NEW DELHI, MUMBAI, BENGALURU, KOLKATA, CHENNAI, AHMEDABAD, HyDERABAD, CHANDIGARH*, PUNE* VOL. 16 NO.

256

Wednesday, October 26, 2022

livemint.com

mint primer QUICK EDIT

What Rishi Sunak Grin and

as new PM means bear it
for UK and India
By Shashank Mattoo
Rishi Sunak is set to take office as Britain’s first prime minister of Asian
heritage. He faces a complex cocktail of challenges, including the UK
facing a crisis of economic credibility, energy inflation and war in
Ukraine. Mint explains the issues facing Britain’s new prime minister.
How did Sunak get the
1 top job?
After prime minister Liz Truss
released a disastrous mini-budget
that tanked the markets, it became
clear that her days were
numbered. She announced her
resignation after just 45 days in
office. In order to contest for the
leadership, candidates had to win
the support of at least 100 MPs.
Sunak was quick off the mark,
despite a late challenge by former
Prime Minister Boris Johnson,
who quit the race despite claiming
the support of around 100 MPs.
The only other contender, Penny
Mordaunt, dropped out at the last
minute, leaving the former finance
minister as the only one in the
field.
What are Sunak’s
2 challenges?
Britain is staring down a crippling
economic crisis. The country has
struggled with low productivity
and wage growth since the 2008
global financial crisis. These
longer-term economic problems
have been worsened by inflation.
The demand boom after the
reopening of economies after
covid-19 and the energy crisis
caused by the war in Ukraine have
fuelled inflation. The country has
also committed billions to defence
spending because of the security
threat from Russia. Balancing
spending commitments with a
need for sound economic
management will be the defining
challenge of Sunak’s premiership.
For almost two hours on Tues-
day, many users of WhatsApp
could neither send messages
nor make voice or video calls on
it. The Meta-owned chat service
had suffered a breakdown. The
app went on the blink in India,
too, leaving people unable to
communicate, a deprivation
that begins to feel like one only
once the facility vanishes. Since
India has the highest number of
users of the app among the
world’s countries, we would
have felt the loss most acutely.
Although Meta issued an apol-
ogy, it didn’t say what caused
the outage. It has happened
before. Last year in October,
WhatsApp, Instagram, and
Facebook went down together
for almost six hours in what was
billed as one of the biggest-ever
social media disruptions for its
scale and duration. The latest
one was significantly milder but
big enough to become a major
point of discussion online.
What’s clear is that our depend-
ence on this app must reduce.
At the very least, we need back-
ups. The Indian government’s
own Sandes app is unlikely to
achieve mass adoption, while
downloads of private alterna-
tives offering superior security
have flagged. Network advanta-
ges, meanwhile, keep us glued
to WhatsApp.
MINT METRIC
by Bibek Debroy

Surely, this is rash -

3 What are Sunak’s strengths
and weaknesses?
He has a reputation for strong economic
Monet painting covered with potato mash.
management. As finance minister during
Whatever climate activists are after,
the covid-19 crises, Sunak spearheaded the The methods are becoming dafter,
British government’s economic crisis
response, including measures to help small
Reduced to bosh, bunkum and balderdash.
businesses. However, his key weaknesses
will be political. He is distrusted by Boris
loyalists who see him as responsible for
bringing down Johnson’s government.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
It’s important to bear in mind
4 What can the global
economy expect?
The markets welcomed Sunak’s
5 What will it mean for
India?
The potential return of a stable
that the transition from fossil
election. Stock markets and the government is welcome news.
fuels to renewables cannot and
pound recovered some ground as Both countries were slated to will not happen suddenly or in
news of his elevation to 10 conclude a free trade agreement,
Downing Street filtered through. which was initially scheduled to be
a short time... Therefore,
Sunak will face the monumental signed by Diwali. This was derailed investments in oil & gas
task of forging new trade by anti-immigration comments
relationships for Britain in the made by Truss’ home secretary
shouldn’t continue to fall.
aftermath of Brexit. The country Suella Braverman, who has since
faces a series of negotiations with resigned. With Sunak at the helm,
the EU over the future of their India will hope for a measure of
economic relationship. As the political stability, leading in turn to
West’s third largest economy, the progress on the free trade MUKESH AMBANI
UK’s economic success is crucial to agreement. His larger position on RIL Chairman
the developed world’s economic immigrants will be key to the
prospects in a bear market. success of any free trade deals.

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 PLAIN FACTS

Mobiles gain popularity

but TV still in the game
BY TANAY SUKUMAR

I ndian teenagers claim to be spending over five hours a day using their smartphones and nearly four in 10 would feel
“extremely restless” if their handsets were taken away from them for a day, a survey has found. Indians are using their smart-
phones mainly for messaging, listening to music, accessing social media, and taking selfies. However, many still prefer the
television for news. The survey, which had 7,463 respondents and was conducted by the Lokniti programme of the Centre for
the Study of Developing Societies, offers insights into media behaviour of young Indians. Its findings were released on Thursday.

SMARTPHONE AGE
The good old television is fast losing its popularity to smartphones. The 2015-16 National Family Health Survey was the first to
show that Indian households are more likely to have a mobile phone than a TV. The Lokniti-CSDS survey goes one step ahead by
reporting that this is true even for internet-based smartphones versus TV. Growth in TV ownership has stagnated. However, there
are still those who watch TV a lot, and among them, 72% will feel restless if they don't watch it for a day. Among smartphone
users, addiction is common not just among youngsters, but even among those in their 40s.
Households (%) that use these modes of media and communication
Any mobile phone 84
Average time spent, by age group
Smartphone 76 (hours per day)
On TV* On smartphone
TV set 75
All 2.92 4.22
Newspaper* 27
15-17 2.87 5.33
Music system/transistor 22
18-25 2.70 4.73
Computer/laptop/tablet 19
26-35 2.88 4.12
Magazine** 13
36-45 2.93 3.96
*Daily/often; **Periodically/often

Without _____ for a day, how restless would you feel? 46-55 2.95 3.60
Extremely Somewhat Not much Not at all (in %) 56+ 3.18 2.95
18 27 23 32 *among daily TV viewers
TV
% respondents who would feel restless# if
Ordinary phone 15 19 20 46 they don't have their mobile phone for a day
TV, among heavy watchers* 42 30 11 17 76 63
72
Smartphone 42 28 14 16 52
44
0 20 40 60 80 100 34
*Those who watch TV for 5+ hours daily.

49% of phone 28% mobile 53% of those who

owners in 15-17 age group owners, and 42% would feel very 15-17 18-25 26-35 36-45 46-55 56+
would feel "extremely smartphone users, restless without a #extremely or somewhat
restless" without their have tried to cut phone have tried to
phone for a day down phone use cut down their use

CHATTING AWAY
So what do Indians do all day on smartphones, and why are they addicted? The top two uses of a smartphone are to listen to
music and to send and read messages, the survey found. Taking selfies is more popular than consuming the news. While film
theatres blame OTT platforms for low footfalls, the survey shows Indians aren't really using their smartphones for OTT either.

Quite a lot Sometimes Very little Never (in %)

Messaging 28 35 24 14
Listening to music 26 39 17 18
Using social media 25 34 15 26
Taking selfies 24 36 23 18
Consuming news 21 34 22 23 Selfie mania
Video calls 21 33 32 14 Just 18%
20 respondents have never used a smartphone
Watching films/serials/vlogs/videos 21 31 28 to take selfies. Selfies are one of the most
Taking photographs 19 33 24 24 used smartphone features, along with
messaging, music, and video-calling. Social
Online classes 19 18 13 50 media and watching videos don't even
Banking/bill payments 16 24 18 42 come close.
Navigation/maps 13 24 22 41 79%
Buying things/ordering food/ of 15-17 age group use their smartphones to
booking something 12 23 19 46 take selfies "sometimes" or "quite a lot".
Video games 10 15 19 55 56+
The only age group that is more likely to
OTT platforms 8 16 16 60 take photographs of other people, places or
0 20 40 60 80 100 things, than selfies.
GROUPTHINK
The topmost use of a smartphone is to send and read messages. A large chunk of this activity may be taking place in WhatsApp
groups, the survey suggests. Seven in every 10 respondents are part of a family or friends group on a messaging app. One in three
have joined a group catering to their own caste group or community, and a quarter are part of religion-specific groups. Older
people are more likely to join a caste-, community- or religion-based group.
Respondents (%) who are part of various kinds of groups on WhatsApp, Telegram, etc

69 47 33 25 25 18
Family/friends Work/office Caste/community Religion-related Hobby Groups
groups groups groups groups groups discussing
politics

Top group categories for...

Youngest cohort* (18-25) (in %) Oldest cohort (56+) (in %)
Family/friends group 76 Family/friends group 56
Work/office group 56 Caste/community group 37
Caste/community group 34 Groups related to religion 34
Hobby group 30 Work/office group 34
*among adult respondents

THE FINE PRINT

DESPITE the time Indians spent on ONLY 41% of all internet users showed
smartphones, they are still relying the concern about receiving fake news on the
most on television for news. As many as internet, social media or WhatsApp. Almost
42% said they prefer TV as their main 54% of WhatsApp users had high or moderate
news source, followed by 22% picking trust in the news or information they received on
new media (internet/social the platform. The trust was lower for all other
media/mobile phones). social media platforms.

All findings are based on a survey of 7,463 respondents aged 15 and above in 19 states. The survey was held in January 2022, and its sample is nationally representative.
Source: Lokniti - Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (in association with Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung)
PARAS JAIN/MINT

PEANUTS by Charles M. Schulz

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 NEW DElhI, MUMBAI, BENGALURU, kOLkATA, CHENNAI, AHMEDABAD, HYDERABAD, CHANDIGARH*, PUNE* VOL. 16 NO. 256 Rs 5.00 IN DELHI-NCR; Rs 6.00 OUTSIDE DELHI-NCR. PRICE WITH HINDUSTAN TIMES Rs 10.50 (FOR DELHI & NCR) 16 PAGES

Wednesday, October 26, 2022

The true story of a WhatsApp’s one-hour outage

livemint.com fake network uP10 takes toll on small biz uP9

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Walmart to raise up Sunak takes charge

as PM; Braverman
CCI imposes
₹936 cr fine
DON’T MISS

on Google over
to $3 bn for Flipkart back as home secy billing policy
Saurav Anand & Gulveen Aulakh
Parent is looking at a valuation of $40 billion for the e-tailer AP
NEW DELHI

Rupee’s depreciation costs India the

S
feedback@livemint.com earch engine giant Google
Anirudh Laskar on Tuesday was fined for most among EMs, next only to China
anirudh.l@livemint.com GROWTh PATh LONDON
the second time in a week The rupee’s depreciation may have cost India the

R
MUMBAI ishi Sunak became Brit- for abuse of its dominant market most among major EM peers in terms of forex
Flipkart, which is valued at about $37 bn, may dilute around 7% stake to
ain’s third prime minis- position, with the Competition reserves depletion, next only to China, which saw a

F
raise as much as $3 bn. A look at Flipkart’s operations and top investors: reduction of $159 bn in its reserves between 1 April
lipkart, the e-commerce ter this year on Tuesday, Commission of India (CCI)
platform controlled by Wal- Topping up Top shareholders in Flipkart tasked with taming an eco- penalizing the company ₹936.44 and 30 September. India is followed by Russia, with a
mart Inc., is considering
raising $2-3 billion at a valu-
ation of more than $40 bil-
Up to

$3 bn
Amount Flipkart
parent Walmart
plans to raise
2.2
1.4
SoftBank
1.3 Qatar Investment Authority
11.3
nomic crisis that has left the
country’s finances in a precari-
ous state and millions strug-
crore for its app store billing poli-
cies. The regulator also issued a
cease-and-desist order against
decline of nearly $64 billion in the same period. >P4

40
About Walmart's CPPIB Others
lion to expand its product range in expectation of 2.4 gling to pay their food and Google regarding these policies. Once-punctual airline IndiGo now
India and challenge rivals, two peo- $ bn Flipkart's valuation Binny Bansal
energy bills. Google allows developers on struggles with wave of flight delays

37
Tiger Global 4.1
ple with direct knowledge of the Last valued* at
Sunak, who is the UK’s first British Prime Minister its Play store to receive payments Before April, IndiGo was the most punctual
matter said. $ bn 5.3 (in %) leader of colour, met King Rishi Sunak. BLOOMBERG for their apps, audio, video and airline in domestic flights for February and
Tencent
“Walmart may prefer to bring Charles III at Buckingham Pal- games, as well as certain in-app March, with 95.4% and 93.9% of flights reaching
strategic investors into Walmart-
Flipkart through this fundraising, $ 3.6 bn
Last fundraise*

72
ace, where the monarch offi-
cially asked the new leader of
Truss’ exit from Downing
Street last week, is a fellow
purchases, solely through its
Google Play Billing System, CCI
destinations on time, respectively. Since then,
however, Tata group airlines AirAsia India and
Vistara have soared ahead in time-keeping. >P3
800
unlike in the last round. However, Funds left in the governing Conservative Bexiteer like Sunak. It remains said in a 199-page order, direct-
Walmart
kitty for India
Walmart-Flipkart is also open to sell- $ bn operations Party to form a government, as to be seen how her tough ing the company to modify its
ing to large pure-play investment * In July 2021 Source: Mint Research is tradition. stance on immigration will conduct within three months.
firms,” one of the two people said. Sunak clinched the leader- square off in the new Cabinet CCI said Google presented Foreigners flee Chinese stocks
Flipkart last raised around $3.6 FUNDING PATH ship position Monday, seen by after her remarks about Indian revenue data with “glaring at record pace as rout worsens
billion in July last year. Most of this WAlMART may prefer IT is also open to selling ThE retailer is yet to his party as a safe pair of hands visa overstayers caused much inconsistencies and wide dis- Foreign investors are on track to turn sellers
capital has been deployed, and about to bring strategic investors to large pure-play mandate i-banks to look it hopes will stabilize an econ- damage to the ongoing claimers”; however, the regula- of Chinese equities for the first time ever for
$700-800 million is left, according through this fundraising investment companies for strategic partners omy sliding toward reces- India-UK free trade agreement tor said it computed the provi- the year, as concerns about a lack of
to the two people cited above. sion—and stem its own plung- (FTA) talks. In another move sional penalty based on company supportive policies from the Party congress
SARVESH KUMAR SHARMA/MINT
“Walmart is keen to bring in stra- ing popularity, after the brief, aimed at continuity, James data “in the interest of justice and and a renewed Covid Zero push spook
tegic investors in Walmart-Flipkart speculative and inaccurate. space,” the first person said. disastrous term of Liz Truss. Cleverly will stay in his post as with an intent of ensuring neces- markets. >P4
so that Flipkart can get additional Walmart is yet to formally man- Flipkart is currently valued at over His first move was to foreign secretary despite not sary market correction at the ear-
expertise as well as consistent fund- date investment bankers to look for $40 billion and may dilute around remove about a dozen mem- being a Sunak loyalist. liest.” “Accordingly, the CCI
ing support as and when required to strategic partners and large global 7% for raising as much as $3 billion, bers of Truss’ cabinet. Sunak Truss’s package of imposed a penalty @ 7% of its Bharti-backed OneWeb pips
stay ahead in the country’s e-com- investors for the latest fundraising the people cited above said. decided to keep the new chan- unfunded tax cuts spooked average relevant turnover rivals in satellite internet race
merce competition,” the first person plan. Since Walmart acquired a 77% cellor of exchequer Jeremy financial markets with the amounting to ₹936.44 crore
Bharti Group-backed OneWeb is set to get the
said, requesting anonymity. “The funds could be used not only stake in Flipkart for $16 billion in Hunt in place for economic prospect of ballooning debt, upon Google on a provisional first mover advantage in the satellite broadband
A Walmart spokesperson for adding resources, such as fulfilm- 2018, the e-commerce firm carried stability, and brought back drove the pound to record basis for violating Section 4 of the market in India when it begins services in mid-
declined to comment on what it ent centres (storages and ware- out its first capital infusion round in Indian-origin Suella Braver- lows and forced the Bank of Act. Google has been given a time 2023, potentially piping Elon Musk’s Starlink and
termed as speculation. A Flipkart houses), new businesses and work- July last year, valuing Flipkart at man as home secretary. Brav- England to intervene—weak- of 30 days to provide the requi- Reliance Jio, which have sought licences to
spokeswoman said there are no such force but also for potential acquisi- erman, who’s scathing resig- launch their own services. >P6
plans at the moment, and the news is tions in the Indian e-commerce TURN TO PAGE 6 nation letter precipitated Liz TURN TO PAGE 6 TURN TO PAGE 2

Pollution check
Air quality across India deteriorated on Tuesday, a day after Diwali.
Demand for temporary, gig workers Govt plans PLI scheme for
Delhi has the most
polluted post-Diwali
air among metro cities
Good
Moderate
Poor
peaks as festive season orders surge power transmission sector
Delhi Very poor
Air quality index in
various cities as of
Jaipur Lucknow Devina Sengupta Indians spent more time and Utpal Bhaskar ity requirements of the Indian
4 pm, 25 October 303 devina.sengupta@livemint.com money buying appliances, utpal.b@livemint.com economy, the transmission
262 234 MUMBAI electronic goods, and jewellery NEW DELHI and distribution equipment
172
in the past 30 days. While the also need to keep pace with the

C T
231 ompanies hired a market for premium and lux- he Union government is generation side. According to
Ahmedabad 47 Kolkata
Patna
record 400,000 gig ury products was least affected looking to introduce a the Central Electricity Author-
Mumbai 212 and temporary workers by the pandemic, entry-level production-linked ity, by 2030, the country’s
122 161
Pune Hyderabad to serve festival shopping goods took a hit. However, incentive (PLI) scheme for power requirement will be 817
demand, a staffing industry companies said that had power transmission and distri- gigawatts (GW). This will
Bengaluru 142 228
Chennai body said, as consumers enjoy- changed now. bution equipment, two officials result in new orders, with
ing the first Diwali without Prominent staffing compa- aware of the plans said, as part India’s current inter-regional
pandemic curbs in three years nies said the demand was so of India’s push for greater self- transmission capacity of
opened up their wallets. Hiring Staffing firms said the demand high that last-minute client reliance in strategic sectors. India’s power grid is under 112GW set to grow and an addi-
Despite 'very poor' air on Tuesday, Delhi saw its best for last-mile deliveries was led was so high that last-minute mandates were tough to fulfil. This comes against the back- constant attack, with at least tional ₹8 trillion investment
post-Diwali AQI in several years by logistics, e-commerce and mandates were tough to fulfil. MINT “Temp hiring was tough to drop of India trying to curb the 30 events reported daily. requirement in the transmis-
Air quality index in Delhi around Diwali time. Day before On Diwali Day after
500 food tech platforms, including fulfil even when mandates use of Chinese power equip- sion sector till 2031-32. Also, a
many last-minute hirings. cuss with government agencies came in at the last minute, as ment, given the cyberattacks on conflict. ₹3.03 trillion reforms-based
400 “This festive season, hiring and trade bodies on behalf of candidates already had an its grid, including from Red “The PLI scheme for power result-linked power distribu-
317303
300 has beaten all previous records. the staffing industry. assignment. Appetite for Echo, a Chinese state-sponsored transmission and distribution tion sector scheme applicable
259
This time, the festivals are Though there is no strict shorter contracts has upped group. equipment is in the works,” till 2025-26 is being imple-
200
clubbed together, so that delineation between gig and from 45 days to three months. While these attempts were one of the two officials cited mented.
100 brings with it more recruit- temp workers, gig work is used They are ready to pay a pre- thwarted, if successful, such above said, requesting ano- Queries emailed to the
0
ment. Pre-pandemic, during to refer to short-duration work, mium of 10-15% more for such attempts may lead to blackouts, nymity. spokespersons for the minis-
2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 the festive season, about while temp workers are hired assignments. Temp staffing impacting services such as water India has rolled out PLI tries of power, and commerce
AQI for Delhi is the average of all stations, and is the 24-hour average as of 4 pm
200,000 would get hired. for several months at a stretch. used to be about nine months supply, telecom infrastructure, schemes for 14 sectors with a and industry on Thursday
Source: Central Pollution Control Board
Now, with gig workforce and Temp staffing is relatively more typically,” said Rituparna hospitals, airports and metro rail total outlay of ₹2 trillion. This remained unanswered till
COMPILED BY SHUJA ASRAR/MINT; GRAPHIC BY SARVESH KUMAR SHARMA/MINT
organized temp staffing, the organized as well, and when Chakraborty, co-founder and networks. includes a ₹24,000 crore PLI press time.

Air quality poor, numbers can cross 400,000,”

said Lohit Bhatia, president of
the Indian Staffing Federation,
hired via staffing firms, workers
have access to benefits and
insurance.
executive director of Team-
Lease Services.
The government has already
enforced prior permission
requirements for imports from
scheme allocation for the local
manufacture of solar photo-
voltaic modules.
The Union budget earlier
this year announced a scheme

but better than

an apex body authorized to dis- Mint reported last week that TURN TO PAGE 6 countries with which it has a Given the growing electric- TURN TO PAGE 6

previous Diwalis Huawei probe was targeted by Chinese spies, US alleges

Priyanka Sharma Contrary to last year, only a
priyanka.sharma@livemint.com handful of cities, including Delhi, Bloomberg system that protects those rights,” for the benefit of the company. technology and equipment for He and Wang and a US govern-
NEW DELHI reported air quality in the ‘very feedback@livemint.com attorney general Merrick Garland A person familiar with the mat- the US. They also allegedly pres- ment employee working as a
poor’ category. Several cities told reporters in Washington. ter confirmed it is Huawei. sured one former official to stop double agent under supervision

A T
ir quality in the National
Capital Region and much
of India deteriorated on
Tuesday, the morning after
Diwali celebrations, but the air
Indians breathed a day after the
festival was still the cleanest in at
least eight years, indicating some
progress in the fight against fire-
crackers and pollution.
Delhi registered an Air Qual-
ity Index (AQI) of 323 on Tues-
day morning, indicating very
poor air, while in neighbouring
Noida, the AQI plunged to 342,
a level considered dangerous,
especially for people with respi-
ratory illnesses. Air quality
improved to 303 and 299 by
4pm, respectively.
such as Lucknow, Jaipur, Chen- he US unsealed charges
nai and Mumbai reported poor claiming two Chinese
air quality, with AQI hovering intelligence officers tried
within the range of 201 to 300. to obstruct a criminal investi-
The people of Kolkata heaved a gation of Huawei Technologies
sigh of relief as a cyclonic storm Co., and alleged others were
helped lower the AQI to a safe 47. working on behalf of a “foreign
While Diwali is celebrated power” to try procure technol-
across India with lights and a ogy and recruit spies.
cacophony of fireworks, the The charges were part of a
toxic smoke from the firecrack- series of recently unsealed
ers combined with prevailing cases the Justice Department
weather conditions make the announced Monday that offi-
air unbreathable, sickening cials said had disrupted crimi-
children, pregnant women and nal activity being conducted by
the elderly. Often, and espe- the People’s Republic of China.
cially so in Delhi and its sub- “The government of China
urbs, the illegal burning of crop sought to interfere with the rights
and freedoms of individuals in the
TURN TO PAGE 6 US and to undermine our judicial
“They did not succeed.”
Ten of the 13 individuals
charged were Chinese intelli-
gence individuals, according to
FBI director Chris Wray.
Deputy attorney general Lisa
Monaco added that the case
involving alleged obstruction of a
US probe of a telecommunica-
tions company—which the DOJ
wouldn’t identify—exposes the
connection between the Chinese
government and its companies.
She said the telecom giant tried to
“unlawfully gain an edge” to
undermine the US investigation,
and shows why Chinese compa-
nies shouldn’t be trusted to han-
dle the personal data of Ameri-
cans.
US prosecutors charged
Huawei in 2019, claiming it stole
trade secrets from T-Mobile. AFP
In a complaint made public
Monday, the US claims Guo-
chun He and Zheng Wang
worked on behalf of the Chi-
nese government to target the
US, from 2019 until the present,
The US claims He and Wang
bribed a law enforcement
employee to provide what they
believed was confidential infor-
mation about witnesses, evidence
and possible additional charges to
be filed against the technology
giant. He paid the employee
$61,000 in bitcoin, according to
the criminal complaint.
In a separate action, four peo-
ple were charged in federal court
in New Jersey with conspiracy to
act as an illegal agent of a foreign
government. The conspiracy
allegedly involved Chinese intel-
ligence officers posing as aca-
demics to recruit US law enforce-
ment workers and others in seek-
ing help procuring fingerprint
protests in the US along the 2008
Olympic torch route, according
to court filings.
In addition, the justice
department announced that
seven people from China were
charged in an indictment
unsealed in the eastern district
of New York last week with
conspiring to harass a Chinese
citizen living in the US in hopes
of causing the person to return.
The actions were allegedly part
of an effort by China, called
“Operation Fox Hunt,” to force
the repatriation of alleged fugi-
tives living in other countries.
In the case involving the Hua-
wei probe, the complaint
includes conversations between
of the Federal Bureau of Investi-
gation. They were using an
encrypted messaging program
that is not identified.
At a regular press briefing
Tuesday in Beijing, foreign
ministry spokesman Wang
Wenbin said “the US was over-
stretching the concept of
national security to hobble Chi-
nese companies and under-
mine the legitimate interests of
Chinese citizens.”
In a January 2019 message, the
employee told He that he was
“having financial difficulties”.
He responded “let me see if
there are something I can do for
TURN TO PAGE 6

