Sorry, no mo forwards ✋
Abe quits, Social security boost, and unexpected IPO.
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Market summary: 📊
US:
S&P 500 - up 0.67%
Nasdaq 100 - up 0.58%
India:
Nifty 50 - up 0.76%
Sensex - up 0.90%
Japan’s Abe cashing his chips in 👋
PM Shinzo Abe of Japan will be stepping down from the role of the country’s Prime Minister due to deteriorating health conditions. A successor will likely be picked in September.
65 year old Abe had been struggling with ‘ulcerative colitis’ — an intestinal condition for a long time now. Doctors advised increased medication, including procedures, which would draw him away from his duties, hence the decision.
Abe has been the longest serving Prime Minister in Japan’s history — and had been crucial in bolstering many of Japan’s friendships with the rest of the world, including with India. Read more.
Centralized geo-intelligence 🧐
The government’s data centralization frenzy continues unabated — this time it's about centralizing data on land assets across the country, starting with government properties of course.
To make it easy for investors and infrastructure builders to identify and quantify location intelligence, a centralized repository of the country’s land assets will be built, complete with satellite imagery and other terrain data. So far the system will include industrial areas and clusters across urban regions, detailing more than 3,300 industrial parks and covering about 4.75 lakh hectare land in total.
GOI asserts that the effort helps the government’s “One District, One Product” agenda of localizing information and making it available to supplement economic development. Read more.
Bottomline: the effort is extremely laudable. Geo intelligence combined with other datasets can go a long way in securing and accelerating infrastructure deployment. Weather data, traffic patterns, supply chain information, local flora and fauna etc. all combined can help build a unified perspective to guide sustainable development, and the government’s plan is exactly that.
Building financial net for millions 🙌
The government of India is planning on expanding its Jan Dhan account program to include basic insurance cover to millions of underbanked Indians.
The state’s pioneering Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (a life insurance program) and Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojna (an accident insurance cover), two existing government sponsored insurance programs, will be extended by default to cover the 35 crores Jan Dhan account holders. Currently, there is a small premium cost associated with the services, but the government is looking to pay that by itself for about 5-6 years, until people get a feel for the services. The costs could amount to a not too huge 12,000 crores.
Currently, some Jan Dhan account holders apparently already have insurance offered but the new recommendations would substantially increase cover limits. Overall, the move is part of a broader mandate to bring basic financial and social security services to millions, while paving way to consumer familiarity with their products - for private enterprise to hopefully build on top of this. Read more.
World Bank finally stops the charade ✋
Indian unkils will have to do with no Whatsapp forwards that call India at the top of the world's ease of business doing records, as the World Bank is looking to suspend its publication of the “Doing Business” report altogether, due to widespread corruption in reporting. 🤣
Background: the Doing Business report was incorporated about 17 years ago to offer business leaders some centralized and standardized data points to understand relative ease of operating in foreign countries, after the world embraced globalization. The annual publication measures about 190 economies over 12 areas of operations such as starting a business, closing one, bankruptcy, trading, getting permits etc.
What started as an assessment and a guiding hand quickly became a tool for showing off for global nations on the world floor, especially emerging nations. Irregularities in reporting became routine, and officials were regularly charged with corruption. Also, a change of methodology in the middle of all this majorly distorted results. Read more.
Bottomline: the World Bank will probe irregularities in 2018 and most recently published 2020 reports. India, which rose from rank 142 in 2014 to 63 in 2019 may have some explaining to do. Who knows!
Unexpected IPO 👀
Milkbasket, the grocery delivery platform, is apparently planning to file for an IPO by the end of the next year, as a pandemic driven digital boom accelerated growth.
Or, the news could just be a move to hasten Reliance’s bid in acquiring them as quickly as possible. Remember the RIL camp a couple weeks ago had mentioned their interest in scooping up MB as well as Urban Ladder.
Anyway, according to the CEO, heeding to the company’s reputation for achieving targets wayyy before the deadlines, the company pulled its targeted IPO from 2023 to next year. Hmm, totally believable.
The hyper-local delivery platform founded in 2015 operates in 5 cities and has an estimated ARR of around $100 million. The pandemic has only added on to a boom in business, consistent with other ecommerce services worldwide.
In similar news,
Softbank backed Grofers, which is winning from similar tailwinds, is planning its own IPO by the end of the next year. The company started making operational profits in January and is expecting to become cash positive by the end of this year. Read more.
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
🍎 Apple rejects FB’s notice - remember FB launching a live paid events service a few days ago? So apparently the company put up a disclaimer mentioning that Apple takes a 30% cut of its fee inside the app — to showcase where the money spent to support small businesses goes, and an infuriated Apple took the notice down. The wedge between the two companies is only widening.
✈️ Doing everything to catch attention - airline Vistara will introduce a new flight safety video that will combine necessary safety instructions demonstrated through various Yoga asanas. Company thinks it can demonstrate safety instructions in a visually appealing manner to hold the interest and attention of passengers. TF.
🛩️ Inaugurating them jets! - Indian Air Force (IAF) will formally induct Rafale fighters at the Ambala air base on September 10 in presence of defence minister Rajnath Singh. People are torn on the theatrics in the middle of a pandemic, but the boost from the jets to India’s defense forces at a time when we face increasing border incursions, is irrefutable.
🤑 Yoga app seeded - Yoga and mindfulness startup Sarva has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from international music provider Cutting Edge Group. The deal will enable Sarva to gain access to over 20,000 minutes of music and meditation-based content provided via Myndstream, Cutting Edge’s record label. Sounds like a win!
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