatra told The Ken that the whole idea of Digiyatra came from airports themselves.What’s in it for them?Tune in.

The entire logic of buying online instead of going to a store rests on e-commerce companies making it easy to return stuff. What if it doesnt fit me? What if it is damaged? Just ask for a return and someone comes to your doorstep and picks it up. However, as it turns out, e-commerce companies hate returns because reverse logistics are a costly affair for them.  Now, the likes of Ajio and Myntra are changing their return policies. Some are even blocking some customer accounts.  But are customers ready to give it up yet?Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Earlier this week, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) cleared Manipal group chief Ranjan Pai's investment in online pharmacy PharmEasy. So far Pharmeasy, once the highest-valued Indian healthcare startup, has raised Rs 3,500 crore through a rights issue. But it raised this money at a 90 per cent discount to its peak valuation. From $5.6 billion to $500 million!All because it had to take another debt to pay off its previous debt. The second time though, interest rates were not zero.What’s happened?Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Beyond the nostalgia associated with meals on trains, quite often, there are also horror stories. In fact, even a recent Parliament Panel report pointed out how food quality on Indian trains is compromised. The IRCTC (The Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation) has been trying to figure out how to make food a more enjoyable experience on trains and more importantly, a solid source of revenue. A decade ago, IRCTC launched its e-catering services. It now has a network of nearly 500 restaurant partners and close to 20 food aggregators. Catering makes up for more than 40% of IRCTC’s revenue every year. And its seems it will only go up because in the last few months, IRCTC has also tied up with two of the country’s food delivery giants, Zomato and Swiggy.But while IRCTC has big dreams of catering to the 20 million passengers who take the train everyday, delivering food on trains is a logistical nightmare.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories

Not long ago, Suhail Sameer, former BharatPe CEO had said UPI will do to credit what the likes of companies like BharatPe did to debit a few years back. India has more than 960 million debit cards in the country and only about 85 million credit cards.  But conditions in the credit market are headed towards a disruption because of UPI and there’s one area of the whole credit ecosystem where it is undeniably going to change the game.  In fact, we could go out on a limb to say that credit via UPI could even end it.  Tune in to find out.

More than 70% of fraudulent banking transfers in India are KYC-linked scams. A senior official at the Financial Intelligence Unit, a national agency responsible for analysing data on suspect financial transactions informed The Ken that KYC frauds amount to over Rs 900 crore ($108 million) per year.One such fraudster who spoke to us on the condition of anonymity said, ““KYC is an easy trick to pull off. People have heard about banks freezing accounts due to non-compliance with KYC norms. So they get convinced, particularly those in smaller towns and cities.” In a span four years, this fraudster’s gang has stolen nearly Rs 50 lakh.But the whole point of banks carrying out the elaborate KYC process is to protect their customers from fraud. How is then that this very process accounts for nearly two-thirds of fraudulent banking transfers in India?Tune in.

Have you noticed how easy it has become to get loans? Whether you want to buy a whole house or you want to buy a pair of shoes, you can take an EMI for whatever you want.And of course, in India, an aspirational country, this means we finally have a way to attain the standard of living we have dreamed of. In the year that ended in March 2023 household debt saw its second-highest surge since independence. It now makes up almost 6% of the country’s GDP. But as indebtedness is rising, so are cases of harassment by recovery agents. In fact, now, it's come to a point where it is giving rise to a unique type of mental health crisis–unique enough for mental health professionals to take up courses on the basics of banking and finance.Tune in.Also listen to: How Mahindra Finance dealt with the RBI curb on recovering loans via third party agentsDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.   

Swiggy has always been proud of the culture of innovation that it has fostered over the years for its employees. In fact, it is this very approach that helped it achieve the coveted unicorn status.But with the IPO scheduled for this year and its pursuit to profitability, innovation is no longer being encouraged. It has become way more challenging for newer projects to take off. And though it is natural for a company that is growing bigger to become more risk-averse, for Swiggy, this means a cultural shift that could change its very nature.Tune in.

From shadow-banning, content flagging, suspension and even account deletion, content creators are grappling with a variety of censorship methods on social media platforms—all in the name of maintaining community guidelines.But with social media platforms relying more and more on AI and machine-learning tools identify and remove violating content, even content aimed at creating sexual, social, and political awareness ends up being taken down.  And sex-ed and news content creators on platforms like Instagram and Youtube are seeing their reach, discoverability, and income take a hit.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, analytical business stories.

After the pandemic years, Kota’s coaching industry saw an unprecedented boom. Money was pouring in from everywhere–from edtechs to investors. In the last five years, Kota saw about 2 lakh engineering and medical aspirants, on average, arrive from across the country.Kota runs on stiff competition not just among the students but also among the scores of institutes that host and prep them. But since the past four months, Kota’s reputation has been on the line. Student admissions have dropped, with coaching-centre owners pegging it to be at least 20%.The rising number of student suicides are one reason, of course. But there is more to why Kota may be one result away from losing its star position in the coaching business.Tune in.

As we know, Paytm* is in deep trouble but you know what they say about one man’s loss? It is another man’s gain.When the RBI  killed  Paytm Payments Bank’s services, it also meant it could not to accept deposits or top-ups in its customer accounts, including wallets and Fastag. Fastag is India’s electronic toll-collection system. Its basically a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology-enabled card that is fixed on a car’s windscreen. It helps in making toll payments directly from the customer’s bank account or wallet…like Paytm walletNow Paytm happened to account for over a quarter of 82 million Fastags in India and with this RBI directive, nearly 20 million of these Fastags will be leaving the Paytm ecosystem. And of course, there is someone who wants to cash in on it.It is a 4 year old car services platform called Park+. And here’s the twist in the tale. Park+ was founded by Amit Lakhotia who was formerly at Paytm and he helped the company set up its payments business.Tune inAlso listen to: What will Paytm do now?*Paytm’s founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma is an investor in The Ken

A few years ago, Blinkit, the grocery delivery platform that was formerly known as Grofers, was on the verge of dying. It was the first year of the pandemic and the demand for quick commerce was at its peak. Grofers wanted to join the bandwagon but it didnt have the money.A year later in June 2021, it got its shot in the arm with a $120 Mn infusion from Zomato. Next thing we knew, Grofers had become Blinkit and also a unicorn company. And then in 2022, Zomato decided to go all the way in and acquired Blinkit for nearly 600 millions dollars. However, it was not been all smooth sailing after that.But somehow, Blinkit has managed to crack the quick commerce market and now, Blinkit is leading in terms of gross merchandise value (GMV). It currently boasts of close to a 40% share.  How?Tune in.

On Friday, Google removed a bunch of popular apps like Bharat Matrimony, Shaadi.com,Naukri.com  and even some dating apps like Truly Madly and Quack Quack from its Playstore. The tech giant said it was because these apps were not compliant with its billing policy.The impact was immediately felt in the stock market. For example, shares of Info Edge that owns Naukri and 99 acres fell 3% on Saturday These apps were scrambling and somehow at the end of the day, the government intervened and we heard news that they have been reinstated.The tech giant wanted to enforce its new billing policy. Google said in a blogpost on Friday that out of the developers using Google Play, only ten Indian developers did not to pay for the services and how allowing a few to receive different treatment creates an unfair environment and disadvantages other apps and games.Now while all this comes after a Supreme Court ruling that had earlier refused to stop Google from removing non compliant apps from the Playstore, here’s the irony: Google itself has been found guilty of adopting anti-competitive or monopolistic practices in India.Tune in.

Tata Motors' EV subsidiary, Tata Passenger Electric Mobility Limited (TPEML), is prepping for a potential IPO in the next year or so. It wants to raise $1-2 billion. In the first half of 2023, Tata Motors dominated 75% of the passenger EV market share in India despite relentless competition from the likes of Mahindra & Mahindra and other newer rivals. The auto-maker's revenue for FY23 stood at almost $8 billion. The not-so-secret secret behind this success Tata Motors' its Xpres-T EV sedan—the go-to for cab companies and fleet operators that are looking to switch to greener alternatives. Xpres-T could easily to capture the cab market except Tata Motors maybe deliberately downplaying this bit of its success so far. Tune into find out why.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

It was National Protein Day in India on February 27. The government initiative is meant to increase awareness about the importance of protein in India, a country where eight out of every ten of people don't meet their daily protein requirement. According to the ICMR every individual should consume at least 48 grams of protein everyday. But after the pandemic, people are actively looking to include protein rich foods in their diet. And that’s where Amul wants to come in. The behemoth wants to use a key dairy byproduct—whey—to sell protein to a population that needs more of itTune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories

2024 is going to be the hottest month on record. Weather watchers have described the rise in new heat records around the world as “insane”, “total madness” and “climatic history rewritten”India is also witnessing a surge in the demand for electricity in general. and the crisis is at its peak in the summers. As incomes rise and populations grow, especially in the world’s hotter regions, the use of air conditioners is becoming increasingly common. An estimated 10 million ACs were sold in India alone last year. Naturally, electricity bills have skyrocketed and it's only going to get worse. We’ve already been warned that the growing demand for ACs is one of the most “critical blind spots” in the energy debate. Meanwhile, a fascinating technology has emerged that can save 30 to 40% in energy consumption but it is struggling in the Indian market.Tune in to find out why.

Advertisements on the food-delivery giant Swiggy are only growing in number and variety— from banners and icons to full-blown video ads. If you're wondering what id going on, it's all a part of Swiggy's preparation for its upcoming IPO. It needs to boost its revenue and ads are a great way to make more money with every order.But while Swiggy is doubling down on its four year old advertising business to boost its topline, its restaurant partners are crying foul.Tune in to find out why.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories

India’s nutraceutical market is estimated  to be worth $4-5 billion and the government expects it to be worth almost five times more in the next two years. As important as it is to monitor the rapidly growing market, regulations have not really kept up. In a post-pandemic world where preventive healthcare has become all the rage, a dangerous situation is being created. Health supplement makers are flouting RDA guidelines and consumers have been paying little attention.Now, the health ministry of India is planning to move nutraceuticals from under the ambit of FSSAI, the food regulator to CDSCO, the drugs regulator. According to reports, the Ministry has also proposed forming a committee chaired by the Secretary of Health to address overlapping concerns between Nutraceuticals and Drugs. Tune in to find out more.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories

Bengaluru is best known for two things: great weather and terrible traffic. The Silcon Valley of India is the sixth slowest city in the world! How come no one has come up with some innovative tech-based solutions?Actually, they have.  But you’ll be surprised to know that one the key reasons why the city's traffic troubles never end is because the focus has mostly been only on tech driven efforts. Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories

While most startups were facing a reckoning earlier last year with mass layoffs, Licious, the meat delivery platform, was sitting proud, unaffected. Both the founders, Hanjura and Gupta, were giving interviews talking about how their company had made no job cuts and how they did not want that kind of bad karma. It became the anomaly in a market that was seeing a bloodbath that going on all around.But to be honest, the  strategy of not laying off, didnt really help Licious. In fact, it saw some of its top talent at leadership positions leave the company.And now, as it turns out, it may not be all good karma for Licious founders after all.  The company has laid off 80 of its employees as a part of what its calling an operational reset. What’s going on? Tune in.Recommended read: California usersDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories

The Reserve Bank of India has barred Paytm from continuing all its banking services via Paytm Payments Bank after February 29. It's been operational since 2017 and its services include current and savings accounts, fixed deposits with partner banks, and balance in wallets, UPI, and FASTag, among other services.The RBI has basically said it cannot take any more deposits or conduct credit transactions. This also means no top-ups on any customers accounts, prepaid instruments, wallets, and cards for paying road tolls. And this means, Paytm has three challenges it needs to win…and all of it by the end of this month. First, it needs to figure out a nodal banking partner where it will hold fund on behalf of its customers. Then, it needs to untangle its business from Paytm Payments Bank. And finally, it needs to do all of this without losing its existing customers.Each of these is more important than the other.Tune in

Season 3 of one of the country’s most popular reality TV shows, Shark Tank India, premiered on January 22, 2024. The show has given rise to a significant demand for startup investing. Investors are able to put in as little as Rs 5000 via online fundraising platforms like Tyke Invest and Infubiz. They offer investments in startups through Community Subscription Offer Plans.But these fundraising campaigns are not subject to securities laws and investors in these instruments do not have any shareholder rights under the Companies Act, 2013.This is creating a high-risk environment for small-time retail investors.Tune in.

The results for the latest quarter for Freshworks are out and the US-based Saas company has beaten Wall Street estimates. It posted a revenue of nearly $600 million for FY 2023. Its losses, meanwhile, have narrowed by over 40%.Just a year ago, the story was slightly different. In the same quarter in 2023, the company saw a decline in its net dollar retention rate. Even though the free cash flow was healthy and the revenue climbed 20%, it looked like the comapny was struggling to retain its customers.Now of course, things have changed and this turnaround is all thanks to the rising demand for FreshWorks' AI-powered customer support and IT services products.But there’s more to it. And it has to do with the company’s employee-first approach.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories

It wont be a stretch to say that the Meftal Spas is life-changing for those who suffer from dysmenorrhea. The medicine which is a combination mefenamic acid and dicyclomine was launched more than 40 years ago by Blue Cross Labs, an Indian pharma company. Meftal Spas enjoys the lion’s share of the market at nearly 90%.But at the end of November last year, the Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission (IPC), an autonomous body under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, issued a  drug safety alert  on mefenamic acid—one of the two main components of Meftal Spas.Soon after, many regular users started avoiding the medicine and some hospitals even stopped prescribing it. In fact, pharmacies saw a marked drop in Meftal Spas sales .But media reports were misleading. While the advisory was about mefenamic acid, many media houses reported that the advisory was about Meftal Spas. And that is not all, many health professionals are questioning the govt advisory itself.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India's first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories

It took Bajaj Finance over 15 years to become the most valued NBFC in the country. And then came along Jio Financial Services Ltd (JFSL) and took the no. 2 position in a span of just two months. It is currently valued at more than $17 billion.Its all set to take the top space. Currently, the company is on a serious hiring spree and it seems to have taken a particular liking to former ICICI Bank employees for its key executive roles. After all, a lot of its future success will depend on the team it builds.But this is not the first time Reliance has tried its hands in the finance sector. The last time it did, things didn't really take off. What's different this time?Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India's first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories 

When the govt of India came up with the budget, taxpayers were given 2 options: move to the new tax regime or continue with the old one. The tax rates in the new regime were clearly lower.But despite this, most chose to stick to the old regime. Even with comparatively higher tax rates the old tax regime has remained popular amongst Indian taxpayers.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.   

