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Zomato has started piloting grocery delivery on its app through an integration with the quick commerce company Blinkit, which the Gurugram-based food aggregator acquired recently

The option to order groceries on the Zomato app appeared for customers in the Delhi-NCR region but not for those in Bengaluru or Mumbai on August 27. While the minimum order value on the Blinkit app was Rs 150, the amount was Rs 49 only on the Zomato app.

The grocery category on the Zomato app also showed items from Colgate-Palmolive under a "sponsored" tag, indicating ad monetisation on the platform like other e-commerce companies.

Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal had earlier said that ad sales revenue in quick commerce would be higher than food delivery, given the much larger digital ad spend budgets of the consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands.

Moneycontrol has sent queries to Zomato and Blinkit about the integration and the roadmap for the pilot and the article will be updated when their  responses come in.

Zomato on June 24 said its board had approved the acquisition of Blinkit for Rs 4,447 crore. According to the terms of the agreement, Blinkit shareholders would get a cumulative stake of 6.88 percent in Zomato and the company’s leadership team, including co-founder and CEO Albinder Dhindsa, would stay on.

But questions still remain about how Zomato, a company that registered losses of Rs 1,223 crore in FY22, plans to derive value from acquiring another loss-making delivery startup.

Moneycontrol has reported that Blinkit launched a printout service in Gurugram, charging Rs 9 a page for black and white printing and Rs 19 for coloured printouts.

“Quick commerce will help us increase the customer wallet share spent on our platform and also drive higher frequency and engagement from our customers,” Goyal had said while explaining the rationale behind the deal.

The company believes that quick commerce naturally extends across multiple categories including beauty & personal care, electronics, OTC pharma, stationery, other gift items, etc. Also, categories other than grocery help the quick commerce business make higher margins, and attain higher average order value.

“Total commerce market in India is $1.3 trillion and in the long term, we see quick commerce emerging as a significant channel of demand for customers at least in the top cities,” Goyal had said.

In early August, Zomato said Blinkit delivered an estimated 8.3 million orders in July. This was a 63 percent increase from the 5.1 million orders it delivered in January, which was the first month of its operation after the pivot. During this period, its revenue rose around 239 percent to Rs 75 crore in July.

Blinkit’s annual turnover in FY22 was Rs 263 crore, Rs 200 crore in FY21 and Rs 165 crore in FY20.

The Centre on Friday submitted its updated ‘nationally determined contributions’ (NDCs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). This is in line with the commitment made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Conference of Parties (COP26) last year.

The NDCs cover a period up to 2030 and are a step towards the country’s long-term goal of reaching net zero by 2070, said the submission by the ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEFCC).

The country has submitted eight key NDCs, of which two are updates on our existing targets. India had last submitted its NDC in 2016. The Union Cabinet — earlier during the month — approved the country’s official NDC submission.

The ministry — in its cover letter to the UNFCC — however, said, India’s NDCs “do not bind it to any sector-specific mitigation obligation and target.”

It said, India’s goal is to reduce overall emission intensity and improve energy efficiency of its economy over time. This would protect the vulnerable sectors of the economy and segments of the society.

India has updated its target to reduce emission intensity of its GDP by 45 per cent by 2030, from 2005. It was earlier 30 per cent. It has also updated the target of capacity addition from non-fossil fuel sources.

India said it will achieve about 50 per cent cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources by 2030.

It said this target will be “with the help of transfer of technology and low-cost international finance, including from Green Climate Fund (GCF).”

During COP26, the PM had said India will build 500 Gw of renewable energy capacity, but that has not been a part of the official submission. It has also updated its NDC of propagating climate consciousness by including the submission made by the PM during his address at COP26.

“India will propagate a healthy and sustainable way of living based on traditions and values of conservation and moderation, including through a mass movement for ‘LIFE’— ‘Lifestyle for Environment’ — as a key to combating climate change,” said the NDC submission.

The country has added a new target of creating an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent through additional forest and tree cover by 2030.

India also said it will need new and additional funds from developed countries to implement its mitigation and adaptation actions “in view of the resource required and the resource gap.” It also said adaptation policies would be built to support sectors vulnerable to climate change.

