Daybreak

The consumer-robotics graveyard is littered with well-funded American startups. Moxie, Jibo, Anki—all raised millions, then collapsed under cloud costs and thin margins. Enter Miko, a Mumbai company selling AI companions to American kids. With Indian manufacturing cutting costs to one-fifth of US production and subscriptions driving recurring revenue, Miko has advantages its rivals never had. Yet...

Uttar Pradesh now makes more than half the smartphones produced in India. Big electronics companies have set up factories in and around Noida. A place once known for small industries is suddenly part of a global supply chain. In this episode, we look at how that happened. What changed after the pandemic. Why policy, infrastructure and geography mattered. And why almost all this growth is packed in...

India has the engineers, the users, and the ambition to be an AI superpower.  But as OpenAI floods the market at ₹399/month, Google invests $15 billion, and global giants harvest Indian data, a critical question emerges: Will India settle for being the world's largest AI user, or can it become a builder that matters? From DeepSeek's $6M shock to the race for AI sovereignty, we connect the dots on...

The Indian government is losing patience with consumer-tech platforms using dark patterns or manipulative design tricks. In late May 2024, Consumer Affairs Minister, Pralhad Joshi, gathered the country’s biggest internet companies, Amazon, Google, Zomato, Ola Electric, etc to give them an ultimatum: clean up your user interfaces by September 5 or face the consequences. From hidden fees on Amazon t...

Youtube launched Shopping in India in October 2024, and within a year, 40% of eligible creators adopted it. The platform is betting on high-intent audiences who research before buying—unlike Instagram's impulse-driven model. By building shopping infrastructure in-house and partnering with Flipkart and Myntra, Youtube offers creators high commissions. The shift is democratizing income for micro-cre...

In this episode we fill you in on three standout stories from the past week. First, a deeper look at this year's latest Wealth Inequality Report; Next, what the Netflix-Paramount fight for Warner Brothers means for Indian players; And finally, why and how Indigo has started to behave. Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform....

Lenskart is now a public company, and its first real market test just arrived. The shares fell a little over 3% on December 8 as the shareholder lock-in expired, putting the company back in the news and making it a good moment to revisit how it got here.  Lenskart ended FY25 with a ₹297 crore in profit and nearly 40 % of that now comes from its 656 stores outside India. That global reach is unusua...

India's Atal Incubation Centres promised to be the backbone of government innovation. With 500 crore rupees in initial funding and support from Niti Aayog, these 72 centres were supposed to nurture startups with grants, mentors, and infrastructure. Nearly a decade later, the results are sobering. Of 3,500 incubated startups, fewer than 5% have raised external capital. Most centres lack basic websi...

Yesterday, the Economic Times reported that JioStar has told the ICC it wants to exit its India media rights deal for cricket events, even with two years still left in the cycle. The company also doubled its provisions for expected losses suggesting the rights may cost more to deliver than they can earn back. It all started in late 2024 when Jio came in and flipped the script by streaming cricket...

Manoj Kumar Tiwari had a tough job: transform the Tata Institute of Social Sciences into something that looks more like a management school.  In his two year term? Mission accomplished. TISS now uses the same entrance exam as IIMs. It's hiring faculty from business schools instead of NGOs. Management courses are in, social science programs are struggling to fill seats. Over 100 staff were laid off...

IndiGo had one of its worst weeks ever with hundreds of flights cancelled across major airports. New pilot rest rules kicked in on November 1, 2025 and the airline’s tight schedules and lean crew planning could not absorb the change. Thousands of passengers were stranded. What really happened and why did India’s biggest airline struggled so suddenly? In this episode, we look at what this means for...

Physicswallah grew with almost no funding kept most of its ownership and built a huge following around its founder Alakh Pandey. Then it shifted gears and started buying companies expanding offline and spending more to grow faster. The numbers changed the risks changed and the company itself changed. Investors still showed up for the IPO but the real question is what comes next. What happens when...

The Indian government quietly mandated that all smartphones sold in the country must come pre-installed with Sanchar Saathi, a state-owned cybersecurity app that users cannot delete or disable. The app tracks lost phones and blocks stolen devices. But it requires deep permissions. It can read messages, access phone data, make calls, and view photos. Privacy advocates warn these permissions could b...

