7. India’s all set for a unicorn a week this year

India has added eight new startups to the coveted $1 billion valuation club, also known as unicorns in the first 40 days of the year.
Who is the latest?

• The latest addition to the club is logistics start-up Xpressbees, which works with several e-commerce firms in the country.
• The Pune-headquartered firm has more than tripled its valuation to $1.2 billion in a new financing round to become the 8th Indian unicorn this year.
• Founded in 2015, Xpressbees works in 3000 cities and delivers over 1.5 million packages daily. Xpressbees bagged a whopping $300 million in its Series F funding round led by major private equity funds Blackstone Growth, TPG Growth and ChrysCapital.

Why it matters

• This year, more than 50 start-ups have the potential to turn into unicorns, and are likely to take the tally of Indian unicorns beyond 100. A majority of these 50 start-ups will be from fintech, SaaS (software as a service) and logistics tech space, says a report from PwC.
• 2021 saw the emergence of 44 unicorns against a cumulative number of 33 unicorns from 2011 to 2020. According to the latest Economic Survey, India has 83 startup unicorns with a total valuation of $277.77 billion as of January 14, 2022, overtaking UK to “emerge as the third highest country in number of unicorns after US and China.

Others in line

• 11 start-ups in fintech, including Lendingkart, Cleartax, Rupeek, Aye Finance and Mswipe; six start-ups from SaaS, including Yellow.ai and MoEngage; and eight start-ups from Logistics tech — including Shiprocket, Zoomcar, Bounce and Dunzo — have the potential to turn into unicorns, as these companies have already raised over $100 million till date.

The votes

• Over 60% voter turnout was recorded in the first phase of polling across 58 assembly constituencies in 11 districts of Uttar Pradesh on Thursday. During the 2017 assembly elections, 63.47% polling was recorded in these constituencies.

The campaign

• Hours before the start of voting, UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath released a video urging voters to choose BJP.
• “Beware! If you miss, the labour of these five years will be spoiled. It would not take much time for Uttar Pradesh to become Kashmir, Kerala and Bengal,” he said in the video.
• “If UP turns into Kerala as Yogi Adityanath fears, it will enjoy the best education, health services, social welfare, living standards and have a harmonious society in which people won’t be murdered in the name of religion and caste. That’s what the people of UP would want,” Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan tweeted in response later.
• Yogi’s message came hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s interview was aired on TV channels in which he praised Yogi and the BJP’s policies.

The question

• The Congress asked the Election Commission if it will issue notice to the PM for violating the election code of conduct with his interview the way it had done to Rahul Gandhi ahead of Gujarat polls in 2017.
• In 2017, the EC had asked TV channels to stop airing interviews of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi as they violated the law and issued a notice to him saying his interview “within 48 hours ending with the hour fixed for conclusion of the poll, amounts to a violation of the prohibition contained in Section 126 (1) (b) of the Representation of People Act, 1951.” The notice was, however, withdrawn later.

The code

• The model code of conduct prohibits active campaigning including public meetings within the 48 hours of the polls closing.
• The ‘silence period’ is meant to ensure that voters get a peaceful break to take a final decision on their vote and not be influenced by the campaign. However, the rule is applicable only in the geographical area where the elections are taking place.

• The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court on Thursday granted bail to Union minister Ajay Mishra Teni’s son, Ashish Mishra, who was arrested in October last year in connection with the mowing down of four farmers protesting against the controversial farm laws and a local journalist in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri district.
• After his plea was rejected by the lower and session courts of Lakhimpur Kheri, the Lucknow Bench of the HC last month concluded the hearing on his bail application and reserved the order.
• The order: “…it is evident that as per the FIR, role of firing was assigned to the applicant (Ashish Mishra) for killing the protesters, but during the course of investigation, no such firearm injuries were found either on the body of any of the deceased or on the body of any injured person,” the court said.
• “Thereafter, the prosecution alleged that the applicant provoked the driver of the vehicle for crushing the protesters, however, the driver along with two others, who were in the vehicle, had been killed by the protesters.”
• Further: The HC said it “could not shut its eyes to the killing of three persons in the Thar SUV, including the driver, who were killed by the protesters”. Photographs “clearly revealed the brutality of the protesters”, it added. Noting that only four accused had been charged, it said organisers of the protest must help investigators with giving details of others seen beating up the BJP workers.

• Barring all: The Karnataka High Court in an interim order in the hijab row, said that “till the matter is pending, these students and stakeholders will not insist on wearing any religious garment, maybe headdress or saffron shawl.” Adjourning the matter till February 14, the HC said that it was passing the interim orders in the interest of “peace and tranquillity” in the state.
• The impact: Following the HC’s ruling, the state government ordered the reopening of schools for classes upto 10th standard while a decision on reopening senior classes and colleges will be taken later. The state CM Basavaraj Bommai had ordered the closure of all schools and colleges for the last three days after the hijab row erupted.
• The plea: The HC’s ruling, delivered by a three judge bench, was however objected to by the Muslim girl students who called it “a total affront to their rights.” The girls, who had filed petitions in the court alleging that they were not being allowed to enter their colleges due to a government order banning hijab, argued that the interim ruling was akin to being “told to choose between food and water” when “both were essential.”
• Escalation: The Supreme Court, hearing a separate petition filed on Thursday, directed that the HC hear the matter first and decide on the issue before it intervened. The student who filed the plea in the SC had contended that since the issue had “pan-India ramifications”, it necessitated the apex court’s intervention.

