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Retailer Association of India on Tuesday asked the government to provide an enhanced technology platform to Kirana stores to enable them to compete with quick commerce firms. «Such support would enable the kirana stores to remain competitive amidst the increasing encroachment into their space by quick commerce companies like Swiggy Instamart, Blinkit or Zepto,» said Federation of Retailer Association of India (FRAI), which says that it represents about 80 lakh micro, small and medium retailers from across the country with a membership of 42 retail associations.

Delhivery on Tuesday appointed Navneet Kumar and Surajit Das to business leadership positions. Navneet Kumar was appointed to lead Delhivery’s supply chain services division, while Surajit Das was named head of OS1 and its SaaS platform.

Zara Dar became an overnight sensation when a video of her explaining why she quit her PhD to become a full-time adult content creator went viral on X. The video sparked a myriad of reactions on the platform after it was shared by an X user named Sensei Kraken Zero and gained over 12 million views.

Squid Game, Netflix’s global phenomenon, is all set to stream on the OTT platform. While the series presents a fictional account of desperate individuals competing in deadly games for a massive cash prize, its origins are deeply rooted in real-life events, inspired by the violent Ssangyong strikes of 2009. A factory transformed into a war zone, riot police wielding tasers, and an activist enduring 100 days atop a chimney—the real-life unrest that inspired Netflix’s most successful show bears all the elements of a gripping TV drama.

Newmalayalam Steel would be finalised later today, with the company's shares set to debut on the NSE SME platform on December 27. The Rs 42 crore SME IPO received a decent subscription of over 50 times at close, driven by strong bidding from retail investors. Firstly, here's how you can know the status on NSE

This growth story is facing headwinds now in the form of sticky food inflation, tightening of unsecured credit, weather disruptions impacting supply chain and consumption patterns, as well as a decline in personal disposable income. Little wonder then that the overall consumer demand sentiment has become subdued of late, leading to low volume growth and pressure on margins for consumer companies, which command premium valua tions vis-à-vis the rest of the market.

Sriram Krishnan is the latest addition to the growing list of Indian Americans appointed in the Trump 2.0 administration. He will serve as senior White House policy advisor for artificial intelligence (AI).

Aditya Birla Capital will go live on all three core financial services — lending, insurance, and mutual fund investments — available on the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) platform. Through ONDC Network, various live buyer apps will be able to offer Aditya Birla Capital's personal loan, health insurance, and mutual funds to their customers. «Our integration with the ONDC Network will help us reach out to 'Bharat' to fulfill the financial needs and aspirations of consumers who may have previously lacked access to formal credit, insurance, and investment opportunities,» said Vishakha Mulye, CEO, Aditya Birla Capital.

Reliance Retail has started a backend test launch of Chinese fast fashion label Shein, starting with its fashion and lifestyle platform Ajio, four-and-a-half years after the Indian government banned the label.

Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea as its members, has said the telecom regulator's newly proposed quality of service (QoS) norms that mandate monthly and site-to-cell level reporting are burdensome.

Most major banks have a cut-off age of 60 for credit cards, with a few allowing those up to 70 years of age to apply for one. This prevents many senior citizens from getting credit cards even if they fulfill the income and credit score criteria. However, there are workarounds.

In a lawsuit filed at the High Court in London, M&G claimed that the Ascentric business, a wealth management platform for financial advisers, had «exposed its customers to inappropriately risky investments, with an inappropriately high percentage of their pension funds in those investments», according to court documents seen by the FT.  M&G's legal team have filed for damages of at least £27m plus interest, alleging that Royal London failed to effectively disclose that some of its client pension money had been invested in «inappropriately risky» products prior to the deal, the aforementi...

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. President-elect Donald Trump threatened to take control of the Panama Canal, accusing the Panamanian government of charging excessive shipping tolls to use the strategic waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. “We’re being ripped off at the Panama Canal like we’re being ripped off everywhere else," Trump said at a conservative conference in Phoenix on Sunday, demanding the return of the state-run canal to the U.S.

Fertilizers & Micronutrient Mixtures for agricultural needs, proposes to open its Initial Public Offering on December 26, 2024, aiming to raise Rs 44.80 crore with shares to be listed on the NSE Emerge platform. The issue size is 3,20,00,000 equity shares with a price band of Rs 13 — Rs 14 per share and face value of Rs 2 each. The lot size is 10,000 equity shares.

