Daybreak

India wants 50,000 electric buses on the road by 2030. It's a clean mobility revolution that should clear the air in crowded cities.

But there's a problem: the power grid wasn't built for this. Cities are plugging bus depots into the same 11kV lines that serve homes and corner shops. In some areas, the strain is already showing: voltage drops and flickering lights in residential areas.

So, the country is racing to electrify its transport without electrifying the infrastructure beneath it. What happens when climate ambition outruns planning?

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

India's restaurants just won a four-year battle for customer data access from Zomato and Swiggy. But here's the twist: this "victory" comes precisely as the industry becomes more platform-dependent than ever. 

While the NRAI celebrates phone number sharing, investors are pouring billions into QSRs and cloud kitchens—business models that assume permanent platform capture. With delivery platforms extracting 16-30% commissions and controlling discovery, logistics, and customer acquisition, data sharing is less a power shift and more a pressure valve. 

The real story? Restaurants are betting that platform-enabled scale will overcome platform-extracted margins.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

There's a quiet tension underlying India’s AI boom. Startups are swiftly building bold products on foundations they don’t control.

From synced ride-hailing fares to the regulator with only a single office, we look at the strange mix of innovation, vulnerability, and policy catch-up shaping the space.

What happens when the platform you rely on starts competing with you?

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Eight years ago, Havells acquired Lloyd to become a household name in consumer electronics. Today, that dream has become its biggest headache.

Lloyd's revenue dropped 18% in the September quarter. Warehouses are jammed with unsold air conditioners after an unusually short summer. And, in January, new energy-efficiency rules will make clearing old stock costlier.

Despite tripling revenue, Lloyd's operating margins collapsed from 17% to -7% in four years. Lloyd has consumed over 3,000 crore rupees in capital—more than all other Havells verticals combined. Yet it remains India's third-largest AC brand, exactly where it was when Havells bought it. Where does the company stand right now?

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Instant fashion is everywhere now. Open Myntra or Ajio and you will see the option to get clothes delivered in minutes. But who is this really for?

Are shoppers truly demanding 30 minute outfits?

In this episode, we dive into what is driving the push for instant fashion, how it works behind the scenes, and why it has become such a high stakes bet for India’s biggest fashion apps.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Arya.ag helped India's farmers escape the grip of moneylenders.

They could now store their grain in proper warehouses, get loans in seven minutes, and wait for better prices instead of selling at harvest-time lows. But there's a problem: agricultural prices have crashed to five-year lows.

Wheat that sold for Rs 4,000 per quintal two years ago now fetches just Rs 2,600. For farmers like Himanshu and Neetu, the math is brutal—saving Rs 18,000 on interest means little when revenue has dropped by Rs 70,000. So, what's happening?

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

India is using more AI than ever. But most of that intelligence is not Indian. OpenAI, Google and others are expanding in India fast. They already shape how millions work, learn, and search.

Meanwhile, India’s own sovereign AI model is only expected in 2026. Other countries like South Korea and China have already built and deployed theirs.

What does sovereign AI actually mean, why does it matter for everyday users and why is India is still struggling to build the full stack. And most importantly, who will build the AI that runs India’s future?

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

A cardiologist in Nagpur performs two similar angioplasties. But the stents inside his patients tell two very different stories. One gets Indian-made devices under a government scheme. The other insists on an imported brand.

This contrast is now common across India. Price caps pushed foreign stent makers into a corner in 2017. But they never left.

And now, they’re back with new valves, pacemakers, and high-margin cardiac devices. Domestic players, meanwhile, grew fast but still struggle with data, technology, and trust.

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India’s largest cineplex chain, PVR INOX, has pulled off a major financial reversal, posting a ₹100 crore profit this quarter, a drastic recovery after bleeding nearly ₹12 crore last year. Over 40 million people showed up—but occupancy ratios are still struggling to cross 30%.

To fix this, PVR INOX is expanding into new, non-metro markets like Gangtok and Raipur. But there's a major twist: the company is no longer footing the bill for expansion.

Taking a page from hospitality giants like Marriott, PVR INOX is embracing an asset-light franchise model. Partners will now bankroll everything from projectors to seating, while PVR INOX manages the brand and operations. We explore this strategic shift—how it hedges risk, frees up capital, and whether betting on multiplexes in the age of OTT is a "Hail Mary" move.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Tiruppur, Tamil Nadu, India’s knitwear capital, has long depended on massive U.S. orders that shaped its factories, products, and growth. But when the Trump administration imposed a 50% tariff on Indian garment imports, the town’s export engine received a long-pending shock.

Turns out, the crisis became a turning point. Manufacturers are now scrambling for discounts, shifting production to Sri Lanka and Kenya, reorienting toward Europe, and overhauling product lines from mass-market basics to intricate boutique styles.

Amid layoffs, automation, and global diversification, Tiruppur’s exporters are discovering something surprising.

This shock may be exactly the push the industry needed to evolve.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

India's largest school board, CBSE, has announced that students as young as Class 3 will begin learning Artificial Intelligence.

This isn't the first time. The board rolled out an AI elective for Class 9 in 2019, long before generative AI was a household name. Now, the goal is to make "AI thinking" as fundamental as grammar.

We dive into this massive national experiment, exploring what "learning AI" means for a third grader—it’s less about building chatbots and more about "computational thinking." And the real test ahead isn’t the syllabus; it’s whether India can train millions of teachers, many still unsure about using the tools they’re now expected to teach.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

What does it take to perform at your best — not once, but over and over again? Olympian Nisha Millet has spent her life answering that question.

