Daybreak

Uber is one of the most recognised brands in the world. But in India, it's losing ground — to a government-backed taxi app, a newer competitor, and its own shrinking margins.

So it's making a surprising bet: instead of fighting harder for your weekend ride, it wants to drive you to work. The B2B transport market it's entering has been run by specialists for decades. And those specialists aren't sure whether to be worried or not.

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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.

Akasa Air wants to be India's most efficient low-cost carrier. Founded in 2022 by veterans who watched Jet Airways and Go Air collapse, the airline is copying IndiGo's early playbook — single aircraft type, ruthless cost discipline, long-term thinking. It has 35 planes, 5% market share, and serious backing from the Jhunjhunwala family. 

But Boeing strikes delayed deliveries, pilots left, two co-founders have exited, and airport slots remain locked up by bigger players. Meanwhile, IndiGo is stumbling and Air India is still reeling from last year’s tragedy. 

Can Akasa turn everyone else's bad year into its own breakthrough?

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.

Karnataka just announced it wants to ban children under 16 from social media. 

Goa and Andhra Pradesh are considering the same. And on paper, it sounds like exactly the kind of protection kids need — platforms like Meta have spent years knowingly exposing children to addiction, exploitation, and harm, while spending millions lobbying against any legislation that would stop them. 

So a ban feels like the only way. But here's the thing: when Karnataka made the announcement, Meta's response was more compliant than history would have suggested. And that restraint might be the most telling part of this story. 

Host Rachel Varghese explains.

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Indians put more than half their household wealth into real estate. But almost all of it goes into one kind: residential.

Commercial property like offices, shops, warehouses, barely features in the average Indian portfolio.

Some investors argue that that might be a mistake. Commercial real estate offers higher rental yields, steadier returns, and in some cases, fewer headaches than the family flat.

And today, you don't even need a crore to get in. REITs, SM REITs, and AIFs have opened the door to smaller investors. But the office isn't a free lunch. The risks are real, and they're different from anything most Indian investors are used to.

This is a read-aloud version of this story from The Ken.

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Swish launched less than a year ago with a simple promise: hot food in 10 minutes. It's already raised 16 million dollars, with another 30 to 35 million reportedly on the way. 

But the giants who tried this before — Zomato, Zepto, Swiggy — have all stumbled, scaled back, or shut down. The problem isn't the idea. It's the math. Small order sizes, a lack of dedicated riders and razor-thin margins. 

Swish and its investors thinks it has an edge the others didn't. But can a one-year-old startup crack what India's biggest food delivery companies couldn't?

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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.

Yesterday, Reuters reported, Indian refiners have rushed to secure prompt cargoes of Russian crude as the war involving Iran disrupts supplies from the Middle East. The crisis has choked traffic through the Strait of Hormuz — a route that normally carries around 40% of India’s oil imports — forcing companies to scramble for alternatives. 

The shift is striking. New Delhi had spent months cutting back Russian imports under U.S. pressure. But with India holding only about 25 days of crude reserves, the war has quickly exposed how thin that buffer really is. 

So how did India’s energy strategy end up here, between Russian oil, U.S. pressure, and a war in Iran? Host Snigdha Sharma
 explains.

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Deepinder Goyal, the founder of Zomato, has a new startup. It's called Temple — a wearable that tracks blood flow in your brain. His theory is that improving that flow could slow down aging. Doctors aren't convinced. Investors seem to be.

Temple is valued at 190 million dollars. The science behind it hasn't been peer reviewed. And India has a rapidly aging population that could genuinely use some answers.

So who exactly is this for?

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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.

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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*This episode was originally published on November 12th 2025

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.

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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*This episode was originally published on October 15th 2025

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 late January, a plane crash in Maharashtra killed the state's deputy chief minister, Ajit Pawar.

It also exposed something few had been paying attention to: India's booming private charter industry, where demand is surging, corners are being cut, and the regulator is struggling to keep pace.

There are now over 430 non-scheduled aircraft in the country. The top operator alone has 17 planes and 70-plus pilots. But between periodic audits, years-long crash investigations, and operators who'd rather fly with a broken light than lose a booking — the cycle of crash, probe, and forget has a way of repeating itself.

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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.