The Morning Brief

In a market long dominated by premium playbooks, Director of Reliance Consumer Products, T Krishnakumar is scripting a different FMCG story. Handpicked by Mukesh Ambani to build Reliance Consumer Products from scratch, he talks to host Ratna Bhushan about his strategy: targeting India's 500–600 million middle-class consumers, Krishnakumar is betting big on affordability at scale—a counterintuitive move in an inflationary environment. From resurrecting legacy brands like Campa to building Asia's largest AI-powered food parks and expanding to five million outlets, RCPL blends startup agility with conglomerate resources. As inflation eases and consumption revives, the critical question emerges: can an unwavering focus on value disrupt incumbents and influence India's consumption landscape for the next decade?

Listen to Corner Office Conversation: Corner Office Conversation with Sridhar Vembu, CEO, of Zoho Corporation, Corner Office Conversation with Gunjan Soni, Country Managing Director, Youtube India, Corner Office Conversation with Elizabeth Reid, Head of Search, Google, Corner Office Conversation with Rajan Anandan, Managing Director, Peak XV & Surge and much more.

Catch the latest episode of “Corner Office Conversation” on: Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts,and wherever you get your podcasts from.

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India's 2026 income tax overhaul marks a pivotal transformation from compliance heavy bureaucracy to trust based governance. The dramatic cut in unexplained income tax from 78% to 39% signals a strategic pivot toward voluntary disclosure and broadening the tax base. Simultaneously, the unified tax year concept eliminates decades of confusing nomenclature, aligning India with international standards. Expanded HRA benefits for metro cities and inflation adjusted thresholds provide relief for middle class workers. Yet concerns persist: aggressive cash monitoring, faceless proceedings, and retrospective amendments risk creating new litigation cycles. Host Anirban Chowdhury talks to Aditi Goyal, Tax Partner at Trilegal, about whether this framework genuinely reduces complexity or signals sharper, data driven state scrutiny.

You can follow Anirban Chowdhury on his social media: Twitter and Linkedin

Check out other interesting episodes like: How Will a Volatile ₹ Impact You in 2026?, How Quick Commerce is Triggering a Health Crisis for Gen Z, India’s Labour Law Reboot, Viral to Valuation: Building Women’s Cricket as a Brand and much more.

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From Sputnik’s shock to Silicon Valley’s surge, the space race has been reborn, this time driven not just by governments, but by agile startups and bold private capital. In this episode, host Puran Choudhary talks to Eric Stallmer, Executive Vice President at Voyager Space and a decorated US combat veteran who unpacks how Starlab aims to succeed the ISS, why smaller firms are winning billion-dollar defense contracts, and how AI could redefine orbital research. As the U.S. pours $25 billion into missile defense and India nurtures 300+ space startups, a new transnational corridor is emerging. Space is no longer symbolic prestige; it is infrastructure, security, commerce and collaboration, shaping the next frontier of global power and innovation.

You can follow Puran Choudhary on social media: Linkedin & X

Check out other interesting episodes like: How Will a Volatile ₹ Impact You in 2026?, How Quick Commerce is Triggering a Health Crisis for Gen Z, India’s Labour Law Reboot, Viral to Valuation: Building Women’s Cricket as a Brand and much more.

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From twin bell alarm clocks to vinyl records, why are Millennials and Gen Z ditching screens for tactile experiences? In this episode of The Morning Brief, host Dia Rekhi speaks with David Sax, author of "The Revenge of Analog" and "The Future is Analog," about the curious resurgence of analog living in our hyper-digital age. The conversation explores whether this trend is mere Y2K nostalgia or genuine digital disillusionment, how social media paradoxically fuels analog hobbies like knitting and pottery, and why vinyl sales surged the year Spotify launched. From Google employees taking drawing courses to escape software constraints to the pandemic revealing digital life's limitations, Sax examines what defines an analog lifestyle beyond aesthetic choices. As AI matures and screen fatigue deepens, the episode questions whether our craving for physical books, face-to-face interactions, and hands-on creativity signals a fundamental reassessment of technology's promises—and whether balance, not rejection, holds the answer.

