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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Jio Financial Services Ltd, the financial services arm of Reliance Industries Ltd, plans to use its newly-launched marketplace to sell products that are otherwise not within its risk appetite, managing director and chief executive officer Hitesh Sethia said on Monday.“For example, we offer personal loans through half a dozen lenders on our marketplace. We are not licensed to issue credit cards, and so we have over 50 credit cards (on the marketplace); business loans are something we are starting to offer,” Sethia said over phone.In February, Jio Financial Services launched its marketplace for financial products through the JioFinance app.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.For centuries, Santhal and Gond tribes in central and eastern India have called the mahua tree the ‘tree of life’ as an ode to its versatility: from a nutrient-dense edible flower to local arrack to cooking oils made from seeds, it’s sturdy wood is used in carpentry and nearly every part of the tree is used in traditional medicine.Add the latest end-use of madhuca longifolia, the scientific name for the mahua tree: turn its bitter-sweet flowers into fine chocolates and granola for the discerning and well-paying urban consumer.Meet Rishabh Lohia, a young social entrepreneur from Ranchi in Jharkhand, giving mahua the contemporary makeover. A former student of economics who found inspiration in Nobel laureate Amartya Sen’s writings, Lohia left his family’s real estate business in 2024 to launch Wild Harvest, a packaged food brand specializing in mahua products.For Lohia and his partner Ashali Bhandari, building Wild Harvest is akin to creating a new category in the ever-expanding fast-moving consumer goods basket.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Nasdaq-listed travel company MakeMyTrip is weighing the benefits of listing its Indian arm via Indian Depository Receipts (IDRs) rather than a traditional initial public offering (IPO), according to two people familiar with the matter.“An IDR structure is on the table, being viewed as a method to manage tax obligations that would be triggered by the Mauritius-based parent entity—MakeMyTrip Ltd—during a secondary sale of shares in a domestic IPO,” said one of the two persons on the condition of anonymity.The development follows the company's reaffirmation of its strategic priorities on 16 March, including plans for a potential listing of its India business after the consolidation of its brands, such as RedBus India, under MakeMyTrip (India) Pvt. Ltd.The company provides flight, hotel, and bus bookings through its platforms, including Goibibo and RedBus.Experts say the move may have been driven by the 15 January Supreme Court of India ruling in the Tiger Global-Flipkart tax case, which held that a Mauritius-based holding company participating in an offer for sale (OFS) in an Indian IPO would be liable to pay capital gains tax in the country on such transactions."In practical terms, this means that reliance on Mauritius purely as a tax-efficient holding jurisdiction is significantly weakened in the context of IPO exits," said Sonam Chandwani, managing partner, Mumbai-based law firm KS Legal & Associates.The IDR route allows a foreign-listed company to remain domiciled abroad while accessing local liquidity by issuing receipts to Indian investors that are backed by shares held by a custodian, avoiding tax liabilities.“There is renewed interest in the IDR route.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.NEW DELHI: Even as original video and audio content struggle for attention in a crowded digital ecosystem, a new threat is compounding the problem: a surge of low-cost, artificial intelligence (AI)-generated material that is reshaping discovery, monetization and trust across platforms.Often dubbed “AI slop”, this content is mass-produced, repetitive and generic, flooding feeds and pushing higher-quality work out of view. For creators, the immediate hit is visibility: strong content gets buried under volume, making consistent engagement and monetization harder to sustain in a market where revenue is already concentrated among a small fraction of players.One common manifestation of AI-generated content is the proliferation of cover versions of popular songs, often created and distributed at scale using AI tools.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Jordan Blair was behind the wheel when she realized she had picked the wrong podcast to listen to.“Today, we’re touching down in the ’70s to talk about Chippendales. Not these guys. Theeeese guys, whose name strangely comes from…this guy,” Harvey Guillén, the host of “Killer Stories,” said in the episode’s intro.“Who? What?” Blair recalled thinking.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.HYDERABAD: Two weeks after announcing its foundational artificial intelligence models for transcriptions, voice and images, Big Tech firm Microsoft wants to use its Azure cloud business strategy to sign long-term AI contracts with clients.Microsoft’s business model for Azure has found success in the past 12 years of chief executive officer Satya Nadella’s tenure. The company, which follows a July-June financial cycle, reported $281.7 billion in revenue in FY25, out of which its cloud revenue hit $106.2 billion.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.NEW DELHI: Orkla India, the listed maker of MTR foods and Eastern spices, is gearing up for its next phase of growth with a cash-rich balance sheet to fund acquisitions, even as it pivots towards convenience foods and digital channels—moves that could stretch its traditional operating model.“We are a cash-generating company. We generate anything between ₹300-400 crore annually… money is not a constraint," Sanjay Sharma, managing director and chief executive officer at Orkla India, said in an interview with Mint.The debt-free company is evaluating partnerships and buyouts of regional brands as it looks to expand beyond its southern stronghold.The push comes as Orkla works to stabilize performance after its listing in November last year, part of its parent’s strategy to create independent portfolio companies and drive local value creation.