Noting that “there is some loss of the momentum of near-term growth while global factors are turning adverse”, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) left both the repo and reverse rates unchanged at 4% and 3.35% respectively as “continued policy support is warranted for a durable and broad-based recovery.”

RBI’s red flags

• In sync with the GDP forecast projected by the Economic Survey 2021-22, the RBI brought down its GDP growth rate for the current fiscal to 9.2%, from 9.5% earlier and 7.8% for FY23 — which is a significant markdown from that projected by the survey, which pegged it at upto 8.5%.
• The RBI Governor, Shaktikanta Das in his statement added that the projected GDP growth rate for the current fiscal will only take it “modestly above the level of GDP in 2019-20” — which was Rs 145.69 lakh crore. However, if one takes inflation into account, the GDP value for FY22 will actually be lower than FY20 GDP.
• The RBI pegs next fiscal’s quarter-wise growth rates at 17.2%, 7%, 4.3% and 4.5% for the first, second, third and fourth quarters respectively. Significantly, the third quarter GDP growth rate projected for FY23 is almost the same as that for Q3 FY20 — the last pre-pandemic quarter not affected by a lockdown.

The headwinds

• Expressing concern that “private consumption, the mainstay of domestic demand, continues to trail its pre-pandemic level”, Das added that India’s economy faces risks from “persistent increase in international commodity prices, surge in volatility of global financial markets and global supply bottlenecks.”

Any positives?

• Despite a spurt in global crude oil prices, which have crossed the $90 a barrel mark, the RBI Governor pegged FY22 retail inflation at 5.3% and for the next fiscal, at 4.5% — with Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 inflation projected at 4.9%, 5%, 4% and 4.2% respectively.
• The status quo in RBI’s rates also means that home loan interest rates will remain stable for now, with no increases expected in the near term.

• Ajinkya Rahane, India’s stand-in captain during the 2020-21 tour of Australia, took a dig about his team’s victory win Down Under, saying that “someone else took the credit” for decisions he took to resurrect India after the nightmarish 36 all out in the Adelaide Test.
• Rahane had taken over the captaincy in a tumultuous situation after regular skipper Virat Kohli flew out of Australia after the humiliating loss in the opening game. But what followed was one of the most incredible turnarounds seen in Test history as India came back from behind to win the second match at the MCG, with Rahane leading from the front with a terrific hundred. (India eventually won the four-match series 2-1).
• “I know what I’ve done there. I don’t need to tell anyone,” he said in a chat show interview. “Yes, there were some things that I took the decisions on the field or in the dressing room but someone else took the credit for it.”
• The 33-year-old righthander did not take any names but made a veiled attack on the then head coach Ravi Shastri, who was widely acclaimed for the team’s performance and dominated the media space for being the architect of the turnaround.
• “After that, the reactions from people or those who took credit or what was said in the media, ‘I did this’ or ‘This was my decision’, or ‘This was my call’, it was for them to talk about,” Rahane said. “From my end, I knew what decisions I took on the field and what decisions I took on my instincts.”

• Travellers arriving in India won’t have to undergo a mandatory seven-day home quarantine or an RT-PCR test on the eighth day from February 14, according to revised guidelines for international arrivals issued on Thursday.
• Apart from uploading a negative RT-PCR report (taken 72 hours before the journey), there will be an option to upload certificates of the completion of full primary Covid vaccination schedule provided from countries on a reciprocal basis. There are 82 such countries, which include the US, UK, New Zealand, Switzerland , Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Bangladesh, Iran, Nepal, Mexico and the Netherlands.
• The demarcation of countries ‘at-risk’ and other countries has been removed. Accordingly, the need for giving samples on port of arrival and waiting till the result is obtained from countries ‘at-risk’ has been dispensed with.
• Travel Agents Association of India welcomed the move saying it will help open up employment and business opportunities in the travel sector, which is on the verge of collapse due to the pandemic.

• The Supreme Court on Thursday gave a final opportunity to fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya, accused in bank loan default case of over Rs 9,000 crore involving his defunct Kingfisher Airlines, to appear before it personally or through his lawyer in a contempt case where he has been found guilty. The court posted the case for further hearing after two weeks.
• “Going by normal logic, the contemnor has to be heard but from that stage he has not appeared before the court. What course should the court adopt,” the court said.
• On November 30 last year, the top court had said it cannot wait any longer and the sentencing aspect in the contempt matter against Mallya would be dealt with finally.
• Noting that Mallya, who is presently in the United Kingdom, was held guilty of contempt in 2017, and the matter was thereafter to be listed to hear him on the proposed punishment to be awarded to him, it had said that the apex court has waited “sufficiently long”.
• The top court had in 2020 dismissed Mallya’s plea seeking a review of its 2017 verdict which held him guilty of contempt for transferring $40 million to his children in violation of court orders.

Manipur. The Election Commission on Thursday revised the dates for Assembly polls in the state. The first phase of polling will take place on February 28 instead of February 27. The second phase of polling is now scheduled to be held on March 5 instead of March 3. The decision to reschedule the first phase of polls comes after the demand by Christian groups to hold elections on any day other than Sunday (February 27), media reported.