Daybreak

The Indian Railways exclusively provides travellers a 10 lakh rupees worth insurance cover on booking train tickets online for less than half a rupee. Despite this, a large majority of Indian travellers are not covered by any form of travel insurance.

Just a little more than 30 crore lives were covered by general and health insurers for domestic travel, according to the annual report of India’s insurance regulator IRDAI. 

Why?

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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.

Over the years, the more health conscious we became, the more cooking oil-markers pushed different variations of words associated with 'health' in their branding. But they've been burying the caveat in the fine print.

For example, Adani Wilmar’s refined soybean oil goes by the brand name ‘Fortune Soya Health’ in bold letters on the front of the pack. But if you turn the pouch around, you'll notice at the back, in small tiny letters, it reads: “The word ‘health’ is only a brand name and does not represent the product's true nature.”

Tune in to find out how cooking oils brands available in the Indian market have been knowingly misleading consumers and how bad refined oils can be for you health.

Recommended reading: Fortune Vivo oil meets its inevitable sticky end

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 the last few years post-pandemic, fleet-management companies like Everest have become the silent battalion in Uber's army of cabs. In fact, 90% of Everest's fleet is with Uber.

This, of course, has helped Everest grow its revenues by 150X. Both seem to have found their relationship to be mutually beneficial. Everest gets to run its assets on a high demand platform. And for Uber, it become so much easier to manage its cars. No need to deal with hiring and training drivers.

Now, Uber is deepening its ties with Everest, especially since it wants to roll out EVs. But as Uber gives more control to the fleet management company, the basics of the ride hailing business could change forever.

Recommended reading: Blusmart wants ride-hailing glory by saying no to Uber, Ola’s scale

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.

Just two years ago, quick commerce became all the rage. Now, it's slowly becoming a relic of the pandemic. The biggest names in the business have been tumbling over in the past few months. They've either been shutting down their quick delivery businesses or they're rolling back the number of their dark stores.

Meanwhile, Zepto, one of the leading quick delivery platforms that made ten minute deliveries a thing, is among the first in the Indian quick-commerce space that hasn’t had layoffs or store closures in recent times. Nor has it pivoted to new verticals.

In fact, its founder Aadit Palicha who spoke to The Ken told us he sees no reason to turn away from delivering groceries in minutes.

Tune in.

Recommended reading: Zepto is looking for a chair

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.

Last week, edtech giant Byju's saw its valuation come crumbling down from $22 billion to $8 billion. And June 5, 2023 happened to be the last day for the company to pay off a $40 million instalment on its highest unrated loan.

This is, of course, only a part of Byju's problems which range from bad press to a growth slump and a lot more. To say that Byju's is in a precarious position right now would be an understatement. The question to ask is: will it sink or swim?

There is one tiny glimmer of hope.

Tune in to find out.

Recommended reading: Byju’s is looking like a hedge fund 

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.

With the advent of plastic in the 1980s, the once-flourishing jute industry of India saw a slow demise. But lately, the tables seemed to have turned.

Countries are implementing more stringent ESG rules forcing global retailers like Ikea, Walmart, Tesco, etc to look for alternatives to plastic bags. India being the largest producer of jute is suddenly in focus. More than $120 million worth of jute bags were exported in the last financial year alone.

However, neighbouring Bangladesh, also one of the leading producers of jute is quickly catching up.

Tune in to find out more.

Recommended reading: Walmart and Ikea are why a British-era industry is back in vogue

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 the govt launched Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), the idea was to build the world largest e-commerce platform to check the monopoly of giants like Amazon and Flipkart. You could think of ONDC as the UPI of e-commerce. From ride-sharing and food delivery, to groceries, the platform can be used to buy and sell anything.

Lately, ONDC has been doing some interesting things with pricing. For example, someone ordered food on it for a price that was 45% lower than Swiggy. This, obviously, got thinking. Could ONDC kill the likes of Swiggy and Zomato and others?

While there is no exact answer to that because of a bunch of factors, what made us more curious was this: Do we want ONDC to win? And if it does then what could be the consequences?

Tune in to find out.

Recommended reading: Why everyone wants a piece of India’s open e-commerce platform 

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.

The government of India launched a $3 billion dollar production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for automobiles to boost manufacturing, especially EV manufacturing, within India in 2022.

It was a win-win for both—EV makers had been eagerly waiting for beneficial subsidies and the government could use it to push domestic private investments and create jobs in the sector.

But more than a year has passed and the funds remain untouched. Not a single company selected under the scheme has qualified for the incentives, let alone received them.

Tune in to find out what's going on.

Recommended reading: Rajiv Bajaj has the last sigh on EV subsidies

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

For almost two decades, India was a stagnant market for one of the leading tech companies of the world. But in 2021, things changed and Apple's sales graph in India began to rise upwards.

By 2022, Apple sole over 7 million iPhones in the country. And then in April, Apple CEO Tim Cook inaugurated India’s first Apple retail store in Mumbai.

But compared to markets like the US and China, Apple's numbers in India are far from substantial. Yet, the company is looking to give Its Indian customers a premium experience, even if the sales don’t yet justify it.

Tune in.

Recommended reading: Indians’ love for the iPhone is stronger than ever. But Apple retailers are not happy 

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

A year and a half ago, Sony’s India unit—Sony Pictures Networks—announced a merger with rival Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. Ever since, Sony Liv's subscriber base grew from 18 million to over 33 million. 

With good original stories and unique non-fiction shows, alongside a strong partnerships strategy, Sony has been able to close the gap on market leaders such as Hotstar. Zee meanwhile has a formidable arsenal of regional content.

The combined strengths of the two platforms, Sony and Zee, now threaten to change the pecking order of the country's OTT sector

Tune in.