It was Dominoes that made delivery under 30 minutes a thing. Before Swiggy and Zomato came along, Domino’s was more or less the only place you could order in from. It showed Indians that pizza could be cheap and also enjoyed in our own houses.  Jubilant, the company that runs the Dominos franchisee in India has nearly 3/4ths of the pizza market share which is also why it is among the first to be affected down by the slowdown in consumption. Jubilant’s shares have grown up by just under 3% in the past year. But its rivals—Westlife, Devyani, and RBA—have seen their value rise by a much bigger margin.The Ken spoke to around 60 Domino’s customers and nearly half of them told us they have cut back on ordering from Dominos, because of the meagre toppings, other options, and of course, the shift to gourmet pizzas.But are smaller pizza chains the really the only rivals Domino's is faced with right now?Tune in.

Byju’s financials for the Financial year 2022, are finally out. Almost 2 years late.And unsurprisingly, it doesn't paint a very pretty picture.The edtech giant posted a consolidated loss of more than 8000 crore rupees on an operating revenue of around 5000 crores. And that’s not all…its valuation has dipped from about 22 billion dollars in the last funding round to less than a billion now.Its quite the fall.Now the cash strapped company is desperately looking to raise $100 million via a rights issue as a lifeline but unfortunately everyone its gone to has outright said no.And it is unlikely that it may work out in the future unless Byju’s submits its audited financials for FY 2023.It missed its own Dec 2023 deadline for filing it. Also, the sword of the 1.2 billion dollar term loan is still hanging over its heard.Let’s catch up with the major developments so far.

Happy Republic Day, dear listeners.Today is a public holiday but if you're still tuning in, here is an older episode of Daybreak you might like:All the twists and turns in the journey of startups have been well-documented since VC funding began drying up over the past year or so. In the first half of 2022,  Indian startups received more than $17 billion dollars. But a year later in 2023. they just got a little over $5 billion.What’s we’ve barely heard about, though, is what is happening to the funders of these startups and their foot soldiers—the VC analysts. With the slowdown, the day-to-day responsibilities of these analysts have changed and so has their approach towards dealmaking. Tune in to find out.

From giving an extra month for “good-faith” negotiations a little over two years ago, to accusing Zee of breach of contract…the Sony Zee merger deal has seen its fair share ups and downs. It was supposed to be the country’s biggest entertainment merger worth $10 billion—two media behemoths were coming together. Now though, the deal is buried six feet under. On Monday, Sony officially released a statement announcing the termination of the agreement. The next day, Punit Goenka, Zee’s CEO, was seen attending the Ram temple inauguration in Ayodhya where he told media: “I believe this to be a sign from the Lord. I resolve to move ahead positively and work towards strengthening Bharat’s pioneering M&E Company, for all its stakeholders."  Sony, meanwhile, not only ended the deal, it also sought $10 million in damages on account of alleged breaches by ZEE. And to make matters worse, Zee shares have fallen by over 30 percentHow did things get here and what's next?Tune in**CORRECTION The host mistakenly said Sony is seeking $10 million dollars in damages on account of alleged breaches by ZEE instead of $90 million. The error is regrettedDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.   

The prime minister will be inaugurating the newly constructed Ram Temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh today. It's quite the event. In fact, PVR INOX, has even collaborated with a news channel to broadcast the ceremony live in more than 150+ cinemas in more than 70 cities across India. The who’s who of business, from Adani, Ambani, Tata, to Bollywood celebrities and sports stars like Tendulkar and Kohli are expected to attend the inauguration.I dont think we have ever seen anything like this before and neither has the stock market.The state govt of Uttar Pradesh has set aside about $10 billion for a decade-long redevelopment plan of the town. Ever since, it's almost like a gold rush amongst investors for stocks in big or small companies associated with Ayodhya. From Taj Hotels and IRCTC to Praveg, a small luxury tent company–some in the stock market believe these companies are in all set to become some of the biggest beneficiaries of this Ayodhya gold rush.But experts are warning investors against this kind of blind faith. According to them, buying into event-related market swings does not make for a sound long-term investment strategy.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.   

It was 20 years ago when doctors first used the help of a robot in India to carry out a complicated heart surgery at Fortis Escorts, New Delhi. Ever since, more than 100,000 robot assisted surgeries have been performed in the country. Patients are embracing these type of surgeries now than never before and why wouldnt they?Who wouldn't want a less painful procedure, a shorter hospital stay, and most importantly lesser cuts?But they cost more than 3 or 4 times than normal surgeries. And it was only in 2019, that the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) asked health insurance providers to cover modern treatments, including robotic surgeries. And even after that, insurers are not keen on to covering them because they are expensive and the pricing is unregulated.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.   

Have you noticed how easy it has become to get loans? Whether you want to buy a whole house or you want to buy a pair of shoes, you can take an EMI for whatever you want.And of course, in India, an aspirational country, this means we finally have a way to attain the standard of living we have dreamed of. In the year that ended in March 2023 household debt saw its second-highest surge since independence. It now makes up almost 6% of the country’s GDP. But as indebtedness is rising, so are cases of harassment by recovery agents. In fact, now, it's come to a point where it is giving rise to a unique type of mental health crisis–unique enough for mental health professionals to take up courses on the basics of banking and finance.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.   

More than 100 Indian startups wrote to TRAI a couple of months ago urging it to maintain its unwavering support for net neutrality principles. This a tug of war began between tech companies including OTT platforms on one side and telecom companies on the other, began years ago.Telecom and internet service providers believe that content and tech companies should pay them for disproportionate traffic. But tech and content companies argue that this would violate the principles of net neutrality.Tune in to find out about this battle between telcos and content companies and how it affects net neutrality. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.   

Earlier this week, India’s biggest winemaker, Sula, saw its share price reach historic high. The winemaker controls more than half of the market share of India's domestic wine industry. When it went for an IPO at the end of  2022, it was successfully subscribed by almost two and a half times.So you might think the jump in the share price makes sense. Afterall, Sula dominates the wine market in India. But you see, India is not a wine drinking country in general. The share of wine in the country's total alcohol consumption is minuscule.Turns out, the global brokerage CLSA saying Sula could rise 50% in the next year sent its shares soaring. But this was not because Sula Indians suddenly have become wine drinkers or because Sula has entered the new market.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.   

Paytm*, the fintech giant that was last valued at $16 billion would've never been able to get where it is now without its field agents. Field agents are to fintech payments companies, what delivery partners are to Zomato, Swiggy: their backbone.Out of the 70,000 odd fintech field agents in India, Paytm has about 35000 of these  all around the country. The fintech giant boasts of nearly 40 million registered offline merchants now thanks to the work of its agents.But things are changing now. It's become very challenging for them to onboard new merchants, especially in urban areas, where there are barely any businesses left to tap. As for rural areas, which have a bigger share of untapped merchants, fintechs think its too expensive. Plus the growing competition amongst fintechs has made merchant loyalty difficult to maintain.The market has become saturated and of course, who could be feeling the most pressure but these agents.But what do fintechs expect them to do? Tune in.(*Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma is an investor in The Ken)Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.   

2023 turned out to be a landmark year for UPI (Unified Payments Interface) with the number of transactions crossing the 100-billion mark for the first time, according to the latest data released by the NPCI. The month of December alone saw more than 12 billion transactions. These numbers are testament to how UPI has revolutionized the way we use money. As of now, there are more than 300 million users in India are using UPI to freely carry out their financial transactions with each other.  But did you know that your bank can block your account without a warning or any explanation based on your UPI transactions? And what's worst, you could even come under the radar of law enforcement authorities like the cyber crime police. Anyone who unknowingly makes a transaction, directly or indirectly, with a fraudster can be considered suspicious by authorities.  Meanwhile, banks and law enforcement agencies still haven't managed to figure out a standard operating procedure in dealing with such matters. This had led them to adopt a ‘block first, ask questions later’ approach that's been making the lives of innocent victims of financial crimes even harder.  Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.   

Ever since it started, Rapido, the bike taxi company has consciously stayed away from venturing into the cab business. It was happy to stay in the bike taxi lane and beat Ola and Uber there even though that it managed to do it at the expense of customer safety.Now, though, eight years later, Rapido has finally launched its own cab hailing service. Over the last six months or so, it ran a pilot project in Hyderabad and ended up with almost a 25% share of the city’s cab hailing market so last month, it decided to launch in two more cities, New Delhi and Bangalore.What makes it different from Ola and Uber is that instead of commissions, it wants its driver partners to pay a subscription. Right now, Rapido only charges a subscription fee in Hyderabad, and drivers in the other two cities can use the platform for free for another few months. The idea is to disrupt the market by making it a more economic deal for cab drivers whose earnings from Ola and Uber have been on a free fall since the last few years.But disruption comes at a cost.Tune inAlso listen to: Is Rapido trading passenger safety for growth?Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, analytical business stories.

In 2023, more than 70 million new users downloaded the online shopping app Myntra. India’s leading fashion e-retailer owned by Flipkart has been on quite the discount giving spree lately. And we are not just talking about the year end and festive discounts. Since July, Myntra has 22 sales days every month. Its biggest rival, Reliance owned Ajio has no more than 14.So you might think, Myntra must be raking in some crazy numbers in sales right?Not quite.From onboarding hundreds of sellers a month to regular strategic changes, Myntra is trying it all. And its sales growth is still slumping. A former business executive told The Ken, “the past 15 months have been bad for Myntra.” In fact, Myntra’s net loss jumped over 30% in the financial year ended March 31, 2023. It posted a net loss of nearly 800 crore rupees.What is going on?Tune in.Listen to Anant Narayan talking about his stint as Myntra's CEO and more on First Principles hereDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, analytical business stories.

For the last week of December, we are taking you back to some of the most popular Daybreak episodes of 2023. We'll be back with regular programming from January 3, 2024.For a people who were quite averse to the whole concept of credit, Indians really seem to be developing a new found love for the piece of plastic and banks have been happy to ride the wave.But lately they’ve been left quite baffled because they are being being beaten at their own game. A growing community of people are constantly finding hacks to take advantage of the loopholes in credit-card reward systems. For some of them , in fact, it’s going so well that they’ve turned their secret operations into lucrative businesses. Turns out they can make more money from it than their 9 to 5 jobs.Meanwhile banks have realised they are being taken for a ride so some have taken extra security measures to keep such tricksters at bay.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, analytical business stories.

For the last week of December, we are taking you back to some of the most popular Daybreak episodes of 2023. We'll be back with regular programming from January 3, 2024.For the longest time public sector banks, as we know them, have been very reluctant about study abroad loans. And it was for good reason. They’ve suffered greatly because of education loans going bad.Meanwhile, its a whole different story that was going on with non-banks. Study abroad loans accounted for about US$4 billion in the year ended March 2023. These were almost fully funded by non-banks like Credila and Avanse Financial. Their staregy was simple—sanction collateral-free as fast as possible. Over time they gained experience and most importantly, years worth of data.Guess who is using all that data and experience gathered by non-banks to offer overseas education loans now?The banks!Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

More than a year after the communication minister Ashwini Vaishnav had introduced a the draft version to the public, on Thursday, the Rajya Sabha passed the new Telecom Bill. Many hopes were pinned on it considering it was meant to replace the three archaic laws that had been governing India’s telecom sector. The journey until here, however, was far from smooth. The draft version of the bill had left the industry divided and it actually received a record 900 comments. After many revisions, the bill has been passed. And while it enables structural changes that will empower telecom users and simplify complicated processes such as licensing, it also raises a some serious concerns.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Two years ago, Sony’s India unit, Sony Pictures Networks, announced a merger with rival Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. It was supposed to be the country’s biggest entertainment deal.  The combined entity would own more than 70 TV channels, two video streaming services and two film studios. Ever since, Sony Liv’s subscriber base grew from 18 million to over 33 million.With good original stories and unique non-fiction shows, alongside a strong partnerships strategy, Sony has been able to close the gap on market leaders such as Hotstar. Zee meanwhile has a formidable arsenal of regional content.The combined strengths of the two platforms, Sony and Zee, could turn out to be a serious threat to other OTT giants. But much to their relief, as temporary as it maybe, the merger may not happen after all. Because Sony it is yet to agree to Zee’s 21st Dec merger deadline extension request.Tune in.Also in this episode: X's EU troubles continue Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

A few days ago Karthik Ayyar, the founder of an IIT Madras-incubated company that developed India’s first indigenous mobile operating system, BharOS, said his company is considering providing this technology for routers. BharOS is being launched as an alternative at a time when the tech giants like Google are under the scanner for anti-trust practices in India.However, this is not the first time India is trying to develop an indigenous operating system, both for mobile and computer devices.The failure of the OS projects in the past may hold some important lessons for anyone making a future attempt.Tune in for the details.Also in this episode: Jeff Bezos’ dream for the future of humanity.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Google has been facing fines totalling billions of dollars for abusing its dominance not just in the Indian market but around the world. So the antitrust investigations launched against it in India last year didn't really come as a surprise for the tech giant. The Competition Commission of India found Google guilty in two antitrust cases and asked it to pay close to $300 million in fines. More than half of this penalty was for exploiting its dominant position in the market for Android, which happens to power 97% of smartphones in India.  Google did manage to get a breather in June this year when the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) quashed some key directives from the CCI. Google then approached the Supreme Court of India for the second time asking for all of CCI's directives to be withdrawn. While the case is still ongoing, Google lost a major anti-trust case in the US on Monday against Fortnite creator, Epic Games.Experts believe this could the outcome of the anti-trust investigation in India.Tune in.P.S New Segment on Epic vs Google starts at 8:17. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

