Niharika Sharma

Reporting highlights across Finance, Policy, Markets, and more

The Gap Between •

AI is turning your company into a media organisation

I hadn’t planned on writing about this. Then I was scrolling through Substack late one night and came across a post claiming every company is becoming a media company.

At first, it sounded like one of those big internet statements people make because it sounds clever. And then I started thinking about how often I’ve already seen it happening.

A few years ago, most companies treated content as support material. In terms of a campaign, a launch asset or something the marketing team posted after the “...
Things I don't say out loud •

The smartest people in the room have forgotten who they are

Last Tuesday, I sat across from a senior director at a multinational. Cambridge graduate, impressive CV, the kind of person who once had opinions about Proust. She was explaining why her team missed a deadline using what I can only describe as corporate sedation language. “We experienced capacity constraints during the velocity optimization phase,” she said, without a trace of irony.I wanted to ask her when she’d stopped speaking like a human being. But I already knew the answer.What fascinates...
Quartz •

Tesla’s arrival in India will turbo charge its nascent EV industry

Now, five years and thousands of dollars later, Bhat is still waiting for his car, and the company hasn’t yet shared any update on when it will deliver vehicles in India. “I keep pestering the firm with my emails to get an update, [but] so far there hasn’t been any,” Bhat, who co-founded India’s first Tesla fan club in 2019, told Quartz. Despite the delay, he hasn’t given up hope on his car—or the company—just yet.If all goes as planned, Bhat’s wait will soon be over. US-based Tesla plans to beg...
Quartz •

Is this the worst time to be an aviation professional in India?

The sector’s recent turmoil has left thousands of professionals in a financial lurch. While staff of the temporarily-grounded Jet Airways haven’t been paid their dues for months, debt-laden national carrier Air India, too, has been defaulting on salaries. Last week, India’s state-owned helicopter service Pawan Hans, too, announced that the company would be unable to pay April salaries to its staff due to an “uncomfortable financial position.”While there are the glass-half-full types, who say thi...
Quartz •

Indian millennials’ life goals are evolving rapidly. But honey, where’s the money?

From owning a big house and securing a safe government job, to overseas travel and work-life balance, millennials’ aspirations are being moulded by social media, movies, news, and celebrities, according to a recent survey by the Mumbai-based consultancy firm Kantar IMRB. The study was commissioned by Bajaj Allianz Life.“The impact of movies is 50% higher on millennials,” said Chandramohan Mehra, chief marketing officer at Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance. The study was conducted across 13 metros, ti...
Quartz •

India’s most demeaning job killed over 100 people in two years, but is anyone bothered?

Yesterday (June 27) three people died in the southern state of Tamil Nadu while cleaning a tank without wearing any safety masks.Six men were sent to a farm in Coimbatore to clean the septic, out of which three died due to inhalation of poisonous gas, suggest media reports. It’s also being alleged that these individuals were not trained labourers and were employed under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA).Since January 2019, over 25 such deaths have been reported...
Quartz •

EVs are hardly the magic wand to fight India’s pollution woes

For one, the charging infrastructure is expected to be heavily reliant on coal-based power, indirectly increasing the emission of greenhouse gases. Then, there’s the bigger question of what to do with the heap of electronic waste generated from worn-out lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, which power EVs.On July 27, the Narendra Modi government decided to more than halve the goods and services tax (GST) on EVs from 12% to 5%. It also slashed the GST on EV chargers from 18% to 5%. The new rates will...
Quartz •

Can women fix punctures? You must be kidding

After years of battling amused stares and plain bias, Indian women have begun to come on their own behind the wheels. Yet, rampant sexism is clearly thriving, particularly when industry veterans themselves seem to harbour wrong notions.“We have a lot of ladies who are driving all sorts of vehicles including trucks…What is it that would be most painful for them? A puncture,” Prasad said in a recent interaction with Quartz in New Delhi. “There are certain things which men and women are made for. P...
Quartz •

India’s among the world’s top three surveillance states

The country ranks behind only Russia and China when it comes to surveilling citizens, the UK-based research firm Compritech has found. On the company’s privacy index, India scored 2.4 out of 5, indicating a “systemic failure to maintain (privacy) safeguards.”With a score of 2.7, the US was the seventh-worst performer among non-European nations. The main reasons that pose a threat to Americans’ privacy include constant updating of the database of biometric information, and data breaches across al...
Quartz •

Italian folk songs to “azaadi” chants: Angry Indian students get innovative with protests

After the Delhi police stormed the Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) university and beat up students protesting the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) yesterday (Dec. 16), several other campuses have risen in solidarity.This includes the elite Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) that have organised agitations and Harvard University, which has issued a statement in support of the injured students.Students of Delhi University (DU) boycotted exams and held a protest today. In Uttar Pradesh’s capital, Luck...
Quartz •

“Thrash the circumcised,” Delhi cops shouted amidst rampage against us students

In the morning, we approached the Delhi police for permission for a protest march in the Batla House community near our university, and they allowed us to use a particular lane. Around noon, we marched, raised slogans, and put across our point that the Citizenship Amendment Act is discriminatory. We sat on the road and raised slogans.After an hour or so, we saw residents of Jamia Nagar and other nearby areas join us. They marched towards Surya hotel in New Friends Colony, a short distance from B...
Quartz •

