Make India Competitive Again (Private)

The telecom ministry issued an order requiring phone manufacturers to pre-install Sanchar Saathi, a cybersecurity app developed by the state. Then, it changed its mind less than a week later, after criticism arose in many corners—the Opposition, civil-liberties groups, and companies that make phones.India’s rapid digitisation is a positive development, but it also comes with opportunities for bad actors to commit fraud. The government wants this infrastructure to be safe for everyone, but the way it tried to go about it ruffled everyone’s feathers. Forcing a cybersecurity app onto every phone, after all, looks a lot like surveillance by default.Meanwhile, there is a real threat—digital arrest, where fraudsters impersonate law-enforcement officials and convince their victims to part with vast sums of cash, is a common scam.The Ken contributor Srikanth Rajagopalan offers a few ways to mitigate fraud without infringing on personal privacy in this edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Snigdha Sharma.*This is the final episode of the Make India Competitive Again podcast. The newsletter will continue to be published every Monday morning. Subscribe here to keep up with timely commentary from The Ken: https://the-ken.com/newsletters/ *Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/digital-fraud-is-a-human-problem-theres-no-app-for-that/Download our app and subscribe to The Ken to listen to all our podcasts:iOS: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/the-ken/id1282944688 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ken.core&hl=en&gl=US&pli=1 Check out Make India Competitive Again on Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/5yxzxRmN7idKJen5QdezPlOr Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/make-india-competitive-again-premium/id1810672381 

Eight hours a day, 48 hours a week. That’s the new limit on how much time India’s central government says people should spend at work. If an employee agrees to do more than that, then their employer must pay overtime—double their wage.India, as it turns out, has one of the world’s highest overtime wage rates, but that doesn’t mean everyone can benefit from it.The government’s own 2024–25 Economic Survey indicates that regulations like these discourage job creation and limit wages, so some workers are enticed to enter informal employment.Meanwhile, the informal workforce—think of the likes of gig workers—are not eligible for overtime pay under the new regulation, even though many people who take on this type of arrangement end up working 10–14 hours per day.That means the new rules aren’t really accomplishing their intended objectives. India’s gig workers could benefit from more structure, while employees could do with a higher degree of flexibility.The Ken deputy editor Arundhati Ramanthan reveals the details in this edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Rahel Philipose. Download our app and subscribe to The Ken to listen to all our podcasts:iOS: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/the-ken/id1282944688 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ken.core&hl=en&gl=US&pli=1 Check out Make India Competitive Again on Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/5yxzxRmN7idKJen5QdezPlOr Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/make-india-competitive-again-premium/id1810672381 

Tenneco Clean Air, the manufacturer of auto components, went public last week. Aside from being an important moment for the company, that instance was an important outlier.It listed with a premium close to 27% at a time when many Indian firms backed by private equity have had weak debuts. Its anchor book—pre-IPO share allocation to major institutional investors—was oversubscribed by 170X.The US parent of Tenneco Clean Air is owned by Apollo Global Management, an asset management firm based in New York. Other companies with similar PE backing haven’t fared so well in recent times. Sona Comstar, for instance, went public in 2021 with a P/E multiple of 79—far higher than Tenneco’s 29—courtesy of its backer Blackstone. The stock is currently well below its peak, which it hit in six months after going public.Here’s a fact: private equity has underperformed the S&P 500 index over one, three, and five years, according to McKinsey & Company. This category of investors in India extract value from their portfolio companies before they head to the bourses, leaving little opportunity for public investors.The Ken editor Seema Singh shines a light on the situation in this week’s edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Brady Ng.*Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/can-a-pe-firm-not-be-greedy-a-us-firms-india-ipo-offers-a-clue/ Download our app and subscribe to The Ken to listen to all our podcasts:iOS: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/the-ken/id1282944688 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ken.core&hl=en&gl=US&pli=1 Check out Make India Competitive Again on Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/make-india-competitive-again-premium/id1810672381 Or Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/5yxzxRmN7idKJen5QdezPl