More than 70% of fraudulent banking transfers in India are KYC-linked scams. A senior official at the Financial Intelligence Unit, a national agency responsible for analysing data on suspect financial transactions informed The Ken that KYC frauds amount to over Rs 900 crore ($108 million) per year.One such fraudster who spoke to us on the condition of anonymity said, "“KYC is an easy trick to pull off. People have heard about banks freezing accounts due to non-compliance with KYC norms. So they get convinced, particularly those in smaller towns and cities.” In a span four years, this fraudster's gang has stolen nearly Rs 50 lakh. But the whole point of banks carrying out the elaborate KYC process is to protect their customers from fraud. How is then that this very process accounts for nearly two-thirds of fraudulent banking transfers in India? Tune in.P.S Look out for our brand new segment in which we talk about Grok, Elon Musk's very own problem child.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

On Thursday last week,  the Telecom Minister of India, Ashwini Vaishnaw, declared during a press briefing that mobile phone manufacturing worth $50 billion will take place in India in the current financial year. He also said that the total exports from the category will reach $15 billion.A significant portion of this growth has to do with what the govt did three years ago. It launched a PLI scheme that aimed to make India the hub of mobile phone manufacturing. The idea was to boost large-scale manufacturing and to support domestic phone makers to become globally competitive.But of the six companies that made the cut to claim the scheme’s incentives, only two are Indian.Why is “Make in India” attracting more foreign phone makers than Indian ones?Also, there's a surprise for you at the end of the episode.Tune in!Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Recently, there was a study conducted by Hirepro called No résumés Please” where the firm went through 4 million CVs. They found nearly 85% of candidates were lying or exaggerating on their CVs in 2023.Employers and hiring managers are having a tough time dealing with it. Another study found that around 40% of HR professionals actually think using AI during the hiring process is a dealbreaker. And turns out, it's not very hard for recruiters to tell the difference between a CV written by the applicant and an AI-generated one.Should you stop using AI tools to write your CV then?Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Foodtech giant, Swiggy, wants to raise more than $1 billion through its public offering that is scheduled for mid-2024. For this it is going by its last funding round’s valuation of nearly $ 11 billion. But why now? Because it is watching its biggest rival Zomato’s stock price finally recover this year with back-to-back profitable quarters. Earlier this year, Swiggy CEO announced in a blog post that Swiggy’s food delivery business has finally turned profitable after 9 years of its inception. And by March next year, the company as a whole aims to become profitable. But the company suffered losses with more than $ 500 million in FY 2023.How does it plan to become profitable by March 2024?Tune in to find out.RecommendationDay Zero: ISB welcomed a large batch last year. Now the scramble is on to get them all jobsDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

On Dec 1, 2023, Tata Consumer Products, Tata’s FMCG arm, announced a new CFO, Ashish Goenka. This hiring comes at a very interesting time because just about a month ago Tata Consumer Products or TCP approved the merger of 3 of its wholly owned subsidiaries—NourishCo Beverages, Tata SmartFoodz, and Tata Consumer Soulfull. Lately, the company has been on quite a roll. Its been launching out a whole bunch of new products by the dozens. And most importantly, its financials are looking quite good. In the September quarter, it reported a net profit of more than 350 crore rupees.But for the longest time, despite being a giant steel-to-software conglomerate, Tata’s consumer goods game was nowhere close to India's top FMCG companies. In fact, before 2019, it more or less stuck to selling just the essentials.But now its shares have more than tripled. How is the company managing things at this speed? Tune in to find out.RecommendationHow Tata Consumer’s Sunil D’Souza put product launches on steroids Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Nearly a 100 million cards are in circulation in India as of now, a 12% year-on-year rise. This rise has a lot to do with the benefits customers get: tempting cash back deals and reward points that you can collect and redeem for anything from flight tickets to staycations at luxury resorts.Cashbacks though are pretty straightforward whereas availing reward points requires a lot of effort compared to cashbacks. And between the two, there’s one that banks actually don’t like.Tune in to find out.RecommendationCredit-card whizzes outsmart banks at their own game  Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

The State Bank of India controls the biggest chunk of India's debit card market:. It also had the largest network of ATMs and CRMs (Cash Recycling Machines) spread across the country.  And ATM withdrawals make up more than 80% of annual debit transactions so SBI seems to be clearly winning. But being the market leader of debit cards in India is actually turning out to be a problem for the public lender. Debit cards might be ahead of credit cards in terms of circulation but they are dying a slow death in the Indian market. In fact, a lot of industry experts agree that debit cards, in their current physical form, may actually become obsolete in the coming decade. So by being the biggest player in this market that is fading away, SBI is also taking the largest beating from its decline. But instead of cutting its losses, SBI is still doggedly trying to save this dying product. Why?Tune in to find out.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Tech platforms like Google, Meta, or even e-marketplaces such as Olx are increasingly becoming hotbeds of online advertising scams in India. People have been losing anything from a few thousands to even a few crore rupees to cyber crime syndicates who have  proficient, tech-savvy members.The amount of money consumers have reported losing to fraud that originated on social-media platforms has skyrocketed since 2017. Last year alone, people reported losing more than $1.2 billion to fraud that started on social media.What are big techs like Google and Meta doing to prevent these crimes? Is it enough?Tune in to find out.FREE READEngineering grads haven't struggled this hard for a job in a decade Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In November 2021, *Paytm’s parent company One97 Communications went public with a $2.4 billion IPO. What followed was a bloodbath for the fintech giant. In a span of a year after the IPO, Paytm’s stock lost 75% of its market value. No other large IPO in the last decade had seen such a bad fall in stock value within the first year of listing.But last year, in a dramatic turnaround, Paytm saw its stock value go up by 90%. What could've Paytm possibly done to bring about this crazy turnaround?It was personal loans. They’re the reason Paytm saw a more than 60%  jump in  revenue in the year ended March 2023. But now, Paytm can't rely on it anymore.Tune in to find out why.*Paytm’s founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma is an investor in The KenDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India's first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, analytical business stories.  

On Monday, Physics Wallah fired over 100 of its employees and also announced it was going to hire more than a thousand more in the coming months. India's only profitable edtech unicorn is on a relentless expansion spree. So much so that its investors want it to slow down.From establishing itself as the leader of NEET-JEE test preparation, Physics Wallah (PW) wants to dip its toes in a bunch of other areas—from banking and defence to civil services now. Not to forget short-term skilling courses and even tie-ups with schools.Despite this hyper growth phase coming after PW became the only profitable edtech unicorn in the last financial year, cracks are appearing on its armour now.Tune in.Recommended reads:Physicswallah vs the popstarDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India's first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, analytical business stories. 

Varun Alagh, the CEO and co-founder the skincare company, Mamaearth, likes to think of his brand as an outlier. Just a day after Mamaearth’s parent company went public, on October 31, Alagh told The Economic Times that the company’s IPO was not going to meet the same fate as other new-age startups in the recent past. The public market has been quite hostile lately and investors are especially steering clear of digital companies and startups. But despite this Mamaearth went ahead with its plan and became the first D2C brand to go public. Unfortunately though its shares have been falling ever since.What happened to Mamaearth is not isolated. It is the beginning of the end of the D2C gold rush.Tune in to hear all about it.Also listen to: Why retail investors showed little interest in Mamaearth's IPOFree Read: 1 to 1000: The high-stakes hunt for India’s next top product designersDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

More than 160 million people in five states will be deciding their political future this month in India. Out of them, two states, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, are set to go to poll today. In any democracy, the run up to the elections is a very sensitive period where misinformation can spread like wildfire. Take what happened recently in Madhya Pradesh for example. A video of the BJP CM Shivraj Singh Chauhan went viral where he can be heard saying that his party will lose the election this time because people are really angry with the BJP. Turns out, it was a fake video. Just imagine the potential of such fake content going viral with AI and deep fakes. It is a scary thought.So what is the government latest stance on dispelling fake news and misinformation especially during election time?Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

PVR INOX posted a blockbuster quarter with triple the revenue from a year ago. Nearly 50 million Indians flocked PVR INOX theaters in the September quarter. A huge part of it is of course thanks to this year's big releases like Barbie, Oppenheimer, Gadar 2, and not to forget, the record-breaking performance of Shahrukh Khan’s Jawan. Just last Sunday, Salman Khan’s much-awaited Diwali release Tiger 3 also hit the big screen. However, even though PVR INOX successfully crossed pre-pandemic revenues in the September quarter, there was one very important metric that it failed turn around: occupancy levels. So to solve the issue, it came up with a first-of-its-kind subscription plan called Passport. It allows movie-goers to watch 10 movies a month for Rs 699 only.But it turned out too good to be true. "Terms and conditions apply."Tune in to find out more.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Since last year, the edtech giant is facing the wrath of a group of creditors who had given it a $1.2 billion loan. They wanted it to immediately repay part of the loan.On Friday, a Delaware judge in the US concluded that the lenders had properly cited the default on loan when taking over control of a unit of Byju’s. Basically Byju’s lost the case. What could’ve triggered this lack of confidence amongst the creditors of the Edtech giant?FREE READJob hunt was once a skill test. Now, it’s a patience test tooTune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Last Friday Apple reported the sixth straight record quarterly revenue from iPhone sales in India. Its FY2023 revenue from the country now stands at almost $6 billion. In fact, analysts say that by the end of this year, especially with the festive season around, it is very close to hitting $10 billion. Apple’s share in India’s smartphone market is now estimated to have touched 6%. CEO Tim Cook while speaking about Apple's performance called the Indian market extraordinary.But for over a decade since it launched in India, Apple's growth was sluggish to the point of being stagnant.What brought about this turnaround?Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

It has taken Swiggy almost ten years and a whole lot of strategically planned moves to become the indispensable app that it is for us today.But decisive moment for the delivery giant came three years ago in 2020 with the pandemic. Swiggy’s core food delivery business took quite the hit . It had no choice but to adapt quickly and branch out. It decided to build on its delivery experience and launched Instamart for groceries and Swiggy Genie for intra-city couriers.The company is now valued at just under $8 billion dollars and has seen its revenue double to almost $600 million in the year ended March 2022. Putting itself on the fast lane to growth while delivering  convenience to the urban consumer has really worked out for the company. Or at least so it seems.Because in doing all of this, Swiggy might have forgotten the most important part of the equation- its 350,000 delivery partners.Tune in.Recommended background read:How Zomato, Swiggy, and Co can refill their delivery-rider tankDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

If you’ve been watching the ICC Cricket World Cup, youve definitely seen the PhonePe one too many times. The payments giant paid Rs 150 crore to get these advertising rights. It is the biggest UPI payments company in the country with a 49% of the market share.  But why is a payments giant selling insurance and why health insurance to be specific?You see, as big as the PhonePe might be, and even with a giant like Walmart behind it, profit margins in the the payments business are pretty slim. And with a possible IPO in the works, PhonePe had no choice but to diversify and so it did.It launched its insurance vertical in 2020. However, three years have passed now and PhonePe’s insurance business has contributed just 1% to the company’s consolidated revenue for FY2023.And yet PhonePe continues to pour money into it, mainly on health insurance part. Is it a conscious choice or is it because it has no choice?Tune in.FREE READ for 24 hours:How an Indian IVF chain became a global giantDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Yesterday, November 2, 2023, was the final day of Mamaearth-parent Honasa Consumer's IPO. The digital-first D2C sailed through with the price band fixed at Rs 308-324 per share.With this, Mamaearth has become the first digital-first D2C company to take the public route. It is also the first unicorn company to do so it the last 18 months. From 2020 to 2022, Honasa saw its revenues double every yea and in 2022 it also became profitable. Compared to other established beauty and personal care brands, it also stands out because of how "aggressively" it has been launching new products or SKUs. This year, it's already shown a 25 crore rupees profit. If we go by these metrics alone, things looked quite promising for Mamaearth.But its public issue was oversubscribed by 7.61X on the last day. And this was only because of the huge demand from qualified institutional buyers (QIBs). Retail buyers seemed quite uninterested in Mamaearth's IPO. Why?Tune in to find out.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Vivo, the Chinese smartphone maker, was in the news earlier this month for arrests of its associates after it faced ED raids last year.Despite this, Vivo became no.1  in India’s smartphone market, even ahead of Samsung and Xiaomi in the quarter ended June.What’s more, unlike Xiaomi, which saw a sharp decline in its market share after raids in 2021, Vivo is still going strong.But it can’t celebrate the victory just yet. Why?Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

The introduction of the contraceptive pill in the 1960s was one of the most significant events in the history of human society. It still left the burden of birth control largely on women.Now, however, things are changing. The demand for male contraceptives is on the rise. Last week, in a major breakthrough, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) finished clinical trials for the world's first injectable male contraceptive. The trial proved that it is safe and highly effective without any serious side effects.But why have big pharmaceutical companies not paid enough attention to the research on male contraceptives for all these years?Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Delivery partners who work for Swiggy or Zomato are paid per order. The fee which includes variables like base fee, surcharge, etc, depends on how many kilometres they’ve travelled from pickup to delivery destination. These payments though, are never consistent and gig workers, who make our lives so convenient, struggle with earning a stable income. So when Zomato says on their bill under the delivery partner fee, ‘fully goes to them for their time and effort,’ we appreciate it thinking the money we’ve paid has gone to the delivery partner.Except, it doesn’t.Tune in.FREE READThe pandemic couldn’t kill Bookmyshow, but it definitely changed its faceDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

