- Arvind's Newsletter
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- Arvind's Newsletter
Readers are informed this newsletter will be intermittent (and not daily) over the next 3 weeks when I will be travelling.
1.Tata group in talks to buy Haldiram snackmaker eyes $10 bn valuation
Tata Group's consumer unit is in talks to buy at least 51% of popular Indian snack food maker Haldiram's but is not comfortable with the $10 billion valuation sought.If successfully concluded, a deal would see the Indian conglomerate directly compete with Pepsi and billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Retail.
Haldiram's, a household name in India, is also talking with private equity firms including Bain Capital about the sale of a 10% stake, they said. Tata Consumer Products, which owns UK tea company Tetley and has a partnership with Starbucks in India, has baulked at the $10 billion valuation given that Haldiram's annual revenue is around $1.5 billion.
Read more at:
2.IIM Calcutta director resigns, reports Indian Express
Uttam Kumar Sarkar, director of the Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta (IIM-C), has quit, reportedly because of differences with the chairman of the board of governors.
Sarkar, who was appointed to lead the country’s oldest management institute for five years in August 2021, follows the previous director, Anju Seth, who resigned with a year to spare. Seth, the first woman director to lead IIM-C, left citing “breakdown of confidence” between her and chairman Shrikrishna Kulkarni.
Incidentally the resignation comes soon after the The Parliament passed The Indian Institutes of Management (Amendment) Bill 2023 last month, which alters the IIM Act of 2017. The new amendment designates the President of India (or shall we say, President of Bharat?) “Visitor” at all IIMs. The Visitor is empowered to nominate the chairpersons of the boards of governors and have a say in the appointment and removal of directors. The Visitor can also order audits and inquiries into the affairs of the institutions, which will be binding on them.
3.Streaming on screens near you: How Netflix India finally got the plot right, opines Vanita Kohli-Khandekar in her opinion piece in Business Standard.
Suyash Kamat’s Sadabahar is sad yet quirky. The 13-minute Konkani film about five bandwallahs in Goa has garnered 90,000 views on Netflix’s YouTube channel since its release in November 2022. Sadabahar received funding through Take Ten, a short film competition by Netflix and Film Companion, aimed at discovering emerging Indian filmmakers.
“The few grants available for short films usually come with either aesthetic or commercial baggage. This did not come with any baggage. It helped me find my voice,” says 28-year-old Kamat.
Take Ten is one of the eight programmes run by Netflix India, either independently or in collaboration with bodies such as the British Academy Film Awards. Many of these programmes are funded by Netflix, which generated $32 billion in revenue from its 239 million subscribers worldwide in 2022.
“We won’t be able to increase the value of what we offer unless we invest in the creative community,” reckons Monika Shergill, vice-president, content, Netflix India.
Much like Kamat, Netflix too is finding its voice after years of floundering in India.
Minnal Murali and Mission Majnu to Rana Naidu and Darlings, its shows and movies are climbing the charts both locally and globally. Kohrra reached no. 1 on the global non-English top 10. RRR remained in the global top 10 for 18 weeks.“Chor Nikal Ke Bhaaga has been a raging hit in Latin America, staying on our global top 10 non-English list for one month,” says Shergill.
“In India, we had the best year in 2022 of our existence. Our content viewing grew by 30 per cent last year, and revenue increased by 25 per cent,” said Ted Sarandos, co-chief executive officer of Netflix, at an India media summit in February this year.
Its subscriber base has nearly doubled to an estimated 10 million, and with (again estimated) Rs 2,200-2,400 crore in revenue, it is the second-largest pay service after Disney+ Hotstar, which generated Rs 3,200 crore in revenue.
It is about time. Read on
4.Despite climate change, many aspects of human wellbeing are expected to improve over the coming century, a climate scientist argued.
His piece in Nature Climate Change pointed out that while U.N. projections show that human-caused warming will cause deaths and hunger, other factors — such as economic and technological development — are expected to mean that people will still, on average, live longer and have more food. “Climate change risks are important,” the piece said, but concerns such as food security are “overwhelmingly determined not by climate change but by … other factors.”
5.US to check on chips used in Huawei’s ‘Made in China’ smartphone reports Financial Times
Mate 60 Pro sells out in China as public celebrate reports of domestic chip breakthrough despite years of sanctions
The White House is seeking detailed information on Huawei’s latest flagship smartphone, which analysts have described as an important milestone for the Chinese tech group four years after US restrictions crippled its handset business.
While Huawei has declined to reveal details of its suppliers for the Mate Pro, a dismantling of the phone by the consultancy TechInsights last week suggested it contained a 7-nanometre processor made by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. SMIC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
SMIC’s 7-nanometre chips are the minimum required for rapid processing of data in smartphones and data centres and still lag those at 4-nanometre used in Apple’s current iPhone 14 range. Apple is widely expected to announce the use of a 3-nanometre chip, made by contract manufacturer Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, in iPhone 15 models due to be launched next week.
