On 19 March, the Indian government slashed incentives for UPI transactions by more than half to Rs 1,500 crore for FY25. After it launched in 2016, UPI very quickly became the backbone of India’s digital economy–thanks to demonetisation, and well, the pandemic. Most importantly, it was the radical decision to keep it free that fuelled its growth. No merchant fees. No transaction costs. But the zero-MDR policy came at a price because payment processors lost more than 2500 crore last year alone. A...
Aug 14, 2025•14 min•Ep. 555
On average, over 35 startups shut down every day in India. Employees move on to their next stint, but most founders find themselves unemployed, thanks to their high pay and a leadership attitude. Why? Think of it this way. What makes a good founder? Leadership, independence and a penchant for the unconventional. But what happens when these very strengths are seen as weaknesses when they're on the other side of the hiring table? Tune in.
Aug 14, 2025•9 min•Ep. 554
It's been a tough couple years for E-commerce in India. And no one has quite borne the brunt of it like Amazon. Between tough competition from the likes of Meesho and Flipkart, not to mention the legion of quick commerce platforms that have completely changed the way we shop, and profitability pressures – Amazon is stuck between a rock and a hard place. But now it is trying to turn back the clock. Leading that endeavour is Samir Kumar, who took over and the new country manager in October 2024. S...
Aug 13, 2025•12 min•Ep. 553
The new Income Tax Bill 2025 was passed by the Lok Sabha without debate yesterday. It is a huge step towards simplifying and modernising India's tax system after six decades. But what does this major reform mean for you, the average taxpayer? 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....
Aug 12, 2025•10 min•Ep. 552
The Indian government is losing patience with consumer-tech platforms using dark patterns or manipulative design tricks. In late May 2024, Consumer Affairs Minister, Pralhad Joshi, gathered the country’s biggest internet companies, Amazon, Google, Zomato, Ola Electric, etc to give them an ultimatum: clean up your user interfaces by September 5 or face the consequences. From hidden fees on Amazon to guilt-inducing pop-ups on Indigo, these tactics push users into spending more money, sharing more ...
Aug 11, 2025•11 min•Ep. 551
Just a year ago, U.S. officials publicly encouraged India to buy discounted Russian oil to help stabilise global markets during the Ukraine war. But fast forward to 2025, and the U.S, under President Trump, has slapped India with the highest tariffs in the world: 50% on its exports. Trump has accused India of funding Putin’s war machine. So what changed? In this episode, we break down how India went from energy partner to trade target for doing exactly what the U.S. once asked. We also look at t...
Aug 07, 2025•11 min•Ep. 550
Earlier this week, Andrew Tulloch, co-founder of Thinking Machines and one of the key engineers behind OpenAI's GPT-4, reportedly said no to a jaw-dropping $1 billion offer from Zuckerberg's Meta. Why would anyone say no to that kind of money? The answer lies in a high-stakes conflict for the soul of AI. From Microsoft crippling Inflection AI and Meta’s $200M poaching spree to a growing rebellion led by top AI minds like Mira Murati, Andrew Tulloch, and Dario Amodei, we look at big tech’s desper...
Aug 06, 2025•11 min•Ep. 549
In just over a year, EY India has seen at least 10 partners from its tech consulting division quit. Many of them were pioneers of significant practices like data analytics, cybersecurity and SAP. What’s interesting is how they left. There were no public announcements, or farewell parties. It was almost like these senior partners vanished from some of the consulting giant's most prized divisions. And with them, they’ve taken full teams, clients and decades of institutional memory. Now, its not th...
Aug 05, 2025•13 min•Ep. 548
Ankit Nagori and Mukesh Bansal may have started the fitness unicorn Cult.Fit together, but their journeys since then are a study in contrasts. On one hand is Cult.Fit. It's been a little over a year since Mukesh Bansal stepped down as Cult’s CEO. When The Ken reached out to him asking why, he clarified that he still remains involved. But involvement, of course, is a spectrum – sometimes it means steering the company to an IPO. The catch is that while Cult.fit wants to go public next year, there ...
Aug 04, 2025•12 min•Ep. 547
India’s coffee scene looks like it is booming with new cafes, trendy menus, and big international names. But the truth behind is that almost no one is making money. And then came along Zepto Cafe, the 10-minute coffee delivery, that wanted to change everything. In early 2025, it was clocking 100,000 daily orders and a $100 million run rate. But just months later dozens of its locations shut down. Why did Zepto, with its speed, scale, and infrastructure, end up like every other coffee brand in In...
Aug 03, 2025•9 min•Ep. 546
A 25% tariff on Indian textiles maybe a blow to India’s exports but that’s only half the story. The latest trade move by Donald Trump could hit closer to home for American consumers. India is the third-largest supplier of apparel and home textiles to the U.S. after China and Vietnam. Both countries already face heavy tariffs from the US. Together, China, Vietnam, and India account for nearly 60% of American clothing imports. So what happens when all three get taxed? In this episode, we examine t...
