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Daybreak

The Ken

Business news is complex and overwhelming. It doesn’t have to be. Every day of the week, from Monday to Friday, Daybreak tells one business story that’s significant, simple and powerful.

Hosted from The Ken’s newsroom by Snigdha Sharma and Rachel Varghese, Daybreak relies on years of original reporting and analysis by some of India’s most experienced and talented business journalists.

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#855
Thursday · 21 min
Why your next IIT, IIM reunion will feel like a sales pitch
What happens when India's top institutes start treating reunions as fundraisers? The Ken's Santhom and Mutasim, both from IITs themselves, write about how one batch of alumni pledged Rs. 100 crores for a single idea, and look at the system growing around this kind of philanthropy like x-bankers that run development foundations, non-profit partners set in California taking donations in dollars. The result is that some alumni feel that donation floors are taking the sentiment out of reunions, making them feel less about the connection between students and campuses and more like manicured events. Host Rachel Varghese sits down with both reporters to explore what has changed with universities doubling down on this model, whether it will last and what both reporters are likely to do once their own 25th reunion comes around. Tune in. This episode was edited by Arnav Prakash Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
#854
Wednesday · 15 min
Apple and Google's app stores are the next battleground for protests
On October 3, Jack Dorsey's Bitchat disappeared from Apple's App Store in India after the IT ministry demanded its removal. It vanished from Google Play too. Bitchat lets phones pass messages over Bluetooth, with no internet needed. That made it a lifeline in July, when the government switched off mobile internet around Delhi's Jantar Mantar during student protests. In one week, India accounted for 85% of the app's global downloads. Even an order to pull its code off GitHub didn't stop it spreading. So the government went after the app stores. In this episode, host Snigdha Sharma looks at the technology protesters reach for when the internet goes dark, and how governments are learning to keep up. Tune in. Also listen to: Delhi built a ‘safe’ surveillance city. It can now locate anyone in seconds This episode was edited by Arnav Prakash Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
#853
Tuesday · 19 min
Nike needs India’s sneaker heads. But do they need Nike?
When the NBA complained about Micheal Jordan's black and red shoes, Nike turned the complaint into an ad, and sneakers ended up becoming a symbol of style and rebellion. In India, sneaker culture took longer to arrive. But last year, more than 200 people lined up outside a store in Bangalore for a limited edition shoe from Comet, a homegrown brand. And Nike could use that kind of enthusiasm right now. Its revenue fell 4% last quarter, and its losing ground in China, a major market, to local players. Which is why, its new Bangalore campus sounded like a bet on Indian sneaker heads. But other communications suggest that it's a "capability center", another back office, and this is after Nike has pulled away from India before. So, today we ask: is Nike fighting for the market that Comet, Gully Labs and Ten x You are carving out for themselves? And if it was, what would it take for it to win? This episode was edited by Arnav Prakash Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
#852
Monday · 21 min
Delhi built a ‘safe’ surveillance city. It can now locate anyone in seconds
Your face caught on a camera, your vehicle number plate, a voter ID, a driving licence, even a police-clearance certificate—any of these can become part of a vast web of data that the police can search in Delhi. That matters especially now, as the capital sees mass protests and public demonstrations, raising questions around safety. surveillance, privacy and the right to dissent. The Ken's Pratap Vikram Singh spent a month investigating Delhi’s ₹857-crore Safe City Project, conceived in the name of women’s safety. Its mandate now extends far beyond that, to crime prevention, public-order surveillance and political and religious rallies. What exactly is Delhi building, who can access it, and what happens when a system designed to find criminals can find almost anyone? In this episode, host Snigdha Sharma reads Pratap’s report titled: Delhi’s mass surveillance: track 50 million faces, identify them in five seconds This episode was edited by Arnav Prakash Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
#851
October 4 · 15 min
How Flipkart Minutes became the company's redemption arc
For years, Flipkart has tried and struggled to scale the vertical it began to sell groceries. But as quick commerce platforms started becoming successful, the e-commerce giant could not just stay out of the game. Today, around a quarter of its business comes from Minutes. What is driving the vertical is also an aggressive expansion of dark stores and in tier-2 and a change in management affecting selection on the platform. In this episode, we look at how Minutes has made it work so far, and why Flipkart's push into quick commerce is becoming a way for it to secure its future. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
#850
October 1 · 10 min
Adani’s think tank flexes its muscles in Delhi
A two-year-old think tank backed by Adani just got 14 of its suggestions, some of them word for word, written into a law passed by Parliament. That law opened India's nuclear sector to private players for the first time in history. Months later, Adani floated a new subsidiary to enter the same field. The think tank is called Chintan Research Foundation. It started in a South Delhi cafe. It calls itself independent. And it's now one of the more visible and contested players in Delhi's policy world. So what exactly does Rs 100 crore buy you in India's policy ecosystem? Also listen to: Friday Roundup: Adani goes nuclear and AI's talent exit ( https://the-ken.com/podcasts/daybreak... ) *This episode was originally published on May 6th 2026 Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