In sport, as in business, success isn’t about one big win — it’s about showing up, even when it’s hard. From the pressures of competing at the Olympics to building a career as a coach and entrepreneur, Nisha shares what the pool taught her about focus, resilience, and managing performance under pressure.

In this episode, we explore how elite athletes think about consistency, how they recover from failure, and what leaders everywhere can learn from the mindset of those who compete for fractions of a second.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

SoftBank just sold about $5.8 billion worth of Nvidia shares earlier this week. The move frees up cash for new AI bets and comes as AI stocks power most of this year’s market rally. Nvidia’s rise has been spectacular but so have the warnings about overheating. 

Some analysts see a rotation coming: money could move from pricey tech giants to steadier markets. 

And that’s where India enters the picture. It’s grown slower, but on stronger fundamentals like broad demand, digital momentum, real earnings. 

The question now is simple: when the AI fever cools, can India keep its calm?

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

When Ozempic began changing how the world lost weight, most slimming companies panicked. But VLCC didn’t. Backed by Carlyle, it’s opening more clinics than ever before.

 Because to Carlyle, Ozempic isn’t a threat—it’s just another doorway into India’s beauty economy. 

In this episode, we look at how VLCC’s new owners are turning an existential challenge into expansion, why its products are taking a back seat to real estate, and what the future of India’s weight-loss industry looks like in the age of GLP-1 drugs.

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In 2025, the University of Southampton became the first British university to open a campus in India. It was more than a milestone. 

After a single policy change, foreign universities are rushing to claim their place in India’s higher-education market. States are competing to host them, and universities are chasing new revenue abroad. Everyone seems to be winning. 

But beneath the glossy partnerships and big promises, what does this experiment really mean for students? And what happens when a “foreign degree” no longer means going abroad?

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Across India, lenders like HDFC and Kotak are repurposing the same algorithms that once judged credit risk to run hyper-personalised marketing campaigns. 

These systems now predict who’s ready for a credit card, or insurance plan by studying every transaction, payment, and habit — turning customer data into personalised sales pitches.

The RBI has drawn clear lines for how AI can be used in lending. But when it comes to marketing, the rules are still fuzzy. That leaves space for India’s biggest banks to experiment—and for AI to quietly reshape how finance sells itself.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

India’s quick-commerce poster child, Zepto, is racing to the public markets after a festive season high. The company clocked 20 lakh daily orders during Diwali — coming only second to Blinkit. But behind that surge lies a far more complicated story: leadership churn, regulatory heat, and a business model that’s still chasing profitability.

In this episode, we unpack Zepto’s dual reality — a startup celebrating record growth while quietly firefighting internal challenges. From FDA raids on dark stores and government warnings on “dark patterns,” to its clean-up act and pre-IPO tightening, we explore how Zepto is trying to look investor-ready in a year that’s tested its resilience.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Remember Blackberry? The phone that once ruled business meetings and earned the nickname “Crackberry”? It’s making a comeback—but this time, not in your pocket.

In this episode, we dive into Blackberry’s surprising pivot from smartphones to car software. Its QNX system now runs the brains of over 250 million vehicles worldwide, powering everything from navigation to safety. And the nerve centre of this quiet comeback? India.

With its Hyderabad hub, partnerships with Mahindra, Tata Motors, and Tata Elxsi, and a growing EV ecosystem, India is where Blackberry’s next growth story is being coded. From BBM to EVs, this is the story of how a fallen tech icon found new life—on the road.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

When your insurance card suddenly stops working, it is not just a glitch. It is the symptom of a deeper crisis in Indian healthcare. 

Hospitals say insurers have failed to update reimbursement rates despite medical inflation. Insurers say hospitals are inflating bills and resisting standardization. 

Millions of policyholders are caught between them, forced to pay out of pocket for care they thought was covered. 

How did India’s healthcare system end up in this deadlock. And who really decides what your treatment is worth?

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Groww, the platform that turned stock trading into an everyday habit, is gearing up for India’s biggest-ever broking IPO. On paper, it’s flying high — profits have tripled, revenues have surged past ₹4,000 crore, and competitors like Zerodha and Angel One are feeling the lagging behind.

But look closer, and the shine dulls a little. A big chunk of Groww’s recent gains comes from one-time accounting adjustments, while its active user base and broking income are already slowing. To keep the engine running, Groww is betting on a new frontier — lending — even as rivals crowd the same space.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Lenskart changed how India buys glasses. It made eyewear affordable, stylish, and available on every street corner. But behind that success is a story of shortcuts. Cheap acetate frames, thinner coatings, and rushed prescriptions have left many customers questioning the quality they once trusted.

As the company prepares to close a massive IPO, its promise of clarity is facing some uncomfortable scrutiny.

In this episode we look at how Lenskart built its empire on affordability and what that means for the people who actually wear its glasses.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Last week, ChatGPT launched its own AI browser — a tool that promises to surf the web for you. It can summarise articles, add chocolates to your cart, or even tell you which email to reply to first (though… not always correctly). 

OpenAI’s vision is clear: make ChatGPT the centre of your digital life. But are users buying in? From buggy app integrations with Canva and Spotify to real concerns around privacy and data access, this episode explores why AI-powered tools aren’t quite the game-changers they claim to be — yet. And why OpenAI keeps rolling them out anyway. 

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Ola’s ride-hailing business is losing speed. Its market share has dropped from 45% in 2018 to around a quarter today and investors are running out of patience. Some even explored a merger with Rapido in late 2024 but the talks collapsed.

Bhavish Aggarwal’s focus on Ola Electric and his reluctance to sell have kept the cab business in limbo. Leadership churn, shrinking cash reserves, and a collapsing valuation have added to the strain.