“Shoot the traitors”: Bone-chilling scenes as mob ravages top Indian university under cops’ nose

Violence broke out inside New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) after a mob of masked men and women, armed with sticks and rods, attacked students and teachers. The administration subsequently called in the police, which later in the evening conducted a flag march.JNUSU has blamed the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), for the violence. The RSS is the umbrella organisation to which India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (B...
Quartz •

At India’s largest airline, the most crucial skill is not one that’s taught at IIMs

There are over 70 different kinds of jobs at IndiGo, from baggage handling and airport security to network planning. Choosing the most crucial is not easy. I’ll come to the skill that is most in demand, which is network planning. An airline’s network is as important as its revenue management capability. Network planning is basically about which sectors an airline will fly in, and at what frequency. This also helps in determining aircraft utilisation. The more time the planes are in the air, the...
Quartz •

It’s time India takes its cruise tourism seriously

Last month, in Kolkata, prime minister Narendra Modi announced an integrated waterway policy, which aims to revamp the country’s current port infrastructure, undertake riverfront development, and increase the number of cruise ships to 1,000, from the existing around 150. The objective is to make India a major heritage tourism hub, Modi said.Experts are hopeful that the industry is now on the right track. “With efficient policies and tax relief, the cruise sector can reshape the Indian travel ind...
Quartz •

You know who can tackle India’s unemployment problem? Female entrepreneurs

Enabling women to start up and scale can help employ up to 170 million people by 2030, according to a joint report by Bain & Company and Google. “This will be 25% of the new jobs required for the entire working-age population,” said Megha Chawla, partner at Bain & Co and the lead author of the report.Women currently own a mere 20% of all enterprises in India. However, these units directly employ 27 million people. “If we focus on enabling more women entrepreneurs to start up and scale, we will b...
Quartz •

Even an IIM degree doesn’t guarantee women equal opportunities at the workplace

It’s 2020 and women in India, even those with prestigious degrees, still rarely secure their dream jobs.Around 49% of alumnae and female students of the elite Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) feel they do not have the same opportunities for career growth as men in their organisations, revealed a pan-IIM survey on “Women in the Workplace” released on March 4.The survey was conducted by a global career advancement platform for women, The Star In Me, in collaboration with the IIM Kozhikode alu...
Quartz •

India will need to step up if it wants to avoid Chinese money for its infrastructure projects

Besides banning a host of Chinese apps, the Indian government has reportedly advised all states to avoid signing any agreements with companies from the east Asian nation. Following the instructions, the western state of Maharashtra has put on hold three deals worth over Rs5,000 crore ($670 million) that were signed with Chinese companies at a recently held investor meet.Similarly, the future of the semi-high speed rail corridor, Delhi-Meerut Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS), is in limbo beca...
Quartz •

Why are Google and Facebook investing in India despite its crisis-hit economy?

On July 13, internet search major Google said it would invest $10 billion (Rs75,000 crore) in India over the next five to seven years. The investments, according to CEO Sundar Pichai, will be made in forging new partnerships, and in building stronger infrastructure and ecosystems. The move “is a reflection of our confidence in the future of India and its digital economy,” the company said in a blog post.Google’s commitment comes just months after US-based social networking giant Facebook investe...
Quartz •

Reliance Jio is India’s answer to Amazon, AT&T, and Huawei—all rolled into one

If tech giant CEOs were a high school clique, Mukesh Ambani would be its newest member, and everyone’s invited to a party at his house. India’s richest man, Ambani heads up conglomerate Reliance Industries, whose digital arm, Reliance Jio, is swiftly becoming India’s answer to Amazon, AT&T, and Huawei—all rolled into one.Founded in 1973 by Dhirubhai Ambani, Reliance Industries (RIL) cut its teeth on the oil business, before crushing its competition in India’s telecom sector. Now the company is e...
Quartz •

A 120-year-old Indian business group appears to have no place for women on its board

A 120-year-old Indian business conglomerate may be headed for a legal battle on allegations of sexism within the family that has run it for five generations.Valli Arunachalam, a 59-year-old New York-based scientist and part of the Murugappa family that runs the $5.7 billion (Rs38,105) Murugappa group, has alleged that the male members of her family “cannot tolerate women in their boardrooms.” Arunachalam is the elder daughter of the group’s late executive chairman MV Murugappan, who was the patr...
Quartz •

Why the world needs to wake up to India’s Jio

“Reliance has proved its mettle time and again as a company with great tech execution prowess, owing to which it has a high chance of acquiring a seat at the high stake table,” said Ravinder Vashist, co-founder of Mumbai-based venture capital fund, Roots Ventures. “It may take some time to establish its credentials as its technology…but with time it’ll only get stronger.”The rising anti-China sentiment will work in Jio’s favour if it looks to expand outside India, said Sonam Chandwani, managing...
Quartz •

Most Indians don’t use contraception—and those who do are fairly clueless

It’s 2020 and many Indians are still clueless about their sexual wellbeing.While a majority of Indians still don’t use any contraceptive, the ones who do remain mostly unaware of the various options and their benefits, according to a survey conducted by MTV Staying Alive Foundation, an organisation working for youth sexual wellbeing.The survey, which was conducted in tranches between December 2019 (wave 1) and July 2020 (wave 2), included responses from more than 7,000 internet users aged betwee...
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