2023 has been declared the International Year of Millets after India, the largest producer of millets in the world, moved a resolution in the UN General Assembly.The Prime Minister himself has been promoting the use of millets as a staple through various channels like Mann Ki Baat and the Global Millets Conference that was recently held in the national capital.But making what were once called 'coarse grains' as the next big food trend is riddled with challenges and will take more than declaring 2023 the year of millets.Tune in.

After buying the digital rights for IPL for an eye-popping amount last year, Mukesh Ambani’s JioCinema wants to change the way Indians watch cricket. It wants to replace TV viewing with online streaming.In order to pull it off, it came up with an almost disruptive move. It decided to make IPL streaming freeWhile viewership is expected to hit half a billion and ad impressions to quadruple after this, advertisers are skeptical about a host of unknown factors.What are they?Tune in to find out.

The Indian Met Dept has predicted that 2023, especially between March to May, is going to be unusually hot for most parts of India. Air conditioners and electric fans account for nearly one fifth of the total electricity used in buildings around the world today.Naturally, electricity bills have skyrocketed and it's only going to get worse.Meanwhile, a fascinating technology has emerged that can save 30 to 40% in energy consumption but it's not being adopted as fast as it should be. Energy transitions are proving to be much more difficult than a smartphone upgrade.Tune in

Last week, Season 2 of one of the country’s most popular reality TV shows, Shark Tank India, came to an end. The show has given rise to a significant demand for startup investing.Investors are able to put in as little as Rs 5000 via online fundraising platforms like Tyke Invest and Infubiz. They offer investments in startups through Community Subscription Offer Plans. But these fundraising campaigns are not subject to securities laws and  investors in these instruments do not have any shareholder rights under the Companies Act, 2013.This is creating a high-risk environment for small-time retail investors.Tune in.

A few months ago, a whistleblower alleged that some of the top EV makers in India were misusing the FAME subsidy. The government began an investigation and withheld the subsidy for multiple EV manufacturers.Ever since, news stories have been reporting how the sale of EVs in India has declining and the FAME subsidy is under the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.But the government is only trying to correct a past mistake. The impact of the subsidy on the rising penetration of EVs in the country can't be ignored. In fact, the criticism of FAME could actually end up hurting the EV sector in the long run.Tune in.

For credit card issuers, 'revolvers' are the most profitable customers. They are users who carry over a balance from one month to another instead of paying the entire due amount.These users pay as much as 40% interest per annum by revolving and help the credit card issuer make obscene amounts of profits.But lately, dues from ‘revolvers’ have been falling. There is a shift in their behaviour pattern.Tune in to find out why

With summer around the corner this year, the Indian government is scrambling to make sure the country does not face power outages.But as this demand for power rises, the country is also working on increasing its green energy capacity. In fact, India is turning out to be one of the fastest to increase its renewable energy capacity. The transition to green energy is not just about how electricity is produced, it is also about how it is consumed. India emerged as the biggest market for corporate power-purchase agreements  (PPAs) in Asia-Pacific for the second year in a row.This trend has the state-run discoms or power distribution companies seriously worried.

ITC's stock had been lagging for years. Many institutional investors stayed away from ITC because the company's shares are considered sin stocks. The company, meanwhile, has avoided acknowledging the importance of cigarettes, its mainstay business, in its communications.But over the last year, the ITC stock has made a dramatic comeback. Suddenly, investors can't get enough of the company.What changed?Tune in to find out.

The fourth draft of the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill is all set to be presented in the Parliament during the ongoing Budget session. While it makes a strong case for creating laws to prevent the personal information of citizens from being harvested and exploited, the Bill is playing blind to two Important factors. This in turn could end up creating a crony-capitalist economy where an individual's freedom of choice is put at risk.Tune in.

The introduction of the contraceptive pill in the 1960s was one of the most significant events in the history of human society. But it still left the burden of birth control largely on women.Now, however, things are changing. The demand for male contraceptives is on the rise. But why have large pharmaceutical companies not paid enough attention to the research on male contraceptives for all these years?Tune in.P.S We apologise for the delay in the release of today's episode. We were faced with technical difficulties.