So why can’t investors leave and why is Aggarwal refusing to let go?

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

If you’ve ever used a Classmate notebook or a Doms pencil, you’ve already been an unwitting part of one of India’s quietest rivalries in action.

For years, ITC ruled the stationery aisle — backed by its giant paper mills and powerful brands. But Gujarat-based Doms is catching up fast.

Since its 2023 IPO, Doms’ sales have surged, its stock has tripled, and it’s closing in on ITC’s notebook empire.

With everything made in-house and a perfectionist at the helm, Doms is turning pencils into profit, and giving one of India’s biggest conglomerates a run for its money.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

LG Electronics India just pulled off a record-breaking IPO, drawing bids worth over 4 lakh crore rupees. Investors love its dominance in consumer electronics and its unrivaled retail network. For decades, LG has built trust through deep relationships with local retailers, flexible margins, and a people-first culture. 

But as the company shifts toward profit maximization and premium products, those same relationships could be tested. 

Can a business built on generosity stay efficient enough to compete with rivals like Samsung and Whirlpool? 

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Accenture is reinventing itself. Literally. Its new “Reinvention Services” division, led by former Americas CEO Manish Sharma, is supposed to make Accenture the best version of itself for clients. 

But inside the company? "Reinvention" signals a deep internal culling after nearly 11,000 job cuts. The layoffs, however are also fuelling a new kind of hiring boom elsewhere.

The Big Four—Deloitte, PwC, EY, and KPMG—are seizing the moment. As they race to turn themselves into AI and tech transformation powerhouses, corporate restructuring at tech-services giants like Accenture and IBM just made hiring tech talent a whole lot easier for the Big Four.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.</strong></em>

Trump hiked H-1B visa fees overnight. For Indian students and engineers, it was a shock. For GCC employees, it was a chance to step up.

While global capability  centres handle tech, ops, and innovation, final decisions usually stay in the US. Senior employees started to wonder: could the visa disruption finally shift some power to India?

In this episode, we explore why GCCs’ leap from execution to strategy is still far from guaranteed.

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⏳How is AI changing your workday? Take our 5-minute survey:https://theken.typeform.com/to/yQTIGKih

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Meesho is preparing for one of India’s most watched IPOs. The company built its success in small-town India, where trust matters more than speed.

Over 75% of its orders are still paid in cash on delivery. That approach helped Meesho win millions of new shoppers and grow faster than bigger rivals. But it also ties up cash and squeezes margins, making investors uneasy.

Now Meesho is working with Razorpay to encourage more prepaid payments and faster settlements.

But can a company that grew by trusting cash-first customers convince them to go digital without losing their loyalty?

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At 2 a.m. in Bangalore, a call-centre agent is resolving flight refunds with a new kind of colleague — one that never sleeps. 

AI copilots are now embedded across India’s BPM sector, watching every click and keystroke to improve their own efficiency. For firms like Capgemini and Genpact, the real prize isn’t labour anymore — it’s workflow data. 

Because in the race toward “agentic AI,” whoever owns the data, wins. And India, for all its scaled up manpower, might be training the machines that will one day replace it.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Is the AI revolution already running out of steam?

Despite years of hype about a world transformed by smart tools and endless innovation, the data tells a quieter story. The growth is flat, the excitement is fading, and there have been fewer breakthroughs than expected. Has AI already peaked or are we just looking in the wrong places?

In today's episode, we dive into one of The Ken’s most thought-provoking essays by Praveen Gopala Krishnan, 'What does an AI bubble burst look like?'

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When Dreamfolks Services entered India’s aviation scene, it quietly built the plumbing that made airport lounge access possible. It linked banks, card networks, and travellers to hundreds of lounges nationwide. For years, it stayed out of sight, powering a privilege most flyers never thought twice about.

Now, it’s being shown the door.

Adani, India’s biggest airport operator, is moving fast to take full control — not just of the runways, but everything that happens beyond security. Lounges, food courts, duty-free zones, and retail stores are all coming under its fold. Some are being rebranded, others replaced — and nearly all are being pulled into Adani’s growing airport ecosystem.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

What if the smartest money move you ever make… is doing less?

In this episode of Daybreak, host Snigdha Sharma sits down with Megha Jose, CEO of Fortune Wealth Managementand founder of Thryve, an investment advisory firm, to explore the idea of “Lazy Girl Investing.” Can women really build wealth without the burnout? And does the real rebellion lie beyond hustle culture?

From confronting financial shame to finding your “North Star” and rethinking how you see the stock market, Megha breaks down simple, low-effort systems that make your money work for you—quietly, confidently, and consistently.

Because financial freedom isn’t loud. It’s quietly compounding in the background.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Silver is having a moment, and not in the way you might think.

Once hoarded by billionaires, now sought after by AI and clean energy — the world is experiencing a historic silver crunch. Jewellers are refusing orders, mutual funds are freezing ETFs and Diwali shopping just got a lot more expensive.

The thing is, silver supply has been trailing demand for years now. And now, the gap is finally showing. What's behind this sudden shift?

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Across India, many heirs are stepping away from running their inherited businesses to run family offices instead. They see investing as more flexible, more global, and less tied to daily operations.Their parents built factories but they are more interested in managing portfolios.

It’s a practical shift but one that’s changing how old wealth works and what it values.

What’s driving this change and does India’s next generation of uber-rich business owners still want to build anything at all?

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Launched last year with the promise of 10 million internships, the Prime Minister’s Internship Scheme was meant to bridge the gap between young graduates and India’s job market.

