Good morning! Ola's Bhavish Aggarwal is out for revenge against LinkedIn for deleting his posts, not once but twice. In those deleted rants, he blasted LinkedIn's AI for ‘imposing’ gender-neutral pronouns on Indian users. And how, you wonder, is he planning to get even? Aggarwal announced that Ola will ditch LinkedIn owner Microsoft's cloud computing platform Azure and switch to his own Krutrim instead in a week. Except, per an analysis by an X/Twitter user, Ola's servers are primarily on Amazon's AWS. A plot twist for the ages. 🥱

India-Iran take a step forward with Chabahar. Also in today’s episode: why Bhavish Aggarwal, CEO of Ola Cabs, wants to move away from Microsoft’s Azure cloud services. Tune in on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Anjali Palod, Roshni Nair, and Anup Semwal also contributed to today’s edition.

The Market Signal* 

Stocks & Economy: India’s home minister Amit Shah and foreign minister S Jaishankar tried to boost sagging sentiment in the Indian equity markets, saying they were confident their alliance will have a comfortable majority to form the next government. They spoke amid uncertainty about the outcome of the Lok Sabha elections pushing the India volatility index 14% on Monday morning. 

The US producer price index is on centre stage on Tuesday but the big reveal would be the retail inflation number on Wednesday. Red hot prices had spoiled bets of an early rate cut by the Federal Reserve but a slowing job market has rekindled hopes of the central bank obliging anyway. But inflation should show a marked drop for Fed chair Jerome Powell to pull the trigger. 

Asian markets opened mixed with Japan in a subdued mood. The GIFT Nifty indicates a positive start for Indian shares. 

GEOPOLITICS

India Bags Silk Route Bypass

India’s trade with Central and West Asia once relied on the ancient Silk Route, but modern-day tensions between India and Pakistan cut the lifeline off. It may be back.

India signed a 10-year agreement to formally manage one of Iran’s deepwater Chabahar port’s two terminals, a first by the country in any overseas infrastructure project. Chabahar gives India direct access to Central Asia and competes with China-managed Gwadar Port in Pakistan.

Besides, Chabahar can operate even when trade is disrupted in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, as it is now, with Houthi rebel attacks in the Red Sea.

A fine balance: India began talks for Chabahar in 2002, but was forced to go slow when the US declared Iran part of the so-called ‘Axis of Evil’. The US has warned that it respects India’s foreign policy goals but it runs the risk of sanctions.

PODCAST

Tune in every Monday to Friday as financial journalist and host Govindraj Ethiraj gives you the most important take on the latest in business and economy.

In today’s episode, he speaks to Somnath Mukherjee, CIO & Senior Managing Partner, ASK Wealth, about how India will benefit from emerging market investments looking good again. Aside: Car sales hit records in the last financial year. Could this trend continue this year too? With Manish Raj Singhania, President, Federation of Automotive Dealers Associations.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

TCS Nips At Accenture’s Heels

Rather, it wants to. India’s largest IT company by market cap has integrated its AI and cloud operations after having recently disclosed its generative AI or GenAI revenue ($900 million for the quarter ended March). American rival Accenture had reported $600 million in GenAI revenue for the quarter ended February. Meanwhile, TCS’ Indian rivals Infosys and Wipro still have distinct AI and cloud units.

The company’s move isn’t surprising considering AI and the cloud have a symbiotic relationship. AI biggies such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon Web Services have been leveraging the emerging technology to boost their cloud/enterprise businesses.

In other news: Mint reports that Wipro, under new CEO Srinivas Pallia — tasked with turning the company around — is keen to settle breach of contract lawsuits against former executives Jatin Dalal and Mohd Ehteshamul Haque, who left the company to join Cognizant.

RETAIL

Fashion ≠ In Fashion

India’s biggest mall owner is worried. Nexus Select Trust, which owns 17 malls in India, is breaking a sweat because the fashion stores that bring in a majority of its business are not selling enough. Some of them may be in dire need to reinvent themselves, Nexus Select Trust’s CEO Dilip Sehgal says.

This isn’t just a big city problem. Smaller malls are having trouble finding tenants. According to a report by Knight Frank, many are turning into ‘ghost malls’, with over 40% vacancy. There has been a 59% year-on-year increase in the number of such malls from 57 in 2022 to 64 in 2023.

The Signal

Investors may be turning against the mall business. Nexus Select Trust, India’s first retail real estate investment trust (REIT), had a bumper listing last year, up 26% since its 2023 debut. Yet, the REIT is down nearly 3% since January this year.  

The turmoil in fashion sales is worrying because large department store chains are usually anchor tenants or the biggest stores, usually on the ground floor, that bring in the bulk of footfalls and sales. Instead, mall developers may need to think of new ways to use their blank space. Will we see more ‘mixed use’ real estate malls, offices, and hotels under the same roof? 

FYI

No, thank you: Restaurant delivery firm Zomato surrendered its payment aggregator licence just months after it received one from the RBI. 

Stop lying: India’s consumer affairs ministry plans to make quality standards for e-commerce firms mandatory after a voluntary push failed to help against widespread fake reviews. 

Bagged: American private equity firm Warburg Pincus has won a bidding war to acquire Shriram Housing Finance Ltd, closing the deal at Rs 4,630 crore. 

Soon: Air India will finish merging with Vistara by the end of this year or early 2025, the CEOs of both airlines told employees. 

Gates closed: Philanthropist Melinda French Gates, the former spouse of Bill Gates, is stepping down from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The organisation will be renamed the Gates Foundation.

THE DAILY DIGIT

$5 billion

The amount venture capital firm SoftBank plans to invest in AI companies, cutting $1 billion cheques each to five firms. ̛Its ambitious Vision Fund is back to profit following a surge in tech stocks fueled by an AI-frenzy.  (The Wall Street Journal) 

FWIW

Love, optimised: Don't take work home, but why not bring home the handy tools of work? That's the thinking of some young tech workers who desire to optimise their relationships the same way they’ve optimised their careers. Want to buy summer's freshest mangoes? Put it on an Excel sheet. Create a couple's Slack to jot down "our goals as a couple" and swap lovey-dovey appreciation posts in #Gratitude channel. One enterprising pair even lists potential dating matches for friends on Notion. Those who champion using workplace software like Slack, Trello, and Notion for personal life argue that it frees up quality time to just chill and crack jokes, rather than dully discuss chores and budgets. Not a bad idea, but doesn't micromanaging every aspect of life get exhausting after a while? Where's the room for a little chaos to spice things up?