2023 has been declared the International Year of Millets after India, the largest producer of millets in the world, moved a resolution in the UN General Assembly.

The Prime Minister himself has been promoting the use of millets as a staple through various channels like Mann Ki Baat and the Global Millets Conference that was recently held in the national capital.

But making what were once called 'coarse grains' as the next big food trend is riddled with challenges and will take more than declaring 2023 the year of millets.

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After buying the digital rights for IPL for an eye-popping amount last year, Mukesh Ambani’s JioCinema wants to change the way Indians watch cricket. It wants to replace TV viewing with online streaming.

In order to pull it off, it came up with an almost disruptive move. It decided to make IPL streaming free

While viewership is expected to hit half a billion and ad impressions to quadruple after this, advertisers are skeptical about a host of unknown factors.

What are they?

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The Indian Met Dept has predicted that 2023, especially between March to May, is going to be unusually hot for most parts of India. Air conditioners and electric fans account for nearly one fifth of the total electricity used in buildings around the world today.

Naturally, electricity bills have skyrocketed and it's only going to get worse.

Meanwhile, a fascinating technology has emerged that can save 30 to 40% in energy consumption but it's not being adopted as fast as it should be. Energy transitions are proving to be much more difficult than a smartphone upgrade.

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Last week, Season 2 of one of the country’s most popular reality TV shows, Shark Tank India, came to an end. The show has given rise to a significant demand for startup investing.

Investors are able to put in as little as Rs 5000 via online fundraising platforms like Tyke Invest and Infubiz. They offer investments in startups through Community Subscription Offer Plans. 

But these fundraising campaigns are not subject to securities laws and  investors in these instruments do not have any shareholder rights under the Companies Act, 2013.

This is creating a high-risk environment for small-time retail investors.

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A few months ago, a whistleblower alleged that some of the top EV makers in India were misusing the FAME subsidy. The government began an investigation and withheld the subsidy for multiple EV manufacturers.

Ever since, news stories have been reporting how the sale of EVs in India has declining and the FAME subsidy is under the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

But the government is only trying to correct a past mistake. The impact of the subsidy on the rising penetration of EVs in the country can't be ignored. In fact, the criticism of FAME could actually end up hurting the EV sector in the long run.

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For credit card issuers, 'revolvers' are the most profitable customers. They are users who carry over a balance from one month to another instead of paying the entire due amount.

These users pay as much as 40% interest per annum by revolving and help the credit card issuer make obscene amounts of profits.

But lately, dues from ‘revolvers’ have been falling. There is a shift in their behaviour pattern.

Tune in to find out why

With summer around the corner this year, the Indian government is scrambling to make sure the country does not face power outages.

But as this demand for power rises, the country is also working on increasing its green energy capacity. In fact, India is turning out to be one of the fastest to increase its renewable energy capacity. 

The transition to green energy is not just about how electricity is produced, it is also about how it is consumed. India emerged as the biggest market for corporate power-purchase agreements  (PPAs) in Asia-Pacific for the second year in a row.

This trend has the state-run discoms or power distribution companies seriously worried. 

ITC's stock had been lagging for years. Many institutional investors stayed away from ITC because the company's shares are considered sin stocks. 

The company, meanwhile, has avoided acknowledging the importance of cigarettes, its mainstay business, in its communications.

But over the last year, the ITC stock has made a dramatic comeback. Suddenly, investors can't get enough of the company.

What changed?

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The fourth draft of the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill is all set to be presented in the Parliament during the ongoing Budget session.

 While it makes a strong case for creating laws to prevent the personal information of citizens from being harvested and exploited, the Bill is playing blind to two Important factors. 

This in turn could end up creating a crony-capitalist economy where an individual's freedom of choice is put at risk.

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The introduction of the contraceptive pill in the 1960s was one of the most significant events in the history of human society. But it still left the burden of birth control largely on women.

Now, however, things are changing. The demand for male contraceptives is on the rise.

But why have large pharmaceutical companies not paid enough attention to the research on male contraceptives for all these years?

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P.S We apologise for the delay in the release of today's episode. We were faced with technical difficulties.