Biztro

Illustration by Saahil

1. Tough Battle To Tackle Food Inflation

The Modi government knows that its toughest battle is the fight against food inflation, still at unacceptably high 9 per cent plus levels. In a significant step, it has made an amendment to the APMC Act, which will now allow farmers to sell their fruits and vegetable produce directly to consumers. It is a politically-sensitive issue as many vested interests led by the mandi bossess stand to lose while farmers and consumers could gain. So far only 11 states including Delhi have issued the required notification. Hopefully, more states will show the spunk of the NDA to break the mandi middlemen’s stranglehold.

2. Real Estate Play In Vijayawada

Why did the YSR Congress tamely acquiesce to Chandrababu Naidu’s decision to make Vijayawada the capital of Seemandhra? The reason is that apart from politicians in the Telugu Desam and major industrialists, several Opposition members had purchased huge tracts of land in the Vijayawada-Guntur-Tenali-Mangalagiri stretch. Some educational institutions too have purchased land along a proposed 184-km Outer Ring Road near Vijayawada. The real estate lobby has been exerting pressure on the government to make announcement definitively so that their investments in Vijayawada don’t result in losses. While official documents of land owners reflect unknown names, the real owners are said to be ministers, MLAs, MPs, film industry financiers and pharmaceutical companies.

3. Maruti’s Big Car Gamble

Maruti Suzuki’s tryst with a big car has always been a gamble. After the shaky response to its mid-segment sedan SX4, India’s largest carmaker is back with a bang with its new luxury sedan Ciaz. Could this establish the small-car expert as a formidable player in the large-sedan segment? Maruti Suzuki has tried to set a trend by abandoning the L-entry variant in the Ciaz to start with the V-mid variant. The car is designed to challenge its competitor, the Honda City. What will be difficult to beat is Honda City’s strong brand equity and goodwill built over the last several years.

Math

• 12:00 + A Harvard Business Review study shows that people’s tendency to be untruthful is greater in the afternoon than in the morning
• India’s continuing power crisis

• 3.65 That’s what it takes in resources for one rupee of grain to be reached to the needy
• 786 Number of “phishing domains” in India, which is the fourth-most targeted country in Asia by cyber criminals. India is home to 1,551 servers hosting suspected phishing URLs

Mojo

The gadget that is provoking mid-air clashes

The Knee Defender is the reason three planes had to be diverted recently after passengers used it to prevent the person in front from reclining his/her seat. The $22 gadget is all of two clip-like attachments which cling on to the airplane seatback tray rods and block the seat in front from reclining.

Mind

This week we learnt about Alibaba

Outside China, few people are aware of Alibaba’s size and scale and few know that this e-commerce giant actually sells more than what Amazon and eBay do put toge­ther. So when Alibaba’s Jack Ma announced its IPO in the US recently, it took many by surprise. The Chinese company created quite a stir among retail investors in the US. Already, the IPO is slated to be the biggest ever (raising $21 billion), making it the largest technology IPO after the 2012 Facebook IPO ($16 billion). It also takes the e-commerce giant’s market value to an unbelievable $160 billion plus, higher than McDonald’s, Citigroup, Amazon and even Facebook.