According to latest numbers, Ola Electric, the leader of two-wheeler EVs in India, is losing market share—from 40 per cent in July to just 29 per cent in September. Bajaj Auto, meanwhile, has gained the most market share. It started with just a 4% share in April and now it has gone up to 11%. Ola Electric maybe doing much better with more than 250,000 scooters sold so far but the discontent regarding its after sales services is getting louder. Bajaj, on the other hand, has had a more sustainable growth trajectory and it has a lot to do with its service first approach. Plus, there’s one more thing that Bajaj has going for it that Ola Electric doesn't—the power of nostalgia. In 2020, it brought out its iconic Chetak scooter out of an early retirement in an all-new, high-tech, electric avatar.How far can nostalgia and focus on service take Bajaj in the two-wheeler EV market?Tune in.(With script inputs from Diksha Munjal)RecommendationCharging up the Chetak: Bajaj’s path to new mobility Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Two days ago, on Tuesday, India’s most famous edtech was in the news again. Byju’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Ajay Goyal quit the edtech barely  6 months after joining. It had taken Byju’s 16 months to find Goyal after its previous CFO PV Rao quit in December 2021 .Goyal was hired only in April this year and had a tough task cut out for him: to help improve the company’s financial compliance is what Byju’s has been in a lot of trouble for. Goyal was to finalize the FY22 accounts and and issue the audited accounts as soon as possible. A little more than a week ago, we also heard news that Byju’s was expected to file the long-awaited financial results for FY22 later that week. But more than 10 days later there is no sign of the financials. Instead the edtech’s CFO who was incharge of getting those financials out has quit. Thankfully though, in its statement, Byju's said that Goyal will complete work on Byju’s audited FY 22 financial statement before leaving, which means, that the FYY 22 financials will be out sooner than later. So in today's episode we take you back to the edtech's botched up FY 2021 financials so you know what to look out for in the next one.Tune in.Free ReadKota’s Rs 6,000 cr coaching business may never be the same againRecommended listeningWTFinancials is going on at Byju's?Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

On October 14, a Saturday, Disney Hotstar set a world record: it saw the highest number of simultaneous viewers tune in for any format of cricket ever. The ICC World Cup match between India and Pakistan was streaming and it drew in 35 million viewers.A week later, on Sunday, it broke that record too with the India-New Zealand match when 43 million viewers tuned in. The timing of this couldn't be better for the OTT giant which lost 21 million subscribers since last year when it lost the rights to IPL. Ever since Disney Hotstar executives in India were on a mission to prove to their California headquarters that its OTT business in India could be turned around. But just a day later after hitting 43 million viewers, on October 23, Bloomberg reported Walt Disney may sell a controlling stake in the Disney Star business to Reliance Industries. While nothing about the deal is final yet, it does make one wonder about the timing of it all.What is in this deal for Reliance and more importantly is it enough for Disney to hold on to Hotstar for now?Tune in to find out.RecommendationDisney+ Hotstar’s last danceDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India's first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

It's going to be a year since the Reserve Bank of India launched its very own Central Bank Digital Currency or CBDC. In fact, just a few days ago, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das, who has been leading India’s transition into digital payments while speaking at an IMF event touted CBDC, popularly known as the e-rupee, as the currency of the future.Banks, and tech experts have said that it is an innovation that can drive financial inclusion, help digitise India’s economy, and simplify cross-border trade. After the launch, the RBI's aim was to hit 1 million retail CBDC transactions per day by December 2023.But now, just a little more than a month away from the deadline, CBDC is lagging far behind its goal with just 10,000–18,000 retail transactions a day.Is the e-rupee ready to be the currency of the future yet?Free ReadNo funds. No ads. Indian short-video creators face a new reality RecommendationCan India’s digital currency still be another UPI?Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India's first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories

With increased competition within the country, the world leader of Ayurveda brands, Dabur, is looking to acquire and expand. It wants to change its story and focus on a new target consumer.  Just last year in October, it acquired a 51% stake in Badshah Masala, one of the country’s leading spices companies.  But how is the over-hundred years old company planning to reinvent?  Tune in. RecommendationDabur seeks Gen Z approval to shed boomer imageDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India's first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories

BNPL (Buy Now Pay Later) is becoming popular in India because it offers short-term financing options, financial flexibility, affordability, and smaller credit lines. In fact, the BNPL market expected to reach $35–40 billion by 2026 from $3.5–4 billion in 2021.But unlike credit cards, BNPL services lack security and many customers are left vulnerable to vishing (voice phising) scams. Most of them are via Olamoney and Mobikwik ZIP. Meanwhile, more than two-thirds of cybercrimes in India are now online and vishing scams account for 5.3% of such crimes. To make matters worse, there is little recourse for defrauded BNPL customers because proper consumer-protection guidelines are not in place.  And even though they were scammed, many of them are being forced to clear their dues for transactions they never made.Tune in.RecommendationFirst Principles Ep.27: Lalit Keshre of Groww on being far-sighted, intuitive and absolutely obsessed with your customer🎧Spotify🎧AppleDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India's first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories

In March this year, the world's largest coffeehouse chain, Starbucks, finally crossed the Rs 1,000-crore rupee revenue mark in India for the first time. So far, it has 350 outlets in India. Now, carrying a cup of Starbucks around has almost become like a lifestyle statement.In many ways, Starbucks entered the Indian market with a huge advantage because India's undisputed coffee leader, Cafe Coffee Day (CCD), was already declining at the time.But while Starbucks is looking at the bigger picture and hasn't managed to become profitable yet, an Indian coffee startup, Third Wave, has entered the scene and is giving the global coffee giant a run for its money.Tune in.Free ReadThe invisible hand behind startups' crazy valuation runDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India's first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories

Beets are a superfood today. Tomorrow it’ll be lemons. The internet is rife with misinformation especially about food and health related stuff. There are hundreds of influencers on your feed telling you what’s good for you.But who’s telling you what’s bad and what doesn’t work?  Maybe a keto diet worked for your friend but not for you. Take Dr Cyriac Abby Philips who goes by The Liver Doc on X or Twitter. Recently, he claimed there is no point in taking multivitamins.He is a de-influencer and there are many like him who work towards breaking down myths. Often they’re faced with legal action and threats, yet most of them continue their work.But what is really fuelling de-influencers?Tune in.RecommendationThe wild finfluencer party is finally coming to an endDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India's first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories

The NITI Aayog was created in 2015 to replace the decades-old Planning Commission. The idea was to adopt a more bottom-up approach to make India competitive in today's global economy. With CEO Amitabh Kant as the leader, the think tank progressed to become a thriving, open, and empowering space for public policy experts, including those from non-government backgrounds. But ever since Kant's stint ended at the think tank in 2022, the walls between the leadership and non-govt employees at the think tank are getting thicker. From what appears, NITI Aayog is going back to the top down approach, quite like the Planning Commission back in the day.This is making its non-govt employees quite unhappy. In fact 4 out of every 10 of them have quit this year.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India's first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories

Losing IPL rights last year to Jio and then dropping HBO content has cost Disney+ Hotstar at least 21 million subscribers in just a year.The streaming giant though, decided that IPL or no IPL cricket is going to be its biggest customer acquisition funnel in 2023. And it looks like they are holding on to that strategy. The Asia Cup was streamed for free on Disney Hotstar. Now, the ICC Cricket World Cup is on and it's  available on Disney Hotstar too. The OTT giant is offering free live streaming of the event to its mobile users.But a lot of the new survival strategy, put together by the Disney Hotstar's head honchos, depends on how India does in the tournament.Tune in.CORRECTION: In the episode, the host mistakenly refers to the ICC Cricket World Cup as ICC T20 Cricket World Cup. The error is regretted. Free Read:What airports really want to do with DigiyatraAlso listen to:Disney leaves Jio the keys to the kingdom

Licious, the online meat delivery platform, was India’s first direct to consumer company or D2C that achieved the unicorn status.  It was valued at $1.4 billion two years ago and it had enough money to grow to Rs 100 crore of revenue per month, but its revenue has remained flat from the last two years.Licious follows the premium pricing strategy. Its products are priced higher price than the average market but its customer base is ready to pay that extra amount because of the quality Licious delivers. But Licious is not being able to expand its user base to the larger meat eating population because of this very premium pricing strategy.But it needs to deliver on a growth rate worthy of its billion dollar plus valuation.Tune in.RecommendationWhy India won’t see a $100 billion internet company anytime soonDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India's first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories

It took Bajaj Finance over 15 years to become the most valued NBFC in the country. And then came along Jio Financial Services Ltd (JFSL) and took the no. 2 position in a span of just two months. It is currently valued at more than $17 billion.Its all set to take the top space. Currently, the company is on a serious hiring spree and it seems to have taken a particular liking to former ICICI Bank employees for its key executive roles. After all, a lot of its future success will depend on the team it builds.But this is not the first time Reliance has tried its hands in the finance sector. The last time it did, things didn't really take off. What's different this time?Tune in.Free ReadA job with McKinsey, Bain, or BCG trumps everything. Or it used toDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India's first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories 

What makes Dunzo unique is that one could never imagine a company its size to have the kind of influence it does.In 2022, a $200 million funding from Reliance Retail sent the quick-commerce startup flying high. It began expanding its dark stores and even ran advertisements in IPL.But the IPL led boom did not last long. The same year, the number and volume of orders began to decline. Dunzo was forced to recalibrate its focus and rethink its strategy.Tune in!Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India's first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories

After the pandemic years, Kota’s coaching industry saw an unprecedented boom. Money was pouring in from everywhere–from edtechs to investors. In the last five years, Kota saw about 2 lakh engineering and medical aspirants, on average, arrive from across the country. Kota runs on stiff competition not just among the students but also among the scores of institutes that host and prep them. But since the past four months, Kota’s reputation has been on the line. Student admissions have dropped, with coaching-centre owners pegging it to be at least 20%. While it is partially because of the rising number of student suicides, it is not the only reason why Kota may be one result away from losing its star position in the coaching business.Tune in.RecommendationKota’s Rs 6,000 cr coaching business may never be the same againDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, analytical business stories.

All the twists and turns in the journey of startups have been well-documented since VC funding began drying up over the past year or so. In the first half of 2022,  Indian startups received more than $17 billion dollars. But a year later in 2023. they just got a little over $5 billion.What’s we’ve barely heard about, though, is what is happening to the funders of these startups and their foot soldiers—the VC analysts. With the slowdown, the day-to-day responsibilities of these analysts have changed and so has their approach towards dealmaking. Tune in to find out.Recommendation What VC analysts do when there are few deals to makeDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, analytical business stories.

From the time it was the number one indian telecom company to braving the whole phase when Jio came around and disrupted the whole space. Its been a long, brutal competition for Airtel and Gopal Vittal has managed to bring Airtel back to health.Meanwhile, he's spent years on finding and grooming the right talent to create the next generation of leaders at the telco giant. And now Airtel is undergoing a major reshuffle. As you would expect, it’s creating a sense of both excitement and stress.Tune in.RecommendationThe camel is inside the tentDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, analytical business stories.

For a people who were quite averse to the whole concept of credit, Indians really seem to be developing a new found love for the piece of plastic and banks have been happy to ride the wave. But lately they've been left quite baffled because they are being being beaten at their own game. A growing community of people are constantly finding hacks to take advantage of the loopholes in credit-card reward systems. For some of them , in fact, it's going so well that they’ve turned their secret operations into lucrative businesses. Turns out they can make more money from it than their 9 to 5 jobs.Meanwhile banks have realised they are being taken for a ride so some have taken extra security measures to keep such tricksters at bay.**Correction: The credit for this story was mistakenly attributed to Gaurav Noronha whereas the actual writer is Rounak Kumar Gunjan. We apologise for the errorRecommendationCredit-card whizzes outsmart banks at their own gameDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, analytical business stories.

From content flagging, suspension, shadow-banning and even account deletion, content creators are grappling with a variety of censorship methods on social media platforms—all in the name of maintaining community guidelines.But with social media platforms relying more and more on AI and machine-learning tools identify and remove violating content, even content aimed at creating sexual, social, and political awareness ends up being taken down.  And sex-ed and news content creators on platforms like Instagram and Youtube are seeing their reach, discoverability, and income take a hit.Tune in.RecommendationYoutube, Instagram creators got likes and shares. Now, some only get restrictionsFREE READDisney+ Hotstar is done with premiumisationDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, analytical business stories.

For almost two decades, India was a stagnant market for one of the leading tech companies of the world. But in 2021, things changed and Apple’s sales graph in India began to rise upwards.By 2022, Apple sole over 7 million iPhones in the country. And then in April, Apple CEO Tim Cook inaugurated India’s first Apple retail store in Mumbai. But compared to markets like the US and China, Apple’s numbers in India are far from substantial.Yet, the company is looking to give Its Indian customers a premium experience, even if the sales don’t yet justify it.Tune in. Free Read:India’s maternity law needs to stop being an outlierDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, analytical business stories.

For the longest time public sector banks, as we know them, have been very reluctant about study abroad loans. And it was for good reason. They've suffered greatly because of education loans going bad. Meanwhile, its a whole different story that was going on with non-banks. Study abroad loans accounted for about US$4 billion in the year ended March 2023. These were almost fully funded by non-banks like Credila and Avanse Financial. Their staregy was simple—sanction collateral-free as fast as possible. Over time they gained experience and most importantly, years worth of data.Guess who is using all that data and experience gathered by non-banks to offer overseas education loans now?The banks!Tune in.RecommendationWho will fund your study abroad? Banks want to be an option nowDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

The government of India launched Digiyatra, a contactless, facial-recognition-based passenger-entry system, in December last year. The idea is for those who sign up on the platform to avoid the tedious process of getting their ID and flight tickets checked by  CISF personnel at airports.But lately, stories of passengers being forced to sign up for the app are surfacing on social media. Meanwhile, airlines, which are important stakeholders to make the entire endeavour successful are unable to see any benefits for themselves. Airports though see it as a great opportunity. In fact, multiple sources close to the implementation of Digiyatra told The Ken that the whole idea of Digiyatra came from airports themselves.What's in it for them?Tune in.RecommendationWhat airports really want to do with DigiyatraDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

For the longest time, consulting at the “Big 3” strategy consulting firms—McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Co.—is not only one the most sought-after careers but also one of the highest-paying jobs.Five years ago, 30% of graduates from the top IITs with bachelors degrees chose consulting. For those from the IIMs in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, and Kolkata, 35% of graduates chose a consulting job at one of these companies.But ever since 2022, something’s changed. The Ken spoke to four placement coordinators of IITs and IIMs and they told us that these jobs, especially at the entry level, are not as popular anymore.Why?Tune in to find out.Recommendation  A job with McKinsey, Bain, or BCG trumps everything. Or it used toFree ReadHow brands decide what your favourite snack tastes likeDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Lately, India's bike taxi leader, Rapido, has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. With numerous complaints of sexual harassment, theft, and even impersonation, the startup has been reckless with the safety of its customers, epecially women.Despite these incidents, Rapido still enjoys a 60% share of the bike-taxi market in India. It clocks in as many as 750,000 rides every single day and yet, the level of scrutiny it deploys for the drivers on its platform is close to non-existent.What’s is the bike-taxi not fixing these issues? Tune in to find out.Free ReadHow Domino’s defied the might of Zomato and SwiggyDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Airlines in India, from Indigo to Akasa, are on a spree to expand their fleet. Around a thousand more aircrafts will be flying the Indian skies in the coming few years.Usually, each aircraft usually requires a crew of at least ten or more pilots. This means we will need close to 10,000 pilots. But we already have 10,000 pilots waiting to be hired.The problem is no airline wants to hire them.Why?Tune in to find out.RecommendationAirlines want pilots. Pilots want jobs. Why are thousands unemployed?