You can follow Dia Rekhi on social media: Linkedin & X

Check out other interesting episodes like: How Will a Volatile ₹ Impact You in 2026?, How Quick Commerce is Triggering a Health Crisis for Gen Z, India’s Labour Law Reboot, Viral to Valuation: Building Women’s Cricket as a Brand and much more.

Catch the latest episode of ‘The Morning Brief’ on The Economic Times Online, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, JioSaavn, Amazon Music and Youtube.

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India's AI revolution demands strategic vision beyond enthusiasm. Host Anirban Chowdhury talks to Rajan Anand, Managing Director of Peak XV and Surge a former Microsoft India head and Google VP shaping India's venture landscape. With 120 unicorns and 300 IPOs last year, India is poised for transformation. Anand's thesis: India needs localized, hyper-affordable AI models—not trillion-parameter ones. Predicting fifty AI unicorns by 2030, he advocates computational sovereignty through infrastructure investments in firms like Sarvam. Rajan also talks about Peak XV’s path after its split with Sequoia Capital, past governance issues at its investees and guardrails to avoid them and the recent spate of senior level exits in the company.

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You can follow Anirban Chowdhury on his social media: Twitter and Linkedin

Listen to Corner Office Conversation: Corner Office Conversation with Knight Frank’s William Beardmore-Gray and Shishir Baijal, Corner Office Conversation with Sridhar Vembu, CEO, of Zoho Corporation, Corner Office Conversation with Gunjan Soni, Country Managing Director, Youtube India, Corner Office Conversation with Elizabeth Reid, Head of Search, Google and much more.

Catch the latest episode of “Corner Office Conversation” on: Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts,and wherever you get your podcasts from.

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On February 2nd, Trump announced a trade deal with India via a social media post, with no signed agreement, no formal text. Trump says India has committed to stop buying Russian oil, purchase $500 billion in American goods, and grant zero-tariff access while the US merely reduces tariffs from 50% to 18%. India is quiet on specifics. Host Anirban Chowdhury examines this imbalanced framework with International Trade Policy and WTO Expert Abhijit Das and Edward Alden, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Subsidized US agriculture threatens Indian farmers, pharmaceutical patent pressures undermine generic drug makers, and Trump's emergency powers bypass Congress entirely. Unlike India's comprehensive EU FTA, this deal has no legal enforceability and can be renegotiated through Trump's next social media post.

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You can follow Anirban Chowdhury on his social media: X and Linkedin

Check out other interesting episodes like: How Will a Volatile ₹ Impact You in 2026?,Capital Pains: Budget 2026's Loud Silences, India’s Labour Law Reboot, Viral to Valuation: Building Women’s Cricket as a Brand, Why are Music Labels Buying Into Film Companies? and much more.

Catch the latest episode of ‘The Morning Brief’ on The Economic Times Online, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, JioSaavn, Amazon Music and Youtube.

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Tamil Nadu's 234-seat assembly election hinges on an unprecedented question: can superstar Vijay's TVK disrupt the established DMK-AIADMK duopoly? Host Anirban Chowdhury talks to political analyst Sumanth Raman, who dissects the math Vijay polls around 15% vote share but may win zero seats, potentially acting as a spoiler splitting anti-DMK votes. The AIADMK-led NDA gains ground after securing PMK and TTV Dhinakaran's crucial Thevar community votes, while DMK battles anti-incumbency yet holds firm thanks to Stalin's personal appeal. The magic number: 40% vote share. With caste equations and celebrity politics injecting chaos, Tamil Nadu's outcome remains defiantly unpredictable.

