Innholdsfortegnelse for 7 August 2022 i Business Today

GST SINGES ESSENTIALS WITH THE GST COUNCIL revising rates to rationalise the structure and increase tax revenues, prices of several daily-use items will go up. The 5 per cent tax on packaged kitchen commodities is set to make wheat flour, pulses, cereals, puffed rice and curd dearer, while an increase in rate from 12 per cent to 18 per cent on LED lamps, lights & fixtures will lead to a price increase of 5-6 per cent. With a 12 per cent tax on hotel rooms that cost less than ₹1,000 per night, tourism is set to be hit, while a 5 per cent tax on non-ICU hospital rooms that cost ₹5,000 per day will make healthcare dearer. —ARNABDUTTA CHINESE CHECKERS The Delhi High Court has allowed Chinese smartphone maker vivo to…

HIGHER ODDS of a recession in developed markets, soaring wage bills and a subdued global macro environment have pushed 97 per cent of information technology (IT) shares on Indian bourses into the red so far this year. Is it a correction or a bear market? Whatever descriptor you choose for the current state of IT shares, the underlying reality is: it’s bloody out there. The BSE IT index cracked 26.91 per cent on a year-to-date (YTD) basis till July 12, 2022, even as the benchmark BSE Sensex declined 7.49 per cent during the same period. Brightcom Group emerged as the top loser with a fall of 57 per cent. Shares of Xelpmoc Design and Tech, 3i Infotech and Zensar Technologies also tanked by over 50 per cent. “The significant price…

The Secret of their Success… 1 Cinematic storytelling style with ample room for larger-than-life action sequences and special effects 2 Fan following cultivated among the Hindi-speaking masses over two decades through re-runs of Hindi-dubbed south Indian films on satellite TV 3 Content which appeals to a wider audience, including the single-screen audience, neglected by Hindi film producers …And their Impact 1 Production budgets for south Indian films, especially those with a pan-India appeal, are shooting up because a wider market means higher chances of budget recovery; ₹500-crore productions are becoming common 2 It also helps that OTT platforms pick up digital rights at hefty rates even before the film’s theatrical release. Non-theatrical rights cover 50-75 per cent of the film’s budget and reduce the producer’s risk 3 Over time, OTTs…

THE STORY OF India’s waning single-screen theatres is a dramatic one. What were once architectural heritage establishments—housing close to a thousand cinephiles at a time, who’d often show their admiration by throwing coins at the screen—have now become invisible, rusty structures; almost an eyesore in a cityscape dotted with swanky malls and glitzy multiplexes. Today, at a time when around 150 single-screen theatres are shutting down every year, the Hindi film industry, popularly known as Bollywood, seems to be in the middle of an identity crisis. As per a recent Ficci-EY report on India’s media and entertainment (M&E) sector, the decline in the revenues of single-screen theatres has been fuelled by their continued shutdown, primarily in the Hindi heartland, while films continue to be made for the upper class/multiplex audiences.…

BACK IN THE 1990S, MTV introduced to India not just the best of international music and music videos, but also a channel that played music non-stop. Soon, there were other players in this arena and by the 2000s, there were quite a few Indian households that had got into the habit of keeping their TVs tuned to a music channel for long hours, with music playing in the background. The advent of the iPod and later mobile phones led to people travelling with an unlimited supply of tunes, and often listening to music, non-stop, while going about their daily schedule. Cut to present times and nearly 200 million people streamed music each month in 2021, says a recent Ficci-EY report on the media and entertainment (M&E) industry. The Indian Music…

AKSHAY MUNJAL is an entrepreneur with a difference. The third-generation business tycoon who hails from the prominent Munjal family, the driving force behind the Hero Group, can, in many ways, be called the architect of the group’s BML Munjal University. Last year, he forayed into the burgeoning edtech space by launching his venture, Hero Vired. However, above and beyond the confines of corporate life, the very softspoken Munjal is an artist at heart—when not overseeing operations at Hero Vired, he loves to immerse himself into sculpting. The 42-year-old entrepreneur has a special fondness for clay. “If you look at sculpture per se, it is one of the oldest art forms known to mankind. If you look at clay, it is devoid of form. But in the hands of an artist,…