Last month, Unacademy did something very unsusal. It introduced a new policy, restricting how much its educators can engage online. Ever since, Unacademy has either suspended or sent show cause notices to at least 50-60 of its teachers.But Unacademy relied on its teachers to bring in students. It wanted them to be popular so it encouraged its teachers to work on methods to hack social media. It made them its sales force.What made it make this U-turn and restrict the personal social media accounts of teachers? Many think the Karan Sangwan incident must've something to do with it but there is much more to it than what meets the eye.Tune in.RecommendationUnacademy stifles tutors after giving them free reinDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Between 2018 to 2021, incidents related to breach of cybersecurity in the auto industry rose by 228%. In the next few years, this number is only expected to get worse.In India though, it is not much of a concern yet due to the low penetration of EVs so far. But it won't remain that way for long without proper safeguards in place.The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act 2023 is a step in the right direction, but it has a long way to go.Tune in.RecommendationOla Electric woke up and chose violenceDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

A few months ago, multiple Hotstar executives had told The Ken the same thing. “IPL or no IPL, cricket is going to be the platform’s most important customer-acquisition funnel this year.” It seems Disney Star is holding on to that strategy. The Asia Cup is going to be streamed for free on Disney Hotstar from today onwards.Even after losing the IPL's digital streaming rights, Disney+Hotstar is the leader of the Indian OTT space in terms of subscriber numbers. But OTT is a complex business and just having the largest subscriber base is not really enough, at least not in India.In fact, Disney has been on quite the downturn in India. And the way its headed, it almost seems like its making space for Jio to come take its crown.Tune in.Free ReadProject Manager is dead. Long live the Product Manager Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

The mattress industry in India this year is valued at around $2.5 billion and growing at a CAGR of 10%. Up to 9 million mattresses are sold in the country every year. Among the top brands in the mattress market is Sleepwell, owned by Sheela Foam, the largest manufacturer of Polyurethane Foams (PU) in Asia Pacific. Despite having a fourth of the market share and conditions ripe for innovating and growing, the company had been in a limbo of sorts.Until last month, when it announced it was acquiring a 95% stake in Kurl-On, another popular mattress maker.What's in this deal for Sleepwell?Tune in.RecommendationUp all night: Capitalising on India’s big sleep gapDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Over the course of a year or so, we’ve seen how one by one, the chances of Byju's survival have been narrowing down. However, there’s one thing that could possibly save it from falling apart: Aakash, the offline coaching chain that Byju’s had acquired in 2021 for a staggering $950 million. Now, with its IPO upcoming in mid-2024, the struggling edtech giant has a lot riding on Aakash's success.But Byju’s is turning out to become quite the troublesome partner for Aakash, no thanks to its aggressive sales tactics. These selling hacks are driving a wedge between the two teams on the ground and the plans to integrate have been put on hold.Tune in.RecommendationAakash’s sales force has no love lost for Byju’s Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

For the longest time, despite being a giant steel-to-software conglomerate, Tata’s consumer goods game was nowhere close to India's top FMCG companies.Ever since 2019 though, when it decided to merge Tata Chemicals and Tata Beverages as Tata Consumer Products Ltd, the FMCG arm has been on a roll. In the recent financial year alone, it introduced more than 30 new products.Meanwhile, Tata Consumer’s shares have more than tripled. The Nifty FMCG index also almost doubled. What changed?Tune in to find out.RecommendationHow Tata Consumer’s Sunil D’Souza put product launches on steroids Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Last week, the edtech unicorn Unacademy fired Karan Sangwan, a law teacher for asking students to vote for educated candidates during elections in one of his video tutorials on YouTube. According to the edtech, Sangwan had breached the code of conduct by sharing his 'personal opinion.'While this case is of a slightly different nature pertaining to one individual, Unacademy's relationship with its educators in general hasn't been great either.With dwindling sales and a funding crunch, edtechs like Unacademy have made tutors their new sales force. Teachers are being forced to make viral content to meet targets but for many, it is too much to handle.Tune in.RecommendationThe product-market-fit hole in Unacademy’s SaaS offering, CohesiveDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

A March 2022 report from the World Health Organization said that over 17% of households in India incur catastrophic health expenditures every year. And it results in the impoverishment of around 55 million people. Anyway, it's just about 37% of the population that actually has any form of health insurance. In such circumstances, if the rate at which a health insurance company denies claims begins to rise, it is a matter of concern. Star Health, one of India's leading health insurers, had the highest number of claims outstanding among the standalone health insurance companies for the year ended March 2022. Aggrieved customers have been running from pillar to post for payouts, turning to social media and consumer courts for respite.And yet, Star Health's new business is still growing and its retail policy renewal rate remained unaffected.Tune in.Recommendation:IPO-bound Digit trusts its tech to sell health insurance, but consumers don’t yet Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Reliance controls just 3% of India’s retail market. You might think it's a tiny share. But 80% of the retail industry is unorganised. And overall, the retail sector in our country is worth nearly 900 billion dollars. So to control even 3% of it is a big deal.But it is refining and petrochemicals that is the Reliance's biggest business. Why is it then that since the last three years, Reliance Retail is being made to headline the conglomerate's annual report?Tune in.Free Read:Lenskart’s CEO and chief people officer Peyush Bansal has a people problemDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Beets are a superfood today. Tomorrow it'll be lemons. The internet is rife with misinformation especially about food and health related stuff. There are hundreds of influencers on your feed telling you what’s good for you. But who’s telling you what’s bad and what doesn't work?  Maybe a keto diet worked for your friend but not for you. Take Dr Cyriac Abby Philips who goes by The Liver Doc on Twitter. Recently, he claimed there is no point in taking multivitamins.He is a de-influencer and there are many like him who work towards breaking down myths. Often they're faced with legal action and threats, yet most of them continue their work.But what is really fuelling de-influencers?Tune in.RecommendationThe wild finfluencer party is finally coming to an endDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

After a delay of almost a year Ola Electric finally released its financials this week. The company was valued at $5 billion last year and so far it has raised nearly $800 million from investors, including Softbank. With a 40% market share, it is the leader of the two-wheeler EV market in India. It has already sold over 250,000 vehicles.Ola Electric has set up 600 experience centres around the country where people can go take test rides. But the company only has 200 service centres. Its lack of focus towards after-sales servicing is upsetting customers. Plus, the financials point towards a 4X loss in FY 2022.Meanwhile, its competitors like Ather and Bajaj are strategically going for a service-first policy.Tune in.RecommendationWhy $3 billion set aside for India’s EV makers is sitting idleDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Known for its high-end EV models, earlier this year, Tesla went on a cost-cutting spree. Six months ago though, the EV-maker was on the verge of shutting down its office in India. But last week, the company took up a sprawling office space in Pune on a 5 year-long lease. And last month, it was reported that Tesla’s plans to set up a factory in India with a yearly capacity of 5 lakh EV units. Now, at a time when there is a the general fall in EV prices, it is admittedly chasing growth—even if it comes at the cost of profitability. In fact, the starting price-range of Tesla models in India could be as less as US$24,000. Looks like the EV-making global giant is picking up cues from the reigning giant of India’s passenger EV market—Tata Motors.Tune in.RecommendationWhy Tesla is surely watching Tata, BYDDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

The voice of the gig worker is getting louder and it's coming to a point where neither delivery companies nor the govt can afford to ignore it for much longer.Last month, the Rajasthan government came up with a new law that aims to establish a welfare board and a dedicated social security fund for platform-based gig workers in the state. One could say the new law sets a precedent for gig workers across the country. However, that is only if you take it for face value.Once you look beyond the headlines and go through the technicalities of the law, it doesn't paint as rosy a picture for the aggrieved gig workers.Tune in to fine out more.RecommendationGig-worker strikes are just the tip of the iceberg, unionisation lies beneathIndia’s first law to protect gig workers is surprisingly good news for their employersDoes the delivery-partner fee you pay 'fully go to them for their time and effort'? NopeDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

UPI or the Unified Payments Interface has revolutionised the way we use money. So much so that we don't think twice about freely accept financial connections with strangers. Since its launch seven years ago, 300 million users in India are on the UPI platform freely carrying out financial transactions.But did you know that your bank can block your account without a warning or any explanation? And what's worst, you could even come under the radar of law enforcement authorities like the cyber crime police. Anyone who unknowingly makes a transaction, directly or indirectly, with a fraudster can be considered suspicious by authorities.Meanwhile, banks and law enforcement agencies are yet to figure out a standard operating procedure in dealing with such matters. This had led them to adopt a ‘block first, ask questions later’ approach that's been making the lives of innocent victims even harder.Tune in to find out more.RecommendationOn the UPI social network, who do you ‘know’? And who do ‘they know’?Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Once upon a time, not too long ago actually, Byju's was the world’s most valuable edtech. Now, though, it's in a big mess. And that’s putting it mildly.However, Byju’s employees got the worst end of the stick because of all the company has been going through. The Ken spoke to employees who told us they were fired arbitrarily without notice. In fact, they said they are being forced to resign.And like that wasn't enough to deal with, some companies have specifically told recruiters not to look at Byju’s employees.Tune in to find out why.Recommendation: Indian lenders cut off Byju’s air supply by not lending to its usersThe seven things you need to know about Byju’s FY21 financialsDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Last month, the global tech giant Microsoft India saw its revenue hit $3 billion, much closer to its $5 billion target by 2025. A Mumbai based sales leader told The Ken that in 2022, Microsoft India grew twice the growth of Microsoft globally.Behind the company's success was Anant Maheshwari who had been leading it for the last seven years. Described as an aggressive salesman and hard taskmaster, while he took the Microsoft India to new heights, his leadership style left a section of employees feeling dejected.What was going on inside the walls of the tech giant?Tune in to find out.RecommendationThe ChatGPT effect: Microsoft gaining momentum in cloud race against Amazon and Google by Pratap Vikram SinghDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Nine years ago, Urban Company (then UrbanClap) disrupted the market and eventually went on to become Asia's largest home services marketplace. Last year, the US$2 billion company was ranked as one of the top-rated platforms for gig workers in Fairwork India Ratings.But just a year later now, Urban Company partners are are protesting nationwide against the platform's arbitrary and unfair policies. Meanwhile, customers are growing increasingly unhappy with the services. The company is also grappling with losses and has been cutting costs to achieve profitability. But the rising anger from both ends, customers and partners, is coming in its way and managing both is getting quite difficult.Tune in.RecommendationUrban Company is caught between angry customers and angrier partners Urban Co’s three-way balancing act in search of profitabilityDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

The fintech sector has been buzzing after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) permitted credit lines on UPI a few months ago. From what we know so far, banks are likely to gain the most out of it.But a credit line-backed UPI product will also change how customers use credit. While they might continue to choose credit cards for high-value purchases, for smaller purchases like groceries and clothes, they could very well start looking at the new product. The whole rewards system which had been helping issuers draw huge numbers of credit-card users, is going to change with it. In fact, it may even come to and end.Tune in.RecommendationThe Indian credit market is ripe for disruption againFree airport lounge access helped sell more credit cards. Now its come to bite banksDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In the first half of this year, from January to June, Tata Motors had 3/4th of the passenger EV market share despite relentless competition from the likes of Mahindra & Mahindra and other newer rivals.Its revenue for FY23 stood at almost $8 billion. The not-so-secret secret behind this success Tata Motors' its Xpres-T EV sedan—the go-to for cab companies and fleet operators that are looking to switch to greener alternatives. Xpres-T could easily to capture the cab market except Tata Motors maybe deliberately downplaying this bit of its success so far. Tune into find out why.Recommended reading:Why $3 billion set aside for India’s EV makers is sitting idle Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Yesterday, Netflix announced that it will be starting password sharing restrictions in India. The OTT giant will only allow users on the same internet connection to access a particular account. Anybody who is not a part of what its calling "Netflix Household" will not be able to access  content.While move did not come as a surprise since Netflix has already implemented it in many countries like the USA already, that it is using the same strategy in India, a market it has been struggling with for a while, is interesting.Will this new move help Netflix get more subscribers in India?Tune in.RecommendationsNetflix’s last growth marketSpotify adopts Indian habits to avoid the ‘Netflix problem’Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Pharmeasy, once the highest-valued Indian healthcare startup, is planning to raise money in a new round of funding at a 90% markdown from its previous valuation.From $5.6 billion to $500 million. All because Pharmeasy had to take another debt to pay off its previous debt. The second time though, interest rates were not zero. What's going on?Tune in.RecommendationByju’s is looking like a hedge fundThe tail of acquisitions wagging India’s funding dogDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