Since Sanna Marin became Finland's youngest prime minister in December 2019, the "child from a poor family" has risen to become the Nordic country's most popular leader of government in the 21st century.

But the 36-year-old's reputation as a firm crisis leader -- deftly navigating her small nation through the Covid pandemic and a historic NATO membership application -- has been challenged in the last few days.

Marin has become entangled in controversies over her partying, earning her the nickname "Party Sanna" in Finland's tabloid press.

A poll published by leading newspaper Helsingin Sanomat on Friday showed that 42 percent of Finns had a worse opinion of their prime minister due to the scandals.

A video leaked last week -- which made headlines around the world -- showed Marin dancing and partying with a group of friends and celebrities

That controversy was quickly followed by another, when Marin was forced to apologise for a photo taken at her official residence of two women lifting their tops to bare their torsos, as she hosted friends after attending a music festival.

In December 2021, Marin came under sustained criticism after it was revealed she stayed out dancing until the early hours despite having been exposed to Covid-19.

Humble origins

"Some of the general public consider that partying like that and appearing in such company does not fit the norm for a politician," professor Anu Koivunen told AFP.

Koivunen noted that while the leaks would likely have caused a stir with any prime minister, she believes that the fact that Marin is a young female politician played a role in the ensuing brouhaha.

"There's been a debate about her qualifications, whether she's up to the job," Koivunen said, suggesting that this probably would not have been the case with a male prime minister.

But for her, this "ignores Marin's history as a crisis leader and a competent actor."

"I am human. And I too sometimes long for joy, light and fun amidst these dark clouds", Marin said this week in an emotional speech where she appeared close to tears.

Battling controversies about her lifestyle or stereotypes is nothing new for Marin.

She was relatively unknown before she became prime minister, her rise to power a swift one.

The slender, dark-haired Marin grew up in the southern Finnish town of Pirkkala, in a "rainbow, low-income family, and lived in the municipality's rental housing", in her own words.

"My parents divorced because of my father's drinking problem when I was only a few years old," she wrote in her blog.

Although Marin's childhood with her mother and mother's female partner did not include "material abundance", it was full of "love and ordinary life," she described.

'Shop girl'

Marin was the first in her family to go to university, earning a Masters degree in Administrative Sciences.

She supported her studies by working as a cashier, something which her opponents have later used to discredit her.

When Marin became prime minister, Finnish daily newspaper Iltalehti called it "a remarkable rise from shop cashier to the top of Finland."

Even Estonia's then interior minister Mart Helme caused a row by labelling Finland's new prime minister a "shop girl".

The negative comments prompted many prominent Finns to reveal n social media their own "rise to the top" from humble beginnings as cashiers or cleaners.

The comments and frequent controversies about her lifestyle and looks are in stark contrast with how the young politician got noticed and how she is now perceived, analysts say.

"As a politician, she is well respected. She is both firm and also open to discussion," Emilia Palonen, a political scientist at Helsinki University, told AFP.

Her Social Democratic party, the SDP, "needed strong, responsible and charismatic people like her", she said.

Marin was first elected as an MP in 2015. But for many Finns, the first time she entered the spotlight was in 2016 when a Tampere city council debate she chaired went viral on social media.

On the video which has racked up nearly a million views, Marin keeps a marathon debate on Tampere's new tram lines on track, despite it dragging on for more than five hours as representatives came up with ever more hilarious and absurd arguments for and against the tram.

Many praised her professionalism in the face of bickering councilmen, earning her a reputation as "a fearless leader".

"Sanna Marin showed how to keep the hecklers in check", Helsingin Sanomat daily wrote.

Essar Group on Friday announced a USD 2.4 billion (Rs 19,000 crore) deal to sell its ports business to Arcelor Mittal Nippon Steel Ltd.

In a statement, Essar said it has signed definitive agreements with ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel for certain ports and power infrastructure assets which are primarily captive to Hazira steel plant operations.

"The deal also envisages a 50-50 Joint Venture partnership, for building a 4 MTPA LNG terminal at Hazira, Gujarat, between Essar and ArcelorMittal," it added.