SOURCE: CMIE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK, MEDIA REPORTS $5.8 BILLION India’s exports to Sri Lanka in FY22, up 67 per cent over a year 1.38 PER CENT Share of Sri Lanka in India’s total exports in 2021-22 $1 BILLION India’s imports from Sri Lanka in FY22; it was $0.64 billion in 2020-21 $3.8 BILLION The amount India committed to provide to Sri Lanka, as per Minister S. Jaishankar…

YOGI ADITYANATH, the chief minister of uttar pradesh, has completed over 100 days at the helm of the state government in his second term. But it has not been easy going for his government. With countries around the world battling economic uncertainty, policymakers in the state government are busy charting a way out of the quagmire and preparing a road map for the country’s most populous state to cross the milestone of having an economy worth $1 trillion by the end of 2027. Currently, the state’s economy is pegged at $0.254 trillion with agriculture constituting 20-22 per cent share of the pie; industry at 18-20 per cent share; and the services sector cornering a 45-50 per cent share. Even in the backdrop of such uncertainties, the state government is confident…

IF THERE EVER was an industry segment which got a booster shot from the pandemic, it is the OTT space. As the virus locked up millions of people indoors and turned movie theatres into ghost towns, viewers found succour in binge-watching millions of hours of content on streaming platforms as even the ever-flowing tap of TV channels’ content went dry Unbeknownst to most viewers, their binge-watching doubled OTT platforms’ revenues over each of the two pandemic years. The number was ₹10,863 crore in 2021, a 4x jump over the pre-pandemic revenue of ₹2,714 crore in 2019, according to PwC estimates. But as the health crisis comes under control and other avenues of entertainment open up, OTTs’ growth rates are expected to mellow down. “You can’t put the genie back into…

SIGMUND FREUD, the father of western psychoanalysis, once famously noted: “Dreams are constructed from the residue of yesterday.” More than 122 years later, dreams are being constructed for the world to immerse itself in by countless VFX (visual effects) studios dotting Indian cities such as Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai. Sounds incredible? Since the late 2000s, an increasing number of movies nominated for their edge-of-your-seat VFX have had some connection with India. Think Interstellar, Gravity, Shrek, Tron, Deadpool, X-Men: Apocalypse, Spiderman, The Avengers, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Martian, Cinderella… it’s a pretty long list. But even that is the proverbial tip of the iceberg. If you also included popular shows streamed on OTT platforms such as Amazon Prime Video and Netflix, the list…

THE INDIAN GAMER WAS A RARE BREED even a decade ago. Not anymore. The country skipped a generation of gaming—PC and console-based games, which are popular in developed markets—and went directly to mobile gaming. It almost mirrors India’s mobile-first internet demographic, where hundreds of millions of users skipped desktops and laptops, and tasted the web for the first time on their smartphones. Like many other industries, gaming has gained immeasurably from the penetration of cheap mobile data, which has lowered entry barriers for people. Anybody with even an entry-level smartphone can download a gaming app off the Google Play Store, and add to the burgeoning mobile gaming audience in the country. India today is the world’s largest online gaming market by app downloads, according to analytics firm Sensor Tower. As…

NESTLÉ INDIA’S HEADQUARTERS on Gurugram’s Jacaranda Marg is striking in its minimalism. Spread across seven floors, the triangular building is dwarfed by skyscrapers of other large corporations. While most other multinationals share offices with peers across the Millennium City, the country’s largest food & beverages company keeps its affairs private in an isolated building. The simple office interior, packed with a few hundred employees who ditch fancy corporate suits, reflects its austere culture. In contrast to his peers in tailored suits, Suresh Narayanan, 62, Chairman and Managing Director of Nestlé India, appears in a dark grey blazer and sports a smile. Unlike other top CEOs who hold MBA degrees from IIMs, Narayanan holds a master’s degree in economics. His dream of becoming a bureaucrat by clearing the UPSC civil services…

LOCATION: THE CONNAUGHT, NEW DELHI IN THE FIRST WEEK of June as the mercury climbed above 40 degrees Celsius in Delhi, advertising professional Diksha Singh made for the hills with her daughter Lolita in tow. They drove down to the recently opened Hyatt Regency Dehradun, at the foothills of Mussoorie, for a week-long break. Singh chose the hotel because of Lolita—her two-year-old furry baby. For this pet parent, her dog’s comfort was most important. Lolita, with her flowing blonde tresses, is a Golden Retriever and finds the Delhi heat quite unbearable. The hills are always welcome but for the longest time Singh had to search for homestays and smaller properties that were more pet-friendly than big hotel chains. However, all that changed post the pandemic. With more people wanting to…