Reliance Industries will likely remain in focus on Monday after the company announced that Reliance Digital Health (RDHL), its wholly-owned subsidiary, will acquire a 45% stake in Health Alliance Group. The total value of the transaction has been stated to be $10 million.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Earlier this month, a manager shared a screenshot on social media, showing how one of his Gen Z team members took leave without mentioning the pretext. The email addressed to him read, “Hi Siddharth, will be on leave until 8th November 2024.

Covid killed their artificial jewellery business in 2020, Deepika Jain and Anup N. Mehta found another way to make a comeback. The Bengaluru-based entrepreneurs took the business online in 2021, christening it ‘Just Lil Things’. The dream that started with Rs.1.5 lakh generates an eight-figure annual revenue today, riding on unique designs and well-structured processes. It all started with Mehta’s decision to bring back jewellery for his wife from his overseas trade trips. When this jewellery began to find favour with Jain’s friends and family, the couple decided to convert it into a business, starting only as a pop-up model. “In Bengaluru, an exhibition called ‘Sunday Soul Sante’ attracts 10,000-15,000 people, comprising mostly Gen Z, and the rent at the time was Rs.15,000-25,000. We thought selling modern jewellery here would be a good idea,” says Jain. She was right. In their first such display, they sold out, earning Rs.1.5 lakh in barely 4-5 hours. However, Covid-19 jettisoned their well-laid plans. So, in August 2021, they launched a website, which proved to be a turning point. By March 2022, the business had generated around Rs.5 lakh in revenue, garnering over 6,000 orders. The couple used their home and Mehta’s existing warehouse as storage, gradually scaling the operations as the orders increased. “Covid was good for our business as we are getting over 1,200 orders daily now and have reached an eight-figure yearly revenue,” says Jain.

Aakash Chaudhry, one of India's most successful education entrepreneurs, has secured backing from two of the country's most prominent consumer tech billionaires-Zomato's Deepinder Goyal and Zerodha's Nithin Kamath-for his new venture, Sparkl Edventure, said people in the know. Kamath's Rainmatter, a fintech and sustainability-focused fund, along with Goyal, is participating in a $4 million seed round. The round is expected to attract a few more marquee investors. In October, Chaudhry joined forces with Pavan Chauhan and Ritesh Hemrajani, founders of Meritnation.com, an edtech company acquired by his family business Aakash Educational Services Ltd (AESL) in 2020, to launch Sparkl. This comes three years after the $950 million cash-and-stock sale of AESL to Byju's in one of India's largest edtech deals till date. Despite the sale, Chaudhry retains an 11% stake in AESL. Sparkl aims to provide bespoke one-on-one online tutoring for students in grades 6 to 12, specializing in International Baccalaureate (IB) and Cambridge curricula. The platform offers personalised classes across subjects such as mathematics, science, languages, business studies etc. With teachers already on board, Sparkl has begun enrolling students from major Indian cities such as Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Pune and Hyderabad, as well as Singapore and plans to grow the platform leveraging its tech interventions.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) imposed another set of financial penalties on telcos last week for their failure to curb spam, officials aware of the details told ET. «The penalties have been imposed on all the four major mobile operators-Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea (Vi) and BSNL-as well as some smaller firms, as part of the TCCCPR rules,» an official said on condition of anonymity. The regulator had earlier imposed penalties on telcos too, but it had not realised any sum as operators contend they should not be held accountable for something which they don't control or perpetuate.

differential pricing quietly infiltrates the digital economy. The image going viral on social media-showcasing a prominent ride hailing service's fare disparity based on device type-is a stark reminder that the smartphone you use has become an indicator of how much you are charged. This practice, not limited to ride-hailing apps, extends to q-comm platforms, where the cost of groceries or delivery services can subtly shift based on perceived consumer affluence. It's an opaque-and arguably discriminatory-trend that demands scrutiny. At the heart of this issue is algorithmic pricing, a powerful tool in the arsenal of tech firms. These analyse consumer data-from purchasing history and location to device type and spending patterns. Ostensibly, the goal is to optimise pricing to maximise profits. But the process often veers into discriminatory territory. An iPhone signals a consumer's purchasing power, leading the algorithm to nudge prices higher under the assumption that such users are willing to pay more.

Discovery decided not to renew its contract with the streaming platform, Max, which has been its home since 2016, as mentioned in a report by People. With the fate of the show hanging in the balance, here’s what we know about Sesame Street’s future.