Keeping with the rising momentum in economic activity, the bank credit expansion was broad-based, posting double-digit annual growth in June 2022 in metropolitan, urban, semi-urban and rural areas in the country, showed Reserve Bank of India data.

RBI data showed the metropolitan regions saw maximum acceleration with year-on-year (YoY) credit growth vaulting from 2.7 per cent in June 2021 to 13.2 per cent in June 2022. It should be kept in mind that the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic hit the economic activity in April-June 2021 (Q1FY22).

The urban region saw the growth rising to 18.4 per cent in June 2022 from 10 per cent a year ago. The semi-urban areas showed an increase from 12.3 per cent in June 2021 to 15.3 per cent. In contrast, the pace of credit offtake in rural areas moderated to 11.6 per cent YoY in June 2022 from 12.8 per cent a year ago.

Also Read: Listed private non-finance companies log 41% sales growth in Q1FY23: RBI

The similar growth trend (double-digit YoY) was evident across all the bank groups — (public sector banks, private banks, foreign banks, Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) and Small Finance Banks (SFBs). The experience was no different for all the regions of the country (central, eastern, north-eastern, northern, southern and western), RBI said.

However, the story on fund raising by banks was different. The aggregate deposit growth (y-o-y) has remained in the range 9.5-10.2 per cent during the last five quarters.

The metropolitan branches continue to account for over half of the bank deposits and their share increased marginally over the last one year, RBI said.

The share of current account and savings account (CASA) deposits in total deposits has been increasing over the last three years. The share of CASA money which was 42 per cent in June 2020, rose to 43.8 per cent in June 2021 and further to 44.5 per cent in June 2022.

As credit growth is outpacing deposit growth in the recent period, credit-deposit (C-D) ratio has been on the rise in June 2022. The C-D ratio stood at 73.5 per cent at all-India level in June 2022 (70.5 per cent a year ago) and 86.2 per cent for metropolitan branches of banks (84.3 per cent a year ago), it added.

Keeping with the rising momentum in economic activity, the bank credit expansion was broad-based, posting double-digit annual growth in June 2022 in metropolitan, urban, semi-urban and rural areas in the country, showed Reserve Bank of India data.

RBI data showed the metropolitan regions saw maximum acceleration with year-on-year (YoY) credit growth vaulting from 2.7 per cent in June 2021 to 13.2 per cent in June 2022. It should be kept in mind that the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic hit the economic activity in April-June 2021 (Q1FY22).

The urban region saw the growth rising to 18.4 per cent in June 2022 from 10 per cent a year ago. The semi-urban areas showed an increase from 12.3 per cent in June 2021 to 15.3 per cent. In contrast, the pace of credit offtake in rural areas moderated to 11.6 per cent YoY in June 2022 from 12.8 per cent a year ago.

Also Read: Listed private non-finance companies log 41% sales growth in Q1FY23: RBI

The similar growth trend (double-digit YoY) was evident across all the bank groups — (public sector banks, private banks, foreign banks, Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) and Small Finance Banks (SFBs). The experience was no different for all the regions of the country (central, eastern, north-eastern, northern, southern and western), RBI said.

However, the story on fund raising by banks was different. The aggregate deposit growth (y-o-y) has remained in the range 9.5-10.2 per cent during the last five quarters.

The metropolitan branches continue to account for over half of the bank deposits and their share increased marginally over the last one year, RBI said.

The share of current account and savings account (CASA) deposits in total deposits has been increasing over the last three years. The share of CASA money which was 42 per cent in June 2020, rose to 43.8 per cent in June 2021 and further to 44.5 per cent in June 2022.

As credit growth is outpacing deposit growth in the recent period, credit-deposit (C-D) ratio has been on the rise in June 2022. The C-D ratio stood at 73.5 per cent at all-India level in June 2022 (70.5 per cent a year ago) and 86.2 per cent for metropolitan branches of banks (84.3 per cent a year ago), it added.

Refugees can be a source of prosperity in any nation where they take refuge. Illegal migrants can also bring prosperity to local communities in nations that they migrate to as well as to countries which they leave behind.