INDIA’S LOW-COST CARRIER (LCC) segment seems to have hit an air pocket. This phase started with reports of large-scale cancellations of several IndiGo flights due to a large number of the company’s cabin crew taking leave to ostensibly appear for Air India interviews. While the reason may sound plausible, it is not accurate. It is believed that a sizeable chunk of the crew had called in sick as part of a go-slow action to demand a roll-back of pay cuts announced at the onset of the pandemic. Its impact was so profound that on July 2 and 3, 55 and 29 per cent of the carrier’s flights, respectively, were delayed. The airline had faced similar action by pilots earlier. The airline partially rolled back their pay cuts earlier this month.…

WHEN THE TIMES ARE TOUGH, the tough get going—is an age-old adage that describes the current challenges facing the cyrpto-currency investment community most aptly. Faced with the double whammy of a 30 per cent tax on crypto gains along with a 1 per cent tax deducted at source (TDS), crypto investors are looking at ways to mitigate future upheavals. The immediate impact, meanwhile, is seen in the declining trade volumes. “There is a definite hit on the volumes due to the start of the 30 per cent tax [on gains] and the 1 per cent TDS [on transactions]. Also, this is the first bear market that crypto is witnessing amid an international recessionary trend,” says Vikram Subburaj, CEO of Giottus crypto platform. Trade volumes for Giottus are down by about…

PUNJABI SINGER DALER MEHNDI has always attracted big crowds. This January, when he had his debut concert in the metaverse, 20 million people logged in at once, crashing the servers. The event was held on PartyNite, one of India’s first metaverse spaces. With this, Mehndi became the first Indian artiste to join the likes of Travis Scott, Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, who have all had concerts in the metaverse. In May, media and entertainment (M&E) major Zee inaugurated its Technology and Innovation Centre in Bengaluru, which brings together the relevant skills and resources to help it enter the Web 3.0 universe. Called ‘Zeeverse’, it is expected to be launched early next year. “Our metaverse will not only facilitate a new way of consuming and engaging with content, but also…

IMAGINE AN ODDLY-SHAPED but familiar square board game on your mobile screen, only this one is adorned with not two but four sets of 16 pieces. Each set is arranged neatly on the board’s four sides, according to their colour—red, blue, yellow and green. Beside them is a smaller rectangular box divided into four spaces with as many faces peering in from them. There’s another face hanging in a corner outside the rectangle, frantically checking to see if everything is in order. What you see underway is a game of the new-age, OTT avatar of one of the world’s oldest and stodgiest sports, chess, being played by four players for an audience on YouTube. The four peering faces, the players, are Indian Grandmaster (GM) Vidith Gujrathi with red pieces; GM…

A NANNY FOR PUPS If your pet stays at home alone for long periods, get it a nanny, albeit an electronic one. While regular security cameras can do the job just fine, this device is designed for pups. Featuring enhanced night vision, the auto dog tracking function tracks your pup as it moves around the room, and alerts you if it barks. The two-way talking feature will help you calm your pup, plus you can reward it with a treat anytime. Its app is available for both iOS and Android devices. Available on: furbo.com FOLLOW THE PAWS Pets love running around, especially when outdoors. Attach this nifty device to their collar and you’ll be able to track your pet’s location in real time. This tracker comes with a pre-installed countrywide SIM…

PROFESSOR SRIKANT DATAR, Dean of Harvard Business School (HBS) tackles the burning questions on post-pandemic work, The Great Reset, globalisation and the big opportunity ahead for India. In a free-flowing conversation with Rahul Kanwal, News Director of India Today and Aaj Tak, and Executive Director of Business Today at BT’s Master Class, Datar shares insights on navigating uncertainties in the post-pandemic era. Edited excerpts: What are the big trends you’ve noticed in management practices, especially in the post-pandemic world? I started my term as Dean in the middle of the pandemic and an academic year. Each of those has challenges but what is incredible is the amount of opportunity it creates. I spoke to nearly 1,000 individuals [and] went on a listening tour for four or five months. There were…