Daybreak

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BUSINESS NEWS
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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.

2 HR AGO

China's raising OpenClaw lobsters. India's testing the waters first

Every great Indian enterprise has a story worth telling in full. With The Intermission, The Ken's flagship long-form podcast, hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Seetharaman G do exactly that—tracing the origins, turning points, and defining strategies of the companies that shaped modern India. Built on exhaustive research and proprietary interviews, each episode unfolds as a richly reported narrative. The first episode drops on March 23! Stay tuned! Last Friday, Razorpay CEO Harshil Mathur hosted 150 founders at Razorpay's Koramangala headquarters — not to talk payments but to let them showcase what they'd built with OpenClaw, the open-source AI agent taking the world by storm. The same week, thousands were queuing outside Baidu and Tencent offices in China just to get the software installed. The open source agent AI platform is the same but the two approaches are quite different. China is deploying OpenClaw at a scale and speed no other country is matching. India, meanwhile, is moving carefully, deliberately, problem-first. So here's the question: is India behind China on OpenClaw? And is speed is the only thing that matters in the AI race? Read Inc42's report here: The New Garage: OpenClaw And India’s DIY AI Agent Boom 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.

17 min
1 DAY AGO

Wake up, Neo. There’s a glitch in the pharma matrix

Every great Indian enterprise has a story worth telling in full. With The Intermission, The Ken's flagship long-form podcast, hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Seetharaman G do exactly that—tracing the origins, turning points, and defining strategies of the companies that shaped modern India. Built on exhaustive research and proprietary interviews, each episode unfolds as a richly reported narrative. The first episode drops on March 23! Stay tuned! The next time you pick up a strip of tablets at your neighbourhood pharmacy, consider this: the drug you just bought for Rs 170 may have left the factory for Rs 14. That's a markup of over a 1000%. And, it's completely legal. In this piece, The Ken's Mutasim Khan traces how India's drug pricing system works, and why the pharmacist, the doctor, and the manufacturer are all optimising for something, while the patient simply pays. This is a read aloud of Mutasim's original story, by Snigdha Sharma, on Daybreak. 📖 Read the full story on The Ken: Wake up, Neo. There’s a glitch in the pharma matrix 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.

19 min
2 DAYS AGO

In Kerala, remittance built a world that war can now undo

Every great Indian enterprise has a story worth telling in full. With The Intermission, The Ken's flagship long-form podcast, hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Seetharaman G do exactly that—tracing the origins, turning points, and defining strategies of the companies that shaped modern India. Built on exhaustive research and proprietary interviews, each episode unfolds as a richly reported narrative. The first episode drops on March 23! Stay tuned! In 1955, a man from a small village in Kerala paid 500 rupees for passage on a crowded boat to Abu Dhabi. He told no one he was leaving. He wasn't the first, and he certainly wasn't the last. Over the decades, millions followed — and the money they sent back quietly rebuilt everything: houses, schools, entire towns. Today, remittances make up over a fifth of the state's economy. Which means when war broke out across the Middle East last month, Kerala isn't just watching from a distance. The hurt is closer home. Tune in. Want to work with The Ken? Apply here! 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.

17 min
3 DAYS AGO

The rest of the world is cutting back on alcohol. India just doubled its consumption

Every great Indian enterprise has a story worth telling in full. With The Intermission, The Ken's flagship long-form podcast, hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Seetharaman G do exactly that—tracing the origins, turning points, and defining strategies of the companies that shaped modern India. Built on exhaustive research and proprietary interviews, each episode unfolds as a richly reported narrative. The first episode drops on March 23! Stay tuned! India is drinking more — and spending more when it does. Between 2020 and 2025, alcohol consumption nearly doubled. Post-Covid, drinkers didn't just drink more; they upgraded. Four bottles where there used to be one. Home bars where there used to be none. Global brands that once ignored India are now flooding distributors with enquiry emails. But the opportunity comes wrapped in one of the most complicated regulatory systems in the world — 69 permits for a single brand in some states, margins so thin most retailers stock only five or six labels. India is still a teenager. The hangover hasn't hit yet. Tune in. Want to work with The Ken? Apply here!