A year on, the numbers tell a different story. Fewer than 9,000 interns have joined so far, even as top companies like TCS and Reliance came on board. Behind the slow start lie deeper problems — poor funding exacerbating a mismatch between corporate expectations and student realities.

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OpenAI’s latest classroom experiment is starting in India. A deal with the Arise school network gives 10,000 free ChatGPT licenses to teachers but the fine print has schools on edge.

But between NDAs, data collection, and new privacy laws, India’s educators are asking what OpenAI really wants from their classrooms.

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Six months after launch, Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro is already India’s second-biggest pharma brand, ahead of antacid Pan and just behind antibiotic Augmentin. Days later, Eli Lilly announced a $1 billion investment and a new Hyderabad hub.

The timing is no accident: India has one of the world’s largest obese and diabetic populations, Ozempic’s patent expires in 2026, and local pharma giants are gearing up with cheap GLP-1 generics.

In this episode of Daybreak, we unpack how this landscape presents both an opportunity and a challenge for Eli Lilly.

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When Deloitte refunded part of the A$439,000 it was paid by the Australian government for a report riddled with AI-generated errors, it seemed like the perfect moment to slow down. 

Instead, the firm doubled down and announced a global rollout of Anthropic’s Claude to nearly half a million employees. That decision captures the strange new logic shaping the Big 4 consulting companies. PwC, EY, KPMG, and Deloitte are no longer just using AI, they are performing it.

Audit and tax work has slowed, regulation is tightening, and growth now depends on signalling technological boldness. In this new credibility economy, hesitation looks worse than failure. A mistake is no longer a crisis; it has become proof that you are early. 

But as every firm rushes to prove its AI edge, sameness is setting in, and the next real differentiator may not be accuracy at all.

What could it be then?

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Founded by the Patel brothers, Vini Cosmetics built Fogg into the country’s top deodorant brand with its no-gas formula, and high-margin pitch. In 2021, global giant KKR swooped in with a $600 million deal, valuing Vini at $1.2 billion—the biggest private equity play in Indian FMCG.

But the partnership never clicked. The founders refused to fully step back, while KKR struggled with the quirks of a brand-led business in a market it didn’t quite understand. Advertising budgets were slashed, rivals like Denver surged ahead, and new launches flopped.

Today, Vini is still profitable, but its margins are shrinking, and Fogg’s dominance is fading. And even as the founders return fully into the picture, it's future looks foggy at best.

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Even as markets wobble and trading volumes shrink, one online broker has raced ahead. Dhan, a four-year-old broking startup, managed to grow rapidly, post profits, and raise $120 million at a $1.2 billion valuation—all in the middle of a market correction.

In this episode, we look at Dhan’s journey from a niche platform for power traders to one of India’s newest unicorns.

What's making investors so bullish on Dhan when the rest of the industry is slowing down?

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Correction note: In this episode, the host mistakenly referred to Dhan’s raise as $120 billion;the correct figure is $120 million, led by Hornbill Capital, valuing the company at around $1.2 billion.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Humantic AI is changing up IT services sales. Founded by serial AI entrepreneur Amarpreet Kalkat, the 24-person startup has built what it calls “buyer-first intelligence”—using AI to decode a client’s personality, communication style, and preferences from public data. 

Humantic wants to give sellers an instant human edge in billion-dollar deals. But challenges loom. Enterprise buyers are wary of bloated sales stacks, and Humantic will have to prove it’s more than just another disposable add-on in a sector already crowded with AI promises.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Phonepe is stepping into the public markets with a $15 billion IPO. For Walmart, which has pumped billions into the payments firm, this is both a chance to cash in and a test of its India strategy.

Unlike Paytm’s disastrous, hype-heavy listing in 2021, Phonepe is going in with steadier financials, fewer regulatory scrapes, and the scale to back its story. Yet, the timing isn’t without risk: subsidies are shrinking, UPI share caps are on the horizon, and investor appetite has cooled since 2021.

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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 all the vindication that Norwegian conglomerate Orkla needed to go public

But this isn’t just another public listing. It’s the opening salvo in what industry insiders are calling the “great spice wars”. And here’s where it gets even spicier: though the category offers some of the highest margins in FMCG products—with pure spices commanding 30–35% gross margins and blended spices going up to 60%—they come with their own unique challenges.

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*This episode was originally published on July 22nd 2025

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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 market?

Reporters Mehroob Mushtaq and Numan Bhat, traveled deep into saffron country, met the farmers, walked the fields, and came back with a story that’s rich in detail, visuals, and hard truths.

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*This episode was originally published on July 21st 2025.

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India’s soda shelves have changed almost overnight. Coke and Pepsi now sell zero-sugar versions of their drinks at prices as low as 10 rupees. The move came after Reliance launched Campa Cola with its own budget zero-sugar option. Now, they are taking over in big cities and small towns alike.

But what looks like a health trend is really a business strategy.   

What is really inside those bottles? And what does it mean for consumers?

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Swiggy, once the dominant force in India’s quick-commerce market, is now struggling to keep pace. Since its IPO, Instamart’s share has slipped to about 25%, well behind Blinkit’s commanding over 50%. 

To engineer a turnaround, CEO Sriharsha Majety is driving sweeping changes at the company—fuelled by a wave of ex-Flipkart hires, including Amitesh Jha as Instamart’s new chief. The shake-up marks a cultural pivot from Swiggy’s meticulous “doc culture” to a harder-edged “move fast, fail fast” ethos. 

But with Blinkit and Zepto racing ahead, whether this reset can restore Swiggy’s edge or leave it further behind in the quick-commerce race remains to be seen.