Deep tech is increasingly connected to India’s national and regional sovereignty, and the way companies in this space are funded is changing.The Indian cabinet earmarked Rs 1 lakh crore ($12 billion) earlier this year for a Research, Development, and Innovation Fund, then followed up this month with a call for “second-level fund managers”—entities such as alternative investment funds, development finance institutions, and non-banking financial companies.All types of VCs recognise this is their new frontier. After all, the verticals of blitzscaled digital platforms, D2C, and consumer apps are things of the past, while artificial intelligence—the flavour of the season—carries too high a risk for most investors.The result is deep-tech companies having their day in the sun, but with some caveats. Funding startups in this space means being in it for the long haul. Research and development take years, and Indian industry is notoriously gun shy when it comes to spending on R&D. Even if a new technology is developed by a deep-tech firm, commercialisation isn’t easy to solve. The Ken editor Seema Singh unpacks this new landscape for deep-tech firms in the latest edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Rachel Varghese.*Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/indian-vcs-newfound-love-for-deep-tech-a-step-change-or-in-lockstep/Download our app and subscribe to The Ken to listen to all our podcasts:iOS: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/the-ken/id1282944688 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ken.core&hl=en&gl=US&pli=1 Check out Make India Competitive Again on Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/make-india-competitive-again-premium/id1810672381 Or Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/5yxzxRmN7idKJen5QdezPl

Earlier this month, the Competition Commission of India, or CCI, got a slap on the wrist. Its ban on Whatsapp from sharing user data with parent company Meta was overturned. Even though Whatsapp still had to pay a Rs 200 crore fine, the ruling was a blow to the CCI.The fact is the antitrust watchdog has lost its bark when it comes to the digital economy. Where it used to take three months to close an investigation, the CCI now takes up to eight, and it currently dismisses 80% of the complaints that go its way. Among the cases that the commission does take up, nearly half are appealed.Meanwhile, the digital economy is barreling ahead. Major tech companies—most of which are from overseas—have massive resources in the form of cash, lawyers, economists, and more to challenge the CCI’s decisions. All of this matters when the development of artificial intelligence makes it even more difficult to govern the way data is handled. As one startup founder told The Ken, “When algorithms start talking to each other without human intervention, competition challenges become more complex than before.”Inderpal Singh looked into the trials and tribulations faced by the CCI in this edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Brady Ng.*Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/fewer-cases-longer-wait-indias-antitrust-cops-must-fix-this-math/Download our app and subscribe to The Ken to listen to all our podcasts:iOS: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/the-ken/id1282944688 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ken.core&hl=en&gl=US&pli=1 Check out Make India Competitive Again on Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/make-india-competitive-again-premium/id1810672381Or on Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/5yxzxRmN7idKJen5QdezPl

There’s one company that exemplifies the current moment in India’s AI investments. It doesn’t make advanced semiconductors or train large language models. Instead, it rents out space to companies that do.The arrangement is called colocation—think of it as real estate for servers, where clients plug in their machines while the “landlord” provides power, cooling, and connectivity.Sify Infinit Spaces, the data-centre arm of Sify Technologies, is India’s poster child for this setup. It will be behind the country’s first IPO for a company of its kind.By tracking the colocation industry’s growth around the world, there’s incredible promise based on demand. Capacity worldwide has more than doubled since 2019 to hit 42 gigawatts (GW) in 2024, and could reach 65 GW by 2027. Sify should head the same way, if not grow even faster.But that assumes India has enough power to support rapid scaling. One Nvidia GB300 rack can draw enough electricity to power 100 homes in the US, and it takes thousands of racks to train a foundational model. Even Sify acknowledges the problem in its DRHP by referring to power supply risk, grid reliability risk, and related issues.Sumit Chakraborty, The Ken’s head of desk, looks into Sify Infinit Spaces’ IPO and the company’s promise in this edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Rahel Philipose.*Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/indias-first-data-centre-ipo-shows-what-to-fix-before-india-can-scale-ai/Download our app and subscribe to The Ken to listen to all our podcasts: iOS: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/the-ken/id1282944688 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ken.core&hl=en&gl=US&pli=1 Check out Make India Competitive Again on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/make-india-competitive-again-premium/id1810672381 Or Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/5yxzxRmN7idKJen5QdezPl

Artificial intelligence is no longer an option or privilege. It’s here to stay, even in schools.OpenAI and India’s education ministry have partnered to distribute free ChatGPT licences to government schools, and AI is being introduced into CBSE and ICSE’s curricula.The Ken conducted a survey in August to find out what our readers thought about language models becoming a constant presence in India’s education facilities. These were some of the questions in the survey:What do you think OpenAI’s goal is in Indian schools?Who should be responsible if data is misused?What data do you think OpenAI is most interested in?On the ground, most schools haven’t figured out how to bring AI into the classroom, so they’re using it for everything except teaching, such as administration tasks and applicant interviews. That hardly lines up with the goal to make India’s students AI-literate.The Ken reporter Atul Krishna unpacks the implications of ChatGPT’s proliferation in India’s education sector in the latest edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Snigdha Sharma.Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletters/make-india-competitive-again/

