Arvind's Newsletter-weekend edition

1.New oral diabetes + obesity drug's India sales surge 100% 

Novo Nordisk's semaglutide, the fat-melting 'wonder drug', is a smash hit in India. Sales of Rybelsus, the oral semaglutide brand prescribed for Type-2 diabetes, more than doubled in the past year to Rs 363 crore in
April from Rs 147 crore a year ago.

Well-off Indians splurging on weight-loss drugs — Rybelsus costs about Rs 10,000 a month — is not surprising. About 12.1% of urban Indian adults are diabetic. The Indian Council of Medical Research has linked 56.4% of total disease burden, including diabetes and obesity, to unhealthy diets. 

2.India to again delay caps on UPI payments market share: Reuters

India is putting off its plans to limit any company’s market share in handling payments through the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) to 30%. The National Payments Corporation of India had earlier planned to have 2020 as the deadline to enforce this, which was then extended till 2024, and is now being further rolled back.

 Reuters reported that the deadline needs to be extended as major players like Walmart-backed PhonePe and Google-backed Google Pay can't decrease their market shares without negatively impacting UPI payments growth. Together they control over 80% of the market. As UPI payments are non-chargeable, players like Meta-owned WhatsApp and Amazon Pay haven’t been aggressive in pushing this payment method.

3.Global Funds Offload Nearly Rs 23,000 Crore So Far In May: Factors Behind Selloff
Foreign institutional investors have sold over Rs 22,857 crore worth of Indian equities so far in May, citing volatility and uncertainty stemming from the Lok Sabha elections and the upcoming final Union Budget.

The decision of the US Federal Reserve to postpone rate cuts until year-end has led market participants to anticipate sustained impacts on foreign inflows into Indian and emerging markets. This expectation was fuelled by the escalating yields on US benchmark bonds and ongoing geopolitical tensions.

A major trend in the market now is aggressive selling by FIIs. Though DIIs are buying, they are not as aggressive as they were due to some concerns surrounding election results.

4.The Battery Arbitrage: Solar is powering a large share of California’s energy needs during the day and batteries are now powering a significant share at night.

Since 2020, California has installed more giant batteries than anywhere in the world apart from China. They can soak up excess solar power during the day and store it for use when it gets dark.

Those batteries play a pivotal role in California’s electric grid, partially replacing fossil fuels in the eveningBetween 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. on April 30, for example, batteries supplied more than one-fifth of California’s electricity and, for a few minutes, pumped out 7,046 megawatts of electricity, akin to the output from seven large nuclear reactors.

California’s electricity deregulation had a rocky start but notice that it is paying off today because what is happening is that prices are low at mid-day when the sun is shining and they rise in the evening. 

Power companies profit by using batteries to arbitrage these prices differences. Thus, power companies have been willing to make huge investments in battery technology.

5.Hearing Breakthrough

A British toddler born with a rare form of deafness can heae after receiving a pioneering gene therapy treatment developed by pharmaceutical company Regeneron. The news follows a similar treatment in January by Eli Lilly, allowing 11-year-old Aissam Dam to hear for the first time. 

One-and-a-half-year-old Opal Sandy was born with hearing loss caused by a mutated single gene known as otoferlin, affecting roughly 200,000 people globally, or about 2% of all hearing loss cases. Otoferlin is a protein in the inner ear's hair cells that enables sound to be transmitted to the brain. Using a harmless virus, doctors inserted a replacement working gene through the ear canal to restore damage in a procedure lasting 16 minutes. Sandy's hearing in the treated ear reached close to normal capacity, including the ability to hear whispers.

6.Xi Jinping upgrades China’s ties with Hungary to ‘all-weather’ partnership

Victor Orban’s Hungary is singular in the E.U. for his vocal support for China.

Xi described Beijing’s relationship with Budapest as an “all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership for the new era,” a jargon filled phrase that analysts nevertheless said was only outranked by China’s ties to Russia and North Korea.

The upgraded relations are mutually beneficial: Hungary takes over the rotating presidency of the European Union Council in July, offering China a much-needed ally within a bloc that is increasingly hawkish towards trade with it, while Beijing — Budapest’s biggest foreign investor — is upping its investments into electric vehicle manufacturing in Hungary.

7.Things aren’t quite panning out for Neom, Saudi Arabia’s futuristic desert city that’s at the center of the country’s economic growth plan. 

The kingdom pulled its senior officials out of this week’s Milken Institute Global Conference in California at the last minute to brief the Crown Prince on the status of Neom. Meanwhile, a BBC investigation found that Saudi authorities have allowed the use of lethal force to evict villagers to make way for “The Line” — a 105-mile-long, 1,640-foot high pair of skyscrapers — only a fraction of which is expected to be unveiled at Noem’s 2030 launch. Saudi has other ambitious bets: The 2034 World Cup and the 2029 Asian Winter Games at a ski resort in the desert that doesn’t yet exist.

8.Labyrinth walking: An ancient activity that could help ease anxiety

Labyrinths have been used worldwide for centuries as a way to quieten the mind, ease anxiety, recover life balance, enhance creativity and boost insights. During the Middle Ages, nearly 25% of cathedrals had them, and today walking labyrinths has become an increasingly popular global method of promoting anti-stress by integrating the mind and the body.

Don't confuse labyrinths with mazes. Mazes confound people with dead ends and the threat of getting lost. In contrast, labyrinths draw on classical designs that, however complex the route, guarantee an unobstructed progress to and from their centre.