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India is the one of fastest-growing markets in Asia for real-time analytics and artificial intelligence observability platform Clickhouse, according to a top executive at the firm.“On the revenue side, India would be one of the highest in Asia,” co-founder and chief technology officer Alexey Milovidov said in an interview with Mint. “While revenue would be behind the US and Europe, in southeast Asia and the APAC region, India wins just on scale.”The database startup launched in India just eight months ago with a product engineering team and a smaller go-to-market team, and has several large enterprises and new-age tech companies as clients.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Every now and then, you come across a news article about someone deleting food delivery and over-the-top entertainment apps from their phone and going on to save a substantial amount on monthly expenses. These stories feel nice, and somewhere, we all wish we could do that too. But who does not want to have some pizza when watching an IPL match at home or watch the latest shows on an OTT platform?“If you ask most people what they spend on “extras”, they’ll think of a big dinner or a weekend trip.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Viewership for films that turn big hits at the box office often doesn’t end with their theatrical run. Appetite for repeat consumption on streaming platforms remains strong — even among those who have already watched the film in cinemas.According to media consulting firm Ormax, 65% of Dhurandhar’s audience on OTT had already watched the film in a theatre, pointing to a high correlation between theatrical and streaming performance of big-ticket Indian films.Industry experts say this could accelerate the trend of OTT platforms spending big bucks only to acquire major commercial hits, leaving small and mid-budget titles out in the cold.According to Ormax, while 21.2 million people watched Dhurandhar only in theatres, about 7.5 million watched it only on OTT.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Quick commerce is evolving beyond a distribution channel into a testing ground for product innovation, enabling brands—from new-age to legacy players, across categories from milk to makeup—to launch, refine and scale offerings.The appeal lies in the cost advantage over traditional rollouts, particularly for smaller brands that can test in small batches, track repeat purchases and tweak products in real time.“Rather than spending ₹10 crore on a big-bang launch, brands can test with ₹20-30 lakh and see what works,” said Sashi Kumar of organic dairy enterprise Akshayakalpa Organic.The Bengaluru-based firm launched its high-protein milk exclusively on Swiggy to validate demand. “The expectation was not volumes, but whether consumers come back and buy again,” Kumar said, adding that the channel removes hurdles like listing fees and in-store promotions, while offering sharper targeting and faster feedback.Strong repeat rates helped Akshayakalpa, whose quick-commerce business is growing about 40% year-on-year, to scale the product offline.Beyond staples, the model is also gaining traction in seasonal and impulse-driven categories.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.NEW DELHI: JioHotstar is doubling down on premium global content in India with the launch of an HBO Max hub, deepening its partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery and bringing some of Hollywood’s biggest franchises under one roof on the streaming platform.The hub will host titles from HBO, Max Originals, Warner Bros.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.MUMBAI: Singapore-based private equity firm Everstone Capital will invest close to $270 million for a significant stake in Apothecon Group, which includes India-based Apothecon and US-based Navinta, it said in a statement on Tuesday.The combined platform is a regulated-markets-focused speciality formulations business with in-house formulation capabilities and captive active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing. It has a diversified commercial presence across the US, Europe and other international markets.Apothecon was founded in 2003 by industry veterans Mahendra Patel, former chief scientific officer at Sandoz and co-founder of Invamed (later acquired by Sandoz), and Joe Renner, former chief operating officer of Sandoz and chairman of Zydus US.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Mahek Mody and his wife were looking forward to having their first child. But the couple knew they would have their hands full once the baby arrived, juggling late-night feeds, diaper changes, soothing the infant to sleep, and managing workplace demands. Mody runs Upliance, a hardware startup, and his wife had her own demanding business to return to as a co-founder.And so, they turned to a smart crib, made by Cradlewise, a company they already knew from the hardware world.“It’s a fairly expensive purchase and we thought about it 20 times,” Mody said.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The improvement in business ties between China and India has streamlined partnerships between companies in the two countries, providing a significant boost to JSW Group's automotive venture, according to Parth Jindal, director at JSW MG Motor India. JSW Group plans its debut car launch towards the end of the calendar year.The Indian government’s easing of investment rules for Chinese firms and the resumption of direct flights between the two countries have made it easier to collaborate with the group’s Chinese partners, Jindal told Mint.“While the relaxation of Press Note 3 has not directly benefited the auto sector, it has improved overall sentiment which, along with the resumption of flights, has made engagement with our partners more seamless,” he said.“India’s relationship with China has been improving steadily, and the relaxation of Press Note 3 has helped ease technology transfer processes between the two countries.