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 02 WeDNesDay, 26 OctOber 2022
NeW Delhi
Competition body
imposes ₹936 crore
penalty on Google
FROM PAGE 1
site financial details and support-
ing documents,” the order said.
In an interview, Rajeev Chan-
drasekhar, minister of state for
electronics and information
technology, said, “An open inter-
net is what India expects—that is
an internet where free choice
expectations of consumers is not
distorted by the market power of
any company—big or small—
foreign or Indian. Openness, that
is free and fair Internet is a firm
policy goal for our government.”
On Thursday, CCI imposed a
penalty of ₹1,337.76 crore on
the technology giant, citing a
similar abuse of its dominant
position “in multiple markets of
the Android ecosystem”, such
as Play Store. CCI said Google
was dominant in the markets
for the licensable operating
system for smart mobile devi-
ces and the market for app
stores for Android smart
mobile OS in India.
The CCI report said because
of its several collaborative
agreements with YouTube,
Google was put in an advanta-
geous position vis-a-vis its rivals
in the online video domain.
Google India did not respond to
a Mint query till press time.
CCI also examined the alle-
gations of exclusion of rival UPI
apps as effective payment
options on Play Store. It was
found that Google Pay has been
integrated with intent flow
methodology, whereas other
UPI apps can be used through
collect flow methodology.
Govt to develop 50 districts as export hubs Centre asks states to be strict in
Dilasha Seth
dilasha.seth@livemint.com
enforcing single-use plastic ban
NEW DELHI
W
ith exports facing
global headwinds,
the Union Budget is
likely to announce a ₹2,500
crore scheme to develop 50
districts as export hubs.
The programme will help
domestic producers in these
districts to scale up manufac-
turing and find potential buy-
ers outside India.
Under the proposed scheme,
the government will select 50
districts through a challenge,
and they will receive ₹50 crore
each. The districts will be
assessed on parameters such as
plans for exports, efforts to plug
infrastructure and logistics
gaps, and cluster approach to
exports.
As it will be a centrally spon-
sored scheme, the Directorate
General of Foreign Trade
(DGFT) has proposed that the
Centre pays 60% of the esti-
mated cost, with the rest borne
by the respective states.
This means that the Centre
will likely allocate ₹1,500 crore
for the programme.
“District as Exports Hub will
likely be a centrally sponsored
scheme and may come up in
the budget... if not before.
m MINT SHORTS
Govt asks Indians to leave
Ukraine immediately
New Delhi: In a fresh advisory, the Indian embassy in
Ukraine on Tuesday asked all Indians there to leave the
country immediately in view
of increasing hostilities. “In
continuation of the advisory
issued by the embassy on
October 19, all Indian citizens
in Ukraine are advised to
immediately leave Ukraine by
available means,” the
embassy said.
Embassy REIT to invest
₹2,200 cr for office buildings
New Delhi: Embassy Office Parks REIT will invest
FOR ANY QUERIES/DELIVERY ISSUES
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First published in February 2007 to serve as an unbiased and clear-minded chronicler of the Indian Dream.
SRUTHIJITH KURUPICHANKANDY (EDITOR); PUBLISHED/PRINTED BY MANHAR KAPOOR ON BEHALF OF HT MEDIA LTD, 18-20 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001
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Google has been given 30 days to
provide requisite financial details
and supporting documents. REUTERS
“It was noted that the intent
flow technology is superior and
user-friendly than collect flow
technology, with intent flow offer-
ing significant advantages to both
customers and merchants and the
success rate with the intent flow
methodology being higher due to
lower latency,” the order said.
It further said developers
could not, within an app, pro-
vide users with a direct link to a
webpage containing an alterna-
tive payment method or use lan-
guage that encourages a user to
purchase the digital item out-
side of the app, also known as
anti-steering provisions.
“The CCI order feels inade-
quate. For one, there is no prece-
dent for dominance in the tech
market in India, which leaves Goo-
gle room to challenge the order.
Secondly, the order challenges
Google’s dominance in theory but
lacks in terms of showing practical
proof against the company’s
alleged dominance in the market,”
said Akshayy S. Nanda, a partner at
law firm Saraf and Partners.
Shouvik Das contributed to
the story.
As a centrally sponsored scheme, the Centre may pay 60% of the
cost, with the rest borne by the respective states.
These districts will be selected
under the challenge route, and tricts that have done robust
scores will be assigned based on planning to develop export
parameters related to their pre- competitiveness,” said the offi-
paredness...we will invite appli- cial.
cations, and they
will be evaluated,” The idea was
said a senior gov- initially proposed department of
ernment official. as a ₹10,000 crore c o m m e r c e
The Centre will scheme, covering remained unan-
receive applica-
200 districts
tions from the
states, and evalua- across the
tion and scoring country
will be done by a
technical advisory
agency. Indian Export Organizations
Only those districts having a (FIEO), said that ‘District as an
robust plan will make it to the Export Hub’ will be a game
list. changer for exports.
PTI
ECONOMY & POLICY LIVEMINT.COM
‘Online gatekeepers setting
rules need to be scrutinized’
Gireesh Chandra Prasad combination.
gireesh.p@livemint.com A green channel route has also
NEW DELHI been recently introduced for auto-
matic approval of combinations. This
T
ech giants enjoy “rule-set- is a first-of-its-kind, trust-based sys-
ting powers” in the digital tem in the world, where notifiable Hanan Balkhy, assistant DG for
economy, which give them transactions having no overlaps -- be antimicrobial resistance, WHO.
pole position in markets it horizontal, vertical or complemen-
and enable its extension
into adjacent markets, according to
tary between the parties -- are
deemed approved upon its filing. It is Fungal
Competition Commission of India expected to promote a speedy, trans-
(CCI) chairperson Ashok Kumar
Gupta.
parent and accountable merger
review, striking a balance between
infections
In an email interview, Gupta spoke
about how competition regulation has
evolved over the years and why corpo-
facilitation and enforcement. The
green channel route has gained trac-
tion with one out of every five trans-
are a global
rate practices in digital economy are
attracting regulatory attention. Gupta
actions being filed under this route,
demonstrating stakeholders’ confi- health risk,
completed his four-year term as CCI dence. All these steps made the
Chairperson on Tuesday. Edited
excerpts:
approval process business friendly
and reduced compliance costs.
says WHO
The digital economy has been wit- How can CCI create awareness
nessing explosive growth in the about the anti-competitive prac- Reuters
recent past. What should these tices of digital economy firms and feedback@livemint.com
new age businesses keep in mind effective regulatory scrutiny over objective and robust substantive empower affected businesses and LONDON
in order to remain compliant with the large digital platforms. Thus, assessment of mergers, CCI has consumers to seek justice?
T
the spirit of competition law? gatekeeper firms, due to their mar- adopted a slew of measures to ensure Our enforcement actions also serve he World Health Organi-
Digital platforms, with enduring ket power, need to discharge special speedy clearance to non-problematic a salutary purpose of sensitizing firms zation has drawn up the
‘
market power, have a decisive influ- obligations under the law to stay transactions, to reduce procedural that are engaging in the conduct first-ever list of fungal
ence on the online competition compliant. We have provided suffi- burden, and to make that has been found pathogens posing the greatest
landscape. Their control over critical cient clarity to gatekeeper firms filings simpler. Spe- by CCI to be anti- threat to human health, warn-
digital infrastructure and power to through our rulings and going for- cifically, to ease com- CCI has adopted a slew competitive. We also ing that some strains are
set rules and determine terms of ward, they need to align their prac- pliance, CCI has of measures to ensure have an advocacy increasingly drug-resistant and
access make them de tices accordingly. amended the merger speedy clearance to mandate, which we becoming more widespread.
facto ‘gatekeepers’ of
online markets. Such
INTERVIEW CCI’s
m merger regula-
tions have seen major
control regulations to
dispense with the non-problematic
are discharging very
actively.
The UN body, which has
similar lists for viruses and bac-
rule-setting power, changes over the requirement of pro- transactions, to reduce Is CCI prepared to teria, said fungal infections and
control over user-data and user-in- years. Has it made compliance viding information on procedural burden. take up the respon- their increasing resistance to
terface, help maintain and easier for businesses? non-compete sibility to adminis- treatment were a growing risk.
Ashok Kumar Gupta
strengthen the platforms’ long-term We are conscious that in an emerg- arrangements. This Chairperson, CCI
ter a new digital However, a historic lack of
market position in the core platform ing economy like India where industry has provided the markets law that focus on the danger meant
markets, while also expanding the is gearing up to make the nation self- required flexibility to the Parliamentary there were huge gaps in knowl-
same into adjacent markets. The reliant as well as to enhance its global the parties to the combination in Standing Committee on Com- edge, as well as a lack of surveil-
resultant irreparable/irreversible competitiveness, mergers and acquisi- negotiating non-compete clauses and merce has recommended? lance, treatments and diagnos-
adverse consequences for competi- tions would be a potent instrument. reduced the information require- Well, it is premature to say anything tics.
tion and consumer welfare, warrant Alongside its unfailing commitment to ments at the time of notifying the at this stage. It was hard even to estimate
the scale of the threat because
of the lack of data, WHO said,
calling for a major effort from
governments and researchers
to strengthen the response to
the 19 fungi on the list. “Emerg-
“Districts are the production
centres, and focussing on them
ing from the shadows of the
bacterial antimicrobial resist-
ance pandemic, fungal infec-
to address supply-side challen- tions are growing, and are ever
ges will go a long way in boost- Priyanka Sharma challans and seizures. more resistant to treatments,
ing and felicitating exports. It’s priyanka.sharma@livemint.com State boards have the becoming a public health con-
a more granular approach of NEW DELHI authority to enforce plastic cern worldwide,” said Dr
moving from states to districts, waste management rules Hanan Balkhy, WHO assistant
T
which will reap huge divi- he Central Pollution related to manufacture of SUP director-general for antimicro-
dends,” Sahai said. Control Board (CPCB) items. bial resistance.
The scheme was initially has directed chief secre- Considering the sensitivity Fungal infections often
proposed as a ₹10,000 crore taries of all states to implement of the drive, states have been strike people who are already
scheme, covering 200 districts. the ban on single-use plastic asked to provide all administra- severely ill, like cancer or
After the department of (SUP) that has proved to be tive support including police tuberculosis patients, and rates
commerce prepares a cabinet ineffective since its introduc- protection to inspection teams. jumped among hospitalized
note for the ‘districts as export tion on 1 July. Globally, plastic pollution covid-19 patients during the
hubs’ plan, it will be taken for In a communication to the has emerged as a serious pandemic.
Cabinet approval . states reviewed by Mint, CPCB menace in the absence of Only four types of treat-
BLOOMBERG The DGFT initially proposed chairman Tanmay Kumar said The use of SUP items streamlined focus on reuse, ments exist, with very few new
the scheme for 200 districts, that despite the ban, the use of continues despite the ban. MINT reduction and recycling of plas- options in the development
“The idea is to support dis- but the department of expendi- SUP items, specifically thin car- tic waste. pipeline. Climate change also
ture recommended doing it in ry-bags continues unabated in focus areas such as street ven- According to a report by the means that the incidence and
phases and mapping the actual the low-end section of the dors including flower sellers, ministry of housing and urban geographic range of the patho-
impact first. economy. vegetable markets, fish mar- affairs, the global average of gens is expanding, WHO said,
This comes as the govern- Kumar has directed for strict kets, local markets and whole- plastic per capita consumption while resistance is in part being
Q u e r i e s ment is looking at ways to boost enforcement of the ban, with a sale markets such as Ghazipur, is 28 kg and India has a per cap- driven by the over-use of anti-
emailed to the exports amid declining global focus on street vendors, vegeta- Azadpur and Okhla in Delhi ita plastic consumption of 11 kg. fungals in agriculture.
demand. ble markets and local markets, NCR and identify industries A CPCB report states that 3.5 The list divides the patho-
Exports growth slowed to a along with checks at borders engaged in manufacturing of million tonnes of plastic waste gens into three categories
19-month low in September at and inspection of concerned thin carry-bags. Inter-state are generated in India annually. based on their potential impact
swered till press 4.8%. industries during October-De- inspection at borders has also As per the report, dumping of and data on their resistance
time. The department of com- cember. been planned to restrict trans- plastic waste can deteriorate risk: critical, high and medium
Ajay Sahai, merce has also been imple- The move come after Bhu- portation of SUP items. soil and underground water priority. The critical group
director-general menting the Trade Infrastruc- pender Yadav, Union minister Kumar has directed the quality due to leaching of addi- includes Candida auris, which
and CEO of the ture for Export Scheme since of environment, forests and cli- inspecting teams to identify the tives, colourants, stabilizers is highly drug resistant and has
Federation of FY17-18 with the objective of mate change held a meeting suppliers and manufacturers of and fillers present in plastic caused a number of outbreaks
assisting central and state gov- with senior officials and recom- SUP items through backtrack- products. in hospitals worldwide, as well
ernment agencies in the crea- mended strict enforcement of ing. Inspection has been The environment ministry as Cryptococcus neoformans,
tion of appropriate infrastruc- the ban. The proposed action planned to be carried out for 4 did to respond to emailed que- Aspergillus fumigatus and Can-
ture for the growth of exports. plan includes enforcement in days a month and could lead to ries. dida albicans.
Sebi fines 6 entities in
around ₹2,200 crore in the next four years to develop
premium workspaces as it sees tremendous growth
potential in thevoffice market despite global recession-
Sensex falls 0.48% after
seven-session rally Deutsche Mutual Fund case
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office demand in India would remain strong as large regulator Sebi has imposed suggestions or complaints
global companies want to open offices in India because penalties totalling ₹15 lakh on about errors.
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Readers can alert the
cheap rentals for premium workspaces. PTI ing to front-running the
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Govt earned ₹254 crore from DHFL Pramerica Mutual feedback@livemint.com.
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 LIVEMINT.COM CORPORATE WeDNeSDay, 26 OctOber 2022
NeW DelhI 03

Sprite Zoomcar sees 7 times volume

becomes a IndiGo struggles with growth ahead of US listing
$1-bn brand
in India
wave of flight delays Alisha Sachdev
alisha.sachdev@livemint.com
neW delhI

W
hen most cab aggre-
Staff writer gators are struggling
feedback@livemint.com Vistara was the most punctual airline, with an on-time performance of 91% with small ticket size
and a sustainable business

C
oca-Cola Co.’s Sprite
lime-flavoured bever-
age is the second port-
folio brand to have breached
the $1 billion mark in annual
model in India, self-driving car
Anu Sharma rental service Zoomcar is rac-
anu.sharma@livemint.com Steep decline ing toward its NASDAQ debut
neW delhI The primary issue is that IndiGo being the largest airline, also has maximum with a SPAC listing.
connectivity with constrained airports such as Delhi and Mumbai. The turbulent two years of

sales, James Quincey, chair-
man and chief executive of the
company, said during an earn-
ings call on Tuesday.
In February, Coca-Cola said
Thums Up became a billion-
dollar brand in India in 2021.
On Tuesday, the American
beverage major announced its
earnings for its India business
for the quarter ended 30 Sep-
tember. The company raised
its full-year earnings outlook
after beating Street expecta-
tions in the second quarter.
Its net revenues grew 10% to
$11.1 billion in the third quar-
ter. Unit case volumes growth
across developing and emerg-
ing markets was led by India,
China and Brazil, the company
said. While its sparkling soft
drinks brands grew 3%, driven
by rise in demand from across
operating geographies, it was
primarily led by India, Mexico
and China, the company said.
“In India, we continued to
strengthen in the first half of
the year gaining share in spar-
kling soft-drinks. Trademark
Coke delivered strong growth
through effective execution
and occasion-based market-
ing. We drove approximately
2.5 billion transactions year-
to-date at an affordable price
point through the expansion
of returnable glass bottles, and
single-serve PET packages,”
he said. “Sprite has grown to
become a billion dollar brand
in India driven by the success
of a locally-adapted, occasion-
based global marketing cam-
paign.”
I
ndiGo is beset with a problem—it’s On-time performance (in %) covid-19 was a blessing for the
perpetually late. 95.4 On-time performance (in %) Bengaluru-based startup. The
It wasn’t always the case, but for the 63.1 93.9 93.9 disruptions forced the startup While India is Zoomcar’s largest market by far, it has expanded
past six months, India’s largest airline to pivot from direct-leasing, or its operations across Egypt, Vietnam and Indonesia. HT
by market share has been unable to 65.3 90.1 an ownership model, to invit-
beat its rivals in punctuality, monthly data ing hosts to list their cars on its direct leasing or vehicle finance pre-covid-19 phase. Trips for
released by the Directorate General of 78.4 85.5 platform, which were rented model, our maximum strength $40 or $50 range have gone up
84.5 84.1
Civil Aviation shows. out to users. The strategy paid was about 7,000 vehicles. Now to $65-75. It’s a very meaning-
84.1 82
Before April, IndiGo was the most 80.8 off, as it opted for an asset-light as we’ve transitioned into a full ful jump in terms of the basket
punctual airline in domestic flights for and sustainable model.Besides, marketplace, we’ve been able size,” Moran added.
87.1
February and March, with 95.4% and the post-pandemic behavioural to grow it by three and half. We Zoomcar clocks an average
93.9% of flights reaching destinations on change prompted families to also achieved significant of 60,000 rental transactions
89.8
time, respectively. Since then, however, take more frequent long-week- improvement in our ticket size, on its platform every month.
the Tata group airlines AirAsia India and end trips, in bigger cars and much like what Transaction vol-
91
Vistara have soared ahead in time-keep- Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep with greater flexibility. This you’ve seen with The Bengaluru- umes are growing
ing. Source: DGCA Sep data translated into 20-30 times other digital or based startup commensurate to
According to September data from higher ticket size, or revenue e-commerce plat- clocks an average the supply, he
SARVESH KUMAR SHARMA/MINT
DGCA, Vistara was the most punctual air- per trip for Zoomcar, in com- forms, where of 60,000 rental added.
line with an on-time performance of 91%, Indigo with other airlines because of its decline in its punctuality in July, an ana- parison to rivals, who primarily commonalities While India is
transactions on
followed by AirAsia India at 89.8%, Air sheer size, which makes it a far busier air- lyst said. focus on short, intra-city rides. coming through Zoomcar’s largest
India at 87.1% and IndiGo trailing at 84.1%. line with the country’s biggest fleet of air- Another person said the DGCA consid- Zoomcar, with 90% share of covid-19 and then its platform every market by far, it
IndiGo, which has a 57.7% market craft. The airline has seen an impact of ers a departure to be delayed if it takes India’s self-driving car market, moving out of it, month has expanded its
share, lists being on time as one of its three multiple factors on its on-time perform- more than 15 minutes for the plane to take is also not looking to expand its was the purchas- operations across
pillars, in addition to offering low fares ance over the past six months, three peo- off from the time it rolls off the bay. At the footprint in markets like the US ing power and Egypt, Vietnam
and hassle-free service. A snapshot of the ple aware of the matter said. same time, Indigo operates out of three where the competition is stiff. overall volume, and ticket size and Indonesia. “I think our
monthly punctuality data over the last five “The primary issue is that IndiGo being terminals in Delhi and operates 1,600 “We have seen about 7x growth going up quite a bit,” Greg presence in these markets is
years shows that 2021 was the best year for the largest airline, also has maximum con- flights per day, compared to its rivals’ far in business volumes compared Moran, co-founder and chief going to form a jumping-off
IndiGo as it was the most punctual airline nectivity with the constrained airports fewer flights. to last year as we got out of cov- executive officer, Zoomcar, point to go into another 15-20
in 10 out of 12 months. such as Delhi and Mumbai. There are 150- “Availability of engines and spare parts id-19. We’ve grown by leaps said in an interview. markets in 2-3 years, particu-
However, it had performed have also been a factor some- and bounds during this period. “Our average ticket size has larly Latin America, broader
poorly in 2020, 2019 and IN DIRE STRAITS times. If an aircraft is found to When we were operating in gone up by over 50% from the Africa, and Southeast Asia.”
2018, posting the best punc- require a change in spare part
tuality rate in only 11 out of 35 BEFORE April, IT performed poorly UNREST among during the pre-flight inspec-
months. In 2017, it secured IndiGo was the most
punctual airline in
in 2020, 2019 and
2018, posting best
cabin crew
employees led to a
tion and if that’s not available,
the top position in punctual- domestic flights for punctuality rate in 11 decline in its then that also leads to delays
ity in eight out of 12 months. February and March out of 35 months punctuality in July as another aircraft has to be
The main reason for delays arranged to fix such a situa-
in aircraft departure was tion,” a third person said.
listed as reactionary, according to DGCA. 200 departures daily from these busy air- While SpiceJet has consistently been
Reactionary delay is industry jargon for ports, so one single delay can cause a chain ahead of the industry in passenger load
late departure on account of the late reaction. Airlines also suffer in their punc- factor or capacity utilization, it, too, has
arrival of incoming aircraft. This was the tuality during the monsoon season due to struggled with punctuality throughout
reason for 68% of late departures in Sep- diversions and late departures,” one of the the year. It stood fifth in the punctuality
tember. Most delays occurred at Mumbai people cited above said. list with an on-time performance of 78.4%
airport. Unrest among several cabin crew in September, followed by Alliance Air
To be sure, it’s difficult to compare employees over compensation led to a and GoFirst airline.

Greenko-Keppel Corp JV plans Jakson Green to

green ammonia exports foray invest ₹22,400 cr
Saurav Anand energy opportunities to meet PTI pal Secretary of Energy to the
saurav.anand@livemint.com the growing demand for low feedback@livemint.com government of Rajasthan.
neW delhI carbon energy in India, Singa- “This agreement with Jak-

J
pore and globally,” a joint akson Green has inked a son Green is further testimony

I
n the first green ammonia
export foray from India,
Singaporean conglomerate
Keppel Corp. will partner with
GIC Holdings Pte Ltd, Abu
Dhabi Investment Authority
and Japan’s ORIX Corp. backed
Greenko Group to jointly
explore setting up a 250,000
tonne green ammonia produc-
tion facility.
This comes in the backdrop
of the government’s plan to
allocate around ₹6,000 crore
each for production-linked
incentive (PLI) schemes for
electrolyzers and green hydro-
gen from the ₹20,000 crore
green hydrogen mission, Mint
reported earlier.
Keppel and Greenko inked
the memorandum of under-
standing (MoU) to this effect in
Singapore on Tuesday. The
event was attended by Singa-
pore’s minister for trade and
industry Gan Kim Yong, and
virtually by India’s petroleum
and natural gas minister Hard-
India’s total hydrogen demand
is expected to touch 11.7 mmt
by 2029-30. MINT
eep Singh Puri.
Green hydrogen is produced
by splitting water into hydro-
gen and oxygen using an elec-
trolyzer powered by renewable
energy sources such as wind
and solar.
“Keppel Infrastructure
Holdings Pte Ltd (Keppel Infra-
structure) and Greenko Group
(Greenko), through their sub-
sidiaries, have signed a Memo-
randum of Understanding
(MOU) to jointly explore green
ammonia and renewable
statement said.
India’s total hydrogen
demand is expected to touch
11.7 million metric tonnes
(mmt) by 2029-30 from the
current 6.7 mmt. The ministry
of new and renewable energy
has moved a cabinet note
detailing green hydrogen con-
sumption obligations, subsi-
dies and standards for pilots,
and research and development
requirements under the mis-
sion.
Keppel and Greenko will
jointly identify and evaluate a
portfolio of solar and wind
energy projects, up to an
installed capacity of approxi-
mately 1.3 GW, complemented
by pumped hydro-storage, to
power the green ammonia pro-
duction facility. This also
comes in the backdrop of
Greenko Group and Belgium’s
John Cockerill planning to set
up a 2 GW electrolyzer factory
in India, one of the world’s larg-
est, through a joint venture.
pact to invest ₹22,400
crore to set up a green
hydrogen and green
ammonia project, in phases, in
Rajasthan.
The company has signed a
Memorandum of Understand-
ing (MOU) with the govern-
ment of Rajasthan to this
effect, Jakson Green said in a
statement.
Jakson Green will set up a
3,65,000 tons per annum
Green Hydrogen & Green
Ammonia plant along with an
integrated hybrid renewable
power complex in a phase wise
manner, it stated.
The project is expected to
generate over 32,000 direct
and indirect employment
opportunities across various
phases of the scale-up,
planned between 2023 and
2028, it claimed.
The MoU was signed by
Vish Iyer, global chief com-
mercial officer, Jakson Green
and Bhaskar S. Sawant, Princi-
to the state’s investor centric
policies,” Sawant said.
The government of Rajast-
han would facilitate Jakson
Green in obtaining necessary
registrations, approvals, clear-
ances, and provide incentives,
among others, it informed.
“We truly appreciate the
government of Rajasthan for
this partnership and for dem-
onstrating their vision in posi-
tioning the state as a favoured
green hydrogen hub by
extending their utmost co-op-
eration to our project,” Bikesh
Ogra, founding promoter,
managing director & CEO of
Jakson Green said.
Jakson Green has recently
announced its global ambi-
tions to be a leading developer
and integrator of green hydro-
gen and green ammonia assets
across select geographies and
is eyeing a play in the Inde-
pendent Hydrogen & Ammo-
nia Production and Electroly-
ser manufacturing space.

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 04 WeDNesDay, 26 OctOber 2022
NeW Delhi MARK TO MARKET LIVEMINT.COM

S&P BSE Sensex Nifty 50 Nifty 500 Nifty Next 50 Nifty 100 S&P BSE Mid-cap S&P BSE Small Cap
ClOsE 1-WEEK CHANGE (%) ClOsE 1-WEEK CHANGE (%) ClOsE 1-WEEK CHANGE (%) ClOsE 1-WEEK CHANGE (%) ClOsE 1-WEEK CHANGE (%) ClOsE 1-WEEK CHANGE (%) ClOsE 1-WEEK CHANGE (%)

59,543.96 -0.48 17,656.35 -0.42 15,158.10 -0.27 41,914.80 0.01 17,887.40 -0.36 25,040.86 0.45 28,747.94 -0.35
1-MONTH CHANGE (%) 3-MONTH CHANGE (%) 1-MONTH CHANGE (%) 3-MONTH CHANGE (%) 1-MONTH CHANGE (%) 3-MONTH CHANGE (%) 1-MONTH CHANGE (%) 3-MONTH CHANGE (%) 1-MONTH CHANGE (%) 3-MONTH CHANGE (%) 1-MONTH CHANGE (%) 3-MONTH CHANGE (%) 1-MONTH CHANGE (%) 3-MONTH CHANGE (%)

59,831.66 60,002.96 17,730.75 17,808.30 15,198.75 15,251.75 41,912.00 41,979.40 17,951.30 18,023.90 24,929.84 24,930.77 28,848.42 28,854.60
6-MONTH CHANGE (%) 1-YEAR CHANGE (%) 6-MONTH CHANGE (%) 1-YEAR CHANGE (%) 6-MONTH CHANGE (%) 1-YEAR CHANGE (%) 6-MONTH CHANGE (%) 1-YEAR CHANGE (%) 6-MONTH CHANGE (%) 1-YEAR CHANGE (%) 6-MONTH CHANGE (%) 1-YEAR CHANGE (%) 6-MONTH CHANGE (%) 1-YEAR CHANGE (%)

60,081.24 59,489.02 17,811.50 17,637.00 15,253.75 15,143.45 42,021.15 41,639.50 18,027.30 17,871.00 25,086.12 24,806.57 28,876.43 28,705.48

m MINT SHORTS
Foreigners flee China stocks at
Reliance’s rising debt is in focus
record pace as rout worsens Vineetha Sampath & Pallavi Pengonda
Rising discomfort Lagging behind trum acquired during the quarter. high of $29.5 per barrel in Q1), muted
Beijing: Foreign investors are on track to turn sellers of vineetha.s@livemint.com RIL went through swift deleveraging petchem spreads and the overhang of
Chinese equities for the first time ever for the year, as RIL’s capital expenditure continued to RIL’s shares have since FY19 through infrastructure the additional export duties imposed on

R
concerns about a lack of supportive policies from the eliance Industries Ltd’s (RIL)
Party congress and a renewed Covid Zero push spook shares are down 7.3% so far in
markets. Overseas investors sold a record net 17.9 billion FY23 compared to the 1%
yuan ($2.5 billion) of mainland shares via trading links gain in the Nifty 50 index.
with Hong Kong on Monday, as per Bloomberg, tipping Unfortunately, the com-
the year-to-date level into a small net outflow. If that pany’s September quarter (Q2FY23)
holds through year end, it would be the first annual results do little to alter investors’ senti-
decline since the stock connect program was launched ments towards the stock. Consolidated
in 2014. Selling spread through markets on Monday fol- Ebitda came in at ₹31,224 crore, 18%
lowing the nation’s twice-a-decade political event, with lower than Q1. Ebitda is earnings before
the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index tumbling to the interest, tax, depreciation, and amorti-
lowest level since the 2008 crisis. President Xi Jinping’s zation, and excludes other income.
consolidation of power was seen as a major risk, with The oil to chemicals (O2C) segment is
expectations that the leadership reshuffle would bring a the primary culprit here with the earn-
continuation of key policies like Covid Zero. BLOOMBERG ings before interest and tax (Ebit) drop-
ping as much as 46% sequentially. The
segment’s performance took a hit
because of the introduction of special
additional excise duty on transportation
fuel. Weak polymer margins also
dragged down the segment’s profits. To
that extent, RIL’s consumer businesses,
retail and telecom, fared relatively bet-
ter, compensating for the weakness in
O2C. Footfalls in the retail segment
were up 23% over pre-covid levels. The
average revenue per user in the telecom
segment was ₹177.2 in Q2 versus ₹175.7
in Q1.
increase sequentially in Q2FY23 underperformed the Nifty 50 investment trusts, stake sale in the con- 1 July 2022,” said analysts at ICICI Secu-
index so far in FY23. sumer businesses, and a rights issue. rities in a report on 23 October.
Consolidated capital expenditure (in  crore)
35,000 Reliance Industries Nifty 50 Post that, “RIL is re-entering an intense Meanwhile, the company has
110 investment cycle with its ambitious new announced the demerger of its financial
30,000 commerce plans and green energy aspi- services undertaking, which will be
rations. The company’s re-named Jio Financial Ser-
105
25,000
101.10
capex and debt are already BOGGED vices Ltd (JFSL) and would
rising,” said analysts from DOWN be listed on the stock
20,000 100 Ambit Capital. “We believe exchanges. “We view this
that investors will be sur- RIL’S net debt rose positively, and while we do
15,000
prised by the extent of cash in Q2 due to various
factors such as
not see this as a precursor to
95 burn needed for Reliance higher working a potential demerger of the
Retail Ventures to compete capital various consumer busi-
10,000
with deep-pocketed global nesses, it does give share-
90 giants (unlike telecom). Fur- RISING debt levels holders a play on India’s
5,000 and weak outlook
ther, RIL’s new energy initi- for its O2C segment Digital Fintech business,”
92.67 atives are long-gestation means limited said analysts at J.P. Morgan
0 85
Q1 FY22 Q2 FY22 Q3 FY22 Q4 FY22 Q1 FY23 Q2 FY23 31 Mar 2022 25 Oct 2022 and have substantial execu- triggers for the stock India in a report on 22 Octo-
Source: Company, Ambit Capital Research Values rebased to 100 Source: Bloomberg
tion risks,” they said in a ber. However, RIL could
report on 22 October. face regulatory challenges
SATISH KUMAR/MINT
RIL’s rising debt levels along with a here. Analysts have estimated a valua-
However, that did not impress inves- said analysts from J.P. Morgan India. relatively subdued outlook for its O2C tion of Rs1 trillion to JFSL based on RIL’s
tors. Shares of RIL fell 1.5% on Tuesday Capex was Rs32,534 crore in Q2, up segment means triggers for meaningful market capitalization.
to ₹2,441.55. Rising debt and capital from Rs31,442 crore in Q1. The com- outperformance in the RIL stock appear RIL’s return ratios continue to
expenditure (capex) are points of worry. pany said the rise in net debt can be capped. “Prospects for the rest of remain low, analysts pointed out. Given
RIL’s reported consolidated net debt as attributed to higher working capital FY23E, have turned muted because of a the rising capex momentum, a signifi-
on 30 September was Rs93,253 crore, with the dislocation in energy markets, sudden downturn in Asian gross refin- cant improvement in the company’s
up from Rs57,655 crore as on 30 June. unfavourable forex movement and pay- ing margins (down to $4.05 per barrel return profile may not happen in a
Reported net debt is at a two-year high, ment of the first installment of 5G spec- PPost that on 21 October 2022 from a hurry.

