1.Ambani's Reliance Jio IPO set for 2025, retail debut much later

Mukesh Ambani-led telecom giant Reliance Jio may launch its IPO in 2025, while postponing the conglomerate's retail unit IPO, Reuters reported, citing sources. Reliance Jio, valued at over $100 billion by analysts, reportedly believes it has achieved business stability as India's leading telecom player with 479 million subscribers.

However, the retail business IPO is not expected until after 2025 as the company first needs to address internal challenges. Global brokerage Jefferies previously reported on July 10 that Reliance Jio could be listed on the Indian bourses in 2025 with a potential valuation of $112 billion.

2.Suzuki Motor unveils battery EV model e-Vitara; to start production in 2025

Maruti Suzuki unveiled its first electric car, the e-Vitara in Milan on Monday. It marks the company’s foray into the electric vehicle segment, and its production is expected to start at its Gujarat unit next year.

Sales are expected to begin in various countries, including Europe, India, and Japan, around summer 2025, Suzuki Motor Corporation said while unveiling its first mass-production battery electric vehicle (BEV). 

The e-Vitara is based on the concept model ‘Evx,’ which was showcased at the Auto Expo in India in January 2023. It represents Suzuki's first global strategic BEV model.

The EV plan by Maruti will further boost a segment dominated by the likes of the Tata Curvv EV, the upcoming Hyundai Creta EV and Mahindra BE 05.

Meanwhile, Royal Enfield (RE) is planning to introduce its electric bike initially in developed markets such as Europe and the US where it anticipates better traction for the premium product, a top company executive said on Tuesday.

Royal Enfield, a division of Eicher Motors, forayed into electric bike space on Monday with the unveiling of its first model under the all-new Flying Flea brand. Eicher Motors MD and CEO Sidhartha Lal told reporters that C6 is the first bike where India may not be a priority market for introduction.

3. US voters cast their ballot

Election Day has finally arrived in the US, following former President Donald Trump's and Vice President Kamala Harris' last-minute campaign blitzes in key battleground states.

Pennsylvania (19 electoral votes) is seen as the tipping point among six other swing states whose collective 93 electoral votes are considered crucial to the election outcome. Trump and President Joe Biden won Pennsylvania in 2016 and 2020, respectively. However, the final results might not be known until later.

In 2020, Biden's victory in Pennsylvania wasn't clear until four days after Election Day. A candidate must secure at least 270 of 538 votes to win the Electoral College.

Control of the US Senate and House are also up for grabs, with Republicans hoping to flip a number of seats.

 In a year in which around half the globe has gone to the polls, the US election is by far the most consequential, its impacts felt the world over and its results watched closely well beyond the country’s borders: “The two candidates have fundamentally different views on US’s global role,” the Financial Times’ chief foreign affairs columnist wrote, while Bloomberg analysts said the campaign had cemented beliefs in key capitals that “America’s brief heyday as the world’s lone superpower is history.

4.Iceland embraced a shorter work week. Here’s how it turned out

Iceland’s economy is outperforming most European peers after the nationwide introduction of a shorter working week with no loss in pay, according to research released Friday.

Between 2020 and 2022, 51% of workers in the country had accepted the offer of shorter working hours, including a four-day week, two think tanks found, saying the figure is likely to be even higher today.

Last year, Iceland logged faster economic growth than most European countries and its unemployment rate is one of the lowest in Europe, noted the Autonomy Institute in the United Kingdom and Iceland’s Association for Sustainability and Democracy (Alda).

5.Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk is working on a once-monthly weight-loss drug

Novo Nordisk , the maker of blockbuster weight-loss and diabetes drugs Wegovy and Ozempic, has entered an agreement with Denmark-based Ascendis Pharma to leverage the latter’s advanced drug delivery technology.

The partnership aims to speed up the development of a long-acting, monthly GLP-1 drug. Current GLP-1 medications on the market are administered as once-weekly injections.

6.AI overwhelmingly prefers white and male job candidates in new test of resume-screening bias

As employers increasingly use digital tools to process job applications, a new study from the University of Washington highlights the potential for significant racial and gender bias when using AI to screen resumes.

The UW researchers tested three open-source, large language models (LLMs) and found they favoured resumes from white-associated names 85% of the time, and female-associated names 11% of the time. Over the 3 million job, race and gender combinations tested, Black men fared the worst with the models preferring other candidates nearly 100% of the time.

7.How a breakthrough gene-editing tool will help the world cope with climate change

Jennifer Doudna, one of the inventors of the breakthrough gene-editing tool CRISPR, says the technology will help the world grapple with the growing risks of climate change by delivering crops and animals better suited to hotter, drier, wetter, or weirder conditions.

8.A spate of “longevity concierges” have cropped up in the US as more people seek affordable ways to extend their lives

Startups like Superpower,Longevity Health, and Brogevity are capitalising on the recent “longevity science” craze — one 47-year-old tech millionaire spends $2 million annually to try to reverse his aging — by promising life-extending solutions at a lower price point. For several hundred dollars a year, members can get detailed blood panels, access to clinicians, and insights on health trends often assisted by AI.

“Good health is becoming a status symbol,” one startup cofoundertold The San Francisco Standard. But, the outlet wrote, the services are “just slick, AI-pilled packaging for what’s essentially a comprehensive set of blood tests paired with an on-demand doctor.”