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What happens when a woman writes the cheques in venture capital?

In India fewer than 5% of VC partners are women and Archana Jahagirdar, founder of Rukam Capital, is part of that rare group. Since 2019, she has backed Sleepy Owl, Burger Singh, Pilgrim and Beco—bets that reveal how India’s middle class eats, shops and aspires.

In this episode Archana talks to host Snigdha Sharma about why copying Silicon Valley often fails here, how VCs shape culture, what she looks for in founders, and why consumer trust can be the ultimate advantage.

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Blinkit now controls more than half of India’s quick commerce market, a sector long thought too competitive, too crowded, and too expensive for anyone to dominate.

From its ever-expanding network of dark stores that powers its 10-minute deliveries to the recent, bold pivot toward an inventory-led model, Blinkit’s rise is built on a mix of speed, scale, and risk.

But rapid expansion also brings higher costs and greater exposure. Has Blinkit created a sustainable advantage, or has it built a fragile empire that could be tested soon?

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Vinfast, Vietnam’s ambitious electric vehicle maker, is making its last-ditch global play in India after racking up billions in losses in the US and Europe. But its strategy is unlike anything the market has seen before. Instead of competing with giants like Tata and Mahindra in big metros with flashy showrooms, Vinfast is starting in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities like Coimbatore and Shimla—using car workshops as sales hubs.

It’s betting on a country that is invested in EV adoption, rising middle class families who value range over power, and robust charging grid. The question is whether this unconventional approach will help it carve a space in India’s crowded EV market, or mark another costly failure.

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For decades, every Amazon meeting began in silence with employees reading six-page memos that shaped the company’s biggest innovations like Prime and Alexa. Jeff Bezos banned PowerPoint in 2004 to build a culture of truth-seeking through crisp writing and messy discussions.

Now, that tradition faces disruption as internal AI tools like Amazon Q and Cedric draft, summarise and analyse documents in minutes. Some employees are embracing the speed while others fear a loss of originality and rigour.

Is AI strengthening Amazon’s culture or quietly dismantling the practice that once defined its success?

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IRMA was never just another B-school. Born out of Verghese Kurien’s (the father of Operation Flood movement) mind, it built a one-of-a-kind management program for rural India—training managers for cooperatives, NGOs, and grassroots institutions, far away from the IIM playbook.

Now, Delhi has other plans. An Act of Parliament is folding IRMA into a vast new central university, the "Tribhuvan" Sahkari University, with hundreds of affiliates. On paper, it’s about scaling cooperative education nationwide. But the shift is sparking anxiety over placements, faculty, and whether Kurien’s vision will survive in a system built for size.

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India’s millionaire households have jumped 90% in just four years, and a gold rush for wealth managers has begun. Firms like Nuvama, Kotak, and 360 One are in a race for high-net-worth clients—deploying relationship managers, slashing rates, and dangling exotic products to stay ahead.

But the old playbook of generous distribution fees is colliding with a new reality. Today’s wealthy are savvier, fee-sensitive, and increasingly leaning on advisory-first models or even building in-house family offices. That’s left pure-play firms in a difficult spot, even as VC-backed challengers chase growth at all costs.

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P.S. Are you a manager, recruiter or founder who has been part of a hiring process in the last year? Rahel from 90,000 Hours  wants to hear from you. Take our survey.

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Gold has hit record highs: $3,702.95 an ounce globally and ₹110,666 per 10 grams in India, up over 40% this year. But inflation seems to be easing, and there’s no immediate threat of war. What could be behind the surge?

Experts point to central banks around the world buying gold, expectations of U.S. rate cuts weakening the dollar, and Indian households holding onto their gold, limiting supply. The rally matters for India because it pushes up imports and puts pressure on the rupee, which hit a record low of 88 against a dollar this year.

What does gold’s rise tell us about global money and India’s economy.

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P.S. Are you a manager, recruiter or founder who has been part of a hiring process in the last year? Rahel from 90,000 Hours  wants to hear from you. Take our survey.

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Private equity is reshaping India’s schools. A relaxed New Education Policy and rising demand for international curricula have opened the doors for global operators to buy up chains across the country.

The promise is scale, better infrastructure, and tighter governance. But the reality looks a little different—lean budgets, shrinking salary hikes, and a growing focus on cost-cutting. And the fallout? Increasing staff attrition, decreasing academic quality, and schools trading their founder-led ethos for a standardised model.

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*Disclosure: The writer comes from a family that previously owned a school acquired partially by International Schools Partnership (ISP)

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India’s largest stockbroker, Groww, is chasing an ambitious IPO. But behind the headlines, its core broking business is under stress. Its clients are leaving, regulations are squeezing revenues, and profits are wobbling.

To keep its $7–8 billion valuation intact, Groww is making big moves. It's acquiring loss-making wealth-tech startup Fisdom for $150 million and launching “W,” a new unit for the rich.

Wealth management is the trend everyone wants in on, but can Groww really pull it off? Or is this just optics ahead of the IPO?

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Most SaaS companies have accepted the “cloud and AI tax” , the cost they pay to Amazon, Google, and Microsoft for storage and processing data. But Zoho is refusing to play along. Famous for its frugality, Zoho is now building its own AI models and data centers to keep costs down for the small and medium enterprises that make up most of its clientele.

While rivals lean heavily on third-party clouds, Zoho has bet on a homegrown LLM—Zia—to power its products and stay affordable. But the strategy comes with risks, because building AI from scratch demands huge capital and relentless innovation.