Zepto is getting cheaper and everyone has noticed. But the real story is what the company is trying to fix behind the scenes. Aadit Palicha wants Zepto to feel like Dmart for quick commerce: lower prices, better availability, and more value each time you open the app. But this shift comes with big questions. The company is burning more cash. Competitors are calling it out. Senior leaders are leavi...

India wants 50,000 electric buses on the road by 2030. It's a clean mobility revolution that should clear the air in crowded cities. But there's a problem: the power grid wasn't built for this. Cities are plugging bus depots into the same 11kV lines that serve homes and corner shops. In some areas, the strain is already showing: voltage drops and flickering lights in residential areas. So, the cou...

India's restaurants just won a four-year battle for customer data access from Zomato and Swiggy. But here's the twist: this "victory" comes precisely as the industry becomes more platform-dependent than ever.  While the NRAI celebrates phone number sharing, investors are pouring billions into QSRs and cloud kitchens—business models that assume permanent platform capture. With delivery platforms ex...

There's a quiet tension underlying India’s AI boom. Startups are swiftly building bold products on foundations they don’t control. From synced ride-hailing fares to the regulator with only a single office, we look at the strange mix of innovation, vulnerability, and policy catch-up shaping the space. What happens when the platform you rely on starts competing with you? Tune in. Daybreak is produce...

Eight years ago, Havells acquired Lloyd to become a household name in consumer electronics. Today, that dream has become its biggest headache. Lloyd's revenue dropped 18% in the September quarter. Warehouses are jammed with unsold air conditioners after an unusually short summer. And, in January, new energy-efficiency rules will make clearing old stock costlier. Despite tripling revenue, Lloyd's o...

Instant fashion is everywhere now. Open Myntra or Ajio and you will see the option to get clothes delivered in minutes. But who is this really for? Are shoppers truly demanding 30 minute outfits? In this episode, we dive into what is driving the push for instant fashion, how it works behind the scenes, and why it has become such a high stakes bet for India’s biggest fashion apps. Take this survey...

Arya.ag helped India's farmers escape the grip of moneylenders. They could now store their grain in proper warehouses, get loans in seven minutes, and wait for better prices instead of selling at harvest-time lows. But there's a problem: agricultural prices have crashed to five-year lows. Wheat that sold for Rs 4,000 per quintal two years ago now fetches just Rs 2,600. For farmers like Himanshu an...

India is using more AI than ever. But most of that intelligence is not Indian. OpenAI, Google and others are expanding in India fast. They already shape how millions work, learn, and search. Meanwhile, India’s own sovereign AI model is only expected in 2026. Other countries like South Korea and China have already built and deployed theirs. What does sovereign AI actually mean, why does it matter f...

A cardiologist in Nagpur performs two similar angioplasties. But the stents inside his patients tell two very different stories. One gets Indian-made devices under a government scheme. The other insists on an imported brand. This contrast is now common across India. Price caps pushed foreign stent makers into a corner in 2017. But they never left. And now, they’re back with new valves, pacemakers,...

India’s largest cineplex chain, PVR INOX, has pulled off a major financial reversal, posting a ₹100 crore profit this quarter, a drastic recovery after bleeding nearly ₹12 crore last year. Over 40 million people showed up—but occupancy ratios are still struggling to cross 30%. To fix this, PVR INOX is expanding into new, non-metro markets like Gangtok and Raipur. But there's a major twist: the com...

Tiruppur, Tamil Nadu, India’s knitwear capital, has long depended on massive U.S. orders that shaped its factories, products, and growth. But when the Trump administration imposed a 50% tariff on Indian garment imports, the town’s export engine received a long-pending shock. Turns out, the crisis became a turning point. Manufacturers are now scrambling for discounts, shifting production to Sri Lan...

India's largest school board, CBSE, has announced that students as young as Class 3 will begin learning Artificial Intelligence. This isn't the first time. The board rolled out an AI elective for Class 9 in 2019, long before generative AI was a household name. Now, the goal is to make "AI thinking" as fundamental as grammar. We dive into this massive national experiment, exploring what "learning A...