The Morning Brief

Foreign capital is back in India — but not the way it used to be. In June, overseas funds poured a record Rs 41,773 crore into Indian government debt, even as they pulled nearly Rs 49,340 crore out of equities. What's driving this split? A stabilising rupee, tax breaks on bond returns, and hopes that India will finally enter Bloomberg's global bond index. But risks remain — a hawkish Fed, a deferred index decision, or weak Q1 earnings could change everything fast. ET's Rozebud Gonsalves breaks down what this debt-versus-equity divide really means for India's markets and the rupee.

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

Check out other interesting episodes like:ET Deep Dive: Swipe Left on Reality,India wants manufacturing at 25% of GDP — will AI in factories help?, Tanay Kothari Wants To Kill The Keyboard, From Doer to Director: The LinkedIn Playbook for the AI Agea, Semaglutide Goes Generic: Big Pharma’s Moat Breaks  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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Five young mothers in Kota died within twelve days after a routine oxytocin shot. The vials meant to stop bleeding after childbirth had no drug in them at all, just water. What followed was an investigation that tore open a Punjab manufacturer's records: fabricated test data, tampered machines, missing safety checks, and a company that had been ordered to stop production three years ago and simply ignored it. Reported by Teena Thacker narrated by Anirban Chowdhury this epiosde traces the deaths, the daily-wage families left behind, and how a tiny, poorly regulated oxytocin market let a repeat offender keep supplying hospitals until it turned fatal.

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

Check out other interesting episodes like:ET Deep Dive: Swipe Left on Reality,India wants manufacturing at 25% of GDP — will AI in factories help?, Tanay Kothari Wants To Kill The Keyboard, From Doer to Director: The LinkedIn Playbook for the AI Agea, Semaglutide Goes Generic: Big Pharma’s Moat Breaks  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.

The Indian government has issued a notice to Meta over WhatsApp’s planned username feature, warning that it could fuel impersonation and online fraud. Meta maintains usernames are a privacy feature designed to let users connect without sharing phone numbers. But the dispute runs much deeper. In this episode, host Anirban Chowdhury talks to Apar Gupta, co-founder, Internet Freedom Foundation about the government’s concerns, Meta’s response, the first-originator rule, end-to-end encryption, the limits of India’s IT Rules and DPDP Act, and why the bigger question is whether governments will ever lead—rather than merely react to—the future of digital identity.

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

Check out other interesting episodes like:ET Deep Dive: Swipe Left on Reality,India wants manufacturing at 25% of GDP — will AI in factories help?, Tanay Kothari Wants To Kill The Keyboard, From Doer to Director: The LinkedIn Playbook for the AI Agea, Semaglutide Goes Generic: Big Pharma’s Moat Breaks  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.

Europe's latest heatwave is expected to leave behind a staggering human toll. But beyond the immediate crisis, it is raising a broader question: are countries prepared for a world where extreme heat becomes routine?

While much of the conversation around climate change focuses on emissions, a parallel challenge is emerging around adaptation. From city design and public health systems to early warning mechanisms and heat action plans, governments are being forced to rethink how they prepare for rising temperatures.

In this episode of The Morning Brief, Anirban Chowdhury sits down with Karsten Haustein, a Research Scientist at Leipzig University, and Vishwas Chitale, Chairman of the GHHIN South Asia Heat Health Hub. Together, they discuss the science behind Europe's heatwave, why humidity and warm nights are making heat more dangerous, and what lessons other countries can learn from India's growing experience in managing extreme heat."

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

Check out other interesting episodes like:ET Deep Dive: Swipe Left on Reality,India wants manufacturing at 25% of GDP — will AI in factories help?, Tanay Kothari Wants To Kill The Keyboard, From Doer to Director: The LinkedIn Playbook for the AI Agea, Semaglutide Goes Generic: Big Pharma’s Moat Breaks  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.

India’s startup ecosystem is sending mixed signals. Funding deals are at a decade low, yet tech IPOs are breaking records. Investors are writing bigger cheques but backing fewer companies, while deep tech, AI and space tech are quietly reshaping the next phase of innovation. Host Anirban Chowdhury talks to Tracxn co-founder Neha Singh about what the data really reveals: why average deal sizes have doubled, whether the era of growth-at-all-costs is over, why India’s AI funding still lags global peers despite its talent pool, and what founders, investors and policymakers should watch as the country’s startup ecosystem enters a more disciplined phase.
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One in two popcorn kernels eaten in India comes from one man's farms. He built the crop from nothing, the processing plant that rivals anything in North America, and a farmer network no competitor can crack. When COVID killed every client overnight, most founders would have cut and run. He doubled his acreage. He has 50Xed his revenue in 5 years, build a moat few can crack and plans to now indigenise other crops and commodities like oats and palm oil with host Anirban Chowdhury.