India is relaxing rules for states to approve and fund standalone battery-storage systems. There’s a rush to build those projects, and tariffs are going lower and lower.Rajasthan set a “lowest tariff” record last week at Rs 1.77 lakh per megawatt per month, undercutting Andhra Pradesh. Maharashtra is now sending out feelers, so there may be an even lower figure soon.It’s a situation that has played out in renewable energy before. Solar and wind projects were rapidly installed, but little was done to build local manufacturing muscle. The current rush of activity in the battery-storage space is only leading to market distortion. With government funding and other incentives, it’s “almost a risk-free business”, as one executive told The Ken.There’s also the matter of relying heavily on Chinese imports, which also happened when solar and wind energy projects were being built. The result is an insecure supply chain for battery storage in India. The Ken editor Seema Singh has the details in the latest edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Brady Ng.*Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/states-confuse-cheap-with-sustainable-in-battery-storage-gold-rush/

The Indian Semiconductor Mission, or ISM, is one of the most ambitious initiatives undertaken by the government in decades. Out of Rs 76,000 crore earmarked for production-linked incentives, roughly Rs 65,000 crore has already been committed, and the mission supports 10 major projects across the value chain.This is all good and great for building the infrastructure and facilities for making chips, but the right kind of human capital is just as important—and largely absent.The ISM launched a skilling programme in July 2023 to address precisely that problem, aiming to train the professionals who would then populate India’s fledgling fabs. To do this, the ISM, the Indian Institute of Science, and California-headquartered Lam Research teamed up to use the latter’s virtual fab simulator, SEMulator3D, to prepare Indian college students for a career in semiconductor manufacturing.The hitch is that this doesn’t really give students hands-on learning, so they aren’t truly prepared for life in fabs. The Ken reporter Keshav Pransukhka found out why in the latest edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Rachel Varghese.*Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletters/make-india-competitive-again/ 

India’s production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme is meant to boost domestic manufacturing and exports. It rewards a range of companies, including those that produce 41 critical molecules in active pharmaceutical ingredients, or APIs.Meanwhile, Chinese manufacturers have slashed their prices of several important APIs by 40–50%. In some cases, these prices are below the cost of production in India.Even though the adjustment won’t be permanent, those lowered prices are a major blow to Indian companies that were making headway for the past five years in API production, and which formed India’s muscle in this space.This isn’t the first time for Chinese producers to undercut their Indian competitors. The same situation happened in the 2000s. Here’s the kicker: aside from the Indian government’s PLI scheme, few conditions have improved for API manufacturers. The Ken reporter Sudeshna Ray explores the issue in this edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Seetharaman G.*Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/chinas-new-pharma-api-war-and-lessons-from-its-last-strike/

AU Small Finance Bank received in-principle approval in August from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to become a universal bank. It was the first institution of its kind to reach this milestone. This also marked the first time in a decade for the RBI to issue a full-fledged banking licence.This has a couple major consequences. For AU, the transition means it will be able to offer a much broader range of services to its customers—and significantly expand its business. For the RBI, it was a development that demonstrated how small finance banks, which were introduced in 2014, are now mature enough to do much more.Meanwhile, another innovation that the RBI introduced that same year, payments banks, aren’t doing nearly as well. Some have shut down, and those that are still around often have negative bottom lines.Both small finance banks and payments banks were meant to give underserved and underbanked Indians options to be part of the formal banking system. But the outcomes more than a decade after their emergence are vastly different. The Ken contributor Sarthak Gupta explores the issue in this edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Snigdha Sharma.*Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/when-will-the-rbi-allow-payments-banks-to-grow-up/Subscribe to the Make India Competitive Again newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletters/make-india-competitive-again/ 

India’s MSMEs operate in informal frameworks that have barely evolved over the past two decades. The result is that small businesses have largely the same struggles as they did before, whether it’s the absence of adequate credit, difficulties in entering new markets, or payment delays.Since MSMEs are the second-largest employer in India, solving these problems represents a significant opportunity.After all, opportunity has already come knocking. Take for example the shift of manufacturing out of China. India should be a natural destination, but the smaller manufacturers in the country simply were not prepared or equipped with the competencies that major clients demand from their vendors.There are startups in India taking steps to help small manufacturing businesses develop “full-stack factory solutions”.The Ken reporter Pranathi DVLS explores this space in this edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Rahel Philipose.Subscribe to the Make India Competitive Again newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletters/make-india-competitive-again/Download our app and subscribe to The Ken to access our latest releases:iOS: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/the-ken/id1282944688Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ken.core&hl=en&gl=US&pli=1Or subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts to access our latest releases: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/make-india-competitive-again-premium/id1810672381

