Welcome to Top of the Morning by Mint, your weekday newscast that brings you five major stories from the world of business. It's Tuesday, April 23, 2024. My name is Nelson John. Let's get started:

The Indian equity markets bounced back on Monday. Benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty both rose by about 0.8 percent. 

The country's largest conglomerate, Reliance Industries, filed its earnings report yesterday. While profits were down quarter-on-quarter, overall profit increased 4 percent in FY24, as compared to the previous financial year. The oil and chemicals giant reported a dividend of 10 rupees per share. Reliance Retail and Jio also reported their earnings yesterday, recording steady growth. Since the results were declared after the market closed, RIL's stock didn't record any significant change owing to the results.

Let's move to another oil conglomerate, this time from across the Arabian Sea: I'm talking about Aramco, Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil refining company. Aramco's venture capital arm is interested in the Indian startup sector, and is willing to bet on it. Sneha Shah reports that this arm, named Prosperity7 Ventures, is looking to set aside around two to three hundred million dollars to invest in early-stage Indian startups. It plans on spreading that amount across nearly two dozen companies, Sneha writes. Prosperity7 has a portfolio worth about 3 billion dollars worldwide, and wants India to be the home for its next set of investments.

You can't talk about conglomerates without talking about the Adani Group. Last year, the group bought a majority stake in infrastructure behemoth Ambuja Cements, and has slowly increased its share in the company. But the plan doesn't stop there, writes Anirudh Laskar: Ambuja is planning a series of acquisitions to overtake Ultratech as the country's number 1 cement company. A capital expenditure of over 9 billion dollars is in the works, Anirudh reports. This would take Ambuja's annual production capacity to at least 180 million tonnes, from about 80 million tonnes now. But Ultratech too has plans to add to its  current capacity of 151.6 million tonnes a year. The Adani group has lots to catch up, at least in the cement sector.

Metro cities are full of e-commerce deliveries constantly in action: vans, scooters, and even trucks fulfilling orders round the clock. But e-commerce hasn't penetrated as much into India's hinterlands. That is now changing, writes Priyamvada C. E-retailers like Rozana and Floryo are targeting customers in tier 2 cities and beyond, where customers are increasingly ready to pay more for products but unwilling to compromise on quality. These e-tailers are also attracting enough money from investors to become viable businesses, Priyamvada writes. She also spoke to executives from venture capital funds to assess the scope of startups that operate primarily in such markets.

Election campaigns are in full flow. In most corners of the country, voters will be choosing between national or state parties. But very rarely will there be a viable independent candidate. Barmer, a desert-laden district in Rajasthan, might just have that. Sayantan Bera profiles Ravindra Singh Bhati, an independent candidate fighting for the seat of Barmer. He seems to be incredibly popular, and at 26, is one of the youngest candidates across the country. Bhati's popularity seems to be credited to his social media presence. On instagram, he has more followers than Barmer has eligible voters. Sayantan writes about how Bhati's campaign is developing, how caste politics are in play again, and asks the crucial question: will this show and dance translate to actual votes come elections?

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We'll be back tomorrow with a fresh episode of Top of the Morning. Have a nice weekend!

Show notes:

Oil fuels RIL’s Q4 show

Aramco’s VC arm in talks for India team

Battle to cement leadership hots up between Adani’s Ambuja and Birla’s UltraTech

The rise of tier-2 online shoppers: Can they change Indian e-commerce? 

In desert country, a 26-yr-old ‘reel neta’ rises to challenge BJP, Congress 

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