Daybreak

Less than 1% of Indians get tested for cancer, and with full body scans costing as much as Rs 25,000, it's not surprising.

Dognosis, a Bengaluru startup, has a solution. It trains dogs to sniff out cancer early, runs their responses through a Bayesian model, and compares the results with patient history to assign a score. The co-founder eventually plans to have just 15 dogs screen 2,50,000 patients in a year. The company's first service, Breatheeasy, will launch early next year, and is being called a "triaging" tool.

But experts wonder if animals can scale like this, and if dog noses could actually be the cheap, non-invasive screening that India needs.

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

On 14 October, the Cabinet approved selling nearly 61% of IDBI Bank to the Canadian firm Fairfax for nearly ₹53,000 crore. Once completed, it will be the largest FDI in India’s financial sector.

But IDBI was rescued with public money, largely through LIC. Now LIC stands to get back roughly what it put in. The government and LIC who will now hold roughly a third are set to hand over management control to Fairfax.

 IDBI employees, meanwhile, are planning a hunger strike against the sale. Was ₹81 a share fair? And what does the public get in return?

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This episode is edited by Arnav Prakash

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

Around mid-September, shops in parts of Ghaziabad started putting up signs: carry cash, because UPI wouldn’t be accepted. 

They were protesting a new 0.4% merchant fee on UPI payments above 2,000 rupees, which was due to start on October 15. 

Two days before that, NPCI, the body that runs UPI, put it on hold until after Diwali. On this episode, we look at what the fee is, where the money would go, why shoppers aren’t supposed to pay it, and whether that will stay the case once the festive season ends.

This episode is edited by Arnav Prakash

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

In October last year, a ship owned by Adani Ports slowed to less than one knot near Malta. It held that position for over seven days, directly above the cables linking Malta to Sicily. It was no accident.

India’s largest private port operator has quietly built a fleet of more than a hundred vessels across 12 countries. Their job is servicing the world’s offshore energy infrastructure. The business grew 134% in a single year.

Ports made Adani rich. But there are only so many ports you can build.

What the conglomerate does next may depend on waters far from any dock.

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*This episode was originally published on 14th July

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

Air India's recent losses nearly doubled to 22,000 cr rs, and Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran keeps showing up at its Delhi Headquarters.

Singapore Airlines, which owns over 25%, is inclined to put in more cash, but in return, it wants more control over operations, costs, safety and training.

And it's already changing the way pilots, engineers and cabin crew work.

Meanwhile, Air India's troubles lie somewhat out of its hands. Pakistan's airspace closure hit it the hardest, and compounding its now longer routes for certain flights are soaring fuel prices. There's also delayed deliveries of new aircrafts. And of course, the reputational damage from 2025 Ahmedabad crash.

Singapore Airlines' is definitely the best chance for the company's turnaround.

Tune in.

 Listen: The Government sold Air India to escape its problems. The fix is to buy back in

This episode is edited by Arnav Prakash

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

In this Daybreak x Two by Two crossover, host Snigdha Sharna turns the tables on Praveen Gopal Krishnan to look beyond individual companies and industries, and at the bigger patterns connecting them. 

From duopolies under attack and startups struggling to justify their valuations, to the rules regulators are rewriting, AI’s impact on jobs, and how Indians are changing the way they live, we explore what these stories reveal about where Indian business is headed.

Which old assumptions are breaking down? Who stands to win or lose? And what should we be watching next?

As The Ken's Two by Two wraps up its second season, we connect the dots and look ahead to Season 3.

On October 12, government data showed India’s food inflation rose to 7.7% in September, led by onion prices that more than doubled from a year earlier.
Back in May, onion growers in Nashik wore garlands of onions and tried to block the Mumbai–Agra highway because prices had fallen to ₹4 to ₹6 a kilo. The government says India grew almost as many onions as the year before, and it kept a stockpile for exactly this kind of spike. Prices rose anyway, and rural households are feeling it most.

Why is it so hard to keep India’s kitchen affordable?

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India’s LPG success story runs on a two-day buffer, March 15, 2026, 11 minutes. Listen

India solved the wrong oil problem first, 31 Jul 2026, Listen

The great Indian sugar trap: how a decade of surplus left India with nothing to spare , 28 Aug 2026, Listen

This episode is edited by Arnav Prakash

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

“Mile har cheez zaruri.” Everything essential, right here.

That was the promise on the signs inside India’s first 7-Eleven, which opened in Mumbai five years ago, with India’s biggest retailer behind it.

This September, the last 31 stores shut. In its last full financial year, the chain lost nearly ₹90 crore on just ₹92 crore of revenue. Analysts point to local competition like kiranas and quick commerce.

But no one from the companies themselves have offered an explanation for why the stores are closing. Still, this is a chain that thrives next to corner shops in other countries. So what was missing here? Host Rachel Varghese explores.

This episode is edited by Arnav Prakash

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

Every morning, a senior official in Mysuru’s city corporation swerves past the same potholes on his way to the office responsible for fixing them. Over three years, the money Mysuru gets from the state for everyday civic upkeep has fallen from Rs 25 crore to Rs 3 crore, leaving little for repairs.

Just outside Bengaluru, Karnataka is borrowing heavily to build an Rs 18,000-crore AI city in Bidadi, backed by a state guarantee, before a single company has signed up to move in. Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are chasing similar projects as their own local bodies struggle for funds.

In this read aloud of Mrunmayee Kulkarni’s newsletter edition by host Snigdha Sharma, we ask why states are betting big on new cities when the ones people already live in are grappling with crumbling infrastructure and lack of funds.

This episode is edited by Arnav Prakash

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

In India, even the phantom of the censor board is enough to make filmmakers rewrite scenese at the very last minute, including those making shows for streaming platforms the board doesn't cover. 

A startup from Bengaluru called Neuralgarage says it has a fix. It's AI solution changes a line according to the way in which actor's lips move.

In this piece, Shiveka Bakshi looks at how it works, why well-known production houses are using it, and what it says about the film industry today. 

This is a read aloud of a newsletter edition of Trade Tricks, by Rachel Varghese on Daybreak by The Ken.

📖 Read the full story on The Ken: Bollywood wants to offend nobody. AI is happy to help

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