15 min
4 DAYS AGO

India’s LPG success story runs on a two-day buffer

Every great Indian enterprise has a story worth telling in full. With The Intermission, The Ken's flagship long-form podcast, hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Seetharaman G do exactly that—tracing the origins, turning points, and defining strategies of the companies that shaped modern India. Built on exhaustive research and proprietary interviews, each episode unfolds as a richly reported narrative. The first episode drops on March 23! Stay tuned! Within days of the war in Iran, panic spread across India’s cooking-gas system. Millions rushed to book LPG refills. Restaurants shut kitchens. A temple in Delhi halted its community meals. The government invoked emergency powers and warned hoarders they could face seven years in jail. But the panic revealed a deeper question. India now has 33 crore households cooking on LPG — one of the largest cooking-gas networks in the world. Yet the country’s strategic underground reserves amount to less than two days of national demand. And interestingly, in last year’s budget documents, the government told Parliament it had no plans to build any new LPG storage caverns. Almost no one noticed that line until now. How did the world’s most ambitious clean-cooking programme end up with a buffer this thin? 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.

13 min
6 DAYS AGO

Uber knocks at a new door as Rapido shuts many others

Every great Indian enterprise has a story worth telling in full. With The Intermission, The Ken's flagship long-form podcast, hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Seetharaman G do exactly that—tracing the origins, turning points, and defining strategies of the companies that shaped modern India. Built on exhaustive research and proprietary interviews, each episode unfolds as a richly reported narrative. The first episode drops on March 23! Stay tuned! Uber is one of the most recognised brands in the world. But in India, it's losing ground — to a government-backed taxi app, a newer competitor, and its own shrinking margins. So it's making a surprising bet: instead of fighting harder for your weekend ride, it wants to drive you to work. The B2B transport market it's entering has been run by specialists for decades. And those specialists aren't sure whether to be worried 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.

15 min
11 MAR

Akasa Air has the best seat in Indian aviation. It just can't find a place to park

Every great Indian enterprise has a story worth telling in full. With The Intermission, The Ken's flagship long-form podcast, hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Seetharaman G do exactly that—tracing the origins, turning points, and defining strategies of the companies that shaped modern India. Built on exhaustive research and proprietary interviews, each episode unfolds as a richly reported narrative. The first episode drops on March 23! Stay tuned! Akasa Air wants to be India's most efficient low-cost carrier. Founded in 2022 by veterans who watched Jet Airways and Go Air collapse, the airline is copying IndiGo's early playbook — single aircraft type, ruthless cost discipline, long-term thinking. It has 35 planes, 5% market share, and serious backing from the Jhunjhunwala family. But Boeing strikes delayed deliveries, pilots left, two co-founders have exited, and airport slots remain locked up by bigger players. Meanwhile, IndiGo is stumbling and Air India is still reeling from last year’s tragedy. Can Akasa turn everyone else's bad year into its own breakthrough? 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.

11 min
10 MAR

A social media ban for under-16s is Big Tech's get-out-of-jail-free card. Here's why

Every great Indian enterprise has a story worth telling in full. With The Intermission, The Ken's flagship long-form podcast, hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Seetharaman G do exactly that—tracing the origins, turning points, and defining strategies of the companies that shaped modern India. Built on exhaustive research and proprietary interviews, each episode unfolds as a richly reported narrative. The first episode drops on March 23! Stay tuned! Karnataka just announced it wants to ban children under 16 from social media. Goa and Andhra Pradesh are considering the same. And on paper, it sounds like exactly the kind of protection kids need — platforms like Meta have spent years knowingly exposing children to addiction, exploitation, and harm, while spending millions lobbying against any legislation that would stop them. So a ban feels like the only way. But here's the thing: when Karnataka made the announcement, Meta's response was more compliant than history would have suggested. And that restraint might be the most telling part of this story. Host Rachel Varghese explains. Tune in.

17 min

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ENTREPRENEURSHIP
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CAREERS
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TECHNOLOGY
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Snigdha Sharma

Host
Rahel Philipose

Host

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.