From Rs 400 per piece in 2019, the shares of Reliance Retail, went up to Rs 4000 by 2021 in the unlisted market. Reliance Retail is India’s largest operator of supermarkets, apparel outlets, and electronics stores. And its shares were the hottest cake in the grey market for a while.Many investors expected it go go for a public listing until a little more than a week ago when Mukesh Ambani threw in a surprise. The company said it would effectively cancel the holdings of its minority investors and offer them Rs 1,362 per share. Basically, Reliance Retail had cancelled its shares held by minority investors leaving them shocked and confused.What made the company take this decision? And what should retail investors learn from this?  Tune in.RecommendationWhy investors are buying what Reliance Retail is sellingDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Delivery partners who work for Swiggy or Zomato are paid per order. The fee which includes variables like base fee, surcharge, etc, depends on how many kilometers they’ve travelled from pickup to delivery destination. These payments though, are never consistent and gig workers, who make our lives so convenient, struggle with earning a stable income. So when Zomato says on their bill under the delivery partner fee, 'fully goes to them for their time and effort,' we appreciate it thinking the money we've paid has gone to the delivery partner.Except, it doesn't.Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Ad scams in India using tech platforms like Google, Meta, or even e-marketplaces such as Olx are becoming increasingly common and dangerously creative. People have been losing anything from a few thousands to even a few crore rupees to cyber crime syndicates who have  proficient, tech-savvy members.The amount of money consumers have reported losing to fraud that originated on social-media platforms has skyrocketed since 2017. Last year alone, people reported losing more than $1.2 billion to fraud that started on social media.What are the likes of Google and Meta doing to prevent these crimes? Is it enough?Tune in.RecommendationOn Google and Facebook’s watch, cybercrime syndicates flourish by Pratap Vikram SinghDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

For many years, finfluencers have been enjoying an almost no-holds barred party in the Indian market since they operate outside Sebi's regulatory ambit. While there is no doubt about the importance of their role in combating India's rampant financial illiteracy, many often give advice that is generic, underplaying risks, and overplaying returns. After reviewing several complaints, two weeks ago, Sebi Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch was asked about Sebi's views on regulating influencers once again. This time she did put India's financial influencers on notice. A SEBI circular seems to be on its way and finfluencers have good reason to be worried.Tune in.RecommendationSebi’s Madhabi Puri Buch and the art of keeping market players on tenterhooksDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Credit card companies, in their rush to sell more and more cards use a whole gamut of attractive offers—the most popular one being free access to airport lounges. Thanks to this and the sharp rise in domestic air travellers, last year, airport lounges saw of football of over 8.5 million people.What was once an exclusive service became a top-selling feature, even for non-premium cards issued by banks. Lounge access became overused and an expensive bill to foot for credit card issuers. Earlier last month, Axis Bank, the country’s fourth-largest credit-card issuer, revised its lounge policy. But retracting the freebie altogether is not a risk banks can afford to take.What are they doing then?Tune in.Recommendation:Credit-card issuers can’t bank on their most profitable users Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Since November 2022, when Paytm shares dropped to an all-time low, the fintech giant has been on a steady recovery path. If all goes well, its share price may cross Rs 1000 soon.But what's even more interesting is the sharp jump in its loan distributions in FY23. In the March quarter of the same year, Paytm distributed nearly 12 million loans worth over 1.5 billion dollars.And last Friday, Paytm’s parent company even announced a partnership with Shriram Finance, an NBFC that's known for its deep understanding of risk and more importantly, its collections capabilities.  What's driving this prolific growth and how is Paytm growing its loan business in the post-FLDG era?Tune in.**Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma is an investor in The Ken  RecommendationPaytm’s results hint at a turnaround. But loan-collection hacks drive it by Gaurav Noronha, Arundhati RamanathanPaytm IPO tells, and tells a lot, but doesn’t show by Arundhati RamanathanDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

On Thursday, Kotak Institutional Equities, released a note and turns out, Zomato managed to maintain its lead over Swiggy with a 55% market share in the year 2022. Swiggy is at 45%.Swiggy and Zomato have been constantly win the bigger share in India’s $5 billion food delivery market. But it was Swiggy that had the portion share just three years ago. Inherently, both the food delivery companies are quite different from each other. And it is this difference that's been giving Zomato an edge lately.Recommended reading:Why Swiggy is building a Shopify for local brandsDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories. 

ICICI's stock has tripled since 2018—the year when ICICI’s current CEO Sandeep Bakhshi took over. Loans and deposits are growing strong, margins are healthy, and investors can’t seem to get enough of the blue-chip company. Bakshi joined at a time when the bank was reeling from the after-effects of his predecessor Chanda Kochchar's controversial exit.The bank was experiencing a high rate of attrition and employees needed reassurance and stability. Bakshi gave them just that. He revamped the bank's HR policy, bringing about a democratisation with decisions like the standardisation of appraisals and tenure-based promotions.All these moves made him quite the favourite amongst many current and even former employees.  But it has also led to the creation of a faction of young disgruntled high-performers who feel they are not incentivised enough. And they are resigning. Tune in.Recommendation:At ICICI Bank, Sandeep Bakhshi’s people-first strategy costs top people by Rounak Kumar GunjanDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

For decades, the 60 year old BITS Pilani, one of the most prestigious science and engineering institutions in the country, has been second to India's crown jewels–the IITs.Now, the institute is on a mission under the leadership of its Group Vice Chancellor, V Ramgopal Rao. A syllabus revamp after a decade, a US$100M endowment fund from alumni, 10% of faculty from industry, allowing a year off for startups—BITS has taken some major leapsIt wants to be on the top with the IITs.Tune in.Recommended reading: BITS Pilani is tired of playing second fiddle to IITs by Alifiya KhanDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.  

Starting April, major non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), including Avanse Financial Services, Aditya Birla Finance, and Fullerton India, which lend to Byju’s’ customers, suspended loans for the edtech. These play an important role in allowing Byju's to make its sales to its customers via zero-interest EMIs. With sales slowing down, the edtech desperately needs these financing options because its one year courses range from anything between Rs 20,000 to Rs 1.4 lakh. Not all its customers can afford to pay it all in one go. This is why Byju’s tied up with these NBFCs in the first place. But now that the non-banks have left the building, what is the ailing giant doing to survive?Tune in.Recommendations: Byju’s has one escape route  Indian lenders cut off Byju’s air supply by not lending to its usersDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

On Thursday evening news broke that Deloitte, the biggest audit firm in the world, has resigned as Byju's statutory auditor. This couldn't come at a worse time for the edtech giant. Just hours before this, three of its key board members also tendered their resignations over differences with the company's founder. It was in September last year when, after a long delay that raised many eyebrows, Byju’s had finally released its financials for the year 2021. The delay was because Deloitte was not satisfied with what Byju’s was presenting to them as a fair picture of their accounts. It gave it an "adverse opinion."Months have passed since and there is still no sign of Byju's financials for FY2022. Worst still, the company's own projection of a Rs 10,000 crore revenue for the same year seems to be incorrect.Tune in. Recommendations: The seven things you need to know about Byju’s FY21 financials WTFinancials is going on at Byju's? Byju’s is looking like a hedge fund  Indian lenders cut off Byju’s air supply by not lending to its usersDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Despite being called ‘the pharmacy of the world,’ time and again, the Indian pharmaceutical industry has received criticism for substandard quality. Last year, the deaths of children in Gambia and Uzbekistan were allegedly linked to cough syrups manufactured in India.Yesterday, the WHO flagged seven more Indian-made cough syrups for containing toxic chemicals. Why does Indian Pharma still struggle with quality control?Tune in to find out.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

When Tata acquired the e-grocer, BigBasket, at a reported valuation of $2 billion in mid-2021, the company was loss-making. For those at BigBasket, it was an opportunity to shift their focus back to the company’s core business: doorstep grocery delivery.    While it was a bit too late when Tata realised its new acquisition was left out from the quick commerce game, there is one game that BigBasket seems to be clearly winning.Tune in to find out.Recommended reading: Torn between growing competition and Tatas’ ambitions, $3.2B BigBasket is at a crossroadsDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

The Indian Railways exclusively provides travellers a 10 lakh rupees worth insurance cover on booking train tickets online for less than half a rupee. Despite this, a large majority of Indian travellers are not covered by any form of travel insurance.Just a little more than 30 crore lives were covered by general and health insurers for domestic travel, according to the annual report of India’s insurance regulator IRDAI. Why?Tune inDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Over the years, the more health conscious we became, the more cooking oil-markers pushed different variations of words associated with 'health' in their branding. But they've been burying the caveat in the fine print. For example, Adani Wilmar’s refined soybean oil goes by the brand name ‘Fortune Soya Health’ in bold letters on the front of the pack. But if you turn the pouch around, you'll notice at the back, in small tiny letters, it reads: “The word ‘health’ is only a brand name and does not represent the product's true nature.” Tune in to find out how cooking oils brands available in the Indian market have been knowingly misleading consumers and how bad refined oils can be for you health. Recommended reading: Fortune Vivo oil meets its inevitable sticky endDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In the last few years post-pandemic, fleet-management companies like Everest have become the silent battalion in Uber's army of cabs. In fact, 90% of Everest's fleet is with Uber.This, of course, has helped Everest grow its revenues by 150X. Both seem to have found their relationship to be mutually beneficial. Everest gets to run its assets on a high demand platform. And for Uber, it become so much easier to manage its cars. No need to deal with hiring and training drivers.Now, Uber is deepening its ties with Everest, especially since it wants to roll out EVs. But as Uber gives more control to the fleet management company, the basics of the ride hailing business could change forever.Recommended reading: Blusmart wants ride-hailing glory by saying no to Uber, Ola’s scaleDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Just two years ago, quick commerce became all the rage. Now, it's slowly becoming a relic of the pandemic. The biggest names in the business have been tumbling over in the past few months. They've either been shutting down their quick delivery businesses or they're rolling back the number of their dark stores.Meanwhile, Zepto, one of the leading quick delivery platforms that made ten minute deliveries a thing, is among the first in the Indian quick-commerce space that hasn’t had layoffs or store closures in recent times. Nor has it pivoted to new verticals. In fact, its founder Aadit Palicha who spoke to The Ken told us he sees no reason to turn away from delivering groceries in minutes.Tune in.Recommended reading: Zepto is looking for a chairDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Last week, edtech giant Byju's saw its valuation come crumbling down from $22 billion to $8 billion. And June 5, 2023 happened to be the last day for the company to pay off a $40 million instalment on its highest unrated loan.This is, of course, only a part of Byju's problems which range from bad press to a growth slump and a lot more. To say that Byju's is in a precarious position right now would be an understatement. The question to ask is: will it sink or swim?There is one tiny glimmer of hope.Tune in to find out.Recommended reading: Byju’s is looking like a hedge fund  Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

With the advent of plastic in the 1980s, the once-flourishing jute industry of India saw a slow demise. But lately, the tables seemed to have turned.Countries are implementing more stringent ESG rules forcing global retailers like Ikea, Walmart, Tesco, etc to look for alternatives to plastic bags. India being the largest producer of jute is suddenly in focus. More than $120 million worth of jute bags were exported in the last financial year alone.However, neighbouring Bangladesh, also one of the leading producers of jute is quickly catching up.Tune in to find out more.Recommended reading: Walmart and Ikea are why a British-era industry is back in vogueDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

When the govt launched Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), the idea was to build the world largest e-commerce platform to check the monopoly of giants like Amazon and Flipkart. You could think of ONDC as the UPI of e-commerce. From ride-sharing and food delivery, to groceries, the platform can be used to buy and sell anything. Lately, ONDC has been doing some interesting things with pricing. For example, someone ordered food on it for a price that was 45% lower than Swiggy. This, obviously, got thinking. Could ONDC kill the likes of Swiggy and Zomato and others?While there is no exact answer to that because of a bunch of factors, what made us more curious was this: Do we want ONDC to win? And if it does then what could be the consequences?Tune in to find out.Recommended reading: Why everyone wants a piece of India’s open e-commerce platform  Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

The government of India launched a $3 billion dollar production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for automobiles to boost manufacturing, especially EV manufacturing, within India in 2022.It was a win-win for both—EV makers had been eagerly waiting for beneficial subsidies and the government could use it to push domestic private investments and create jobs in the sector. But more than a year has passed and the funds remain untouched. Not a single company selected under the scheme has qualified for the incentives, let alone received them. Tune in to find out what's going on.Recommended reading: Rajiv Bajaj has the last sigh on EV subsidiesDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, analytical business stories.

For almost two decades, India was a stagnant market for one of the leading tech companies of the world. But in 2021, things changed and Apple's sales graph in India began to rise upwards.By 2022, Apple sole over 7 million iPhones in the country. And then in April, Apple CEO Tim Cook inaugurated India’s first Apple retail store in Mumbai. But compared to markets like the US and China, Apple's numbers in India are far from substantial. Yet, the company is looking to give Its Indian customers a premium experience, even if the sales don’t yet justify it. Tune in.Recommended reading: Indians’ love for the iPhone is stronger than ever. But Apple retailers are not happy Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, analytical business stories.

A year and a half ago, Sony’s India unit—Sony Pictures Networks—announced a merger with rival Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. Ever since, Sony Liv's subscriber base grew from 18 million to over 33 million. With good original stories and unique non-fiction shows, alongside a strong partnerships strategy, Sony has been able to close the gap on market leaders such as Hotstar. Zee meanwhile has a formidable arsenal of regional content.The combined strengths of the two platforms, Sony and Zee, now threaten to change the pecking order of the country's OTT sectorTune in.

Not long ago, being a fintech company in India meant having a promising future. Because people would always needed to make payments which is why it was assumed that building better products around these needs would ensure good business.But it was not how things panned out. And the story of Instamojo, a promising fintech company is testament to that.After 11 years of being in the business, it has decided it does not want to be a payments company anymore. 

In 2016, Jio invested more than $50 billion to roll out a 4G network across India. The move disrupted the telco sector leaving Airtel down at the second place. The other rivals didn't make itThe telecom sector was left in the hands of a duopoly. Now, there is a new war between these two giants and it is over home broadband.In fact, the crown they’re fighting for is to be the go-to service provider for not just broadband but the whole works—a complete suite of entertainment, gaming, and home-surveillance services. What are they up against and how are they prepping to win?Tune in.Recommended reading: Jio, Airtel brace for another epic price war. And it’s not for mobile usersDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, analytical business stories.

From amazing salary hikes and other perks being served on a silver platter just a year or two ago to now, when companies are using salary benchmarks to figure out whether they have overvalued employees—the startup ecosystem in India is going through a churn.In fact, as many as a quarter of startup professionals might be what HR and hiring professionals are terming as 'unhireables' at this point.Former overvalued startups that had gone on hiring sprees are now doing all they can to correct their mistakes while employees are resisting, waiting for things to settle with fingers crossed.Tune in.Recommended reading: India’s startup workplaces confront the rise of the ‘unhireables’Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, analytical business stories.