#849
October 1 · 10 min
India is burning through its coal buffer
This September was supposed to give India's power grid a break. Instead, on some nights, the gap between the electricity people wanted and what the grid could supply reached almost 8 gigawatts, bigger than anything seen during this year's heatwaves. Kerala restricted power in the evenings. Near Patna, villagers blocked a highway after three days without electricity. And 82 power plants were running critically low on coal, with barely a week's worth left. Strangely, India isn't short of coal. About 76 million tonnes sits at Coal India's mines. But a weak monsoon drained the dams and flooded the coal belt at the same time. So how much breathing room is there between you and a power cut? This episode was edited by Arnav Prakash. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
#848
September 29 · 15 min
Ekta Kapoor built her own OTT app. Now she's betting on YouTube
In the 2000s, Ekta Kapoor's serials ruled Indian TV every night on weekdays. Then as, audiences moved from TV screens to smaller ones and streaming, her company, Balaji Telefilms followed. It bet on its own streaming app: ALTBalaji. For years, it lost money. Until finally, it shut down last year after a government ban in 2025. Now, Balaji is taking 5 new shows and a combined 200 episodes to Youtube. Premium, shot in 4k and free to watch. So why is India's queen of TV soaps, skipping the subscription model? We dig into her belief in an audience that no one is serving, the Pakistani drama effect and whether a bet on Youtube's ad model is enough for TV. This episode was edited by Arnav Prakash. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
#847
September 28 · 12 min
Can India build a ‘UPI’ for your cows and your gold?
Earlier this month, at the Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai, India's regulators and industry leaders rallied around one idea: tokenisation, which turns assets like bonds, gold and land into digital units that can be bought, sold and settled in seconds. Some of it is already underway, with three companies recently raising over Rs 1,000 crore through bonds that settled the same day. But the plan leans heavily on the RBI's digital rupee, which has seen little use four years after launch. And Indian banks have bet on blockchain before, without much to show for it. In this edition, Suprita Anupam examines whether tokenisation can do for financial assets what UPI did for payments. This is a read aloud of a newsletter edition of Ka Ching, by Snigdha Sharma on Daybreak by The Ken. 📖 Read the full story on The Ken: Can India build a ‘UPI’ for your cows and your gold? Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
#846
September 27 · 15 min
AI is Bollywood's cheapest new hire
Bollywood has been seeing tough times since Covid. Theatre footfall still haven't recovered, even as box office numbers soar, and budgets for filmmakers are only getting tighter. AI seems to have a brought a glimmer hope for some in the industry, as it slowly makes its way into every stage of filmmaking. From identifying good concepts to writing scripts, storyboarding scenes, generating entire shots, to even replacing some VFX work. Studio heads familiar with the space project shrinking crews and are already seeing timelines grow shorter. Still, it doesn't make the trade-off any less real. Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
#845
September 24 · 15 min
UPI is the trojan horse taking small banks into HDFC, Axis's credit-card empire
After two years of slow adoption, Credit-Line-on-UPI is finally taking off, but not with the big banks. Small banks and fintechs are leading the charge, while the big incumbents that dominate credit cards hold back. For HDFC and Axis, it's a really difficult choice. Should they compete on CLOU and risk cannibalising their own cards, or scale it through the very fintechs they're trying to outmatch? Meanwhile, a matured tech stack has turned CLOU into a full-strength card equivalent, complete with real-time underwriting. And while CLOU had promised inclusion for those who can't normally access credit, the promised inclusion has actually been flipped. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
#844
September 23 · 14 min
How India's rich are finding returns in the country's court backlog
Make The Ken's Daybreak X First Principles Autumn Playlist here. India has roughly 54 million cases stuck in its courts. Inside many of them is money someone is owed but can't afford to chase. What if you could invest in that? Back the case, pay the legal bills, and take a cut if it wins. In the US and the UK, this is already a multi-billion-dollar asset class. In India, a handful of funders are trying to build it. But they've run into a strange problem. The same backlog that makes the idea so attractive is also what makes it so hard. Because here, of course you are betting on whether a case wins…but more importantly, you're betting on when. In a recent edition of our weekly newsletter Ka Ching, The Ken reporter Mutasim Khan looked at who's making this bet, who's putting up the money, and who it's actually helping. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
#843
September 22 · 16 min
Amazon’s quick-commerce win will be less about speed and more about Prime
Make The Ken's Daybreak X First Principles Autumn Playlist here. Amazon Now just crossed $1 billion in annualised gross sales, faster than Zepto did. But it's still miles behind Blinkit, still losing money in India, and still playing catch-up on scale. So why is its latest investment not focused on quick commerce? Because for Amazon, the real fight isn't about who delivers fastest. It's about who can afford to lose money longer, and who has more to sell you than just groceries. Today, host Rachel Varghese digs into Amazon's $300 million infrastructure bet, the food-safety raids exposing cracks in the dark-store model, and why Prime, and not 10-minute delivery, might be Amazon's actual edge heading into festive season. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
