businessline podcasts

This conversation you're about to hear is a part of BusinessLine's Table Talk series. Conversations with leaders on their life and times and their businesses. In this episode, Saugata Gupta, Managing Director & CEO, Marico Ltd, talks about how Marico pivoted during the pandemic to have more of a digital play and on the future path for the FMCG major. He also shares his life inspirations, his management philosophies, and his interests beyond corporate life. 

You can read the story here.

The Founder and Dean Emeritus of Chennai's Great Lakes Institute of Management (GLIM), Bala V Balachandran, passed away on Monday at the age of 84. The Dean of the institute, Suresh Ramanathan, reminisces a few moments with the management guru, whose ideas had helped shaped businesses globally.

Journalists make up a newsroom's vital institutional muscle memory. As V Rishi Kumar, our Hyderabad bureau chief, retires after a 26-year-long stint with BusinessLine at the end of September 2021, Gitanjali Diwakar tries to capture some of it by speaking to him about writing and reporting on a city and region that has witnessed tremendous changes, scams, political upheavals and successes over the last three decades.

Pomegranate is a "superfood" that is super resilient in hot and arid regions, has great domestic and export demand, and has the potential to offer farmers super profits. India of course is the largest producer of this fruit. In the last decade, there has been a boom in India's pomegranate production. It has the potential to become a keystone export item for India. Pankaj Khandelwal, the Chairman of INI Farms, one of India's largest branded fruits firm and the biggest pomegranate exporter talks to TR Vivek about it's prospects and pitfalls.

Former PepsiCo Chairman & CEO Indra Nooyi’s book, My Life in Full: Work, Family, and our Future, published by Hachette India, is just out. This conversation is an interview preceding her book launch with Vinay Kamath, Senior Associate Editor, The Hindu BusinessLine. Nooyi is a chemistry graduate of Madras Christian College and an MBA from IIM Calcutta, she went on later to earn another MBA from the Yale school of management in the US. She was the first woman of colour and an immigrant to head a Fortune 50 company. In this interview around her book, Nooyi ruminates about her growing up years in Madras, her family, and the values she inculcated that helped her succeed so phenomenally. She talks about the mentors in her life, her first hesitant steps in the US as a student, the direction she set PepsiCo in, encountering racism, role of women in the workplace, and her advice for business leaders in a post-Covid world.

Interview: Vinay Kamath 

Editing: Akshaya Chandrasekaran

Portrait: Dave Puente

Lithium ion batteries rule the energy storage world today.  Lithium has its limitations and also China has a solid grip over Lithium supplies, which is a strategic headache for India. Fortunately, other, non-Lithium technologies are catching up.

The hottest among the challengers are the metal-air batteries, particularly, Zinc-air and Aluminum-air.

Metal-air batteries, though better.than Li-ion in many respects, are not yet quite there because they come with a host of technical problems. But the message from the research laboratories is that these issues are well on their way to be solved. It's only a matter of time before metal-air batteries replace Li-ion, at least to a large extent if not fully.

Businesses are therefore advised to wait and watch before putting down money into Li-ion capacities.

It’s been three years since the Ayushman Bharat - Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojna (PMJAY) was launched. A flagship Government programme that provides health insurance, especially for the economically disadvantaged – it is morphing to include more diseases and provide coverage to the unorganised sector and the missing middle class, as well, for instance.

Tasked with implementing the programme, the National Health Authority Chief Executive Dr RS Sharma outlines its challenges, including getting more private hospitals and diagnostic labs on board; and the long journey towards providing universal health coverage.

The deadline for filing your tax returns has been extended to December 31, 2021. But did you know that you are likely to have a higher tax outgo if you delay filing your tax returns? 

Listen and learn.

Paras Defence and Space Technologies IPO saw a subscription rate of 300 times.  it is the largest ever in the history of IPO by a number of times subscribed. Will other IPO's in the coming days see such gains? What does this mean for the capital Market?

BusinessLine's Market Editor KS Badri Narayanan explains.

PM  Narendra Modi is on an official visit to the US. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Foreign Secretary Shringla, and other senior officials are part of his delegation. Here's a look at the prime minister's schedule during the trip.