Let’s think back to what happened a little more than a week ago: On 30 August, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart, Shigeru Ishiba, boarded Japan’s fastest bullet train, the Hayabusa, and cruised toward Miyagi prefecture at 320 km/h. They were heading to a facility of semiconductor equipment giant Tokyo Electron Limited, or TEL, in Sendai, to spotlight India and Japan’s collaboration in the semiconductor sector.Japan is a major player in chipmaking, and it’s a model for the way disruption-free operations are crucial for any nation that is a meaningful part of the semiconductor space. This is a particularly important takeaway for India, especially given how PM Modi said last week that he expects to eventually see a “full stack” semiconductor ecosystem in the country.There are plenty of risks to mitigate—the dependence on Taiwan, erratic diplomatic moves by US President Donald Trump, and China’s weaponisation of its dominance in supply chains, to name a few. All of this means India needs rock-solid supply chain links for critical equipment and materials if it wants to become a reliable chip producer. The Ken contributor Ankit Tiwari dives into the details in this week’s edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Brady Ng.Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/india-has-a-full-stack-semicon-dream-but-only-half-the-links-it-needs-to-crack-it/

It’s been a month since India’s nationwide shift to E20 petrol—20% ethanol-blended petrol. Vehicle owners have come forward to complain about falling mileage, damage to their vehicles, voided warranties, and the absence of insurance coverage.The change has sparked outrage, and nothing is being done to placate the country’s many millions of angry drivers.India’s move to E20 fuel took place much faster than originally planned. This pace may have been inspired by a previous success, when the government had to address worsening air pollution in the 2010s. At the time, regulators were able to skip a step to implement more stringent vehicle emissions standards. Even though there was some opposition from automakers, the change was largely unchallenged, and the public was onboard.The context is different this time around, and the confidence exuded by the government is misplaced. The Ken’s Suprita Anupam explains in this edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Brady Ng.Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/from-bs6-to-e20-india-learnt-the-wrong-lessons-heres-how-to-course-correct/

Dialysis is a tough business, and not because of any serious lack of demand. Over 280,000 patients were undergoing regular dialysis in 2024, a number that’s projected to go up to 520,000 by 2029. Add in less frequent or one-time treatments, and the number of patients who need the procedure every year breaches one million. It is the economics that is the tricky bit. High procurement costs, tricky consumable-stock management, and very low margins—in fact, nowhere on the planet can one run a small dialysis business sustainably. And India, with the lowest dialysis price point in the world, is the toughest market to crack. Which perhaps explains why IPO-bound kidneycare chain Nephroplus’ founder Vikram Vuppala built the kidneycare chain the way he did. It is already India’s—and Asia’s—largest dialysis service provider. And it is expanding, both inside and outside the country’s borders, for which it wants to put the Rs 353 crore it plans to raise from its IPO to good use. In this edition of Make India Competitive Again, The Ken’s Sudeshna Ray explains how testing itself in a market like India, and building expertise in a “full-stack” model, has been key to its success overseas. Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/ipo-bound-nephroplus-built-resilience-in-india-its-now-using-it-to-win-overseas/

India’s stock market seldom tends to influence the workings of its federal bureaucracy. But for the country’s telecom mandarins, who have just floated a new draft national policy for the sector, the investor response to one listed company could be the canary in the coal mine.  At Rs 9,800 crore, the market value of Tejas Networks, a Tata-owned maker of telecom equipment, is now half the peak it reached 10 months ago. What’s odd is that Tejas Networks is now worth only a little more than its revenue. At the heart of investor frustration, and perhaps even fear, is the big pile of payments the company is yet to receive from its customers, including the government (the owner of telco BSNL). It’s striking, then, that the draft telecom policy includes a plan to handhold 500 startups and MSMEs working on emerging telecom technologies. But what’s truly conspicuous in the policy is what’s not in it. The Ken’s Seema Singh explains in this edition of Make India Competitive Again, as narrated by Seetharaman G.Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/tejas-networks-diving-share-price-is-a-mayday-signal-is-dots-antenna-working/

Software needs to be free to access, modify, and redistribute to be called open source. Anything less can’t carry the label.This matters right now because generative-AI company Sarvam will open-source its models built for the IndiaAI Mission, the government’s initiative to foster artificial intelligence development within the country. That means it will release its weights, or parameters that make AI models “smart”.By referencing Chinese releases like Deepseek and Alibaba Group’s Qwen, open-source software isn’t just a nice thing to have, there are elements of soft power as well. AI models that are available for anyone to tinker with can win developer mindshare and become more prominent in tech stacks around the world. This makes it harder for closed systems to defend their territory.But the people behind IndiaAI have little to say about software licensing even though there’s a need to define those norms, especially given the vast capital that’s being poured into the national programme.The Ken’s Sumit Chakraborty explains in this edition of Make India Competitive Again, as narrated by Brady Ng.Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/free-code-can-build-indias-ai-fortune/