CP Plus, a CCTV camera brand, procures 80% of its supplies for its parent company Aditya Infotech Ltd (AIL) from the Chinese security-equipment manufacturer Dahua Technology.   Dahua and Hikvision, another Chinese surveillance-tech firm, are facing sanctions in the UK, US, Australia, and other countries, for their connection to the Chinese government.But in India’s growing CCTV market, which is said to be worth Rs.5000 crores, both these companies are flourishing. Bringing them under control is turning out to be a huge policy challenge for the government.Tune in.

In 2015, the current government set an ambitious target. It said we would have 100 GW of solar capacity by 2022 and 40% of it would come from rooftop solars or RTS. Back then, the country’s solar capacity was just 3.7 GW.   But as of October 2022, this capacity rose to only a little over 60 GW. The main reason for this is the slow adoption of RTS. High transaction costs and lack of data about the long-term performance of RTS make it difficult to access loans for small-scale solar installations.Tune in to find out more.

Years ago, a tug of war began between tech companies including OTT platforms and telecom companies.Telecom and internet service providers believe that content and tech companies should pay them for disproportionate traffic. But tech and content companies argue that this would violate the principles of net neutrality.The debate has now reached India and telecom regulator TRAI is expected releasing a consultation paper on the matter soon.Will content companies like Google, Netflix have to compensate telcos in India?Tune in.

Hotstar has remained the undisputed OTT leader in India boasting of half of India's 90 million paid OTT subscribers. A part of this success has come via the IPL streaming rights and from bundling with telecom and DTH service providers like Jio and Airtel. But last year, Jio's Viacom 18 won the digital streaming rights of IPL, the largest cricket tournament in the world. Not just that Reliance's Jio also dropped Disney+Hotstar from most of its streaming bundles.Why did Reliance choose to end this partnership and what does it mean for Disney+Hotstar?Tune in to find out.

From February 26, the Union Health Ministry will organise a two-day 'Chintan Shivir'  to explore ways to build trust on Indian drugs, cosmetics and medical devices.Despite being called 'the pharmacy of the world,' time and again, the Indian pharmaceutical industry has received criticism for substandard quality. The most recent such incident was when the deaths of children in Gambia and Uzbekistan were allegedly linked to cough syrups manufactured in India.Why does Indian Pharma still struggle with quality control?Tune in to find out.

With its phenomenal success, UPI has changed the way Indians interact with money. Now, the NPCI along with other fintech platforms are making efforts to launch UPI for international use.But the government needs to ensure UPI remains secure and reliable as it expands beyond the country's borders.Note: In the previous version of this episode, the host mistakenly referred to NPCI as NCPI. The error is regretted and has been corrected.

A few days ago, Zomato announced that it was withdrawing its services from 225 cities in India on account of "not so encouraging" performance.Last week, the food tech giant also reported its financial results for the last quarter of 2022. It saw its losses soar 5X to nearly 350 crore rupees.The volume of orders also declined during this period. But in these numbers there also lies hidden a glimmer of hope for the company.Tune in.

With increased competition within the country, the over-hundred years old Ayurvedic brand, Dabur, is looking to acquire and expand. It wants to change its story.Just last year in October, it acquired a 51% stake in Badshah Masala, one of the country's leading spices companies.But why does the world leader of Ayurveda brands need to reinvent itself?Tune in.

Whether it is to decide where to eat or what to buy, online reviews play important role. But fake reviews are turning out to be quite a menace.To bring them under control, the Indian government released a set of guidelines for e-commerce platforms.But they forgot to mention an important point.Tune in to find out.

Lately, Indians have been spending increased amounts of money on travelling to foreign countries. In the month of November last year, Indian travellers spent 1 billion dollars abroad. The government and even regulator RBI took notice of the new trend.And now, in the Union Budget 2023, a new tax has been added to overseas spending through the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LTS).