The bond market is facing its worst selloff in a generation,

which means paper losses on the Fed’s holdings. BLOOMBERG ITC’s Sep quarter earnings could support stock’s momentum
Fed is losing billions, wiping out Vineetha Sampath basis. This compares favourably volume-base whenever such ITC’s fast-moving consumer
On fire
profits that funded spending vineetha.s@livemint.com to the largely flat three-year vol-
ITC’s cigarette volumes in Q2FY23 rose by 20% year-on-year and
opportunities exist,” they added. goods (FMCG) business was
Washington: Profits and losses aren’t usually thought ume CAGR in Q1. about 5% on a three-year CAGR basis.
Further, its cigarette business largely flat y-o-y at 6.6%. This

I
of as a consideration for central banks, but rapidly nvestors in shares of ITC Ltd ITC has been saying since Q1 Cigarette volume growth (year-on-year, in %)
Ebit (earnings before interest comes at a time when cost pres-
mounting red ink at the US Federal Reserve and many have little to complain about. that stability in taxes, backed by 30 and tax) margin expanded by 18 sures are acute. Its hotels’ busi-
peers risks becoming more than just an accounting odd- The stock has risen nearly 59% deterrent actions by the enforce- basis points (bps) y-o-y to 63.7%. ness is on a strong footing with
ity. The bond market is enduring its worst selloff in a gen- so far in 2022, while the Nifty ment agencies is aiding volume 15 One basis point is 0.01%. the average room rate and occu-
eration, triggered by inflation and the aggressive rate FMCG index has gained 16.4%. recovery from illicit trade. This is 0 Although margins expanded by pancy above pre-covid levels.
hikes that central banks are implementing. Falling bond Shares of the company are now clearly a win-win for the govern- Q2 Q2 50bps in Q1. The paperboards and agri busi-
FY20 FY23
prices, in turn, mean paper losses on the massive hold- flirting with 52-week highs seen ment and the business, thereby -15 The three-year Ebit CAGR in ness also saw y-o-y rise in Ebit.
ings that the Fed and others accumulated during their on Friday, which came after ITC strengthening the argument in -30
Q2 was in mid-single digit. Kotak Following the developments,
rescue efforts in recent years. Rate hikes also involve cen- put up a stellar show in the Sep- favour of continuing a more bal- Institutional Equities said an many broking firms have raised
tral banks paying out more interest on the reserves that tember quarter (Q2) results. anced approach to tobacco taxa- -45 acceleration to high-single digit their earnings estimates for
commercial banks park with them. That’s tipped the Fed Akin to Q1, all segments of ITC tion, said analysts at JM Finan- Note: These are estimates; CAGR is compound annual growth rate; Source: Company, CAGR is required for further FY23-24E. But some offsetting
First covid lockdown in 2020 weighed on growth during that time ICICI Securities
into operating losses, creating a hole that may require the saw year-on-year (y-o-y) revenue cial Institutional Securities. rerating of the ITC stock. The factors still exist. The key down-
Treasury Department to fill via debt sales. The UK Trea- growth. Notably, volume of the Indeed, favourable macro SATISH KUMAR/MINT
broking firm has an ‘Add’ rating side risk is tax hikes much ahead
sury is preparing to make up a loss at the Bank of England. mainstay cigarette business is conditions have led to 20-22% doesn’t seem to feel the absence is in a reasonably good position on the stock with a sum-of-the- of inflation leading to volume
Britain’s move highlights a dramatic shift in countries estimated to have risen by about y-o-y growth in cigarette vol- of its pricing-lever one bit for to hike prices when required but parts based fair value of ₹380 pressure (on cigarettes) as price
including the US, where cenbanks are no longer signifi- 5% on a three-year compound umes in Q2, according to ana- now, said JM Financial analysts. we are also quite agreeable with apiece. elasticity is still unfavourable,
cant contributors to revenues. BLOOMBERG annual growth rate (CAGR) lysts’ estimates. The business “We reckon that the business the strategy to gather a larger Meanwhile, Q2 Ebit margin of said analysts at ICICI Securities.

Mark to Market writers do not have positions in the companies they have discussed here

Nykaa shares end below its listing price India’s forex store dips faster than peers
Malvika Maloo debut last year in October, hitting record lows of ₹383.75 Niti Kiran
malvika.maloo@livemint.com when the company’s stock had per share on the BSE. niti.k@livemint.com
Sharp draw downs Strengthening greenback
bengaLuRu listed at a 79% premium to its Delhivery’s shares have lost mumbaI Change in forex reserves ($ billion) in Change in currency (%) against US dollar
issue price at ₹2,001 per share over 31% in the last five days, the last... in 2022.
20.2

S “Y
hares of FSN E-Com- on the BSE. after the company on 20 Octo- ou buy an umbrella China
merce Ventures Ltd, Nykaa’s IPO was subscribed ber guided for moderate to use it when it 15.3 16.0
which runs online 81.78, driven by interest from growth in shipment volumes rains,” Reserve Bank India

beauty and fashion retailer
Nykaa, sank 2.9% on Tuesday,
pushing the stock below its
initial public offering (IPO)
price of ₹1,125.
Nykaa’s shares have tum-
bled 13% in the past month,
ending at ₹1,110 apiece on the
BSE on Tuesday, ahead of the
10 November expiry of the
one-year lock-in period for its
pre-IPO shareholders.
In comparison, India’s
benchmark index Sensex fell
0.5% on Tuesday. Other tech
stocks, including Paytm,
Zomato and MapmyIndia,
ended the day higher.
“With pre-IPO sharehold-
Falguni Nayar-led online
retailer Nykaa’s shares dipped
13% in the past month. . MINT
ers’ lock-in set to expire on 10
November 2022, it will be cru-
cial to see if these investors liq-
uidate or continue to hold for
further gains,” JM Financial
had said in a report dated 18
October. “About 67% of share
capital or almost 319 million
shares are expected to open up
for trade on 10 November.”
Nykaa made a strong market
institutional investors. The
company’s shares have hit the
lowest point since it started
trading last November.
“We believe success will not
be easy as Nykaa is not the
cheapest place for beauty and
personal care products and
neither does Nykaa solve the
authenticity issue here,” ICICI
Securities had said in its
August 2022 note.
Diwali isn’t going well for
the stock of Delhivery, the
largest fully-integrated logis-
tics services player in India,
either. The company’s shares
continued their plunge, falling
another 3.82% on Tuesday and
through the rest of the finan- of India (RBI) governor Shak- Russia
South Indian
cial year. tikanta Das said earlier this year Thailand Korean won rupee
It had raised ₹5,235 crore in in connection with using forex Chinese Indonesian 2.2
rupiah 1.3
Brazil
its IPO in May.The issue was reserves to defend the rupee Yen yuan
subscribed 1.63 times. The against the dollar. Until the Malaysia* Brazilian Australian British
1 month 3 months real dollar pound
company’s stock beached the beginning of this year, the Phillippines**
6 months Mexican Euro
IPO issue price of Rs487 per country had saved enough for peso
Indonesia
share for the second time last the rainy day, because of strong -8.5
-10.2
week since the Gurugram- capital flows in the past. How- Mexico -12.0
based startup debuted on the ever, those reserves are deplet- Turkey
stock exchange. ing fast. India lost nearly $85 -17.0 Note: Latest data for 20 October;
-200 -150 -100 -50 0 50
In a business update the billion of its forex reserves in negative value denotes depreciation
Note: Latest data upto 30 September; *up to 31 August; -23.2
company had warned its the first half of the fiscal year, ** up to 31 July Source: Bloomberg
shareholders about “high lev- the second biggest depletion
els of inflation, with average among major emerging market
user spends and total active (EM) peers during the period. Emerging Markets Tracker monthly depreciation of 2.3% are falling at a record pace even
shoppers remaining flat or India’s forex reserves were were part of the analysis. in 14 months against the US globally as central banks
lower during the ongoing fes- $528.4 billion as of 14 October, Japan has also seen its forex dollar. Yet, this drawdown around the world look to pro-
tive season”. the lowest since July 2020, and reserves decline more than doesn’t seem to be a matter of tect their currencies. The Inter-
sharply down from the record $150 billion this year and Singa- much concern at this point, national Monetary Fund said
$642.4 billion last year. The pore has seen a decline of more economists said. “There has global reserves have fallen by
rupee has crashed more than than $150 billion since Febru- been a sharp depletion of forex around $884 billion during the

BSE launches electronic gold receipts 10% against the US dollar this
year and slipped below 83 for
the first time last week.
ary. reserves in the last few months,
About a third of the decline but what is comforting is India’s
in foreign exchange reserves in high level of reserves that has
first half of 2022. Besides, total
foreign reserves held by EM
and developing economies fell
The depreciation of the cur- India is because of enabled it to with- by more than 6% in the first
PTI after the exchange last month banks, refiners, and bullion actual fungibility of gold. rency may have cost India the intervention in Decline of forex stand the sharp seven months of this year.
feedback@livemint.com received final approval from traders. India is the second largest most among major EM peers in forex markets to reserves cannot depletion without “Some emerging Asia central
the Securities and Exchange “The launch of EGRs repre- consumer of gold globally with terms of forex reserves deple- cushion the speed be solely any major panic so banks, mainly in India and

L
eading stock exchange
BSE has launched elec-
tronic gold receipts
(EGRs) on its platform, a move
that will help in efficient and
transparent price discovery of
the yellow metal.
It introduced two new prod-
ucts of 995 and 999 purity dur-
ing the Muhurat trading on
Diwali and trading will be in
multiples of 1 gram and deliv-
eries in multiples of 10 gram
and 100 gram, the exchange
said.
The announcement came
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Board of India (Sebi) for intro-
ducing EGRs on its platform.
BSE in February received
in-principle approval from
Sebi after which the exchange
conducted several mock trad-
ing in the test environment for
its members to facilitate trad-
ing in EGRs.
EGRs will cater to all mar-
ket participants, which means
that buyers and sellers on the
exchange will include individ-
ual investors, as well as com-
mercial participants along the
value chain such as importers,
sents a significant milestone
not only for BSE but also for
the global bullion industry.
BSE is committed to continu-
ously facilitating access to
high-quality investment-
based products and services
for our stakeholders,” said
Sameer Patil, CBO at BSE.
The EGR platform will lead
to greater assurance in the
quality of gold supplied, effi-
cient price discovery, and
transparency in transacting.
This can create a vibrant gold
ecosystem in India by enabling
an annual gold demand of
800-900 tonne and holds an
important position in the
global markets.
The country has remained a
price-taker in the global mar-
kets, and at present, does not
play any significant role in
influencing the price-setting
for the commodity.
A platform for EGR infuses
transparency in gold spot
transactions, enables India to
emerge as the price setter, and
would eliminate existing mar-
ket inefficiencies.
tion, next only to China, which
saw a reduction of $159 billion
in its reserves between 1 April
and 30 September. India is fol-
lowed by Russia, with a decline
of nearly $64 billion in the same
period.
The decline of the forex
reserves cannot be solely
attributed to a central bank’s
intervention to defend the cur-
rency against the dollar.
In percentage terms, Thai-
land lost 18.3%, India 13.8%, and
Russia 10.5%. Ten countries
that are part of Mint’s monthly
of the rupee’s fall, attributed to a far. Another com- China, scaled up the degree of
said Prasenjit K. forting factor is exchange rate inflexibility in
central bank’s
Basu, chief econ- the country’s low response to the US Federal
omist, ICICI move to defend external debt Reserve’s tightening and
Securities. “India the currency (20% of gross stronger dollar, which also led
has kept the nom- domestic product) to EM currencies outperform-
inal effective and the short- ing the more flexible advanced
exchange rate (NEER) rela- term debt as a share of total economies’ currencies. This
tively stable, allowing depreci- external debt is around 20%,” has been afforded by a signifi-
ation of about 1% in the past said Rajani Sinha, chief econo- cant rundown in forex
year. This is a prudent, predict- mist, CareEdge. However, the reserves,” a Systematix Institu-
able policy,” he said. widening of the current tional Equities report in Sep-
Around a third of the deple- account deficit and falling tember said. However, this
tion this fiscal year came in import cover is a matter of con- inflexibility could get less sus-
September itself, when the cern, she said. tainable as the forex buffer
rupee witnessed the sharpest Foreign currency reserves dwindles further, it said.
 LIVEMINT.COM
Dhanlaxmi
Bank gets
relief in
legal battle
Gopika Gopakumar
gopika.g@livemint.com
mumbai
T
he Kerala high court on
Tuesday ruled in favour
of Dhanlaxmi Bank, set-
ting aside the writ petition
filed by individuals seeking
board position. The petitions
are dismissed as being “not
maintainable under law”, it
said.
The ruling paves the way
for the private sector lender to
conduct its annual general
meeting (AGM) and appoint
new board members. At
present, the board has only
five members, including two
nominee directors from the
Reserve Bank of India. Once
the new board is in place, the
bank will be able to go ahead
with the proposed rights
issue, which is essential for
the capital position of the
bank.
“The issue raised in the writ
petition has no public ele-
ment and the issue of rejec-
tion of nomination has noth-
ing to do with the public duty
and public function if any dis-
charged by the bank with
respect to the other commer-
cial and financial banking
activities of the bank con-
cerning the public,” the court
ruled.
In March this year, the high
court had stopped Dhanlaxmi
Bank from holding an AGM
for the appointment of direct-
ors, following write petitions
filed by individuals regarding
their candidature for direct-
orship on the board.
The petitioners were filed
by P.K. Vijayakumar, K.N.
Madhusoodanan, P.
Mohanan, and Prakash D.L,
whose candidature for board
positions were rejected by the
bank last year.
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CORPORATE WeDNesDay, 26 OctOber 2022
NeW Delhi 05
‘Injectable drugs making way Regional channels
grab more eyeballs
for syrups, chewable tablets’ Lata Jha
lata.j@htlive.com
neW delhi
Priyanka Sharma
W
priyanka.sharma@livemint.com ith viewers gradu-
neW delhi ally transitioning to
over- the-top (OTT)
T
he next phase of the Indian platforms, regional language
pharmaceutical industry will television channels witnessed
be innovation in newer drugs 3-5% growth in average view-
and how drugs are delivered ership in the past few months,
to patients, said Dr. Parag from the year ago, while Hindi
Sheth, regional medical director of TV channels’ viewership slid
Abbott India, in an interview. He cited 8-10%, said industry experts. Complete transition to OTT is
examples such as smaller and chewable Among regional channels still some time away. MINT
tablets and injectable formulations Punjabi, Marathi and Bhojpuri
being converted into syrups. Also, as well as south Indian langua- This can be partially attributed
Abbott India is planning to run an ges, led the pack. On the other to live sports especially cricket
awareness programme on menopause hand, the fall in viewership for and blockbuster movie pre-
in collaboration with hospitals across Hindi TV channels was driven miers (on OTT). Some second-
India in the wake of findings of the latest by movies and general enter- line GECs such as Zee Anmol
survey, which said that over 80% of tainment channels (GECs). and Sony Pal, is out of DD Free
women believe that menopause can Viewers have moved com- Dish, which may have contrib-
impact a woman’s personal well-being pletely to digital platforms for uted to the decline,” said
due to poor awareness. Edited excerpts movies, GECs and even sports, Chandrashekhar Mantha,
said experts. partner, Deloitte India.
How do you see India’s pharmaceu- While streaming platforms The rise in regional channel
ticals sector? are ramping up regional lan- viewership is supported by the
India’s pharma industry has evolved guage offerings, the transition popularity of movie channels
considerably in the last few years, and the to OTTs have been slow com- in major markets, This makes
country is now known as the pharmacy of pared to the English and Hindi it safe to assume that the chan-
the world. It’s now the world’s largest sup- and better disease control. Indian phar- Women’s healthcare often tends to be husband, colleagues, and friends. The audiences by a wide margin. nels have not been signifi-
plier of generic medicines, offering qual- maceuticals are going to evolve both in ignored. So, this study on menopause was surprising element of the study indicates “The spike in regional view- cantly impacted by the rise of
ity and affordable medicines, and this is physical and as well as in digital space. conducted across seven metro cities, and that more than 90% of husbands said they ership can be attributed to the OTT, Mantha added.
important for people to lead a healthy life Would the recent cough syrup con- more than 1,200 participants were inter- would want their wives to discuss meno- movies genre, which increased A senior broadcast network
not only in India but also outside India. troversy affect India’s pharmaceu- viewed, including the husband, daughter pause with them upfront and open. by 12-15%. On the other hand, executive, seeking anonymity,
The next phase will be innovation. We tical sector? and daughter-in-law of females in the age Do you plan any solutions or medi- GEC channels were primarily said the complete transition of
are already on newer drugs and the way I would not like to speak on this. But at group of 45-55 years. The whole motto of cal interventions based on the find- responsible for the decline in TV viewers to OTT is still some
‘
drugs are being delivered to the patients, Abbott, our main priority is to focus on the survey was to look at what are the ings of the menopause survey? viewership in Hindi segment. time away, even for Hindi.
i.e., patient-friendly delivery. For exam- quality. For us, drug quality is para- needs, perceptions and At Abbott, we are
ple: From the difficulty in swallowing mount and therefore, we feel that we are experiences of a woman already into treatment
big-size tablets to smaller tablets to doing the right thing. dealing with meno- I think India has therapies for women’s
chewable tablets to something more Tell us about Abbott India’s part- pause. As of now, the progressed in the healthcare. The com-
compliant in terms of nerships and expan- understanding of men- delivery of drugs to pany generates many
consuming. Another
example is an injectable
m INTERVIEW sion plans.
We continue to collab-
opause among people is
not very high. The find- patients and is also
pharma interventions
for women’s health in
formulation to be con- orate with medical socie- ings indicate that more looking to digital as a mensuration, post-
verted into a syrup formulation or a ties to ensure that people adhere to treat- than 80% of females felt tool to reach people partum, menopause,
syrup formulation into a readymade ment compliance, as in most cases, peo- that in addition to the pregnancy, IVF, infer-
Dr. Parag Sheth
syrup formulation so that the patient can ple stop treatment in between. We have physical health symp- Regional medical director of tility etc., and has got a
mix water and consume it. So, various partnerships with the Thyroid Society of toms, the woman also Abbott India very wide portfolio in
innovative ways are being worked upon. India, the Diabetic Society of India etc. As experience issues in women’s health. Our
So, I think India has progressed in the a science-driven company, we continue their work and social focus is to facilitate
delivery of drugs to patients and is also to collaborate and expand. We have an life, and of course, family life. The woman strong conversations between health-
looking to digital as a tool to reach people R&D development which continues to is talking about it, but nobody is discuss- care professionals and women. Our tar-
and the target audience. This is not so explore new products and molecules. ing it with her. So, as a society, are we pre- get is to encourage women to talk
much about discovering new molecules Why did Abbot India conduct a ded- pared to talk about menopause? We want about menopause with their family
but also about making sure that people icated survey on menopause, and to initiate this conversation so that every members. Our objective is to create
adhere to medication for better impact what were its results? woman must able to talk openly with their awareness on the topic.
 06 WeDNesDay, 26 OctOber 2022
NeW Delhi CORPORATE LIVEMINT.COM

Air quality poor, Demand for

temporary, gig
but better than workers peaks
previous Diwalis amid festive
season rush
FROM PAGE 1
FROM PAGE 1
stubble to clear the way for the
next harvest makes air pollu- However, Chakraborty cau-
tion even more pervasive. tioned that the hiring scale-ups
“The AQI levels this year are would go down once the festive
comparatively lower compared season, which lasts till Decem-
with data of previous years around ber end, gets over.
Diwali. Episodic events like fire- Over the last couple of years,
crackers during Diwali and stub- the gig workforce has gained
OneWeb pips rivals in Saudi warns
against
satellite internet race depleting
oil buffers
Bloomberg
feedback@livemint.com
Sunil Mittal-backed firm aims to roll out satellite broadband services by mid-2023
S
audi Arabia’s energy
minister defended
Gulveen Aulakh OPEC+’s contentious
gulveen.aulakh@livemint.com decision to cut production,
SrihAriKotA, ANDhrA PrADeSh while criticizing major
importers for trying to tame

B
ble burning are always a concern prominence, with companies harti Group-backed OneWeb is prices by selling down their
for us. However, for stubble burn- providing insurance and bene- set to get the first mover advan- inventories.
ing, we have a comprehensive fits to attract them for shorter tage in the satellite broadband “People are depleting their
action plan that we have distrib- stints. market in India when it begins emergency stocks” and using
uted to states,” said Arvind Nauti- According to a report dated services in mid-2023, poten- it “as a mechanism to manipu-
yal, member secretary at the Children light firecrackers May 2021 by Assocham, India’s tially piping Elon Musk’s Starlink and late markets,” Prince Abdu-
Commission for Air Quality Man- during Diwali in Mumbai. AP gig sector is expected to expand Reliance Jio, which have sought licenses laziz bin Salman said at the
agement. to $455 billion at a compound to launch their own services. Future Investment Initiative
While the Central Pollution crackers. In the coming days, annual growth rate (CAGR) of “We expect services to begin in India by conference in Riyadh. “Losing
Control Board’s monitors smoke from stubble burning 17% by 2024 and has the poten- the middle of next year… this will provide emergency stocks may
showed particulate matter (PM) will again deteriorate the air tial to expand at least 2X the connectivity in geographies or terrains become painful in the months
level was lower than last year, it quality in Delhi-NCR. So, peo- pre-pandemic estimates. India that have no mobile connectivity,” Sunil to come.”
was above the daily safe limits of ple should continue to wear is also likely to have 350 million Mittal, chairman, OneWeb, said. Bharti Last week President Joe
60 ug/m3. Similarly, Mumbai, N-95 masks, which are best gig jobs by 2025. Global, the overseas arm of Bharti Enter- Biden announced another
Pune and Ahmedabad also suited to combat the side effects Recruitment firm Adecco prises, is OneWeb’s largest shareholder. release of barrels from US
showed ‘poor’ air quality, which of air pollution on days pollu- saw a 13.5% uptick in temp hir- OneWeb services were delayed due to reserves -- adding to the hun-
is likely to improve to ‘moderate’ tant levels are at dangerous lev- ing in October so far, compared the Russia-Ukraine war, as its launch from dreds of millions already sold
for the next two days, showed els,” said Dr. Bobby Bhalotra at with the same period last year. Russia was scuttled. The geopolitical ten- OneWeb chairman Sunil Mittal (left) said the company is not competing with mobile services. PTI by rich countries in recent
SAFAR data. While the air qual- Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in New For the July-September sions have cost the company $350 million months -- after OPEC+ agreed
ity was relatively better on aver- Delhi. According to the World period, when companies pre- and pushed the launch deadline by over a airlines by next year and is in talks for India through the satellites will be driven a surprisingly large output cut.
age, the air in some Health Organiza- pare for the festive season, year, Mittal said. However, OneWeb is still installing terminals contracted from Pan- by the contours of the spectrum alloca- The Organization of Petro-
neighbourhoods Cities such as tion (WHO), air temp hiring was 30.5% higher ahead of the competition—SpaceX’s Star- asonic in some Boeing 777 aircraft. tion, Spacecom policy and foreign invest- leum Exporting Countries and
was worse than in Lucknow, Jaipur, pollution kills 7 than in 2021. link services, Amazon’s Project Kuiper However, Wi-Fi could be offered at the ment guidelines. its partners, a 23-nation alli-
others. Doctors in Chennai and million people The war for talent is also (estimated global launch in 2026-27), ground level, for instance, in villages via Satellite broadband requires massive ance led by the Saudis and
Delhi said they Mumbai reported annually. Nine out pushing companies to offer Reliance Jio’s Jio Satellite Communica- satellite-enabled terminals, directly to the investment, so stakeholders will be keenly Russia, irked the White House
have been receiv- of 10 people extra incentives to retain their tions (for mobile personal communication consumers at 4G tariffs. “If a terminal can looking forward to policy clarity and cer- by opting to slash output by 2
poor air quality,
ing lots of calls breathe air that own staff. A senior executive at services) and the joint venture between be dropped in a village to provide, say, tainty,” Prakash said. OneWeb is awaiting million barrels a day at a meet-
from patients com- with AQI hovering has been polluted one of the leading staffing firms Tata’s Nelco and Canada’s the Spacecom policy, said ing on 5 October.
plaining about around 201 to 300 by traffic emis- said floor managers who get Telesat. NEED FOR A POLICY Mittal. India should allocate US officials said it came at
breathing prob- sions, industry, ₹20,000 a month could earn a “OneWeb will be the first spectrum administratively, “the worst possible moment”
lems. Medical agriculture and bonus about five times more if one to launch satellite broad- ONEWEB is awaiting THE firm’s internet SATELLITE internet and if it takes the auction given global inflationary pres-
experts said people infected by waste incineration. they clocked in extra hours band services in India,” said the rollout of the
govt’s Spacecom
launch will depend
on clarity from the
needs massive
investment, so
route, it should work for the sures, and Biden said there
covid or those having pre-exist- “The next 24-48 hours are during the festive season. Anil Prakash, director general policy, chairman government on stakeholders will be industry, he added. The busi- would be “consequences” for
ing respiratory illnesses are most very crucial for patients who are “In 2019, we had 20,000 of Satcom Industry Associa- Sunil Mittal said spectrum allocation looking for clarity ness case for satellite services Saudi Arabia.
at risk of severe pulmonary com- suffering from pre-existing lung open positions a couple of tion India. The large market is small, and high spectrum Prince Abdulaziz said the
plications in the coming days if diseases such as COPD (chronic months before the festive sea- created the need for satellite prices will not be viable for OPEC+ move was justified by a
air quality remains poor. inflammatory lung disease) and son, which we closed as the sea- communications, which provided an community Wi-Fi or share the services, it the industry. “We’re not competing with weak economic outlook and
“Today itself, we have had a asthma because rising air pollu- son got over. But this time, at opportunity to multiple satellite operators (tariffs) could be at par with 4G services,” mobile services. If the allocation of admin- the need to preserve spare
lot of patients in the OPD com- tion levels in Delhi can worsen any given point during the to launch services, he added. Mittal said. However, the launch will istrative spectrum has to happen, then it buffers.
plaining of chest tightness, their health condition. Such run-up to the festive season, OneWeb will focus on providing satel- depend on the two landing stations has to be designed in a way which works, There are “layers and layers
breathlessness, cough and people need to be extra careful,” there have been more than lite services for enterprises across indus- OneWeb has secured in India and, more otherwise will potentially miss out on sat- of uncertainty” when it comes
sneezing. This is because of said Dr Vikas Maurya, head of 30,000 open mandates that tries, Wi-Fi on airlines, emergency servi- importantly, some clarity on the spectrum ellite services,” Mittal said. to both supply and demand
high levels of pollutants in the the pulmonary department at continued even during Diwali,” ces and defence or military applications. allocation for satellite broadband from the The reporter was in Sriharikota at the and a “gloomier” outlook for
air due to the bursting of fire- Fortis Hospital in Delhi. the executive said. The company seeks to introduce Wi-Fi for government. “Capacity availability for invitation of Oneweb next year, the prince said.