Let’s face it: opportunities are scarce for most graduates in India, particularly those who don’t have financial support to fall back on. A job at a major enterprise is the dream—and a path to better economic and social standing. Yet there’s a widening mismatch between what most graduates can offer and the skills required by corporations. The Prime Minister’s Internship Scheme (PMIS) was meant to close this chasm. The goal was to help 10 million people find internships over five years and place them in 500 of India’s top companies. These interns would then acquire new skills and learn the ways of corporate life. So far, the internship hasn’t lived up to expectations. In phase 1 of PMIS, 600,000 applications were received for 127,000 posts. In all, 82,000 offers were made, with only 8,700 interns becoming full-time hires at the companies they spent time at. PMIS is in its second phase now, and the current figures don’t look that different.The main problem is money—PMIS’s participants don’t get paid enough. Its stated goal of helping graduates who need the most assistance doesn’t align with how the programme’s incentives are defined.The Ken staff writer Debanjali Biswas explains in this edition of Make India Competitive Again, as narrated by Brady Ng.Read this edition as a newsletter

India’s official figure for its unemployment rate in June was 5.6%. But that may well be lower than reality—out of 50 economists polled by Reuters, 37 believed that to be inaccurate. Seventeen of them estimated it falls somewhere between 7% and 35%.That’s all to say Indians want gainful employment—no matter what the job is.One type of coveted position is public service. For many, being a bureaucrat is an upward path for social and economic mobility.In the 10 years leading up to FY23, the number of people who applied to take the civil service preliminary exam more than doubled to 1.1 million. Each vacancy had 3X the number of applicants. Meanwhile, there has only been a 40% increase in the number of new college graduates in the same period.Narendra Modi’s administration has tried to encourage employment in the private sector, but the public’s infatuation for civil service isn’t about to dissipate.Seetharaman covers the details in this edition of Make India Competitive Again, as narrated by Rahel Philipose.Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/indias-puzzling-fix-for-the-civil-service-job-obsession/

Two of India’s most prominent family business groups are in a fight. They’re both after a majority share of Chinese electronics company Haier’s India arm.In one corner of the ring is Reliance, which recently launched its own electronics brand, Wyzr. In the other is the Bharti group, which has never sold consumer electronics. But this is a space where fortunes are being made, so it makes sense to have a hand in it.Bharti appears to be in the lead, given it has teamed up with private-equity firm Warburg Pincus. They’re after a 49% stake and could pay $720 million for it. The Bharti group already operates in a range of sectors—telecom and infrastructure, insurance, real estate, hospitality, agriculture, food, and space communication. Its planned addition of electronics to the mix is just the latest episode in the increasing business concentration in India. For the last quarter of a century, 25 family business groups have accounted for 15–20% of India’s GDP. This has largely remained unchanged, and likely won’t change anytime soon.Seema Singh explores why in this edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Brady Ng.Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/the-hidden-costs-of-superstar-family-businesses/

Hospital bills in India are becoming more expensive, and a growing number of people are one medical emergency away from going bankrupt. Even for those with health insurance, the costs are going up.In fact, patients who tell hospitals that they have coverage are charged more than others, which leads to higher premiums. It’s a prevalent practice that the chairman and managing director of the General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC), Ramaswamy Narayanan, characterises as “a systematic form of fraud”.This has led both GIC and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irdai), to call for the Indian government to create a new regulator that will bring healthcare prices back under control.The Ken reporter Sudeshna Ray has the story in this edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Snigdha Sharma.Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/gic-irdai-want-a-healthcare-regulator-but-who-can-regulate-better-than-the-consumer/