India knows this from its long experience throughout history. So does the United States, where millions of illegal immigrants do not live under the radar, or in squalid detention camps, but are productive contributors to economic activity in towns and cities from coast to coast. South Korea knows this only too well, and the Gulf countries acknowledge this as much. 

Therefore, last fortnight’s debate about the fate of a relatively small number — by global refugee standards — of Rohingya refugees in Delhi is in the realm of make-believe, unreal, and even delusional.

It is now forgotten in the wake of the first ‘oil shock’ which transformed Gulf countries beyond recognition into El Dorados in the 1970s, the flood of illegal migrants who flocked there, risking their lives in small boats across the ocean, were from India. They were needed in those desert kingdoms and the sultanates and the sheikhdoms to build those nations into prosperous, modern societies that they are today.

In turn, their remittances lifted millions of families from poverty in India, which was then under severe economic stagnation, and heavy joblessness. Through the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, the benevolent rulers in the Gulf repeatedly gave amnesty to these illegal migrants from India. They were not put in detention camps and very few of those who arrived illegally were shipped back to India. For the most part, they were Hindus. Historical memory of this Indian experience was completely missing from all the debates about Rohingyas in India.

Go to Ontario or British Columbia today, and entire townships of Punjabis who arrived in Canada following Operation Bluestar as refugees have sprung up in and around Toronto or Vancouver. These one-time refugees have not only prospered as individuals and families, they continue to do so through successive generations. The industrious Sikhs among them, who fled India decades ago alleging persecution, have created thriving local economies in those towns. Canada’s famously liberal ethos has enabled them to be elected to Parliament and become federal ministers in Ottawa and in several Canadian provinces. This Indian experience was also missing from the recent debates about Rohingyas living in Delhi.

It is true that such refugee populations and illegal migrant and immigrant communities can be fertile recruiting grounds for countries which practice terror as State policy, and for non-State organisations which implement such policies through acts of terrorism. It is also part of South Asia’s historical experience that Khalistanis found willing perpetrators of heinous terror acts — including passenger aircraft bombings — among refugees in Canada who came from Punjab. When civil war was raging in Sri Lanka, overseas Tamil Tiger outfits in Greater Toronto resorted to extortion from both Sinhala and Tamil businesses in their strongholds in the Ontario province. These have been documented in Canada’s official evidentiary hearings.

Fortunately, this does not appear to have happened with Rohingyas in Delhi, who were at the centre of the recent controversy. News reports from Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi, and Kashmir have also discounted threats of terrorism from such people, who are fleeing persecution back in their home province of Rakhine in Myanmar. In Rajasthan, there is only one case against Rohingyas, which relates to a sexual assault on one of their own. In the hotbed of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, the Rohingyas are only minding their business of survival.

The reality is that illegal migration and refugee exodus the world over are there to stay. They cannot be wished away by speeches in parliaments or Houses of Congress, which are often laced with bravado — or by tweets in today’s digital environment. Otherwise, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the global refugee agency formed 72 years ago, would have been disbanded long ago.

India has reservations about the UNHCR, which have a historical context, reinforced by New Delhi’s refugee experience during the 1971 war for the creation of Bangladesh. If India becomes the $5-trillion economy, which it aspires to be, illegal migration inward is certain to increase. As the political and economic environment worsens all around in India’s neighbourhood — Sri Lanka, Nepal, Myanmar, and Maldives are apt examples — refugees can be expected to be a growing headache for the ministries of home and external affairs in New Delhi. The resources of intelligence and security agencies will be stretched.

Like the US, India has a long history of giving opportunities to refugees to prosper, and in assimilating illegal immigrants, who mostly improve their lot, having got a second chance in life, as it were, by moving to India. The demographic changes in the Northeast are proof of the latter.

Only five years ago, Hindus, Jews, and Christians came together at the Consulate General of India in New York to celebrate a moving cinematic tribute to the generosity of what is now Gujarat and Maharashtra in offering refuge to 1,000 Jewish and Christian children from Poland. At the National Day reception at the residence of the South Korean Ambassador in New Delhi, one frequently encountered Koreans who spoke fluent Hindi. These were prisoners of war from the Korean conflict in the 1950s, and their children. They opted to move to India permanently when the armistice talks stalemated in 1953. Their stories of how Jawaharlal Nehru took a personal interest in their welfare for years after they made this country their home tell of an India which welcomed outsiders in need of succour.