Huawei probe Centre plans PLI scheme for Sunak becomes

third UK PM in
Walmart to raise $3 bn for Flipkart
was targeted
by China spies, power transmission sector 2022 amid crisis FROM PAGE 1

around $37 billion.

US alleges
FROM PAGE 1
you,” according to the complaint.
Later, in February 2020,
when the US added new charges
to the existing case against Hua-
wei, He wrote “And you know,
yesterday, the US department of
justice make a new lawsuit just
aim to [Huawei], can you talk
about this with your ex-college
[colleague] who work for depart-
ment of justice?” He allegedly
asked. “Evidences, next meas-
ures, or communication..., any-
thing about this are good, Thank
you very much.”
The government alleges He
and Wang first cultivated their
relationship with the law
enforcement employee, who is
not named, in February 2007,
before the employee started
working with the FBI.
A US magistrate judge on
Thursday approved warrants for
the arrest of He and Wang, both
Chinese citizens, on charges of
obstruction of an official proceed-
ing and money laundering. Their
current location is not known.
US prosecutors charged Hua-
wei in 2019, claiming it stole
trade secrets from T-Mobile USA
Inc. and committed bank fraud
by violating sanctions against
doing business with Iran. The US
expanded the case the following
year, adding racketeering con-
spiracy charges.
Mike Hong, a Huawei spokes-
man, didn’t immediately com-
FROM PAGE 1
under the Atmanirbhar Bharat
package to set up three manu-
facturing zones for critical
power and renewable energy
equipment across generation,
distribution and transmission.
India is also focusing on build-
ing self-reliance in emerging
technologies and promoting
domestic production of critical
equipment such as supervi-
sory control and data acquisi-
tion (SCADA), transformers
and batteries. The plan is to
have SCADA systems in all
urban areas and distribution
management systems in 100
urban centres.
The growing threat of
cyberattacks on India’s power
grid has also prompted the
government to consider set-
ting up a specialized computer
security incident response
team to thwart any attempt at
crippling the critical power
infrastructure, as reported by
Mint earlier. The specialized
team to stem any threat from
hackers will be set up and
housed under the Central
‘JICA projects to help Indian private sector break into Southeast Asia’
Shashank Mattoo &
Subhash Narayan
New Delhi
India has rolled out PLI
schemes for 14 sectors with a
total outlay of ₹2 trillion. MINT
Electricity Authority of India,
the country’s top power sector
planning body, with officers
having a background in com-
puter science and information
technology to be recruited
through Combined Engineer-
ing Services Examination con-
ducted by Union Public Ser-
vice Commission.
State-run Posoco oversees
the grid through the National
Load Dispatch Centre, five
regional load despatch centres
and 34 state load despatch
centres. The grid is under con-
stant attack, with at least 30
opment assistance plans, JICA
praised India’s contributions
to infrastructure building in
East Africa. This comes in the
backdrop of Japan’s develop-
events reported daily, as
reported by Mint earlier. Most
originate from China, Singa-
pore, Russia and the Com-
monwealth of Independent
States. Some high-profile
cyberattacks on India’s power
sector include those at state-
run Nuclear Power Corp. of
India Ltd’s Kudankulam
nuclear power plant, THDC
Ltd’s Tehri dam, West Bengal
State Electricity Distribution
Co. Ltd and at Rajasthan and
Haryana discoms.
The National Critical Infor-
mation Infrastructure Protec-
tion Centre oversees India’s
cybersecurity operations in
critical sectors, and the Indian
Computer Emergency
Response Team (CERT-In)
coordinates efforts on cyber-
security issues. The Union
power ministry, on its part, has
set up six Computer Emer-
gency Response Teams for
grid operation, thermal,
hydropower, electricity distri-
bution, transmission and
renewable energy. India also
has a National Cyber Coordi-
nation Centre.
FROM PAGE 1
ening Britain’s fragile econ-
omy and obliterating Truss’
authority within her party.
Sunak—at 42 the youngest
British leader in more than 200
years—acknowledged the scale
of his challenge as well as the
skepticism of a British public
alarmed at the state of the
economy and weary of a Con-
servative Party soap opera that
has chewed through two prime
ministers in as many months.
“I fully appreciate how hard
things are,” Sunak said outside
the prime minister’s 10 Down-
ing Street residence. “And I
understand, too, that I have
work to do to restore trust after
all that has happened. All I can
say is that I am not daunted.”
Still, the right-of-center
party’s divisions over immigra-
tion, relations with Europe and
other big issues, remain deep.
Allies of Truss and her scandal-
plagued predecessor Boris
Johnson who have been
demoted from government can
now nurture grievances from
Parliament’s back benches.
The planned fundraising will
help Flipkart build a war chest
to compete with aggressive
rivals Amazon India, Reliance
Industries’ Jio Mart and the
Tata group.
In the last funding round,
Canada Pension Plan Invest-
ment Board, the Singapore
government’s sovereign wealth
fund GIC, Japan’s SoftBank
Vision Fund 2 and Flipkart par-
ent Walmart led the capital
infusion, with participation
from Qatar Investment
Authority, Malaysia’s Khaza-
nah Nasional Bhd and Disrup-
tAD, China’s Tencent, Franklin
Templeton and Tiger Global.
However, according to the
latest fundraising plan, Wal-
mart is keen to bring in strate-
gic players who could not only
put in money to power Flip-
kart’s growth, but also provide
expertise to help Flipkart stay
in the country’s e-commerce
space.
Over the past three years, the
government’s digitization push
and customers’ preference for
online transactions amid the
pandemic have boosted the
zero emissions by 2070 and look to finance or do equity
also wants to provide power to participation in private pro-
the most vulnerable sections jects.
of society. Renewable technol-
ogies like green hydrogen and since 2011 and have six ongo-
Since Walmart acquired Flipkart in 2018, the e-tailer has expanded to
newer locations in India and added new product categories. REUTERS
businesses of e-commerce plat- Over the past year, Flipkart
forms such as Flipkart and has also started Flipkart Pay
Amazon. Later services and opened a
Since Wal- research and
mart’s acquisi- The planned development cen-
tion, Flipkart has fundraising will tre in Israel after it
expanded to help Flipkart build acquired Israeli
newer locations in a war chest to startup Upstream
India and added Commerce.
compete with
new product cate- As of July 2021,
gories to its online aggressive rivals Walmart owned
marketplace. For Amazon, RIL, Tata 72%, Tencent
example, Flipkart 5.3%, Tiger Global
now sells furni- 4.1%, founder
ture and a full range of grocery Binny Bansal 2.4%, CPPIB
items on its platform. The 2.2%, SoftBank 1.4%, Qatar
e-commerce company has also Investment Authority 1.3%,
added new warehouses to Microsoft 1.2%, and Accel Part-
deliver products faster. ners 1.1% in Flipkart.
promise for the neighbour-
hood. What is the thinking
behind these connectivity
We have been doing this efforts?
The development of the

ment about the new charges
related to the US probe.
The alleged efforts to interfere
in the prosecution escalated in
October 2021 when He and Wang
told the law enforcement
employee to give them details of
prosecution strategy meetings
with the US team in Brooklyn, the
US claims. The employee passed
to He a fake, single-page docu-
ment labeled “SECRET,” discuss-
ing a potential plan to charge two
current principals of the company
residing in China. He paid
$41,000 for the single page,
according to the complaint.
Chris Dolmetsch, Erik Larson
and Ava Benny-Morrison con-
tributed to the story.
This PDF was originally uploade To Teligram channel_ LBS Newspaper platform (https://t.me/LBSNEWSPAPER) Subscribe now to get this edition before anyone else!! Backup channel:@LBSNEWSPAPER
K
‘
ey infrastructure pro- ment agency looking to boost carbon capture technol- ing projects with a total Bengal bay is very important
jects funded by Japan its global investments in pri- ogy are being exposure of for India and other regional
like the Matarbari port vate sector projects to $15 bil- studied glo- $400-500 countries like Bangladesh,
in Bangladesh are expected to lion in the coming years, with bally, but we Renewable techs like million. Most Myanmar and Thailand. We
provide an entry point for a focus on Indian projects. are very keen green hydrogen and of these pro- are assisting the Bangladesh
Indian business to establish a Edited excerpts: to help intro- carbon capture are jects are in the government in building the
foothold in Which pro- duce these realm of social Matarbari Port because the
Southeast Asia, m INTERVIEW jects does the technologies being studied globally, impact. Glo- country does not currently
Japan Interna- JICA look to once they but we are very keen to bally speak- have a good deep-water port.
tional Coopera- push in India become eco- help introduce these. ing, we have With Matarbari, we would
tion Agency senior vice-presi- presently? nomically committed have a port that could be util-
Nakazawa Keiichiro
dent Nakazawa Keiichiro said. JICA has been working in viable. JICA Senior V-P
around $10 ized by the government and
By establishing a deepwater India since the late 1950s. Dur- We are also billion to pri- the Indian private sector as a
port in Bangladesh, JICA ing the first few decades, we looking to vate sector focus point to deliver goods to
hopes to connect India’s helped import electrical balance of payment support. What plans do you have increase our cooperation with projects and we are looking to parts of Southeast Asia.
north-eastern states to mar- equipment and build numer- Today, most of our collabora- for the future? the private sector. Even increase that to $15 billion in (For an extended version of
kets in the Bay of Bengal ous power projects to help tion with India is in the infra- Looking at the future, we though our loans are conces- the next few years. this interview, please go to
region, Keiichiro said in an industrialize the country. Dur- structure sector. We are also are definitely looking at the sional, the Indian government Certain JICA projects www.livemint.com)
interview. In a sweeping ing the 1991 economic crisis, proud of our projects in forest projects in renewable energy. is careful not to increase debt like the Matarbari port shashank.mattoo@live-
review of Japan’s global devel- we provided $300 million in restoration. India is looking to achieve net- levels too much. We will now seemed to hold much mint.com
 LIVEMINT.COM DEALS, TECH & STARTUPS WeDNesDay, 26 OctOber 2022
NeW Delhi 07

m MINT SHORTS
Apple issues new app store rules
Avendus expects deal Fintech Boom
Riding on the growth of UPI adoption, fintech firms are tipped to
capture a larger share of financial services from banks and NBFCs.
Market share of fintech in
consumer credit
Market share of fintech in
enterprise credit

volumes to rise in 2023

Banks NBFCs Fintech (in %) Banks NBFCs Fintech (in %)
for crypto and NFT payments 91 6 3 10
10
Apple Inc. updated its App Store guidelines on Monday with new $580 bn $1 bn $350 bn $800 bn
and clearer language explaining its policy toward cryptocurrency Total
valuation
Total
valuation 25 Total
valuation
32 Total
valuation 58
73
trading and non-fungible tokens. The California-based company
has no issue with crypto exchanges or any other apps that allow 90 84
FY21 FY26* FY21 FY26*
the trading of digital tokens and currencies—provided those
*FY26 figures are estimates Source: Bain & Co. India Fintech Report, 2022
exchanges have the requisite regional licences to operate where
the app is distributed. BLOOMBERG It will fully deploy its second fund and start raising its third fund next year Growth of UPI adoption in India
The NPCI's Unified Volume (in bn) Value (in ₹ cr) (right-hand scale)
Payments 25 4000000
Interface (UPI) is
SaaS company Impact Analytics Sneha Shah tipped to maintain
sharp growth
20
3000000
sneha.shah@livemint.com
raises $10 mn in Series B funding MUMBAI
among users and
businesses alike,
15
2000000
ISTOCK
as has happened 10

A
so far.
vendus Future Leaders Fund, 1000000
5
which has backed unicorns
such as Lenskart, Xpressbees, 0 0
Q2 FY23 Q1 FY23 Q4 FY22 Q3 FY22
Zeta and Licious, is looking to
Source: NPCI UPI Product Statistics
fully deploy its second fund,
SARVESH KUMAR SHARMA/MINT
raised in August 2021, by 2023. In an
interview, managing partner Ritesh
Chandra said it will start raising its third
fund next year.
Fintech valuations
“We are currently looking at divesting
from two to three of our investments from
the first fund beginning with the likely
to rise 3.5 times by
Bengaluru: Software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup Impact IPO of Bikaji Foods in November,” he said.
Analytics raised $10 million (about ₹82.6 crore) in a Series
B funding round led by Argentum Capital Partners IV, LP,
the company said. The funding will be used to expand the
From its $185-million (₹1,500-crore)
fund II, the firm has invested in companies
such as SBI General Insurance, Juspay,
FY26: Bain study
US-headquartered player’s AI-led forecasting products, Lenskart, Zeta and Licious, among others. Shouvik Das ments Interface (UPI) services.
scale its sales and marketing operations to meet rising It has deployed almost shouvik.das@livemint.com The National Payments Coun-
demand. PRIYAL MAHTTA 50% of fund II. NEW DELHI cil of India (NPCI)’s mobile-
Earlier this year, it linked payment system wit-

F
bought a stake in So far, Avendus has deployed almost 50% of its second fund worth $185 mn. ISTOCK inancial technology start- nessed aggregate growth rate
Microsoft eyes Chinese content logistics service provider Xpressbees from ups, or fintechs, are set to of over 75% annually since its
Elevation Capital for ₹195 crore in a sec- The fund’s mandate is to write growth- emerged as an alternative to global pools grow at a fast pace on the launch. In September, UPI hit
to take on Sony’s ‘Genshin Impact’ ondary transaction. In secondary deals, a and late-stage cheques of ₹150-200 crore. of capital. In 2021, several rupee-denomi- back of rising credit demand a record monthly transaction
Hong Kong: Microsoft Corp is stocking up on Chinese video large number of shares are transferred or At a time liquidity has dried up, and Aven- nated funds, such as OAKS Asset Manage- from Indian businesses as well value of ₹11.2 trillion, according
game content to emulate Sony Group Corp’s success with “Gen- sold by a shareholder to another at a dis- dus’ global peers are conserving cash, the ment, Xponentia Capital Partners, IIFL as consumers. to NPCI data. UPI payments for
shin Impact”, sources said, solidifying China’s transition from a count to primary valuations, and the firm is looking at more investments. Asset Management and Edelweiss, raised According to Bain and Co.’s merchant and peer-to-peer
land only of players to a hub of blockbuster developers.The money does not go to the company. It has consciously stayed away from sec- capital. Besides, investment options have India Fintech Report 2022, (P2P) transactions reached
action role-playing game from budding Shanghai studio miHoYo “We are finding interesting opportuni- tors where “either the gestation is long, or broadened, and the fund sizes have also published on 19 ₹32.5 trillion in
has generated billions of dollars since its release two years ago, ties in both primary as well as been inching up. October, the boom Q2FY23, up 71%
and raised the bar in multi-player, cross-platform games— the secondary deals right now. STEPPING UP Avendus Future Leaders in smartphone from ₹19 trillion in
type sources said Microsoft and Sony seek in China for their Some deals in insurance, con- Fund with a five-year invest- adoption in India, the year ago.
Game Pass and PlayStation Plus subscription services. REUTERS sumer and healthcare are in FROM its second EARLIER this year, it THE fund’s mandate ment window has the option set to breach 1.1 billion units by Rakesh Pozhath, partner at
the pipeline. We may close two fund, Avendus has
invested in Juspay,
bought a stake in
logistics company
is to write cheques
of ₹150-200 crore
to extend the tenure by up to FY26, could push the net valua- Bain & Co., said software-as-a-
to three deals by the end of this Lenskart, Licious, Xpressbees from for growth- and two years. It invests in com- tion of fintech services by 3.5 service and fintech infrastruc-
Green Frontier, LetsVenture, Ivy financial year,” Chandra said. among others Elevation Capital late-stage startups panies across sectors such as times in India, from $100 bil- ture providers, servicing legacy
By then, it may deploy over digital, financial services and lion to $350 billion in four banks with digitized services
Growth invest in EMotorad 70% of its second fund. consumption segments. years. By 2026, fintech startups may grow at a brisk pace. Firms
New Delhi: Electric vehicle startup EMotorad, on Tuesday “We may raise our next fund sometime there is lack of clarity on unit economics”. With funding drying up, there are lot of may account for 15% of domes- providing credit to small busi-
announced that it has raised ₹24 crore in pre-Series A round led in 2023.” The first fund is sitting on an Chandra said the Indian market is likely opportunities in the market as matured tic financial services industry, nesses are also expected to
by climate-focused investment firm Green Frontier Capital attractive internal rate of return, he said. to bounce back faster. “India continues to growth-stage companies are looking to up from 7% now. Bain expects grow at 15% annually.As banks
(GFC), LetsVenture and Ivy Growth Associates.The Pune-head- Avendus’s $50-million fund I, launched be more or less resilient and, with so much raise capital at lower valuations, while ear- India’s financial services mar- and non-banking financial
quartered startup plans to use the funds to accelerate business in 2019, has backed Lenskart, Delhivery, dry powder to be invested, we expect deal ly-stage investors in these companies are ket to grow from $1.3 trillion companies digitize services,
growth, hire talent and scale the business. The company also VerSe Innovation, Bikaji Foods, National activity to pick up next year,” he added. looking to cash out. Avendus is looking to now to $2.3 trillion by FY26. there is a gap in financing con-
plans to add an application to existing e-bikes that will let users Stock Exchange and Ujjivan Small Domestic institutional investors such as cash in on these secondary transactions to Its estimates are in line with sumer purchases and enter-
access health and cycle community features. AMAN RAWAT Finance Bank, among others. family offices and large corporates have fill in the funding gap. the projection for Unified Pay- prise business plans, he said.

Nomura’s Ambrish Singh joins India is most

significant
Davidson Kempner’s India team for all new
Beena Parmar and equity strategies including features: Meta
beena.parmar@livemint.com special situations as well as real
MUMBAI assets across the capital struc- PTI
ture, and in public and private feedback@livemint.com

A
merican alternative markets. It is exploring oppor- KOLKATA
investment firm David- tunities across equity and debt

son Kempner Capital
Management LP has roped in
Ambrish Singh , former Nom-
ura investment head, as part of
its Mumbai leadership team to
expand its business in India.
Last December, the New
York-based investor launched
its local arm, Davidson Kemp-
ner Investment Advisors India
Pvt. Ltd. It has leased an office
space at Bandra Kurla Com-
plex in suburban Mumbai.
Singh stepped down as the
managing director for global
loans and principal
investments at Nom-
ura. He also had a stint
in American private
equity major Lone Star Funds as
the head of India operations. He
was part of the credit and special
situations business at Bank of
America Merrill Lynch for India,
The global investor set up its
Indian arm last year. ISTOCK
Southeast Asia and Australia.
Dhruvin Kapasi had joined
Davidson Kempner from Edel-
weiss Alternative Asset Advis-
ors in June 2021, and recently
Northern Arc Capital execu-
tive Dhvaneel Shah also joined
the team in Mumbai.
Two people in the
know said the alter-
native asset manager
is bullish on India and is plan-
ning to expand its credit and
investment business here.
Davidson Kempner invests
out of its global funds in credit
transactions in India, and may
have closed debt deals of over
$500 million, said one of the
people seeking anonymity.
Email queries to the com-
pany did not elicit a response.
Singh did not respond to calls
and messages.
Last year, Davidson Kemp-
ner had co-invested in belea-
guered Jayaswal Neco Indus-
tries to buy 100% of its debt.
Previously, it had also picked
up the debt of GTL Infrastruc-
ture, Noble Group and Jindal
Steel and Power’s Australian
arm, among others.
Founded by Marvin David-
son in 1983, Davidson Kemp-
ner manages assets of $38 bil-
lion. It forayed into distressed
opportunities via a hedge fund
in 2005, and launched its pri-
vate credit vehicle last year.
I
ndia is the most significant
country for Meta in terms of
the new features across its
platforms, including Facebook,
Instagram and WhatsApp, a top
company official said.
Meta has also provided a
great opportunity for numer-
ous brands and millions of cre-
ators to express their creativity
and build audiences in India
through short-form videos,
said Manish Chopra, director
and head of partnerships for
Facebook India (Meta).
“India is a very critical market
for our platforms from multiple
dimensions. A lot of new product
learning and incubation is done
here, and ‘Reels’ is an example of
that... this is the market where
we have done the most amount
of testing of new product fea-
tures,” Chopra added..

Coforge seeks to raise India headcount

Abhijit Ahaskar market to operate in and to get of the lowest because of the
abhijit.ahaskar@livemint.com money. It is 2.7% of our global investments we made (attri-
NEW DELHI revenue. We are using it as a tion was 18% in Q1). We haven’t
base to develop capability, and just matched compensation,

I
ndian IT services companies encourage developers here to but outsized them for the last

have reported double-digit
growth from the year ago in
recent quarters despite an eco-
nomic slowdown across North
America and Europe. Noida-
based Coforge, too, reported
24.8% year-on-year growth in
revenues to ₹1,959.4 crore in the
September quarter. In an inter-
view, chief executive Sudhir
Singh shared his views on key
areas of growth, moonlighting,
and hiring plans.
Edited excerpts:
Which areas con-
tributed most to growth?
The three verticals that con-
tribute 75% to our revenue are
banking, insurance, and travel.
Banking grew 14%, insurance
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‘
start dabbling in metav- two years.
erse technol- How are you
ogy. We have addressing
also opened a India comprises 2.7% of skills’ gaps?
centre of our global revenue... Our hiring
excellence for We are encouraging will be in line
both metav- with growth.
erse a n d our developers here to Our head-
5.5% and travel 4.9% sequen- Web3. start dabbling in count will rise
tially. Europe led the charge, What’s your metaverse technology by 4,500 on
Notice Inviting Global E-TENDER
but other regions, barring view on the technol-
Sudhir Singh (ID:561370)
India, too, contributed. Our moonlight- CEO, Coforge ogy side in 12 Gujarat State Aviation Infrastructure Company Limited,
wallet share within ing? months, while (GUJSAIL) A Govt. of Gujarat Undertaking, GUJSAIL Complex,
large banks is There is no campus hir- Nr.Torrent Sub Station, SVPI Airport, Ahmedabad- 380 004.
Ph. No.079-22882000 / 71
increasing. ambiguity in our mind on ing grew six times. Our global
GUJSAIL invites Global e-Tenders for “Procurement of Amphibious
India is witness- whether our employees can headcount is 23,000, out of Sea Plane on Finance Lease Mode.” Through ETendering Portal.
ing rapid digital transfor- moonlight. We don’t want our which 80% are in India. We are Last Date and time of Submission of bids is 12th December, 2022 up
mation. Any plan to expand employees to do that. addressing the skill gap by set- to 1800 hrs. For detailed information log on to n-procure portal :
here? How are you addressing ting up tech-specific learning www.nprocure.com or GUJSAIL website: www.gujsail.gujarat.gov.in.
We are not pushing into the employee attrition? academies and bringing train- Further clarification / corrigendum if any, will be notified through
n-procure portal.
Indian market. It is a difficult At 16.4%, our attrition is one ers from outside.
 08 WeDNesDay, 26 OctOber 2022
NeW Delhi GLOBAL LIVEMINT.COM

m MINT SHORTS
Apple cutting back production of
Adidas cuts ties with Kanye West
iPhone 14 Plus over weak demand
Apple Inc is cutting back production of iPhone 14 Plus and is
increasing the output of the more expensive iPhone 14 Pro due The company, which will absorb a hit to earnings of €250 mn, took this step over Ye’s rash of offensive behaviour
to lukewarm demand for the mid-range model, market research
firm TrendForce said Tuesday. The share of more expensive
iPhone 14 Pro series has increased to 60% of the total output from Bloomberg That success, however, came with lending his name to Adidas as they
the initially planned 50%, and it could rise to 65% in the future, feedback@livemint.com plenty of acrimony between the part- launched their first Yeezy shoe
the report said. Apple did not immediately respond to a Reuters’ ners. Ye has accused Adidas of copy- together in 2015 — a partnership that

