businessline podcasts

The tax filing season for assessment year (AY) 21-22 is here. Have you filed your income tax return or ITR yet? Know that it’s not over until you verify your return.

Tune into the discussion between Kumar Shankar Roy, Senior Assistant Editor and Satya Sontanam, Research Analyst to understand the ways to go about ITR verification.

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On Field Notes this week, we look outside India’s shores, across the Palk Strait. Neighbouring Srilanka in recent months has been ravaged by food shortages. The crisis has been precipitated by a Gotabaya Rajapaksa-government decision that can charitably be called crackpot. In April this year, the country imposed a ban on the use of synthetic or chemical fertilisers. With the stroke of a pen, the government wants to make the Island nation of 22 million people and 1.8 million farming families into a fully organic food producing paradise. Instead, it threatens to turn the country into a basket case. Without fertilizers, farm output is tanking. Food prices have shot through the roof, tea exports have halved and farmers are on the streets protesting. Sri Lanka’s crisis has great relevance for India. Here too, several state governments like Andhra plan to go completely organic in the next decade or so. Even the central government enthusiastically promotes ideas like zero budget natural farming. Justified fears around climate change and ecological damage has helped activists offer organic farming as the only alternative. 

TR Vivek speaks to Buddhi Marambe, a professor of agriculture in Peradeniya University in Sri Lanka for a Ground Zero view and possible lessons for India.

The world faces a peculiar problem of overuse of antibiotics, leading to drug resistance, even as some regions are unable to even access these medicines. The problem overarches human use and misuse of antibiotics, besides use in agriculture, farm animals and so. In its latest report on antimicrobial resistance (AMR), the Foundation reviews 17 global drug companies that make and supply these products and their practices.

ATM Foundation CEO, Jayasree Iyer gives us a snapshot into the work being done by drugmakers in curbing AMR, including efforts by Indian companies Aurobindo, Sun Pharma, Cipla, and Alkem in bringing in better practices in the manufacture, supply, promotion, and surveillance of these drugs.

Keerthi Sanagasetti and Kumar Shankar Roy discuss the five key differences between the erstwhile grievance redressal mechanism for banks, NBFC and digital transaction customers and the current unified one.

Most global investment advisors from UBS to Nomura; Goldman Sachs to CLSA have downgraded Indian equities from overweight to neutral.

Businessline's markets editor KS Badri Narayanan tells us more about what this means for the Indian Equity market and what is the way forward.

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One of India's genuine success stories on the global stage has been its prowess in software services and being the back office of the world. Karnataka has led India's charge both in the export of traditional software services and BPM apart from being home to a number of startup unicorns by fostering a culture of innovation.  

Ahead of the 24th annual edition of Bengaluru Tech Summit from Nov 17-19th, BL's Venkatesha Babu caught up with the state IT minister Dr. Ashwath Narayan for a conversation on creating policy frameworks for fostering innovation, using technology for delivering better governance, and pushing the growth of tech companies Beyond Bengaluru. 

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Despite cryptos remaining unregulated across different countries including India, crypto platforms have come out with various products such as crypto deposits, crypto SIPs and managed crypto portfolios in a bid to popularise the digital currency. 

Parvatha Vardhini C and Kumar Shankar Roy discuss the flipside of these new-fangled offerings that are piquing the interest of common people.

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Chana or chickpea is India's most important protein crop. While India produces 80% of the world's chickpea, its productivity can go up significantly to ensure the country's nutrition security. But how do we do it?  Scientists across eleven countries led by Rajeev Varshney, the director of the genetic gains programme at the Hyderabad-headquartered ICRISAT have done the whole genome sequencing for more than 3300 varieties of chana from across the world. The research puts chana in the elite category of crops like rice or barley for which there is such extensive and dense genetic information is available. The research not only sheds new light on the historical origins and migratory paths of chana but also scientific means to achieve spectacular production leaps. 

On this episode of Field Notes, TR Vivek is in conversation with Dr. Rajeev Varshney on the implications of this pathbreaking research.

In the centenary year of Insulin, the inconvenient truth is that one in two people living with diabetes in the world are unable to access or afford insulin, according to the International Diabetes Federation. Making an impassioned pitch, diabetologist Dr. V Mohan calls for insulin to be made available to anyone who needs it. Especially so, since Frederick Banting and Charles Best, who discovered insulin, believed it was meant “for the world” and sold their patent for one dollar!

As World Diabetes Day (November 14th) comes up, Dr. Mohan explains how diabetes is now being seen in rural areas and economically-weaker communities, and younger age groups.

Dr. Mohan is Chairman, Dr. Mohan’s Diabetes Specialities Centre and author of the recently released, “Making excellence a habit”

The much-anticipated IPO of PayTM or One 97 Communications – with an issue size of Rs 18,300 crore -  is opening on November 8, 2021. In this podcast, Keerthi Sanagasetti and Satya Sontanam, Research Analysts from our Research Bureau help us understand what this business is all about and whether the IPO is worth subscribing to.