Thursday, 2nd July ’20
Good morning, fellow readers. With the weekend just around the corner, allow us to fill you in with everything that made news in the world in the past 24 hours. If you are new here, and you would like to receive this newsletter straight to your mailbox, make sure you subscribe to our newsletter at the end of this page.
On this day, 66 years ago, US passed the Civil Rights act, often called the most important law of all time, ending racial discrimination and ensuring equal voting rights. The fight for equality is fought everywhere in the world, but the key is persistence, no matter how uphill a task it seems. With ordinary talent and extraordinary persistence, all things are attainable.
MARKETS
- After 8813% rally in 103 days, Ruchi Soya raises red flag; SEBI probe demanded by analysts. The edible oil maker was recently acquired by Patanjali group and ever since being relisted, has reached a market cap of Rs. 44600 crores from 500 crores in just 103 sessions. Some analysts believe this rally is not at the back of strong fundamentals but has been artificially escalated by altering the supply-demand dynamics, and have requested a SEBI probe in the matter.
- World Bank grants $750 mn funding to help MSMEs. The emergency lending will ensure liquidity for some 1.5 million MSME and protect millions of jobs, said the Bank in a statement. The bank had previously also lent $5.13 billion to India in FY2020.
- Automobile sector takes a huge hit, recording steep drop in monthly sales. Maruti Suzuki and M&M recorded 53% & 55% drop in automobile sales in the month of June. M&M’s Vijay Nakra in a statement said that there was recovery to be seen in passenger and commercial segments, driven by rising rural demand and movement of essential goods.
- US Based Carlyle Group to acquire 25% stake in Airtel’s data centre business, Nxtra Data. Carlyle will invest $235 mn in Nxtra Data at a total valuation of business at $1.2 bn. The shares of Bharti Airtel was up by 2% after the announcement was made.
TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
Dell helps customers face the challenges in organising and managing data through their EMC DataIQ software. Companies are now enabled to extract business value from unstructured data, typically those lying in silos, by delivering a single view of file and object data across Dell EMC, third-party and public cloud storage.
Microsoft will help 25 million across the world learn digital skills for the covid 19 economy by combining existing and new resources from LinkedIn, GitHub, and Microsoft. It will be grounded in the use of data to identify in-demand jobs, providing free access to learning paths and content to help people develop the skills these positions require and low-cost certifications and free job-seeking tools to help people who develop these skills pursue new jobs.
TCS’ ignio has touched the $100 Million revenue mark and their Digitate academy doubled the number of professionals trained in the past 12 months. Headquartered in California, the TCS software venture provides training and certification for Tata Consultancy Services’ ‘ignio’ suite of AI software solutions that is used to aid system integrators and channel partners during software implementation.
Spotify today announced it is expanding Premium Duo, a feature that allows two people who live at the same place, i.e. couples or flatmates, to share one subscription plan while maintaining their own individual accounts, to US, India and dozens of new markets. A special Duo Mix playlist is introduced which will comprise songs both listeners like.
PRODUCTS & STARTUPS
- B Capital Group, which has invested in Bounce and Khatabook has closed its second global fund after raising $820 million to invest in growth-stage ventures. It raised this fund when the entire world is crippling in the pandemic. The firm typically invests $10 million to $60 million in Series B, C, D stages. It is founded by Raj Ganguly, and Eduardo Saverin(Co-founder of Facebook).
- Pangeon Global Services, Hyderabad based startup, which operates Blockchain-based chit fund management platform has raised $650,000 in its pre-Series A funding round from Unicorn India. The startup allows state government regulators to oversee and administer chit fund operations. This is Unicorn India’s second investment from its Rs 400 crore fund.
- Beardo, a men’s grooming startup has been acquired by FMCG major Marico. They recently bought an additional 55% share in the Beardo’s parent company Zed Lifestyle. In 2016, Venture Catalysts had invested $5 million in beardo and claim that the revenue has increased 40 times over.
- NASA has announced $51 million small business grants for a total of 300 businesses to bring new technologies into the market. These grants will help transition such businesses from labs to commercial availability. The highlights of these businesses include high power solar arrays, smart air traffic control systems, and water purification systems for usage on the moon.
WHAT ELSE IS COOKING
Google Search’s 3D and AR introduces Jurassic Park: The tech-giant has partnered with Universal Brand Development, Amblin Entertainment and Ludia to bring dinosaurs like Stegosaurus, Brachiosaurus among others into your Google Search. It is operational in devices running iOS 11 and above and with Android 7 and above. You just have to search for the dinosaur’s name on the Google app or any Android browser and then tap “View in 3D”.
Highways Minister Gadkari hints not allowing Chinese companies into highways projects: Nitin Gadkari, Minister for Road Transport and Highways has specifically commented that Chinese companies or any joint ventures having Chinese partners will not be entertained in highway projects or MSMEs. He has further added to it saying that foreign investments into the sectors will however flow in and joint ventures in MSMEs will be encouraged. This stance is a follow-up to Indian ban on 59 Chinese apps that was hailed by IT minister Ravi Shankar.