India’s logistics sector is hotter than ever. There are mergers and acquisitions, market debuts, startup energy, and investor attention. In the last five years, startups in this space have attracted more than $4 billion in investor money.D2C e-commerce and quick commerce have catapulted firms such as Delhivery, Ecom Express, Blackbuck, Xpressbees, Shiprocket, and Shadowfax into the limelight. All of them promise tech-first logistics, national networks, and lightning-fast shipments.Delhivery was the first of the pack to go public in 2022. Others are following suit. Shadowfax filed confidential IPO papers with Sebi in June, and Shiprocket has also filed a confidential draft red herring prospectus. Meanwhile, Xpressbees is said to have begun its IPO preparations by appointing investment banks like JP Morgan and Barclays.The optimism is palpable, but what’s missing are signs of sustainable profitability.The Ken reporter Suprita Anupam has the story, as read by Brady Ng.Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/cut-the-burn-not-corners-why-old-school-logistics-is-still-winning-quietly/ Subscribe to the Make India Competitive Again newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletters/make-india-competitive-again/ Download our app and subscribe to The Ken to access our latest releases: iOS: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/the-ken/id1282944688 

Long queues formed outside bank branches across India in 2014 and 2015, with a range of people opening their bank account for the first time. These were farmers, day labourers, homemakers—Indians who had largely been neglected by the formal banking system until then.This moment was part of the Indian government’s Jan Dhan Yojana Scheme, which enabled people to open zero-balance bank accounts at no cost. By the end of 2015, when the initiative ended, 250 million accounts had been opened.Jan Dhan Yojana was a success, so much so that the State Bank of India reported in 2021 that the country had surpassed China in financial inclusion metrics.Now, many of the bank accounts opened under the scheme are up for re-verification KYC (know-your-customer) procedures. Even though the process is straightforward—a check of listed documents such as one’s Aadhaar or PAN—many account owners can’t complete it. Besides, banks have little incentive to keep the accounts active.The situation on the ground is at odds with the intention of bringing more of India’s population into the formal banking system. Sarthak Gupta unpacks the contradiction in this edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Snigdha Sharma. 

Starlink can keep internet service going in Ukraine during wartime. It can move hardware into the Amazon Rainforest. The company can overcome all sorts of challenges to bring its high-speed satellite internet connection all over the world, but red tape has kept it from going live in India for three years.The Department of Telecommunications gave Starlink a GMPCS licence—that’s a Global Mobile Personal Communications by Satellite licence—in early June, but there’s one snag. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, or Trai, has capped satellite spectrum licences at five years, with a possible two-year extension. Starlink wants 20. On top of that, Elon Musk’s satellite internet service still needs to clear a checklist of requirements: spectrum allocation timelines, clearance from IN-SPACe (the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre), testing windows. And then there’s spectrum assignment, approvals for ground stations, and terminal certifications. The list goes on.That means Starlink is still many months away from rolling out commercial service in India.Compare this with the company’s progress elsewhere. Starlink inked a distribution and integration partnership with Airtel Africa in May. It secured commercial licences in nine countries within weeks, with five more sets of approvals under process. It cleared that much ground in the time it took to get once licence in India.The Ken’s head of editorial desk Sumit Chakraborty dived into the details in this week’s edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Deputy Editor Seetharaman G.*Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/starlink-found-a-partner-in-airtel-africa-in-india-it-found-paperwork/Subscribe to the Make India Competitive Again newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletters/make-india-competitive-again/ 

If you were to think about the world’s most technologically advanced economies, a few nations come to mind. The United States has Silicon Valley as its cradle of innovation, China’s scientists and researchers develop state-of-the-art IP every day, and Japan remains a global leader in robotics, especially industrial automation.India doesn’t register in that cluster.A few figures show us present conditions in more detail. Thirty years ago, India spent 0.6% of its GDP on R&D. In 2025, it’s at the same rate. The share occasionally inched up to 0.8% between then and now, but this is still low compared to major global economies.Why is that? Consider the US: it has a dynamic private sector that pours capital into R&D. Meanwhile, that type of spending is anathema in India—trade trumps research, copying is preferred over invention.The lack of R&D spending is in large part a mindset problem in private industry, government circles, and investors. For India to become an R&D powerhouse, there needs to be structural reforms.Seema Singh explains in this week’s edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Snigdha Sharma.Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/dont-talk-rd-please-we-are-indian-industry/Subscribe to the Make India Competitive Again newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletters/make-india-competitive-again/ 

2024 was a record-breaking year for mergers and acquisitions in India, and the government seems to want to speed up the frenzy.One of the proposals put forward by the finance minister was an overhaul of M&A regulations. She wants to introduce fast-track mergers for a range of companies, including unlisted firms and fellow subsidiaries. But lethargy isn’t really the biggest problem afflicting Indian M&As. In fact, forcing these deals to move faster may worsen other fundamental problems. There are recent examples that show us how this can play out, such as Jet Airways’ failed revival under the Jalan Kalrock consortium.Meanwhile, there are other incentive structures that can ensure M&As deliver great results. Raghav Maggo explains what India’s M&A landscape needs in this week’s edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Brady Ng.Subscribe to the Make India Competitive Again newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletters/make-india-competitive-again/ Download our app and subscribe to The Ken to access our latest releases: iOS: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/the-ken/id1282944688 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ken.core&hl=en&gl=US&pli=1 Or subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts to access our latest releases: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/make-india-competitive-again-premium/id1810672381 