A
request for comment. REUTERS didas AG will absorb a hit
to earnings of up to €250
million ($247 million) to
China to promote foreign end its partnership with
Ye following a rash of
investment in manufacturing offensive behaviour from the rapper
Beijing: China said on Tuesday that it will promote foreign and designer that turned a once-
investment with a focus on manufacturing industries, after thriving shoe brand into a lightning
President Xi Jinping called in China to “win the battle” in rod for criticism.
core technologies during the Communist Party Congress The German sports company said
that ended over the weekend. China will encourage foreign it’s cutting ties with Ye, formerly
enterprises to invest in high-tech equipment and compo- Kanye West, with immediate effect,
nents, according to a statement published on the website confirming an earlier story by Bloom-
of National Development and Reform Commission, China’s berg News. By way of comparison, the
powerful planning agency. China will also strengthen blow to earnings this year would be
financial support for foreign enterprises, including fund- equivalent to about a sixth of last
raising by eligible enterprises through listings on China’s year’s net income from continuing
stock markets, the statement said. REUTERS operations.
“Ye’s recent comments and actions
have been unacceptable, hateful and
US considers HAWK air defence dangerous, and they violate the com-
pany’s values of diversity and inclu-
equipment for Ukraine sion, mutual respect and fairness,”
Washington: The United States is considering sending older the company said in a statement.
HAWK air defence equipment from storage to Ukraine to help Adidas will terminate the partner-
it defend against Russian drone and cruise missile attacks, two ship with Ye, end production of
U.S. officials told Reuters. The HAWK interceptor missiles would Yeezy branded products and stop all
be an upgrade to the Stinger missile systems - a smaller, shorter payments to Ye and his companies, it
range air defence system - that the United States has already sent said.
to blunt Russia’s invasion. The Biden administration would use Adidas joins Gap Inc. and Kering
the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) to transfer the SA’s Balenciaga fashion label in
HAWK equipment which is based on Vietnam-era technology, severing links with Ye. The rapper
but has been upgraded several times. REUTERS has made controversial statements,
Adidas will terminate the partnership with Ye, end production of Yeezy
branded products and stop all payments to Ye and his companies
including antisemitic social media
posts in recent weeks, and has moved
to cut ties with his corporate partners.
Ye didn’t respond to a request for
comment.
Adidas shares, already weighed
down by the controversy, fell as much
as 5.8% in Frankfurt trading, reaching
the lowest since 2016.
The Adidas decision follows weeks
of deliberations inside the company,
which over the past decade has built
the Yeezy line — together with Ye—
into a brand that’s accounted for as
much as 8% of Adidas’s total sales,
AFP
according to several estimates from
Wall Street analysts.
The German company said it’s the
“sole owner of all design rights to
existing products, as well as previous
and new colorways,” under the part-
nership. It plans to offer more details
as part of third-quarter earnings on
Nov. 9.
Adidas earlier this month had
called the partnership “one of the
most successful collaborations in our
industry’s history” and said it would
continue co-managing Yeezy prod-
ucts during its review.
ing his ideas and mismanaging the went on to make him a billionaire.
brand, and taunted outgoing Chief Along with Beyonce, Stella
Executive Officer Kasper Rorsted on McCartney and Pharrell Williams,
social media. Meanwhile, Adidas has West’s has been one of the top names
said it repeatedly tried and failed to used by Adidas to boost sales, espe-
resolve issues with Ye privately. cially online.
The rapper said in September he Adidas had come under increasing
wanted to negotiate with Adidas to pressure from rights campaigners
get a 20% royalty on all the shoes he’s and entertainment world figures to
designed with the company in perpe- stop working with West, told the
tuity. RND media group before Adidas’s
Ye caused more controversy after announcement that West’s words
that by wearing a shirt at the Paris could “not be tolerated”, urging the
fashion week that said “White Lives company to end its commercial rela-
Matter.” He later got locked out of his tionship with the rapper.
Twitter and Instagram accounts after Ari Emanuel, CEO of entertain-
making repeated antisemitic remarks ment agency Endeavor, similarly
— remarks that have created a grow- called on all companies to cut ties
ing backlash from consumers and with West.
celebrities, with some calling for peo- “Those who continue to do busi-
ple to boycott Adidas products until ness with West are giving his mis-
the partnership is cancelled. guided hate an audience,” Emanuel
The Ye controversy is one of many wrote in the Financial Times. “There
headaches for Adidas, which is should be no tolerance anywhere for
searching for a new CEO to take over West’s anti-Semitism.”
in 2023. The company has lowered its West’s ex-wife Kim Kardashian
earnings forecast several times this appeared to be joining the pile-on,
year amid falling demand for its shoes though her tweet did not mention the
and apparel in China and growing father of her children by name.
signs of economic trouble in Europe “Hate speech is never OK or excus-
and North America. able,” she wrote on Twitter and Insta-
The artist was associated with Nike gram on Monday.
for years but broke away in 2013, AFP contributed to this story

DELHI JAL BOARD, GOVT OF NCT OF DELHI

OFFICE OF THE CHIEF ENGINEER (WW)-II/EE (E&M) II
WAZIRABAD WATER WORKS, TIMARPUR, DELHI-110054
E-Mail: eeemww2.djb@nic.in
Public Notice
Due to replacement of weak/damaged portion of 900 mm dia Punjabi Bagh main (1500 mm dia) header line from 3rd 40 MGD
plant with allied work at Wazirabad Water Works. The supply in the said main will be stopped on 27.10.2022. The water
supply shall be affected in the evening of 27.10.2022 to morning of 28.10.2022 in the following areas:-
Gopal Pur, DDA SFS Flat Mukharji Nagar, Gujrawala Town area, Police Station AzadPur, JJ Cluster Azadpur Mandi, Shalimar
Bagh Area, and Wajirpur Industrial area near Metro Station, Wajirpur Industrial Area, Lawrance Road, & Punjabi Bagh Pumping
Station and their adjoining Areas.
The following emergencies may be approached for water tankers. PROPERTY SOUTH DELHI SOUTH DELHI DLF − SUSHANT LOK SOUTH DELHI
Central Control Room : 1916/23527679/23634469 Ashok Vihar Water Emergency : 27304656
Punjabi Bagh Emergency : 25223658 Shastri Nagar Water Emergency : 23650040/23653033 NORTH DELHI DLF 1 & 2 M-54, GK-2, Independent House
Basement Hall Ground floor, First
Kewal Park Emergency : 27677877, 27681578 Chandrawal Water Emergency : 23814338/23810930 G16 G17 K12 200y Floor & Second floor 3 BHK each
Inconvenience caused to the Public is regretted. M 4 F3 F4 L18 300y floor facing Park suite for Company
Guest House # 9810783085
ISSUED BY P.R.O. (WATER) “STOP CORONA: Wear Mask, Follow Physical
A 24 C12 F10 500y
Advt. No. J.S.V. 384 (2022-23) Distancing, Maintain Hand Hygiene” Ex. Eng. (E&M)-II SEC 43 10Mrla 18m Cnr GREEN PARK Commercial Complex
SEC 42 14Mrla Cnr corner shop 300sq. ft super area
VASANT VIHAR park facing 400 yd VASANT VIHAR 600/400/270yds 3rd + with good ambience free parking.
second floor 4 BHK+ 1 SQ+ 3 car Terrace; Anand Niketan 270/200 All S Lok 1 B blk East 500y Suits food brand. Contact
parkings on stilts, Very reasonable Floor; Westend 500 All Floor,800 SF; GREENWOOD 5 00y 9810035705,9811135705.
price. Sanjay Malik 9810039071 Shanti Nktn 1200 FF, 800 SF; Kothi North West 24 mtr Rd
Visit: www.malikestateagents.com all size Avlb these area 9899755500
Distress Deals Avl in DLF 1- 4 GEETANJAI ENCLAVE F-14 First Floor

CHIRAG
of 3 bedrooms, attached bathrooms
A -1/161, S J E - 300 Yds, Second Floor Drawing and dining, kitchen, store
4 Bedroom D/D, Lift,S.Q, Exclusive room, parking on 337 yards

ESTATE
2 car parking, 3 Years Old For Call # +919891167046 (Singh)
Immediate Sale.Brokers welcome
Tinku Jha 9990890264,9958641997.
S I N C E 1986 KAILASH HILL 176 Corner Adjoining
9871733233 Huge Parks Excellent Location
CENTRAL DELHI Newly Constructed ,4 Bhk attach
Bath, lift Rent @ 1.25 Lacs,
NEETI BAGH 325 yards independent Contact owner : 9354033521
House at Beautiful location. Gk 2,
house in 500y on wide road. Both Samay Chopra

98100-30722
confirmed deals. Puneet Bhogra CENTRAL DELHI
9810417610
MONEY TREE
R E A LT O R S COMMERCIAL SPACE Available for
Rent in Jhandewalan Extn Delhi-55,
URGENT REQUIREMENT: 250 To 300 1st Floor (2660sqft),Ground (3464

This festive season,

BUY /SELL 272/450/600/1600yd
Livable Kothies / Plot/ Model Tn/ BD
Estate / 400-4000 yds Villa Civilline
/ Shops 11x33 ft & 850 Gf+ 350 Mazz
Chandni Chowk 9873255806
BISHT PROPERTIES Pvt. Ltd. (Since
1980)Managed by Retd. Govt. officer.
RENTED PROP. in CP Ground Flr Area
2600 sq.ft Rent 7.50 Lakh per month
Leased to Govt. PSU Co. Fresh Lease,
3yrs Lock-in Units of 400sft Onwards
Rent 1.20 Lakh. Owner 9873340866
UDAY PARK 217y First Floor Excellent
for Lawyers office or residential Use.
Also, Gk 2, 300y Floor with separate NOIDA/GREATER NOIDA
gate parking. Near Park. 4brs.
Puneet Bhogra 9810417610
Sqyd Plot in DLF 1,2,4,5, Plots In sqft),Basement (2787 sqft).Contact
Udyog Vihar 450/1000/2000 Mtr us: 011-41523565, 9268192230
ready buyer. Money Tree Realtors
9810030722 Brokers Welcome.
CONNAUGHT PLACE Ground Floor,
Vijaya Building area 382 Sq. Ft & 9th
SUSHANT LOK-3 Plot, 419 sq.yards Floor Gopal Das Bldg area 900 Sq.
(Pvt Ltd Co. transfer) situated at Ft. Contact Owner:- 9810035127.
Main 30 Mtrs Sector Road, Block: A
@ 2.30L per sq. yd. Call: Owner:
9810001689.
NOIDA/GREATER NOIDA

Make
Sale, Purchase, Rent & Collaboration.
All Sectors in Rohini. 9811134984,
9650045100, 9999784468 MEERUT 4 FLOORS (total 18000sft), available
on co-working basis at A-Block,

Investment Opportunities
EAST DELHI
'HAPPY DIWALI' Sale, Purchase, Tolet:
Plots, Kothies, Floors, Flats, Shops,
Office, Factory: Madhuban to Vivek
MDA MIG Flat, Flat No.. B-305, Sainik
Vihar, Meerut, UP available for
sale. Area 94.85 Sq Mtrs. Contact :
9810146693 (Original Allottee)
LUXURY VILLA 18m North fcng Prk Fac
300m Sec61.B'ful Kothi Prk fac 200m Broker Excuse.
BEAUTIFUL FARMS /Vasant Kunj 1000
Sector-63, Main Road, 500mtr
from Sector-62 Metro Station,
(can be furnished as per Tenant
requirement). Cont. 9711169456.
COMM./ INDUS / Lab USE. Class Bldg.

count and grow your wealth.

Vihar, Delhi/ NCR Ghaziabad.
9818184100, 9718184100
WEST DELHI
VIKASPURI HOUSE for Sale, 200 Sqyd,
Block-A, Prime Location, Brokers
Excuse, Genuine buyer only call at
9811159668, 9246549182
Sec51 A. G blk 300m N/E Crnr & 18m
yds / 1 - 2.5 acre Rajokri / 1 acre DLF Rd Sec44. B Blk Prk Fcng 200 m Sec
/ 2.5 acre Radhe Mohan Drive / 1 / 99. 300-450m N/E Sec 47,48,92,93B.
0.5 Acre Defodil / 1 + Acre Dera
Mandi & near Around 9873255806
BUY/ SELL Yamuna Exp. Residential
Plots Sec-18,20,Gr.Noida Residential
/Indlustrial Plots Alpha, Beta, Gama,
Delta, P-3, Swarn Ngri, Sec-2, 3. Ghar
Sansar Prop. 9873731820,9871015111
SECTOR 18 main rd fully furn exclnt
office/ commercial space 25 seats
with big office chamber conference
Glass front for rent.Gr.Noida.Recomm
GOA for Mart/Show Rm/ Ware Hs / Mfd
of Electronic / Garment/ Pharma etc.
GF+FF=6500sf/35kw. Mb. 9811117647
LANDS AVAILABLE at Goa near by
Mopa International Airport, North
Goa Beach areas like morjim,
arambol, Anjuna etc. Call Pavan
GHAZIABAD
07774808462
COMMERCIAL SPACE available at GT
20 ACRE land near by Mopa Road, Ghaziabad at Viroha Garden
International Airport. Hotel (Thapar Plaza). 4000 sqft 1st

DOWNLOAD NOW
BUNGALOWS/ FLOORS available
for Sale- Anand Niketan, Westend,
Shanti Niketan, Vasant Vihar.
All Sizes. Freehold Clear Title.
Cont: Ashok Tiwari 9810002409
hall ladies gents toilet pantry indp
1st flr ready to move. # 9971438607
SECTOR 108 C - block plot
250 sq mtr near park /
green belt back. Contact:
9871800565/9717718658
FOR SALE. Farm Houses , Agriculture
best for resort and Hotel. Floor,10000 sqft 2nd Flr, 4000 Base-
Call Pavan 07774808462 ment & 13000 Terrace # 9999103538
FARM HOUSE GURUGRAM
Lands With All Facilities - Free Hold ,
@ 65 Lac to 1 Crore Contact
Guru Nanak Properties 9818246591 ,
9899102109.

200 SQ Yds Freehold, First Floor 3Side
open Commercial on Main Rd Bali
Ngr. Opp Metro Pillar-366 For Sale.
Cont. 9811032351, 9999993080.
2 BHK Ready to Move, 1st Foor,990sq.ft.
(2 Bedroom, 2 Toilet, 2 Balcony,
Drawing Room & Modular Kitchen)
Registry & Loan Avail. Ratan Park,
Opp. Kirti Nagar. # 7701961096
SOUTH DELHI
Scan QR code
to Download
SALCON ARUM, Jasola, Ground
Disclaimer: The image used is for representation purpose only. Floor shop for sale 438 sq.ft.
registry case Contact 9871800565/
9717718658
DERA MANDI : 2.50/ 1.5 Acre 5/4 BHK
Lush Green Lawns/ Pool/ Tube Well
Dera Mandi (1200 - 3000)y 6/7 BHK
Newly Built (1000-3000)y Plot@ 30K
9810017982, 8595150232, Bahlsons
KAILASH APARTMENTS flat for Sale
Near Kailash Colony Metro Station
1800 sq.ft, 3BR+Bath, D/D, Kitchen,
S/Qtr, lift, Pvt car park, water, power
backup, security. # 9810024997
SALE NEHRU ENCLAVE : 3 BHK , GF,
1Sq, 2 Pkg , 250 Sqyd. Next to Nehru
Enclave Metro, Semi Commercial,
@ 5.7Cr. WhatsApp. # 8860463383 /
8637369656 / 6294653033.
KOTHI 200/400/600YD Vsant Vr/
208/500/1000 GK 400/800yd Anand
Lok/ 300/ 450/500y SJE, SDA /512yd
Hauzkhs Enclv/840y Nitibg /250-800
yd Panchel Pk & Enclv 9873255806
FARM HOUSE: 1 Acre, 2.5 Acres, 5
Acres & Above. 1000,2000 Sq. Yds.
at Westend Green, Vasant Kunj,
Sultanpur, DLF Chattarpur, Dera
Mandi. Ravi Bhatnagar:9810081507
JAYPEE GREENS Parichowk Greater
Noida Golf Villas and Estate Homes
300, 500, 1000 sqyds. Call:
9971720158
GHAZIABAD
RENT/SALE COMMERCIAL Property
1st Floor & Lower Ground Floor 415
mtr. 4467ft. carpet at Main Road,
Corner Building, Sector-15,
Vasundhara Ghaziabad. Brokers
Welcome. Contact: 8595187979
A MIG Flat Gr Flr Newly Bulit, FF, Area
84.24 Sq Mtrs. Flat No. GK-4/171
Gyandkhand IV Indirapuram Gzb
available for sale # 9810146693
(Original Allottee) Broker Excuse.
GURUGRAM
3902 SQFT, Office on Sale, Sec 48
IRISH Tech Park, Sohna Rd, Rcptn
Area, 2 Conf room & 2 big Cabins,
6 seater Kitchen, Server Rm, 50+
Work Stations,Fuly Furnished
9891625969
DLF'S UN-USED, Fully Loaded, Ready
to Move, Luxury Apartments @ DLF
PRIMUS, Sec-82A, 3bhk-1818 sft &
4bhk-2308 sft-Happy Home Infra.
Pvt Ltd # 9999710715, 9811465111
INDUSTRIAL
PROPERTY
AN INDUSTRIAL Plot No-130, Ecotech-
VI, Greater Noida, Area 450 Sq mtrs
available for sale. Contact :
9810146693 (Original Allottee)
Broker Excuse.
TOLET
NORTH DELHI
FOR RENT- Upper Ground Flr, Prime
Location, Suitable for Bank/ Salon/
Retail Showroom. Area-2600 sq.ft.,
RP Block, Pitampura Opp. GD Goenka
School. # 9999905254 , 9811113251
WEST DELHI
FACTORY/ GODOWN/ Offices/ Ware-
House INDL/COML Naraina, Maya-
Puri, Kirti Ngr, Rama Rd, Najafgarh
Rd etc. Reqd Plots for Builders DLF-I,
II, III /S.Lok I & II #98100-06330
FOR LEASE Emaar Capital Tower 1 MG
Road Gurgaon, Inviting Brands/
MNC's in Retail & Office Space.
Contact 9818230051
UDYOG VIHAR 7000 ft for lease,
brand new interiors, NH-8 facing,
Signage available. Other tenants
MNC. Next to Radisson Hotel.
Covered car parks. # 9871098146
MATRIMONIALS
BRAHMIN
IVY LEAGUE MBA earlier worked USA
Invt Bkg,Consulting 37 looks younger
never married 5’9” since some years
self-employed India Both parents IAS
Retd highly educated professional
family m4013422@gmail.com
KHATRI
SUITABLE MATCH for 27 years 5'3"
Handsome Engineer Businessman,
Punjabi Khatri Affluent, Industrialist
Ambala Family, Contact: 8607777501

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 LIVEMINT.COM NeWs WrAp WeDNesDay, 26 OctOber 2022
NeW Delhi 09

TWEETS & QUOTES

Kaja Kallas Stella Kyriakides Theresa May
Joe Biden @kajakallas @SKyriakidesEU Former Prime Minister, the UK
President, the US Prime Minister, Estonia Commissioner, Health Congratulations Rishi Sunak
Covid certificate is a good & Food Safety, EU on becoming leader of Con-
We have more Asian-
Americans than ever example of EU cooperation. Given the challenges servative Party. Rishi will pro-
before in history...Thank Should create more digital we face, this shift to vide the calm, competent,
you for making Diwali a solutions and securely share more sustainable pragmatic leadership our
joyous part of American health data within EU to food systems is as country needs at this deeply
culture benefit people important as ever. challenging time..

‘Airlines missing STONING RITUAL Utkarsh SFB gets

repair support’ Sebi’s nod for IPO

A U
critical link is missing between the on- tkarsh Small Finance Bank has received
time performance of airlines and capital markets regulator Sebi’s go
necessary maintenance support of ahead to raise ₹500 crore through an
aircraft, aviation consultancy firm CAPA India initial public offering (IPO). The Varanasi-
has said at a recent webinar on airline headquartered Small Finance Bank’s (SFB) IPO
maintenance and engineering. is a complete fresh issue of shares and the
“High aircraft utilization targets that are entire proceeds will go to the lender, according
built into the network and schedule require the to draft red herring prospectus (DRHP).
support of effective maintenance. If not well- The lender may consider issue of securities
managed then schedule integrity can be aggregating up to ₹100 crore in a pre-IPO
impacted,” CAPA India has said. placement round. If such placement is
Indian airlines need to work strategically undertaken, the fresh issue size will be
with third party Indian maintenance, repair, reduced.
and overhaul (MROs) to ensure availability of The SFB, which filed fresh draft papers with
“mature” maintenance capability in the Sebi in August, obtained its observation letter
country to deliver cost and efficiency benefits, on 21 October, an update with the Sebi showed
CAPA India said. “Airlines must carefully on Tuesday.
compare OEM maintenance contracts with In Sebi’s parlance, obtaining its observation
independent contracts. Independent contracts letter implies the markets watchdog’s approval
provide flexibility and competition,” it said. to launch the IPO. PTI
ANU SHARMA

People pelt stones during the traditional ‘Patthar Mela’, celebrated a day after Diwali, at Dhami in Shimla district onTuesday. PTI

WhatsApp’s one hour outage Tata plans to start producing green steel in 2030
at its plant in Ijmuiden, the Netherlands. MINT
New enrolments rose to 14.9 mn in 2021-22.

ESIC adds 1.46 mn

ISTOCK

takes toll on small businesses Tata Steel’s Dutch

arm inks Ford deal
new members
T
ata Steel’s Dutch arm plans to supply Ford

A
round 1.46 million new members joined
the Employees‘ State Insurance
Corporation or ESIC-run social security
scheme in August 2022, according to an official
data released on Tuesday.
The latest data is part of a report—Payroll
plants in Europe with “green” steel after
WhatsApp is yet to disclose the reason for the outage that first surfaced at 12:30 pm 2030, under a preliminary agreement
reached by the two companies on Tuesday.
Tata Steel plans to start producing green steel
Sohini Bagchi and Shouvik Das ing users manually to procure client locations to since he works for a competing service, said that —or steel made without using fossil fuels—in
process their orders. while the outages among big tech companies are 2030 at its plant in Ijmuiden, The Netherlands.

Reporting in India: An Employment
Perspective - August 2022 —released by the
National Statistical Office (NSO).
It showed that the gross new enrolments
with ESIC rose to 14.9 million in 2021-22, from
11.5 million in 2020-21. It was 15.1 million in
2019-20 and 14.9 million in 2018-19.
The report said gross new enrolments with
ESIC from September 2017 to July 2022 were
72.2 million.
The NSO report is based on the payroll data
of new subscribers of various social security
schemes run by ESIC, the Employees‘
Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) and
Pension Fund Regulatory and Development
Authority (PFRDA).
According to the report, net new enrolments
with retirement fund body EPFO stood at 1.69
million in July 2022. SAURAV ANAND
O
n Tuesday, popular Meta-owned
messaging service, WhatsApp, went
out of service for an hour — sending
small businesses that are increas-
ingly reliant on the platform into a
limbo.
According to industry experts, such conditions
could be increasingly common as small ventures
reliant on platforms to distribute their services.
The WhatsApp outage is the latest among multi-
ple outages of global platforms such as Facebook,
Google and content delivery network (CDN) pro-
vider, Cloudflare.
“The brief outage was a result of a technical error
on our part and has now been resolved,” a Meta
company spokesperson said.
Users who have started increasingly relying on
the platform for their ventures faced the heat.
Kolkata-based baker, Pooja Kaur, ended up call-
A larger impact was noted by Mumbai-based not very frequent, occasional outages are inevita- Ford “wants to have a considerable amount of
Sanjay Das, senior claims manager at Max Life ble. green steel, and ... we will take steps so that we
Insurance, who noted that the outage caused the “The nature of technology is such that even will be able to deliver it,” Hans van den Berg,
day’s work schedule to get delayed — and even when you have redundancies in place, which all chief executive of Tata Steel Nederland, said in
postponed to the major tech compa- an interview. The MoU signed between Tata and
next day. nies do, there will be Ford of Europe does not oblige Ford to buy a
Explaining the WhatsApp has over 450 mn active downtimes that specified amount of steel at a specified price, he
reliance on the mes- users in India, while nearly a third of affect users and ser- said. Separately, Ford said it had also signed
saging service, Das vices,” he said. supply MoUs with Tata, ThyssenKrupp and
said, “We had inter- its business users are also in India. As WhatsApp Salzgitter to supply “low carbon” steel for use in
nal reporting plus This makes its outages significant resumed after over manufacturing the new electric crossover
clients meeting on an hour of disrup- model it plans to start producing in Cologne
some important pol- tion on Tuesday, next year. REUTERS
icy coverage and all those communications happen users complained they were unable to send and
on WhatsApp.“ receive messages. Down Detector, a website that
WhatsApp has over 450 million active users in tracks online outages across the globe, said the
India, while nearly a third of its business users are report first surfaced at 12:30 pm, with the number
also based here. This makes its outages significant. crossing 30,000 reports by 1 pm.
DLF plans ₹3,500 cr
A senior executive, who requested anonymity sohini.bagchi@livemint.com
worth of properties

R
ealty major DLF plans to launch new
CDSL Q2 net profit projects worth ₹3,500 crore during the
Kharge to take Congress reins today second half of this fiscal, mainly in
falls 7% to ₹80 cr Gurugram & Panchkula as it seeks to tap a rising
demand. In an investors presentation, DLF
for the ceremony where party president informed that the company plans to launch

L
eading depository CDSL has reported a 7%
decline in its consolidated net profit to
₹80 crore in three months ended
September 2022. In comparison, the
depository had posted a net profit of ₹86 crore
in the year-ago period, Central Depository
Services (India) Limited (CDSL) said in a
statement.The company’s total income rose by
3% to ₹170 crore during the period under
review. The same stood at ₹165 crore in the
second quarter ended 30 September 2021.
According to the company, 4.8 million demat
accounts were opened in the September
quarter of the current fiscal. “The financial
performance this quarter continues to be
Kharge defeated Shashi Tharoor in the
Congress party president’s poll REUTERS
Sonia Gandhi will hand over the baton to
her successor, Mallikarjun Kharge, the first
non-Gandhi to head the outfit in 24 years.
Kharge defeated Thiruvananthapuram
MP Shashi Tharoor in a direct contest for
the top post in the grand old party after the
Gandhis opted out of the race.
Ahead of his taking over, Kharge called
on former prime minister Manmohan
Singh at his residence and spent some time
with him. On Wednesday morning Kharge
will pay homage to Mahatma Gandhi at
Rajghat and also visit memorials of former
prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal
Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv
residential projects across and Panchkula by
March 2023 after getting requisite approvals
from authorities. DLF plans to launch around 3
million sq feet area across residential projects.
DLF has completed inventories worth ₹3,222
crore and properties worth ₹5,622 crore in the
under-construction projects that have been
launched. On operational performance, DLF
said its sales bookings rose 62% y-o-y during the
Apr-Sep period to ₹4,092 crore from ₹2,526
Reliance Retail was running its toy distribution crore in the year-ago period. DLF Ltd has given
business through Rowan. HT guidance of sales bookings at ₹8,000 crore for
the current 2022-23 financial year, a 10%
Rel Retail to expand increase from the previous fiscal. PTI

affordable toys biz

V
strengthened by our sustainable long-term
strategy of investing in the digital eco-systems
and robust technology to provide all market
participants an easy and secured platform,”
CDSL MD and CEO Nehal Vora said. CDSL
facilitates holding and transacting in securities
in the electronic form as well as settlement of
eteran leader Mallikarjun Kharge
will formally take over as Congress
president on Wednesday after he is
handed over the certificate of election and
the baton by Sonia Gandhi at a function in
New Delhi. Hectic preparations were
underway at the Congress headquarters
Gandhi, besides former deputy prime
minister Jagjivan Ram.
Meanwhile, security personnel and
Bharat Bond ETF’s
R
workers made last-minute arrangements eliance Retail is expanding its business
in the Congress president’s office and on
the AICC headquarters lawns where a tent
into the fast-growing toy sector through
its brand Rowan to operate in the 4th tranche in Dec
was being put up. PTI affordable segment with a smaller shop size.

trades on stock exchanges.
Partial solar eclipse seen in several parts of the country
PTI The company was running its toy
distribution business through Rowan. It has
now brought this homegrown brand to the
front end by opening its first EBO (exclusive
brand outlet) at Gurugram in NCR in the last
quarter with a store size of 1,400 sq feet.
Under this new format, Reliance Retail, the
T
he government is planning to launch the
fourth tranche of Bharat Bond ETF,
India’s first corporate bond exchange
traded fund, in December, an official said.
The funds raised would be utilized for
undertaking capital expenditures by public
sector enterprises.