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Urban Company’s IPO is off to a roaring start. Retail investors snapped up shares within an hour of the issue opening. By the second day, demand was more than five times the supply, and in the grey market, the stock was already trading nearly Rs.40 above its official price band. The company has reported its first-ever annual profit, rolled out new services like Insta Help and Revamp, and is raising nearly Rs.1900 crore to fuel its next phase of growth.

On paper, it’s a remarkable turnaround story. 

But there’s another side you won’t find in most headlines. Urban Company has built its business on the backs of gig workers. A majority of them are women who have been asking for things as basic as employment benefits, fair policies, and a share in the company’s success.

In this special episode, we revisit host Snigdha Sharma's earlier conversation with two such workers whose voices cut through the numbers.

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Physics Wallah has filed for a ₹3,820 crore IPO earlier this week making it India’s first  edtech unicorn to go public. Founded by Alakh Pandey, the YouTube tutor turned entrepreneur, PW disrupted test prep with free videos and low-cost courses. It scaled into a unicorn with offline centres, AI tools, and millions of loyal students.

But as it steps into the public markets, Pandey’s cult-like persona, the company’s biggest strength, may also be its biggest risk.

Can a business built around one man survive investor scrutiny?

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With ties to the US and China on shaky ground, India is leaning on a new partner—the UAE. The economic relationship has surged past $100 billion in FY25, and this surge has resulted in Indian companies from Tata to Omega Seiki Mobility setting up shop in the Emirates’ tax-free zones.

Attractive incentives like access to capital, world-class infrastructure, and geographical centrality are attracting Indian manufacturers abroad. But this raises a big question: is the UAE a launchpad for India’s global ambitions—or a risk to it’s own manufacturing dreams?

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The Online Gaming Bill 2025 has wiped out India’s real-money gaming industry overnight. But the ripple effects extend far beyond fantasy cricket and poker tables.

For years, payment aggregators like Razorpay, PhonePe, Cashfree, and PayU quietly powered the industry’s explosive growth. They processed deposits, payouts, and billions of rupees in prize transfers every month. Real-money gaming wasn’t just another client vertical. It was their golden goose that delivered high margins in a hyper-competitive market.

Now, with the ban in place, these fintechs face a sudden revenue void. For some, gaming accounted for as much as 30% of net revenues. The loss comes just as many are prepping for IPOs, making the timing even more brutal.

So, what does the gaming ban really mean for India’s payments industry?

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Giva is shaking up India’s jewellery market, long dominated by gold, with an unexpected bet on silver. Founded in 2019, the company has already grown into a $2 billion brand by targeting the massive but largely unorganized silver jewellery segment.

Unlike competitors such as Caratlane and Bluestone that built their businesses around gold and diamonds, Giva has leaned on an “affordable luxury” play—high-margin silver products, agile design cycles, and impulse-friendly purchases. 

But challenges loom. Rising silver prices could cut into margins, and its aggressive offline push will test whether silver can truly rival gold in a market steeped in tradition.

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India is rolling out the biggest reform to its Goods and Services Tax since 2017. The GST Council has approved a new structure that takes effect on September 22. It will reshape how everything from household essentials to cars, insurance, and services are taxed. 

The government says GST 2.0 will simplify compliance and lower costs, but several states warn of heavy revenue losses and economists question the design. Markets have already responded with key sectors moving sharply. 

In this episode we go over what changes, who benefits, who loses, and whether GST 2.0 can deliver on the promise of a simpler tax system.

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Harshjit Sethi, managing director at Peak XV and the firm’s AI investment lead, has resigned, marking yet another senior exit. His departure follows the exits of longtime partners Shailesh Lakhani and Abheek Anand, raising fresh questions about India’s largest venture-capital firm.

And the timing is striking: Peak XV is also on the verge of its biggest payday yet, with upcoming IPOs from Groww, Pine Labs, and Meesho that could deliver billions.

In this episode, we look at the paradox of Peak XV’s best year colliding with its worst, and what it means for its global ambitions.

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A severe shortage of seats and difficult tests result in about 25,000 Indians flying abroad to get a medical degree. The problems begin afresh when they return. Instead of warm welcomes, graduates are met with screening tests with high failure rates, tedious registration procedures and even unpaid internships.

But, the thing is: India needs these doctors, and badly.

For every 1260 people, we have only 1 doctor–a stark departure from the WHO recommended 1:1000 ratio. However, bureaucratic mazes and a lack of infrastructural support put these young doctors in a difficult position.

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When Peyush Bansal spent more than Rs 200 crore to buy back Lenskart shares from investors at a deep discount, it wasn’t just a bold trade. It was a rare  move few founders manage. He essentially clawed back equity before heading into an IPO.

And this extra stake pushed him into “promoter” status, a role many startup leaders once avoided but are now racing to embrace.

Why the sudden shift? What does it reveal about founders, investors, and regulators in India’s IPO boom?

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From the very public Ambani family feud to the private struggles of the Raymond family, the transfer of wealth and power has often been messy.

With over 850,000 millionaires in India, and many of them looking to transition their wealth in the next decade, there's a growing, yet largely unaddressed market for a specific type of expert: the succession coach.

Part mediator, part therapist, part strategist—they do more than just advise. They keep dynasties from tearing themselves apart.

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On August 27, 2025, U.S. tariffs on Indian exports doubled to 50%, slamming nearly $60 billion worth of goods from textiles and gems to furniture and leather. Industry groups warn shipments to America could plunge by more than 40%, with job losses running into the hundreds of thousands. But behind the headlines lies a deeper story.

For decades, Indian exporters leaned on the predictability of the U.S. market. But it was a comfort trap that left them dangerously exposed. Now, that comfort has snapped. Factories are idling, the rupee is weakening, and growth forecasts are being cut.

