Chandrayaan-2 launch called off, Infosys' attrition hits new high, and more top news

The news professionals are talking about now, curated by LinkedIn’s editors. Join the conversation on today's stories in the comments.

Chandrayaan-2, India’s second moon mission, was aborted 56 minutes before launch today “as a measure of abundant precaution.” A technical snag was noticed in the launch vehicle while cryogenic fuel was being loaded. A new launch date hasn’t been announced yet as ISRO may take about 10 days to decode the cause of the glitch. The space agency has been cautious about its ?1,000 crore lunar landing efforts, postponing an April launch after a similar attempt by Israel met with failure. India hopes to become the fourth country to land a craft on the lunar surface.

Attrition has peaked at Infosys, India’s second largest IT services firm. Times of India reports that the company’s churn rate rose to 23.4% in the June quarter, up from 20.4% in the previous sequential quarter. The 8,000 people it hired in the last three months resulted in a net addition of just 906 employees. Infosys also admitted to a higher percentage of layoffs. In contrast, rival Tata Consultancy Services reported its strongest hiring in five years. Infosys recently revived employee stock options to retain high performers and withheld increments for senior executives to control costs.

Just one in four Indians aged between 18 and 24 attend college, Times of India reports, citing official data. At 26%, the country’s gross enrolment ratio is second-lowest among BRICS nations: Russia (82%), Brazil (51%) and China (50%). The reasons range from economic and social barriers to a lack of access to higher education. The government aims to boost gross enrolment to 40% by 2024. To that end, it has proposed a ?30,338 crore plan, which includes measures such as hostels and scholarships for poor students, finishing schools with “bridge courses” and rural study centres.

For kids in India’s small towns, Alexa is more than just a voice assistant. At a government school in Amravati, for example, it doubles as a teacher. Placed inside a smartly dressed mannequin, Amazon’s voice assistant answers questions, conducts quizzes, croons nursery rhymes and, much to the children’s delight, never scolds. Similarly, two schools in Tamil Nadu use Tara – a Bengaluru-based startup’s take on Alexa – to improve learning outcomes, including correct pronunciations and conversational English. Schoolkids also don’t tire of asking Alexa all sorts of general knowledge questions – and the voice assistant dutifully obliges. Here's what people are saying.

Flipkart’s Big Shopping Days and Amazon Prime Day will offer deals across categories over the next couple of days. If you plan on participating, look out for fake reviews. Amazon does have checks in place to remove phony reviews while Flipkart uses “customised algorithms” to detect anaomalies. But still bogus ratings – where sellers pay people or use bots to drum up positive feedback – are on the rise. CNBC has some tips: electronics and gadgets are the worst-hit categories, watch out for an “unnatural” distribution of five-star ratings, and very short reviews without any details are likely fake.

India lifted 271 million people out of poverty between 2006 and 2016, a report by the United Nations says. Among the 10 countries studied, that’s the fastest reduction in multidimensional poverty – defined not just by income but by several other indicators such as health and quality of work. The country saw significant improvements in nutrition, child mortality, sanitation, drinking water and housing, among other areas. Still, 369 million Indians (28% of the population) live in poverty, with “traditionally disadvantaged subgroups” such as rural inhabitants, SCs and STs, and young children faring the worst.

Idea of the day: In just about any group effort, conflict is all but inevitable. Even though a tense situation may feel hopeless in the moment, author Tim Desmond reminds us that the odds of getting to be a better place through discussion are much greater than we often assume.  

“The defining feature of dialogue is that (at its best) everyone is on the same side. We are all trying to figure out how to meet the most needs we can. It’s hard and it doesn’t always work, but there’s a lot more room to improve than most people believe is possible.”

- LinkedIn Editors India/Share this using #DailyRundown