Wi-fi is a miracle. Not because it lets you go online wherever it’s offered, but because there’s no bureaucratic headache whenever users connect to a network.This is only possible because of what’s called “unlicensed spectrum” that governments leave open. In India, more is about to be added to it. Call it the first real systemic reform for wi-fi in the country.The plan is hardly new. It’s rooted in a roadmap developed by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India in 2023. And it’s an outcome that tech companies like Meta, Google, and Microsoft have been lobbying hard for. After all, if the goal is to give hundreds of millions of people in India a fast internet connection wherever they are—at home or at bus stops, in schools or in shops—then licensed mobile networks just can’t do the whole job on their own.But India’s telcos are not thrilled about this development. They want that space for future 5G expansions.Sumit Chakraborty explains the conflict in this week’s Make India Competitive Again, as read by Brady Ng.Read this edition as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/indias-wi-fi-rebellion-comes-for-airtel-reliance-jios-turf/ Subscribe to the Make India Competitive Again newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletters/make-india-competitive-again/ 

A cursory look at the way India’s workforce has changed in recent years suggests that “women are striding into economic activity”, as Mint reported in mid-May. In fact, by FY24, three in four working women were self-employed. Women generally have a growing share in India’s workforce—a development that public officials persistently tout.But look closely and you’ll find that the details paint a different picture.The ministry of labour said last year that India added 80 million jobs in the four years leading up to FY22. The truth is self-employment and agriculture, much of which is unpaid family work, account for a large part of that increase. That hardly translates to formal jobs with real wages. Take inflation into account and things look even worse.Sure, there are more workers in India’s fields and factories. But simply looking at the number of bodies at work is misleading. The data’s champions ignore the nuance that ends up telling a different story about India’s workforce, but there are professionals who find ways to work with data that is suspect.Seetharaman G made sense of the situation in the latest edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Snigdha Sharma.Read the newsletter here: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/the-elusive-women-powering-indias-economy/Subscribe to the Make India Competitive Again newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletters/make-india-competitive-again/ 

There are plenty of reasons for India’s semiconductor companies to win. The US is seeking to dial back its reliance on China’s tech providers, shaking up global supply chains. Since one-fifth of global semiconductor-design talent is located in India, the country should be coming out on top.But that isn’t how the shakeup is unfolding. Some projects like those of Murugappa Group, Micromax, and Tata Electronics are chugging along, but there are hardly any internationally noteworthy players.Here’s one absent piece of the puzzle: there isn’t enough capital being directed into India’s semiconductor space. The government’s design-linked incentives, or DLI, are meant to kick-start the sector, but the funds simply aren’t enough to yield the results that would put India squarely on the map.There are other problems too, from US President Donald Trump’s shenanigans to the fact that Indian firms still need to put in immense effort to convince customers that their chips can be just as good as anyone else’s.It’s tough running a semiconductor company in India. Shristi Achar explains in the latest edition of Make India Competitive Again, as read by Brady Ng.Read this edition as a newsletter:  https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/the-world-chip-design-league-is-heating-up-india-isnt-even-on-the-points-tableSubscribe to the Make India Competitive Again newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletters/make-india-competitive-again/ 

India wants a sovereign AI model. It’s a big goal, and success means stringing together contributions from a range of entities, including Big Tech firms and domestic AI developers of all scales. The ideal version of this plan was meant to lead to plenty of competition—no preordained winners.The latest development, however, is one that runs against that framework. Sarvam has been tapped to build India’s own large language model (LLM), while firms like Gan AI, Soket AI Labs, and Krutrim—all shortlisted to be part of the process—are still waiting for a call from the government.Never one to let an opportunity slide, Sarvam is using its newfound status to raise up to $100 million in fresh venture funding, people in India’s AI ecosystem told The Ken.As a nation, India is making a big bet to bring into existence a sovereign AI model. But it’s off to a rocky and familiar start: there’s one anointed winner while many others are left confused. Besides, there are questions about whether India’s flagship AI initiative is on the right course. Sarvam is a two-year-old company that’s funded with non-sovereign capital from the likes of Lightspeed, Peak XV, and Khosla Ventures. Does that warp the nature of India’s plan to create a sovereign AI model?Abhirami explains in this week’s Make India Competitive Again, as read by Snigdha Sharma.Read this as a newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/indias-ai-mission-needs-many-heroes-its-settled-for-one-sarvam/