A
stronomy enthusiasts turned their gaze towards the sun as the moon retail arm of Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance “We are currently in discussion with CPSEs
started to cover the solar disc as a partial solar eclipse began on Industries, will have a range of affordable toys and assessing their needs. The issue size for the
Tuesday. not only from the brand Rowan on its shelves fourth tranche of Bharat Bond ETF could
The partial solar eclipse is being observed in several parts of the country but also from other brands, said an industry probably be close to last year’s,” the official told
with Srinagar witnessing the maximum obscuration of the solar disc at 55%. source. PTI.
The first contact, where in the moon begins to cover the solar disc, happened Reliance Retail also has the iconic British toy In December last year, the government had
at 4:29 pm in Delhi, where the moon was expected to cover 43% of the solar retail brand Hamleys in its fold. Hamleys is the launched the third tranche with a base issue
disc. Since the eclipse is taking place in the evening, the ending of the world’s oldest toy retailer and was acquired by size of ₹1,000 crore. It was over-subscribed 6.2
celestial phenomenon will not be visible as it would take place after sunset. Reliance in 2019, marking the first acquisition times with bids worth ₹6,200 crore coming in.
“A solar eclipse occurs on a new moon day when the moon comes in of a global retail brand by the company. The maiden offering of Bharat Bond ETF
between the earth and the sun and when all the three objects are aligned. A Hamleys would continue to operate in the was launched in 2019, helping CPSEs raise
partial solar eclipse will occur when the lunar disk covers the solar disk premium space, while brand Rowan would ₹12,400 crore. In the second and third
partially,” an official said. Government officials cautioned that eclipsed sun help Reliance Retail to tap the mid-premium tranches, it had raised ₹11,000 crore and
should not be viewed with the naked eye, even for a very short time as it could and mass segment with its affordable offerings, ₹6,200 crore, respectively. The ETF has raised
cause permanent damage of the eyes leading to blindness. PTI People watch the solar eclipse in Mumbai on Tuesday. PTI the source said. PTI ₹29,600 crore in its three offerings so far. PTI
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 10 WeDNesDay, 26 OctOber 2022
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REpORTAgE | TAlKINg pOINTs | IDEAs | INsIgHT | THE BOTTOMlINE

THE TRUE STORY

OF A FAKE NETWORK
Why a company with China links is under the scanner for setting up a maze of fraud loan apps and shell firms

Tauseef Shahidi
tauseef.s@livemint.com
neW deLHi

H
ow long does it take to resign
from a job? A 31-year-old
director of a technology firm
in Gurugram says he has
been trying to quit for close
to a year.
“I’ve been trying to get my name
removed [from the company’s rolls] but to
no avail. An ex-colleague, who had
onboarded me, kept delaying it, and now
his phone is always switched off,” the
Bihar resident told Mint over the phone.
He had joined Su Hui Technology Pvt
Ltd in Gurugram in August 2021 as
director, after months of joblessness. It was
a new firm—it had been incorporated a lit-
tle over a year ago. It promised him a
‘proper’ job once the company took off.
But he didn’t sign a contract, neither did
he receive any money for these director-
ships, nor get any job, he claimed. A couple
of months later, he panicked when he saw
a Chinese national mentioned as an ex-di-
rector at Su Hui. This was when the gov-
ernment had turned the heat on Chinese
companies, cracking down on loan apps
linked to China and increasing scrutiny of
foreign direct investment from Beijing.
The Su Hui director said that a sinking
feeling had set in: He realized he had been
a “dummy” director all this while.
His fears only deepened in September
2022, when Su Hui was named, along with
five other firms—Lillian Technocab Pvt
Ltd, Shigoo Technology Pvt Ltd, Mad-El-
ephant Network Technology Pvt Ltd, X10
Financial Services Ltd, and Nimisha
Finance India Pvt Ltd—by the directorate
of enforcement (ED) in an investigation
into crypto and loan apps.
The 31-year-old man said that he had no
awareness of Su Hui’s business, and has
not yet been summoned by an investigat-
ing agency.
But Su Hui appears to be only one Damning money and document trails from five shell companies lead to just one firm: Jilian Consultants India, based in Gurugram. HT
thread in a larger web of deceit.
Officials of the Serious Fraud Investiga-
tion Office (SFIO) under the ministry of
corporate affairs (MCA) suggest these com- seized “boxes filled with company seals and ian@gmail.com. But why would any legiti-
panies have come up on their radar too, as digital signatures of dummy directors”. mate company use the name of a service
mint
SHORT
JILIAN AND ITS WEB
part of a larger investigation into a racket of Prima facie, all the companies under provider in its official email ID? Are these STORY
HPZ Aliyeye Network Jilian Consultants
shell companies with Chinese links. investigation appear to have been incor- companies linked at the source if they Tech. Pvt. Ltd. Pvt. Ltd, Hong Kong
Token
The term “shell company” usually porated by Jilian, and to some extent were have the common ID? fraud Inc.: 30 Dec 2019
refers to a firm with no active business and “controlled” by it, said an SFIO official. In June and July 2021, two former WHAT Links with Jilian:
Email: corporatejilian@gmail.com
Fraudulent
is sometimes misused for tax evasion, “Control”, according to Section 2 of the directors of Shigoo sent their resignation 99.99% owns loan apps: Yo-Yo
money laundering, hiding ownership, etc. Companies Act, 2013, can also be indirect, emails to corporatejilian@gmail.com, Jilian Consultants India has been Cash, Tufan
The companies mentioned above have and not always through shareholding or marking a Jilian India employee. One of helping companies with Chinese Shigoo Tech. Pvt. Ltd. Rupees, Coco
Inc.: 14 Apr 2021 Cash
been involved in all kinds of app frauds management, argued the official. them even asked for the acceptance of the investment set up shop here Jilian Consultants India
Links with Jilian:
related to insta loans, crypto, job offers, The ED also suspects the involvement of resignation on the email, as if he was since 2017. It is now on the radar  Email: corporatejilian@gmail.com
Pvt. Ltd.
of ED and MCA for alleged links Inc.: 7 Aug 2017
gaming, dating, and so on, said the SFIO Jilian in companies involved in these frauds. reporting to his manager.  Emails sent to Jilian India employee Directors: Wan Jun (Chinese);
officials. More interestingly, damning Take, for example, the FIR (first infor- Two of the companies, Yellow Tune with several loan app frauds.  Endorsed by Rajni Kohli Dortse (Tibetan refugee)
money and document trails from these mation report) filed in October last year at and Mad-Elephant, used the same regis- Address: Gurugram
companies all lead to one firm: Jilian Con- the Cyber Police Station of Kohima, Naga- tered address in Bengaluru as that of Fin-
sultants India Pvt Ltd. This is the untold land, which led to the investigation by the inty Pvt Ltd, which is 99.99% owned by HOW Loan app
Rajni Kohli
Ex Company Secretary 99.99% owns
story of the company accused of spinning ED. The complaint, made on behalf of sev- Jilian India. The address is of a virtual or frauds at Jilian India
a big maze of shell firms and fraudulent eral victims, revealed they had been co-working space called BricSpaces, Investigators accuse Jilian of
loan apps—and its China connection. conned by WhatsApp messages promis- which confirmed that both Yellow Tune setting up multiple shell firms; Fininty Pvt. Ltd.
ing high returns if they invested in “HPZ and Fininty were recommended by a Del- they say it is central to a Inc.: 6 Nov 2019
maze of companies that have Su Hui Tech. Pvt. Ltd. Directors: Wan Jun, Dortse
How iT began tokens”, informed an official aware of the hi-based office solutions firm, Team Inc.: 9 Jul 2020
been found involved in many and others

J ilian Consultants India Pvt Ltd was

incorporated in August 2017 in Delhi,
and was later shifted to Gurugram. “We are
matter. The investigation revealed that
the HPZ token website was operated by
Lillian and Shigoo, said the ED in a press
CoWork. Both were registered at the
address within a span of two days in March
2021. Team CoWork confirmed that the
cases of loan app frauds.
Links with Jilian:
 Email: corporatejilian@gmail.com
 Endorsed by Rajni Kohli
Address: BricSpaces, Bengaluru;
recommended by Team CoWork

a Chinese-invested professional consult- release on 16 September 2022. Do Lillian original reference for both came through
ancy company in India, providing various or Shigoo have any connections with Jil- Jilian India. Mad-Elephant was recom- ALSO Yellow Tune Tech. Pvt. Ltd.
Inc.: 15 Sep 2020 Mad-Elephant Network
professional services to Chinese-invested ian? Here’s what Mint found. mended to BricSpaces through FlexiSpa- Predatory Links with Jilian:
A Mint investigation revealed Tech. Pvt. Ltd.
companies in India,” a Jilian India spokes- ces, which has not yet confirmed the origi- lending practices;  Same address as of Fininty Inc.: 15 Nov 2019
person told Mint over email. Simply put, it Follow THe Trail nal source of reference. several links between Jilian money diverted to  Registered on the address around the Links with Jilian:
India and companies accused crypto exchange

I
same dates as of Fininty  Email: corporatejilian@gmail.com
helped companies funded by Chinese n order to establish the nature of associ- BricSpaces stated that upon finding
 Recommended to BricSpaces  Same address as of Fininty
money to navigate legal and regulatory ation between the companies named in that many of these entities had misused of fraud, as well as a
by Team CoWork
requirements in the Indian environment. app frauds and Jilian India, Mint sifted the space, it sent a letter to the RoC, Ben- pattern of dummy directors Source: MCA, ED, Mint research
It was founded by Wan Jun (alias Aliena through the evidence. We found multiple galuru, in September this year asking for being used as fronts.
SARVESH KUMAR SHARMA/MINT
Wan), a Chinese national, and an Indian close links between Jilian and at least five the removal of addresses of 246 compa-
(Sridharan Unni Krishnan), who left the companies—Su Hui, Shigoo, Yellow Tune, nies, whose agreements had already
company after six months. His replacement Mad-Elephant and Aliyeye Network Tech- expired. Another 30 companies used the Affairs and RBI regulations. We did not the previous year. even if it’s discovered years later,” said one
of sorts, Sakshi Bansal, also left the com- nology India Pvt Ltd—named by the ED in address even without submitting proper incorporate any so-called shell company”. The officials squarely reject this line of of the SFIO officials. A number of these
pany in five months. One of its directors, its raids in August and September 2022. documents, it added. BricSpaces said that arguments. “How can the real owner of a were young men who were ignorant, but
Dortse, is one of the prime accused in the Su Hui’s and Shigoo’s incorporation it is a victim at the hands of these unscru- Dummy DirecTors company sitting in China perform transac- not all. Some of them acted out of greed,
MCA’s investigation and was arrested on 10 documents, accessed from the MCA web-
September. He is a
Tibetan refugee, and has
site, were endorsed and
signed by Rajni Kohli, a
pulous companies.
Another SFIO official, however, holds a
different view. “Over a period of time, they
S uspiciously, all these companies have
had multiple directors who stuck
around for just 4-6 months, as was true for
tions in India, without having any support expecting a kickback, though they did not
here?” asked the SFIO
official cited earlier. Any
call the shots, he added.
The ex-employee of
no family in India, said According to a former company secretary. She have provided their space to around 1,200 at least two ex-directors of Jilian. transaction requires Jilian India is a subsidiary Jilian quoted above
his school principal. Jilian India employee, the is a former employee, Jil- entities (both companies and proprietor- One such former director of Yellow facilitating agreements of Jilian Hong Kong, expressed his disap-
Even his official docu- ian admitted in its reply ships) for legal purposes. But it’s impossi- Tune Technologies admitted to Mint that and liaising with banks or pointment at the con-
ments mention the India employees never to Mint, but added that ble to simultaneously provide space to he had nothing to do with the operations non-banking financial according to the trasting fates of the own-
address of the school in directly interacted with she had “left a long time hundreds of companies. Each company of the company, but his signature is companies and payment documents uploaded on ers of Jilian (who are in
Mandi, Himachal Pra- ago”. These documents would require a locker because it is man- present on a few board documents. gateways here in India, China), and its India
desh, under his address clients. The Chinese were signed in June dated to maintain all official records (cer- In a few cases, the directors have been which were likely per- the MCA. But it denies any employees. “We are reg-
declaration. 2020 and April 2021. A tificates, board documents, financials, etc) rather young. For instance, Jilian India’s formed by Jilian’s local ularly being asked to
Jilian India is a sub- managers dealt with them. Facebook post by Jilian’s at its registered address.” BricSpaces said 99.99%-owned subsidiary, Fininty Pvt employees, he added. link with the latter. present ourselves for the
sidiary of Jilian Hong account establishes that that it charged a fee of ₹6,000 per annum Ltd, had in January 2021 a director who inquiry. We have no
Kong, which owns 99.99% of its shares, she was with the company until May 2021 for its service, which the official said was had just turned 18 in December 2020. THe scam jobs, and cannot look for a new one
according to the documents uploaded on at least. Kohli was arrested in June last
the MCA website on 27 October 2021. In year by Delhi Cyber Police for helping cre-
its official reply to Mint, however, the Jil- ate a number of shell companies. She was
too low for such a service in Bengaluru.
Fininty, Yellow Tune and Mad-Elephant
did not maintain a locker space with it,
According to a former Jilian India
employee, the India employees never
directly interacted with clients —they
H ow big is this racket? The SFIO officials because you never know when you would
say it is hard to pin a number down, as be called for the investigation.” And, what
“new facets and new players” are being was all this for? For a salary of a few thou-
ian India spokesperson denied it was a also listed, in a letter from February this confirmed BricSpaces. processed the paperwork and provided uncovered as the investigation progresses. sand rupees, he said.
subsidiary of Jilian Hong Kong. year by MCA, among many company sec- Jilian Consultants did not comment on the information needed. The Chinese By denying that Jilian India is a subsidi- The SFIO official said that while the
As of now, the SFIO investigation is retaries who had indulged in “professional any of the above linkages, when Mint managers dealt with the clients, many of ary of Jilian Hong Kong, are the big fish focus now is on 33 companies, “the net
focused on 32 companies, as well as Jilian misconduct”. This letter mentions both sought a response over email. them from China, he added. The Indian abandoning Indians to fend for them- could be expanded if required.” Is Jilian
India, which is the centrepiece of the Su Hui and Shigoo among several compa- In its earlier reply to Mint, it was directors (such as the 31-year old-man selves? Legally, officials say, the dummy the mastermind behind all Chinese-
entire puzzle, said SFIO officials aware of nies she helped create. emphatic that “it fully complied with all from Bihar) were usually a front, he admit- directors can be held responsible for the linked app frauds we have heard of in the
the matter. They did not want to be named. The official email ID on the documents relevant local Indian regulations including ted. The Companies Act, 2013, requires a malpractices at their company during last couple of years? “Even if it’s not the
Jilian’s office premises in Gurugram was of MCA for four out of five of these compa- (but not limited to) prevailing Companies private company to have a minimum of their tenure. “Companies work on the mastermind, it’s a key player,” said the
raided by the Registrar of Companies nies (Su Hui, Shigoo, Mad-Elephant and Act, Department for Promotion of Indus- two directors; at least one director should principle of legacy. An ex-director can first SFIO official. “And who knows, there
(RoC), Delhi, officials on 8 September. They Aliyeye) is the same: corporatejil- try and Internal Trade, Ministry of Home have stayed in India for at least 180 days in always be asked to explain something could be many Jilians”.
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NeW Delhi 11

How family members or legal heirs POWER

POINT
can trace deceased person’s assets S A N D E E P YA DAV

We welcome your views and comments at

mintmoney@livemint.com

WILL INDIAN YIELDS

Tracing such assets will not be easy without access to a deceased’s PAN and mobile phone, or email accounts
BUCK THE GLOBAL
Maulik M & Neil Borate
maulik.madhu@livemint.com On the trail of assets left behind by a family member
deceased, besides the death certifi-
cate and proof of relationship with
the deceased.
HAWKISH STANCE?
Different situations, different solutions

S W
ome people are very orga-
nized about their invest-
ments—they maintain
records, specify nominees,
and even keep their families
informed. But there are many who
spend much time agonizing over
where to invest, and also do not pass
on the information about their assets
to their family members. What hap-
pens when individuals die without
giving their families any clues about
their investments? Are there ways to
unearth information about a
deceased’s investments?
Family members or legal heirs of a
deceased can start by searching for
any physical documents, or get in
touch with their chartered account-
ant (CA) or tax advisor, if any. Else,
they can rely on the deceased’s
income tax return (ITR) or Annual
Information Statement(AIS). But, for
these, one needs access to that per-
son’s mobile phone and PAN. If you
do not have the PAN, is there a way
out? According to Nadiya Sarguroh,
principal associate, MZM Legal, LLP
one way to do this could be to apply
for re-issue of the deceased’s PAN
card as his legal heir. “This applica-
tion will most likely get rejected as
there is no defined process for re-is-
suance of a deceased’s PAN card. If it
is rejected, you could possibly reach
out to the courts in a writ jurisdiction
to issue a directive to the I-T authori-
ties to re-issue the deceased’s PAN to
the family members,” says Sarguroh.
Physical documents and IDs:
One can begin by searching for bank
and other investment documents at
home such as the deceased’s bank
passbooks or cheque books, diaries
with notes, or PAN card and bank
locker keys—all of which can come in
handy for tracing assets.
“We have seen that even people
who are relatively less organized,
tend to collect all their disorganized
material (documents) in one place.
This could be a drawer, box or shelf,
the one place where they put every-
thing,” says Vishal Dhawan, founder
& CEO, Plan Ahead Wealth Advisors.
Past bank statements can provide a
mine of information on income,
expenses and investments, including
interest income from deposits and
dividends from shares. Gaining
access to the bank account, however,
will depend on whether the claimant
is a nominee or not.
CA /tax advisor: Yet another cru-
cial source of information can be the
deceased person’s CA or tax advisor.
“The CA is likely to have lot more
details about a person’s investments.
He can give clues on bank accounts,
Investments in MFs in India are hen the US sneezes, the world catches a cold, goes the
What you have What you get handled by three RTAs - CAMS, saying. In the past year, we have seen many countries,
(belonging to the deceased person) (information on deceased's investments) KFintech and Franklin Templeton. along with US, catch a cold, but India has proverbially
Nothing Informally get information from banks, AMCs etc. about investments or apply for re-issue of Each RTA has a list of AMCs under it. only “sneezed”. The year has seen global central banks fight per-
deceased's PAN card. When this fails, then approach the courts.
So, to trace the investments you will sistent high inflation. This has led to a sharp rise in yields across
Physical bank documents Information on savings, and recurring and fixed deposit accounts have to approach all the RTAs. A sur- the globe. India, too, has witnessed an increase in yields. To put
Bank locker keys Property documents and valuables viving claimant must first approach this in context, India’s 10-year G-sec yield rose by 1.2%, whereas
the RTA with the death certificate the US 10-year treasury yield increased by 2.7%. This difference
Mobile phone SMSs from brokers/banks - get to know bank / broker name
and proof of relationship with the may be attributed to higher US inflation (above 8%) when com-
Mobile phone and PAN Log in to IT portal for ITR or AIS* - contains information on many investments deceased. “We first verify the death of pared to that of India (around 7%). Moreover, this is accentuated
Email ID and password Get access to bank statements, periodic updates from mutual fund houses and other entities** the investor to prevent any fraudu- as the US Fed has a lower inflation target compared to that of the
lent claims”, explained a CAMS Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
*ITR is Income Tax Returns. AIS is Annual information statement; **You may require deceased's PAN or date of birth as passwords to view these documents.
spokesperson. Once it is verified, the The rupee has also done well. While the rupee has depreciated
RTAs aid the surviving claimants to against the dollar, it has held its own against other emerging mar-
What Annual Information Statement contains Annual information Statement (AIS)
trace the MF holdings with the help of ket currencies. But can this trend continue? To answer this, we
It shows a taxpayer’s financial transactions during a year, is a mine of information
the PAN card, email address and per- need to understand the peculiarities and drivers of Indian rates.
consolidated at the level of PAN.
How to get AIS sonal details of the deceased. The RBI rate hikes have been lower than that effected by other
Bank savings, and RD and FD accounts “Sometimes the PAN card may not central banks. The inflation basket in India is composed of vola-
Interest credited and bank account number LOG into Income Tax portal using be linked with the investments and so tile elements such as food and commodities. This makes infla-
deceased's PAN
Other interest-bearing investments we take the extra step of verifying tion-forecasting difficult, and also reduces the impact that mone-
Interest credited, name of interest-paying entity, whether any investments exist under tary policy can have on inflation. Thus, it is hardly surprising that
receiving bank account number CHOOSE reset
password option
the same name and registered high inflation in India is usually attributed to supply constraints.
Property purchases address that may not be linked with After all, the inflation basket is composed of commodities prone
Property address, date and amount of payment the PAN or email address. Our dedi- to supply shocks. Every time inflation rises, it is not unusual to
OTP is sent to deceased's mobile no.
(Aadhaar-linked)
cated transmission helpdesk special- hear arguments that RBI may not be able to contain supply-
izes in such hand holding”, the CAMS driven inflation with rate hikes.
spokesperson added. Unsurprisingly, in the past year, RBI has raised the policy rates
UPDATE the
How to trace mutual fund investments password and log in
In essence, claimants have to visit by just 2.5%, as compared to an increase of 3.25% by the Fed. In
What you have What can be done the nearest RTA branch to begin the fact, most economists expect RBI to go for fewer rate hikes than
Deceased's PAN and all folio numbers
transmission process. There is nei- the US Fed. Moreover, RBI has in the past been more tolerant to
GO to 'services' and ther a well-documented process rising inflation than the depreciating rupee. In the past 10 years,
Transmission of MF units to nominee/legal then choose 'AIS'
heir is easy available online nor are there any RBI has hiked rates only twice (barring
Access to deceased's email account such guidelines for tracing the invest- India’s sharply 2022). The first time was in 2013, when
DOWNLOAD financial ments if claimants have no knowl-
and mobile phone
year-wise AISs depleting forex India’s inflation was well above 9%.
Generate CAS^ on CAMS website using the email ID edge or access to email address and Yet, this high inflation did not push
phone messages. Once the RTAs con- reserves RBI to hike rates. It was the sharp
No information on deceased's MF investments
Go to nearest RTA branch with requisite documents USE PAN and date of birth firm the death of the investor and increase its rupee depreciation that led RBI to act
^Consolidated account statement
as password to view AIS
genuineness of claimants, they facili- external swiftly and raise the rates. The second
Source: Based on inputs from ASK Private Wealth, Plan Ahead Wealth
tate access to a list of all the invest- vulnerabilities time was in 2018, when India’s infla-
Advisors, CAMS, Inheritance Needs Services, and Mint Research. ments made by the deceased and also tion was well within the target of 6%.
begin the transmission process. Thus, RBI did not have an incentive to
Stocks: To trace a deceased per- raise rates to curtail inflation. Rather, a sudden slide in rupee
the kind of incomes filed in the AIS: According to Agarwal, the AIS of transferring MFs to their names is son’s stock holdings (held in demat prompted RBI to raise rates. Prof Jayanth Varma has, in the latest
income tax return (ITR), which, in can be a source of comprehensive easy when the survivors have the PAN form), the one crucial information September RBI MPC minutes, noted that RBI has used interest
turn, can be used to trace investments information, though there might be card number and folio numbers of all you need is – which broker / bank the rate hikes in the past to curtail rupee depreciation.
made, “says, Nishant Agarwal, senior some issues with the information investments of the deceased. deceased person had a demat account Is India in the same boat as in 2013 or 2018 and will RBI need
managing partner, CFP – Advisory, provided since this system is still in But what happens if survivors don’t with. To find out who the broker / to hike rates to protect the currency? Probably not yet, but it is
ASK Private Wealth. the early stages. The AIS provides know about the MF investments? If bank is, you will need access to either quite close. India’s forex reserves have depleted sharply to $528
ITR: If the deceased person was information on transactions such as survivors have access to the the deceased’s email ID or at least the billion. While one may argue that a large part of the forex reserve
filing returns on his own, then the property purchases, interest income deceased’s email account or phone mobile phone. If you have the latter, depletion is due to valuation and not RBI’s intervention, lower
family members can try from savings accounts, messages to access OTPs, then the you can sift through the SMSs to reserves nonetheless increase India’s external vulnerabilities. A
accessing the deceased If the deceased fixed deposits (FDs) and process is easier and stress-free. In retrieve this information. Then, you slide in forex reserves to below $500 billion will bring it close to
person’s tax returns on was filing returns other investments, divi- this case, one can generate a Consoli- will have to approach the broker / 2013 and 2018 levels—when compared against the International
the Income Tax (I-T) on his own, then dends, sale and purchase dated Account Statement (CAS) using bank with the transmission request Monetary Fund’s reserve adequacy metric. Thus, a further slide
portal. the claimants can of stocks and mutual the email address and get details of all form and the relevant documents. may prompt the RBI to change its goal posts and hike rates to tar-
Neeraj Agarwala,
access deceased’s fund (MF) units, etc. For the MF investments linked to that Alternatively, access to the get currency, and not inflation.
partner, Nangia Ander- example, where it con- email. (Go to https://www.camson- deceased’s bank statements can be While the Fed has been raising rates recently, it has also
sen India says it is neces- ITR on I-T portal cerns property pur- line.com/Investors/Statements/Consol- helpful. Any share purchase / sale started reducing its balance sheet. The combined effect of higher
sary to know the to get the details chases, the AIS will dis- idated-Account-Statement. ) transactions via a joint trading US interest rates and a reduced Fed balance sheet may put further
deceased person’s PAN, play details such as the In a scenario where no will exists account will reflect in the linked bank pressure on capital flows into India. The current account deficit
and have access to their property address and the and the survivors do not have access account statements. Note that, while is already high and is unlikely to reduce significantly if global
mobile phone. “If the deceased per- date and amount of payment. For to the deceased’s CA, investment the AIS too shows the stock holdings, growth tapers and affects India’s exports.
son was registered on the I-T portal interest on bank savings and FD advisor and lawyer, the process of it does not show the depository par- So far, RBI has resisted hiking the rates in step with the US Fed,
and filed returns, then the ITR details accounts, one will be able to see the tracing the MF investments can take ticipant’s name. which is likely to remain hawkish for more time. But, forex
can be accessed from the portal by amount credited, the bank name and some time and effort. (Namrata Patel, a Sebi-Registered reserves have dwindled sharply. And, in such a scenario, RBI may
logging in with the PAN. Password the account number. The process of tracing and trans- Investment Advisor, contributed to this not have an option but to raise policy rates in tandem with the US.
can be reset on the IT portal by gener- MF investments: Legal heirs, sec- ferring MFs is simpler if you have story.) In short, If the US does not cure its cold soon, then India’s sneezes
ating OTP sent on the mobile number ondary holders or nominees can access to the PAN card number, email (For an extended version of this story, may well turn into a full-blown cold.
linked with Aadhaar.” claim these investments. The process address and phone number of the go to livemint.com) Sandeep Yadav is head, fixed income, DSP Investment Managers

