Karnataka’s bike taxi ban has thrown Bangalore’s commute into chaos. Since June 16, services like Rapido, Ola, and Uber Moto have been off the roads, thanks to a High Court-backed state ban. But for thousands of gig workers and commuters, bike taxis were more than a convenience, they were a lifeline. As protests intensify and surge pricing spikes, this episode unpacks the policy deadlock, the Centre’s new guidelines, and why even women commuters are asking for the ban to be lifted. Tune in. To a...
Jul 03, 2025•13 min•Ep. 525
Rare-earth magnets, made from elements like neodymium and praseodymium, are essential to EV motors. But nearly all of them come from China. And since April, not a single shipment has arrived. Maruti Suzuki has already slashed production. TVS and Bajaj are counting down to a July deadline. Others, like Mahindra and Omega Seiki, saw this coming and started building workarounds. This isn’t just a supply chain issue. It’s a geopolitical move. China controls over 90% of rare-earth processing and has ...
Jul 03, 2025•11 min•Ep. 524
Post-pandemic, retail giants like Reliance and Aditya Birla Fashion were ready to bounce back and they weren’t being very subtle about it. Reliance Retail for instance opened nearly 6000 stores across fashion, groceries, electronics just in FY22 and FY23. But the retail dream of a booming post-Covid shopping spree that companies had sold themselves never really happened. Soon these companies had to hit rewind. Thousands of jobs were gone and hundreds of stores had to be closed down. Turns out, I...
Jul 01, 2025•9 min•Ep. 523
Everybody wants to invest, but not everyone knows how. There just aren’t many who can point investors in the right direction. Registered investment advisors, or RIAs—either individuals or corporates licensed by the stock-market regulator—are an endangered species in India. While the country had about 192 million demat accounts as of March 2025, there were only about 941 advisors. That’s one advisor for over 200,000 investors. Pressure much? You’d think the problem goes away if there were more Se...
Jul 01, 2025•15 min•Ep. 522
Over the last four years, Croma has found itself in a curious spot. On paper, it’s Tata Digital’s crown jewel—contributing over half of its revenue and crossing ₹18,000 crore in sales last year. But behind the scenes, it’s also become Tata Digital’s favourite testing ground. From sudden team transfers — like its entire marketing team being moved to Tata Digital overnight — to shifting strategies, Croma has borne the brunt of Tata’s endless experimentation. The result? Cracks in its business mode...
Jun 30, 2025•14 min•Ep. 521
While Prada walks the ramp in Kolhapuris, here in India, Bata, the brand that once defined middle-class respectability, can barely find its footing. Bata which was once a household name, a back-to-school essential, a symbol of quality without fuss, is now finding itself squeezed. Too expensive for the value-hunting Zudio crowd and not fancy enough for the Birkenstock and Crocs-wearing folks. Which is why Sandeep Kataria’s recent resignation as global CEO feels like a full circle moment. After al...
Jun 26, 2025•12 min•Ep. 520
Category managers have shifted from routine e-commerce roles to powerful decision-makers in quick commerce. They now manage the limited shelf space in dark stores and decide which products get visibility on platforms like Instamart, Zepto, and Blinkit. Naturally, brands are aggressively courting them, with over 30,000 requests every month for just 150 slots. From hosting parties to taking them out for drinks, brands are pulling out all the stops. Meanwhile, category managers are urging brands to...
Jun 26, 2025•13 min•Ep. 519
Turns out, in India’s healthcare industry, prevention isn’t just better than cure—it’s also far more investable. The new buzzword making the rounds? Health assurance. Not insurance—assurance. It means what it sounds like. Unlike traditional insurance, which kicks in after you fall sick, health assurance is about keeping you healthy to begin with. A Pune-based startup called Loop Health was the first to introduce India to a variant of the same concept. It positions itself as a corporate broker, n...
Jun 24, 2025•10 min•Ep. 518
The rise and fall of Pharmeasy is well documented. Once the poster child of the e-pharmacy boom, it reached a dizzying valuation of 5.6 bn USD at its very peak. But unfortunately, as we all know now, it didn’t last. Today the company is worth just 450 million USD – which, is a 90 per cent drop. From aggressive acquisitions to regulatory hurdles, and a failed IPO, Pharmeasy’s journey has been a cautionary tale of overreach. But the brains behind the operation – Siddharth Shah – isn’t done yet. He...
Jun 24, 2025•13 min•Ep. 517
Tata Electronics is assembling iPhones in Karnataka, aiming to become a key player in Apple’s global supply chain. In this episode, we look at how the company is scaling by adding factories, hiring thousands of workers, and investing heavily in automation. But it’s also facing high attrition, rising debt, and pressure to meet Apple’s strict standards. Can Tata turn its manufacturing push into a long-term win? Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-on...
