Exclusive: The Adani Group claims it has repaid all its loans against promoters' shares.

But regulatory filings indicate otherwise.

🧵 On 12 March, the Adani Group announced it had repaid $2.15 billion in margin-linked share-backed loans—a type of loan where a borrower pledges shares of a publicly traded firm as collateral for the loan.

But regulatory filings indicate that the debt has not been fully paid off.

Yesterday, Swiggy sold its cloud kitchen business—Swiggy Access—to Kitchens@ in a share-swap deal as part of its cost-cutting measures to achieve profitability.

There are three ways to become a profitable food tech company in India—and only one seems to have worked till now.

🧵 In the beginning, food-tech companies started by aggregating supply.

Zomato famously spent years sourcing and digitising restaurant menus until it realised there was little incentive or differentiation in doing this.

So then, food tech shifted to aggregating demand.

The Shark Tank India phenomenon has spawned an ecosystem of unregulated fundraising for startups.

Thousands of retail investors are pouring crores of rupees into risky bets.

How are they doing it? Is it even legal?

🧵 Startups are now offering "investment" opportunities to investors with a ticket size as small as Rs 5,000 ($60) or Rs 10,000 ($120) through online fundraising platforms such as Tyke Invest.

Many of Tyke's biggest campaigns were by startups featured on Shark Tank India.

What's keeping Google Pay down in India?

🧵 UPI is flourishing at a ~70% monthly growth rate.

And India's #2 payments app—Google Pay—is facing multiple battles in a rapidly changing war.

GPay's market share dipped from 38% in Dec '20 to 35% in Dec '22.

Meanwhile, #1 PhonePe has grown from 40% to 47% in the same period.

Hindenburg Research has released a report which alleges that the Adani Group has "engaged in brazen stock manipulation" and has flagged debt and accounting concerns.

The Adani Group has refuted the claims and termed the report "malicious".

A 🧵decoding the conglomerate: "Despite Adani shares being much pricier than their peers, LIC has bought more of them", wrote @anandg_kalyang and @_Seetharaman, decoding the confounding rise and rise of Adani stocks.

Replug: the-ken.com/story/the-conf…

In February, the Rajasthan government will present its budget for the year ending March 2024.

And executives at India's top telco, Reliance Jio, have reason to be eager.

An ambitious project targeting ~13.3 million women and their families is in focus. In last year's budget, Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot announced a populist scheme of handing out smartphones and free data.

Its estimated cost was Rs 12,000 crore (~$1.5 billion).

Reliance Jio emerged as the lowest bidder, paving its way to pocket 60% of the overall contract value.

Since its acquisition, the Tata Group has often tapped into BigBasket's supply chain expertise to improve its other offerings (ex: Tata Neu).

But some insiders felt that the expansion of BigBasket's responsibilities has also fractured the focus from its core: Grocery delivery. However, a $200 million fundraise in December 2022 has changed some things.

To industry outsiders, this seems to have reaffirmed parent firm Tata Group's faith in BigBasket.

To those at BigBasket, this represented an opportunity to shift their focus back to its core.

Mukesh Ambani is known for taking no prisoners.

Ask Amazon—which got shocked by Reliance's takeover of Future Retail stores.

Or the many telecom operators which vanished due to Jio.

Or even Anil Ambani.

Now, Disney+Hotstar is getting a taste of the Mukesh-Ambani medicine.

🧵 Two recent events have set off the alarm bells at Disney+Hotstar—India's largest OTT platform:

• Viacom18—partially owned by Reliance—took away Hotstar's crown jewel—the digital streaming rights of IPL.

• Jio has removed all its bundled plans from Hotstar.

Recently, a Supreme Court-appointed panel started to look into some particular problems in the Indian Pharma Industry.

These problems have resulted in job losses and, allegedly, some deaths.

It is also why Big Pharma’s 100K-strong sales force is turning against it: The key function of a sales representative is to convince doctors to prescribe the drugs of their respective pharma firms.

They are triggered allegedly by the immense pressure to keep up with increasing drug-sales targets.

They hope the legalisation of UCPMP can solve this.

Sachin Jaiswal, the founder and ex-CEO of multi-million dollar startup Niki, considered himself "terribly inept" at running a firm—because of the vast influx of tasks.

He now leads the product team at Swiggy—and manages his tasks seamlessly.

One thing changed it all for him. The Calendar.

At Niki, @sachinjaiswal maintained a to-do list.