Jul 31, 2025•10 min•Ep. 545
IVF chains in India aren’t deterred by paltry things like probabilities. They’ve made IVF the new C-section—essentially, a revenue-generating procedure pushed before natural alternatives are even considered. All at 4X the cost of a C-section, or around Rs 2 lakh for a single cycle. The result is a $1.4 billion IVF market in India—10 times the market for cataract surgery, the most common procedure worldwide. Unsurprisingly, venture-capital and private-equity firms have swooped in for the kill. Th...
Jul 30, 2025•11 min•Ep. 544
Lenskart has grown into one of Asia’s biggest eyewear companies and is now gearing up for a massive IPO. It is aiming to raise ₹2,150 crore through a fresh issue as part of an ₹8,000 crore public offering. But as the company prepares to go public, a storm is brewing behind the scenes. A group of former franchise store owners is accusing Lenskart of unfair practices and even fraud. They're alleging they were kept in the dark about store finances and undercut by company-owned outlets opening next ...
Jul 29, 2025•13 min•Ep. 543
When Dreamfolks Services launched in India, it built the system that made airport lounge access work. It connected banks, card networks, and travellers to lounges across the country. For years, it stayed behind the scenes, powering the perks many took for granted. Now, it’s being pushed out. In this episode, we look at how Adani, India’s largest airport operator, is moving quickly to take control. Not just of the runways, but everything inside the terminals. Lounges, food courts, duty-free shops...
Jul 28, 2025•8 min•Ep. 542
Globally, virtual currencies are back in the limelight. In India, UPI transactions hit record highs almost every month. Yet, the value of cash in circulation has gone up by Rs 2 lakh crore. Sure, the transaction value of the e-rupee, or the digital form of the fiat currency, has increased, but it’s driven more by banks doling out allowances to employees than any real market demand. But the reality is that the landscape of money’s partial substitutes in India, a digital-payments pioneer, shows li...
Jul 28, 2025•13 min•Ep. 541
In this episode, hosts Snigdha Sharma and Rahel Philipose are joined by interdisciplinary artist and internet truth-teller Anurag Minus Verma to talk about what’s really happening to Substack and why it matters. The online publishing platform began as a utopian space for writers and artists that promised no algorithms, no ads and no hustle for likes. It allowed for writers and readers to forge direct connections for a simple 10% cut. But with a fresh $100 million in VC funding and a growing nois...
Jul 24, 2025•39 min•Ep. 540
On July 22, 2025, a court found former ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar guilty of accepting a ₹64 crore bribe from Videocon Group promoter Venugopal Dhoot. The bribe was allegedly routed through her husband’s company, NuPower Renewables, just a day after ICICI sanctioned a ₹300 crore loan to Videocon in 2009. In today's episode, we trace the complete timeline, from the first whistleblower alert in 2016 to the 11,000-page CBI chargesheet and the 2022 arrests of the Kochhars. We also look at how inte...
Jul 23, 2025•12 min•Ep. 539
India’s job market is broken. We’ve known that for a while. But the reason why is worth paying attention to. It’s not a lack of talent. Every year, India adds millions of graduates to its talent pool. Thousands enter the workforce—freshly certified and ready to be hired. The real problem is the growing disconnect between qualification and competence. Tune in. 🎓 Are you an Indian student in the US or recently graduated? Tell us what your journey’s been like: Take the survey...
Jul 22, 2025•11 min•Ep. 538
India’s packaged-food bigwigs ignored spices for a long time. Not anymore. Since 2020, everyone from ITC to Tata Consumer Products, from Dabur to Wipro, has been scrambling to cement their place in this essential corner of the Indian kitchen. They’ve pounced on spice brands, sometimes paying top dollar for them, all while their investors cheered them on. In fact, the stocks of Tata Consumer and ITC have both outperformed the S&P BSE FMCG index over the last five years. Turns out, this was al...
Jul 22, 2025•13 min•Ep. 537
It takes 150 crocus flowers to make just one gram of saffron. For comparison, a spice like cumin, gets you hundreds of kilos per acre whereas saffron yields barely two. Despite getting a prestigious GI tag from the Indian government and even a National Mission dedicated to its revival, Kashmir’s saffron production has plummeted:from 8 tonnes in 2011 to just 2.7 tonnes in 2024. So what’s going wrong? And can India learn something from Iran, which currently dominates 90% of the global saffron mark...