Jun 22, 2025•9 min•Ep. 516
In this episode, we turn the spotlight on one of the most powerful yet elusive figures in Indian e-commerce: Kalyan Krishnamurthy, the everywhere-all-the-time CEO of Flipkart. Flipkart, backed by Walmart, was once India’s great e-commerce hope. But lately, the tides have been turning. Walmart is flying high, outperforming Amazon globally, dominating grocery delivery, and raking in ad dollars with a valuation that’s outshining even Apple. But six years after buying Flipkart, Walmart’s patience is...
Jun 19, 2025•21 min•Ep. 515
For the longest time, getting accepted to Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley startup accelerator was like getting a golden ticket for your startup. It was suddenly on the map not just in India but in Silicon Valley, too. For Indian founders who made it, the story of success began with a journey west. Set up in Delaware, impress YC, and get some of that Silicon Valley shine. But what happens when that dream starts looking more like a detour than a destination?Earlier this week, the online market pl...
Jun 19, 2025•14 min•Ep. 514
In a recent, 10-page note recapping its investing journey, Info Edge (India) founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani proudly, and justifiably, called Zomato and Policybazaar “breakout successes”, “winners”, and “outliers”. A few days earlier, Zomato, now renamed Eternal, had released its sobering financials for the three months ended March. So what’s Infoedge doing about it? Apart from its own businesses – spanning recruitment, real estate, matrimony and education – it owns roughly 12.5% each of Eternal an...
Jun 17, 2025•10 min•Ep. 513
Indians are hungry for luxury watches. Just in 2024, even as exports of Swiss watches declined globally, they surged 25 per cent in India. Interestingly, the player winning in this fast-growing market is not a legacy business house like Tata or Reliance, rather it is little-know Chandigarh-based retailer, Ethos. What sets it apart is the strong relationships it has built with ultra-luxury watch makers over the decades. How does it do it? Tune in. Want to attend The Ken's next event on health, fi...
Jun 17, 2025•12 min•Ep. 512
Dream Sports, the company behind Dream11, just bought a piece of Cricbuzz from Times Internet for $50 million. It also bought a stake in Willow TV, a cricket broadcaster in the U.S. As you probably know, Dream11’s core business is fantasy sports. But no thanks to new taxes and regulatory friction, their business isn’t looking so good lately. Revenue projections are down, growth is slowing, and they haven’t raised fresh money since 2021. Cricbuzz, meanwhile, has hundreds of millions of monthly vi...
Jun 15, 2025•9 min•Ep. 511
For nearly a decade, Swiggy and Zomato have fed our hunger and dominated prime real estate on our phone screens, leaving very little room for any serious challengers. Most who tried to break in got their fingers burnt before they even got started. But now, a new player has decided to throw its hat into the ring. This is a player that has some experience taking on titans, though the last time around it was in a completely different space. Rapido – the Bangalore-based startup that quietly muscled ...
Jun 12, 2025•14 min•Ep. 510
The luggage industry seems to have undergone quite a makeover in the last few years. Back in the day, VIP and Safari were synonymous with the plain black and grey suitcases. But now, luggage is as important as the clothes you wear–it’s part of the whole airport look. Startups like Mokobara, Nasher Miles, Assembly, and Uppercase have turned luggage into an aspirational lifestyle product with smart social-media marketing and a vibrant aesthetic. Also, important to note is that travel changed after...
Jun 12, 2025•12 min•Ep. 509
Last month, The Ken set out on a quest to understand how deep AI’s roots have grown in Indian companies. We asked India’s employees across industries and experience levels the extent to which they were using AI tools on a day to day and how it had changed workplace dynamics for them. Nearly 500 people took our survey. Nine out of 10 of them said they had begun using AI tools, even if it meant paying for them out of their own pocket. Once we got a sense of how employees were feeling about AI, we ...
Jun 11, 2025•10 min•Ep. 508
The Indian wealth-management industry is booming and everyone wants a piece of the action. But here’s the twist: as the industry explodes, the people managing all that wealth have become the real prize. In a business that caters not just to the top 1%, but the top 0.01% of India’s elite, having the best wealth managers on your roster isn’t just important—it’s everything. And one four-year-old upstart got that memo early. Neo Group has been on an aggressive hiring spree, planning to add at least ...
Jun 09, 2025•12 min•Ep. 507
Elon Musk’s Starlink is just months away from launching in India. Amazon’s Kuiper will follow in 2026. The satcom green light is finally here — the regulator’s long-awaited guidelines are out, and the Department of Telecom has drawn up its strict new rulebook. Surprisingly, the satellite players aren’t blinking. Even more surprising? After years of resistance, Jio and Airtel have suddenly struck deals with Starlink. But here’s the twist: behind the scenes, neither telco seems eager to actually s...
