Trains may soon run on time, Mumbai is world’s most overworked city, and more top news

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India's trains may soon start running on time. That's because railway minister Piyush Goyal has given an ultimatum to zonal heads – unpunctual train services will cost them promotions and delay their appraisals. Goyal told the officials "they can't hide behind the pretext of maintenance work," and gave them a month to shape up. Three in 10 trains ran late in 2017-18, with the Northern Railway (under 50% punctuality), Northeast Frontier Railway and Eastern Railway faring the worst. Last week, the railways said chronic delays were likely to ease in 7-8 months as it was approaching completion of track renewal.

Mumbai is the world's most overworked city, a UBS study shows. The average Mumbaikar clocks 3,315 hours a year, way higher than the global average of 1,987 hours and over twice as much as cities like Rome and Paris. Despite this, millennials living in the Maximum City find it tough to afford "must-haves" – a Mumbaikar needs to work over 900 hours to buy an iPhone X compared to just 38 hours for a Zurich resident. Earlier, a ManpowerGroup survey showed Indians worked 52 hours a week on average, the highest in the world.

In three years, the government may become a minority shareholder in most PSUs. Economic Times reports that the Centre is planning to pare its stake in all public sector enterprises (except those in strategic sectors like defence and oil) to 49%. The objective? More autonomy, better management, and higher value for its holdings. The government currently holds 51% or more in more than 250 public sector enterprises. Last year, government think tank Niti Aayog had recommended strategic disinvestment of 34 sick PSUs.

India is conspicuous by its absence from Mary Meeker's 2018 Internet Trends report, The Quint reports. While the country accounted for 55 out of 355 slides in the 2017 report and was described as one of the “most fascinating markets for the internet,” it failed to find a mention this year. The current edition focuses on the macro trends, innovation and competition in the US and China. “For 4-5 years, the story that was sold was that India will be the next China. We failed to reach the kind of scale that China offers across sectors,” Forrester Research's Satish Meena said.

India is poised to be a world leader in shared mobility, says a Morgan Stanley report. The increasing share of electric and autonomous vehicles – apart from a young, internet-savvy demographic, and rising real incomes – means shared mobility will account for 35% of all miles travelled by 2030 and 50% by 2040, up from 10% now. "Within shared mobility, we expect the mix to shift from traditional taxis to app-based plays," the report says. A recent BCG study showed four in five Indians were okay with not buying a car if ride-sharing offered similar convenience.

Idea of the Day: In business, the word “no” may sound like a conversation ender. But Jaguar design director Ian Callum argues that it’s merely a place to begin.

“‘No’ is often a result of not thinking deeply enough. You’ll hear phrases like ‘this is the way we’ve always done it.’ Challenge this. The richer, more creative solution is on the other side of ‘no.’”

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