Jul 20, 2025•13 min•Ep. 536
iPhone 17 components have started arriving at Foxconn’s plant in Tamil Nadu. It signals Apple’s quiet but serious shift toward next-gen production in India, potentially starting as early as August. But as India is stepping into a more central role in Apple’s global supply chain, Foxconn is being forced to pull hundreds of Chinese engineers out of India. These are people who helped set up and run these complex manufacturing lines. The move has raised eyebrows with many interpreting it as Beijing’...
Jul 17, 2025•9 min•Ep. 535
CIBIL or Credit Information Bureau (India) Ltd is one of only four credit information providers in the country that is licensed by the RBI. It is considered the oldest and the most reliable. It essentially calculates your credit score, a three digit number between 300 and 900, and provides it to banks so they can judge your creditworthiness. Usually, anything over 700 is considered good. But this whole process is anything but straightforward. In fact, it is shrouded in mystery. Each of these bur...
Jul 16, 2025•14 min•Ep. 534
On June 23, Ola Electric’s stock crashed to an all-time low of ₹43. This week, the stock staged a brief rebound, jumping nearly 20% in a single session. But at ₹47, it’s still trading far below its IPO price of ₹76 and more than 70% off its post-listing peak. On an earnings call, founder Bhavish Aggarwal insisted the company was on track. With rising margins and tighter cost control, he said, Ola would hit EBITDA break-even at 25,000 units a month. But a closer look at Ola’s financials tells a v...
Jul 15, 2025•13 min•Ep. 533
Welcome to the world of AI trainers. A growing army of freelancers is quietly shaping the way large language models think. Hired by companies like Turing, Mercor, and Deccan AI, these trainers are tasked with finding blind spots in models built by OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic, and Google—and fixing them. The goal? Fewer hallucinations. Smarter, more coherent responses. A model that feels just a little more… human. It’s a noble endeavour. But also a billable one. And as this new line of white-collar g...
Jul 14, 2025•11 min•Ep. 532
Until recently, the prospect of an IIM offering a standalone undergraduate degree seemed unlikely. Traditionally known for their elite postgraduate programs, the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have long been synonymous with MBA excellence. That image is now undergoing a significant shift. IIM Sirmaur is among the many who have introduced a bachelor’s program. IIM Kozhikode and IIM Sambalpur have followed suit. IIM Bangalore and IIM Lucknow are also preparing to launch similar courses. Af...
Jul 13, 2025•11 min•Ep. 531
Just last year, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sat across from Mukesh Ambani at the company’s first-ever AI summit in India. Dressed in his trademark black leather jacket, Huang addressed a packed room of tech founders, policymakers, and academics. He made a bold prediction: India, long known for exporting software, will soon be exporting AI. But this wasn’t just another keynote. It was a power play. At the same event, Nvidia and Reliance announced a major partnership to build AI infrastructure in Indi...
Jul 10, 2025•13 min•Ep. 530
47 million Indians just lost their life insurance coverage. But not one of the country’s biggest insurers seem bothered. In this episode, we look at the silent collapse of credit-linked life insurance—policies that were once bundled with microloans and quietly protected millions of low-income borrowers. But now, that model is breaking down. Blame mounting defaults, shaky microfinance lending, and a post-pandemic spike in death claims. As lenders pull back and insurers retreat, entire communities...
Jul 09, 2025•10 min•Ep. 529
Private credit is having a moment in India. Hardly a week goes by without a blockbuster deal. Whether it’s Deutsche Bank’s $3.4 billion debt package, KKR’s $600 million loan to Manipal, or a fresh round of financing for Shapoorji Pallonji. But beneath the surface, pressure is building. As interest rates fall and competition heats up, yields are tightening. Banks, once sidelined, are eyeing a comeback. They are realising they should once again lend to companies they gave up to non-bank lenders fi...
Jul 08, 2025•9 min•Ep. 528
After swearing off startups post a $300 million exit, Karan Bajaj is back with Complement 1 , a healthtech venture offering personalised coaching for cancer patients. But this isn’t just a pivot, it’s a whole new playbook. This time, it’s personal: Bajaj’s mother had cancer, and he says this is the product he wishes she had. Built for the American market, Complement 1 is taking a B2B route, targeting insurers, employers, and cancer centres. But early traction has been tough. Unlike edtech, healt...
Jul 07, 2025•12 min•Ep. 527
Ajio was supposed to be Reliance Retail’s e-commerce success story. While other digital bets like Jiomart, Dunzo, and Urban Ladder struggled to find their footing, Ajio surged ahead powered by aggressive discounts, brand partnerships, and the deep pockets of India’s largest retailer. But behind the scenes, the momentum was already beginning to crack. Today, we go inside the fashion platform’s sharp pivot. Over the past year, Ajio has gone through major leadership reshuffles, mass layoffs, and sh...
Jul 06, 2025•11 min•Ep. 526