But after failing to keep up with tasks, he consulted a few executive coaches.

Now, he practices 'time-chunking'—where one blocks chunks of time for specific tasks on their calendar.

A Rs 10,000 ($120) dispute, a pregnant woman’s death, and an RBI ban haunt Mahindra Finance:

🧵 In September, four of Mahindra Finance’s third-party recovery agents landed at a 22-year-old pregnant woman's house to repossess her father’s tractor in Jharkhand, India.

During the second Covid lockdown, he missed six monthly installments and was short Rs 10,000 (~$120).

If you have diabetes or know someone who lives with it, do not miss this thread.

Today—on World Diabetes Day—we have compiled a list of our stories on diabetes and the industry around it.

All these stories are free to read for the next 48 hours. We hope you find it helpful.

🧵 India has over 70 million people wrestling with diabetes. Five million of them are entirely insulin-dependent.

And Insulin has seen nearly a 50% price rise in recent years. India's diabetics are fighting tooth and nail to access it, wrote @dawalelo

Link: the-ken.com/story/indias-p…

Galaxy fund—set up by a bunch of investors, including Naval Ravikant and Jeff Fagnan—wants to give $1 million to some Indian founders. The founders will invest up to $100,000 each in startups they like.

Galaxy wants to challenge the early-stage investing model in India.

Ravikant and Fagnan ran a similar programme in the US. In the last four years, 81 founders have deployed ~$120 million in nearly 800 startups.

Zomato. OYO. Ola.

What is the common link between the three Indian companies? All three firms had to scale back from new geographies despite being flush with cash.

Now, there's a new player added to the list: Urban Company.

Can a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment be counter-effective?

Why does sexual harassment happen in the first place?

What can organisations do better to protect their female employees?

Does an increase in female leadership lead to a safer work environment? Host @sneha_vakharia posed the above questions to @Meg_Srinivas of @trustin_co_in—an organisation which helps businesses implement the POSH Act.

@Meg_Srinivas on the root of sexual harassment:

The Indian state of Tamil Nadu is rolling out something never attempted before—with the help of a global tech giant. For the state's 80 million residents:

• It wants to collect their blood samples.

• Check their blood pressure

• Screen them for cancer and kidney diseases

All of it at their doorstep.

And guess who wants to have a foot in the door?

Another layoff season is here.

• But why does this keep happening in the first place?
• How structural is this issue?
• Who gets fired? Who gets retained?
• How do employees and employers manage this situation?

A 🧵 (1/7)

#layoffs 'Hire to grow, fire to sustain': An explainer on the layoff loop of Indian startups

Reported by @tam_arund and @RuhiKandhari

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Replug: the-ken.com/story/hire-gro…

Hustle. Flow. Markets. Rejection. Innovation.

Five interesting quotes from the latest episode of First Principles—a podcast where we interview some of the most successful leaders:

Ep 7 features Vineeta Singh (@vineetasng)—Co-founder and CEO of SUGAR Cosmetics (@trySUGAR).

🧵 On work-life balance and happiness:

Today is World Sight Day.

A short🧵on our stories covering the different aspects of the eye care sector: "Without private equity growth hormone or venture capital steroid, LV Prasad Eye Institute treats nearly two million patients every year. How?"

When @Singh10Seema interviewed LVPEI's founder and India's most celebrated ophthalmologist, Dr GN Rao:

Link: the-ken.com/story/healthca…

At first, ‘Fortune Soya Health’ may seem like a safe bet for refined oil.

But turn the pouch around, and it says, “The word ‘health’ is only a brand name and does not represent its true nature.”

This is just one of the many slick claims made by India's ‘healthy’ oils.

🧵(1/5) The Indian edible-oil market was estimated to be ~Rs 1.94 lakh crore (US$24 bn) in the year ended March 2021.

Refined oils are widely used in homes and restaurants and are considered safe.

But all refined oils go through multiple ‘purification’ processes that use...

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A quick search on Youtube for “Vedantu” or “Unacademy” throws up several clickbait videos, viral bloopers, reels of teachers dancing to trending songs, and more.

But why are these teachers doing everything except teaching? 🤔

The answer is alarming.

🧵(1/6) As the COVID-induced sales boom fades into a period of slow growth and uncertain funding winter, Edtech teachers at the $3.4 billion valued Unacademy are forced to don the second hat of a salesperson 🎩

Their mandate is clear. No matter what it takes — get more students.

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