Patanjali claims AYUSH’s permission to market “Coronil Kit”: After hearing out on Tuesday, AYUSH ministry’s denial to the selling of Patanjali’s Coronil as a cure for COVID-19, claims have come from the company that AYUSH has allowed it to manufacture and distribute the kits. Baba Ramdev mentioned that the pharmacy has been granted assent to license Divya Coronil Tablet and Divya Swasari Vati as per their traditional reported use and they have been now connected with modern research-based clinical findings.
EU re-opens borders to 14 nations, Indian and US tourists still barred from entry: Travellers from Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Montenegro, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia and Uruguay can now gain entry into Europe. Russia, US, Brazil, India will have to wait in the wake of the upswing in the cases of infection in their respective populations. China is however “subject to confirmation of reciprocity”, meaning it has to end all restrictions pertaining to European citizens entering China, in order to gain access into European borders. Entry into Britain is however not included in the announcement made by the European Commission.
MORNING TEA LISTICLES
The year of 2020 has given the world a stop at home and travel, a distant dream. But ardent travellers, who just can’t take a year off their distinct hobbies, need not frown over this. With new initiatives and protocols, minute safety measures, and creative concepts like ‘air bridges’, ‘travel bubbles’, ‘holiday corridors’, resumption of cross border travels are being looked into by governments and the tourism sector. These European destinations have made it to top 10 of Forbes’ list: –
- Tbilisi, Georgia: Least affected by Coronavirus, the country reopens its borders on July 1. Georgia has more hospital beds per thousand than Sweden and Denmark. You would not want to miss the Magnificent Haussmannian buildings!
- Corfu, Greece: One of the least COVID-affected European countries, Greece opens to visitors on July 1. The islandic Corfu’s nature-bathed hospitality is something you would love to experience after a long period of confinement.
- Cavtat, Croatia: Re-opening to travellers on July 1, with no quarantine requests, Croatia is the destination for you. Cavtat’s rich gourmet culture with water sports would drain all your house-bound frustrations.
- Azores Islands, Portugal: This region was spared from COVID attacks even as Portugal was least affected. Lying in the middle of the Atlantic, Azores, opens to visitors on July 1 to come and sojourn in its array of private villas and family hotels. Don’t miss one of the largest whale sanctuaries.
- Preveza, Greece: Preveza is all ready to accept visitors with creative sanitary measures like 4 meters between beach umbrellas, AC filters changed between each stay and constantly disinfected hotel rooms. Greece has more hospital beds per capita than the UK or Canada. The Ionian Sea, the Ambracian Gulf, the Mediterranean cuisine, why would you even miss that!
BOOKS AND MOVIES
- Recommended Movie: Douglas Adams’ Hyperland – Most of you wouldn’t have been born when this quirky, ahead of its time documentary wooshed over everyone’s head around 30 years ago. But that is Douglas Adams for you. The Oracle, the time traveling philosopher friend and a hitchhiking guide through life. It is great to see him talk about technology and the future according to him (back in ’90). Watching this is also a fun exercise in noticing which concepts made it into our lives and which ones never managed to leave the drawing board.
- Recommended Book- All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr– the perfect concoction of fiction and non-fiction symbiotically inter-twined, this book will take you through a valley between two lives, set in two different countries, each facing their lives’ drudgery under the World War 2. What else can trigger your resilience amidst the pandemic, other than Doerr’s microscopic visualization of the horrid impacts of the war, differently piercing into the lives of his characters.
Check out: Skullery for recipes what Medium is for blogs. Skullery is a historical noun for small kitchen. Find inspiration to cook something for your loved ones; or share something from your own kitchen to inspire others.
Bonus: Little Alchemy – a website that, as the name suggests, helps you become an Alchemist. Mix the elements and see what they make.
YOU SHOULD KNOW
- Facial recognition technology has shown bias as 40% of false recognition is for people of color. On the face of this, IBM has shut down its facial recognition software altogether, Amazon announced a 1-year moratorium on police use and Microsoft declared that it would do the same until Federal Law is in place. In such slippery times, there has to be a balance between tech enablement and human rights. Monetization shouldn’t be at the forefront or we might lose our values in lieu of losing money.
- Phishing is a cyberattack that uses disguised email as a weapon. In the wake of cyber attacks all across the globe, we want to ensure that our readers are not tricked by fraudulent emails, clickbaits and malicious phone calls. The attackers would masquerade as some trusted entity, often a real person to dupe the victim of his/her resources. We need to be vigilant and spread awareness.
MORNING TEA CHALLENGES
- Learn to Code. I know this seems like a daunting task but hear me out. Coding is fun! The average person can learn the basics of how to code for beginners fast enough to be able to start writing their simple programs in a couple of weeks. Imagine having the skills to be able to build your websites from scratch, create responsive mobile games and to program data analysis packages.
- Social Media is consuming our lives. Anything in excess is not good, and if you are spending countless hours on Facebook, Instagram, etc., then you should consider doing something more meaningful – like a hobby, exercise, connect with nature, read a book or watch a movie.
Written by Kumar Sourav Mohanty, Akansh Bhatt, Piyush Vijayan and Shashank Dobhal.