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

Check out other interesting episodes like:ET Deep Dive: Swipe Left on Reality,India wants manufacturing at 25% of GDP — will AI in factories help?, Tanay Kothari Wants To Kill The Keyboard, From Doer to Director: The LinkedIn Playbook for the AI Agea, Semaglutide Goes Generic: Big Pharma’s Moat Breaks  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.

Nestled in Virudhunagar district of Tamil Nadu, Sivakasi is India’s undisputed firecracker capital. What began as a humble cottage industry thrived in the region’s hot, dry climate — conditions too harsh for agriculture but perfect for manufacturing matches and firecrackers. Over decades, this unlikely desert town grew into a Rs 6,000 crore industry, supplying the bulk of India’s fireworks. Now, the newly elected Vijay government has set its sights higher, pushing Sivakasi to compete on the world stage and challenge China’s dominance in global fireworks. But transforming political ambition into industrial reality is a challenge that remains to be seen.
Dia Rekhi reports and narrates for audio. 

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

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For decades, regional aviation in India has been a story of false starts, grounded ambitions and struggling airlines. But that may finally be changing.

India makes more than 4 billion intercity trips every year. Yet only 3% happen by air. That gap may be the single biggest untapped opportunity in Indian aviation — and airlines like Fly91 and aircraft maker ATR believe they are perfectly positioned to capture it.

In this episode of The Morning Brief, Anirban Chowdhury and ET's Forum Gandhi speak with Alexis Vidal, Chief Commercial Officer of ATR, and Manoj Chacko, Managing Director of Fly91, about why regional aviation has historically failed to scale, what has changed in India's smaller cities, and whether the economics finally work. From eliminating check-in entirely and operating with fuel costs at just 22% of revenue, to filling flights with business travellers in places few expected, the conversation explores the opportunities, bottlenecks and big bets shaping India's next aviation frontier.

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

Check out other interesting episodes like:ET Deep Dive: Swipe Left on Reality,India wants manufacturing at 25% of GDP — will AI in factories help?, Tanay Kothari Wants To Kill The Keyboard, From Doer to Director: The LinkedIn Playbook for the AI Agea, Semaglutide Goes Generic: Big Pharma’s Moat Breaks  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.

Eighty percent of Dr Ramakanta Panda's young cardiac patients — below 35, below 40 — work in IT or finance. Late nights, processed food, 2 AM pizza, secondhand smoke, and a generation that doesn't sleep before midnight. The Padma Bhushan awardee and Chairman of Asian Heart Institute, Mumbai has performed over 30,000 cardiac surgeries with a 99.8% bypass success rate and zero MRSA in his ICU — all from one hospital he has refused to franchise, refused to debt-finance, and refused to sell to private equity. Every week, he says no. In this episode of The Morning Brief, ET's pharma editor Vikas Dandekar and Rica Bhattacharyya sit down with Dr. Panda on why India cannot fix its healthcare issues  by solely relying on private healthcare — and whether one hospital built on culture can set standards an industry built on capital never will.

You can follow Vikas Dandekar on his social media: X or Linkedin and Rica Bhattacharyya on her X and Linkedin

Check out other interesting episodes like:ET Deep Dive: Swipe Left on Reality,India wants manufacturing at 25% of GDP — will AI in factories help?, Tanay Kothari Wants To Kill The Keyboard, From Doer to Director: The LinkedIn Playbook for the AI Agea, Semaglutide Goes Generic: Big Pharma’s Moat Breaks  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.

Jio Platforms is set to file what could be India's largest-ever IPO. But the story goes far beyond the listing. Senior telecom consultant Kalyan Parbat joins host Anirban Chowdhury to break down what the DRHP really signals. From prepaying debt to funding a sovereign LEO satellite constellation, building a homegrown AI agent called Hey Jio, and exporting its indigenous 5G stack to global operators, Jio's ambitions are staggering. But questions remain. Competition pressure, privacy concerns around AI on mobile networks, net neutrality risks from network slicing. This is a deep dive into what Jio's public market debut means for India's digital future.

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

Check out other interesting episodes like:ET Deep Dive: Swipe Left on Reality,India wants manufacturing at 25% of GDP — will AI in factories help?, Tanay Kothari Wants To Kill The Keyboard, From Doer to Director: The LinkedIn Playbook for the AI Agea, Semaglutide Goes Generic: Big Pharma’s Moat Breaks  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.