Top 15 health plans for you What are the legal provisions for gifting a
How do you buy a health
insurance plan? With numerous
out-of-pocket expenses from hospitalization (product rating)
and (b) smoothest claim settlement (claims rating) to generate
share of Indian business to an NRI son?
products, plan options, and all the overall rating.
the complicated fine print, This overall rating can then be compared with the premium ISTOCK
comparing insurance can be affordability rating to evaluate suitable plans, based on the Hemang Parekh & Mitali Naik court can step in, in the shoes
mint quite a daunting task.
To simplify and empower
individual preference of the reader.
For the purpose of ratings, we have considered indemni-
of the deceased tenant. It is
INSURANCE RATINGS quicker decision-making, Mint in I own a private limited clear that the other family
ty-based comprehensive family floater hospitalization plans company in India. My son members or third parties have
association with Beshak.org, an available online. The premium affordability rating is indicative.
has recently started a com- been excluded from such pro-
unbiased insurance discovery platform presents Mint Beshak It is relatively measured on premiums of a 10 lakh cover for a
Insurance Ratings. This rating zooms into the most essential family of two adults and one child, living in Mumbai. pany in Singapore. I am tection.
aspects of insurance plans blurring out the frills to present a —Navneet Dubey keen to gift my stake in the The Bombay High Court has
refreshed version 2.0 of our erstwhile mediclaim rating. The full Indian company to my son, dealt with the issue whether
ratings can be seen at: https://bit.ly/3ztmodF. The below table is a summary/extract of the
who is now an NRI. What the tenancy can be
In today’s edition, we list the top 15 health insurance plans detailed rating on livemint.com. Scan the QR code are the legal provisions for bequeathed under a Will. After
for people below 65. to check out the detailed Mint Beshak Insurance the same? considering various proposi-
These plans have been first stacked for two critical Rating including the scoring methodology. —Name withheld on request tions of law, the Court laid
outcomes with respect to health insurance (a) lowest down the principle of law that
Premium
As you are an Indian citizen, the restriction against the
Product Claims track Overall
affordability the gift by you to your NRI son assignment or transfer shall
rating* record rating will be governed by the provi- also apply to testamentary
rating
rating*
sions of the Foreign Exchange bequest and hence no such
Management Act (Fema), 1999 transfer should be allowed. In
Manipal Cigna - ProHealth Prime (Advantage) 5.0 3.8 4.8 4.0
and the regulations, circulars view of the aforesaid, it is clear
ICICI Lombard - Complete Health Insurance - (Health Elite) 4.8 4.7 4.8 4.0 and policies thereunder. As ASK MINT pagdi) in Mumbai. I would that no tenant can dispose off
Niva Bupa (Health ReAssure) 5.0 3.6 4.7 3.0 per Fema, gift of shares by a m N R I TA X AT I O N like to make a will, the tenancy rights by Will.
Niva Bupa (Health Companion) 4.7 3.6 4.5 3.0 resident Indian citizen to a whereby, post my demise, I Hence in the present scenario
person resident outside India would like this property to it will not be advisable for you
Aditya Birla Health - Active Assure 4.6 4.0 4.5 3.0 (including an NRI) is subject to (ii) The value of the shares be transferred to my son to bequeath the tenancy rights
Magma HDI - One Health (Premium Plan) 4.6 4.0 4.5 4.0 prior written approval of the cannot be more than $50,000 who is living abroad. Is that to your son.
Manipal Cigna - ProHealth (Accumulate Plan) 4.6 3.8 4.4 4.0 Reserve Bank of India (RBI). or an equivalent amount in possible? In any case, it is advisable to
There are prescribed docu- rupee during the financial year —Name withheld on request seek legal experts‘ opinion, in
Star Health - Assure 4.6 3.4 4.3 3.5
ments which are required to in which the gift is proposed to respect of any specific factual
Aditya Birla Health - Activ Health Platinum (Premiere Plan) 4.4 4.0 4.3 5.0 be submitted to the RBI at the be made. Section 7 of the Maharash- matrix.
HDFC Ergo - Optima Restore 5.0 1.5 4.3 4.0 time of filing of the application We recommend you consult tra Rent Control Act, 1999 (the Hemang Parekh is partner
before RBI. There are certain an advisor in person to under- Rent Control Act) provides and Mitali Naik is associate
Reliance General - Health Gain (Power Plan) 5.0 1.5 4.3 3.5
other conditions which are stand the entire legal frame- that partner, at DSK Legal
Care Insurance - Care 4.3 4.2 4.3 4.0 required to be adhered to for work applicable to such gifts, (i) Any member of the ten-
HDFC Ergo - Optima Secure 4.9 1.5 4.2 4.0 the purpose of such applica- and thereafter evaluate ant’s family residing with him Do you have a personal
tion. Two of the critical condi- whether its legally feasible to at the time of his death and in finance query? Send in your
Go Digit - Health Insurance (Comfort Pro Plan) 4.4 3.6 4.2 3.0
queries at
tions are undertake such a transaction. the absence of such member,
Edelweiss General - Family Health Insurance (Gold Plan) 4.2 3.9 4.1 3.0 (i) The gift should not be for (ii) Any heir of the deceased mintmoney@livemint.com
and get them answered by
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Note: The higher the rating, the better the plan is. However, in the case of the premium affordability ratings, the higher the ratings, the more expensive the plan will be. industry experts.
capital of the Indian company; (commonly known as default of agreement by the
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 12 WeDNesDay, 26 OctOber 2022
NeW Delhi VIEWS LIVEMINT.COM

OUR VIEW THEIR VIEW

REUTERS

Our female labour participation

rate may be better than we think
Surveys that account for misclassified, mis-stated and unpaid work would yield a different picture

agriculture and collection of firewood,
poultry farming, etc, for self consump-
tion), regular wage/salaried employ-
ment, and casual labour.
The way we measure employment
through the survey design and content
can make a significant difference to
final LFPR estimates, and this matters
more for measuring female LFPR than
V. ANANTHA NAgeSwArAN, male LFPR. We highlight three main
HAriSH KumAr KAllegA measurement issues: overly broad cate-
& DeeKSHA SupyAAl BiSHT gories, reliance on a single question to
are, respectively, the chief economic categorize labour force status, and the
advisor to the Government of India, and narrow approach of limiting productive
too much on how the individual self-
identifies in the first instance.
Thirdly, there is a need to broaden the
horizon of measuring work, which con-
stitutes the whole universe of produc-
tive activities alongside employment.
According to the latest ILO standards,
limiting productive work to labour force
participation is narrow and only meas-
ures work as a market product. It
ignores the value of women’s unpaid
domestic work, which can be seen as
expenditure-saving work such as col-
lecting firewood, cooking, tutoring chil-

Sunak could give the UK

Indian Economic Service officers. work to labour force participation. dren, etc, and contributes significantly
Firstly, the use of overly broad catego- to the household’s standard of living.
ries that club productive work (collec- Overvaluation of paid work and under-

T
he debate over the inclusion of tion of firewood, poultry farming, etc) valuation of unpaid work is neither gen-
unpaid work in the calculation of with domestic duties can in one sweep der-neutral nor culturally neutral.

no-fairy-tales leadership gross domestic product is a long-

standing one. Given practical difficul-
ties, this was not pursued further. In
recent years, this has become a hot-
shift a significant proportion of women
in the labour force into the out-of-
labour-force category. For example,
unless the production of primary goods
For example, in the context of rapidly
ageing populations in the West, as Diane
Coyle wrote in 2016 (bit.ly/3snNH4f),
decisions on the optimal approach to
button issue, since India’s female labour is identified as the main activity by the caring for elders need to be informed by
force participation rate (LFPR) is respondent, the PLFS questionnaire data. The desirability of public or private
As the political convulsions that made Rishi Sunak its PM are traceable to Brexit dissonance, claimed to have declined considerably would categorize women who do both provision of services, paid or unpaid,
since 2005. It is a conclusion that fails domestic activities and primary goods cannot be based on ignorance or biases.
he should play myth popper not just on London’s fiscal policy but on its dismal EU exit too both experiential and rigorous scrutiny. production/collection as out-of-the- Finally, the use of international agen-
Let’s start with the Periodic Labour labour-force. Adding the proportion of cies’ estimates of India’s female LFPR is
Force Survey (PLFS), India’s official such women (who might have been troublesome too. India’s female LFPR is
labour force survey. It has been con- wrongly identified as out-of-the-labour- widely quoted as too low, citing the

I
t wasn’t the slogan “Ready for Rishi” that
finally ushered Rishi Sunak into No. 10
Downing Street, London, as the UK’s prime
minister, but his promise of no “fairy tales”
amid political convulsions caused by a raft
of gasp-inducers. And while we in India
may wonder whether Britain’s politics has
evolved far enough for leadership by a 42-year-
old man of Indian descent who openly follows
a minority faith, or marvel at his wife Akshata
Murty’s wealth as Infosys co-founder N.R.
Narayana Murthy’s daughter, what’s relevant to
Sunak’s job is how he’ll deploy his experience as
a politician, former finance minister and Stan-
ford MBA with stints at Goldman Sachs and a
US hedge fund to confront what he has called a
“profound economic challenge”. As an instant
priority, this would mean assuring markets
London will not widen its fiscal deficit to such
an extent that it squeezes its ability to repay
debt and hollows its currency. After all, Sunak
won power from Liz Truss in a spasm of ruling-
party panic set off by routs in the value of UK
government bonds and the British pound as a
centage point under Truss, have fallen since;
the pound has recovered from its fright; and the
Conservative politicians of Westminster who
chose Sunak must hope he’ll steady their econ-
omy before they need to face the electorate
again (by early 2025). If they fail to unite, he’s
reported to have told them, the party’s chances
were bleak. Instability within the UK and its
ruling party—Sunak is its third PM in 2022 and
fifth since Tories won power in 2010—could
dim their future, no doubt, and this is fix-it time
indeed, but the big dose of reality that Britons
need is on Brexit, their 2016 referendum vote to
exit the EU that led to all this dissonance.
Sunak has been pro-Brexit, like Boris John-
son most volubly, in a party that saw authority
shift towards ‘leavers’ to execute the ‘leave’ call
after ‘remainer’ David Cameron resigned as
PM soon after. Apart from the technical head-
ache, getting it done was sure to expose the
proposal’s overhype. Brexit was a lose-lose
deal for the UK economy, but the nationalist
spin put by Tory leaders on ‘border control’
not only attracted hordes, it took on shades of
ducted annually since 2017-18, a lauda- force) to the official LFPR yields an “aug- ILO’s estimate of 19% for 2020. How-
ble improvement over the once in four- mented Female LFPR” of 46.2% for ever, this is ILO’s modelled estimate (not
five years Employment Unemployment 2020-21, much higher than the 32.5% the actual estimate of India’s official sur-
Survey (EUS) conducted by the National estimated by the conventional defini- vey PLFS). It is essentially a black box in
Sample Survey (NSS) earlier. The tion. Steven Kapsos and others made a terms of how and why it varies from our
female LFPR declined between 1999 similar attempt in an International official estimates. Their official caveat,
and 2011-12 from 40% to 30% and has Labour Organization (ILO) research “imputed observations are not based on
risen from 2017-18 to 2020-21. The paper in 2014, arriving at a female LFPR national data, are subject to high uncer-
2011-12 (NSS-EUS) and 2017-18 (PLFS) of 56.4% in India for 2012, against the far tainty, and should not be used for coun-
numbers are not comparable owing to lower official estimate of 31.2% for 2012. try comparisons or rankings”, is conve-
methodological differences. This point Secondly, the survey design relies niently ignored by commentators.
is often ignored and journalists draw a excessively on a single question for To improve the overall LFPR of
downward-sloping line as if this survey measuring the labour force status of an women, gender-based disadvantages
was done continuously for over two individual, which eliminates the scope need to be eliminated to enable free
decades under the same methodology. to rectify any error in self-reporting, choice for women. But India’s female
According to the PLFS, LFPR is the considering the large rural population LFPR is not as low as commonly
percentage of our working-age popula- and literacy levels. Contrary to ILO rec- assumed. We need more psychological
tion engaged in work or making tangi- ommendations, there are no additional and statistical recognition of this, along
ble efforts to seek ‘work’ or being availa- questions (‘recovery questions’) in the with a rectification of the methodologi-
ble for ‘work’ if it is available. ‘Work’ PLFS questionnaire to double-check cal issues highlighted above.
includes self-employment (subsistence individuals’ labour force status, relying These are the authors’ personal views.
www.livemint.com
New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chandigarh*, Pune* Friday, October 26, 2012 Vol.6 No.256 `3.00 in Delhi­NCR/`4.00 outside Delhi­NCR 24
32 PAGES

fallout of her lurch for unfunded tax cuts and xenophobia. An anxiety to ‘prove’ the decision TECHNOLOGY:‘Windows 8
recasts PC industry’ >32
NATION: Govt forms panel for direct transfer
of subsidies >4

upped state spending, a mix he’d called out for right was evident even in Truss’s rightist but EXCLUSIVE PARTNER
MARK TO MARKET: CESC throws Firstsource
a lifeline >18
POLITICS: Chances of GST implementation
improve >5

being out of touch with economic reality. ill-timed pitch for a “low-tax, high-growth SENSEX 18,758.63 Æ 48.61

DEADLOCK ENDS
NIFTY 5,705.30 Æ 13.90 DOLLAR `53.55 æ `0.17

WORRYING TREND
EURO `69.47 æ `0.20 GOLD `30,765.00 æ `10

Kejriwal’s plan: QUICK EDIT

OIL $107.90 Æ $0.15

Staff ready to Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows into India in the first half of 2012
a national Penny

By the time Truss’s short-lived government
economy” as part of a freedom bonus from the
contracted 42.8% to $10.4 billion, according to the global investment trend
monitor of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
(Unctad). Global FDI inflows declined by 8% in the first half as the world
economy suffered fresh setbacks between April and June. The decline in
alliance of the pinching
disaffected
resume work:
inflows was mainly caused by a drop of $37 billion in inflows into the US and
a $23 billion decline in inflows into BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and
T he finance minister

Gender parity is not

China), the report said. should be pleased
B Y A NUJA & S AHIL M AKKAR that his maxim of fiscal
Country/region 2011 H1 H2 2012 H1 Growth rate in H1 2012 ························· restraint is being taken

Kingfisher
NEW DELHI

withdrew its reckless ‘mini budget’, it was too EU, portrayed as being addicted to squishy
($ billion) (year-on-year, in %) seriously by some of the

Brazil
32.5
34.2 -8.6
E ven as he continues to turn
up the pitch on his expose-
led brand of politics, bureaucrat-
constituents in
government, if not all.
The latest case in point
29.7
turned-activist-turned-politician is the move to cut back
26.8 Arvind Kejriwal has drafted a spending by the Council
Russia 26.1 -39.3 clear strategy to build a national of Scientific and
Employees get March crore for disbursing salaries of 16.3 footprint and plans to forge a Industrial Research

just good for women—it’s

salaries, airline looks at March,” a senior airline execu- network by tapping into smaller (CSIR) on subscriptions

late. With pandemic outlays and high inflation leftist policies that dampen market dynamism.
tive said, requesting anonymi- 18.2 anti-graft movements inspired of international science
resuming operations in ty. Employee representatives India 13.3 -42.8 by both political parties and civil journals (see Page 7). “I
Nov, if DGCA revokes confirmed that they have re- 10.4 society around the country. And, can’t afford their
ceived their March salaries it could involve allying with exorbitant prices,” said
suspension of its licence and that they have agreed to 60.9 smaller, regional parties as well. Samir Brahmachari,
return to work. They also clari- China 55.1 -3 “Our teams are being made director general, CSIR.
B Y P .R . S ANJAI fied that employees will not 59.1 (in states) like Orissa, Uttar The sum involved: `500
pr.sanjai@livemint.com hold any protest during the Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab and crore. But surely this is
························· Formula 1 race starting later 329.2 Haryana. In these places, dis- going too far even for the
Developing
-9.5

as the context, only an administration credibly The Brexit lobby has sought to play down the
MUMBAI this week. Mallya, part-owner countries 462 trict-level teams have already most faithful fiscal

T
good for societies.
he labour unrest at of the Sahara Force India 298.1 been made and block-level conservative, especially
grounded Kingfisher team, is attending the race. teams are being formed,” Kejri- given that the size of the
94.4
Airlines Ltd ended on According to the settlement wal said. “(These teams) have Indian economy is $1.8
US 132.6 -39.2
Thursday after the company reached with the airline, em- started working at connecting trillion. Scientific
57.4
paid employees their salaries ployees will be paid the April (with) people in these villages,” research needs to be
for the month of March, al- salary by 31 October and that 182.7 Kejriwal said in an interview. encouraged in the
though the end of the strike for May by 12 November. Sala- European 249.5 -3.8 Kejriwal’s as-yet-unnamed country, not discouraged
doesn’t mean the airline can ries for the months of June to Union political party is to be launched and journals are a key
175.9

committed to fiscal restraint could get Lon- trade adversity of isolation, although a jumble
restart operations immediate-
ly.
The airline is looking at re-
suming operations by the third
or fourth week of November, if
the regulator revokes the sus-
pension of its licence and al-
lows it to fly. However, experts
pointed out that Kingfisher
September will be paid once on 26 November and he has so source of global research.
the company has been recapi- far remained reticent about While the need to cut
talized. And from October on- how exactly he proposes to the coat according to the
wards, the company will pay transform a largely urban size of the cloth is a
salaries a month late, which World 728.7 849.4 667.6 -8.4 movement into a national party. lesson well learnt, care
means the October salary will “I do not agree that the move- should be taken to
be paid by the last week of De- ment is urban centric... We have ensure that this lesson is
cember. not linearly applied.
Source: Unctad
Prakash Mirpuri, vice presi- TURN TO PAGE 2®

don’s cost of borrowing down again. While of bilateral pacts—with India, for example—
Airlines requires urgent recap-
italization and a credible turn-
around plan to start flying
again.
That’s a view shared by In-
dia’s civil aviation minister Ajit
Singh, who said he welcomed
the settlement between the
management and employees
SANDEEP BHATNAGAR/MINT
dent, corporate communica-
tions, at Kingfisher Airlines,
also confirmed that all em-
ployees have agreed to resume
work and report for duty im- Sun TV wins
Hyderabad IPL
A N G E L I CA F U E N TE S
mediately.
“All employees are now ea-
gerly looking forward to work-
ing together in order to restart
franchise

Sunak had reeled out a generous covid-relief could soften that blow. Whether the UK can do
of the airline.
“But there are other prob-
lems to address,” he said.
“Kingfisher Airlines has to en-
sure the safety of planes and
the integrity of schedules. It
has to come up with a full-
fledged re-capitalization plan
as the airline owes money to
operations very soon. We will
now finalize and present our
resumption plan to the DGCA
(Directorate General of Civil
Aviation, the regulator) and
hope to get their concurrence
soon,” Mirpuri added.
To be sure, regulatory and fi-
nancial challenges loom for
B Y K HUSHBOO N ARAYAN,
A MINAH S HEIKH &
S . B RIDGET L EENA
·························
MUMBAI/CHENNAI
T he Kalanithi Maran-control-
led Sun TV Network Ltd

package as chief of the exchequer, he is widely better on its own overall, however, is the real
employees, airports, oil com-
panies and other vendors.”
Most employees, including
engineers and pilots, agreed to
resume work following the
meeting with chief executive
officer Sanjay Aggarwal in Del-
hi. “All Kingfisher team mem-
bers are back at work and fully
the airline.
Kingfisher Airlines can’t
resume its operations because
the DGCA suspended its li-
cence on Saturday. The state-
owned Airports Authority of
India has also indicated that it
will not allow the airline to use
airport facilities until it clears
won the auction for the Hydera-
bad Indian Premier League (IPL)
franchise on Thursday, replacing
former owner, the financially
strapped Deccan Chronicle
Holdings Ltd (DCHL), which
had its Deccan Chargers team
scrapped by the Board of Control
for Cricket in India (BCCI) be-

seen as a champion of low-spend governance. question. It’s doubtful. If it still manages to

supportive. I sincerely thank
all of them for their faith and
continuing commitment,”
tweeted airline chairman Vijay
Mallya.
The ailing airline hadn’t
paid employees since March.
“The airline has released `21
dues of more than `250 crore.
DGCA had asked the airline
on 5 October to demonstrate
why its permit to fly should not
be suspended or cancelled for
failing to establish a “safe, effi-
cient and reliable service” and
gave it 15 days to submit a re-
ply.
cause it was unable to furnish a
`100 crore bank guarantee by a
12 October deadline.
Sun won the franchise for the
Hyderabad team with a winning
bid of `425 crore, or `85 crore
per year, for the next five seasons
of the Twenty20 cricket tourna-
ment. However, the final lineup

Public expenditure in normal times, he once make a go of its EU break-off, it’ll take time and
NOTE TO READERS
The Media Marketing Initiatives on
Pages 27, 28 and 29 are the
equivalent of paid­for
advertisements, and no Mint
journalists were involved in creating
Kingfisher had previously
grounded flights until 25 Octo-
ber. The regulator last week re-
jected Kingfisher’s winter
schedule, prompting specula-
tion that flights will continue
to be grounded past the dead-
line. Kingfisher Airlines flew
of the IPL could still depend on
what the courts say.
To be sure, this is the purchase
of a new franchise for a Hydera-
bad team and not the acquisition
of the Deccan Chargers, which
doesn’t exist anymore after
BCCI’s cancellation of that fran-

said, must not exceed 37% of GDP. Long-tenor reforms. Sunak should level with Britons on
these. Readers would do well to 2,930 flights a week in the win- chise.
treat them as advertisements. The move marks another sig-
TURN TO PAGE 2® nificant expansion by Maran
outside Tamil Nadu, where Sun
Mint is available with Mint Indulge for R18 without a
combo offer in Delhi-NCR and for R19 outside Delhi-NCR
TURN TO PAGE 3®

UK gilt yields, which had shot up by over a per- Brexit. The UK needs a larger salvage plan.

MY VIEW | On THE OTHEr Hand

Our love of government jobs isn’t good for the economy

night before the exam on the railway station.
VIVEK KAUL Neither Muzaffarpur nor the Indian Rail-
ways had the capacity to handle this sudden
and huge influx of students.
But this only explains why the youth have
to travel for government tests, it doesn’t
countries. As Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Now what does this tell us? It tells us that pered but also strongly protected.” There
Duflo write in Good Economics for Hard unemployment as a phenomenon almost are multiple repercussions of this. First,
Times, in the context of these countries: evaporates as soon as an individual’s age many youth spend the best years of their
“Public-sector workers earn more than dou- turns 30. By this time, age catches up and lives chasing a government job without
ble the average wage in the private sector. many individuals become ineligible for most ending up with one, instead of doing some-
And this is not counting generous health and government jobs or the number of attempts thing more productive with their lives. Sec-

L
ast week, pictures and videos of youth
travelling through the north Indian
state of Uttar Pradesh to write the exam
for the Uttar Pradesh Preliminary Eligibility
Test (UPPET) went viral. It is estimated that
around 3.8 million candidates had regis-
tered for it, with some of them literally hang-
ing on for their lives from trains to reach
explain people’s fascination for government
jobs in the first place. Indeed, government
jobs at the lower and mid-level pay much
better than most private jobs.
The Seventh Pay Commission, which
published its report in November 2015, had
got the Indian Institute of Management in
Ahmedabad to study this issue. The report
pension benefits.” This leads to a situation they can take to write the exam finally runs ond, idle youth are bad for social stability.
where “government-sec- out. This forces them into Third, this hurts the overall private con-
tor jobs are so much more taking on an informal job in sumption in the economy.
valuable than private-sec- They are so the private sector or alter- As Peter Zeihan writes in The End of the
tor jobs,” and given that natively look at becoming World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Col-
they are also very scarce “it prized that they self-employed. And that lapse of Globalization: “Most of the spending
is worthwhile for every- leads to the rate of unem- a person does occurs between the ages of fif-
body to wait around and
keep the youth ployment falling for Indi- teen and forty-five—that’s the life window

is the author of ‘Bad Money’.

their exam centres. Railway stations were
chock-a-block and so were train bogies.
What caused this ordeal? Typically, gov-
ernment exams do not let candidates take
exams at their residence, leading to their
having to travel from where they live to their
exam centres that are often far away.
In the 90s, I faced a similar ordeal while
taking an exam to get into an engineering
college run by the Bihar government. While
I lived in Ranchi in what was then south
Bihar (and now Jharkhand), my exam centre
was in Muzaffarpur in north Bihar.
Buses and trains to Muzaffarpur were all
full. So were hotels and lodges in the city,
with many students having to spend the
This PDF was originally uploade To Teligram channel_ LBS Newspaper platform (https://t.me/LBSNEWSPAPER) Subscribe now to get this edition before anyone else!! Backup channel:@LBSNEWSPAPER
pointed out: “According to the study the
total emoluments of a General Helper, who
is the lowest ranked employee in the gov-
ernment is ₹22,579, more than two times the
emoluments of a General Helper in the pri-
vate sector organizations surveyed at
₹8,000-₹9,500.”
This clearly hasn’t changed. In addition, a
government job comes with solid job secu-
rity, something that has become even more
important in the post-covid world. This
explains why we routinely see news reports
of even engineers, PhDs and MBAs applying
for low-level government jobs.
Interestingly, the attraction of govern-
ment jobs is visible in other developing
queue for those jobs.”
Hence, a good portion of
out of private ans in their thirties.
An economist’s solution
when people are buying cars [two-wheelers
in the Indian case] and homes… Such con-
what should be a youth’s
working life is spent wait-
work for too to this would be to cut
wages in government jobs
sumption-led activity is what drives an econ-
omy forward.” Given that many youth are
ing. This is clearly visible in long and hurt and bring them in line with unemployed till they reach the age of 30,
the unemployment data the informal private sec- this dynamic does not play out as it should.
published by the Centre consumption tor’s. But that is not practi- Finally, less consumption implies less
for Monitoring Indian cal, and given that, this demand for goods and services in the Indian
Economy. In September problem is likely to prevail. economy. That means businesses do not
2022, the rate of unemployment for those in As Banerjee and Duflo point out: “In need to expand their capacity. Data from the
the 20-24-years age category stood at 41.9%. many developing countries, the labour Reserve Bank of India tells us that the capac-
The rate of unemployment for those in the markets feature this duality: there is a large ity utilization of manufacturing companies
25-29-years age category was at 9.8%. informal sector without any protection, in India has largely been less than three-
Beyond that, unemployment was almost with many people who are self-employed fourths for close to a decade now. This leads
non-existent, with the rate for those in the for lack of better options, and a formal sec- to the creation of fewer private-sector jobs.
30-34-years age category being 0.8%. tor where employees are not only pam- And so the cycle goes on.
 LIVEMINT.COM VIEWS WeDNesDAy, 26 OctObeR 2022
NeW Delhi 13

THEIR VIEW M I N T C U R AT O R

A rate-and-rupee strategy could Reliance Jio plans to quickly

tighten its fintech ‘DNA loop’
restore India’s external balances Its fintech play will use self-reinforcing ‘data, network and action’

The country’s widening current account deficit reflects a fall in savings but higher policy rates and a weaker rupee can help

ANDY MUKHERJEE
is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering
industrial companies and financial services
in Asia
PRANJUL BHANDARI
is chief India economist at HSBC.

