Daybreak
Business news is complex and overwhelming. It doesn’t have to be. Every day of the week, from Monday to Friday, Daybreak tells one business story that’s significant, simple and powerful. Hosted from The Ken’s newsroom by Snigdha Sharma and Rachel Varghese, Daybreak relies on years of original reporting and analysis by some of India’s most experienced and talented business journalists.
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How to ‘manufacture’ an Ivy League applicant
<p>Getting into a top American university has become a mountain of research papers, social projects and competitions. And wealthy Indian families are now starting the climb when kids are 14. </p><p>In this episode, host Rachel Varghese reads out Vishnu Prakash's piece from The Ken's newsletter, Make India Competitive Again: "How to 'manufacture' an Ivy League applicant". </p><p>It looks at why premium consultancies more than Rs. 5 lakh a year are booming, even as Indian departures abroad fall, what an anxious parent's money actually buys, and who really does the work behind a student's "personal profile". </p><p>...
JioHotstar’s real overseas rival is a $10 per month pirate box
<p>JioStar has taken JioHotstar to the UK, Canada, Singapore and the Middle East. It's chasing roughly 37 million Indians living abroad, and their taste for content from back home. </p><p>But frustrated by geolocked content and a lack of accessibility for regional content, many of those viewers have turned to less legal options. One of them is an unlicensed box that can cost as little $10 a month, and come with 5000 channels and access to the libraries of major OTT players. </p><p>We spoke to eight households about what they watch, why streaming rights and shared logins make things...
India's instant home help boom has a pricing problem
<p>Investors are calling India's home-services market quick commerce's next big moment. Instahelp, Snabbit, and Pronto are betting big on it. They're sending trained workers to your door in under 10 minutes, at prices cheaper than a coffee. Orders, naturally, are in the millions.</p><p>But the difference is that quick commerce eventually figured out how to make money. Here, on the other hand, 82% of consumers have already said they won't pay more than Rs 200 an hour. </p><p>And on every order placed today, the market leader is losing twice what it earns.</p><p>So who exactly is t...
Without a UPI, Africa pays a toll on cash. Airtel Money collects it
<p>Airtel Money is now trading in London, valued at about $7 billion. The African mobile-money company made $373 million in profit last financial year. It is based on a simple model. Depositing cash is free. Customers pay mainly when they take money out as cash, and sometimes when they send it. </p><p>In markets where most adults have no bank account, those fees add up. Bharti Airtel's Indian business, Airtel Payments Bank, takes a roughly similar cut. But it only made $12 million. Most of this difference comes down to UPI, which moves money in India for free. </p><p>Now A...
Ajio wants to course-correct, but Reliance Retail’s shadow looms large
<p>Reliance has a lot to celebrate. The bidding for Jio IPO closed on Friday, more than 20 times subscribed, and with India's biggest valuation ever; the shares will list on Wednesday. </p><p>But the Ambani empire is bigger than just Jio, and not every member of the conglomerate is getting attention.</p><p>Take Ajio, which is heading into the competition of festive season with falling traffic, trimmed marketing and discounts, and big brands focusing more on Myntra. </p><p>The new CEO of digital business, including Ajio, is Sandeep Karwa. He has the right experience, but executives told...
Dogs have a nose for cancer. An Indian startup is betting on them
<p>Less than 1% of Indians get tested for cancer, and with full body scans costing as much as Rs 25,000, it's not surprising. </p><p>Dognosis, a Bengaluru startup, has a solution. It trains dogs to sniff out cancer early, runs their responses through a Bayesian model, and compares the results with patient history to assign a score. The co-founder eventually plans to have just 15 dogs screen 2,50,000 patients in a year. The company's first service, Breatheeasy, will launch early next year, and is being called a "triaging" tool.</p><p>But experts wonder if animals can scale like this, and if...
India’s largest financial-sector FDI is coming. But what does the public get?
<p>On 14 October, the Cabinet approved selling nearly 61% of IDBI Bank to the Canadian firm Fairfax for nearly ₹53,000 crore. Once completed, it will be the largest FDI in India’s financial sector. </p><p>But IDBI was rescued with public money, largely through LIC. Now LIC stands to get back roughly what it put in. The government and LIC who will now hold roughly a third are set to hand over management control to Fairfax. </p><p> IDBI employees, meanwhile, are planning a hunger strike against the sale. Was ₹81 a share fair? And what does the public get in return?</p><p>Tu...
Why your Diwali shopping is more important than MDR on UPI
<p>Around mid-September, shops in parts of Ghaziabad started putting up signs: carry cash, because UPI wouldn’t be accepted. </p><p>They were protesting a new 0.4% merchant fee on UPI payments above 2,000 rupees, which was due to start on October 15. </p><p>Two days before that, NPCI, the body that runs UPI, put it on hold until after Diwali. On this episode, we look at what the fee is, where the money would go, why shoppers aren’t supposed to pay it, and whether that will stay the case once the festive season ends.</p><p><br>This episode is edi...
After making a fortune at the dock, Adani's next bet is a fleet of 100 ships going offshore
<p>In October last year, a ship owned by Adani Ports slowed to less than one knot near Malta. It held that position for over seven days, directly above the cables linking Malta to Sicily. It was no accident.</p><p>India’s largest private port operator has quietly built a fleet of more than a hundred vessels across 12 countries. Their job is servicing the world’s offshore energy infrastructure. The business grew 134% in a single year.</p><p>Ports made Adani rich. But there are only so many ports you can build.</p><p>What the conglomerate does next may...
Air India needs saving. Singapore Airlines is playing saviour
<p>Air India's recent losses nearly doubled to 22,000 cr rs, and Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran keeps showing up at its Delhi Headquarters.</p><p>Singapore Airlines, which owns over 25%, is inclined to put in more cash, but in return, it wants more control over operations, costs, safety and training. </p><p>And it's already changing the way pilots, engineers and cabin crew work. </p><p>Meanwhile, Air India's troubles lie somewhat out of its hands. Pakistan's airspace closure hit it the hardest, and compounding its now longer routes for certain flights are soaring fuel prices. There's also delayed deliveries...