And yet, this shock could also be the push India needs to diversify and build resilience into its export ecosystem. Can a crisis this severe become the catalyst for transformation?

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More on Trump's tariffs:
1. US consumers may not notice the ‘Made in India’ tag, but after Trump's tariffs, their wallets will
2. Biden said 'please' till 2024. Trump's saying 'penalty' in 2025

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Back in 2017, Google published the research that sparked the entire generative AI boom. But when OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022, Google was caught off guard.

Fast forward to 2025, and Google’s own AI, Gemini, is no longer a rushed response. It’s a full-grown product, one the company is pushing hard by bundling it with Workspace and Google Cloud. In India, that strategy is already visible. Enterprises are adopting Gemini for everything from customer service to search to creative media.

But here’s the twist: India’s cloud market is big on adoption but light on innovation, which means price matters. And Google is betting Gemini will give it the edge.

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In March this year, a software developer that goes by Pea Bee online published a blog rather ominously titled ‘Everyone knows all the apps on your phone’. 

He found that several Indian app-based startups are flouting rules of Google Play—Android’s app store—to access people’s data.  In particular, some apps use a workaround to scrutinise the names and usage patterns of other apps on people’s phones. In real time.

Now, the fact that apps have a lot of your data may not be a surprise to you. We’ve been pretty cavalier about our data for some time now. Remember Digi Yatra? 

But the scary thing is that Indian companies are equally nonchalant about the user data they collect. The result? Data-security breaches have been on the rise. 

So what is a data conscious Indian customer to do? 

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*This episode was originally published on May 13 2025.

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Even though GLP-1 drugs have helped nearly 20 million people shed weight across the world since 2021, Indians had to wait until 2025 to get in on the action legally.

To be fair, the country wasn’t entirely in the dark. Semaglutide—the molecule behind pharma giant Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster drugs Ozempic and Wegovy—was already available for diabetes treatment. But this March, Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro (which uses a different molecule, tirzepatide) entered the market. In July, Wegovy arrived. And suddenly, India went from “we know GLP-1” to “we want the skinny shot”.

Since then, the GLP-1 market in India—across diabetes and weight loss—has grown from Rs 531 crore to Rs 628 crore. And now, depending on the vantage point, things are about to get much bigger. And much cheaper.

And naturally, pretty much every major Pharma major wants in on the action.

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Lenskart is gearing up for a nearly $1 billion IPO after closing FY25 on a strong note with ₹6,652 crore in revenue and ₹297 crore in profit. What’s even more impressive is that almost 40% of that revenue now comes from its more than 600 stores outside India, rare feat for an Indian consumer brand.

Unlike peers such as Zomato and Ola that stumbled in global markets, Lenskart has taken a slow-and-steady approach, leaning on selective acquisitions, smart investments, and joint ventures to expand abroad.

At the heart of its success is a vertically integrated supply chain that gives the company pricing power, agility in launching new products, and the ability to deliver consistent quality no matter the geography.

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The Online Gaming Bill, 2025 has sent shockwaves through India’s booming fantasy sports industry. Within hours of its passage in the Parliament on Wednesday, Dream11, the country’s first fantasy sports unicorn with over 200 million users, found itself on the chopping block. Smrita Singh Chandra, a former VP at Dream11, called the ban on real-money online games 'deeply unjust' and 'unethical,' warning of devastating economic fallout.

At stake is the fantasy sports industry valued at nearly $2 billion and projected to hit $5 billion by 2030. But the government isn’t just worried about gaming addiction. It cited money laundering, tax evasion, and even national security risks.

In this episode, host Snigdha Sharma unpacks the storm around Dream11: how the platform works, why Indian courts have long defended it as a 'game of skill,' and why critics and now the government, insist it is actually just gambling in disguise.

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OpenAI has just launched a special, India-only plan for ChatGPT. It makes access cheaper here than almost anywhere else in the world. At first, it looks like a win for millions of Indians who’ll get to try cutting-edge AI at a fraction of the cost.

But for India’s AI startups, it may be a different story. Competing with global giants that have billions in capital, access to compute, and a head start on scale is already tough. Add aggressive pricing, and the playing field gets even steeper. After all, if Indians aren’t paying with money, they’re likely paying with something else: data and usage.

So where does that leave Indian AI? Can startups like Sarvam, Krutrim, and others still carve out a niche through language, verticals, or local trust or will they be reduced to distributors for the biggies?

Find our last episode on Sarvam here.

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On paper, 360 One Wealth and Asset Management looks flawless: a ₹42,000 crore market cap, among India’s largest pools of assets under management, and a co-founder CEO with a near-mythical reputation.

But beneath that shine, the cracks are widening. Within a year, three of its most influential leaders—including co-CEO Anirudh Taparia—walked out, with over 100 employees following. Promoters and insiders are offloading stock, and even early backers like Bain Capital are quietly easing out.

Officially, 360 One insists attrition is low and the fortress is intact. But industry insiders say otherwise—that the real impact of these exits is only beginning to play out.

In this episode, we dig into the unraveling of an industry darling. Why are star rainmakers leaving? How deep does the unease among shareholders run? And what does it say about the future of wealth management in India as younger, more nimble rivals rise?

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IIMs are increasingly counting on students opting out of the placement process to maintain their 100 per cent placement facade.

The playbook is simple, really. If too many students remain unplaced by the end of the cycle, send them an email suggesting they opt out. Or, like IIM Amritsar, just inform students that if they’re not placed, they will be considered as having “opted out”.

