Daybreak

A 25% tariff on Indian textiles maybe a blow to India’s exports but that’s only half the story.

The latest trade move by Donald Trump could hit closer to home for American consumers. India is the third-largest supplier of apparel and home textiles to the U.S. after China and Vietnam. Both countries already face heavy tariffs from the US. Together, China, Vietnam, and India account for nearly 60% of American clothing imports.

So what happens when all three get taxed?

In this episode, we examine the possible ripple effects on American retailers, sustainable fashion, small brands along with the average Target shopper. Meanwhile, India isn’t sitting quietly. It’s already diversifying into Europe, Africa, and other regions.

Is this really about bringing back American jobs? Or will U.S. consumers be made to foot the bill?

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.

IVF chains in India aren’t deterred by paltry things like probabilities. They’ve made IVF the new C-section—essentially, a revenue-generating procedure pushed before natural alternatives are even considered. All at 4X the cost of a C-section, or around Rs 2 lakh for a single cycle.

The result is a $1.4 billion IVF market in India—10 times the market for cataract surgery, the most common procedure worldwide.

Unsurprisingly, venture-capital and private-equity firms have swooped in for the kill. 

That this growth is coming at the cost of quality care is the real problem. 

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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.

Lenskart has grown into one of Asia’s biggest eyewear companies and is now gearing up for a massive IPO. It is aiming to raise ₹2,150 crore through a fresh issue as part of an ₹8,000 crore public offering. 

But as the company prepares to go public, a storm is brewing behind the scenes.

A group of former franchise store owners is accusing Lenskart of unfair practices and even fraud. They're alleging they were kept in the dark about store finances and undercut by company-owned outlets opening next door.

Now, these franchisees are pushing the Karnataka High Court to reopen an investigation into the company even as Lenskart insists it’s a contractual dispute.

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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 Dreamfolks Services launched in India, it built the system that made airport lounge access work. It connected banks, card networks, and travellers to lounges across the country. For years, it stayed behind the scenes, powering the perks many took for granted.

Now, it’s being pushed out.

In this episode, we look at how Adani, India’s largest airport operator, is moving quickly to take control. Not just of the runways, but everything inside the terminals. Lounges, food courts, duty-free shops, and retail outlets are all being brought in-house. Some are being replaced. Others are being rebranded. And almost all are being absorbed by companies tied to Adani.

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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.

Globally, virtual currencies are back in the limelight. In India, UPI transactions hit record highs almost every month. Yet, the value of cash in circulation has gone up by Rs 2 lakh crore.

Sure, the transaction value of the e-rupee, or the digital form of the fiat currency, has increased, but it’s driven more by banks doling out allowances to employees than any real market demand.

But the reality is that the landscape of money’s partial substitutes in India, a digital-payments pioneer, shows little change to the status quo.

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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.

In this episode, hosts Snigdha Sharma and Rahel Philipose are joined by interdisciplinary artist and internet truth-teller Anurag Minus Verma to talk about what’s really happening to Substack and why it matters.

The online publishing platform began as a utopian space for writers and artists that promised no algorithms, no ads and no hustle for likes. It allowed for writers and readers to forge direct connections for a simple 10% cut. But with a fresh $100 million in VC funding and a growing noise about discovery feeds and advertising, there seems to be a quiet shift toward platformisation.

Anurag, the voice behind the Substack newsletter Culture Café, has been writing at the intersection of caste, cinema, digital absurdity, and internet culture long before Substack became a post-Twitter haven. As a digital artist who deeply understands the performance of knowledge in the age of monetised identity, he helps us unpack this growing tension between artistic freedom and growth strategies on online platforms.

Is the enshittification of Substack now inevitable? How can artists adapt, resist, and survive in these constantly shifting digital ecosystems?

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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 July 22, 2025, a court found former ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar guilty of accepting a ₹64 crore bribe from Videocon Group promoter Venugopal Dhoot. The bribe was allegedly routed through her husband’s company, NuPower Renewables, just a day after ICICI sanctioned a ₹300 crore loan to Videocon in 2009.

In today's episode, we trace the complete timeline, from the first whistleblower alert in 2016 to the 11,000-page CBI chargesheet and the 2022 arrests of the Kochhars. We also look at how internal governance failures and unchecked conflicts of interest allowed this to unfold inside one of India’s largest private banks.

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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.

India’s job market is broken.

We’ve known that for a while. But the reason why is worth paying attention to. It’s not a lack of talent.

Every year, India adds millions of graduates to its talent pool. Thousands enter the workforce—freshly certified and ready to be hired.

The real problem is the growing disconnect between qualification and competence.

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🎓 Are you an Indian student in the US or recently graduated? Tell us what your journey’s been like: Take the survey

India’s packaged-food bigwigs ignored spices for a long time. Not anymore.

Since 2020, everyone from ITC to Tata Consumer Products, from Dabur to Wipro, has been scrambling to cement their place in this essential corner of the Indian kitchen. They’ve pounced on spice brands, sometimes paying top dollar for them, all while their investors cheered them on. In fact, the stocks of Tata Consumer and ITC have both outperformed the S&P BSE FMCG index over the last five years.

Turns out, this was all the vindication that Norwegian conglomerate Orkla needed to go public

But this isn’t just another public listing. It’s the opening salvo in what industry insiders are calling the “great spice wars”. And here’s where it gets even spicier: though the category offers some of the highest margins in FMCG products—with pure spices commanding 30–35% gross margins and blended spices going up to 60%—they come with their own unique challenges.

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Check out the latest episode of The Ken's brand new careers podcast, 90,000 Hours. 

It takes 150 crocus flowers to make just one gram of saffron. For comparison, a spice like cumin, gets you hundreds of kilos per acre whereas saffron yields barely two.

Despite getting a prestigious GI tag from the Indian government and even a National Mission dedicated to its revival, Kashmir’s saffron production has plummeted:from 8 tonnes in 2011 to just 2.7 tonnes in 2024. 

So what’s going wrong? And can India learn something from Iran, which currently dominates 90% of the global saffron market?

Reporters Mehroob Mushtaq and Numan Bhat, traveled deep into saffron country, met the farmers, walked the fields, and came back with a story that’s rich in detail, visuals, and hard truths.

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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.