T
o record all the words ever spoken by
humankind, five exabytes of storage
would suffice. Telecom customers of

T
ricky times. On the one hand, India’s
foreign exchange reserves remain ele-
vated at $533 billion—a respectable 8.6
months of goods import cover—even
after a fall of about $100 billion since
the start of the year. On the other hand,
both the trade and current account deficits have
widened sharply, pointing towards a balance-of-
payments deficit which could linger for the fore-
seeable future. After remaining relatively stable for
a couple of months, the rupee has weakened 4.5%
against the US dollar since early September. What
explains the growing imbalances? And is the
economy taking the right remedial steps?
India’s external balances are facing pressure
from everything that is going on around the world:
elevated commodity prices, high inflation, mone-
tary policy tightening and slowing growth. India’s
current account deficit likely widened to about 5%
of gross domestic product (GDP) in the quarter
ended September on the back of elevated oil
imports and slowing export volumes. This is dou-
ble the 2.5% level that is considered sustainable.
Every external deficit also has a domestic angle
to it. A simple macroeconomic identity shows that
the current account deficit is the difference
between investment and the saving rate. Intui-
tively, when investment outpaces saving, external
resources fill the gap.
So, is investment rising quickly? Perhaps not.
Even though some investment indicators are
rising, this does not signal the start of a new capital
expenditure cycle. Measures of new investment
intentions remain weak. Rather, it is replacement
capex spending—bundled up wear-and-tear of the
pandemic period.
Which brings us to saving. We believe that
India’s saving rate has fallen, and that lies at the
heart of the current account deficit widening to
unsustainable levels. Saving comes in three parts:
public sector, private household, and private cor-
porate saving.
Public sector borrowing is higher today than in
the pre-pandemic period. Household financial
saving rose during the lockdown period, but fell
sharply thereafter to below pre-pandemic levels.
Lower bank deposits drove much of the fall, and
the deposit-to-GDP ratio has fallen further in fiscal
2022-23, contributing to the sharp widening of the
current account deficit. What can be done to raise
the saving rate?
Policy rate hikes can help raise private sector
saving in at least three ways. One, if rate hikes
make households believe that inflation will fall
over time, they may postpone some consumption.
Two, higher rates can disincentivize household
borrowing. Three, higher deposit rates will
increase the opportunity cost of money, thereby
incentivizing saving.
But it is not all so simple. There is another offset-
ting impact of higher interest rates. To the extent
they slow growth and incomes, they could lower
what is left for households to save.
There is a similar dilemma when trying to
increase public saving. If fiscal consolidation is led
by expenditure cuts, it will be negative for GDP
growth and incomes. Already we are seeing the
narrowing of state deficits being led largely by
weak expenditure, particularly weak state capex.
This is where another tool could help: the rupee.
Letting the currency depreciate gradually would
likely make exports more competitive, lending a
helping hand to India’s GDP growth. Exports,
particularly high-tech exports, have been an
impressive driver of economy’s post-pandemic
recovery. Nurturing the sector during volatile
times is likely to be a good idea. And, what is special
about forex depreciation is that it is supportive of
growth while reducing imports. By simultaneously
making exports competitive and imports expen-
sive, it tends to lower the trade deficit over time.
From this perspective, a combination of higher
rates and a weaker rupee is likely to be the optimal
response to the ongoing storm, in our view.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) started hiking
rates in May 2022. By end-September, it had raised
the repo rate by 190 basis points. The rupee
remained fairly stable for much of this time, led by
RBI’s forex sales. It was only in September that RBI
moved to a two-pronged strategy of higher rates
and a weaker rupee. As such, we think India is now
in the midst of an optimal policy response.
The challenge will be to continue on that path.
Real deposit rates are still negative and the trade-
weighted real effective exchange rate (REER) has
not weakened at all since May.
When will the current account deficit fall from
5% to the sustainable 2.5% level? Several different
scenarios could play out. We employ four sensitivi-
ties—the impact of rate hikes on GDP growth, the
impact of GDP growth on imports, and the real
exchange rate elasticity of both exports and
imports—to work out the possibilities.
If RBI delivers another 50 basis points repo rate
hike (taking it to 6.4%) and the REER weakens by
about 5%, the sensitivities suggest that, all else
remaining unchanged, the current account deficit
can narrow from 5% of GDP to about 3.5%. This
means that about 60% of the adjustment could be
achieved. The remaining 40% could happen if the
global environment changes (for instance, if com-
modity prices fall quickly).
In a separate scenario, larger rate hikes (about
60 basis points more than our forecast, taking the
repo rate to 7%) and a larger REER adjustment (of
about 10%) could achieve 100% of the current
account deficit adjustment.
These scenarios are indicative and admittedly
come with large error bands in a highly volatile
global setting. But they offer a sense of how
important the two-pronged strategy of higher
rates and a weaker rupee is in terms of restoring
India’s balances.
Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance used up nearly
six times as much data last quarter. As it tar-
gets 428 million subscribers with a new 5G
service and seeks to lure another 300 mil-
lion feature-phone users to smartphones, its
challenge has changed. When Reliance Jio
started out six years ago, how to sell data in
a developing country was the big issue.
What to sell next to someone who’s already
guzzling data is the question now.
One answer is financial services. People
need credit. Whether they deserve it—and
how much—is either left to traditional cred-
it-scoring models, which tend to exclude
much of the unbanked population. Or, as it
has been demonstrated by Ant Group in
China and MercadoLibre in Argentina,
creditworthiness may also be gleaned from
buyers’ and sellers’ transaction data on large
online platforms. That’s where Reliance
wants to go next: to a “consumer and mer-
chant lending business based on proprie-
tary data analytics to complement and sup-
plement the traditional credit bureau-based
underwriting,” as per its press release.
A successful fintech loans platform draws
upon what the Bank for International Set-
tlements (BIS) calls a self-reinforcing “DNA
loop”, shorthand for data, network and
activity. The digital trail people leave
behind on e-commerce or social media sites
can be used to bind them into a strong net-
work, which can be harnessed to encourage
borrowing activity, leading to yet more data
on consumer behaviour.
This loop is already in place for Reliance.
Apart from owning India’s largest telecom
company, it also runs the country’s biggest
retailer, with more than 250 million trans-
actions last quarter from 50 million square
feet of store-front space. Ambani’s firm also
connects customers with neighbourhood
shopkeepers so they can order grocery and
everyday items online using Meta Plat-
forms’s WhatsApp messaging service.
However, Reliance’s growing heft in
data-spewing consumer businesses isn’t
exactly setting the stock market on fire. The
shares topped out at about 30 times forward
earnings two years ago; they’re currently
trading at a multiple of 20. A windfall Indian
tax on transportation fuels and weak refin-
ing and polymer margins are hurting the
conglomerate’s legacy petrochemicals and
energy operations. Which is why Ambani is
spinning off Jio Financial Services Ltd—to
double down on the consumer business and
put some sizzle back in the stock. Investors
will get one share of the new firm for every
Jio Financial Services may be spun off from
Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance MINT
share held in Reliance. Jio Financial Servi-
ces’ stock-market listing perhaps will hap-
pen quickly if the idea is also to pre-empt
rival billionaire Gautam Adani. Adani’s
shadow lender, Adani Capital, is aiming for
an initial public offering by 2024.
Will a fast-growing consumer and mer-
chant loan book be enough to impress
shareholders? It hasn’t worked quite that
way for Paytm. The Indian online payments
firm hawked eight times more loans in the
June quarter than a year earlier, sourcing
and servicing customers on behalf of len-
ders, and yet its shares continue to languish
70% below the price at which they were sold
in India’s biggest IPO last November.
That’s where Reliance will lean on its
$200 billion balance sheet and exploit the
cost-of-capital advantage it gets from being
rated a notch higher than the Indian gov-
ernment. Eventually, the group’s financial
services business will seek to become a con-
glomerate in its own right, with a presence
in everything from payments and insur-
ance to digital broking and asset manage-
ment. But the basic building block will be
credit: Jio Financial will hit the ground run-
ning by originating keenly priced loans to
Reliance’s vast network of consumers and
merchants. Now that covid moratoriums on
loan repayments are in the rear view mir-
ror, the timing is right. Bajaj Finance Ltd, a
leading Indian non-bank lender, is once
again back to reporting 20%-plus return on
equity with resumption of growth across
segments and stable credit costs.
The most profitable use of granular cus-
tomer information in a country like India
lies in broadening access to credit: More
than three-fifths of the adult population is
either invisible to traditional scoring mod-
els or not considered worth the trouble by
lending institutions. Ambani has the DNA
loop: In the six years before the tycoon
unrolled his 4G telecom network, mobile
phones globally had consumed 120 exa-
bytes. By next year, Ambani’s own custom-
ers might be burning through that much
data annually. Yet, as last week’s earnings
report showed, even after growing by a
third over two years, the average revenue
per user is only a little more than $2 per
month. It’s time for Reliance to put insights
from buyer behaviour—from telecom to
retail—to work and unlock some value for
its shareholders. ©BLOOMBERG

MY VIEW | EX MACHINA

Indian sugarcane fields could yield a flex-fuel bonanza

However, as much as EVs are themselves
RAHUL MATTHAN zero emission, as long as the batteries they
use are charged using electricity from the
power grid, their net carbon impact is still
high because a significant proportion of our
power plants use fossil fuel for generation.
petrol or 100% (hydrous) ethanol. Today, as
many as 93% of the vehicles in Brazil are
capable of running on ethanol.
Ethanol emits between 44% and 52% less
greenhouse gas emissions as compared to
petrol. As a result, even when it is combined
Brazilian ethanol is produced from sug-
arcane. As a result, it has a much higher
energy balance that corn-based ethanol
that is produced by the US. The fact is that,
even if they want to, very few other coun-
tries can produce sugar ethanol. One of the
Brazil, India is one of the very few countries
in the world that can quickly adapt its fuel
supply to incorporate ethanol. All we need to
do is adopt the production techniques that
have been perfected in Brazil over the last 50
years and mandate that all internal combus-

I
n an earlier article in this column, I had
pointed out that plants were the solar cells
of the natural world. They use sunlight to
create carbon-based stores of energy that
they store and can steadily release as they
grow. When they die, complex planetary
forces convert these stores of energy into the
fossil fuels (coal, petroleum and the like) that
Till we build a purely renewable energy
grid, we will need to keep looking for less
polluting energy sources. Fuel that can be
replenished, that is, harvested year after year
rather than mined and consumed once and
for all. That is environmentally friendly and
emits less carbon into the atmosphere than
is consumed in its creation.
with petrol, it significantly reduces the CO2 peculiarities of sugarcane is that once har- tion engine vehicles be redesigned to incor-
emissions of a vehicle. In vested, it needs to be con- porate flex-fuel technology. If we can imple-
the two decades since the verted into ethanol within ment these changes, we will significantly
deployment of flex-fuel Brazil’s example 24 hours or else it spoils. As reduce our CO2 emissions, letting us make
technology, Brazil’s con- a result, all sugar ethanol progress towards our CoP-26 commitments
tribution of CO2 equiva- shows what we production plants have to without the need for immediate radical
lents into the atmosphere be located right in the cen- alterations to our energy infrastructure.
has been as much as 1.34
could achieve tre of the fields from which Earlier this month, India’s Union minister

is a partner at Trilegal and also

we have learned to extract from the ground
and use to power everything around us, from
has a podcast by the name Ex
Machina. His Twitter handle is
the vehicles we drive to the power plants
that keep our lights on.
@matthan These fuel sources take millennia to pro-
duce, and, once consumed, are lost forever.
They emit greenhouse gases that have
warmed up the planet to a point where the
technology that once contributed to our civ-
ilizational advancement has become an exis-
tential threat to us all.
Regular readers of this column will know
that I am bullish on electric vehicles (EVs). I
have written at length on the advantages of
battery-swapping technologies and the
vehicle-to-grid opportunities they present.
This PDF was originally uploade To Teligram channel_ LBS Newspaper platform (https://t.me/LBSNEWSPAPER) Subscribe now to get this edition before anyone else!! Backup channel:@LBSNEWSPAPER
I’d heard about ethanol fuel for a while
but, for some reason, had assumed that it was
still experimental technology. I thought that
in order for it to work, we’d need a com-
pletely different internal combustion engine
—one that had been re-engineered to be able
to use ethanol.
It was only recently that I learnt, to my
surprise, that not only was this not true, a
number of countries around the world have
been mixing ethanol into their petrol and
using it in cars that are barely different from
those on our streets. In 2003, ever since flex-
fuel technology was first deployed in Brazil,
car owners have had the option to fill their
tanks with petrol, a mixture of ethanol and
billion tonnes less than it
could have been. This is
in our effort to
largely why, despite being
one of the most densely
reduce carbon
populated cities on the emissions for
planet, Sao Paulo is among
the least polluted. the planet’s sake
Ethanol production in
Brazil is highly efficient.
Most facilities use residual waste from the
process (bagasse) for power—generating
enough to run the plant with excess to spare.
In 2020, as much as 5% of the total power
consumption of the country was met by bio-
electricity generated from bagasse.
So why is all this relevant to us in India?
they get their raw material.
What this means is that
only those countries that
cultivate sugarcane can
produce ethanol from it.
The real reason why Brazil
is one of the world’s lead-
ing producers of sugar eth-
anol is thatit also happens
to be one of the world’s largest producers of
sugarcane.
Which brings us to India. Like Brazil,
India is a major sugar producer. This year,
with production estimated to touch 41 mil-
lion metric tonnes, we will probably even be
the world’s largest. This means that, like
for transport Nitin Gadkari flagged off the
country’s first flex-fuel car that was capable
of running on petrol, ethanol or any mixture
of the two. He said that ethanol-blended fuel
would likely be available in select parts of the
country by next year with a nationwide roll-
out planned in a few years time.
To be clear, ethanol is not a complete
solution to the climate challenges of the
world. It is, however, an easy first step
towards a more sustainable future—one that
will buy us the time we need over the next
decade or so to substantively restructure our
energy infrastructure in the way that needs
to be made in order to effect lasting change
in the country.
 14 WeDNesDay, 26 OctOber 2022
NeW Delhi BUSINESS OF LIFE SPORTS LIVEMINT.COM

T20 World Cup: What

next for India after win? with no turn proved crucial.
Just like in the Pakistan innings, India’s
onslaught against the spinners came in the sec-
ond half, right after the drinks break. Pandya
started it with a boundary off leg-spinner Members of Brazilian club FC Bahia’s gay fan group. AFP
Shadab Khan, followed by a six off the first ball
of the next over by Mohammad Nawaz. That
galvanized Kohli, who also hit Nawaz for a six.
India regained momentum with 20 runs from
the left-arm spinner’s over, just as Pakistan had
Brazil’s queer
done earlier with 21 runs from the only over
Axar Patel bowled. Kohli began to play with the
fluency of old, but Pandya struggled after the
Pakistan pace attack returned, scoring only 14
football fans
in the 19 balls he faced from that point.
It goes to show how much of a difference an
extra pacer would have made in the middle
overs. But Pakistan preferred the batting depth
fight for safety
that Nawaz provided, instead of a fourth fast
bowler like Mohammad Hasnain. LGBTQ+ fans campaign for safe
Despite the shift in momentum and Kohli
rediscovering his old self, three economical
stadiums in Brazil
overs from Shadab Khan, Naseem Shah, and
Haris Rauf left India with 48 to score in the last AFP
three overs. They would have to match what

Australia had done against the same opponent
in the 2010 T20 World Cup at Gros Islet in the
West Indies—the only other occasion so many
runs were scored in the final three overs of a
World Cup T20 game.
The odds of an India win became microscopic
with 28 runs needed from the last 8 balls. That’s
when Kohli made magic.
With 16 left to get in the final over from the
hapless Nawaz, whom Azam had held back in
the hope that his fast bowlers would break the
Kohli-Pandya partnership. It was now India in
the ascendancy, but it turned into a crazy final
over with more ups and downs and twists and
turns than you might find in an entire T20
game.
India captain Rohit Sharma celebrates with Virat Kohli; and (below) Arshdeep Singh in action against Pakistan. PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANI Pandya miscued a slog sweep, new batsman
Dinesh Karthik took a single, and Kohli scored
The euphoria of the win a brace, leaving 13 to get in the last 3 balls. Nawaz
then erred with a full toss above the waist which
over Pakistan papered Kohli hit for a six. A late call of a no-ball with
Kohli gesticulating added to the drama.
over India’s uneven Nawaz overcorrected to deliver a wide, before
producing a perfect yorker which bowled Kohli.
performance. What But the Indians collected 3 byes off the ricochet
should India do next? as it was a free hit. Indian fans in the stands
started celebrating with 2 to get in 2 balls. But
Karthik made a hash of a sweep to get stumped,
Sumit Chakraberty leaving Ashwin to score 2 off the final ball.
feedback@livemint.com The canny Chennai cricketer, knowing that
Nawaz would target his pads, coolly shimmied
W
earing a rainbow T-shirt and earrings, Ona Ruda struts
confidently through the Arena Fonte Nova football
stadium, home to his beloved Bahia team and one of
Brazil’s LGBT fan bases. However, his cool demeanour is not the
norm for football fans who dare to display their homosexuality
in Brazilian stadiums.
Ruda, a dark-haired, bearded man with heavy tattoos, knows
he is lucky. The club in northeastern Salvador is a rare safe space
for gay fans who often steer clear of football stadiums for fear of
coming under attack. “Before, no one could come here. Today we
exist, so we go, and some go with their friends, their family. The
great triumph is that these people no longer need to hide that
they are LGBT when they go to the stadium,” the 32-year-old,
who works in communications, tells AFP.
Ruda founded the Torcida LGBTricolor fan collective in Sep-
tember 2019 with the support of EC Bahia, currently a second-di-
vision team, which has become known for its progressive atti-
tude. The team is currently awaiting a possible sale to the City
Group, which owns Manchester City. The group of supporters
counts only 15 members, a far cry from other massive Brazilian
fan groups. However, the fact that they can go to the stadium
waving rainbow flags and wearing rainbow T-shirts, is no small
matter.
In other Brazilian football stadiums, homosexual fans are
forced to fly under the radar to avoid homophobic chants, insults,
hostile looks, and even assaults. Brazil
In stadiums, gay records violent incidents against the
fans have to fly LGBT community daily. In 2021, at
under the radar least 16 cases of homophobia were
recorded in football stadiums, accord-
or face ing to a report from Canarinhos LGBT,
homophobic

T
he India-Pakistan T20 World
Cup clash in Melbourne on Sun-
day was a game for the ages. In
the sheer drama of India getting
28 runs in the last 8 balls, and
Virat Kohli ending his lean stretch with his
greatest T20 innings, it arguably surpassed
even the 2007 T20 World Cup final victory
over Pakistan.
The drama began in the second over when
23-year-old Arshdeep Singh, playing his first
World Cup match in an iconic cricket stadium
packed to its capacity of nearly 100,000,
trapped Pakistan skipper Babar Azam LBW
with his very first ball. And then he had Paki-
stan’s second-best batsman, Mohammad Riz-
wan, caught off a bouncer in his second over.
But unlike the one-sided game Pakistan
won against India in Dubai at last year’s World
Cup, this one in Melbourne became a see-saw
battle. After going at just a run a ball for 10
overs, Iftikhar Ahmed teed off with four sixes
in two overs of spin from Ravichandran Ash-
win and Axar Patel. That forced a return to
pace, and Mohammed Shami, who hadn’t
played a single T20 game for India since the
last World Cup, removed Ahmed with the sec-
ond ball of his new spell.
Hardik Pandya then got into the act with
three wickets, continuing his fairy-tale come-
back that began with leading Gujarat Titans to
this year’s IPL title. Arshdeep Singh chipped in
with his third wicket, and Pakistan were 120 for
7 in the 17th over. But they still managed to score
39 in the last 20 balls.
A euphoric victory of the kind India ulti-
mately experienced, can paper over the cracks.
Twice they had their arch rivals on the mat:
first, when Pakistan’s most prolific scorers left
early, and then, at 120 for 7 with only the tail
left. Despite the advantage of bowling first on
a green wicket in overcast conditions, they
ended up chasing a daunting 160 against a for-
midable attack.
What complicated matters was a tentative
start from India’s openers, who poked and prod-
ded instead of putting some pressure back on
the Pakistan pacers. Perhaps it was tactical,
because they knew batting would get easier as
the ball got older, but it backfired.
With India at 31 for 4 in 6.1 overs, it was Paki-
stan’s game to lose. Hardik Pandya joined Virat
Kohli in the middle to stitch together a partner-
ship. It helped that two spinners were bowling
in tandem, with the pacers being rested after the
powerplay.
Both teams had made the mistake of fielding
two spinners in conditions ideal for pace bowl-
ing. Even though India limped to 45 for 4 in 10
overs, with Kohli subdued on 12 off 21 balls, the
spinners’ inability to break through on a wicket
to let the ball go behind him for a wide. Then,
with the field up to prevent a single off the last
ball, he shuffled to the legside for a shot over
mid-off for the winning run.
As Kohli put it aptly after the game, Ashwin
had used his game intelligence. This ensured
Kohli’s heroic innings would be in a winning
cause. It kept intact an incredible record: all the
18 times that Kohli has remained unbeaten in
T20 run chases, India has won.
Kohli’s resurgence is a huge boost to India’s
2022 World Cup campaign. But they may need
to rethink the second spinner option when they
face South Africa on the bouncy Perth wicket on
Sunday. And the vulnerability of the medium
pacers in the death overs, which proved fatal in
the Asia Cup, continues to be a bugbear.
Not giving Arshdeep Singh a third over with
the swinging new ball, after he had dismissed
the Pakistan openers, was a faulty call. Picking
Karthik ahead of Pant remains arguable. And
the Indian openers will have to go back to play-
ing with more aggressive intent from the outset
as they have been doing all through this year.
On a positive note, a team that has started
with a win and still has so much scope to
improve, is well-placed in the tournament.
an organization of football fans seeking
chants or worse to combat discrimination in the sport.
“As a trans man, I feel proud and wel-
comed in these stands. This is our
place, experiencing football,” said another Bahia fan, Antonio
Ramos, a 28-year-old gastronomy student.
Aside from Bahia, only the fans of Vasco da Gama in Rio de
Janeiro (Vasco LGBTQ+), venture to the football field without
needing to hide their sexual orientation. Others seek refuge indi-
vidually among groups of fans who label themselves anti-fascist,
such as Tribuna 77 of Gremio in Porto Alegre. The team from the
capital of Brazil’s southernmost state gave rise to one of the
world’s first homosexual fan collectives, called “Coligay”,
between 1977 and 1981.
LGBT football fans measure their strength according to their
number of online followers, and many are known for their politi-
cal activism. “These fan groups are as interested in rallying their
team as they are in changing football and their own clubs, to
become more inclusive,” added Dos Anjos.
For now, around 30 active members of PorcoIris are resigned
to attending Palmeiras matches without any LGBT symbols, sep-
arately, and in different stands. Gleison Oliveira, 28, a salesman,
hopes that at some point, male football will follow the example
of female teams where homosexuality is no longer taboo. “Imag-
ine a future in which we can express ourselves with the Palmeiras
shirt and go to stadiums without feeling any sort of repression,”
he said.

How India can make golf more inclusive for women

Women’s golf has come a Major tournaments than her male coun- others, impressed with their ability to hold have over 4,000 scratch women golfers?
terparts. She’s also been a Rookie of the their own in a world-class field. And what And more importantly, how do the
long way in India, but Year on the Ladies European Tour—a made an even greater impression was the exploits of one player (Pak was the only
much more needs to be tourney on which she has won three tour- large number of young women on the Korean on the LPGA in ’98) inspire her
naments. One of those wins came on sidelines cheering the players. In the compatriots to this extent?
done to tap into an home turf at the 2016 Women’s Indian world of women’s golf, Malik, Kapoor, In two words—infrastructural support.
immense potential Open, and Ashok was back for an encore
earlier this month, when the event was
Drall and Ashok are not just names, but
heroes to young girls picking up the game.
Following Pak’s win, the Korean golf fed-
eration got their act together, creating a
held after a hiatus of two years at the DLF Role models. three-tier amateur tour, which all players
Meraj Shah Golf & Country Club on the suburbs of And that’s how it all starts. South must come through to qualify for govern-
feedback@livemint.com Delhi. Korea’s tryst with women’s golf began in ment support. Once they make it, the golf-
The Women’s Indian Open is India’s 1998 when a 20-year-old Se Ri Pak out- ers then make their way through another

H
ere’s a question: which Indian
golfer has the maximum number
of appearances in Major tourna-
ments? Hazard a guess? All the golfers I’ve
put this question to have cried foul when
told the correct answer; one even articu-
lated it: “That’s a trick question!”
It is not a trick question. Just that the
answer is not Anirban Lahiri, or Jeev
Milkha Singh, or Arjun Atwal, or for that
matter, any male golfer. That would be
Aditi Ashok—the same person who had
the country transfixed, watching, of all
things, a strokeplay golf event during the
2022 Olympics. The fact that the majority
of these viewers did not play, or even fol-
low the game, makes Ashok’s accomplish-
ment unparalleled in Indian golf. Want a
lesson in how to ‘grow the game?’ Well,
that’s how it’s done…with role models
such as Ashok.
And yes, Aditi Ashok has played more
This PDF was originally uploade To Teligram channel_ LBS Newspaper platform (https://t.me/LBSNEWSPAPER) Subscribe now to get this edition before anyone else!! Backup channel:@LBSNEWSPAPER
annual date with the premier ‘Ladies’
European Tour. Considering that we tend
to trail the West when it comes to break-
ing gender stereotypes, or being politi-
cally correct in our language, the delicious
irony of that difference in nomenclature
is one to savour. So, allow me to emphasise
the point: the Women’s Indian Open, is
co-sanctioned by the ‘Ladies’ European
Tour. What’s in a name you ask? Not much
if it’s an empty relic of the past divested of
any connotations.
As those who were present in the sizea-
ble gallery to witness the event earlier this
month will attest, there’s nothing demure,
polite, or ‘ladylike’ about the game that
some of the best women players from
around the world put on display. Olivia
Cowan (English by origin, but born and
brought up in Germany), the daughter of
a teaching pro, who has been competing
seriously since she was around 10 years
Indian golfer Aditi Ashok.
old, won the event. Her final day four-un-
der-par 68 put her three shots clear of the
field, and she finished with a winning
score of 13-under. This was Cowan’s first
win on the LET after a string of also-ran
appearances.
The showstopper, however, was the girl
that Cowan stole the show from—Aman-
deep Drall. The young Indian has made
AP
steady progress through the ranks of
women’s golf over the past few years, and
put on a stellar display to finish tied sec-
ond. By her own standards, Ashok was not
on top of her game, and still managed to
finish in the top 5. And besides the two
highly-vaunted Indians in the fray, many
others figured on the leaderboard. Diksha
Dagar, Vani Kapoor, Tvesa Malik, among
lasted amateur challenger Jenny Chuasir-
iporn in an epic 20-hole playoff, to
become the youngest winner of the US
Women’s Open. The win—Pak’s first as a
professional—announced her arrival as
one of the hottest talents on the premier
LPGA Tour. Pak sealed her status with
another major win, the LPGA Champion-
ship, later that year. Her unprecedented
success raised the stock of Asian golf, but
more importantly, set into motion an
interest in women’s golf in Korea.
In 2013 after winning the US Women’s
Open, Pak’s compatriot Inbee Park
thanked her or breaking the door down.
19 at the time, Inbee had broken Pak’s
record of becoming the youngest ever US
Open winner. Two decades down the line
from Pak’s debut, Koreans comprise the
largest overseas group on the LPGA.
So how did they do it? How does a small
country with a population of 50 million
three-tiered professional circuit. By the
time these players have completed these
circuits, they’re ready to graduate out of
the KLPGA and head for the LPGA in
Europe.
Things have come a long way in the past
decade in India. The Indian Golf Union
now regularly sends women amateurs
overseas to take part in international tour-
naments. The amateur circuit today has a
much deeper talent pool than even a few
years ago. But there’s no denying the fact
that the game lacks accessibility. Despite
all the self-congratulatory hosannas after
Ashok’s performance at the Olympics, the
attention hasn’t yet translated into initia-
tives aimed at the growth of the sport. So,
you have a bunch of doughty women play-
ers, succeeding not because of the system,
but despite it. They certainly put up a heck
of a show at the 2022 Women’s Indian
Open. More power to them.