What makes Dunzo unique is that one could never imagine a company its size to have the kind of influence it does.In 2022,  a $200 million funding  from Reliance Retail sent the quick-commerce startup flying high. It began expanding its dark stores and even ran advertisements in IPL.But the IPL led boom did not last long. The same year, the number and volume of orders began to decline.Dunzo was forced to recalibrate its focus and rethink its strategy. Tune in!Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, analytical business stories.

India's youngest detect unicorn is on a relentless expansion spree. So much so that its investors want it to slow down.From establishing itself as the leader of NEET-JEE test preparation, Physics Wallah (PW) wants to dip its toes in a bunch of other areas—from banking and defence to civil services now. Not to forget short-term skilling courses and even tie-ups with schools.Despite this hyper growth phase coming after PW became the only profitable edtech unicorn in the last financial year, cracks are appearing on its armour now.Tune in.Recommended reads:India’s youngest edtech unicorn Physics Wallah is making an audacious gamblePhysicswallah vs the popstarDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India's first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, analytical business stories. 

Last year in October, the Karnataka government banned Ola and Uber autorickshaws after they were caught overcharging. A month later a new app was launched and it was almost antithesis of Ola and Uber. It charged zero commission from drivers and no cancellation or surge charges from riders. Plus, the government supported it by saying it would be listed on its e-commerce behemoth, ONDC.Yet, eight months later, Namma Yatri is not growing as much as expected in terms of registered drivers and users. Tune in to find out more.Recommended reading: Your Namma Yatri auto driver may still be on Uber, OlaAlso, listen to: Gaurav Munjal of Unacademy on being confrontational, paranoid and transparentDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India's first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, analytical business stories.  

Freshworks, one of the most successful SaaS companies that was listen on NASDAQ in 2021, wanted to hit $1 billion in annualised revenue by 2023. What made it stand out was also its employee-first approach.That it took the company just 5 years to climb from $1 million in ARR in 2010 hit $100 million indicated that the target could've been achieved. but its 2023, and Freshworks is only halfway towards the goal.How is the company planning to pursue its profit goals?Tune in to fine out.Recommended reading: How Freshworks is going from being a ‘people-first’ to a ‘profits-first’ companySubscribe to The Ken for more exclusive, deeply-reported, analytical business stories.

The pandemic worsened the nursing crisis in India. If 35 nurses were required for every 10,000 people, India only has 25. Exploitative work conditions and poor pay are making nurses migrate in huge numbers to other countries for better jobs. It is an exodus.The government on its part its trying to solve the crisis by building more nursing colleges. But this is akin to a doctor treating the symptom instead of the disease.Tune in to find out why.

India’s nutraceutical market is estimated  to be worth $4-5 billion and the government expects it to be worth almost five times more in the next two years. As important as it is to monitor the rapidly growing market, regulations have not really kept up.And in a post-Covid world where preventive healthcare has become all the rage, a dangerous situation is being created. Health supplement makers are flouting RDA guidelines and consumers have been paying little attention.Tune in to find out why you need to read the fine print before you buy your next dose of multivitamin gummies.Recommended reading: How healthy are health supplements? India’s food regulator wants to find outDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India's first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, analytical business stories.  

Last week, a full search and seizure operation was carried out by the Enforcement Directorate on three offices of edtech giant Byju's. The $22 billion startup is being investigated under the Foreign Exchange Management Act.The move comes at a terrible time for Byju's since it is already struggling with a long list of troubles including a potential debt crisis. The company still hasn't filed its financials for FY 2022.In this episode, not only do we look back at Byju’s missteps, we also go over what it did right, and how it still did not matter.Tune in.Recommended reading: The seven things you need to know about Byju’s FY21 financialsSubscribe to The Ken for more exclusive, deeply-reported, analytical business stories.

The launch of Chinese video content platform Tiktok in 2017 changed the social media landscape forever. The short video format became all the rage. Despite TikTok being banned in 2020, the format stayed and a range of Indian short-video apps came up.Content creators from small towns and cities joined such platforms and for many it became a dependable source of income. Some were making as much as Rs 1 lakh a month.But now, with advertisers slashing their budgets, platforms such as Moj and Josh are ending their exclusive deals with content-creators.What seemed like a viable career option for thousands across the country is no longer the same.Tune in.

The initial public offering ((IPO) of Mankind Pharma Ltd opened for subscription on 25th April and closed just yesterday. The pharma major is reportedly eyeing a valuation of over $6.7 billion.But in recent years, the Indian stock market has not been very kind to pharmas that have been listed. Since 2010, 17 of them have had IPOs, but four have delisted. Of the remaining, half are trading below their listing price.Amidst this and the current economic state that is making many postpone their IPOs, Mankind still went ahead with its plan. Why?Tune in to find out. 

In February this year, Vodafone Idea gave away a 33% stake to the Indian government and the government converted a part of its dues into equity. Many analysts though think even this cannot save the sinking telco.Because the company still owes the government $23 billion and banks $1.5 billion. And it also needs $6 billion for an all-India network upgrade to roll out 5G.Vodafone Idea has too much to deal with—a towering mountain of debt, a ruthless giant of a rival, and the merger with Idea that turned out to be a bad decision.  In today's episode, we look at the possible outcomes of how the saga of the struggling telco could end.Tune in.

Ever since they came up a little less than a decade ago, e-pharmacies have been fighting a constant battle. On one hand there is the severe pushback from traditional pharmacy lobbies and on the other, the lack of a regulatory mechanism.It was only in 2017 that the government officially acknowledged their existence. It was a small win, but a win nonetheless. But the draft e-pharmacy rules that the government came up with a year later were never notified.Despite this, e-pharmacies continued operating and their importance was only highlighted further during the pandemic.But in February this year, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) sent show-cause notices to 20 e-pharmacies. These included Tata 1mg, Amazon, Flipkart, Reliance Retail-owned NetMeds, MediBuddy, Practo and Apollo.However, e-pharmacies are here to stay.Tune in to find out more

In 2020, Google invested $4.5 billion  in Reliance's Jio Platforms for a 7.7% equity. The flagship product of this alliance was a budget friendly 4G smartphone priced at Rs 6500 called JioPhone Next. The idea was to make the internet more accessible to millions of more Indians.When it was launched, the telco was expected to sell at least 20 million devices in a year. But so far, it has sold only 2 million.A tech giant and a telco giant coming together to make a pocket-friendly smartphone--the plan sounded perfect. What could've gone wrong?Tune in to find out.

The Blinkit delivery workers' strike that began last week has brought the spotlight back on the delivery personnel crisis in India. Just last year in July, Swiggy’s delivery partners in Bangalore too had gone on strike. Their issues range from wages to the lack of basic employee benefits.With an IPO scheduled for 2024 and its 100 crore rupee investment in the bike-taxi company Rapido, the stakes were high for the food delivery platform. It had to find a solution and it had to be soon. So, it came up with a plan.It gave its delivery personnel the option to double as bike-taxis during non-peak hours. This was to incentivise them for doing more work in a day and also retain them during peak hours. But can a food delivery rider deliver meals and also ferry people? Tune in to find out.

BookMyShow has its share of testing times since its birth back in 1998. The last one came as the pandemic and brought the platform down to its knees. Year-on-year revenues fell to one seventh in FY21 and it had to cut down its employee size from over 1500 to just a little over 500.To everyone's surprise, however, BookMyShow managed to not only survive but also recover quite swiftly.But now, the company wants to become more than just a movie ticket-selling platform. It want to win the live events game. Tune in!

After its listing, investors were almost bullish about Nykaa shares. And for good reason. The company has been a pioneer in normalising buying beauty and cosmetic products online. It showed profitability that the other listed tech companies were nowhere close to.So in 2018, it decided to venture into fashion.But things have been a bit shaky since last year. A week ago, Nykaa gave its investors a “revenue update” for the last quarter and it did not paint a very pretty picture. The company blamed the pullback in discretionary spending for the subdued growth in its fashion business.This, however, is not the first time fashion has been the source of concern for the beauty and personal care e-commerce giant.Was Nykaa's foray into fashion worth the risk?Tune in to find out. 

Phone calls from Bajaj Finance offering loans are almost inescapable and lately, the non-bank has been facing quite a backlash for it.But telecalling has been an enduring sales channel for the company which boasts of a loan book worth $28 billion. And despite the massive size of its loan book, it's been growing at 30% for years. Now this rate is seeing a dip through.Bajaj needs to maintain a 26-27% growth rate. Meanwhile, shifting its loan sourcing to its digital assets is going to take a while.So those pesky calls are unlikely to stop anytime soon.In this episode, we take a closer look at this Bajaj Finance's annoying but successful system of tele-calling.

According to a survey by S&P, more than 75 per cent of Indian adults do not understand basic financial concepts. The gap is more when it comes to women. 80%.   So the rise of financial influencers who simplify complex financial jargon and provide investment advice is not really surprising. But often, they underplay risks  and overplay returns, and try to ride the market waves.In fact, SEBI, the market capital regulator, has been receiving many complaints and is working on creating a framework of strict guidelines to bring them under its control.But reining these 'finfluencers' in is a bit of a catch-22 situation.Tune in.

With the digital streaming rights to IPL gone and the recent losses it posted, India's undisputed OTT leader is trying to figure out a new strategy to stay on top of the game.As other OTT platforms around the world are consciously choosing to spend less on original programming, Disney+Hotstar is doing the opposite in India.But is it enough to make up for the 30 million viewers it would get on average every day when the IPL was on?Tune in to find out.

India’s patent office decided to reject pharma giant Johnson &Johnson’s appeal to extend the patent for a life-saving TB medicine called bedaquiline which is used to treat those with drug resistant infections. But for a long time before this, Johnson & Johnson was enjoying a monopoly in India. Generic manufacturers could not make this life-saving medicine. The Indian government too, at the time, had decided to protect the pharma giant.Not just that, Johnson & Johnson was also conveniently projecting itself as a charitable organisation through its health programmes.What does the Indian govt’s decision mean for TB patients in India now?

If you had to compare all the online payment methods available to us, digital wallets like Paytm have gone through the roughest of waters.  From being the life-saver during demonetisation to being left behind by UPI, digital wallets haven't had it easy. But last week, UPI parent NPCI released a circular about the use of digital wallets that brought a ray of hope albeit after a bit of confusion. It had to do with certain charges being levied on transactions over Rs 2,000.How could it work as a shot in the arm digital wallets and who is actually going to pay these new charges?Diclaimer:*Paytm’s founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma is an investor in The Ken.*The Ken has been part of multiple programmes initiated by GPay parent Google for news organisations globally, including, most recently, its 2022 APAC Innovation Challenge.

With the IPL set to begin today, a few days ago Jio announced a move that many say could be the next big disruption. The Reliance Group, which has the digital rights of the event, is streaming the games for free on its OTT platform, JioCinema.The main goal is to get people to switch the traditional way of viewing cricket, especially IPL, from TV to digital streaming.So on 27 March, Jio launched its most affordable fixed broadband plan yet. The plan offers unlimited data at 10 Mbps for Rs 198 per month. Before this, Jio was giving fixed broadband customers 30 Mbps bandwidth for Rs 399 a month. Will the new broadband plan get enough viewers to switch to digital streaming? Tune in.

The Indian government has set an ambitious goal with the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) program for mobile-phone manufacturing. By 2026, it aims to push the country's annual exports to a whopping $300 billion.The idea is to boost large-scale manufacturing and to support domestic phone makers to become globally competitive.  But of the six companies that made the cut to claim the scheme's incentives, only two are Indian.Why is “Make in India” attracting more foreign phone makers than Indian ones?Tune in to find out.

 2023 has been declared the International Year of Millets after India, the largest producer of millets in the world, moved a resolution in the UN General Assembly.The Prime Minister himself has been promoting the use of millets as a staple through various channels like Mann Ki Baat and the Global Millets Conference that was recently held in the national capital.But making what were once called 'coarse grains' as the next big food trend is riddled with challenges and will take more than declaring 2023 the year of millets.Tune in.

After buying the digital rights for IPL for an eye-popping amount last year, Mukesh Ambani’s JioCinema wants to change the way Indians watch cricket. It wants to replace TV viewing with online streaming.In order to pull it off, it came up with an almost disruptive move. It decided to make IPL streaming freeWhile viewership is expected to hit half a billion and ad impressions to quadruple after this, advertisers are skeptical about a host of unknown factors.What are they?Tune in to find out.

The Indian Met Dept has predicted that 2023, especially between March to May, is going to be unusually hot for most parts of India. Air conditioners and electric fans account for nearly one fifth of the total electricity used in buildings around the world today.Naturally, electricity bills have skyrocketed and it's only going to get worse.Meanwhile, a fascinating technology has emerged that can save 30 to 40% in energy consumption but it's not being adopted as fast as it should be. Energy transitions are proving to be much more difficult than a smartphone upgrade.Tune in

Last week, Season 2 of one of the country’s most popular reality TV shows, Shark Tank India, came to an end. The show has given rise to a significant demand for startup investing.Investors are able to put in as little as Rs 5000 via online fundraising platforms like Tyke Invest and Infubiz. They offer investments in startups through Community Subscription Offer Plans. But these fundraising campaigns are not subject to securities laws and  investors in these instruments do not have any shareholder rights under the Companies Act, 2013.This is creating a high-risk environment for small-time retail investors.Tune in.

A few months ago, a whistleblower alleged that some of the top EV makers in India were misusing the FAME subsidy. The government began an investigation and withheld the subsidy for multiple EV manufacturers.Ever since, news stories have been reporting how the sale of EVs in India has declining and the FAME subsidy is under the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.But the government is only trying to correct a past mistake. The impact of the subsidy on the rising penetration of EVs in the country can't be ignored. In fact, the criticism of FAME could actually end up hurting the EV sector in the long run.Tune in. 