India had as estimated 101 million diabetics in 2023, with another 136 million people in pre-diabetic state. Among them, 11 million people are on insulin therapy. It’s a market worth nearly Rs 5,000 crore with Novo Nordisk as the leader, controlling 60%. Two other MNCs—Sanofi and Eli Lilly—control another 25%. All three companies are phasing out their insulin products in the country.One pair of entities stand to benefit from those departures: the Bengaluru-based Biocon Group and its new commercial partner, Eris Lifesciences.Even though Biocon is India’s largest pharmaceutical company, it never had more than 10% share of the country’s insulin market. The MNCs consistently kept Biocon’s influence in India in check, so the firm took its insulin business overseas, to countries such as Malaysia, Mexico, and the United States.But the vacuum at home will change things for Biocon-Eris very soon.Seema Singh and Sudeshna Ray cover this development in this week’s edition of Make India Competitive Again. Read this edition: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/100-mn-diabetics-still-no-country-for-insulin/Subscribe to the Make India Competitive Again Newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletters/make-india-competitive-again/ [Free channels on Spotify and Apple Podcasts only] Download our app and subscribe to The Ken for the full readout: iOS: https://apps.apple.com/in/app/the-ken/id1282944688 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ken.core&hl=en&gl=US&pli=1 [Free channels on Spotify and Apple Podcasts only] Or subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for the full readout: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/make-india-competitive-again-premium/id1810672381  

Despite low yields, debt, and climate change, India should be an agricultural powerhouse.In some ways, the country is on its way to attain that status.One figure tells this story: in the five years leading up to 2022, the number of Indians who couldn’t afford a healthy diet—that’s an intake of 2,330 kilocalories from six different food groups a day—went down by 16%, outpacing the global decline.India’s increasingly abundant food production doesn’t just address needs at home. It also gives the country an edge in global trade.Even though India’s share of global farm exports is just 2.2%, there are signs that this will grow. In the decade leading up to FY24, for instance, India’s farm exports more than doubled to over $48 billion.There’s incredible untapped potential. See how Brazil exported $54 billion worth of farm goods to China in 2023. India’s outbound shipments to the US, its largest trading partner, amounted to just one-tenth of that amount. The fact that India isn’t subjected to high tariffs from the US puts it in a position to develop a more favourable trade relationship in the future.So, where does India’s agriculture sector go from there?Seetharaman G explains in this week’s edition of Make India Competitive Again.Read this edition: https://the-ken.com/newsletter/make-india-competitive-again/bharat-shining-indias-farms-are-its-biggest-trade-weapon/Subscribe to the Make India Competitive Again newsletter: https://the-ken.com/newsletters/make-india-competitive-again/Check out The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/channel/the-ken-premium/id6744577070To listen and read the complete edition, subscribe to The Ken

You’ve seen the news: US President Donald Trump is playing roulette with the global trade order. Then, there’s the massive Rs 23,000 crore performance-linked incentive scheme that the Indian cabinet approved for electronics makers at around the same time.For companies in the manufacturing sector, it’s been a mad, hectic April. They know it’s necessary to strike new alliances—or renew old ones—if they are to emerge from the chaos in better shape than before. That means they’re looking for technology partners and opportunities for joint ventures.But India, for a while, tried hard to avoid one particular partnership that could give its companies a much needed boost up the value chain.China.The reluctance isn’t surprising, but consultants and industry executives say it may not be long before tie-ups with Chinese firms become inevitable.As they say, “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”Shristi Achar explains in this week’s edition of Make India Competitive Again. Check it out.Read by Brady NG

One of the first reactions to Donald Trump’s tariffs in the Indian media was: let’s have more of “Make in India”.On the surface, the rationale for stepping up domestic manufacturing is clear. The US is inflicting pain on China, and that’s supposed to work to India’s advantage, given the wide gulf in tariffs on the two Asia giants.But “Make in India” has been around for more than a decade, and manufacturing is no more important to the Indian economy now than it was before Narendra Modi took office in 2014. Even the introduction of production-linked incentives in 2020 hasn’t helped.India is nowhere close to its target of manufacturing accounting for 25% of its economic output by the end of 2025.And let’s face it: Chinese manufacturers are true survivors. They survived Trump’s first presidential term—and now thrive.So, what’s really in store for India?Seetharaman G explains in this week’s edition of Make India Competitive Again. Check it out.