Online commerce is undergoing a structural shift—from discovery-led consumption to decision-led execution. The rise of Agentic AI, capable of searching, evaluating and transacting autonomously, is reshaping how demand is created and fulfilled. This transition does not eliminate consumers, but reduces their role in the decision loop.

TV shows, India lacks a dedicated regulatory framework for music. This, lawyers and industry experts say, creates legal and commercial uncertainty, undermining an artiste’s ability to monetise their work and make creative decisions with confidence.

Mint. “This let the impersonator collect the publishing royalties, while my artist page absorbed the poor performance signals from the fake streams.”Tewari says the tracks weren’t just misattributed but appeared to be generated and uploaded at scale.

Mint explains.Reports suggest SpaceX could file for an IPO with a potential roadshow as early as June. At an estimated $75 billion, the offering would surpass Saudi Aramco’s $29.4 billion listing in 2019 by a wide margin.The proposed valuation of $1.75 trillion to $2 trillion would place SpaceX among the world’s most valuable companies, a sharp jump from its most recent private market valuation of about $800 billion.The scale is significant.

Mint explains what the change means for creators and brandsMeta's update aims to turn creator content into a new sales channel for businesses. It also offers creators an opportunity to monetise their posts through commissions from these sales.“Meta is now making it easier for creators to link products more broadly on Instagram…Businesses in 22 countries, including India, will soon be able to provide their product catalogues to creators, helping more people find their products in creators’ Reels,” Meta said in a statement.Meta will allow creators to use digital avatars and voiceover to create videos, to ride the wave of the faceless video boom sparked by AI reels.

Mint spoke with, companies are increasingly hiring law firms and investigative agencies before closing deals to ensure that none of the parties involved, including subsidiaries, parents or suppliers, feature on sanctions lists.Clients are now required to sign sanctions standard operating procedures (SOPs) before finalising deals, which mandate disclosures such as ultimate beneficiaries, end-use certificates, and verification of licensed vendors.The purpose of such stringent due diligence is to ensure that companies do not deal with sanctioned entities, thus preventing frozen assets, blocked payments, or stalled deals amid geopolitical tensions.“With growing awareness, turbulent global environment and growing tariff and sanctions regime, sanction checks are carried out on large and key vendors at a pre-transaction stage. Further, post transactions, clients are asking us to implement third-party diligence programs in the acquired company and also have a real-time sanctions screening process,” said Tarun Bhatia, managing director and APAC co-head at financial risk and advisory firm Kroll.A sanctions control and ownership test determines whether an entity is “blocked” due to ownership by sanctioned individuals.