#842
September 21 · 15 min
One year of GST 2.0. Who's it working for?
Tap here to help us make The Ken's Daybreak X First principles Autumn Playlist One year ago, GST 2.0 rewrote the tax on almost everything Indians buy — from soap to cars. It promised a simpler system and cheaper shopping. Twelve months on, we ask the obvious question: is it working? Tune in.
#841
September 20 · 17 min
A cancelled peptide party, and the questions it raised that Indian sellers still can't answer
India was about to have its first-ever peptide party with fifty guests, a mystery venue marketed only as "not a hospital," and a menu of collagen, glutathione, and copper peptides. Then the Karnataka Food Safety and Drug Administration started asking questions, and the party was cancelled overnight. On this episode, The Ken's Sudeshna Ray joins host Rachel Varghese to unpack the peptide craze that's crossed over from Silicon Valley biohacking circles into Indian gyms, Instagram DMs, and D2C wellness brands, and the murky, largely unregulated supply chain, that runs through China, that gets these substances into the country in the first place. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
#840
September 18 · 10 min
Why Indigo went budget and premium at once
For two decades, an Indian air ticket told you what kind of airline you were flying. Low-cost meant cheap and bare. Full-service meant meals and baggage folded into the fare. That line is now almost gone. Indigo's new Lite fare strips economy down to a cabin bag, even as its Stretch cabin and BluChips programme reach for the premium flyer Air India once owned. Passengers are uneasy but investors, holding the only serious listed bet in Indian aviation, are not. What do Indigo's owners understand that its flyers do not Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
#839
September 16 · 16 min
India's newest iPhone prices hurt the people selling them, buying them and even taxing them
Apple's newest iPhones landed in India with price hikes as high as 41%. And for the first time in years, there was no discount on older models to go along with it. The memes pretty much came immediately. From selling kidneys to choosing between buying a phone or an Alto, a Royal Enfield or a vacation. People also couldn't help but notice that Apple's first foldable, the iPhone Duo, costs a lakh more in India than it does in the US. But Apple is just a symptom of a larger problem. A global memory chip shortage is squeezing every phone maker and India's own tax structure is making it worse here than almost everywhere else. It's costing consumers, retailers and even the Government, which is slowly losing tax revenue to the grey market the price difference between India and elsewhere creates. On this episode, host Rachel Varghese explores why India got hit the hardest and what happens when the workarounds like cheaper 4G phones, secondhand devices, and EMI, run out of road as well. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
#838
September 15 · 12 min
7.8% growth. So why doesn't India feel richer?
In February this year, India announced a sweeping overhaul of how it calculates GDP, fixing a measurement system the IMF had flagged as outdated just last November. It includes a new base year, better price data, and a wider net to count the informal economy. The number seems to be getting closer to reality. But that raises a harder question. For a country that has built its global identity around being the world's fastest growing major economy, what happens when the arithmetic changes? And does any of it actually reach 1.4 billion people? Host Snigdha Sharma explores. Tune in. (This episode is a re-run. It was originally published on 26 Feb, 2026) Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
#837
September 14 · 12 min
Your kids might be looting your bank account in the guise of gaming
Kids all over India are spending real money inside mobile games. And most of the time, they slip by the notice of the adults, until the bill or bank alert eventually arrives. Most of them are using their grandparent's or some other relative's phone, where UPI pins are usually already saved, and they're not watching so closely. In fact, Delhi's cybercrime cell has seen a rise in "fraud" complaints that turn out to be a child spending small amounts repeatedly on loot boxes and in-game stores. India's gaming law banned real-money games because but loot boxes slipped through, because it doesn't immediately count as gambling. But loot boxes don't have set items. You could spend Rs. 75 to open a box with a skin that's worth thousands, and it can even be resold for real cash. So, is it gambling, or not? Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
#836
September 13 · 12 min
⁠India's data law has HDFC Bank, Amazon, Paytm, and others shopping for consent
India’s new data protection law is reshaping how companies talk to customers on WhatsApp. Messages that once felt routine now carry legal weight and are tied to consent, security, and user rights. Since the Digital Personal Data Protection Act became operational, businesses have begun reworking how they collect and manage personal data. That shift has created a fast-growing market for compliance tools, drawing startups and established firms into the same space. As companies rush to avoid heavy penalties, disagreements are emerging over who should manage consent and how independent they need to be. The bigger question is how much control users will really have over their data. Tune in. *This episode was first published on January 27th 2026. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

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