You can follow Anirban Chowdhury on his social media: X and Linkedin

Check out other interesting episodes like: How Will a Volatile ₹ Impact You in 2026?,Capital Pains: Budget 2026's Loud Silences, India’s Labour Law Reboot, Viral to Valuation: Building Women’s Cricket as a Brand, Why are Music Labels Buying Into Film Companies? and much more.

Catch the latest episode of ‘The Morning Brief’ on The Economic Times Online, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, JioSaavn, Amazon Music and Youtube.

Credits: TheHinduOfficial

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India's new labor codes just cost three companies in corporate India over ₹4,373 crore in a single quarter. TCS, Infosys, and HCLTech are reeling from retrospective gratuity provisions that go back decades. The government says it's modernizing—one unified wage definition, digital compliance, formalized workforce. Companies say it's a compliance nightmare with twenty-four states at different stages of implementation. In this episode, host Anirban Chowdhury asks Puneet Gupta, Partner, People Advisory Services-Tax, EY to break down why your basic salary just became 50% of your paycheck, how a twenty-year employee's gratuity calculation changed overnight, and whether this reform will create seventy-seven lakh jobs or simply tax the ones that already exist. Short-term pain or structural transformation?

Listen in.

You can follow Anirban Chowdhury on his social media: X and Linkedin

Check out other interesting episodes like: How Will a Volatile ₹ Impact You in 2026?,Capital Pains: Budget 2026's Loud Silences, India’s Labour Law Reboot, Viral to Valuation: Building Women’s Cricket as a Brand, Why are Music Labels Buying Into Film Companies? and much more.

Catch the latest episode of ‘The Morning Brief’ on The Economic Times Online, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, JioSaavn, Amazon Music and Youtube.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

No big changes—but does that hide the biggest shifts? 

Budget 2026 surprised few with bold moves, yet its quiet continuity may reshape how India's investors and taxpayers think about stability. In this episode of The Morning Brief, host Kayezad E Adajania, editor, ET Wealth, speaks to Homi Mistry, Partner, Deloitte India, and Aashish P. Somaiyaa, ED & CEO, WhiteOak Capital Asset Management, to unpack what an unchanged tax landscape truly signals.

The discussion navigates the old versus new tax regime's evolving future, untouched capital gains structures and their impact on India's global competitiveness, and a new amnesty scheme encouraging disclosure of undeclared foreign assets. From a strategic pivot toward semiconductors, AI, and data centers to revised sovereign gold bond rules and rising STT concerns, the episode examines whether Budget 2026's stability is genuinely reassuring—or simply a pause before inevitable change as India braces for an uncertain global economic landscape.

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As India’s quick-commerce frenzy collides with labour unrest and tightening economics, the race for ever-faster deliveries is being forced to slow down. Earlier this year, mass protests by gig workers exposed the hidden costs of the 10-minute promise. One logistics company, however, argues it anticipated the reckoning.

In this episode, Host Anirban Chowdhury speaks with DTDC CEO Abhishek Chakraborty about why the 35-year-old firm stepped away from the dark-store arms race and instead backed what it calls “rapid commerce”: 4 - 6 hour deliveries powered by co-located dream stores. Now back to profitability after years of investment-driven pressure, DTDC is betting that operational discipline can outlast headline-grabbing speed. Abhishek unpacks early BCG research that flagged an impending labour crunch, the rise of AI in customer operations, the rapid consumption growth of tier-2 and tier-3 cities, and the hard realities of EV adoption and overseas expansion beyond tariff-hit US markets.

In logistics, winning may depend on knowing when not to race.

You can follow Anirban Chowdhury on his social media: Linkedin & X

Check out other interesting episodes from the host like
Iran On The Edge, BRICS at the Helm: India’s Moment, and Its Multilateral Test, ET in the Valley: Apoorva Pandhi, MD at Zetta Venture Partners Silicon, India's Mega QSR Merger

Catch the latest episode of ‘The Morning Brief’ on The Economic Times Online, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, JioSaavn, Amazon Music and Youtube.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.