According to a study by EY and CII titled “India: The next global SaaS capital”, India is poised to become the next SaaS capital over the next few years, mainly driven by small and medium businesses with a focus on large enterprises.

The report also stated that according to industry estimates, the market is expected to reach $20-25 billion by 2025 from $4-7 billion in 2020.

“Macro-economic environment notwithstanding, the funding activity in the first two quarters of this year surpassed the funding activity in 2021 – which was a breakout year with over $4.3 bn in funding for SaaS start-ups”, said Nitin Bhatt, Technology Sector Leader at EY.

Almost 50% of SaaS providers interviewed in the study stated that driving higher awareness for SaaS products continues to be a prerequisite for customer acquisition, EY said in a statement.

“As entrepreneurs double down on scaling their ventures, they would do well to sharpen the focus on account centricity, customer success and partner with educational institutions and the government to build a SaaS talent pipeline and continue investing in product functionality and innovation”, added Bhatt.

Compared to only 1 SaaS unicorn in 2018, India now has a total of 18, taking the third spot among the largest SaaS ecosystems in the world. The study also highlights that India more than doubled the number of its SaaS companies in 2021 in contrast to 2019. Further, funding has increased from $2.6 billion to $6 billion in the span of these two years, stated EY.

In 1994, Jeff Bezos founded Amazon, a virtual bookstore that would grow to become the world's biggest e-retailer. When he set out to realise his vision, who are the first people he looked for?

On August 22 that year, Jeff Bezos, who is now the world's second-richest person, posted a job advertisement for "extremely talented C/C++/Unix developers" to help pioneer commerce on the Internet.

Considering what Bezos was building, the job demands were high.

"You must have experience designing and building large and complex (yet maintainable) systems,and you should be able to do so in about one-third the time that most competent people think possible,"the posting said.

It required candidates to have a Bachelor's, Master's or doctorate degree in computer science.

"Top-notch communication skills are essential," Bezos wrote. "Familiarity with web servers and HTML would be helpful but is not necessary."

The posting said candidates should be willing to relocate to Seattle area, where Amazon was founded.

Bezos promised to cover moving costs of successful candidates and provide them equity ownership. "We are an equal opportunity employer," the posting said.

The job ad, shared on Twitter by TV personality Jon Erlichman, gathered over 9,000 likes.

"Nowadays all the stuff around the actual job description is longer than the job description itself," one user commented on his tweet.

Another wrote: "The meaningful equity ownership was probably indeed meaningful later on."

In the years since its foundation, Amazon grew tremendously, emerging as one of the five American tech giants alongside Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta.

But it has sparked criticism for its poor treatment of workers -- making them work in gruelling and unsafe conditions.

To bring about uniformity in fertiliser brands across the country, the government today issued an order directing all companies to sell their products under a single brand name of ‘Bharat’.

Following the order, all fertiliser bags, whether containing urea or di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) or muriate of ootash (MOP) or NPK will sport the brand name as ‘Bharat Urea’, ‘Bharat DAP’, ‘Bharat MOP’ and ‘Bharat NPK’ irrespective of the company that manufacturers it, whether in the public or the private sector.

The order has drawn adverse reactions from fertiliser companies, claiming it will ‘kill their brand value and market differentiation’

The order also stated that the single brand name and the logo of Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janurvarak Pariyojana (PMBJP), the scheme under which the Central government grants subsidy annually to the fertiliser, companies will have to be displayed on the bags.

“The company name can be mentioned in a very small portion of the total packaging,” a senior industry official said.

He said the move could harm the fertiliser companies as brands apart from being product differentiator also helps in building an image of the firm while going into the farmers’ fields.

“Fertiliser companies do a lot of extension activities such as field-level demonstrations, crop surveys etc, where their brands are displayed prominently and it also helps in reaching out to the farmers. All this will now stop,” the official said.

The order, meanwhile, said that fertiliser companies will not be allowed to procure old designed bags from September 15 and the new system will come into place from October 2, 2022. The companies have been given time till December 12 to exhaust all their old designed bags from the market.