1.India's Urban Consumption Problem May Have A Credit

The slowdown in India's urban consumption is likely facing the wrath of the banking regulator's call to slow down unsecured credit. The central bank's move has led to narrowing of the credit funnel available for retail customers, as lenders slow down the rush.

RBI's monthly sectoral credit data shows that loan growth in credit cards, unsecured personal loans and loans for white goods have all come down over the last year, as banks pull back. Credit card growth has dropped to below 20% in September, while consumer durables loan growth is trending in single digits.

In November 2023, Reserve Bank of India introduced higher risk weights for retail unsecured loans extended by banks and non-bank finance companies. 

With loan growth in these segments slowing, lenders are also seeing higher delinquencies. Non-bank lender Bajaj Finance Ltd. reported a sharp uptick in its expectations for credit costs this year, raising it from 1.75–1.85% to 2–2.05%. The company is further increasing scrutiny of customers who have multiple unsecured loans, in a bid to safeguard its balance sheet.

2.In-flight passengers can access WiFi only when allowed, say new rules

The government on Monday clarified that in-flight passengers will be able to use internet services through WiFi only when electronic devices are permitted to be used in the aircraft even after it attains altitude of 3,000 metres in Indian airspace.

Under Flight and Maritime Connectivity Rules, 2018, the government has mandated that In-flight and Maritime Connectivity service providers shall provide the operation of mobile communication services in aircraft at a minimum height of 3,000 metres in Indian airspace to avoid interference with terrestrial mobile networks.

"Notwithstanding the minimum height in Indian airspace referred to in sub-rule (1), internet services through Wi-Fi in aircraft shall be made available when electronic devices are permitted to be used in the aircraft," as per the new rule notified on Monday.

3.Four days before he passed away, Bibek Debroy wrote his obituary: ‘There is a world outside that exists. What if I am not there? What indeed?’

Bibek Debroy, renowned economist and author of a ten-volume translation of the Mahabharata, passed away last Friday. Debroy significantly contributed to India's legal reforms and made ancient texts accessible, leaving a lasting legacy in academia and government

“After more than a month in the cardiac care centre (CCU) and a private room in AIIMS, I am discharged. My wife, Suparna, has performed a modern-day Savitri-Satyavan, aided by the skills of the doctors. As time goes, a month is fleeting. But being virtually wiped off the face of the earth is not. I manage to get the daily limericks going from the hospital. So people don’t necessarily notice. My frequent co-author, Aditya Sinha, keeps some of the columns going. More people don’t notice.” Read on.

4.Funding for Indian startups falls 25% in October to $1.2 Bn

Indian startups raised nearly $1.2 billion in October, a 26% quarter-on-quarter decline from September but still a 13% increase year-on-year. Growth and late-stage funding dominated, securing $846.2 million across 28 deals, while early-stage startups raised $355.38 million across 65 deals, data compiled by Entrackr showed.

Despite the dip, venture capital investment in India remained robust at $3.6 billion in Q3 2024, driven by consumer-focused businesses, according to a recent report by KPMG India. The outlook for startup funding remains positive, with continued interest in sectors such as e-commerce, health tech, and SaaS, the KPMG report added.

5.Adani begins to cut off power supplies to Bangladesh

The Indian conglomerate Adani Group has begun to curb electricity supplies to Bangladesh and threatened to completely shut down power exports as the new government in Dhaka struggles with a backlog of overdue payments.

The infrastructure-focused company owned by billionaire Gautam Adani on Thursday started slashing cross-border electricity flows by as much as half from its 1,600-megawatt capacity Godda coal-fired plant in eastern India, according to data published by Bangladesh’s power grid.

The group has set a November 7 deadline for a full cut-off unless Bangladesh can clarify how it will settle amounts owed to the company, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Adani Group has previously warned that the overdue payments have become “unsustainable”. Its executives told analysts last month that the country owed about $800mn at the end of September.

Muhammad Fouzul Kabir Khan, the top energy adviser to Bangladesh’s interim government led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, told the Financial Times: “We are both surprised and disappointed at the decision.”

6.The rapid descent of Southwest Airlines: How the company plunged from customer cult-favorite to activist investor target; Lila Maclellan in Fortune

This is a case study of how even the greatest of companies can be taken apart in the stock market in the space of a four years. Most of us have grown up being fed the Southwest Airlines case study as one of disruptive innovation. Lisa Maclellan’s reprises the familiar story succinctly in her thoroughly insightful article for Fortune:

“Herbert Kelleher cofounded Southwest more than 50 years ago as a local, low-cost airline serving Texan cities. As the airline grew, it took a radically different approach to air travel than its competitors. In addition to creating a no-frills, few-fees experience, Southwest adopted a point-to-point routing system, allowing passengers to fly between cities without transferring, rather than the hub-and-spoke model, which requires fliers to stop over in another city. Southwest also used only one type of plane, a Boeing 737, to standardize operations. And most famously, the startup embraced an open seating plan and, until 2007, a first-come, first serve policy.”

However, post-the pandemic, the original Southwest strategy started backfiring. Ms Maclellan writes: “Since the pandemic, Southwest has lagged competitors in financial performance, and its share price is down 50% compared to 2021.”

So what happened? Why did a strategy that worked for 50 years start backfiring. Read on.

7.An array of non-traditional indicators point to the depth of China’s demographic and economic challenges.

An aging population and plummeting birth rate are major concerns, and society is having to adapt: The FT reported that the country aims to install 2 million elevators in apartment blocks nationwide for residents who are increasingly unable to manoeuvre stairs, while tens of thousands of kindergartens have scaled back or closed, CNBC reported, with some pivoting to cater to senior citizens.

A slowing economy, meanwhile, has hammered the luxury sector — the opening of one under-construction LVMH megastore is delayed, and Hermès is making it easier to buy its iconic Birkin bags, Bloomberg reported —whereas sale of pianos, long a must-have for China’s middle class, have plummeted.

8.The new leader of the UK Conservatives, the first Black woman to lead a major British political party, is expected to push the Tories further toward the right. 

Kemi Badenoch was elected Saturday to lead the party, after former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stepped down following its crushing electoral defeat to Labour in July. 

Under her wing, the Conservatives are likely to take a more hardline approach to immigration, climate, and cultural issues. Badenoch is known for her opposition to what she perceives as progressive identity politics; as equalities minister, she issued guidance against gender neutral bathrooms, and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

Her ascension, The Economist wrote, is “evidence of how ideas about cultural power have displaced economics as her party’s animating matter.”

9.REM sleep: What is it, why is it important, and how can you get more of it?

You may not think much about your dreams, other than occasionally wondering what they mean. But dreams are an important part of a sleep stage known as REM sleep. All sleep is important, but REM sleep plays a key role for brain health and function.

10.Yuval Noah Harari on whether democracy and AI can coexist

Yuval Noah Harari is a historian and the author of a new book called Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI. Like all of Harari’s books, this one covers a ton of ground but manages to do it in a digestible way.

The first argument is that every system that matters in our world is essentially the result of an information network. From currency to religion to nation-states to artificial intelligence, it all works because there’s a chain of people and machines and institutions collecting and sharing information.

The second argument is that although we gain a tremendous amount of power by building these networks of cooperation, the way most of them are constructed makes them more likely than not to produce bad outcomes, and since our power as a species is growing thanks to technology, the potential consequences of this are increasingly catastrophic. Read on.