Daily Pulse India: IPL’s New Avatar, Indigo’s Warning, After Onions It’s Lentils

The Indian Premier League of cricket is set to don a new avatar with two new teams and a brand new title sponsor as a year of scandals has tainted its image. After two of its teams – the Rajasthan Royals and the Chennai Super Kings – were suspended for two years for match-fixing and betting, the league is down to six teams, prompting the BCCI to call for fresh bids for two teams. Shaken by the scandal, title sponsor Pepsico has stepped out and Chinese smartphone maker Vivo has stepped in. Meanwhile, Shashank Manohar, the new chairman of the BCCI, the Indian cricket board, is going all out to clean up IPL’s name by restructuring the governing council. Meanwhile, there’s a catch. As the two teams are only suspended for two years, the new teams will also be around for only two years. Will there be enough interested parties to bid for a two-year team, or will BCCI bow to pressure and make it a 10-team competition from 2018? We’re guessing it will be the latter.

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The Competition Commission of India has found that sugar mills in the country have been forming cartels during sale of ethanol to keep the chemical prices high. The losers here are the oil refiners, most of who are government-owned and this puts India’s plan to use ethanol blends to cut its fuel import costs in jeopardy. The CCI, India’s anti-trust watchdog, has declared its findings from a primary investigation, triggered by complaints from chemical companies. Sugar makers such as Bajaj Hindusthan, Balrampur Chini and Simbaoli Sugar are among the companies named in the report.

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The tussle between the government and foreign funds had an unexpected fallout. The crash in the markets as the two battled in court and in the media over the MAT tax forced the government to put its asset sale plan on hold for two months. The center raised only about 120 billion rupees of the targeted 695 billion rupees in the first seven months of the year, which puts its plans at risk. Of course, this also raises the question of whether India is still so vulnerable to FII outflows two decades after they first came in?

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The June quarter has turned messy for IPO-bound Indigo Air as its net worth slipped into negative. It has said that this may make further fund-raising difficult or expensive and has given no assurances on when it would turn positive. The numbers were restated as per Indian GAAP, it added. Indigo’s 32 billion rupee IPO opens next week.

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Ujjivan Finance, a microfinance lender which won a small bank license from the RBI, is all set for an IPO. The main reason is to bring down the foreign holding in the bank – one of RBI’s conditions for its conversion to a bank. As of March 31, foreign investors held nearly 90 percent in the bank, with the top three investors holding more than 35 percent. If it succeeds, this will trigger more microfinance IPOs, and will give the Modi government’s push for financial inclusion a fillip.

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Food review and ordering app Zomato is laying off 300 people, or 10 percent of its workforce to cut costs. Founder Deepinder Goyal had already laid the ground for this move with this blog post.

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French sports goods retailer has increased the capital base of its company to 2.75 billion rupees from 750 million rupees as it plans to ramp up its presence in the country.

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After onions, it’s the turn of cereals to send Indian householders into a tizzy. Prices have more than doubled in the past year as poor rains led to less production and hoarding added to the pressure. Lentils or dals, as they are called, are another key part of the Indian cuisine and can quickly turn into a political issue, if not managed promptly.

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Cover Image: Indian media coverage of the suspension of the Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals cricket teams from the Indian Premier League's next two editions on July 15 after top officials were caught betting on matches involving their own teams. A long overdue opportunity for the game to clean up its scandal-sullied image.

Other Interesting Reads From India:

 Twitter’s “Death” Is Greatly Exaggerated, by Karthik Srinivasan

When Money You Hold Matters More Than Selling More by Ravi Gilani

Why Indian Markets Are Set For A Big Rally by Sandip Sabharwal

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