Of course, it’s all just to keep up appearances. When 40 out of 45 students get placed, and 5 opt out, the 100% placement claim becomes a technical truth.

Turns out, that’s the unfortunate byproduct of a tough and constant competition to get the best talent.

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India’s startup boom has lost its spark. Venture capital funding in the first half of 2025 dropped to just $3.6 billion—the lowest since 2016. Fresh ideas are scarce, and investors are stuck with fewer bets to make.

So who’s still getting the money? Familiar founders. Even those with messy track records. Pharmeasy’s co-founders, whose healthtech giant crashed from $5.6 billion to $460 million, raised fresh funds for All Home. Whitehat Jr’s Karan Bajaj, criticized for misleading ads, secured $16 million for his new venture.

Why are VCs are backing baggage over breakthroughs?

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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. And with the new budget cut, it will get worse.

The system is clearly showing signs of strain.

While UPI continues to post record volumes—18 billion transactions in March alone—many are asking an uncomfortable question:

Can India keep up its digital payments miracle without letting the infrastructure collapse under its own weight?

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Do you think people will stop using UPI if there is a small fee involved?

*This episode was originally published on 21st April, 2025.

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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?

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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. Since then he’s been exploring new ways of working. 

Kumar has picked Prime as the chosen path to profitability. After all, Prime users spend nearly twice as much as their non Prime peers and contribute more than half of Amazon’ India’s business. 

The second emphasis is on speed: something the previous leadership thought wasn’t worth their time, per at least three managers. A couple of months ago, the company finally launched its quick-commerce service, Amazon Now, in select cities. 

But the timing could've been better. 

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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.

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The Indian government is losing patience with consumer-tech platforms using dark patternsormanipulative 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 data, or giving up more control, often without realising it.

And they’re deeply baked into how these companies grow, making them hard to remove without hurting the bottom line.

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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 the double standards: America’s own imports from Russia and its backing of Israel in Gaza.

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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 desperate bid to own AI by buying its creators.

Tune in.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

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 that senior people stepping down is out of the ordinary. It’s the fact that these resignations came in such close succession. They hint at a pattern. 

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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 is no DRHP yet. There is also no FY25 data on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs website. 

Then you have Nagori’s big bet – Cure.Foods. Under Nagori’s leadership, Curefoods went from 2 crore in revenue in FY21 to 775 crore in FY25. That’s according to its draft IPO documents filed in June. 

Yup, Curefoods is also looking to go public. But unlike Cult, Nagori has a DRHP, a valuation, and a business that sells things people eat. While Eat.fit was all about quinoa and millets, Curefoods evetnually became about what sells. After all, the focus was to scale. 

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

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 India? It all boils down to brutal economics.

But if Zepto couldn’t make coffee profitable in India, can anyone?

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

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 the possible ripple effects on American retailers, sustainable fashion, small brands along with the average Target shopper. Meanwhile, India isn’t sitting quietly. It’s already diversifying into Europe, Africa, and other regions.

Is this really about bringing back American jobs? Or will U.S. consumers be made to foot the bill?

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

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. 

That this growth is coming at the cost of quality care is the real problem. 

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

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 door.

Now, these franchisees are pushing the Karnataka High Court to reopen an investigation into the company even as Lenskart insists it’s a contractual dispute.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

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, and retail outlets are all being brought in-house. Some are being replaced. Others are being rebranded. And almost all are being absorbed by companies tied to Adani.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

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 little change to the status quo.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

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 noise about discovery feeds and advertising, there seems to be a quiet shift toward platformisation.

Anurag, the voice behind the Substack newsletter Culture Café, has been writing at the intersection of caste, cinema, digital absurdity, and internet culture long before Substack became a post-Twitter haven. As a digital artist who deeply understands the performance of knowledge in the age of monetised identity, he helps us unpack this growing tension between artistic freedom and growth strategies on online platforms.

Is the enshittification of Substack now inevitable? How can artists adapt, resist, and survive in these constantly shifting digital ecosystems?

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

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 internal governance failures and unchecked conflicts of interest allowed this to unfold inside one of India’s largest private banks.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

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.

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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 all the vindication that Norwegian conglomerate Orkla needed to go public

But this isn’t just another public listing. It’s the opening salvo in what industry insiders are calling the “great spice wars”. And here’s where it gets even spicier: though the category offers some of the highest margins in FMCG products—with pure spices commanding 30–35% gross margins and blended spices going up to 60%—they come with their own unique challenges.

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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 market?

Reporters Mehroob Mushtaq and Numan Bhat, traveled deep into saffron country, met the farmers, walked the fields, and came back with a story that’s rich in detail, visuals, and hard truths.

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

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’s geopolitical pushback against Apple’s China-plus-one strategy.

Here’s the twist: what if this squeeze isn’t a setback, but a necessary shock? Could China’s pressure may actually accelerate India’s path to manufacturing independence?

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Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

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 bureaus typically have their own algorithm to compute your credit score. And they are all somewhat similar. But nobody–not the borrowers and not even the banks–fully understand how these credit information providers, like Cibil, actually rate finances. 

In this episode, we try to demystify these credit bureaus and their mystery calculations that decide our fate.

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*This episode was first published on February 6, 2025

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform.Subscribefor more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

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 very different story.

For FY25:
— Revenue dropped nearly 10%
— Losses ballooned over 40%, to ₹2,300 crore
— And cash flow from operations? Deeply negative at ₹2,391 crore—nearly 4x worse than the year before

In today’s episode, we unpack the growing gap between narrative and numbers at Ola Electric and ask: can Bhavish really steer this ship to safety?

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