Tuesday, 25th August ’20
Good morning, welcome to this amazing day. For the functioning of a healthy nation, a strong opposition is paramount. But, we saw yet another leadership crisis in Congress yesterday with leaders calling out for strong leadership. We hope that the next elections and parliament discussions are more focused on the nation’s progress than internal party petty matters. COVID cases continue to peak in the nation and globally. Usain Bolt’s name is added to the list of infected sportspeople. We hope that you stay safe and healthy.
Words from former South Africa president Nelson Mandela to start your day,
I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.
MIND MONK
Understanding Indecisions
Research dictates that we should use 37% of our time observing the various alternatives available to us. In effect, there are 2 parts of our brain:
- System 1 is automatic and quick
- System 2 is deliberated and algorithmic
Research says that we should go with the algorithmic part and avoid the intuitive part as a novice. Additionally, we can train the novice part of the brain with more experience and expertise.
Here is a recommended WRAP technique to make better decisions.
- Widen your options
- Reality test your assumptions
- Attain distance before making a decision, i.e. decision impact in 10 mins, 10 months, and 10 years from now.
- Prepare to be wrong
We should avoid making snap decisions and snap judgments especially when we have a lack of information. Also, we should utilize as much time we have to make a decision. This time helps us to explore more options and gain valuable insights
MARKETS
Markets: The Indian equity benchmarks ended in green amidst good global cues. US regulators authorized the use of blood plasma from recovered patients as a treatment option. Favorable government policies continue to push the market further esp the smallcaps and midcaps. Anti-dumping duty on phosphoric acid from Korea for 5 years led to some action in the chemical stocks. Nifty might advance up to the 11,600 mark if favorable government policies and vaccine development continue at a good pace.
TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
Mela Ventures, a fund started by Mindtree founders, will invest up to $1 million in B2B startups in areas such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, augmented reality, virtual reality and quantum computing. They will help these firms scale up and reach out to customers using their network in the US and Europe.
Ride-hailing app Ola is expanding its foods business by increasing the number of in-house brands apart from Bowlsome, Paratha Experiment, and Meal Kits. The food delivery business has recovered 80% of pre-Covid-19 volumes, while dine-ins are still less than 10%,according to Zomato.
Sequoia is about to break the bank with the impending IPO of the video game engine Unity in which the VC’s total ownership is roughly 24.1% today. The company was last valued at around $6 billion in mid-2019. Unity is used in 3D design and simulations across other industries like film, automotive, and architecture as well.
WHAT ELSE IS COOKING
IIT Bombay holds convocation via digital avatars of students, professors: IIT-Bombay on Sunday held its 58th annual convocation ceremony in a virtual reality mode in view of the coronavirus pandemic. The personalized avatar of each graduate received the degree certificate from the personalized avatar of the Director Prof. Subhasis Chaudhuri. Prof. Duncan Haldane, co-recipient of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics, and a Professor of Physics at Princeton University, was the Chief Guest during the ceremony.
MG Motor forays into pre-owned car business in India: MG Motor India on Monday said it has entered pre-owned car business in the country. The company has introduced certified pre-owned car vertical, ‘MG Reassure’ which aims to provide quick and the best residual value for MG cars to customers across its dealerships. The pre-owned vehicles will be assessed through over 160 quality checks to ensure the leading inspection standards and conduct all necessary repairs before their resale.
HT Media launches advertising programs to help businesses grow: Hindustan Times (HT) Media Group, recently launched its affordable advertising program HT AdWorks, which will enable advertisers to leverage the group’s media expertise via special consultative sessions to grow their businesses. The group has also organized a series of Free Virtual Consultative Events that will create a new immersive online experience for advertisers to learn more about HT AdWorks.
BUSINESS LOUNGE
Zero Obstacles in Brokerage!
“Give a woman a fish you feed her for a day. Teach a woman to fish and you build a billion-dollar company” – not an Anna Thackeray quote. Think about it. Many a unicorn that comes to mind has focused on replicating the “teach a man” provision for its users. Uber aggregates instead of owning cabs, TikTok gives you a space for sharing “your” content and Byju’s literally teaches you (is there a course on fishing – that would be funny in this context.)
Sure now you could say well what about Netflix, Tesla, and ye old Apple. Ok, I said many a unicorn not every unicorn. Plus the intrograph (intro + paragraph – I hope this catches on) is so much cooler with a misattributed biblical quote isn’t it? So let’s get back to talking about the companies which actually hand over the reins to their users. Zerodha is one of them. The name Zerodha is a conjugation of the words Zero and Rodha (obstacle in Hindi).
The online brokerage firm was started with the aim of enabling anyone to dip their beak into stocks. They began by building a strong tech product that would change the Indian stock-broking industry by pioneering the discount-broking model. A flat 20 rupees fee is levied on the user regardless of the ticket size of the trade. There’s no brokerage fee. No percentage cut from the trade. This opens the stockbroking (or is it brokering?) club to a wider audience.
To that end, the Kite app had been released to individuals looking to trade independently. The brokerage was now a clickable tile on your mobile phone – Dalal Street in your pockets. The low cost initially was justified by Zerodha saving capital owing to not having research teams. They launched a learning module called Varsity, built communities instead where traders and investors could connect with each other, share insights, and discuss strategies.
Zerodha launched Coin, an online platform to buy direct mutual funds. They also invested strategically in a host of promising financial technology startups to fill immediate gaps that they couldn’t themselves. These include Smallcase, which allows thematic investing – for instance, it offers you a readymade portfolio of companies expected to benefit from the electric vehicle revolution. Or Sensibull, an options trading platform.
They have championed the use of open forums where they interact with a large number of customers directly and gather first-hand feedback, which then makes its way into their products. “The core focus is not on features, but on problems. What can be done technology-wise to solve a problem? This thinking helps us build for scale” – Kailash Nadh, CTO.
TMT VARSITY
Cryptography(#2/ of 3)
Cryptosystem or cipher system is the application of cryptography techniques for information security.
Components of a cryptosystem
- Plaintext
- Encrypted algorithm
- Ciphertext
- Decryption algorithm
- Encryption Key
- Decryption Key
An interceptor (an attacker) is an unauthorized entity who attempts to determine the plaintext.
Types of Cryptosystem
- Symmetric Key Encryption: Here the same keys are used for encrypting and decrypting the information. 2 major issues here are
- Key establishment − Before any communication, both the sender and the receiver need to agree on a secret symmetric key.
- Trust Issue − Since the sender and the receiver use the same symmetric key, there is an implicit requirement that the sender and the receiver ‘trust’ each other.
- Asymmetric Key Encryption: Here different keys are used for encrypting and decrypting the information. Here the key challenge is that the user needs to trust that the public key that he is using in communications.
Written by Kumar Sourav Mohanty, Akansh Bhatt, and Shashank Dobhal
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