For credit card issuers, 'revolvers' are the most profitable customers. They are users who carry over a balance from one month to another instead of paying the entire due amount.These users pay as much as 40% interest per annum by revolving and help the credit card issuer make obscene amounts of profits.But lately, dues from ‘revolvers’ have been falling. There is a shift in their behaviour pattern.Tune in to find out why

With summer around the corner this year, the Indian government is scrambling to make sure the country does not face power outages.But as this demand for power rises, the country is also working on increasing its green energy capacity. In fact, India is turning out to be one of the fastest to increase its renewable energy capacity. The transition to green energy is not just about how electricity is produced, it is also about how it is consumed. India emerged as the biggest market for corporate power-purchase agreements  (PPAs) in Asia-Pacific for the second year in a row.This trend has the state-run discoms or power distribution companies seriously worried. 

ITC's stock had been lagging for years. Many institutional investors stayed away from ITC because the company's shares are considered sin stocks. The company, meanwhile, has avoided acknowledging the importance of cigarettes, its mainstay business, in its communications.But over the last year, the ITC stock has made a dramatic comeback. Suddenly, investors can't get enough of the company.What changed?Tune in to find out.

The fourth draft of the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill is all set to be presented in the Parliament during the ongoing Budget session. While it makes a strong case for creating laws to prevent the personal information of citizens from being harvested and exploited, the Bill is playing blind to two Important factors. This in turn could end up creating a crony-capitalist economy where an individual's freedom of choice is put at risk.Tune in.

The introduction of the contraceptive pill in the 1960s was one of the most significant events in the history of human society. But it still left the burden of birth control largely on women.Now, however, things are changing. The demand for male contraceptives is on the rise. But why have large pharmaceutical companies not paid enough attention to the research on male contraceptives for all these years?Tune in.P.S We apologise for the delay in the release of today's episode. We were faced with technical difficulties.

CP Plus, a CCTV camera brand, procures 80% of its supplies for its parent company Aditya Infotech Ltd (AIL) from the Chinese security-equipment manufacturer Dahua Technology.   Dahua and Hikvision, another Chinese surveillance-tech firm, are facing sanctions in the UK, US, Australia, and other countries, for their connection to the Chinese government.But in India’s growing CCTV market, which is said to be worth Rs.5000 crores, both these companies are flourishing. Bringing them under control is turning out to be a huge policy challenge for the government.Tune in.

In 2015, the current government set an ambitious target. It said we would have 100 GW of solar capacity by 2022 and 40% of it would come from rooftop solars or RTS. Back then, the country’s solar capacity was just 3.7 GW.   But as of October 2022, this capacity rose to only a little over 60 GW. The main reason for this is the slow adoption of RTS. High transaction costs and lack of data about the long-term performance of RTS make it difficult to access loans for small-scale solar installations.Tune in to find out more.

Years ago, a tug of war began between tech companies including OTT platforms and telecom companies.Telecom and internet service providers believe that content and tech companies should pay them for disproportionate traffic. But tech and content companies argue that this would violate the principles of net neutrality.The debate has now reached India and telecom regulator TRAI is expected releasing a consultation paper on the matter soon.Will content companies like Google, Netflix have to compensate telcos in India?Tune in.

Hotstar has remained the undisputed OTT leader in India boasting of half of India's 90 million paid OTT subscribers. A part of this success has come via the IPL streaming rights and from bundling with telecom and DTH service providers like Jio and Airtel. But last year, Jio's Viacom 18 won the digital streaming rights of IPL, the largest cricket tournament in the world. Not just that Reliance's Jio also dropped Disney+Hotstar from most of its streaming bundles.Why did Reliance choose to end this partnership and what does it mean for Disney+Hotstar?Tune in to find out. 

From February 26, the Union Health Ministry will organise a two-day 'Chintan Shivir'  to explore ways to build trust on Indian drugs, cosmetics and medical devices.Despite being called 'the pharmacy of the world,' time and again, the Indian pharmaceutical industry has received criticism for substandard quality. The most recent such incident was when the deaths of children in Gambia and Uzbekistan were allegedly linked to cough syrups manufactured in India.Why does Indian Pharma still struggle with quality control?Tune in to find out.

With its phenomenal success, UPI has changed the way Indians interact with money. Now, the NPCI along with other fintech platforms are making efforts to launch UPI for international use.But the government needs to ensure UPI remains secure and reliable as it expands beyond the country's borders.Note: In the previous version of this episode, the host mistakenly referred to NPCI as NCPI. The error is regretted and has been corrected.

A few days ago, Zomato announced that it was withdrawing its services from 225 cities in India on account of "not so encouraging" performance.Last week, the food tech giant also reported its financial results for the last quarter of 2022. It saw its losses soar 5X to nearly 350 crore rupees.The volume of orders also declined during this period. But in these numbers there also lies hidden a glimmer of hope for the company.Tune in.

With increased competition within the country, the over-hundred years old Ayurvedic brand, Dabur, is looking to acquire and expand. It wants to change its story.Just last year in October, it acquired a 51% stake in Badshah Masala, one of the country's leading spices companies.But why does the world leader of Ayurveda brands need to reinvent itself?Tune in.

Whether it is to decide where to eat or what to buy, online reviews play important role. But fake reviews are turning out to be quite a menace.To bring them under control, the Indian government released a set of guidelines for e-commerce platforms.But they forgot to mention an important point.Tune in to find out.

Lately, Indians have been spending increased amounts of money on travelling to foreign countries. In the month of November last year, Indian travellers spent 1 billion dollars abroad. The government and even regulator RBI took notice of the new trend.And now, in the Union Budget 2023, a new tax has been added to overseas spending through the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LTS).

Britannia's market share has consistently been inching up over the last decade or so. And its shares have doubled in value in the past five years. Apart from biscuits, the company also wants to crack the dairy business. But in the year ended March 2022, the biscuit giant’s revenue was nearly $1.7 billion and out of it only $60 million came from dairy. Despite this, the biscuit giant has grand plans to expand its dairy business.Tune in to find out more

With a dipping market share and no leader in India, many in the industry say Google Pay is losing its agility in the country.  While the reasons range from slow roll-out of new features to overlooking merchants, one has played a big role in Google Pay's current position.  And it has a lot to do with the relationship it shares with its banking partners.  Tune in

Even with comparatively higher tax rates the old tax regime has remained popular amongst Indian taxpayers.  The government, in the new budget, announced changes to incentivise the new  regime.  However, what will suit taxpayers still depends a lot on whether they find the changes attractive enough.   Tune in.

In the last three quarters, the revenues of India's largest telco have been seeing a steady slowdown. A Rajasthan government's free-smartphones-for-women project came along just in time and won Reliance Jio managed to bag 60% of the contract value.But now Jio is waiting, fingers crossed, for the new budget with reports of the government shelving the project.If the project does come through, what would it mean for Reliance Jio?Tune in to find out.

From moment Nykaa went public on the stock exchanges in 2021, it became an investors’ favourite.Its stock had listed at an 80% premium to its issue price of Rs 2,001 per share on the BSE. Its parent company FSN e-Commerce Ventures hit a valuation of 1 lakh crore rupees. And founder Falguni Nayar’s net worth tripled and turned her into a billionaire.  But lately, things have not been going so well for the fashion e-retailer. Its shares have been on a free fall.Tune in to find out why.

BharOS is being launched at a time when the tech giant Google is under the government's scrutiny for adopting anti-competitive practices as the market leader in India.But this is not the first time India is trying to develop an indigenous operating system, both for mobile and computer devices. The failure of the OS projects in the past may hold some important lessons for anyone making a future attempt.Tune in for the details.

The edtech industry in India is facing a host of challenges from all directions, from a decline in funding to the emergence of formidable competition.One that stands out, however, is the allegation of mis-selling and fraudulent loans. According to the Advertising Standards Council of India, 33% of the complaints filed with it in FY21-22 were related to the education sector. And one of the reasons for this is the overly aggressive sales playbook. Byju's mastered it so successfully that many of its its peers followed suit.But now with the government expressing concerns over these allegations, edtechs including Byju's need to rethink their sales pitch. Tune in for the details.

Despite winning the 'pharmacy of the world,' two out of five cancer patients in India have to borrow money and sell their assets to get treatment. The price of many innovative patented oncology drugs in India are as high as in developed countries making them inaccessible for a large section of patients.Where are Indian cancer patients turning to for cheaper cancer medicines?Tune in to find out.

Unclaimed funds at the government-run Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF) are  likely to have risen to Rs 50,000 crore ($6 billion) by now. But for an average investor, the settlement process is almost designed to discourage investors from claiming what's theirs.Now, after the Supreme Court took notice post the filing of a petition, the IEPF Authority has asked all stakeholders for suggestions to make the entire process more efficient.Tune in to find out why an average Indian investor finds it so difficult to recover their money from the IEPF.

For Mahindra Finance, the RBI directive against it couldn't have come at a worse time. The rural financier had barely recovered from the effects of the lockdown since it had higher bad loans than its rivals. Add to that the dent on its reputation.How did the NBFC deal with the RBI's restriction on using third party agents for repossession? Tune in to find out.

With the funding crunch and slow growth, edtechs like Unacademy and Vedantu are giving teachers monthly targets to sell online courses to students.Not meeting sales targets is reason enough for edtechs to fire teachers as part of cost-cutting exercises. Tune in to find out how teachers are being forced to become the new sales force in some edtech companies.

In May 2020, McDonald's decided to launch the McSpicy Fried Chicken in the southern states of India where majority of the population consumes meat.Two year later, the shares of McDonald’s India franchisee, Westlife Foodworld, shot up by 40%.Tune in to find out how fried chicken was one of the key drivers behind the fast-food chain becoming a the top-choice among public-market investors.

Last year, the CCI found Google guilty in two of the four antitrust cases against the tech giant. In one of the cases that involves Google's dominance in the Android OS market, the CCI has asked it to pay a fine of $161 million dollars.Google approached the NCLAT contesting CCI's order, asking the tribunal to squash it but NCLAT declined. Now, Google has moved the country's top court.What is the Android OS case all about?Tune in to find out.

PVR, the country’s largest multiplex chain, made up for the pandemic-induced revenue loss by raising the prices of tickets and food and beverages.But it saw its occupancy fall to the lowest levels in a decade even after movie theatres reopened at full capacity.What is keeping India's theatres empty?Tune in to find out.

ZestMoney, the BNPL platform, is in the final stages of being acquired by online-payments giant PhonePe. But ZestMoney has been unable to get enough scale online. Even after going offline, it failed to manage risks. It saw its losses shoot up by 3X in the last financial year.PhonePe, meanwhile, has ambitions to expand by venturing into lending.Can ZestMoney's loss be PhonePe's gain?Tune in to find out.

The packaged-food market is rapidly growing in India and along with it so is the edible oil market. It was estimated to be worth nearly Rs 2 lakh crores by the the end of March 2021. Meanwhile, oil companies have been using the media and sneaky branding techniques for decades to tell consumers that their products are healthy.But are they?Tune in to find out.

After 23 years of business in India, Sula has grown to become the giant that dominates the Indian wine market.Last month, the wine-maker decided to go public through an IPO. The money, however, went straight to some of the investors who cashed out.And on Dec 22, when it listed on the stock exchanges, Sula’s stock opened flat and fell into discount. What does the IPO mean for Sula's public-market shareholders then?Tune in to find outWith inputs from Aayush Agarwal

While the Indian telecom sector is expected to grow by 12.5 billion dollars every three years, the rate of attrition in the industry is at a six quarter high. But the nature of the exodus is slightly different at Bharti Airtel, the country’s second largest telco.Its regional CEOs who helped it fight the big war against Jio are leaving the company.Tune in to find out why.

70% of Metro AG’s business in India is made of kirana or mom and pop stores.But despite being Metro’s core customer base in India, kirana stores are actually turning out to be the straw that's breaking the German retailer’s back. Tune in to find out why.With inputs from Aayush Agarwal

The looming threat of a recession, rising interest rates, and the RBI’s new guidelines for digital lending are proving to be a roadblock for buy now, pay later (BNPL) platforms.But many new startups are using this as an opportunity to push consumers away from the more credit-centric models that encourage impulse buying towards a new, planning-based purchase model called save-now, buy-later (SNBL).How does it work?Tune in to find out.

India's most valuable startup breached the loan terms, including a September deadline for filing its results for FY 2022.Byju's filings for the previous financial year, too, were delayed by one and a half years. And their last audit report does not paint a pretty picture of the company's financials for FY 2021.Tune in to find out what is causing this lack of confidence amongst the creditors of the edtech giantWith inputs from Gaurav Tyagi

More than 70% of the cigarettes that are sold in India are sold in loose and yet, no alarm bells went ringing in the tobacco industry when a ban on the sale of loose cigarettes was announced. Will the ban even succeed in pushing down cigarette sales?Tune in.With inputs from Ayush Agarwal

It’s been two weeks  since the RBI launched a pilot version of the e rupee. But many things are still up in the air about it, including concerns about the anonymity of transactions and if it will hold against one of the largest digital payment systems in the world.Tune in.For more read: How will the e-rupee beat UPI?

The draft telecom Bill introduced by Communication Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw in September this year had a lot of hopes pinned on it. The telecom sector in India is governed by archaic laws. One of them even goes as far back as 1885. But the draft bill left the industry divided.Why? And what are the changes that the government might be forced to introduce to the new bill?Tune in to find out.For more on this, read this report by Pratap Vikram Singh: 900 comments on draft telecom Bill may force communications ministry to make three key U-turnsAlso, listen to this brand new episode of First Principles with NoBroker's Amit Agarwal

In the year that ended in March 2022, Apple saw its India revenue shoot up to an all-time high by 45%. But for the longest time Apple's growth in India was sluggish.What's making Apple's fortunes in India turn around so drastically?Tune in to find out.For more on this, read this report by Soumyajit Saha: Indians’ love for the iPhone is stronger than ever. But Apple retailers are not happy

More than 53 lakh NDTV shares were tendered when Adani's open offer ended on Monday. But many of NDTV’s public shareholders sold their shares to Adani Enterprises at a price lower than the current market rate. Why? Tune in to find out.Also, read this edition of Ka-Ching by Anand Kalyanaraman: The puzzling case of NDTV investors selling shares below market price.