Jun 09, 2025•12 min•Ep. 506
Like much of the world, India is heavily reliant on China for its rare earth supplies. In FY25 alone, we imported 870 tonnes of rare earth magnets, worth over ₹300 crore. China controls about 60–70% of global rare earth production and around 90% of the world’s refining capacity. Decades ago, while other countries hesitated over environmental and social costs, China made a ruthless, calculated bet — sacrifice land, people, and air to dominate the rare earths future. Now we are in that future and ...
Jun 05, 2025•15 min•Ep. 505
Protein is having a moment in India. Once reserved for gym-goers and bodybuilders, it’s now showing up in everyday foods like idli, rotis, chips, lassi, even kulfi. And consumers are buying in. Behind this craze is a $1.5 billion strategy that’s reshaping how India eats. Food brands saw a gap in a country where nearly two out of three households are protein deficient. And they turned it into a goldmine. Now, protein is everywhere, and the market is only getting bigger. But here’s the twist: whil...
Jun 04, 2025•13 min•Ep. 504
Indian finserv is no koi pond. It's a shark tank. And now, some of the biggest sharks in the tank – payment aggregators like Phonepe, Razorpay, Cashfree and Paytm – are all narrowing in on the aggregator of aggregators, Juspay. In this episode, we go behind the scenes of one of the biggest fintech standoffs of the year. On one side are the aggregators, who power payments for millions of online merchants. And on the other side is “aggregator of aggregators” Juspay, who’s worked as an extension of...
Jun 03, 2025•11 min•Ep. 503
Of the 5,000 graduates offered jobs in 2022—the majority of whose joining was delayed by two years—755 have been laid off so far for failing to clear tests. The assessments this time were tougher than usual, said five trainees and ex-employees The Ken spoke to. The threshold for passing was raised from 50% to 65%. On top of this, new material was added, and the number of questions was increased. Then again, the times are changing. India’s IT-services industry has been a driver of economic growth...
Jun 03, 2025•18 min•Ep. 502
Tesla’s story in India has been more like a stalled engine than a roaring electric debut—despite years of headlines, high-level meetings, and hopeful tweets. While the Indian government did slash import duties on premium EVs from a staggering 110% to a friendlier 15%, it wasn’t enough. Because for Tesla, this isn't just about taxes. It is about suppliers, standards, scale, and most importantly, timing. But India wants Tesla. Prime ministers have courted the company. Officials have tweaked polici...
Jun 02, 2025•11 min•Ep. 501
In this special episode, hosts Snigdha Sharma and Rahel Philipose are joined by Soumya Rajan, founder and CEO of Waterfield Advisors, India’s largest multi-family office and wealth advisory firm. The conversation begins with a simple but important question: what does financial empowerment actually mean for women with wealth? Over her decades in the world of wealth management, Soumya began noticing a consistent blind spot—traditional financial systems weren’t designed with women’s realities in mi...
May 29, 2025•56 min•Ep. 500
Electric two-wheeler maker, Ather Energy, listed on the bourses on earlier in May, but its IPO was subscribed just 1.4X—a modest showing for a company once seen as a premium EV pioneer. The lukewarm response reflected investor fatigue, sparked by Ola Electric’s volatile stock performance, the Blusmart funding controversy, and global supply chain headwinds. Despite a strong product portfolio and a reputation for in-house innovation, Ather faces an increasingly crowded market and mounting pressure...
May 29, 2025•14 min•Ep. 499
Pyng, launched on 15 April, is quite a departure from Swiggy’s core food-focused business. The service marketplace, uncharted territory for Swiggy, is offering services of “verified professionals” (think therapists, chartered accountants, and even energy healers). No, it’s not a modified version of Urban Company. At least, not yet. For one, the latter offers standardised services comprising blue collar workers. But why exactly is Swiggy, a company with a market capitalisation of over Rs 80,000 c...
May 28, 2025•9 min•Ep. 498
The landscape is pretty bleak. In the race to produce more Ivy League-worthy students, Indian schools are selectively opting to teach IB. Teachers, in turn, find themselves shifting between the Cambridge and IB syllabi, often trying out things they aren’t trained for. Students and parents, meanwhile, are running in circles trying to find an able tutor after spending Rs 5–20 lakh on their child’s education. It helps no one that there are just a handful of dedicated, IB-trained teachers in the who...
May 27, 2025•15 min•Ep. 497
When Rohan, a 35-year-old software engineer, signed up for a Rs 1 trial on a learning app called Seekho, he thought he had nothing to lose. He cancelled the subscription within weeks but money was still being deducted from his account months later. UPI Autopay, the rising star of India’s subscription economy is quietly letting apps to keep charging users long after they think they've cancelled. From overlooked SMS alerts to sneaky terms hidden in fine print, we find out how widespread this probl...
May 26, 2025•11 min•Ep. 496
